General Debate

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

Can I just say, pretty soon this Parliament is going to come to an end. But, more importantly, this Government is going to come to an end. I have to say that this place has already got a bit of the endofschool year feel about it, hasn’t it? Because we’ve got a Labour class on the other side and they lost their proper teacher a few months ago and they’ve got a substitute teacher at the moment and the kids in the class are trying hard to make that teacher cry. They’re trying to make them quit. They’re doing everything they possibly can to get a new leader and a new teacher in place and the new substitute teacher is trying to put a brave face on it. He’s trying really hard so the rest of the school doesn’t see how hard it is.

But I want you to know we hear it because we can see it. We know that this Labour class is really struggling. And the substitute teacher managed to get rid of a few of the rowdy kids early. He got rid of Michael Wood and Kiri Allan and Stuart Nash, and they left the classroom and they were put in time out. And then some of you might remember he did a roll call, and he said “Meka, are you here? Meka, are you here?”, and, no, Meka had shot through. She wasn’t coming back either.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand it’s appropriate to refer to members by their full name.

💬 SPEAKER: That’s correct and it’s my role to call that out. While I’m on my feet, there have been a number of things. I’m going to put it down to we’re so close to an election that members think anything goes. I think it’s pretty bad form, though, Dr Webb, to interrupt someone in a general debate. In a general debate, we debate all kinds and all manner of things and that’s what’s going to happen. I will give, however, a general—because it is becoming more prevalent where nicknames not full names and honorifics come in or go out, depending on which one it is. And so, in this case, seeing there was an interruption, I’m going to give the member some extra time to make up for it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I really appreciate that, because there’s so much I want to say. But, the problem is this. It’s that the substitute teacher, Chris Hipkins, can’t actually run the class and now he’s making up the curriculum each and every day. And here’s what happened. He actually took a group of his top students and he said to them, “Can you work on some economics projects for me?” And they were really enthusiastic about this school project, because the school project was something called a wealth tax.

Two of the smartest kids—two of the smartest kids, Grant Robertson and David Parker—they partnered up and they said, “This is our chance. We’re going to work really hard. We’re really excited about this school project.” And they put extra time into it and they did everything. And one of them, diligent David—diligent David—he went off and he went beyond the recommended reading and he went off and he actually discovered a guy called Thomas Piketty. Now, he read all 696 pages of Thomas Piketty, and he came back and him and Grant were working very excitedly on the new project and it was exciting.

But you know what happened? Chris Hipkins then thought about it, and he thought about them presenting the project to the whole school, and he said, “No, no, we’ve got to stop that. We’re not doing that any more.” And so he pulled it out from his top team. That’s exactly what happened. And so, diligent David Parker said, “Look, I find it untenable. It’s totally untenable. I cannot be the revenue monitor any more. But I’m not so untenable that I won’t stay on the school council.” That’s, basically, what he did. He said, “I’ll stay on.” And I’d say that a confident teacher would actually say, “Now listen here, David, you can’t disagree with me in front of the whole school.” But David Parker gets to do whatever David Parker wants to do, because the substitute teacher has lost authority in the classroom, is what has happened there.

And then there was the finance Minister, Grant Robertson. He was the partner of David Parker. And he said in front of the school assembly he’d been humiliated. And do you know why? Because someone stood up in the school assembly—it was actually Nicola Willis—and she announced Chris Hipkins’ GST policy that Grant Robertson then opposes. And I guess poor Grant Robertson is getting used to this, because if you go back through the record, it’s quite profound. He wanted that fuel subsidy to end, but, actually, Chris Hipkins said, “No, no, we’re going to carry that on.” He liked his wealth tax, his little project that he was doing with David Parker, and that got nixed at the last minute after being led on. And now it’s the GST that’s got knocked on the head as well. The question you’ve got to ask yourselves is: how much more humiliation will Grant Robertson put up with, you know? He’s already moved to the list. He’s got one door sort of outside the classroom, one foot inside the classroom, and I don’t think it’s going to take much more for him to actually move on either.

Now, I’ve got to say, Chris Hipkins is looking desperate. He’s looking like he’s out of control or he’s not in control and he’s making this curriculum now up on the fly. And the problem is that he said there’d be a reset, but, actually, nothing ever follows from it afterwards. There’s no alternatives that are put in place. And he’s just chucking stuff out there each and every day and the kids aren’t keeping up and there’s no alternatives happening.

He actually doesn’t know what he stands for. And if you think about it—Let’s Get Wellington Moving. Now, he doesn’t apparently want that as part of the curriculum any more, but the class don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing instead, as a result. He doesn’t want Auckland light rail to be part of the curriculum any more. But the problem is they’ve spent their whole time, all the years they’ve had at school, working on Auckland light rail and they’ve got nothing else to do, as a result.

So I’ve got to tell you, it’s no wonder that that Labour class is incredibly restive, it’s incredibly miserable, and all you can say to them is that, “Look, the term is coming to an end; your term is coming to an end.” And all I’d say, on behalf of New Zealanders, is that it can’t come sooner, because the sooner the better.

