General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Fundamentally, governing is about choices, and when it comes to the choices that they are making, this Government has its priorities all wrong. One of the first decisions this Government took—not only took but actually found the money to do—was $2.9 billion worth of tax breaks for the country’s landlords. They made the decision to prioritise that nearly $3 billion in tax breaks for landlords whilst considering cutting school lunches, whilst cutting our defences at the border with cuts to the Ministry for Primary Industries and Customs, whilst cutting funding for the Ministry of Health, whilst cutting support for those with disabilities, whilst cutting support for the conservation estate—the list could go on. Every day the list continues to grow, and it is because this Government has made the wrong choices and has the wrong priorities.

Let’s talk about some of those examples in more detail, and let’s start with the free and healthy school lunches, because the kids were here today, asking—

💬 Hon Nicola Willis: That you left unfunded.

—the Government to continue their programme. Nicola Willis says we should have continued to fund it. Well, here is an example of where the Government’s priorities are simply wrong: for the price of the tax cuts that they have given landlords, you could more than double the size of the free and healthy school lunches programme. This Government instead have decided that the landlords need the tax breaks, and here’s the thing: they won’t even guarantee that the benefits of that are going to flow through to the tenants. They think the tenants should be grateful for the fact that the landlords are getting the tax break, and, in many cases, they won’t see a cent of that extra money.

Let’s look at the primary industries and customs and the cuts that the Government are making there. Have they forgotten Mycoplasma bovis—a very good example of why we need a strong and secure border. A biosecurity incursion that had the potential to bring our dairy industry to its knees—that is what we inherited in 2017. We focused on elimination, and all evidence to date suggests that we have succeeded in doing that. That is what we get for the extra investment that we made in our border security, and that is what this Government is threatening to cut.

Let’s look at health. They actually think we did a good job of managing smoking and managing down smoking. It’s amazing, then, that they’re cutting the funding for the very people who achieved those good outcomes.

It is easy to attack public servants, because they cannot answer back. When the Government talks about bureaucrats, those are people who cannot answer back. But let me give you a really good example. If anyone had said five years ago that there’s a team of people working at the Ministry of Health planning for an event that may never happen, the members opposite would have said, “Why are they doing that? That’s wasteful spending.”, until that very thing did happen. It was called a global pandemic, and suddenly the members opposite wanted to know why we weren’t better prepared for it—why we didn’t have more people working on preparing for the global pandemic—because the reality is that some of the work at the Public Service falls exactly into that category: preparing for a pandemic, preparing for a rupture of the Alpine Fault line. These are supposedly faceless bureaucrats that the Government refers to as wasteful spending. They are doing critical work for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

But I did note that the Prime Minister finally has found a bit of a vision. He thinks we should be more like Estonia. I was interested in looking at what that might mean: universal free school lunches for every child attending school in Estonia; a light rail system in their largest city, in Estonia; heavily subsidised kindergarten education in Estonia; and teachers focused on not just the basics but digital skills, on coding, and on other skills that their learners are going to need for the 21st century. So I think we should be more like Estonia, and I look forward to the Government embracing those very things.

Unfortunately, though, I’m not going to hold my breath, because we’ve got a Government with no vision, a Government that has the wrong priorities and that is focused on taking New Zealand backwards rather than leading New Zealand forward, and a Government that is focused on managing New Zealand’s decline, rather than actually leading the country forward. At a time when New Zealanders are looking for hope, they’re getting nothing from this Government.

The current Leader of the Opposition decided to begin his speech talking about choices, and is it any surprise when everyone behind him was sitting there thinking about choices: thinking first about a choice the New Zealand people made so definitively to boot them out, and then thinking about the choice they need to make in the coming months about who, in fact, should lead them into the future. So it’s right that it’s on the Leader of the Opposition’s mind.

But, actually, that’s not the speech I came here to give. I came here to give a more serious speech: a requiem for the worker’s party, because, not content with delivering an intergenerational cost of living crisis to the working people of New Zealand, we now have a Labour Party whose reason for being, whose very reason for getting up in the morning, is to rail against tax relief for working people. This so-called worker’s party has its one political reason for being, and it is to rail against the right of working people to hold on to just a little bit more of their own money.

Now, New Zealanders have had no change in tax rates or thresholds since 2010. For 14 years, workers in this country—middle-income earners, squeezed; middle-income families—have been taxed more and more as their incomes have risen and as inflation bequeathed to them by that party has pushed them into higher tax brackets. In 2011, a median-wage earner paid 15.5 percent of their average income in tax. Today, that number is 20.6 percent, and I know that these may just sound like numbers, but can I tell you what they mean to people. That increase in effective tax is the difference between families being able to get their kids swimming lessons. It is the feeling in the supermarket aisle that stops mum putting a pack of chocolate biscuits there. That 5 percent is the number that makes people a little less hopeful each week, because the pay packet gets stretched thinner and thinner and the idea of saving some disappears.