I do want people to know that a National Government in a new school term is going to get things done. I’m telling you, that’s what we’re going to do. That’s why we’ve actually been at work. We’ve announced 30 different policies that are actually here to improve New Zealanders’ lives, about actually common-sense, practical, pragmatic solutions to the things that they’re wrestling with. And that’s what will get New Zealand back on track, isn’t it? And I’m telling you now, a National Government’s going to rebuild the economy, we’re going to make sure we restore law and order, we’re going to make sure we deliver better health and education, and we’re going to make sure that this is a place that if you’re prepared to work hard, you can get ahead and you can do well for yourself.

Mr Speaker, I have to tell you: the substitute teacher has done his time. He knows it, his class knows it, and New Zealand knows it. They want a change. They want a National Government that will get New Zealand back on track and that’s what they’re going to get on 14 October. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was a very bland and uninspiring five minutes that we will never ever get back in our lives. But, Mr Speaker, I’d like to thank you very much for giving the Leader of the Opposition an extra 30 seconds, because it gave New Zealanders an extra 30 seconds to realise why they don’t like him—because he is bland and uninspiring. But of that 30 seconds that he got, he was only able to use up 12 of those seconds, so his speech writers didn’t actually factor in that he might actually get a little bit of time. Even then, he can’t even deliver the pre-prepared speech with all that much panache. It was bland. It was uninspiring.

But just before I get into the guts of my speech, I’d just like to acknowledge what we heard in question nine with my colleague Damien O’Connor, the Minister of Biosecurity, Agriculture, who has done an incredible job in getting New Zealand to the point where we have almost eliminated Mycoplasma bovis from the country. If we do achieve it that will be the first time anywhere in the world that something like that has been achieved. I just think that, even though it was question nine, we sort of glossed over it, it is a huge achievement from this Government. Just to think about how much that has saved the country because the effects of Mycoplasma bovis were devastating on us.

This Government is just getting on with the bread and butter issues that matter to everyday Kiwis while, on the other side of the House, they spend time on their Twitter tirades. Now, I didn’t actually see the Twitter tirade that emanated from the other side there today, but so many people were laughing about it that I actually had to ask exactly what went on. But there was a Twitter tirade—while we’re getting on building roads and houses and everything in between, well the National Party can’t even tell you how their policies add up, and it’s quite telling that that Twitter tirade was all about criticism of them and their fiscal black hole.

Now, the National Party have a history going back to Steven Joyce about fiscal black holes. Remember the $11 billion fiscal black hole that he accused us of having, and it wasn’t the case. Then there’s Paul Goldsmith with his “Bermuda Fiscal Triangle” where they want to cut taxes, reduce debt, but carry on spending. It just doesn’t add up. But, in July of 2017, we released a comprehensive fiscal plan ahead of the general election, and yet now it’s August—it’s August and we hear nothing but crickets chirping from the other side. No fiscal costings. And yesterday, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, they estimated a funding shortfall of between $3.3 and $5.2 billion in their plans, and that was the point of the Twitter tirade. Instead of justifying or showing how their figures add up, they didn’t. All they could do is just try this Twitter tirade that demeaned the fact that Grant Robertson had a meeting in Copperfield’s with somebody—oh my God, hiding in plain sight! Oh, there’s the start of the conspiracy theory if ever I saw one. The Minister of Finance had a meeting in Copperfield’s, hiding in Copperfield’s where no one would see them. Spooky, spooky. So that was the genesis of the Twitter tirade from the National Party. Nothing at all about saying, “This is how our plans add up, this is where the money’s coming from.”, but it’s just a big rant about some sort of conspiracy that was dreamt up in the depths of Copperfield’s.

We know that for National to be able to do whatever they say they’re going to do, there are going to have to be cuts to all the services that are really important to New Zealanders—health cuts, education cuts, housing cuts. I just want to acknowledge my colleague here—Megan Woods—and the work that she’s done in the housing field: 12,000 public homes with another 6,000 on the way to being completed, when we know that we entered Government and there was a deficit of public housing, and we wondered why there was a housing crisis in New Zealand. We have spent the last five years just fixing up the mess that we inherited, but now we’ve built on it, and I’d just like to acknowledge Megan Woods for the wonderful job she’s doing making sure that New Zealanders are housed.

The New Zealand National Party: big on talk, low on action, low on delivery. And the thing I’m very proud of is the thing that this Government has delivered over the last six years, not only across Aotearoa New Zealand but in my own backyard in the electorate of Northcote. And when I hear the Opposition leader—a terrible speech—talking about the New Zealand Labour Party, talking down New Zealand’s economy, talking down average people in New Zealand, I want to acknowledge the work that our Government has done across our country.

New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit has been decades in the making. But being smarter about the way that we plan, the way that we deliver and use infrastructure is critical if we are close to closing the infrastructure deficit that this country has. Similarly, I want to acknowledge the housing crisis and the decades in the making to get to where we are today. Yesterday, I hosted the Deputy Prime Minister in the Northcote electorate to show her firsthand the work that this Government had delivered to Auckland’s North Shore and had delivered in the Northcote housing development. I talk openly and share an invitation to personally host anyone from in this House in this particular development. We are on track to deliver 1,700 houses from 325 old, cold State houses because we are building public homes there. We’re building homes for first-home buyers and homes on the market.

We haven’t only built homes in my area; we’ve invested in the pipes in the ground—$3.5 million has been invested by the Housing Acceleration Fund because what we saw was investment in good water infrastructure to support the growth on Auckland’s North Shore. Across the way, we’ve built Onepoto Primary School—$19.5 million, the lowest-decile school in our electorate, 12 new classrooms. I showed the Deputy Prime Minister Northcote Intermediate, that we are about to open next month. It goes on, because as we build houses we must build communities too. It was only last month that I also took the Minister of Health over to North Shore Hospital—150 new elective surgery beds that we are about to open in January. We talk about an infrastructure deficit in this country, but I tell you: over the last six years, this Government has delivered for Auckland’s North Shore and the electorate of Northcote across the board, because that is what we know is important.

But what we also know is that that takes investment. And I acknowledge the $77 billion investment over the next five years into New Zealand’s infrastructure that this Government has put in place. We’ve got to continue to grow that investment up to what the sector asked us—$150 billion to get our country where we need to. I looked at National’s transport plan that they announced this week: shocking, no investment in Auckland’s North Shore. I’ll say that again: no investment in Auckland’s North Shore. No mention of an additional harbour crossing, because the reality is that this Government is getting on and doing the work that they didn’t.

But the important part is that we recognise the opportunity of Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, a global city—a global city that we have to invest in, because our people count. We want our people to live in warm, dry homes. That’s why we’ve invested in public housing. That’s why we have progressive home ownership for Aucklanders that want to purchase their own home. That’s why we’ve invested in every school in my electorate in their property so that they have warm, good learning environments to get to where they need. But most of all—most of all—is that every child in our education system counts, and we want every child to have the best opportunity to start their life to be educated.

Finally, yesterday my proud moment: I introduced our Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Auckland, to a number of apprentices that are working on our housing development. That is the work that we are doing. That is the work that this Government is delivering for Tāmaki-makau-rau, delivering for Aucklanders, and delivering for Northcote.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Housing is a human right. This Government believes every person deserves to live in a warm, dry, and affordable home. It is why we have undertaken the biggest systematic change in the last 40 years or more: building houses. It is why we overhauled the planning rules to encourage more density in our urban areas where people want to live and work.

When I first arrived in this country, I was given a Kāinga Ora house in Lower Hutt in Pōmare, where people like me, who come from poor backgrounds, lived in peace and love. And guess what happened to those houses? Two, three years later, those houses were bulldozed by the National Government in 2011. They had sold them to the private developers, and now there are flash houses being built in those places—

💬 Chris Bishop: Yes. Some of them are State houses.

—which is fine. But what happened to those families? What happened to those poor people, Mr Bishop? What happened to them? No one knows. They have been kicked out. God knows where they are.

That’s why we are investing billions in infrastructure like pipes and roads to enable new housing. It is why we equip local authorities with the ability to undertake long-term borrowing to ensure that they can develop the infrastructure they need to sustain and grow their communities and why we work with them to have coherent spatial planning. It is why we are investing in a land development to get a mix of public affordability in the market housing, because this is very important.

Yesterday, for me, as someone who calls Wellington home, was a proud moment. We opened the new housing project in Rolleston Street. About 20 new houses: flash, new, dry, and affordable houses, which is going to house about 20 families—and 60 more are being built.

I’d like to thank the Hon Dr Megan Woods for all the work that she is doing. You go to Auckland, and every street you go to, there is a new house and a new building coming.

This Government is for all New Zealanders. We know that having a house, having a shelter over the head makes a difference in people’s lives. To me, what made a difference in my life was getting that Kāinga Ora house. It gave me a head start in life. That’s why today I could be here, I could speak in this House, sharing my experience, because I got a head start in life. I could go to uni because I had shelter. I could work because I had shelter. In the last nine, 10 years, a lot of people couldn’t afford that. That’s why this Government is investing billions of dollars building more houses.

Rolleston Street housing project is just the beginning for Wellington Central. There is more under way. Just around the corner from Rolleston Street, there are another 300 dry and affordable houses coming up, and this is going to house around 900 families. This is huge for Wellington, and this is what the Labour Government does. In Wellington, when the National Party left the House in 2017, we were left with 89 fewer public houses. In the past five years, we have delivered about 400 much more needed public houses for people and whānau and families in Wellington City, and we will continue to provide more houses in the coming years, with over 1,000 in the pipeline across the region.

Across the country, we delivered about 13,300 public homes since October 2017, 11,285 of all those are new builds—in contrast to the National Government, which left us with 1,500 fewer public houses. To put our public housing building programme in perspective, one-in-seven houses has been added by this Government in the last five years.

I am proud to be part of the Government that is delivering the biggest-ever housing programme since the 1950s. This, housing, is just one of the things that we’re doing. You can see what this Government is doing for the working people through increasing the minimum wage. Mr Speaker, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. “When will it end?” farmers ask me. “Soon, soon.”—I offer it to them—“After 14 October.”

💬 Hon Member: M. bovis you mean? When will M. bovis end?