The idea that their work and effort will let them get ahead disappears. Here, on this side of the House, we take that very seriously because we believe that those who work hard for a living deserve the rewards of their effort, and what do those members opposite believe, actually, at the end of the day? Well, what they believe is that if they only printed enough money, if they only borrowed enough money, and if they only spent enough money, then every tear from every eye would be wiped, and was it? Well, no, because all the while when they were spending New Zealanders’ hard-earned wages, the wait-lists grew, the education standards declined, violent crime rose, and dairies were ram-raided.

The members opposite have a special talent, actually—let’s give them that—of spending more and delivering less. An 80 percent increase in spending in six short years, an outstandingly bad cost of living crisis, and what do we have to show for it? Oh, three waters, the TVNZ-RNZ merger, KiwiBuild, Auckland light rail—failed initiative after failed initiative.

But don’t worry, because what we also got was 18,500 more public servants—so that really made the difference!—and sky-high inflation, and who paid for it all? Who paid for all of this? Working people paid for it. They paid for it with higher taxes, they paid for it at the supermarket checkout aisle, and they paid for it with crumbling public services.

Well, our Government is cleaning up the mess. We will deliver what working people deserve, what is overdue to them, and what that party would deny them, and that is tax relief. I cannot in my heart understand why the people opposite would deny them that—the opportunity to have a little bit more cash in their bank accounts each week—because the people opposite make the choice that they think it’s more important that they spend New Zealanders’ money. We will match that with targets, with accountability for the performance of our public services, with more police, and with rescuing the school lunch programme that they didn’t leave a dollar for.

We will drive better results. We will spend New Zealanders’ money with the care it deserves because it’s theirs—they earned it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to speak about a topic that we are very firm on, and that is protecting our freedom and our democracy. More specifically, it is the commitment our leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, made as he addressed his concerns about ending vaccine mandates, and also holding a full and independent inquiry into the COVID-19 response.

In early 2022, thousands of New Zealanders across the country who were frustrated about the COVID policies of the day converged on the Parliament grounds. Winston Peters was the only politician to walk amongst those who asked simply to be heard—Winston Peters was the only politician to walk amongst those who wanted to be heard. Now, as I was writing this speech, I was reflecting on why he did that, and I was reminded of the speech that he made at the state of the nation last week. I will quote the leader: “Labour left large numbers of people ostracised, demonised, shutdown and shut out, ignored and cancelled—all because those people fought for their right to say ‘No, we disagree.’ ” We will defend people’s right to disagree, because that is what protecting freedom is all about.

We continued to listen, and for those forgotten New Zealanders, our party advocated during the 2023 election to advocate again for freedom and protection, and upon our return to Parliament, we formed this unbreakable coalition. Very importantly, amongst those promises, the coalition committed to establishing a complete, full-scale, wide-ranging, independent inquiry conducted publicly with local and international experts into how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled in New Zealand.

Now, New Zealand First were very specific in our commitments, and there were four important areas that we wanted to cover: firstly, the use of multiple lockdowns; secondly, the procurement and the efficacy of the vaccines; thirdly, the social and economic impacts, both regionally and nationally, on the people of New Zealand; and, finally, whether the decisions made and the steps taken were justified. We remain steadfast in our commitment. We understand that the Labour-initiated royal commission of inquiry into lessons learnt does not meet the scale, the independence, or the breadth of what an inquiry requires. We welcome the first steps made to expand these terms of reference of this inquiry, and we applaud the 11,000 New Zealanders who made their submissions. Now, these experiences are what are going to shape and be used to inform what this inquiry covers. The decisions about the terms of reference and the make-up of the commissioners are yet to be made over the next few months, but it will be made.

New Zealand First has continued to listen to the people of New Zealand. In fact, just last month, the Rt Hon Winston Peters and I met with a group of Kiwi doctors who are concerned—NZDSOS, or New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science—and we listened to those people because they needed to be heard. Mr Peters has also since met with United We Stand, who are those New Zealand Defence Force personnel who are still concerned about mandates and vaccine orders.

New Zealand First believes that every New Zealander deserves to be heard and represented in Parliament, and we are committed to that. Our message to them is to be patient, to work through the process with us, and to know that you are all being heard and that we will remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting freedom and democracy for all New Zealanders. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Over the last week and a half, New Zealanders of Myanmar descent have been asking why this Government has extended an invitation to representatives of one of the world’s most reviled regimes—the military junta that run Myanmar today—and why the Government has invited them to come to this country to take part in an intergovernmental meeting. The communities of mostly former refugees and their families, from one end of this country to the other, who have made a new life in New Zealand after fleeing years of civil war in Myanmar and military oppression have written to the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking him to refuse the visa for representatives of this regime to come to New Zealand.

They’re due to take part in an ASEAN dialogue meeting on 18 and 19 April here, in Wellington, and I want to give a shout out to the people who have been campaigning. They have organised public protests in Nelson, in Auckland, and, yesterday, out in the front of Parliament, and in Dunedin.