More vacuous assertions from the left, I see. Farmers everywhere, affronted by the political theatricality of the left, want change, and they deserve it. On this side of the House, the ACT Party have already offered solutions and are willing to deliver more to them. We’re convinced conventional wisdom trumps political pontificating and piety, and common sense prevails. Rural New Zealand, lost to the Wellington boffins, will finally see pride returned, the ACT Party ever spurring that narrative that Government has a limited role, not a controlling one. Bureaucrats, a million miles away from on-farm practice, who know not of cowshed, woolshed, or farm paddock, are dictating terms of reference.

💬 Hon Member: Hard to get rid of M. bovis!

In my time representing the rural sector, the questions come thick and fast—more vacuous assertions from the left I see—“Why is it so that the Government seeks solutions”, they say, “for ill-defined problems?” That central mandate runs roughshod over local nuance or how on-farm morale could actually be so bad—

💬 Hon Member: Unless it’s to get Wellington moving.

—something that that member would know nothing of. “And how is it that Minister Parker and Minister Shaw continually offer priestly sermons from up on high about on-farm practice or where or how or why we should even farm?” many ask.

Recently, ACT returned from its rural heartland tour. The anger and the angst offered by farmers was commonplace. “The wasteful spending in Wellington”, they said, “was nonsense.” The Ministry for Primary Industries’ allocated budget of $176 million—reconcile that one—for policy design was highlighted to me, but total disconnection from on-farm practices and outcomes and understanding were obvious, where cause and effect were leagues apart from today’s policy makers. “Come and talk to rural people.”, they said.

Wellington wonks aside, one didn’t need to look far to find glaring examples of this problem: a proposed emissions pricing scheme that would see the world’s most efficient farmers go into a taxable regime in the absence of technology only hurting small-town NZ. Ask any consumer—say to them, ask them—if driving up staple food prices is a good thing. Gracious me. It’s up 12.5 percent in a year alone. Green vegetables are up over 20 percent. Beat up the rural sector, and that reality only gets worse. When will common sense prevail?

The idiocy of this is never more evident than the freshwater farm plans. Somehow Minister Parker’s office and its officials know best—more than those that do it. No more evidence was needed to highlight that centralism over localism does not work, when research results from Otago University’s Associate Professor Janice Lord stated, in relation to intensive winter grazing, “The one-size-fits-all nature of this policy has the potential to create counterproductive outcomes.” This is common sense. Everyone knows it to be so—sadly not the Ministers.

The list and the litany of confusion in rural New Zealand go beyond that He Waka Eke Noa and the semblance of it. Good luck, I say, to those trying to make sense of that riddle. That’s right: the Labour Government still maintains that taxing the most climate-efficient farmers in the world is the way to go. Go figure. A full departure from common sense, I say, but, hey, what can you expect from an outgoing Government? Clearly no one has told these people the difference between a short-term and a long-term gas, but I guess explaining it is losing to this lot. Give me strength. While solace is just around the corner, 14 October is but a few months away, and, rest assured, for those that have suffered the foul wind of Labour, this lot will soon be gone come election. Dispense with the nonsense, and finally we can get back to what we do so well: farming in rural New Zealand.

Really pleased to rise and take a call and reassure the member opposite, Mark Cameron, that there’s some great stuff happening with our rural communities, because today I want to talk about and celebrate collaboration—something this Government is really committed to doing and is really good at doing. Collaboration is time-consuming and it’s messy, but when you come across a really wicked problem or a complex issue, and if you’re really, really ambitious, collaboration is absolutely necessary. And I just want to bring a couple of examples of this, where the Government has successfully collaborated to solve complex issues.

I will start with M. bovis, because I think it’s really important to highlight the serious commitment that this Government has to futureproofing our primary industries to sustain ourselves into the future. It was in 2017 when M. bovis was identified. I was an economics teacher in a rural school at the time, and in 2018 this Government joined up with DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb New Zealand to collaborate. They knew it was going to be really hard; no one else in the world had bothered to even try, but because we sat down together and decided to collaborate and commit, it was going to be possible. It was hard, but it was going to be possible. I was a teacher of economics in a secondary school at the time—talk about a teachable moment; it certainly was one. And it was great to hear from the Minister today that New Zealand currently has no farms infected with the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis. And the effort continues, but at the moment we have zero farms infected and zero being investigated, because we collaborated. The sector and this Government trusted each other to go through what they knew would be incredibly hard, to write the playbook as they went, and make it work.

And I need to acknowledge the hardship felt by our communities—many of us live in rural communities and we know the families, the farms, the connected businesses that have been impacted by the sacrifices that have been made. The reason we did it: if it had become endemic, it would have cost about $1.3 billion in lost production in the first 10 years alone. This was not Government dictating; this was everybody sitting down and committing to solving a wicked problem. We are moving in the right direction. All the indicators—the bulk milk testing, which is an amazing surveillance system that has grown since 2018, and beef herd surveillance—have confidence in our 10-year programme working. But of course, we’re only as good as our detection systems and our on-farm records, and we know that the ongoing vigilance and commitment will be required into the future, and we need to make sure that that sacrifice by our farmers and the hardship felt by our communities—very real hardship—wasn’t all for nothing. Like I say, I was an economics teacher at the time, and it was a golden opportunity to bring economics into the classroom and to explore the impact of decisions made by Governments and industry and how those impact directly on our families, on our farms, on our local town, on our exports and our economy. The cost was significant, nobody will ever deny that: 184,000 cattle culled, 280 farms depopulated, and thousands with movement controls and significant impact on the way that they operated.

So at this point, I’d like to segue to talking about education in the classroom and just talk about something else that was a difficult problem and issue that has been hopefully resolved with an offer today to the Post Primary Teachers’ Association and the secondary school teachers of this country. It’s really difficult—teachers are the most expensive but the most valuable part of our education system; it is really, really hard to value them when it costs so much. And after careful consideration and weighing up the current challenging financial environment, this Government has decided to make sure that we prove that we value our teachers and that we can bear the cost of making an offer. This historic offer will see beginning teachers receiving an annual increase of almost $11,000—35 percent at the top of the scale. This is a Government that recognises the value, not just the cost, of teachers, and we hope that this shows that we acknowledge the challenges in front of them and helps them to continue to fight for a fabulous education system.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This week, hasn’t it been fascinating to see what Labour really thinks about roads? They hate building roads, and we’ve seen what they’ve done in their last six years of office. When Labour came to office in 2017, the very first thing this Government did was they cancelled roading upgrades up and down the country: the East West Link in Auckland, Mill Road, Cambridge to Piarere, Tauranga Northern Link, Woodend bypass. The list goes on: Whangārei to Port Marsden, which has had 60 deaths and serious injuries over the prior 10 years. These are big, important projects to get New Zealand moving, to provide safer and more resilient connections, and what have we seen this week from the Labour Party? Once again, their hatred of building roads, their hatred of delivering for New Zealanders who use their cars in getting around the country, who want to spend less time and congestion and more time being able to do what they want to do.

This is a Government which not only cancelled building and upgrading our country so we had highly productive roading connections between our regions but they also said, “What we’re going to do is we’re going to build Auckland light rail.” Well, how’s that going? As we heard from the Minister of Finance this afternoon, not one bit of construction has been done. They’ve had six years in office, but they haven’t even started construction. Shanan Halbert from the North Shore said, “We want Auckland to be a global city.” Well, you’ve had six years to turn Auckland into a global city, and absolutely nothing has been achieved. We’ve seen tens of millions of dollars spent on consultants but nothing actually delivered. This Government has not been able to start and complete any major new infrastructure projects since they came to office, and that tells you everything about this Government. Not only do they hate roads; they hate delivering—they hate delivering for New Zealanders.

But let’s also talk about Let’s Get Wellington Moving. Wasn’t it hilarious to hear the Minister of Transport saying, “Well, it’s not really living up to its name—it’s not really living up to its name.”, then the Minister of Finance saying, “Well, we’d like to get Wellington moving faster.” Well, again, this Government has spent tens of millions of dollars, $114 million, on Let’s Get Wellington Moving, and what have they delivered? Well, for those of us who drive to the airport frequently, a new pedestrian crossing on Cobham Drive—a new pedestrian crossing. Oh, and a slower speed limit on State Highway 1 going along Cobham Drive. That is what this Government has delivered in transport.

So this Government has failed to deliver. They’ve cancelled the pipeline of infrastructure investment the last National Government has delivered, and what National has said this week is that we will get New Zealand back to delivering the transport infrastructure that New Zealanders need. We’ve outlined our plan to deliver the roading upgrades that New Zealanders need so we can have safer, more resilient infrastructure across our country, where we can reduce travel time for New Zealanders stuck in congestion and we can give more people transport choices in our major urban environments.

This Government spent the last six years talking about Auckland light rail but has failed to deliver it. We are going to get on with delivering rapid transit in Auckland with a Northwestern busway, completing the Eastern Busway, and starting and completing the airport to Botany busway. These are projects which will make a huge difference to New Zealanders’ lives, and while this Government talks, National will get on and deliver.

I just want to reflect on the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday where he said, “Oh, look, well, we’ve not even decided the route or the mode for Auckland light rail.” This is the problem with this Government. They’re now saying, “We’re not going to make those decisions until next term.” How many more years do these guys need just to make a decision, just to actually get on with doing things? This is a Government which has sat on their hands rather than actually delivering. They’ve had six years to be able to actually make a difference for New Zealanders stuck in traffic, six years to actually deliver better public transport for New Zealanders, but they haven’t done it. They’re all talk and no action.

National has a plan. National has a policy for transport for the future in New Zealand. It delivers for New Zealanders across our country. It costs less than their $29.2 billion Auckland light rail they haven’t even started, and it will impact far more New Zealanders. National will get New Zealanders back on track, we’ll get transport back on track, and we’ll deliver for New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, we’ve just been asked: what does this Government do when it comes to action and delivery? Thank you for the opportunity to tell you how much we’ve been doing in Hawke’s Bay and how much more we’ve ever done compared to the National Government, who did absolutely nothing for Hastings.