I don’t know why, after three years of New Zealand’s standing firm against the butchers of Myanmar and refusing to give them legitimacy and refusing to recognise them, suddenly this Government thinks it’s a good idea to invite them to come to New Zealand to take part in this meeting. But I want to give you three reasons why it’s a really bad idea. This regime is waging a war against its own people. It has killed more than 4,800 civilians. It carries out indiscriminate air strikes against villages and internally displaced persons’ camps within that country. It stole democracy at the barrel of a gun that arrested the president and Aung San Suu Kyi, dozens of legislators, and thousands of democracy activists, trade unionists, and journalists. Two and a half million people are displaced in the country at the moment because of this regime. It is one of the world’s worst military regimes, and we should not be giving it the legitimacy that it desperately craves.

The second reason is that New Zealand, for a long time, has been a country that has a reputation for speaking out on matters of principle internationally. The people in our regions—in the Pacific and in Asia—look to New Zealand to be a voice for democracy, for peace, and for human rights, and this decision to invite the butchers of Myanmar to come to our country after three years of denying them that opportunity flies in the face of New Zealand’s policy of consistently denouncing the military regime in Myanmar.

The third reason is that the democratic resistance in Myanmar, three years since the military coup, is on a roll at the moment. The National Unity Government, the Government in exile, and the ethnic resistance organisations that are such a significant part of the resistance have had a string of military successes, and 43 percent of the territory of Myanmar is controlled by the democratic opposition, not by the military regime. The level of political organisation, of people standing up for human rights and democracy and demanding a democratic federal union in that country to do away with the military dictatorship—that movement is stronger than ever before.

The military, on the other hand, is looking increasingly shaky. They recently introduced conscription. Young people between the ages of 18 and 35 are now being press-ganged into military service because the military is so desperate. They’ve had thousands of soldiers defect from the war because they don’t want to fight on the side of this brutal and illegal regime. Now is the very time that we should be isolating that regime, not inviting them to New Zealand to take part in talks.

I want to finish by quoting the former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, who said, “Acceptance of the Myanmar junta representatives when the country’s ruling junta has been internationally condemned for crimes against humanity and its ruthless war against its own people, and is under severe pressure from the pro-democratic forces in the country, would seriously damage the international reputation of New Zealand. For New Zealand to grant a visa to a Myanmar junta representative because ASEAN has issued an invitation is an abdication of our national sovereignty.”

I say to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, to do the right thing. Refuse the visas, and keep the butchers of Myanmar out of our country.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. One hundred days have been completed, the second hundred days are on their way, and this Government is determined to rebuild the economy, restore law and order, and actually deliver the public services in health and education that this country needs and deserves. So, look, what have we got? If we look back over the past six years, debt went from $5 billion to $100 billion under the previous Government. We had inflation, the economy ground to a halt so that we were in a recession, and all New Zealanders—all New Zealanders—have faced higher taxes, and so they’re seeing greater opportunities offshore.

When you think about that, you think about Jacinda Ardern and her legacy, and Chris Hipkins. I often thought if they were to come up with a billboard that they should have run in the election, it would have been “It’s the thought that counts”, and that sums up Jacinda Arden’s whole approach—it’s the thought that counts. Well, actually, it doesn’t. It’s actually what you achieve and what you do that counts, and what the Government did is they managed to spend 80 percent more—nearly doubled Government spending over six years—and actually had worse outcomes just about everywhere you looked: longer waiting times, higher crime, fewer houses, and a real mess everywhere. How they managed to do it was they turbocharged spending during COVID, and then when COVID ended and people got back to their lives, they didn’t stop. They just kept on spending as if we were in the middle of COVID, and that’s how the damage was created.

So how do we get back on track? Well, you need a Government that’s careful about its spending. You’ve got to restore some discipline to Government spending, and over time, that will enable us to get back to surplus and to reduce debt. If the Government is more disciplined with its spending and it’s not stoking the fires of inflation, that will help New Zealanders with the cost of living.

Then you’ve got to have a growth agenda. You’ve got to have a strong set of policies, such as investing in infrastructure and skills and attracting investment to grow the economy, and then some modest tax relief as part of this thing, to give New Zealand households more money in their pockets, and, boy, do those members hate it—they hate it. Never will they release another cent. They will not give New Zealanders back another cent, and this Government is determined to return some of the extra money that has been taken out of their pockets by the Government over the past few years so that they can help with their weekly bills. The second area—

💬 Hon Member: That’s kindness—that’s kindness.

Well, that is kindness. We don’t actually believe that the Government can spend every cent better than households can or than people can, and the people who have earned the money should be able to spend the money. It’s their money and we want to give a little bit more of it back to them.

So, over the next month, we’ll hear a lot of wailing from the Labour Party about how terrible it is to allow people to keep more of their own income, and that’ll be the message of the day. Well, we reject that and we want to give some modest tax relief.

The second thing is we want to restore law and order. We’ve all seen in our communities the trauma that’s caused by violent crime, by the massive increase in retail crime that we’ve seen in our communities, and particularly by that small group of serious young offenders. That’s why Christopher Luxon announced amongst the nine focused targets for this Government a couple in the justice space, reducing the number of victims of crime by 20,000.