In fact, one thing they seem to think was such an achievement in Hastings was building six State houses. Well, I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that in this Government we’ve built over 333 homes in Hastings, we’ve got another 111 under way, and we’ve got another 86 in development. Now, that’s what we call housing. We don’t sell down and sell out. We get on and we build—and build back Hawke’s Bay we will! Hundreds of millions of dollars of Government investment is coming in to back Hawke’s Bay as we rebuild and rebuild resilience in the region.

And as I say this, I absolutely acknowledge that there is a portion of our region that has absolutely been smashed, but there’s also a major significant part of our region that is pulling our socks up and getting on with it to get the work done and to keep Hawke’s Bay moving. And moving we are, because there have been hundreds of millions of dollars invested, firstly, into the regional recovery, but also into what we’ve been doing. And if anybody wants to know how much I love lists, you only have to listen to my general debate speech when I start talking about the millions that we have been investing in Hastings.

A record of over $280 million has gone into Hastings outside of the recovery, and that has gone into things like water infrastructure. It’s gone into civil engineering, of investment into infrastructure to build housing. Just in Hastings, in Flaxmere, we opened another area that’s getting on with building, thanks to $11.5 million of Government investment, because we partner and we work together.

As I read the news this week, it was absolutely so exciting to see that spending, spending in Hastings, is up, and it’s up 27 percent because of international visitors coming back to the bay. That’s because we know that tourists love our region and the sun will come up on Hawke’s Bay and the visitors will come back and we will continue to see people coming in and backing the bay.

And when it comes to advocating hard and working with those Ministers that are making decisions on how we get our region moving, on how we build investment, you can absolutely be assured that when it comes to Stuart Nash, the MP for Napier, and with me, we’re working hard out, advocating hard out for our region. And I’m excited about what’s yet to come for our region, because I can tell you that there are hundreds of millions of dollars coming in. We will build back bridges, we will build on the roads, we will recover, and we will back our growers, and we will back our farmers, and we will continue to do everything we can to keep our region moving forward.

On that, I just want to acknowledge again the hard work of our community, because it’s by working together and showing community pride and spirit and keeping going—the volunteers keep coming in and helping, people keep helping each other, and every day I speak to people in my region who are needing help, and we are there and we will continue to be there.

This is a Government that backs the bay. This is a Government that knows how much Hawke’s Bay means to New Zealand. That’s what’s important and that’s what I know from what we’re seeing: hundreds of millions of dollars—hundreds of millions—coming into the region to keep our region going forward.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to take a brief moment in my general debate to acknowledge the success of the Mycoplasma bovis eradication programme. I want to say that there are a lot of farmers out there who had their hearts broken in this programme, in the interest of what has developed into something good for the wider industry. Many of us felt it with you, and it’s important to acknowledge today that that has been successful and it wasn’t done for nothing.

Now, I want to move on to transport for the future. So, this week, the announcement from the National Party around transport for the future has really got people excited all the way around our country—all the way around. I want to particularly focus on a couple of areas today—largely the Waikato and Taranaki, which are either end of the beautiful Taranaki-King Country electorate. So what National has committed to do is to reinstate the Cambridge to Piarere road, which was in place and in play under a former National Government, and this current Government canned it. So that’s back on the drawing board—the thing that I really want to get excited about, as well as the Southern Links project. So that project is going to link Hamilton down through the wonderful area where the Hamilton Airport sits, in the wonderful Taranaki - King Country electorate, right through to where the Mystery Creek Fieldays are. It’s going to join up a nice road around Hamilton, because, as we know, the Waikato Expressway has been fantastic. That was a National Government project, and that is working extremely well. And the southern Hamilton area, where I join in, is now going to get some attention.

But the good piece about the Southern Links is that New Zealand doesn’t have enough houses, and we know this. We know that we need to enable our urban areas to grow. How we’re going to deal with some of these roads is to enable greater use of the value-capture and cost-recovery tools so that we can fund major State highway projects specifically to unlock tens of thousands of new homes. So the Southern Links one is directly related to the Peacocke area, where the development is going on. So very excited about that. So that’s the first part of it. It’s going to unlock some housing.

For far too long, we’ve heard so much about the “golden triangle” in this country that links Auckland with Hamilton and across to the Bay of Plenty. And I keep going, “Excuse me, we’ve got a west coast over here.” Now, we’re actually in the phase where we can start linking the Southern Links to come down through the Taranaki - King Country electorate. We can start focusing on the diamond—forget about the triangle; under the National Government, the area has become a diamond, and women love diamonds!

So, as we focus down through that area, we go through the Awakino, where the two bridges are being put in place and the Awakino Tunnel Bypass has happened. And that was a John Key - Simon Bridges National Government project. We currently have cranes, diggers, and all sorts of equipment sitting in Mount Messenger, which was a John Key - Simon Bridges National-led project. It just seems to have taken almost six years to get through resource management, which is another problem that the National Government will attend to after 14 October. So we come down through there, and we have Port Taranaki. That’s a great link for our goods and services to end up through the Waikato, and we can actually get some great linkages going on with produce, productivity, and all of the good products that we share between both of the regions.

Now, I just wanted to make one more mention about the Forgotten World Highway, because there’s a piece of road there—the Hon Shane Jones came, when the previous Government, which included this Labour Government, actually took the gas out of the country and left a small amount in Taranaki, and offered to do the Forgotten World Highway; except they forgot! It’s only just beginning to get some movement. Simeon Brown and Christopher Luxon, under a National Government, have committed to finally finishing that road up, the Forgotten World Highway—so it will be remembered under a National Government!

One in seven—one in seven public homes in this country have been built by this Labour Government. It’s an incredible record of this Labour Government to have delivered public housing at the rate of no other Government since the early Labour Governments that we are so proud of. To look back and say that this Labour Government has delivered that many public homes is worth celebrating.

And how have we done that? We have invested in the infrastructure that it takes to build those homes, and stripped back the barriers to building them. Because not only does this Government build homes, but we build the infrastructure that is needed for them. We build the roads that are needed for them—as my colleague Anna Lorck pointed to, the example in the Hawke’s Bay very recently announced. We also build the classrooms, we build the hospitals, we build those things that people need to live in their communities—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: The pipes.

—and to thrive. But as my colleague Rachel Brooking shouts, yes—we build the pipes. We put the groundwork in, we are doing the mahi that makes it possible for families to move into these new houses which my colleague Ibrahim Omer pointed to, announced very recently in Wellington. We build those pipes; we do the groundwork that puts those houses up faster and more efficiently than ever before.

It is a track record that this Labour Government has, of delivering those things which New Zealanders need—a roof over their heads, shelter to make their lives more enjoyable, better, to make sure that their families have somewhere warm and dry to live. I’m proud of that record. We’re also on track to deliver 18,000 new public and transitional housing places by 2024. There is vision for delivering more of the kind of housing that we need to make sure that people are thriving.

But not only does it mean those things that we can see and those physical things: the groundwork, the pipes, the roads, the flood protection, and the waste water. This Government has also done the work this term to make sure that we are adapting to the different kinds of conditions that we will continue to see. Earlier this year, we were all reminded of the devastating effects of climate change we are having right now. Things like flooding affecting Auckland, cyclone affecting Hawke’s Bay—extreme weather events that are causing more and more damage to people’s homes and livelihoods. Building houses is not just about putting those pipes in the ground, it’s also making sure that people are out of harm’s way, that they can live in a place which is safe for them to live. We haven’t had rules in place before that have meant that the Aucklanders who are affected by the Auckland floods were safe and that their children could go to school in the morning, and that is something which this Government needs to advance. It needs to be advanced in a cross-partisan way as well.

That brings me to an important piece of work that I’d like to highlight for the House. It’s the Māori Affairs Committee briefing on Māori climate adaptation. That committee has done some important work—and I have the report here, which was reported back recently to the House—on traversing those issues which are particularly impactful for Māori assets, Māori land, marae, urupā. Those things which are important to not only Māori having houses and a place to call home and a place to call kāinga, but also to our identity as Māori. And as we grapple with those extreme weather events and sea level rise, it will become increasingly important for Government to face up to the issues which are specific for Māori and make sure that Māori do not bear the brunt of climate change and become particularly badly affected by it.

That briefing was an extensive piece of work where the committee came to a host of what are cross-partisan recommendations. All of the committee agreed to the recommendations included in that report, and they are vast. They are about the particular planning processes which we should have to make sure that people are safe in the homes that we build. They’re about how we should engage with communities, not just Māori communities, but in a way where everyone can get around the table and make decisions about what communities need to do to make sure that their houses and their infrastructure is safe from climate adaptation, and that—where it’s necessary—they can move in a way where if they need to be together, they can be together. If they need to move to other parts of a city or an urban environment or another part of land, that they can have those conversations.

Those are really important recommendations, and I do want to thank the Ministry for the Environment officials who assisted the committee with its work, as well as Te Puni Kōkiri officials and the clerks—Jayden, Violet, and David—thank you for the work on that. It’s all part of this Government’s plan to continue to invest in the infrastructure that we need to strip back the barriers to build more houses and to give people the homes they need.

I stand today to honour the strength of communities who are doing their best to survive, and I’m talking specifically about rangatahi and young people who are forced to find paid employment while still having to go to school, because housing costs are way too high and incomes supporting families are not high enough. This is when they should instead be going to school, but I want to acknowledge their fierceness, their loyalty to their families, and their protectiveness of their families. They are really clear: they do absolutely reject the stigmatisation and dehumanisation of their very families that has for far too long been dominant over many, many years.

I want to acknowledge also their school communities, who fight hard for these rangatahi to be recognised for the incredible leaders that they are. They are loyal and dedicated and they love school, but they want to help their families.

The problem is that for too long, we in this House have continued to make political choices over successive decades in Government that keep prioritising housing as a way to build wealth for a few and that keep undermining the incomes and support that families should have always been having so that these rangatahi can prioritise their education, instead of being forced into situations that sacrifice their education. Successive Governments could have always chosen to end poverty, and instead tax people who own and not just tax people who earn, because political leaders have continued to dehumanise and stigmatise these very families, who continue to try and do their best.