Remember, the previous Government had a goal of reducing the prison numbers, irrespective of what was going on. If crime was going up, they still wanted to reduce prison numbers. Well, that is not actually how you keep the community safe. We want to reduce the number of victims of crime, and to do that, part of it is about restoring real consequences for crime, and that’s in the justice space. But there is a much broader agenda around ensuring that there’s better rehabilitation in prisons for people who are in prison and that we make progress on some of those long-term drivers, such as the inability to deal with drugs and addiction, and all those broader social contexts.

The other area is around youth crime. We want to reduce the number of serious repeat youth offenders, and that partly is about giving judges extra tools with which to deal with that small cohort. Having military academies are part of the mix, and also having a new category of young serious offenders.

So we do need to have some consequences for that small cohort of young people who are causing mayhem in our communities, doing the ram raids, and terrorising neighbourhoods. But, again, it’s part of a much broader discussion that’s around ensuring that those kids are at school. That’s the best thing we can do around youth crime, and that’s why we’re focused on that. It’s about ensuring that we deal with not having 3,000 or 4,000 waking up every morning in emergency accommodation in hotels in places like Rotorua. That was the most horrendous public policy failure that we’ve seen in recent times, and so that’s why we’re really focused on addressing that.

So there are a lot of things that we’ve got to do, but the good news is that this is a Government that’s determined, focused, and excited about the task. We know that this country’s best days are ahead of it. We want to take New Zealand forward, and that’s what our goal is. Thank you.

Tēnā rā koe, e te Pīka. Otirā, tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. When given five minutes to do a general debate speech, I can 100 percent confirm it’s almost like “What isn’t there to debate about?”, especially when us, as Māori, are getting hit left, right, and centre. I want to take this time to reflect on the first 100 days of this coalition Government’s actions, or, as I call it, the “Urgent Māori Grocery List”. This has to go down as the worst plan towards Māori and indigenous people since 1863. It is important that I break down for whānau at home, and especially rangatahi, what has just happened.

Upon shifting through and analysing legislation and bills, I would like to provide an overall context for this coalition’s bigger picture for Māori. Let’s point out the long list where this Government’s 100-day plan detrimentally affects us in every possible area. Within our court justice system, this Government has removed section 27 of the Sentencing Act, which experts have stated will lead to further discrimination of Māori in the criminal justice system, higher rates of offending, and higher rates of Māori in prison, when we, as Māori, are already the most incarcerated indigenous people on the planet—or within our health sector, which has seen Te Aka Whai Ora be completely abolished. Even in the bills that were received, some of the wording quite literally states, in black and white, the “Disestablishment of Māori Health”. Following from that was the repeal of Aotearoa’s smoke-free legislation, knowing that smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths of our people.

Within these bills represented, it also clearly states amending relations through Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This is a common theme throughout bills represented and the relation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There is the removal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, which iwi leaders have stated will further alienate tamariki from their whakapapa and lead to more harm of tamariki in State care. In our taiao space, the fast-track bill literally axes and tramples on our tūpuna whenua, pepeha, and wāhi tapu. Within our education system, there is the so-called rebalance of histories in school, which is just a nicer way of saying that our Māori history will slowly slip away, and in recent news, in our local government space, there is the referendum on Māori wards. I mean, there’s literally nothing left you can take away from us: section 27 in the court justice system, section 27AA in Oranga Tamariki, ministerial alienation of te reo Māori, disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority, the fast-tracking bill, the repeal of smoke-free laws, and the Treaty principles bill—what a list.

I bet members across the House have never had a child lobby to them for the protection of their own native language—imagine that. However, outside these four walls, te Iwi Māori is rising like never before. As we watch this Government dig themselves into a rabbit-hole, last week, in Parliament’s recess, I was absolutely privileged to perform at the annual Merrie Monarch in Hilo, Hawaii, and jeez, it felt great to be Māori without the fear of being criticised and without hearing the word “referendum” or having people roll their eyes every time I speak Māori, and without the fear of having to justify myself as to why I’m being Māori. It almost feels illegal to be Māori in this place, and I would never have known it was a thing until I entered Parliament.

Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is on the rise. Our King and other Pacific leaders have signed He Whakaputanga Moana, which is a declaration—whakaputanga—on the biggest body of water: the Pacific Ocean. Nō reira koinei taku reo mihi, taku reo owha ki a tātou te iwi Māori, ki a koke tonu ki a tātou ki te angitu, ki tō mātou Hawaiki hou. Tēnā rā koutou.

[Therefore, here is my voice of acknowledgment, my voice of salutations to all of us, the Māori people, to push forward towards success, to our new Hawaiki. Thank you, all.]

I rise to bring attention to a silent enemy that is affecting countless lives in New Zealand, and that is cancer. While it’s not quite countless and we can actually put a number on it—it’s going to affect probably 25,000 New Zealanders this year—each one of us has probably either been touched personally by cancer or we know of friends or family members who have been affected by cancer. Most recently for my family, there’s been the passing of my cousin’s daughter at the age of 32—Rosaria—and I want to acknowledge all families that are going through that struggle and that loss.

I have a unique connection to cancer. I’ve spent a large portion of my professional career as a cancer scientist, both here and overseas. I want to pay special tribute to a special person that’s played a big role in that career, and that is my PhD supervisor, Professor Antony Braithwaite of the University of Otago, who has actually just announced his retirement as of next week. I don’t think he will be really retiring; I think it will be more symbolic—well, I hope it will be—and I hope he can contribute a lot of his knowledge to the future generations, going forward. Professor Braithwaite is a leading world expert in one of the most important tumour suppressor proteins in the human cell, and that is p53. I want to acknowledge his contribution to our understandings of how cancer arises. With over 150 publications, he is well-known worldwide.

It is important, because cancer does not discriminate. It strikes individuals of all ages, all backgrounds, and all walks of life. It brings fear. It brings pain and uncertainty, not only to those diagnosed but also to their loved ones as well, and that’s why on this side of the House we are committed to driving better outcomes for Kiwis with cancer. This includes enhanced screening: we’re increasing breast cancer screening eligibility for those between the age of 70 and 74. We’ve launched an additional mobile breast screening unit, which will take the national fleet to 13, further increasing access for up to 6,000 people in New Zealand. But don’t worry, males are also included: we are funding South Island PET scanning accessibility, which is especially important for males with prostate cancer.

Once cancer is detected, we also need to make sure that we can get treatment on time, because this is a very stressful time if you’ve just been told that you have cancer, and that’s why we’re introducing a health target that 90 percent of patients who receive a diagnosis will receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat. Not only that, we’re going to ensure that there’s better treatment options. We’re funding two new cancer drugs, for breast cancer and also acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), and on a side note, I have a special connection with AML. It was the first cancer that I ever worked on and I discovered a genetic mutation in a Christchurch family with a predisposition to leukaemia. But I digress, and that’s what happens if you don’t have targets.

So, getting back on track, we’re also mindful of people in the regions who need to travel to get cancer treatment, or, actually, all treatment, so we’re increasing the compensation for mileage and accommodation rates for those who have to travel for treatment. We’re also helping deliver the first provincial PET/CT scanner, and that’s going to go into Whangārei.

I appreciate my time is going quickly. So I do just want to zoom out more generally from cancer and talk about our healthcare more generally and the targets that we’re going to introduce into the system, because, as they say, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, and that’s probably what’s happened for the last five years.

The Minister of Health, Dr Shane Reti, recently announced a number of targets, saying that we’re going to have a vigorous new direction in health from the previous Government and we’re going to deliver for New Zealanders. Now, I’ve talked about faster cancer treatments, but our targets also include improving immunisation for kids: we want 95 percent of children to be immunised by the age of 24 months. We want shorter stays in emergency departments (EDs), with 95 percent of patients being discharged or transferred from ED within six hours. We want shorter wait times for first specialist assessments: we want 95 percent of patients to wait less than four months for a first specialist appointment. We want shorter wait times for people with elective treatment: we want 95 percent of patients to wait less than four months for elective treatment.

It is important that we are ambitious in trying to achieve better health outcomes for New Zealanders. The healthcare system went backwards under the previous Government and it failed to drive targets. Having effective targets and reporting on them publicly helps identify where the problems are, and we’ll take action to improve it.

I know the other side is shouting because they don’t want better health outcomes, but I do just want to close and thank all the hard work of our healthcare staff, who work across the country to deliver better health outcomes for all New Zealanders.

Methane—that’s right. Biogenic methane, animal ruminant methane—the very gaseous emission that the left lambasted the rural sector for for the past six years, like somehow there’s a farmer amongst them. I ask them: what on earth are you talking about? Well, I say there are no farmers. Where are you farmers, that you speak of such things? What of Megan Woods or Chlöe Swarbrick yesterday and today offering evangelical sermons of what farmers should do to farmers? Debates offered from central Auckland of how farmers should live their lives.

💬 This Government: we are farmer friendly. We listen to common sense. That is why I rise today in this House to speak of the Government’s split-gas announcement. That is why oral questions raised yesterday by the left highlighted their blatant ignorance of farming and on-farm practices. What—did you all fail third-form science? Gracious me! It’s a short-lived gas. That’s why this Government wants a genuinely non-partisan review.

Goodness gracious! Methane decays back to carbon dioxide—it decays back to carbon dioxide in 10 or 12 years.

💬 Hon Marama Davidson: Woah! The independent climate commission.

You all know this stuff, because what feeds plants? Oh! Or could—

💬 Hon Marama Davidson: Are you going to call them? That’s not Chlöe; it’s the independent climate commission.

💬 SPEAKER: Yeah, just keep it reasonable.

—you go farming, or perhaps you’re just bereft of it? The agricultural contributions are, essentially—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: That’s enough.

—static. They’re static. Peak herd was in 2005 and 2006. Ruminant numbers have been falling ever since.

What do you, the Greens, know of farming? What, would you have us slaughter all our animals? If not, how many—how many should we slaughter? Bloody fantasy, I say to the Green Party, when it comes to that nonsense. New Zealand used to have over 70 million sheep—70 million. It’s now less than 25 million.

Peak dairy herd has been falling since 2005, and land-use changes are constantly evolving. What, did the left forget to account for all farm on-farm sequestration? The tens of millions of plantings by farmers—farmers—and existing offsets. Oh, the silence from the other side is deafening. So the true question is: what is the Government asking?

💬 Hon Marama Davidson: So when are you going to listen to the science? Where’s your science?

Are the methane targets fair? Are they fair?

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt the member. I’ll ask the Green member to refer to Speaker’s ruling 64/2 and, for that matter, Speakers’ ruling 64/3 in the Speakers’ Rulings. A member, strictly speaking, has a right to be heard in silence. No one observes that because interjections can be rare and reasonable, but the barrage that is coming from there breaches that Speaker’s ruling absolutely. So we’ll just have the rest of Mr Cameron’s speech respectfully listened to.

I am certainly grateful, Mr Speaker, thank you. I ask again: are the methane targets fair? What is fair? How will we, as a Government, prevent emissions leakage if we get the methodology wrong to less efficient jurisdictions?

We are the most efficient, friendly farmers in the world, second to none, and I am not shy about saying that, and yet we hear the left say all the time, “You lot”—the farming sector—“you need to do more.” Ivory towers—that’s all I say to them. Wake up.

Methane is simple. It’s the symbiosis. The morphology of gut bacteria—animal gut bacteria. It’s what we’re feeding these animals and their genetics. We’re a plant-based pastoral system, for goodness sake, and yet I hear the boffins say, “Use boluses”. Well, I’m a farmer that’s got five or six broken bones from drenching animals. What a nonsense! “Drive down the emissions.”, they say. Does anyone on that side of the House actually know how many mature animal bovines would have to be drenched annually, twice a year? I ask you—you do not know. I would ask that side of the House.

Further emission reductions will happen. Farmers embrace technology every day. The Government has announced GE as part of our future, moving forward. It is what we are feeding these animals, and having animal genetics and farmers that embrace that technology is our new future.

I know that that side of the House may struggle to comprehend that logic, but, then again, farm logic is beneath them; not this Government. Farmers always have and will continue to innovate their way out of these problems. With sensible, farm-gate logic, rural New Zealand will seek and mitigate the quandary which is methane science and emissions. We will no longer fester in the left’s ideology if we, as a farming community, are backed by the Government, and every day we thank them for it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to begin my contribution by responding to a couple of the comments that were brought up today—in particular, the one from the New Zealand First member Tanya Unkovich, who talked quite a bit about the previous Government’s response to the COVID pandemic. Quite frankly, I found some of her comments absolutely sickening. When she questioned the efficacy of vaccination and the efficacy of other things that the Government put in place at the time to protect New Zealanders, I would ask that member: has she spoken to other members in the community?

For example, I was in the taxi coming back from the airport one day, talking to the gentleman who was the taxi driver, who had returned to New Zealand as soon as he was able to, when the borders allowed him to, from the UK. When he was in the UK, he was a police officer. They were doing 12hour shifts, day in, day out, simply removing dead bodies from homes in the UK—and the member opposite from New Zealand First can shake his head. But—

💬 Jamie Arbuckle: The truth’s coming out.

That is the truth—that is the truth, as this man experienced it in the UK. So he and his wife returned to New Zealand purely because of our response to the pandemic.

Another example I will give that member opposite is a woman whose daughter is a nurse in the UK, and the conversations she’d have at night with her daughter in absolute tears and despair because she was in hospital, COVID was rife, and there were dead bodies in the corridors. There were dead bodies piling up, and they simply couldn’t manage it.

💬 Jamie Arbuckle: Lock us all down—lock us all down.

And the member can dispute that, but this is what people are telling me from their firsthand experiences.

The Hon Paul Goldsmith talked about the previous Government turbocharging spending during COVID. Well, I would argue with Mr Goldsmith that that turbocharged spending saved businesses, saved lives, and saved livelihoods, and we make no apology on this side of the House for doing so by putting people first.

I want to pick up on something that the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins talked about in his contribution, about choices and the choices that we see this current Government making. This current Government, as he mentioned, is choosing to give a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords. We heard the Hon Nicola Willis talking about the fact that it was important to give Kiwis more of their own money that they earn to put in their back pocket, and I’m not disagreeing with that. But what I find really interesting is when the Minister makes comments like that, and then we see people on the news at 6 o’clock saying, “Well, actually, what I’ll get for my tax cut is probably the equivalent of being able to buy two Chupa Chups.”

So for a Minister to stand there and talk on and on and on about how wonderful it is going to be for people to have more money of their own money to put in their back pocket—I agree that that’s a good thing. But for someone to brag when it’s only going to be the equivalent of a couple of Chupa Chups for some people, and yet a far higher amount for people like us here, in Parliament, as MPs—we don’t need the tax cuts that the Government is proposing or wanting to put in place.

One of the things that we definitely don’t need tax cuts for is when it comes at the cost of people’s jobs and livelihoods, because that is what is happening. Ministries are being stripped out. Public servants are being stripped out and are losing their jobs purely to pay for tax cuts—tax cuts that will provide lower-income earners with the equivalent of two lollipops in their back pocket. It is absolutely appalling.

I want to also quickly talk about early childhood, a passion of mine. We’ve heard this Government’s laser-sharp focus on the cost of living crisis, and yet their early childhood policy is simply going to create more bureaucracy for parents when early childhood is one of the most expensive in the world, here in New Zealand. I could say more, but my time has run out.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I’ve got to say this feels like a very strange vantage point to be speaking from in the House today. Today I want to focus on some of the great things that are happening in West Coast - Tasman, and, as the newly elected electorate MP for West Coast – Tasman and formerly a list MP based there, I know it’s been tough. It’s been tough for many communities as they’ve had to deal with the torrent of unpopular and damaging Government policy. On top of the consequences in the aftermath of closed borders, which has left New Zealand with massive supply chain issues and massive staffing challenges, the cost of living has gone through the roof, and it’s being fuelled largely by domestic inflation and many businesses are struggling to climb out of that hole.

But, never fear: our new Government is here. Common sense is back and we’re going to get the economy thriving again—back on track, as we say.

💬 Hon Member: Tax cuts that are inflationary.

There’s now—we know it, and we understand fully. There is no one silver bullet, so we’re going to use every opportunity we can to create economic gains, and we will do that in a small way by using my member’s bill, as an example.

It just makes another demonstration of economic common sense, and that’s my member’s bill, which has gone into the ballot today: the Adverse Weather-affected Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands Bill, which will enable the Director-General of Conservation to decide on the harvesting of parts of trees irreversibly damaged in weather events. Now, this system was extremely well tested after Cyclone Gita, when some temporary legislation went in place, but it only lasted five years. This bill will give a permanent arrangement in legislation to enable the director-general to make those decisions about harvesting trees that come down in adverse events.

This is how we on the Coast can make the best of a bad situation. It is a bit of a silver lining, but what we want to do is create an economic benefit from an adverse event, helping to build the New Zealand economy.

Even as we speak, we may be testing this theory because the West Coast is currently experiencing a severe weather event. We’re no stranger to them—we know that—and we do understand that damage does get done, but if we can extract some economic benefit, then we should, and I’d like to take this opportunity to give a big shout out to Mayor Helen Lash, the emergency management teams, civil defence, police, NZTA, and all the volunteers and community groups that mobilise during these severe events. Unfortunately, they’re very well practised, but they do work closely to keep the roads and the businesses open, and they have done exactly that. The West Coast is still open for business, even though there is an orange weather alert coupled with king tides, but they want to make sure that everyone still understands that 300 millilitres of rain does not shut the Coast down.

One of the most effective things a Government can do is give people hope, and hope is now what we have in abundance in West Coast - Tasman. Much of that hope comes from the proudly proclaimed support for the mineral sector. With growing demand for minerals, we on the West Coast are home to an abundance, and it makes good, common, economic sense to reap the benefits of those minerals.

I am unashamedly in support of the mining sector, and if we want to use an example of how well the mineral sector supports a country, we only need to look across the Tasman to see Australia and how they have benefited. They navigated the global financial crisis well because they have a mineral sector that backs their country. It enables them to do things like invest in their schools, their hospitals, and their social services to make sure that they maintain their standard of living.

If we’re going to unlock the economic potential of New Zealand, we have to unlock the door to minerals, and that is exactly what this Government is doing. Mining is essential if we’re going to enjoy our modern lifestyle, and that is why this Government has introduced the Fast-track Approvals Bill. We’ve got to get this country moving. We’ve got to unlock the potential that we’ve got. The people on the West Coast have a skip in their step.

We’ve just heard a speech from the National member Maureen Pugh which makes it quite blatantly clear why the Greens—[Knocks glass over] No, I support fresh, clean, water for everyone—which is why this environmental fast-track bill must not go ahead.

The speech that we’ve just heard makes it really clear that this is New Zealand’s most anti-environment Government in decades, continuing to play off the wellbeing of our people and our beaches, our bushes, our ocean, and our soil health for living a decent life. We can actually and should actually understand that protecting the integrity of our environment is key to us living decent, quality, enjoyable lives. This Government is so restricted in its view and its understanding that the only way we can have a good life is if we trash everything that makes us us—if we trash our soil, our ocean beds, our moana, our quality of water, our lakes, our air, and our democracy, which is what is being proposed in the fast-track bill.

It’s not just a trashing of the environment; it’s a trashing of the very democratic functions that we would hope this Government is holding up. Instead, this Government is proposing to concentrate power in an unprecedented way—into the hands of three Ministers—yet they’re trying to make it look like they’re going to have some level of independent consideration with some pretend panels that are going to have some sort of opinion. But the final power rests with three Ministers. Now, which Ministers? Not an environment Minister, not a conservation Minister, and not even a health Minister for proposals that are up for grabs on things like toxic and hazardous waste when environmental and local authorities have already declared that there is too much of a risk to human health. None of those Ministers will have any consideration in the final decision-making power. Instead, it is simply infrastructure, transport—what’s the other one there? I’ve got—

💬 Hon James Shaw: Regional development.

Regional development. None of the environment, conservation, or human health considerations are included in this massive concentration of unprecedented power to Ministers—wow! This Government is just saying the quiet, naughty bit right out loud now.

They’re just saying quite clearly—we heard it in the speech from the previous speaker just now. We just heard them say, “Mining is the only way we are going to enjoy life as we know it.” What limited and under-ambitious thinking is that that cannot see the irreparable harm—it’s short-term thinking—that can come from the slaying of our precious wild places. It is such short-term thinking when we actually have what we need in Aotearoa to ensure that we can all enjoy good lives and have the housing and income and education and health that we need and can fund if we just would simply not have to scramble looking for tax cuts for rich, wealthy people and landlords. We could, actually, instead have well-funded public services and ensure that everyone is having a good life.

But, no, the answer is mining and taking school lunches off tamariki. No—that is shameful, that is short term, and that is not even creative or imaginative. That’s really old—it’s fossil thinking. It’s fossil thinking and it is not forward thinking at all.

We know that the rangatahi and the communities are standing up around the country. They are where our solutions are lying. They can see that the protection and conservation of Tiriti rights, of iwi, hapū, and mana whenua making sure our local communities and experts are discussing and are part of decisions about what we do and don’t fund when it comes to consenting and fast-track proposals—those are where the decision makers are. Those are where the inspirational leaders are. They know that, actually, our long-term health and wellbeing and quality of life relies on us being able to drink the blinking water—for crying out loud!—and being able to fish kai moana from our harbours and seas, for crying out loud! They can see where our longevity and endurance lie, and it’s not with fast-track proposals.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a privilege for me to stand and speak for the first time in the general debate.

A couple of weeks ago, I lodged a new member’s bill which would see convicted murderers be ineligible for parole if they do not reveal the location of their victim’s body. The Concealment of Location of Victim Remains Bill provides that offenders who refuse to disclose the location of a victim’s body may be denied parole. My member’s bill acknowledges the additional anguish faced by families who do not have a chance to lay their loved ones to rest because of an offender’s refusal to disclose the location of a victim’s remains. Furthermore, my bill will be another tool in the tool box to ensure our justice system prioritises victims over offenders.

This bill would amend two pieces of legislation. Firstly, it would amend section 9 of the Sentencing Act 2002 to include in a list of aggravating factors a sentencing court must take into account the failure of an offender to disclose the location of the body. Secondly, it would also insert a new section 28A into the Parole Act 2002. This would require the Parole Board, when considering an offender for release on parole, to refuse parole unless the board is satisfied that the prisoner has cooperated satisfactorily in the investigation of the offence to identify the victim’s location.

My member’s bill has been modelled on legislation from the United Kingdom and New South Wales. The United Kingdom passed similar legislation in 2020, and New South Wales in 2022. The United Kingdom law was brought due to the murder of Helen McCourt, who disappeared in 1988 and whose body has never been recovered. The offender was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 16 years, and was released in 2020 and died in 2022, having never revealed the whereabouts of Helen’s body.

Similarly, New South Wales became the fifth state in Australia to introduce the legislation colloquially known as “Lyn’s Law”, after former Sydney teacher Chris Dawson was convicted in 2022 of murdering his 33-year-old wife, Lynette, who disappeared from their northern beaches home over 40 years ago. The body of the mother of two has never been found. This case was documented in the widely known podcast entitled The Teacher’s Pet.

Both laws in the United Kingdom and New South Wales have successfully acted as incentives for those who conceal the remains of victims to front up about their whereabouts, and have prevented those who refuse to do so from being released on parole.

Closer to home, Simon McGrath, the brother of Christchurch builder Michael McGrath, who was murdered by his childhood friend David Benbow in 2017, has been calling for a “no body, no parole” bill to be introduced here in New Zealand. Mr Benbow was sentenced to life with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years in March of this year for the murder. However, despite extensive police searches, Michael’s body has never been found, and his family have never been given the opportunity to have a proper farewell.

Recently, I spoke with Michael’s brother Simon about my “no body, no parole” member’s bill. In the coming weeks, I will be meeting with Simon in person to help broaden my understanding of the situation and the anguish Simon and his family are experiencing, and to say how my member’s bill can support them and other families across New Zealand who do not have a chance to lay their loved ones to rest.

Ultimately, my Concealment of Location of Victim Remains Bill puts the victims of crime at the heart of our justice system. It is the intention of this bill to deny offenders the opportunity to return to society if they are not prepared to give their victim’s family and friends the opportunity to be reunited with their loved ones. I look forward to this bill being drawn from the ballot, to working with the parties across this House to seek their support to ensure our justice system prioritises victims over offenders, and to giving New Zealand families the chance to lay their loved ones to rest and receive the closure they deserve.

The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.