What are we here for if not to improve lives and address the underlying systemic drivers of these causes—whether it’s ACT squabbling over a $50 voucher, without mentioning and fighting against the long-held health inequities that have existed in our system for Māori, or whether it’s the National Party talking about forcing someone to pay more tax, without mentioning the choices when families are forced to live in crappy, expensive, unaffordable homes. This country still allows housing to be used to build wealth instead of homes for people. It’s something we should all be stepping up to, including if we are serious about reducing offending. Improving incomes and housing will go a heck of a long, intergenerational way towards solving that issue, with a wellbeing focus.

The Greens are clear that we can absolutely have a guaranteed income, where everyone has what they need to provide, including top-ups for people raising families, and where we could actually end poverty. What a goal that would be, and the intergenerational wellbeing impact that that would have—my goodness! We should be fighting to make these decisions.

We can also end poverty by addressing housing, having a pledge to renters while controlling the amount that rents can increase, and, at the same time, massively prioritising and massively scaling up public, affordable, and community housing. These solutions have always been here for us, but it has been simple, political will that has refused to put these solutions in place.

The politics of leadership would prioritise these voices. In these schools, we’d prioritise the principals, including these principals from Ōtara and Glen Innes that are sharing these stories, not to further stigmatise these families, but to highlight the very leadership and solutions. They are asking us to talk not just about low attendance, but they are asking us—their voices are clear—to look at what is happening behind the low attendances.

We want tamariki to go to school, to improve our incomes, and to end the housing crisis and unaffordability—that’s what will help improve attendance for these rangatahi and these families with schools. Don’t just listen to me; listen to these principals, listen to these families, and listen to these rangatahi, who are generously sharing their voices and their leadership. That is the political leadership that surely we should all be invested in in this House for many generations to come—long-term solutions that will actually get to the depth of drivers that are causing the big issues that we are facing, the big issues that many of us, I have no doubt, genuinely care about but are refusing to pull the levers that would make the most difference.

We have costed our policies. We can count. We would be able to solve so much with a wealth tax on those who have more than enough. That’s leadership.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, the Labour Government’s fantastic health Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, visited my electorate of Nelson to make an exciting announcement that our Government is rebuilding Nelson Hospital. The rebuild of Nelson Hospital is the largest capital project in a generation, and I’m delighted to be able to speak about our new hospital and the exciting project that is about to start.

The current buildings at Nelson Hospital are outdated, they are cramped, and they require earthquake strengthening. The Minister and I toured part of the hospital, and I’ve visited parts of these buildings before as well—they are cramped, there is equipment down the corridor, there are bathrooms that are not fit for purpose, there is an emergency department that needs to be expanded. When the former health Minister, David Clark, did a stocktake of all hospital buildings in New Zealand, it was found that the George Manson and Percy Brunette buildings were some of the worst hospital buildings in New Zealand. These two buildings require significant earthquake strengthening. The Percy Brunette building will need to be strengthened and repurposed. The George Manson building is continuing to have work assessed to determine whether it needs to be either strengthened or completely pulled down. The initial plan for this building was to completely demolish it once the new building was in place—there is current work occurring that could mean we could save that building and repurpose it; but I’m confident in the work that’s being done at the moment to make that full assessment.

Another reason why we need a new hospital is that our population is growing—it’s growing, and our population is ageing. Our current hospital serves 170,000 people across Te Tau Ihu, the top of the south areas of Nelson-Marlborough and into Tasman. It’s predicted to grow by 2040 to 186,000 people. That’s why I’m so delighted that as part of this announcement, the hospital building itself will have an increase in beds from 161 beds to 255 beds. The number of theatres will increase from six theatres to eight theatres. There will be a bigger emergency department. And one of the groups who have been very excited about our new building is our helicopter pilots from our emergency helicopters that fly around the region. They’re delighted they’re going to be able to land on the top of a building, rather than their precarious arrangement flying over my home and people who live in the Nelson south area and landing on a very small patch of gravel right next to a set of traffic lights. So they were delighted when I spoke to them recently about the improvements being made to Nelson Hospital.

The new hospital building will be built across the top of our current car park. There will be significant work that will require a couple of years’ worth of work to do all of what we call enabling works. That includes the engineering and architectural design, the planning, clearing the site, laying the pipes and the infrastructure needed before we build this very large new building. A lot of people have asked me, “What will happen to our car parking; where will we park when we go to the hospital?” And the hospital has leased car parking from the nearby fields called The Broads, owned by Nelson College, so we will have temporary car parking in place while the new hospital is built.

I’m grateful that our Government has taken the time to fully scope and cost this project. Previous senior leaders pleaded with me to do this job properly and to not cut any corners. The National Party only promised $500 million—that was part of a campaign budget that had shonky numbers around it, and it’s why I’m so grateful that our Government has pledged the full amount for this hospital: $1.098 billion, because that is what it will cost, and it is what Nelsonians deserve.

Make no mistake that National’s plans have billions of dollars of holes in them; their tax cuts will mean cuts to important projects like Nelson Hospital. The new Nelson Hospital is what patients deserve, it’s what the staff of Nelson Hospital deserve, and it’s what the people of Nelson deserve, and I’m proud to be the Nelson MP delivering this project for Nelson.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation 2023/24 Estimates Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill.