Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the Prime Minister’s statement, the first thing that he mentioned was an acknowledgment of the adverse weather events that the country has experienced over the last couple of weeks, and I’d like to add my thoughts for those people who are affected by those adverse weather events, in particular those whānau who are bereaved at the moment.

The Prime Minister said that the Government has responded and that we will continue to respond to those weather events. Part of that response is to develop bespoke regional responses, for example, in the Tai Tokerau or Tai Tokerau, Northland, Whangārei electorates—in other words those electorates north of the Auckland super-city. Myself, the Hon Willow-Jean Prime, and Dr Emily Henderson—the MPs for Northland and Whangārei respectively—have traversed the length and the breadth of those electorates, talking to the communities and determining what the priorities are that they would like to see from the weather event.

Those priorities start off with community hauora in the first instance; transport networks; communications networks; electricity networks; water supply; managed retreats; flood mitigation; business support; security post an event; support for councils, and also community safety hubs. We also have a focus on communities—what we’re describing as “communities at the end of the road”. In other words, if we can make sure that communities such as Poutoa, Mitimiti, Te Hāpua, Rāwhiti, and other small communities—literally at the end of roads—that their networks for communications, transport, electricity, water, and so on and so forth, are cared for, if they can emerge from the next weather event without houses being flooded, then we know that our response in Tai Tokerau has been effective.

I’d like to acknowledge the communities who stepped up to support during the events themselves. In particular, I’d like to acknowledge our Māori communities. Now, I don’t know the exact figures, but even though Māori make up 17 or so percent of our general population, I would say that many of the responses—at least half of the responses—would have been from Māori communities, and in some areas of the country, close to 100 percent of the responses would have been from Māori communities. We have experience, over the last couple of hundred years, of being able to feed, house and bathe people at the drop of a hat. In fact, there was a Māori response in Dargaville that was set up within an hour, where people were having food distributed, food prepared, they had a place to shower, and their needs were being looked after.

That’s why I’m pretty annoyed that there was a response from one broadcaster that wasn’t happy that there was a specific Māori pūtea set up. Now, this is a person who’s probably never set foot on a marae—certainly not stayed on a marae—probably not lifted a tea towel, not peeled one potato, never had to set the table for 100 people three times a day over the course of three or four days, probably prepared close to 1,000 meals, and he begrudges there being a response to reimburse Māori and Māori communities for what they have dipped into out of their own pockets. That just, I guess, highlights that there is a gap between the Māori communities in New Zealand, and some other communities within Aotearoa.

As the Prime Minister said in his statement, there’s no principle more fundamental in our nation’s history than working in collaboration with Māori, and I say that we actually should take advantage of the skills that Māori have in terms of the manaakitanga and our straight-up practicality and ability and expertise in a crisis. It’s something that should be interwoven into any response in situations such as the weather events, and financial support like that expected by non-Māori groups in the same situation shouldn’t be questioned or criticised or portrayed as special treatment for Māori. This is another example of what is good for Māori is good for all New Zealanders, and the Māori response to the weather events was good for all.

Just like the ongoing pursuit of equity, as an article 3 Treaty of Waitangi promise, is also good for all New Zealanders, because equity in Aotearoa will mean that there are fewer Māori in hospital, which means that there is more medical capacity to cater for other New Zealanders. If there are more Māori in employment—if there are more equitable outcomes for Māori in employment—that means that we will also have better social services. The more Māori in healthy homes will mean less stress on the whole system; the fewer Māori in prison, it’s just going to be better for all; and that more Māori get to have a say in matters that relate to our needs, then the sooner the problems will be resolved.

An example of how we are working as a Government with Māori is in our work with the National Iwi Chairs Forum. Now, as an Opposition member of Parliament, I’d attend these National Iwi Chairs Forum’s quarterly meetings, and I would notice that there would be random Ministers arrive to talk to the iwi chairs forum, talking about random topics in their portfolios and fielding random questions about other Ministers’ portfolios. So what we did, instead, is that when we became the Government we said every quarter we should be working towards shared priorities—shared priorities that we can report back on our progress towards. That way, Māori have greater access to Ministers, greater access to chief executives, greater access to officials, greater access to resources, and we are starting to make progress on issues that relate to Māori.

One hundred and eighty-three years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, my job as the Minister for Māori Crown Relations is to ensure that those outcomes of equity for all New Zealanders—that promise towards equity—is realised. We’ve made great strides towards the promise of equity, with, for example the Māori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora; three quarters of a billion dollars towards investing in Māori education, Māori-medium kura kaupapa Māori; the Apprenticeship Boost that has seen 9,000 Māori get apprenticeships, and successive billion-dollar Budgets. We’ve also had another successful Waitangi Day where there has been a notable lack of conflict, and I know that a number of people around the country—and particularly in media—are lamenting the lack of conflict, because they say it’s too boring. I say that what we’re doing is creating a national day for all New Zealanders that we can all celebrate and be proud of.

We’ve also celebrated our inaugural Matariki Day, a uniquely Kiwi public holiday. All of this in the face of race baiting from certain parts of the Opposition, where they see working and cooperation with Māori as portrayed as a negative. My dream by 2040 is for all New Zealanders able to cross the bridge that is their Treaty of Waitangi in both directions, flicking in and out of both languages, comfortable in each cultural setting, and being at ease with each other and our various languages and cultures here in New Zealand. If that is to happen, then this irrational fear that if Māori are doing well means other New Zealanders won’t do so well will seem like some sort of historic artefact.

So I’d just like to endorse, again, the points that the Prime Minister raised in his statement. It sets out a vision for Aotearoa over the coming year. We’ve got hard-working Ministers that are working hard to deliver the outcomes for all New Zealanders. Of course, my particular passion is making sure that those outcomes for Māori are realised. We are yet to achieve the equity that article 3 of the Treaty did promise us and, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, and particularly in this House, that Kāwanatanga—that is us as the Government—are working alongside the Māori Treaty partners and their aspirations for rangatiratanga. When we are working together, that’s when we’ll see the magic happening. Instead, what we have seen over the last 183 years is Kāwanatanga, rangatiratanga bashing heads, and I don’t think that gets us anywhere.

When the Treaty was signed, the Kāwanatanga—the Government side of it—needed resources to enable them to do the things that they wanted to do, and of course the resources were in the hands of Māoridom, and so what we’ve seen from 6 February 1840 is the Government trying to acquire the resources of Māori. And they did it in not so subtle ways, and that has left us in the situation that we do have where Māori don’t enjoy equitable outcomes with all other new Zealanders. So I’d just like to endorse the Prime Minister’s statement. Kia ora.

Let me start by first acknowledging those who’ve got difficulties with their homes, with their farms, and with their broader communities as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle. I was up in that part of the country last week, and I know that it is a very difficult time for a lot of people. It is also very challenging to try and get those people back into some degree of normality in their lives. From this side of the House, we will be watching that for some time to come and we will offer whatever assistance we can, where it’s reasonable.

But I want to, today, rise in support of the amendment to the motion moved by Christopher Luxon. I do, though, want to start by congratulating the Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, on his new elevation, wish best wishes to those Ministers who are now departing from the ministries, and congratulations to the new Ministers who have come in.

It raises the interesting point made by so many speakers from the other side of the House about the newness of this regime that has now taken over as Government. I see my friend over there: the Hon Rino Tirikatene, who was yesterday extremely excited in talking about his portfolios as if trade was some kind of a new thing that’s only just been discovered by him, and talking about how wonderful the Government is—“the new Government”—“the new Government”, apparently, is going to take New Zealand forward. Well, I think the only thing that’s new about this regime is the nameplates on the doors of Ministers; nothing much more. Everything seems to be staying exactly the same.

Now, if you go through all of the aspects of change that the current Government have made, there’s very, very little. A whole lot of stuff quietly swept to one side, kept warm, to slumber, in the hope that when they get re-elected, they might be able—or if they get re-elected—they might be able to breathe new life into it.

But, in reality, the big template thing that they’ve got rid of is the merger between Radio New Zealand and TVNZ. Let’s face it: that was a $370 million utter folly. That would have been the cost had it gone through. But instead they were just quietly, today, saying that the $16.5 million that they spent preparing for that merger is money well spent—the Prime Minister told the House that today. It was reiterated many times by Mr Robertson on previous occasions: money well spent! But what have we got for it? Absolutely nothing.

And then, of course, there was this long denial from the Government that we had a problem getting children to attend school regularly, with 60 out of every 100 children in our schools not regularly attending—six out of 10; 60 out of a 100; 600 out of 1,000 students not regularly attending schools in this country. So, suddenly, the answer is: “Oh well, we better bring in truancy officers.” And we find today that they’re not going to be people that go out there and find out what’s going on in the household that’s preventing that child from coming to school; they’re going to be desk-bound people looking at screens who are going to send out, presumably, tick-box sort of questionnaires of schools to say why they’re not there.

We get a sense of that by the new Minister of Education in the House today, part of the brand new Government coming into the House today, and saying that, actually, the number of unaccounted absences is falling; not saying that the number of absences is falling but simply that there is a stat somewhere that says we can account for why they’re not there. Well, we know they’re not there, because they’re not turning up. I think that all we’re getting is the usual sort of Labour Party approach to things: find a way of sending out a questionnaire, find a new set of stats, refer it to a committee, and ask some consultants to have a little bit of a look at it and give some advice about how best to deal with it.

When it comes to consultants, we’ve heard this week the phenomenal figure for what was spent on consultants in the last 12 months: over $440 million—$440 million; an extraordinary amount. One might wonder where all that’s gone. Well, I’ve already talked about the $16.7 million spent on the now defunct merger. There’s also the $20.7 billion spent on the Income Insurance Scheme—and I’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

And then we hear confirmation in the House today: $72 million—$72 million—on consultants to merge the health systems across the country. You’d ask yourself: what sort of healthcare did that deliver? Nothing. All we’ve got this week from the outgoing chair of that new, huge, national bureaucracy in health is an indication of how terrible everything is inside that organisation and what an utter mess that particular reform appears to be in.

You could lay that alongside the polytech merger, where we know that there’s been hundreds of millions of dollars merged into this new super-entity and it’s a mess with its issues over chief executives, issues over unquantified spending—you name it; it’s all there: a mess and at a huge cost.

And then, I think you get to a point where some of the confidence that anyone might have that this new Government was going to do something that was different—actually do something, which the Ardern Government was famous for not doing; brilliant at being able to state the problem, brilliant at being able to articulate the concern about the problem, brilliant at setting up a committee, setting up an inquiry, setting up some other sort of investigative body, but utterly hopeless at doing anything that might make a difference. I’d ask them to point to anything that would refute that particular suggestion.

Even when it comes down to something like the cost of living that’s wrecking the lives of so many New Zealanders at the moment—where we know that interest rates are racing through the ceiling, we see that rents have risen by $150 a week in a very short period of time—all the Government can say is: “Not our fault; it’s happening all over the world.” Yet we know that this wasteful spending, this extra billion dollars a week that the Government are spending—$52 billion a year more than was the case just a few years back—is part of the problem. When a Government decides it can spend better than people who are looking after their own money, then we know that we’re going to end up with unnecessary amounts of inflation.

If we want to know exactly what it means for the household, this Government’s taxation rises—even though they’ve said, “No new taxes.”, and all the rest of it—

Anna Lorck: Well, you want to tax the rich—you want to tax the rich.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —their tax take has risen by $17,000 a year per household. And they’ve got the audacity over there to criticise us on tax—the audacity to criticise us on tax—when they’ve taken $17,000 a year out of New Zealand households, averaged across the whole lot.

There are five things that are always at play in an election. That is: the economy, you could call that cost of living; it’s housing; it’s health; it’s education; and it’s law and order. All of those are in a very messy state at the present time. Just look at, as I said before, rising interest rates; massive increases in rental income; huge rate rises for property owners across the country; the threat of extra water charges for whatever might end up under the Government’s now shelved, shoved aside, but kept warm three waters project. So that is a massive contributor to that cost of living. It is a massive contributor to the housing problem we have in the country at the moment, where we have four times as many people on State house waiting lists now than we had three, four, or five years ago. We’ve also got 4,000 families right now living in temporary accommodation across the country, abandoned by the Government—abandoned by the Government—with no particular answers.

And then, of course—we’ve just covered education, with the extraordinary truancy rates that are going on, and I know that subsequent speakers are going to talk more about the law and order crisis that we’ve got in this country, and the Prime Minister could only say today, well, when he was police Minister, the numbers of ram raids dropped. Why aren’t all ram raids dropping? Why aren’t we being tougher on those people who decide that they’re going to live outside the law in this country? And why are we doing this constant hand-holding of criminals who have no intention of contributing in any positive way to the outcomes of this country?

There are so many areas where this Government could and should be held to account; other speakers will do it. But as I come to the end of my contribution, I simply say that Mr Luxon’s amendment to the motion is spot on.

Can I start off by thanking the Hon Gerry Brownlee—first elected in 1996 under the Jim Bolger Government and then first a Minister in 2008 under the John Key Government—for his lecture on the need for newness and freshness in the Government’s agenda. Can I also note that the very same member who had quite a lot to say about the use of Government consultants, not 10 years ago was having to explain why it was that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, an entity which he was responsible for, was spending $1.3 million on external communications consultants to do its job, and alongside his chief executive explaining that sometimes public agencies do need to pull upon that support to do important work.

Receiving those lectures on newness and freshness and the use of consultants in the public sector from that member was like receiving a lecture in business ethics from Del Boy. And the contrast with the Prime Minister’s statement at the start of this debate could not have been stronger because not once from Mr Brownlee—not once in that entire 10-minute bloviation—did we hear one single new idea or policy to actually deal with the real challenges and issues that New Zealanders face in 2023. We heard an endless stream of criticism and whingeing, but not eight months out from a general election did we hear from a senior member of the Opposition party one new idea or policy for how they would do anything differently to the benefit of the people of this country.

We can contrast that with the speech and the statement from our Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, which was clear and laser-focused on the focus of our Government to support New Zealanders with cost of living issues—

Andrew Bayly: Tax cuts!

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —taking concrete action like extending the fuel excise duty, road-user charges, and public transport reductions to save New Zealanders around about $700 million between now and July, taking $700 million of cost out of the pockets of Kiwi households and the Government taking care of that to make things a little bit easier. One of the members opposite calls out “What about the tax cuts?” Well, what about the tax cuts indeed, Mr Bayly, because, of course, those tax cuts proposed by that party—as a matter of ideological obsession—would give the very greatest benefit to members of this House and those on the highest incomes and give $2 per week to the lowest-earning New Zealanders in this country. This is a Government which since it came in to office has ensured that minimum wage workers in this country—those workers who do critical work for us on the checkouts, serving us the coffees that we enjoy so much, cleaning these buildings—are $240 per week better off because of the minimum wage increases that this Government has put in place that have been opposed year in, year out from members opposite. So this is a Government which is relentlessly focused on cost of living issues and making sure that ordinary Kiwis get a fair go and that the wealth of this country doesn’t just flow ever upwards but gets there to the people who do so much work to make our country function well.

I want to speak in the remaining time that I have on the extraordinary resilience, courage, and determination of New Zealanders who have faced down extreme weather events this year. I know the thoughts of everyone in this House are with our fellow New Zealanders who have had to bear so much through the course of the devastating anniversary weekend floods in Auckland and Cyclone Gabrielle, which has devastated a large part of the upper North Island, where 50 percent of the New Zealand population lives. Never before have we had weather events of this magnitude across such a large part of the country doing so much damage, and we cannot forget that between those two events 15 of our fellow Kiwis lost their lives. Many people had their livelihoods seriously compromised. We have hundreds of our fellow New Zealanders who aren’t able to sleep in their own homes tonight. It has been so tough for many people around New Zealand.

I’m enormously proud of my city, Auckland, and the community of Mt Roskill that I represent. We were one of the hardest hit communities when the floods hit Auckland and we have the highest number of people whose homes have been red stickered; people who do not as of today have permanent accommodation. And what I saw at that time when things were so, so difficult for many people was the spirit of our communities, was people coming together and helping each other, people reaching out, people digging deep, people recognising that the way that you get through tough times isn’t just to look out for yourself; the way we get through the tough times is by focusing on “we”, not just “me”. And all around my community, community groups, individuals, and schools banded together. They brought together what resources they had: somewhere to sleep, food to eat, supplies to keep the family going, things to do for the kids. We brought those things together in a community kete, and we looked after each other. And it is always the case that in the most difficult times or when we face big challenges, we get there together. We don’t get there just by focusing on ourselves; we get there together, and that has been an important lesson which we have perhaps relearnt throughout this crisis period.

In Auckland there is much work still to do and I will be focused on that in the new role that I have as Minister for Auckland. We have a big job to do as we work through the recovery period, and as we look to rebuild back better. We have an ongoing situation in which significant numbers of Aucklanders in our west coastal communities do remain cut off through a seriously compromised transport network, and there is ongoing work to make sure that the welfare and the needs of those people are met. That will be an important priority as we work with Auckland Council as it continues to develop its recovery response. There is ongoing need to make sure that emergency accommodation is provided to around about 600 Auckland households whose homes have been red stickered and potentially will remain uninhabitable for a period of time. And I want to acknowledge the work of my colleague the Hon Megan Woods and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who have been working very hard to set up the temporary accommodation service in Auckland and provide as much certainty as we can to those Aucklanders who have had their lives so seriously disrupted.

As we move out of the recovery period, there is a lot of work to do to rebuild the infrastructure and to once again get our economy and our supply chains in Auckland moving. Because when Auckland does well all of New Zealand does well. It has been a tough couple of years. Following on from COVID, Auckland was seeing the sun on the horizon as we came through summer. Things were moving ahead positively and then we’ve had the setback. But our city is tough; it’s resilient; it’s a beautiful, diverse place. It is dynamic and it has limitless potential. We are the first city of the Pacific and we will work together to recover and to rebuild even better, and that will be a big focus for my work.

We know that these series of extreme weather events have devastated large parts of the country, and I also want to acknowledge those parts of regional New Zealand who are so devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle: our friends and our colleagues in Northland, Waikato, the Coromandel, Hawke’s Bay, Tararua, Wairarapa, Tai Rāwhiti; communities who have had to bear so much over the last month. And I want to reaffirm our Government’s absolute commitment to rebuilding the key infrastructure and connections that enable those communities to connect and supply chains to work. The cutting off of key roads and rail links, particularly in the Hawke’s Bay, Coromandel, and Tai Rāwhiti have been so tough for people—whānau, hapū, and businesses—who do rely on those connections to get around. Our Government’s commitment is a resolute one, and in case any member wants to question that, there is no question: we will rebuild those critical transport links and that work is under way. We put $250 million on the table as an immediate response two weeks ago to make sure that Waka Kotahi, KiwiRail, and councils are able to get on with that job.

Our transport recovery has three key phases. The first is restoring the emergency lifelines to communities who were cut off in the incredible flooding that was experienced. Around about 70 percent of that work is now complete, and remaining communities are a huge focus for our transport agency to make sure that we do reopen those connections. Some of the damage is extreme and I ask the communities for patience as we work through that and commit that we will put every resource that we can into that. Secondly, we will make sure that we then invest to bring our transport network back up to the levels of service that were experienced before Cyclone Gabrielle. And that is a complete commitment from our Government without reservation. And thirdly, we will make the investments that we need across the country to build a more resilient transport network.

One of the lessons coming out of these extreme weather events is that we are in an era of climate change. We must do both things. We must reduce our emissions because that is a moral responsibility and a practical responsibility so this situation does not get worse. And we must also invest in the resilient transport network so that we can withstand the weather that is to come. Anyone who says that it is just one or the other is putting up a false choice and is playing cheap politics. Our Government will make sure that we support New Zealanders through this recovery, will invest in the resilient infrastructure that we need, and will take farsighted decisions to reduce the impacts of climate change. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a split call. I call Jan Logie.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and before I formally start my speech I want to acknowledge Georgina Beyer—her passing. She was a legend to me, and her speech on the Prostitution Reform Bill was one of the most honest, brave, powerful, and effective speeches I’ve heard in my life from this place, and she means so much to people in my community. I really just wanted to start by acknowledging her, and it seems particularly appropriate to acknowledge her today on International Women’s Day because she has been such a leader for women.

Now to take my call on the response to the Prime Minister’s speech. I want to frame it around the experience of women and climate change, which was in reference to the Prime Minister’s—so much of his speech was around the impact of the climate crises events that we’ve seen so profoundly recently. I say that in the past tense—and I recognise I’ve just said that in the past tense—and, actually, for a whole lot of people right now, this is not past tense; they are still in immediate response mode of trying to ensure the basics of water and food and shelter. This is very, very real, and these are—I’ve said it already in this House—the times that we have been warning about. They are now, in our lifetimes. This is not something that is going to happen to our kids and our grandkids.

We are at 1.1 percent of warming and this is what it looks like, and we know that already another increase is already locked in. So it’s going to get worse and, in the short to medium term, there will be nothing we can do about that. That means we need to act with absolute intention and urgency to stop that escalation from what isn’t locked in already. We cannot keep on the trajectory that we have been on, and we know that the Government—we have been putting in the infrastructure to bring down our emissions, and that’s been incredibly important work over the last two terms of the Government. But we need, now, with more urgency and more detail, the actions that bring our emissions down.

This is relevant to women because, actually, the impact of climate change is not felt the same by different groups of people. The wealthiest will be relatively protected from some of the impacts—not all of them, but some of them. You see it directly for those who are more likely to have insurance and those who don’t, and the impact of that, and that’s usually a decision not of whim, but of affordability. We know that women are likely to be on lower incomes, they’re more likely to be in insecure housing and to have trouble getting more housing, and we know that this is compounded for women who experience other forms of discrimination. So this needs to be part of our thinking in terms of how we protect people from the impacts of climate change.

But it also needs to be part of our recovery from the work that we’re doing, because what we’ve seen is a massive devastation across communities, and the usual response to that is more infrastructure work that needs to come in to try and fix those things—right? But they’re typically jobs that are done by men, and that can exacerbate the inequality that already exists.

When we’re talking—as the Prime Minister did—about the need to build back better, we need to build that into it, and that includes recognising the roles that women play in agriculture and actually making sure that we are hearing the diversity of their voices and making sure that we are building back with all of our needs in consideration. But the most urgent thing is to stop this getting worse and to protect ourselves for the future.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take the final call for ACT in this debate. It is safe to say that it has been an incredibly challenging start to the year for many New Zealanders, and my thoughts continue to be with those who are affected by recent weather events. I also commend the resilience and hard work of our front-line personnel, including civil defence, Fire and Emergency New Zealand staff, Police, and the many voluntary organisations and NGOs. I especially want to acknowledge our Defence Force personnel who eagerly deployed at short notice—and that’s despite some extensive issues around tasking, complexities around the size of the challenge ahead, and stretched resources.

The cyclone has been a bit of a wake-up call for the Government in the workforce space, especially around immigration. Staffing shortages have plagued every sector in this country for quite some time now. The Government’s grand immigration reset is not fit for purpose, and it created an even more complex immigration system that puts stricter processes around temporary migration—making it harder for businesses to recruit—and a system that actually locks migrants into employment arrangements that may actually not be suitable or healthy.

While that project is still under way, with changes to residency on the horizon, there has been a glimmer of hope in the Government’s response to the cyclone. The Government’s recovery visa isn’t the solution to the regions’ workforce shortages, though it does signal that the Minister might be taking a slightly more open-minded approach to policy.

The problems with the recovery visa are obvious: it is for specific purposes or projects only, and it’s valid for just six months and it cannot be extended or renewed. The obvious reason for that is that the Government doesn’t really want it to eat the lunch of their accreditation scheme. However, employers and migrants alike deserve and need more flexibility.

One further glimmer of hope is the proposal to remove the labour market test for sectors that can support the rebuild, which is—funnily enough—getting closer to ACT’s policy of abolishing that thing altogether. If a labour market test makes it harder to fill skill shortages, then just get rid of it for every employer.

I’ll also point out that it was somewhat cynical to hit employers in affected regions with the increase to the median wage, close now to $30, in extraordinary circumstances—surely even the Labour Party can put the brakes on these sorts of ideological policies.

The effect of the Government not doing enough to support immigration, particularly in cyclone-affected regions, will be more inflation that infects the entire country, and this is unacceptable in a cost of living crisis. The solution is simple: ease up on the red tape and the regulations.

There will be many lessons learnt from the response to the cyclone, and one important aspect of that is in Defence capabilities and policy. As I have spoken about previously in this House, there are real concerns about attrition and morale in the Defence Force, and the Government has, frankly, not done enough to invest in our people nor the equipment available to them.

The three branches are doing incredible work, but, with more support, they could be deploying even more assets, whether that’s getting more ships out of Devonport, especially during times like this, or simply ensuring that hydrographers—it’s a very difficult word to say—and crane operators, for example, are actually present on the ships that have those capabilities.

Defence personnel should have also been deployed to assist police with maintaining law and order by invoking section 9 of the Defence Act. It is, frankly, not helpful when the Government gaslights communities by saying that crime and looting are not real problems and accuses the Opposition of creating hysteria, nor is it helpful when even the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to understand how section 9 works, thinking that the Defence personnel are somehow going to completely replace police on the ground. The Defence Force needs more attention from the Government in the short term, otherwise in the long term there is going to be a serious problem.

The recovery should be funded by cuts to wasteful spending, as opposed to Government borrowing billions of dollars more in an already high-inflation environment. The Government should also accept when it needs to get out of the way—not doing things like stopping local pilots from flying supplies in and out of Napier airport, for instance.

Last Friday, ACT released 15 urgent ideas for getting Hawke’s Bay and Tai Rāwhiti into recovery, starting with a special economic zone where red tape is cut and inflation is managed to avoid the cost of living spiralling out of control for everyone. Businesses and everyday people have enough to deal with; they don’t need convoluted regulations from Wellington, they don’t want fair pay agreements, three waters, ghost ministries, and an endless sea of bureaucrats and consultants trying to micromanage their lives.

Luckily, fortunately, there’s an election just over seven months away, and everyday New Zealanders can be confident that ACT is here—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

E hotuhotu ana te whatumanawa e mākū ana te papa i te rirohanga o te manukura e Georgina Beyer, haere, e moe, e au tō moe, Pai Mārire.

[My heart sobs and the earth is wet at the loss of the esteemed Georgina Beyer. May you rest in peace. Pai Mārire.]

I just wanted to pay a brief tribute to Georgina Beyer. Certainly, for the time that I knew her when she served in this House, she was unequivocal about her ability to give voice to the rights of the transgender community and, more importantly, to try and educate many members of Parliament in her time about the need to achieve equality of representation for the LGBTQI community. May she rest in peace.

Can I also acknowledge that this is International Women’s Day. Throughout the country when we think about the challenges that are facing many of our communities, be they big or small, the role of women in our communities is a significant contribution to the type of nation that we are.

The tone of this particular debate has been set against a specific context, and for my part, I want to acknowledge the challenging and complex world that we are in. We have experienced a global pandemic, crisis and conflict in terms of Russia’s aggression and a war in Ukraine, and then there’s climate change. If I come back to the challenge of climate change, just recently, as New Zealand has experienced Cyclone Gabrielle and the impact on many of our communities throughout the country, so too has Vanuatu experienced tropical Cyclone Judy as well as tropical Cyclone Kevin. So we know both at a local level within our region, and then at a global level, the earthquake in Türkiye as well as Syria, the impact of climate change.

So I want to join with other statements in this House and acknowledge the Prime Minister. While we are living in this complex and challenging time, I want to acknowledge the clear, pragmatic, and caring leadership of a Prime Minister who knows that we must ensure that we take decisions for this time against this complex backdrop. And why? Because more and more we need innovative solutions. We need communities to understand how important they are to respond to some of these complex challenges.

Now, the Prime Minister, in his own words, has said that we will focus on the bread and butter issues. The clarity of that statement means, for a lot of New Zealanders, that we will go back to basics, and the basics are about people, about community, and about what we can do for one another. We saw evidence of that against the response to Cyclone Gabrielle and how communities rallied around very quickly by their own volition to be able to support those in need, and there were many stories of people who were suffering themselves yet still went as first responders to be able to undertake the things that they knew were necessary so that their community could be supported.

At this point, I really do want to acknowledge many members of Parliament who within their own communities actually stood side by side with first responders, community, iwi, and also their local networks to be able to ensure that we did what we knew to do best, which was support people in their time of need, because by working together, that’s what it’s going to take. In many ways, that echoes the clarity of the statement, the pragmatic and caring nature of the statement that was reflected by our Prime Minister. He said we will be a Government who supports families and businesses through difficult economic conditions. We won’t take a hands-off approach or an austere approach of saying it’s not our problem. We will lean in, because we know that cost of living pressures are real.

We know that it’s going to be important to focus on the things that matter: an economy that is working for everybody, making sure people have incomes that will be able to provide bread and butter and, hopefully, support each other in their time of need, and by being able to tackle some of the real systemic challenges, like getting Kiwis into work by focusing on training, by lifting incomes, and things like that. Also, we need to have strengthened public services, because we know that when we have an effective health system, that when our young people are fully engaged, and that when we are able to deliver the services that people rely on day in, day out, that makes a really big difference.

By and large, much of the commentary of my colleagues on this side of the House has talked about why it’s important to lay the economic foundation that is necessary for this time, against a backdrop of climate change. I’m so proud there’s been a strong emphasis on tackling the country’s infrastructure needs. What we saw during Cyclone Gabrielle is actually some of the greatest fragilities in our infrastructure network. Now, I’ll only talk about my own electorate in Hauraki-Waikato, but going up the Coromandel Peninsula, where roads are cutting people off from their communities, or similarly out to Raglan, where roads were dropping out, we know that we need to do more to have more resilient infrastructure, and it’s not just about roads. It’s about energy, it’s about power, it’s about water to our communities, and it’s about houses and homes. Now, that’s the type of message that I’m sure many of our communities want to hear.

We are a Government who will invest in getting this not just right but getting this into a position of greater resilience because we know that climate change will lead to greater or more frequent natural weather events. For that to occur, it’s going to take leadership at all levels, and, again, I come back to the example shown through Cyclone Gabrielle and the community that is working alongside its local leaders at all levels, and then alongside local government and central government.

The cyclone recovery response that the Prime Minister announced, and setting up regional groups to be able to ensure locality plans and approaches to deliver on responses that will work community by community is the way to go. This is no longer a command and control situation. We have to be responsive to the needs and the impacts of the cyclone as it has affected people, and I’m looking forward to ensuring that, certainly within our particular region, we’ve got greater local voice about what those solutions could look like and how to prioritise the investment decisions in infrastructure—for example, in the social network and social fabric of the impacts of the cyclone that will be very helpful to our whānau.

I wouldn’t be able to complete the speech without perhaps moving through to one of the areas where I have a specific interest, and that is in the area of climate change. It concerns me quite a bit as I move around the Pacific and I recognise the stark impact of climate change on Pacific communities as to what we need to think about here in New Zealand, and sea-level rise is a prescient kind of challenge for the people of the Pacific, but so too is it for our coastal communities. Again, I think about our communities all over New Zealand, and in my own electorate—certainly in the Coromandel—they are having to significantly consider the prospect of relocating or moving back. These are not easy issues—these are not easy issues—and these are going to be the challenges that a clear, pragmatic, and caring Government will need to grapple with as we respond to the challenges of our time and hear the views of our communities.

Also, fixed-income communities: I think about the challenge that they have right at this moment. That’s why our Government is responding in the way that we are. We’re providing supports to families and communities and fixed - low-income peoples in a way that will help them move through this difficult and challenging time. Were we not to do it, like some believe we shouldn’t, we’re basically assigning these very people, these communities, those most in need, into a place of helplessness, and that is not who we are as a Government. I’m proud of our Prime Minister, who continues to assert that we will take action, we will respond to the bread and butter issues, and we will get back to basics and address the needs of our community in a very pragmatic way, because we live in a time when these challenges are so complex, ever-changing, and compounding many of the things that our families are experiencing.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak in favour of the Prime Minister’s statement, and I hope that those who are listening to this debate continue to go back to his statement to hear what the direction of this country will be over the next coming months, because it is one that cares about people. Tēnā tātou.

Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in regards to the Prime Minister’s statement and take a call.

I want to first recognise the implications, as the Prime Minister noted in his statement, of the flooding that impacted Auckland, and, in particular, my electorate of the North Shore. Now, areas of my electorate, including Milford, Sunnynook, Stanley Point, Bayswater, Mairangi Bay, and elements of Takapuna, all suffered flooding and quite significant damage to multiple homes and households. The implication of that on businesses was also significant. My community, like many around this country, are continuing on that path to clean up and tidy up following those events.

As the prior speaker, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, noted, these events have and will and do reinforce the need for us to take action in regards to the resilience of our communities. The impact of climate change in terms of the impact on weather events that we are seeing much more regularly is absolutely a factor that we need to take into account in terms of our long-term planning. And for me, and for my community, that is something very much close to home.

While I’m on that topic, I want to call out one of our local heroes, and the gentleman’s name is Steve Clegg. Steve is the site manager at the Wilson Trust Home. The Wilson Trust Home is a home for children with disabilities, and it is one of the country’s leading centres, based in the area of Hauraki and Belmont, next to Takapuna Grammar. Steve, during the floods and the storms following, was noted by the principal of the Wilson School for basically coming out in the middle of the night with chainsaws to be able to cut a number of trees that had fallen, blocking that Wilson Trust site. I think it’s just one small example of local people responding to local issues in a way in which benefits all in our community. So, Steve, along with many others across our country, we acknowledge that work.

I was actually talking last evening to one of the extended-care paramedics that was deployed from Auckland into the Hawke’s Bay, and was, alongside our defence personnel, iwi relations, and other members, basically helicoptered in for the first week post that. It reinforced as well that actually the response and the applications felt in the Hawke’s Bay had meant that many people across this country have come to provide support and assistance for a community that has been significantly impacted.

For those within our local government areas, not only those local government councillors and mayors and emergency support staff and staff within our councils, not only in the regions heavily impacted but also those regions that have come to support those regions because they have the capability and the ability to support—I acknowledge them. Those members across all of our councils and local government have done an absolutely tremendous role in terms of leading a local response to what has been a local crisis. And the ability of, no doubt, local knowledge to be able to be deployed at pace has seen a number of significant benefits, and it’s added a significant amount of value to those Kiwis that are very much hurting and continue to hurt as we face the coming weeks.

In the Prime Minister’s statement, the other element that was also referenced was around the economy. The Prime Minister stated that inflation is biting into Kiwi household budgets and is impacting families. And he’s right—it absolutely is. Inflation is a significant implication and burden on hardworking Kiwis across this country. Inflation is at levels that are a significant point in our history. The reality is that a number of these factors are having a significant impact in terms of hurt that many Kiwi households are facing.

The challenge is that the hurt that Kiwis are facing is in part a result of the hurt from policies of this Government. That is the reality because we can no longer simply call out that the drivers of inflation are only as a result of global matters—that train has left the station. With global factors around supply chain constraints cooling, as outlined by Treasury and many other players, it moves us back to the reality that Government spending and the cost of this Government is driving the cost of living crisis that our families are facing. And we have to acknowledge that. We have to be able to look in the mirror and recognise that we and this Government have to—

Anna Lorck: Well, what are you doing about it; what are you going to do?

SIMON WATTS: —and do, have a role in regards to that. And it’s interesting—we’ve got a call from the other side saying, so what are we doing about it? So this is a really good example of a Government that cannot be accountable. They are a Government—they are a Government. But I’ll tell you what, quite happy to—if they want to call an election tomorrow, let’s do that and let’s swap sides and let’s get some stuff done. Because that is the reality of members on that side of the House that are simply not taking accountability or responsibility for the challenges that this country faces.

Anna Lorck: Where are the positive ideas?

SIMON WATTS: And they’re still going on, but I’m going to continue to focus on what is in front of us.

So why don’t we talk about the comments by the Prime Minister in regards to the three waters refocus—three waters refocus. I wanted to share a little bit of update stats because we’ve got some new numbers today; $35.8 million is the latest update in terms of how much this Government has spent on policy development for the three waters reforms—$35.8 million. That is the scale and significance of wastage of expenditure by this Government. And the Prime Minister in his statement says we are only going to refocus. They have had four long years of planning in regards to this reform. Surprisingly, when you get a polling result that shows you that 70 percent of Kiwis think this is an absolutely ridiculous idea, the Prime Minister, or the new Prime Minister, decides, well, it’s time for refocus. Well, we still have not heard what that refocus is going to be, even though they said it was going to be in a couple of weeks. But National has outlined a very clear plan. Here it is: local water done well. Here’s the solution: instead of $35.8 million of policy development, they can have the National Party policy for free. Here it is. It’s over here. Happy to table it; happy to have a read of it. It’s got all the answers. It’s going to solve the problems. If only this Government would listen.

It’s also interesting—the large number of councils across this country that have come in in support and endorsement of this policy, because National, right from the start, has said we will work with local government, not against them. It’s funny that the Prime Minister has added into this statement, now, that “we’ll work with local government”. I don’t know what they were doing for the last number of years, but that is the reality. They are spending $1 million a month on consultants and contractors on that failed mega-entity reform programme—$1 million a month. That is an absolute disgrace.

The Prime Minister also, in his statement, noted around the investment required in three waters to bring it up to scratch. The Prime Minister quoted numbers of $120 billion to $185 billion. These numbers are implausible. They are numbers that are simply based on the Scottish water model that independent experts have said are simply not the reality. Yet the Prime Minister continues to use such numbers in the public domain, which are not substantiated by a number of third parties across this country. So that is the reality of more information in the speech that doesn’t link with what’s actually happening on the ground.

The other aspect in the Prime Minister’s statement was actually around some information around education. We heard about these 82 attendance officers to turn around the over 100,000 kids that are in long-term truancy from school—82. So I’ll tell you what, I did the maths, because we had a question in the House today, if I recall, about let’s do the mathematics on what that is. So 1,219 students—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. It’s a real pleasure to speak here on the Prime Minister’s statement, a statement which made it very clear that this Government is absolutely focused on the main issues facing New Zealand. One of those main issues is, of course, the cost of living, and I found it actually really surprising to hear Mr Watts talk about three waters, because this Government has a plan, and the National Party plan that they propose is to tell local bodies to up their game, and that’s about it—and that’s about it. When asked, “Will that cost more?”, what was their—a sort of awkward shrug: “I suppose so.” It will. It will drive costs for families up. This Government is committed to looking for solutions that give families what they need and drive costs down, not just now but in the long term. This is not a short-term Government; this is a Government that looks ahead to achieve structural change in all parts of the economy.

I must say, I’m very happy to be given my new role as the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, especially given the fact that our focus is on making lives better for people who need it most. The consumer sector is one where there is a huge amount to do. It’s absolutely right that we’ve got to engage with the sector, whether that be finance, insurance, banking, wherever, but at the same time the absolute focus has to be: how do we deliver better and fairer prices to ordinary New Zealanders? That’s absolutely the focus of this portfolio, because there are power imbalances, and this is a Government that is committed to making sure that the vulnerable are looked after.

I do want to look back and look at the work that’s been done by previous Ministers. Think back to when we had truck shops going through South Auckland, selling at high interest, when we had loan sharks lending money at 600 percent interest to our most vulnerable communities. Where are they now? Well, they’re gone, and this is the Government that said, “It’s not good enough. We won’t put up with loan sharks preying on vulnerable consumers.” And we’re continuing that work. There’s work to be done across the board.

Of course, one of the places we’re looking is the grocery industry, and the market study that was commissioned by the last Minister showed that supermarkets are making monopoly profits. They’re making profits that they’re only making because of the powerful position they occupy in the market. We’re working on that, and we’ve got a whole programme to bend the curve of grocery prices. We know that there are tough times, that what’s gone on in the Hawke’s Bay is affecting what we see on our supermarket shelves and the prices, but what we want to see is a fair and an effective and equitable grocery sector.

I do want to say—and I know the member for Tukituki’s in the House—that the supermarket workers in the Hawke’s Bay did some great work in making sure that people could be fed. They were there, and who knows what was going on at home for them. I absolutely want to recognise that in situations like that, the people who put the power back on, the people who put the food on the shelves, they’ve got homes and families and lives as well, and they did a great job there, not only in the Hawke’s Bay but around the country. So I do want to recognise those people, who might not be earning a lot but what they do is an absolute lifeline. So, great work to those workers. You know, they’re the people that we do need to look out for.

I want to recognise that we’ve got to listen as well. You know, only moments ago I was speaking to advocates from Consumer New Zealand, who bring another perspective to this discussion, who do look and scan across the horizon for what’s going on and identify issues. We don’t necessarily agree on everything all the time, but I value the views of a diverse range of New Zealanders, and I’m committed to getting out there and listening to them.

So in the grocery sector, that legislation is going through the House and select committee now, but that wholesale supply framework, the ability for competitors to go and buy at the same price as supermarkets and distribute elsewhere—that will be a game-changer. The supply code, setting behavioural standards for supermarkets as to how they deal with other parties—that will be a game-changer. The Grocery Commissioner, a watchdog out of the Commerce Commission, an expert making sure the rules are stuck to—that will be a game-changer. We haven’t sat on our hands. We haven’t seen these large supermarkets getting super-profits and said, “Oh well, that’s just the way it is.” We have taken decisive action, and we’re going to see structural change. It’s not going to happen overnight; we’re not going to see the price of milk go down tomorrow, but in terms of the pressures on costs, this is one we don’t need. Monopoly profits going to large companies is something that we don’t need. Fair profits, fair game; monopoly profits we won’t have.

I was asked earlier today about the banking sector. You know, absolutely, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t let the banking sector get away with similar profiteering, and there are fair questions to be asked about how banks charge the amount of interest they do given the cost of the money that they use. They’re reasonable questions. I was asked whether there’s going to be a market study. Well, maybe there will, but we won’t rush into that. If there’s going to be a market study, we will do it carefully. We will do it in a considered manner. But the question when asking where we should be looking, is: where can the gains be made? Where can we return the most to ordinary New Zealanders, ordinary consumers?

One of the things I do want to look at is consumer data rights, because one of the things that the banking sector profits from is the difficulty of switching between banks. One of the challenges is that if we want to move banks, as you probably know, it’s not an easy thing. There’s a lot of information, there’s a lot of data to move, there’s a lot of credit history. One of the challenges is: how can we make that data absolutely transportable? How can we give a bit of data sovereignty not to the banks who hold it all but to the customer so that they can pick it up and move between banks seamlessly, much like we do with power companies? That would be another game-changer. We need an innovative finance sector, one where it’s customer focused and customer driven, and I absolutely endorse innovation in that sector. We need more of it.

You know, earlier today I was in this House speaking about the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service. It’s a fantastic innovation, an innovation of the Labour Party, where things weren’t working in Christchurch. There was the Residential Advisory Service, which was a narrow legal advice service; it wasn’t going far enough. This service addresses all of the needs: technical, social, mental, the whole lot. We can wrap around people and help them through what can be a very, very difficult process after a national disaster. This is a great innovation, and it’s one of the things we need to look at in terms of how we both avoid and resolve disputes, because if people are helped through some of these difficult situations, given the necessary information, given the tools and support to enter into decision making and make those decisions, then those very things that turned into disputes, we can avoid them before they emerge.

Again, the people who do this work are fantastic, highly skilled people, not just skilled in their areas of expertise but skilled in dealing with people and understanding them, and I want to give them a shout-out. I know that ahead of them they’ve got a lot of work. We know there’s a lot of damage, there’s a lot of people that need help, and I absolutely want to recognise the work that they do do and what they are going to do.

The other portfolio I’ve been given is State-owned enterprises, and, I must say, that’s one that you might not think of as being particularly policy-heavy, and it’s not, but when you think about it, there are billions of dollars of assets, over $7 billion of assets, and they’re held by New Zealand. They’re held for New Zealanders, and they are, again, some of our lifelines. Transpower: you know, that’s faced some challenges, but it’s done a great job in getting transmission lines back in the Hawke’s Bay. Kordia: most people wouldn’t even know the important role they play in the communications network. Airways, MetService—all of those things which are absolutely integral to the functioning of New Zealand, and, once again, the role of those entities is to deliver value, value in their services and value in their profits, back to New Zealanders so that New Zealand can be better.

So, absolutely focused. The Prime Minister is very clear that the cost of living is front and centre. The work that I’m doing is supporting people absolutely in doing that, both in the consumer affairs area—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Oh, there was so much more good stuff!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I’m sure.

As so many speakers have already done, I wish to talk—as the Prime Minister did—about the effect of the recent weather events. In particular, I want to focus on my electorate.

The extreme rain event started in Auckland on Auckland Anniversary weekend. I was at home in Titirangi and watching the rain just pouring out of the sky. It was an extraordinary amount of rain. That Friday night, my husband and I were evacuated from our house. There was a knock on the door at about 10 o’clock—“Could you please go and stay somewhere else for the night?” We were fortunate—we called friends and went and stayed with them.

The reason was a slip down the road—a slip which has resulted in three of my neighbours’ homes being red-stickered. Further down the road, another set of houses were red-stickered; further down again, more houses red-stickered. Right through my electorate, there has been that kind of response. Now, this happened before Cyclone Gabrielle.

The extraordinary thing was seeing all the damage, but then seeing my community turn out to help each other. As Michael Wood said, it’s “we”, not “me”, and that was so obvious in my community. The Titirangi Volunteer Fire Brigade was getting out there and delivering water to homes where there was no water. Of course, they were doing this in the midst of the sadness and worry waiting to hear about their colleagues in Muriwai—had they survived? How many were dead? So our volunteer fire brigades right across my electorate and out through Auckland played an extraordinary role in helping people that first weekend.

But there’s someone else who played quite an extraordinary role in helping people that first weekend, and that was our Deputy Prime Minister, Carmel Sepuloni, who, when an evacuation centre was stood up at St Leonards Road School on the Friday night, got there herself, got the centre running, found clothes and bedding for people, and spent the whole weekend there helping.

She had a whole swag of former All Blacks there helping, led by Sir Michael Jones and Maliena Jones. But when I say “swag”, there was not a swagger amongst them. They were there to serve and to help, as was all of my community. It was the extraordinary thing during this time.

But then, of course, carrying on from the floods which left devastation, we had the cyclone blowing through as well. Between the floods and the devastation, I think there is not a single area in my electorate that has not been affected. Houses were yellow-stickered in Glenhaven down on Margate Road, houses have been red-stickered and yellow-stickered in Green Bay along Cliff View Drive. Houses in Titirangi have been destroyed, roads have been taken out.

Houses in Laingholm have had slips destroy their access. The road access is destroyed after Huia, and more houses have gone. Karekare is heartbreaking: the road down there is still rated for emergencies only and residents only—and even then, only those residents who need to get up and down. I have been taken down and around Karekare twice by residents so that I could talk to the community groups on the ground to find out what they needed. All part of that community response. I’d especially like to refer to Shalema and Becks, to Sarah, to Jenny and Kim, who’ve been leading the community there in their response.

In Pīhā, houses are red-stickered. The road into Pīhā is fragile. The water and power there have been out for extraordinary lengths of time. They’re getting back on now. But the children now have a terrible problem getting to school because they can’t get across the roads—can’t get there safely. Big shout-out there to Jenene, to Lethi, to Amber, and to others who have led the community response in Pīhā.

In Waiatarua, the roads have been taken out. In Te Henga, Bethells, access over the roads is really, really difficult and houses have been red-stickered. Big shout-out to Mark Allen there who’s led the response. In Henderson, people have been flooded and around the Swanson Road area, the road is closed because of slips. The damage is extraordinary.

I would like, though, to praise the team effort by all the people there who hold elected office: MPs, city councillors, local body members—of all political stripes. Everyone has helped, and it has been great to see it happening. The need is ongoing, and I’m very grateful for this Government’s response and the work that has been put in by this Government—and, of course, by others—to support people, to support business, to support community. I particularly note the new role of the Minister for Auckland and how that will help in the response to this extraordinary event.

So this is an extraordinary time, and one where our Government will be doing its utmost to support those who are affected, and, of course, not just in my electorate, but through Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne and the East Cape, Wairoa.

Of course, while all this was happening—this extraordinary event which the Government has responded to—the ordinary work of Government has carried on. And part of the ordinary work of Government—even though it occurs only every five years—is the census. The census has had to carry on.

I’m pleased to report that today nearly 2.6 million individual forms have been returned. That’s not counting any paper forms—we’ll only get the paper forms in a week or so; we’ll only start to get at an initial feel for the size of the response by early to mid next week.

This Government has led a whole lot of work to make sure that groups that were not counted last time—that were under-represented in the count—have been counted this time. We’ve been trying to work particularly with our Māori and Pasifika communities, where the undercount was really worrying last time.

So this time around, there has been an iwi-led response to the census in some areas—where the data collection is being led by iwi and then the data is turned over to Stats. So instead of Stats collecting the data and turning it over to the iwi, it goes the other way around. That’s one way of increasing the reach into some communities, because it is done through iwi. In particular, this has been rolled out in the East Cape and the Far North. And, of course, that’s extraordinarily helpful at this time because people on the ground will have a better response. There’s been a Te Ao Māori unit within census leading some of the work around designing the census. The census is available fully in te reo, and census engagement groups have been at community events like Te Matatini encouraging people to respond to the census.

The same in Pasifika communities. There will be census outreach officers at Polyfest, and so on. Just last night, I was out in Porirua at what was called Census Fest, where Pasifika groups had deliberately set up—with the assistance of Stats New Zealand—to get a good response from Pacific communities. And Barbara Edmonds, our wonderful new Minister, says that 782 forms were completed at that event. So that’s all under way.

Of course, because of the storms, we’ve had to have a flexible response to the census—and the Government has been flexible and nimble in that regard. The time for collecting census forms has been extended, and there will be more boots on the ground, more people collecting the census for a longer period of time. People think that the census is just one day, but the census actually extends over a period of weeks, even months as we clean the data and so on. The important thing is that people do the census as at Census Day—or, as it turns out, the night of 7 March. So that is what we’ve done in respect of the census.

Just one final thing I wish to address.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Oh, please do!

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I wish I had more time. I think I just want to turn very briefly to what the previous speaker was saying about inflation and saying that it was the fault of this Government. So, Mr Simon Watts, I want to say to you: how is it that the Government spending in this country is responsible for the rate of inflation of Australia of 7.8 percent? How is it, Mr Watts, this Government is responsible for the rate of inflation in the UK, which is at 10.5 percent? How is it that this Government is responsible for the rate of inflation of the OECD as an average, which is 10.3 percent?

The rate of inflation in this country is 7.2 percent, and we are not alone in that. There is a worldwide pandemic of inflation, and this Government will be working hard to support New Zealanders to enable them to manage in what is a difficult time for the entire world. That is what lies behind the cost of living payment; that is what lies behind the increase in the minimum wage; that is what lies behind our efforts to help people; that is why fair pay agreements are so important: it is all about supporting the wages and the incomes of ordinary New Zealanders. And that is what this Government is committed to.

The next call is a split call. I call the Hon Michael Woodhouse for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Who knew there was a census fest? Not I, until the Minister of Statistics told me about it. But I will say this: Harry Styles did more to promote Census 2023 than the Government has, because up until last night it was New Zealand’s very best kept secret. Until Harry told the country that we were actually having one, most people didn’t know. Now, I hope, very much, that Census 2023 is a success, but I have much more hope than confidence, because it really has been very poorly promoted.

Now, I will also start by answering questions that Dr Russell said. Why is it that all those other OECD countries have inflation like ours? It’s generally because the OECD countries made exactly the same mistakes New Zealand did, by getting the printer out and quantitative easing up the wazoo and having a Government that has overseen profligate spending.

What we really need is a Government that does what every single one of the 5 million New Zealanders that it serves has had to do, and that is to control costs because times are tough. The only person who’s benefited from that inflation has been the Minister of Finance, who seems to think that because the tax take is high, he can continue to spend on things that are simply not adding value.

We’ve heard a lot from speakers on the other side about how much more money—we just heard it from Dr Russell—they’re spending on this, that, and the next thing. That is not a virtue. The public do not care how much money the Government is spending nearly as much as they care how much the Government is achieving, and on that the Government is failing dismally.

It’s failing in health. It’s poured a lot of money into health. Waiting times, access to treatment is going down and down.

It’s put lots of money into education. What’s happening in education? Well, who knows? We’ll get the whiteboard out and find out. But there’s a huge difficulty in just getting our kids to school, and when they are there, when compared with those OECD nations, they are simply not achieving.

Anna Lorck: Can you ever say anything positive, National? Honestly, it is just the most depressing argument.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: So much more money; so much little delivery. Oh, the MP for Tukituki is doing, yet again, another demonstration of why she’s going to be thrown out on her ear in just seven short months’ time—and a very good replacement is on its way.

Let’s talk about law and order. They crow about police numbers, even though they haven’t delivered them. Well, this is a really good example of where productivity matters, because I was a police Minister in 2015—that year that so many police Ministers over there say, “Oh, the funding was flat-lined.” Let me tell you what we did in that year: every single front-line police officer was given the technology to keep them on the beat and to prevent them from going back to the station to fill in paperwork. What that did was save 1.2 million hours of police time on dead-weight administration costs. That’s the equivalent of putting 600 more police officers on to the front line. But they don’t talk about that; all they talk about is how much money they can take out of Kiwis’ pockets and spend on their behalf. What Kiwis really want is results, and those results only come from a National-led Government.

As economic development spokesperson, I’ve been following the progress of the much-lauded industry transformation plans that Stuart Nash has been overseeing. I found the answer: the industry that’s been transformed most by these industry transformation plans has been the consultancy industry, because more than $8 million has been spent on consultants to prepare plans. That’s part of an expected $44 million of planned spending—maybe more—on those so-called transformation plans. What’s been the output? Very, very little. Lots of drafts. Lots of discussion documents.

Chris Penk: Lots of minutes.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Lots of talking points.

Chris Penk: Lots of memos.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Lots of memos, probably, and a few Cabinet minutes, as well, Mr Penk. But the industry that’s been transformed the most by this Government has been the likes of KPMG, Deloitte, and Pricewaterhouse. They’re good people. They do a good job. I’m a chartered accountant. I used to work for a KPMG associate. But they must be embarrassed by the amount of work that’s coming their way from a Government that creates 14,000 more bureaucrats and still cannot get the job done without outside assistance. Well, that just shows that after 5½ years, this country deserves better, and it’s coming in October this year.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It should come as no surprise that I use this opportunity to voice my concerns about the credibility of the new Prime Minister, having watched his inept performance as the Minister of Education over the past five years, where he’s overseen the abysmal decline of attendance and achievement in our compulsory sector and created an unmitigated disaster with his pet project, the centralisation of the polytechnic and industry training sector, Te Pūkenga.

I’d like to go through the four areas where this has been—

Hon Andrew Little: What? What’s the subject of this speech?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! I’m sure members on my right are going to have a chance to make a speech later on. Can we please give this chance to Penny Simmonds.

PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Let’s look at it financially, for a start. The Minister was trying to fix what was a $40 million problem. So far, he’s spent $200 million getting to where he is today, and, in an undisclosed business case that was submitted back in October but hasn’t been made available to anyone else yet, it looks like there’s another $500 million needed over the next five years to make it operational. At the same time, it is running a deficit of somewhere between $60 million and $100 million. The trouble is, when we talk about hundreds of millions of dollars, it becomes so eye-watering that we can’t actually understand how bad it is. But I can assure you, as someone who sat through a budget process every year for 23 years, running a tertiary institution where you played with trying to shift $2,000 out of here into $5,000 there and make things work, it is absolutely sickening to see hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted.

So, financially, it’s an unmitigated disaster, but equally as important is the impact that it is having on people: on the students and on the staff and with the ripple effect into the families of staff. I have seen the anxiety and the concern across staff not knowing whether they will have jobs or not, and they are right to be concerned about whether they have jobs or not. In just four months last year to November, 122 academics and 73 other staff either lost their jobs, resigned, or weren’t replaced. The business case that we have not had made available to us formally yet shows that another 487 staff are going to have to lose their jobs by the end of 2026—104 of those by the end of this year. So the impact on staff is real, the ripple effect on to the staff members’ families is real, and the impact on students who are not getting the delivery and the services they should be getting is real, and the complaints are flowing freely.

The other matter I want to talk about is the impact on innovation in the sector. Distracted people do not innovate; they are in survival mode. They cannot innovate, and where innovation has survived, head office has stamped on it with a very heavy foot. Let me give you the example of international education, which we desperately need to get back on its foils here and get our students back to fill our skills shortages. The head office has decided that the same fees should be charged by everyone all across the country. Do they not know when we are out in the world marketing for international students, we’re competing against Australia and Canada and the US and the UK, not each other? We don’t have to have the same fees. If we can do something innovative in our own communities, that should be encouraged, not stamped on.

The fourth area is the lack of understanding of the basics of restructuring and change management. Form does not come before function, and that is what this Minister, who is now our Prime Minister, does not understand. The media have tried to characterise him as “Mr Fix-it”; he is not.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call on Dr Tracey McLellan for 5 minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure today to stand in support of the Prime Minister’s statement, a statement that I thought summed up what this Government’s priorities are really succinctly and very concisely. No one should be in any doubt of what our priority is, and that is that this Government is working for you. We are here for you, we put people at the centre of everything we do, and we are here to talk New Zealand up, not talk New Zealand down. On the other side of this very honoured room, all we hear is speeches and naysayers and people who want to talk New Zealand down as if New Zealand wasn’t one of the very best places in the world to live and as if Kiwis don’t revel in the fact of how lucky they are. That is not to say that there are not challenges that we face, but more of that soon.

As many people have done in this House I would like to acknowledge whaea Georgina Beyer, who contributed so much to various communities, to New Zealand as a whole, and to humanity. I acknowledge her.

As many people have done, I’d also like to acknowledge all of the people who have lost so much and been through so much due to Cyclone Gabrielle, and all of those adverse weather events that have happened just recently. I particularly want to acknowledge our first responders, and all of the community groups, some of which existed beforehand and have done fantastic jobs, some of which have sprung up as a result of this to do their very best. Heroes and individuals who have really come to the fore to help each other out, I acknowledge you, and I’d also like to acknowledge our local MPs, many of whom have been on the ground every day, doing everything they can—particularly my colleague to my right here, Anna Lorck.

The Prime Minister’s statement, as I said, focused on the core things that we need to be thinking about as a country. One of the reasons that we’re able to do that and focus on what matters most to people, acknowledging those challenges that we face, is the reality that we ended last year with some pretty impressive strong economic growth. It’s simply a fact that our economy is about 7.9 percent bigger than before the start of the pandemic, and that it’s growing faster than many of the places that we compare ourselves with, like Australia, the US, Canada, the whole eurozone, Japan, and the UK. That’s pretty impressive.

We have record low unemployment, and we have what can only be described as world-leading Government books. That is something to be proud of. And, while we’re at it, the other side of this House have just spent numerous amounts of their precious time barking on about consultants, and how they would cut consultants and how they need to cut consultants, presumably to pay for what is a paucity of ideas that they’ve released so far in policy, but nevertheless under-costed, not well accounted for, and that’s hardly going to cut the mustard. Unless someone’s doing the work, by definition, no one is doing the work. So we either have more public servants, which the other side—National—constantly refer to in negative terms, or we have less analysis and less evidence to support policy. So, clearly, you can see the direction that they’re heading: they’re intending to do nothing.

One of the primary responses to the cost of living pressures that people are facing in this country has to be increasing wages and improving productivity, and the good news is, again, that wages are up more than 16 percent in the three years since December 2019. The increase that New Zealand workers waited nearly five years for, following the global financial crisis—so this side of the House is doing a good job.

When we think about supporting New Zealanders and supporting Kiwis, one of the themes that is coming through is workforce shortages, and we acknowledge that that is something that everybody is facing, not just in New Zealand, but it’s a global issue. Last quarter, while we had record employment and a really low, 3.4 percent, unemployment rate, we recognised that the flip-side of that, obviously, is that there’s been some shortages.

That’s why we’re supporting New Zealanders to learn and to upskill. More than 215,000 people have taken up those free apprenticeships and that targeted trades training. Almost 55,000 apprentices now have been supported through that Apprenticeship Boost initiative, and that’s one of the things I’m most proud about, and one of the things that I have no doubt in supporting the Prime Minister’s statement because of. Thank you.

Firstly, I’d like to pay a tribute to the whānau and those that lost loved ones in Kahungunu. I had the opportunity to visit there last week to help support our Ministers, to support whānau and our marae. Sadly, when I drove down some of those streets it reminded me of a Third World country.

Secondly, I’d like to also acknowledge and pay tribute to Georgina Beyer. During the time that she visited Rātana she was a trailblazer; she was dedicated, passionate, and committed to all the causes that she represented.

E moe, e moe, e moe mai rā e te anahera tapu. Haere ki te torona o Ihoa o ngā Mano.

[Rest in peace, sacred angel. Travel to the throne of the Lord God.]

I stand to support the Prime Minister’s statement. In particular, I want to focus this discussion, this speech, on tackling the country’s infrastructure needs and, in particular, it’s the housing issue, the shortfall that we had inherited. Before entering Parliament I was a member of the Whanganui Community Foundation Trust. In recognising this critical issue, they decided to tweak their strategy, to develop policy to help to address this issue at a local level.

In developing this policy, they received an application from an organisation called the Wai-Ora Trust. This organisation nurtures inter-generational prosperity and wellbeing within the community. They also provide opportunities for whānau to reach their potential through social services that they deliver on, training, and also employment. This is a humble, dedicated passionate organisation that has served for many, many years—with volunteers a lot of the time—in our communities. Their focus has been on low socio, homelessness, and the critical shortage of housing more recently. So in 2019 they established Te Kākano Kāinga Ora. It’s a company that they’ve established to meet the housing need through offsite manufacturing and developing short-term supported accommodation on sites.

Many examples like this organisation, across the motu, help to address the issues of the critical housing shortage that we have in this country. These organisations and others will go some way towards supporting the residential investment and we are committed to providing the confidence that we need to our developers.

I think also about another local entity, an entity that I recently went to an opening of, in terms of one of their initiatives, Tamaūpoko Community Led Trust. They assist communities along Te Awa Tupua o Whanganui—small rural communities like Hiruhārama, Rānana, Matahiwi, and Pipiriki. They aim to make a difference by listening to the voices of their people, and delivering on projects which they consider to be important to them, to their health, to their wellbeing, and to their welfare.

On the weekend, when I attended this opening—the opening was about a project and a community hub that they called River Valley. It was it was a whakaaro that was developed by the locals. They turned an old homestead near Rānana into a multi-purpose community hub. And I want to quote from the CEO, Daryn Te Uamairangi: “We listened to our local whānau, and what they needed was a multi-purpose space to operate a Civil Defence station, facilitate health services and primarily care for our kaumātua … where they can come to a whare just to be themselves.” The hub will be equipped with a tele-health clinic. I want to acknowledge the next generation of this group: Tiara, Shevvy, Isobel, Ariana, and the team who are our future generation. I want to also acknowledge the words of my colleague Minister Mahuta; she discussed innovative solutions. These are examples of solutions by locals for locals who know what the needs are in their community. I support our Prime Minister’s statement. Kia ora.

The next call is a split call. I call on Barbara Kuriger.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too, this afternoon, would like to acknowledge those who have had a really traumatic beginning to 2023—those who have lost family, friends, and homes. It’s been a very tough time for many people and we in Taranaki - King Country have been relatively unscathed in all of this, although I do want to make mention of the people in central Te Kūiti who, back in the stage where Auckland was flooding in the early stages, actually also had a state of emergency. So it’s been a very rough time for a lot of people.

In the Prime Minister’s statement, the Prime Minister said, “We’ve got to build back better, we’ve got to build back safer, and we’ve got to build back smarter.” I, as the conservation spokesperson, am spending a lot of time—as many people are, across the House, in the Environment Committee—looking at the replacement legislation proposed for the Resource Management Act. It’s been a lot like working in real time because, as we’re talking about how we build back better and how we should do things in the future and the submissions that we’re hearing from people who have been through a lot—it’s like actually doing legislation in real time because, normally, you know, we’re a little bit removed from what’s happening at the particular point in time, but, in this situation, we’re not.

We’ve seen a lot over the last little while on electricity and connectivity and the effects on our roads going out during times of these cyclones. I have to say that, actually, the roads weren’t good before. The Prime Minister said, “Business as usual won’t work anymore. We have to accept that … additional investment is going to be required”. But the other thing the Prime Minister said is that these people “are going to need to innovate, … we will need to innovate, and [we will need to] do things differently.” Well, I put it to you that, actually, to build roads, we are going to need metal; to build bridges and connectivity and all of those things, we’re going to need steel; and we’re not going to do it without the good use of our own natural resources. Because, at the end of the day, if we can’t grow it and we can’t dig it, then we aren’t going to have it, because there’s not many things in this world that currently exist that help us build our infrastructure without those things. Also, it doesn’t help us feed people, and I also acknowledge those people that have lost fruit trees and orchards and vegetable plots, because that hasn’t been easy either.

So I am looking at a lot of things in conservation now—as the new spokesperson looking at biodiversity, looking after the animals and the plants—and I dare say we’ve lost a lot of that on the East Coast and up in Tai Rāwhiti and Northland and Auckland and various other places. But we shouldn’t look at rebuilding our future as an either/or. It’s not going to be, “Should we use our natural resources or should we just do conservation?”—we have to actually use both. It’s an “and/and”, and unless we get that balance and circle right of the environment, the social factors, and the economic factors all working in tandem, we are not going to build back better. In fact, if we don’t actually think about all of those things, we’re not going to be able to build back at all.

So I have no doubt in the floods recently that we probably have lost a lot of possums and stoats and rats, and that’s a good thing. But we’ve also lost a lot of other farm animals—you know, indigenous biodiversity. And just even talking to people from Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust: the hard work that people have put in to those areas on their land, in perpetuity—a lot of that’s been washed away in the floods, as well as the fences, and the extent of that is not even currently known.

So the Prime Minister said, “The worthy will sometimes have to make way for the urgent.”, but when we actually live our lives as humans and we look at the population of New Zealand and the needs that we have, we need to take many things into consideration. We’ve done it before as a country and we did it through the Christchurch earthquakes, and I was down there recently and a lot of things have been built back better, but they haven’t been built back without resources, and we’ve got lots of good resources that we can use and we should do that looking forward. We will build back better, but we are going to have to agree on some ways forward. So thank you, Madam Speaker.

The next call is a split call. I call on Anna Lorck for five minutes.

Maureen Pugh: Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I’m sorry, Anna. Sorry. The split call was for National—she hasn’t taken her five minutes. The next call is Maureen Pugh.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate that. The Prime Minister’s statement—I just want to start by quoting a couple of phrases that he said. He started, obviously, by acknowledging the people and the properties in the North Island that had suffered, but he went on to say that “we would need to set a new direction for the Government and that we would have our focus squarely on the basics, including the cost of living that affecting New Zealanders,”, and went on to say, “We … need to make some tough calls and we will need to prioritise carefully.” And just yesterday, when questioned in the House, he went on to defend the massive blowout in consultants’ costs. It’s a massive $1.7 billion and counting. Now, if you combine this with the fact that the Government has engaged, and we’ve heard it today, an extra 14,000 public servants, one could be forgiven for thinking that there was in fact enough collective wisdom among that staff to do most things that need to be done or researched, or perhaps employ staff that have the skill sets that are needed. But, no, not this Government. There will always be occasions when there will be a need for specialist skills—no question about it—but $1.7 billion? And as the leader of the National Party in his response to the PM’s statement said, under, he said that under a National Government, this gravy train will stop—or, as John Dutton might say, “Take it to the train station.”

So rather than opposing, Chris Luxon has proposed a much better spend for some of that $1.7 billion, and that is to invest $249 million into the families of hard-working low and middle income earners, and he’s going to do that by giving up to a quarter of their childcare costs back in the form of a rebate. That is, if a family is earning up to $140,000 a year, they will get back $75 a week, and that will reduce up to a maximum income of $180,000 a year. And that’s on top of the existing subsidies and benefits, such as the 20 hours of free childcare for kids over three. So this is the type of direct benefit to families that we can achieve when we stop the wasteful spending and direct it where it really counts—into the pockets of those hard-working Kiwis.

And, as I said, much of the PM’s statement rightly acknowledged North Island families, businesses, and assets that had suffered as a result of the flooding and the cyclone, and we agree that there does need to be a massive investment to rebuild and to clean up. But the residents in West Coast - Tasman know only too well the impact of losing lives, homes, and land because of weather events. And day by day they clean up, they clean out, and they start the process of rebuilding their lives and properties. But at the same time, they live in hope that the essential works that have been promised will be delivered to them. Now, my concern is that this Government has started to allocate funds and give us a broad outline of the type of work that’s going to need to be done in the North Island.

But what we need to remember is this Government’s abysmal track record on delivery. So in Franz Josef in March 29, a storm caused the Waiho River to burst its banks, and it took out the Waiho River Bridge and it cut off the only road, State Highway 6. The council successfully negotiated with Labour and New Zealand First for $24 million to help protect that land below the Waiho River, and they said in late 2021 that there will be a plan in the new year but didn’t say what year that was going to be, so they still wait. And again in Westport, July 21, Westport was inundated. Cabinet is still to consider the $56 million protection scheme that was submitted to the Government.

So this is time to prove us wrong and deliver for the North Island communities, but I want the Government to also remember the West Coast communities that are still waiting.

Hawke’s Bay has been hit hard. We are hurting. We’re down, but we are far from out. We will get up and we will rebuild. Having lived my life in this great region of Hawke’s Bay, I have never seen so much devastation. But, Madam Speaker, and to the House, I have never seen so much support and strength come from our community and from across the country to help Hawke’s Bay in our time of need. The outpouring of support and how we’ve worked together is what will keep us together and will see us become one of the best provincial regions in this country that we’ve always been and, I know, we always will be. The message I have from Hawke’s Bay is that we are going to be growing, and growing more. We have the talent, the experience, the workforces, and the people who know better about how to grow a region. We do grow the best apples and pears for the world.

Now, I think it’s important that I now note the latest report from New Zealand Apples & Pears, which has been the assessment of the damage and what hasn’t been damaged in our region for our orchardists. It came in the way of a Radio New Zealand report. But rather than use their headline, which said, “Almost 4000 hectares of apple orchards in Hawke’s Bay”, what I would like to say is more than half the apple orchards in Hawke’s Bay will be harvested and will export the best apples in the world for higher prices. That’s what I think we need to turn to.

We cannot take away from the devastation. We cannot take away from the lives lost. I would like to acknowledge those people who have lost their lives and I’d like to acknowledge those friends and whānau who have also lost loved ones.

But I do also want to say that without the help that we got—it was incredible to see so many people come together. It was the people of our region who got us through in those first few days, especially when we had no communications. I’d like to really make a shout-out to the helicopter pilots who flew in saving hundreds of people off rooves; to the neighbours who saw neighbours on rooves or needing to get on boats to go and save people—everybody did whatever they could at that time to save as many people as they could.

I want to acknowledge our Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers, many of whom were caught up in the flooding, but also their employers and the pastoral care that was given to them through all of the rescue and evacuation centres, all the generosity that came through. Again, it is the support that has kept Hawke’s Bay together.

I want to acknowledge Pakowhai School and the principal, Tim, and parents Amanda and Leslie, who cleaned their whole school out in time for the ministry to come in, and within 12 hours after two weeks of being closed, they were given the tick to let the kids back in so that they could get back to a little bit of normality, because kids need to know that that special universe of school is a safe place to strive and thrive, and get back to that way of being normal.

I could acknowledge so many more people, but I would like to take this time again to say thank you to everyone. Thank you so much to all and everyone who have done so much to help Hawke’s Bay in our time of need.

I call on Ingrid Leary for five minutes.

It’s quite an honour to speak after my friend and colleague Anna Lorck, and I have to add my thanks to those that she has listed, actually, and for the incredible work that she has done for the people of Hawke’s Bay over the last few weeks. I think it’s fair to say there’s not a more energetic MP in this House, a more passionate advocate for the Hawke’s Bay, and so in their hour of need they really do have a great champion here. It’s great to hear her stories that she has been sharing with us, and wishing those communities all the best over the coming weeks.

It is International Women’s Day and I’d like to put a gender lens over the Prime Minister’s statement, but it’s also fitting for me to acknowledge my good friend who passed away, Georgina Beyer. I knew Georgina many years ago, when I was a journalist and she was a stripper. Our paths have crossed many times and Georgina has always been the best of company, the most gracious, fun, honest, humble, and passionate advocate for women’s rights, and I miss her very much this week.

It’s also a day when we should be looking at where women are, and that’s why I want to put this gender lens over the Prime Minister’s statement. I can tell you that even though the Prime Minister hasn’t explicitly done so himself, when I see the statements that he’s made and the plans for our country, they stack up very well, and the reason is because when it comes to the cost of living, it is often women who are hit the hardest. When it comes to targeting support, the support that is being given by this Government is really for those who are hit the hardest, and that includes so many women.

One of the areas that he alluded to was fair pay agreements. They are a crucial tool for making sure that we can not only improve productivity but also increase wages, and many of the groups that are impacted will be women’s groups. There are three industries that have made an application for fair pay agreements and two of them—supermarket workers and hospitality workers—are particularly full of women, and so they will benefit for that. That will be a game-changer.

We heard today from the Minister for Women in the House that under this Government, the gender pay gap, while sticking stubbornly at 9.2 percent in the private sector, has dropped fairly dramatically, from around 12.2 percent to around 7 percent, for women in the public sector, and that’s been as a result of a strong push by our Ministers. But we’re also making sure that the incomes of our lowest-paid workers are able to keep up with inflation, and, once again, women are overrepresented in that cohort. So we are increasing the minimum wage to $22.70 from 1 April. Now, that’s an additional $60 a week for those workers, and for many mothers that means the difference of working one job instead of two, or two jobs instead of three. It can mean being able to pay the fees for their kids to be able to do extra school activities, playing sport, being able to catch a bus, maybe buy some equipment for their children, and so on, because it is often the women who are putting the needs of the children first.

We have also reversed a freeze on the income indexation threshold for childcare eligibility put in place by National in 2020, and it’s interesting that Maureen Pugh would raise National’s policy around childcare. It’s fantastic to see that National have finally come to the party, but the problem that I have is that she’s saying that the money that will be saved will go into the back pockets of parents. When I look at the policy as it’s currently done: first, it’s not costed, so if people increase childcare, if they increase their hours, there’ll be a blowout; and, secondly, there is nothing to stop the childcare centres—particularly those that are for profit—from increasing their fees for parents. So it’s great that National are now seeing the value of that for parents, but the way that they’re going about it, once again, hasn’t been thought through. It is not going to make the difference to women, and it is not going to make the difference to women being able to get out and work with that support.

There’s a whole context around which these changes are coming, and there are many things that our Government has done to specifically increase support for women. We’ve introduced the Families Package, we’ve recorded the lowest gender pay gap in recent history, we’ve got the highest number of women in Cabinet, we have the highest number of women in our Parliament—many thanks to the Labour Party. So the Prime Minister’s statement definitely looked at the impact on women, and for that reason I’m very proud to support it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I beg your pardon for referring to you as Madam Chair. I rise this afternoon to respond to the Prime Minister’s statement, but before I get into the detail, I’d just like to take a few moments to address and acknowledge the devastating effects of the Auckland flooding and of Cyclone Gabrielle. I don’t think that I can really add much to what my colleague Anna Lorck has said so movingly earlier, but, like many Cantabrians, I am very aware of the realities of living through a disaster of this magnitude.

I remember the feelings of fear, fear for my children and loved ones, hopelessness in the face of such widespread destruction, and genuine concern for the future. But through all of it, what I remember really clearly is how the community pulled together, from the very small things—you know, kids baking muffins for the evacuation centre, people piping spring water to the street—to, of course, the enormous heroism of our first responders, ours and those who came to support us from overseas. Watching people responding to the floods and cyclone with the same concern for each other and the same heroism has been a powerful reminder to me of who we really are as a nation, and I want to add my immense gratitude to them for everything that they have done and continue to do, as well as my sorrow over the lives tragically lost.

So, yet again, we are looking to how we can support each other. We’re looking to how we can rebuild, looking to how we can recover and build back better. The Prime Minister said we will do what it takes, that we will stand by New Zealanders as we recover, and he said you are not alone. I wholeheartedly endorse that statement because we do have some very real challenges ahead. We know that in order to support New Zealand families and businesses through the difficult economic conditions that we’re facing, we have to get back to basics and respond to the cost of living pressures that all families are facing.

I’m very proud to be the MP for Ilam. It’s an electorate that is incredibly diverse. It’s diverse in all respects. We have arguably the richest blend of ethnic communities. I’m sure to hear no argument about having the best university in the University of Canterbury. We have the best international airport in New Zealand. We have the best wildlife park and best tourist destinations. We also have the second largest social housing area in Christchurch, and we have a real mix of the highest and lowest socio-economic status, and everything in between.

So when I heard the Prime Minister talk about how we’re investing, for example, in public transport, with the extensions on fuel excise reductions, road-user charges, and half-price public transport, I immediately thought of what that would mean to my community, to our large student population, to those on low incomes. With transport being the third largest expense to households, after housing and food, and the average cost saving that this represents of about $17.25 for a 60 litre tank fill up or $25 on public transport, this will make a huge different just in and of itself. These half-price public transport fares have been made permanent for community services card holders and Total Mobility card holders.

From 1 May, 1.2 million New Zealanders will receive up to $31.82 a week to help with their heating through winter, through the winter energy payment. In April, New Zealand Superannuation and main benefit rates will increase. That’s not the only thing that’s increasing, we continue to support workers by raising wages. From 1 April, we’re increasing the minimum wage, again, to $22.70. This will maintain the real value of more than 200,000 workers’ incomes and ensure that our lowest-paid workers are able to keep up with the increases to the cost of living. From $15.75 in 2017 to $22.70 on 1 April—that’s the rise in the minimum wage that Labour has overseen. That’s $15.75 to $21.20 in six years, and we increase that to $22.70 in a month or so. The National Party oversaw an increase of $12 to $15.75 in nine years. The ACT Party—well, they want a moratorium for the next three years, and, unfortunately, the National Party describes it as a great shame that we’ve increased the minimum wage so much. A great shame—putting cash in the hands of our lowest earners!

But because it’s International Women’s Day, I’m going to move to something a little bit more positive. Happy International Women’s Day. It’s worth highlighting that this week, only this week, our Minister for Women, the Hon Jan Tinetti, signalled a historic pay equity settlement for 1,200 school librarians and library assistants, and around 400 science technicians. Those new pay equity rates will mean that school librarians and library assistants will have their income increased by between 10 and 38 percent, and the science technicians between 20 to 40 percent—that’s massive. Since the passing of the amendment to the Equal Pay Act in July 2020, there have been six claims involving 110,000 people who have had their pay corrected—110,000 people—and we’ve got another 27 claims under way.

But I know you want to hear more about Ilam. Because it’s my favourite subject, I obviously want to talk about it more, and that’s fair enough. We are closing the housing shortfall that we inherited, and we’re doing that in Ilam too. Under this Government, there are 11,473 more public houses, including 9,236 newly built homes. This Labour Government has delivered nearly one in seven of all New Zealand public housing stock. In Ilam, construction began on a new Kāinga Ora housing redevelopment just around the corner from my office in Bryndwr. That’s 34 new, dry, warm homes for people in need. It’s a mix of two-storey, one- to five-bedroom units, with a communal garden and a play area and lots of recreational green space. Eight older existing houses were demolished to make way for those 34 new, warm, dry homes. And that’s not all we’re doing in Ilam. This is only one of many redevelopment sites in Bryndwr and Burnside. In the next few years, up to 113 new units on 14 sites will replace 39 older units. That’s another 113 warm, dry homes.

But wait, there’s more—of course there’s more. In his statement, the Prime Minister spoke about the importance of investing in our schools and in our kura. And he announced, last week, a further $301 million for Christchurch schools to complete building and refurbishing 115 schools in the next two years. We celebrated the opening of the first set of new classrooms with the Prime Minister on Friday at Heaton Intermediate School, and it was fantastic to see students in their warm, dry, learning environments—modern, beautiful spaces—after such a long journey. And on Friday morning, the same day—before that—I was absolutely honoured to be able to turn the first sod at Fendalton Open-air School to mark the beginning of their rebuild. It was a good day for schools in Christchurch. As I said before, it was a long journey, but I’m so honoured to be a part of it and to have been a part of it, and what this does is send a really strong message to people who are currently in the aftermath, experiencing the aftermath, as they’re still in the grips of flooding and cyclone damage.

What this says is, as the Prime Minister said, we are with you, as we have been with every challenge we’ve faced since Labour came into Government, because Labour shows up for the people of New Zealand. Labour shows up each and every time. And that’s why I support the Prime Minister’s statement.

This is a five-minute call—Nicola Grigg.

I think, as the old saying goes, the best offence is a defence, and I think when the Government sees its polls tanking as they are, it is in defence mode. It is defending, defending, defending. I would like to respond to the Prime Minister’s statement as well and express absolutely no confidence in this Government.

As has been acknowledged by a number of speakers before me, it is International Women’s Day, and unfortunately for the women of New Zealand, they are the recipients of absolutely nothing from a Government that has had five years in power and has failed to deliver on every single metric that would advance the rights of women and girls in New Zealand. This Government has an absolute inability to get things done. There was nothing in the Prime Minister’s statement that would advance women and girls in New Zealand.

But I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all of the tireless work of the NGOs that operate in this space, particularly organisations like Mind The Gap, the Gender Justice Collective, the Breast Cancer Foundation, just to name a few. These organisations are doing the Government’s work for it because it simply cannot deliver, and the wider sector can see that.

We have heard a lot of back-slapping and self-congratulations from the Government today but absolutely nothing on how it’s going to address the issue of getting the 11,000 women who lost their jobs during COVID back into the workforce. Those women are still languishing, and after years in the making, the Government’s Women’s Employment Action Plan offers nothing but vague promises and waffle, as we have become so used to from this lot—vague promises and waffle, and loose commitments like “it will monitor women’s participation in the workforce”; all the while, real outcomes are going backwards. The gender pay gap is still sitting at 9 percent. The last National Government dropped it by 3 percent; since this lot came into power, it hasn’t shifted. They haven’t done a thing.

Most worryingly is the absolute inaction on healthcare for women in New Zealand. New Zealand women’s lives are at risk: 50,000 women missed a mammogram and 50,000 women missed their cervical screening tests during COVID. I have not heard one action statement from this Government, particularly from the Minister of Health or the Minister for Women, that has shown any energy, any impetus, to address those backlogs.

At least on this side of the House, we are coming up with plans. Dr Shane Reti has announced that if we are in the next Government, we’re going to extend mammograms for women aged 69 to 74 years old. That will save the lives of 65 women a year. We will also address those backlogs. We know where the fat in the system is; we know we can get through those backlogs in a matter of years, at the cost of $15 million. On this side of the House, we do the work. We get things done. I’ve always said that if we want to reduce women’s inequality in society, we have to reduce the inequities in healthcare.

The Ministry for Women’s own studies show women are missing out, with a conservative estimate of $116 million a year, because they can’t access childcare. Again, on this side of the House, we’ve got a plan. We’re going to cut this Government’s ridiculous spending on consultants and workforces and the general gravy train of up to $250 million. We’re going to make sure 130,000 families in New Zealand get a $75-a-week rebate so that their kids can go to early childhood education, so that the mums, who it more often than not falls on, don’t have to make the choice between educating their kids and going back to the workforce and having a life of their own, socialisation of their own, and their own independent income.

I doubt any woman in this country would express confidence in this Government, and I certainly do not.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in response to the Prime Minister’s statement. I just want to say first at the outset that my thoughts very much go out to those who’ve been affected by the floodings, the cyclone events around the country. I want to extend my gratitude to all those men and women who have put their own safety at risk to help others, and continue to do so. I’ve travelled to Hawke’s Bay, I’ve travelled to Gisborne, Tai Rāwhiti, to see the impact and just to talk to people who’ve been affected by these flooding events, and it is very significant. I want to really say that my heart goes out to them and thank you to everyone who’s working really hard to assist them at this time of need.

The Prime Minister said that he is going to set a new direction for the Government and reprioritise work streams. Can I suggest that the Prime Minister focuses on the primary sector. The primary sector has been deeply impacted in many parts of the North Island through these flooding events, and we need to see a Government actually step up and realise the impacts that these events have had on them, and the impact that Government policy has had over the last five years on the primary sector.

We see food prices at the highest they have been in 30 years in this country—food is at the highest it’s been in 30 years. This means people in our country are going hungry. We need to thank those who are working hard to make sure they produce food in this country and we need to make sure they have got policy settings that can actually enable them to get on with doing the work to produce food, rather than focusing on how to deal with an endless array of changing and differing work streams that are coming from different Government departments that are often not integrated—it appears Government departments aren’t talking to each other and there’s about 20 different tennis balls coming over the net at farmers and other primary producers around the country.

This is a time when there is a cost of living crisis and it’s absolutely critical that the Government actually steps back from its work streams and says, “OK. What is important? What should we prioritise?” So I think the Prime Minister has identified the issue that his Government has got too much work under way. It has got too many work streams. The Government has been going in the wrong direction for five years. I would say, fundamentally, the only way it’s going to go in the right direction is to get a new Government in October this year. But in the meantime, it’s critical that the Government actually reduces this workload on our producers, on our orchardists, on our farmers, on horticulturalists, on those who are producing food for New Zealand.

In respect of health, I’ll note that the Prime Minister said the Government is committed to ending the postcode lottery for health in New Zealand. I have written on a number of occasions over the last couple of years about the disparity in rural healthcare in my region, in Southland. For just one example, patients in Te Ānau have to pay for their own blood tests and X-rays or travel 4½ hours return to Invercargill or Queenstown to get to the nearest hospital service where those services are free. I have asked repeatedly for this to be addressed, as have the healthcare providers in that region who have been asking for about a decade for that issue to be addressed; it has still not been addressed.

The CEO of Gore Health has written to Te Whatu Ora, raising the issue of the rural trust hospitals of the southern region of New Zealand, which have been existent for about quarter of a century, and both Balclutha and Gore Health Ltd have secured their financial self-sustainability by establishing complementary health services alongside our publicly funded hospitals. However, for the last 10 to 15 years, Gore Health’s been forced to take 5 percent funding cuts, restructure staff on three occasions, and reconfigure their clinical workforce, given the lack of funding, which has made employing rural hospital specialists unfeasible. They’re running at deficits of roughly half a million dollars per year, solely due to significant under-funding. I would suggest that issue needs to be addressed urgently.

Another issue is workforce shortages. This is a huge issue right across the country, and certainly right across my region. Although we’ve been very fortunate to have a great tourism season in the southern part of the South Island—the weather has been good and the people have been coming—we just don’t have the workforce to address those. Frankly, the immigration settings need to be urgently reassessed and looked at.

And finally, accommodation is a big issue. Just today, I presented a petition to the House on zoning difficulties in my region. I would hope the Deputy Prime Minister, who I’ve written to on a number of occasions about that issue, pays attention to this and addresses the issue. This is very important to my region.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to start off my contribution by acknowledging the horrendous weather events that we’ve been having across Aotearoa New Zealand. These moments are trying for our nation, and I think there’s no other team in this country right now that has been tried more than our new ministerial line-up that had just been appointed before the Auckland floods and now the cyclone as well. I am so proud of the new Ministers that have been appointed and our new Prime Minister, who have been tasked to lead our country out of the devastating effects of the cyclone and the flooding, but also to build back better after these horrific weather disasters.

Lots of people in the electorate have been telling me that this is a Labour team, a new Labour team, that has received a baptism by fire and we stood up to the challenges. But like I think my colleague Vanushi Walters said yesterday, this is a team that puts people at its heart, people before politics. And I too want to recognise all of the other members of this House who have rolled up their sleeves and got into helping their communities.

During the first Auckland flooding and the days after, I saw the best of our communities. I saw businesses who were willing to donate unlimited amounts of food, grocery products—a shout-out to lots and lots of different Asian supermarkets that reached out to me; a particular healthcare provider who was able to supply us with disposable gloves and single-use items. I especially shout out to one of our personal care hygiene companies/manufacturers in New Zealand, who were able to give us toothpaste, body wash, shampoo—those essential items that were so badly needed in those emergency centres across Aotearoa. I was just so privileged to just be a little tiny part of that response in order to witness the amount of generosity our community has for each other.

I’m extremely and particularly pleased that we now have a Minister for Auckland in the Hon Michael Wood. And I was just really relieved to hear our Prime Minister talk about Auckland, saying that if Auckland is well the rest of the country is well, and recognising that Auckland as the largest city in New Zealand is the powerhouse to our economic recovery, whether that was post-COVID or, now, it’s post cyclone and flooding as well.

And straight after the appointments, a week later, we had the Minister of small and medium enterprises, the Hon Ginny Andersen, coming up to Auckland and meeting with so many business associations around the table at the Employers and Manufacturers Association. And it was actually during that meeting I saw the humility and the care that she had for small businesses and the understanding she had of that sector in such a short amount of time. I saw the commitment she had as well in terms of being able to be there for that sector and to be advocating strongly around the Cabinet table for that sector. It’s Ministers like her that really make me see that the road ahead for us in the near future will be one that we will do cohesively and we’ll do confidently, and it will be one that we do together with our communities as well.

In Auckland, it is going to be a very trying time as it is when we hear about the news in Hawke’s Bay, in Gisborne, and a special acknowledgment to our colleagues over there, the Hon Stuart Nash, Anna Lorck, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, and the Hon Meka Whaitiri. They are MPs who are on the ground every day with their communities. We’ve heard about the devastation there has been, especially to our horticultural, viticultural, and agricultural sectors, and we know that a lot of those communities there will be still feeling the effects of that cyclone for many more weeks, months, and even years to come. And so we all commit our energy and also just our aroha to that region as well in supporting them.

One of the things that I had been reflecting on as the cyclone hit the East Coast of New Zealand is actually our trade. Trade to New Zealand is such an important component of our economic wellbeing. And whether that’s trade in terms of with some of the bigger players in the world, the bigger countries, the bigger markets like China, the UK, or the EU, or even smaller countries like Korea, Japan, Vietnam that we’ve been setting up over the last few years—those are milestone free-trade agreements that this Government has gotten over the line, has signed, has done the deal. And those will be the free-trade agreements and those significant relationships we have internationally that will also help us navigate out of our next financial hardship we have on the horizon.

As I reflect on when all the crops in Hawke’s Bay were being destroyed and affected, what is the next milestone for trade? And I reflect on things like a more sustainable future. When I was in Chile with the Speaker on the Speaker’s delegation last year to Latin America, the Latin American market was telling us that they want to consume products from overseas with a conscience. So what does that mean? It means that they want to know that their products have been grown sustainably. They want to know that they’ve been paid a fair wage, and those who have been in the supply chain. They want to know that the products that they’re consuming are not having the detrimental effect on the planet as other products are compared to other nations. So this, I hope, is a turning point in our nation where we start to really embrace our sustainable future and not look at that just as, yes, we have to sacrifice some of the productivity or we have to look at the costs of where we have to take that away from some of the income earning that we have to do. I want this House to see the next phase of trade and sustainability as opportunity for New Zealand so that we get ahead and so that we are actually reacting to what consumers, what the markets, actually really want from New Zealand, which is that clean, green “100% Pure” New Zealand.

Over the weekend as well, I was really privileged to step in on behalf of the Hon Peeni Henare to welcome the very first tour group from China to New Zealand. China had been New Zealand’s second largest tourism market pre-pandemic and finally, after so many years—almost three years, actually more than three years—we finally welcomed the very first tour group. And gosh, it was exciting. It was very memorable.

So, like I said, if we are to sell our image as “100% Pure” New Zealand as our tourism branding, then we need to live up to that expectation. So that’s why I’m really proud, as chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee, that we’ve been pushing through legislation like the freedom camping legislation to make sure that all those who come on to our shores, those who actually choose New Zealand as their tourism destination, actually leave it just as clean as when they first found it.

And speaking of the EDSI Committee, we know that right now the cost of living is on the mind of every single New Zealander as one of their biggest concerns. And you would have heard in the Prime Minister’s statement that he was addressing our Government’s plans to tackle that and to support New Zealanders through a very hard time. In the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we’ve been actually working really hard in the recess trying to pass the Grocery Industry Competition Bill, and there’s been about three that have come through our select committee—and a shout-out to the new Minister, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb—there we go! There’s a few more prefixes for him. That bill is such a great bill in the sense that it not only addresses the land that supermarkets put covenants on but right now also the current bill is addressing the supply chain issues as well.

We had the grocery sector come into our select committee and talk about how their profit margins weren’t as high as we thought they were and then how they did that whole 6.8 percent, I think, price comparison as compared to the inflation. We heard all of that. But then as we took a deeper look into the supermarket sector, we started realising that the statistics that they were telling us of, just the label price increase, wasn’t counting things like merchandising fees, wasn’t counting the fact that they were charging producers for their product placement and for promotion as well, and that suppliers to supermarkets actually have to pay for labour to go and do the shelving as well.

So as we dived deeper into the supermarket sector, we realised the importance of competition in that sector. And this Government, through our legislation, is shining a light on that sector and also bringing them in line with what is in the best interests of New Zealand. By being able to tackle the lack of competition in that area, we are able to, hopefully, bring a better deal to all New Zealanders, and bring about competition in our grocery sector, and I really, really hope that more and more supermarkets will choose New Zealand to be their next country to venture into and that we can actually provide an environment to do business that is fair, that is sustainable, and that is actually to the benefit of all New Zealanders.

That’s the future we’re going to help achieve for New Zealand, and that’s why I support the Prime Minister’s statement.

This is a split call. Five minutes, Sam Uffindell.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I’d just like to once again send out my condolences to all of those people who have been very adversely impacted by the disasters that we have had in Hawke’s Bay and in Tai Rāwhiti, Coromandel, Northland, and other parts of the country.

I’d also like to extend my congratulations to the new Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins, for ascending to the position—genuinely, well done to you on that. To the outgoing Ministers, thank you for your service to this House. To the incoming Ministers, I hope that you can work in the interests of this country and achieve what you can while you are Ministers.

Turning back to the Prime Minister and his statements now, I want to focus a little bit on this Prime Minister and his success, or lack thereof, as a Minister. I think, as the Minister of Education—

Jamie Strange: You were doing so well.

SAM UFFINDELL: I know. I’m sorry, Jamie. But you’re leaving soon, so I’ll let it go. We have seen truancy increase tremendously under this Government. We have seen education standards fall significantly, where we’ve got to the point where two-thirds of our children are failing basic literacy and numeracy tests, and if we want to have a First World nation, we are going to struggle unless a National Government comes in and can turn this around.

We had the former Minister of Police watching over numerous ram raids. This soft-on-crime Government, under the former Minister of Police; a soft-on-gangs Government. I’ll turn my attention to his record as the COVID Minister who failed to get rapid antigen tests into the country and failed to get the vaccines in here that we needed. As a result, we were one of the countries that was locked up longer than anyone else and we had to go into another lockdown in Auckland, ruining the mental health of the people up there and costing this economy billions of dollars.

As we’ve heard over the few weeks since we’ve been back in the House, the former Minister for State Owned Enterprises hired numerous consultants—14,000 more bureaucrats in Wellington. Well, we’ve got a worker shortage, so my suggestion to the Prime Minister is to enable those people to go back into the more productive areas of our economy.

Then we’ve got other parts about this Prime Minister. He’s got that schoolboy image, I know, but I wouldn’t believe that smiling face, because we’ve seen the lying and the deceit that’s happened. We’ve seen how he treats pregnant journalists who want to get back into this country, where he lies about—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, but the member will stand, withdraw, and apologise. You cannot accuse another member of lying in this House.

SAM UFFINDELL: I stand and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And desist.

SAM UFFINDELL: And desist.

Hon Member: Withdraw.

SAM UFFINDELL: I did withdraw and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carry on.

SAM UFFINDELL: We saw this Prime Minister getting confused recently around Hawke’s Bay people who had had guns held at them by gang members, and then saying that they didn’t have that. We saw the former COVID Minister saying that two ladies went into Northland. He called them prostitutes, and we know that they weren’t and that they had valid passes in there.

So I am very concerned about this Prime Minister. I would encourage New Zealanders to be concerned as well, and I would encourage them to be concerned about this Government, who have delivered five years of failure—five years of failure in health. We’ve got Emergency Department times up. People are waiting months and years to get specialist treatment or surgery. In my city of Tauranga, in my electorate, people can’t get the treatment they need. They have to go to Waikato to get it, and some of them are actually choosing palliative care.

We’ve already talked about the failures in education. We have consumer, farmer, and business confidence at low, low levels. We’ve got lawlessness, youth and gang crime out of control, crumbling Second World infrastructure, and immigration settings that are totally unequipped to deal with the worker shortage that we have. We are in a world environment where it is a global labour market and we are not recognising that, at the complete detriment to businesses throughout New Zealand.

We’ve got ideologically driven student politicians trying to run our country, and they are running it into the ground. Inflation is rocketing up—the highest it’s been since the early 1990s. We have a cost of living crisis, a housing crisis, prices and rents up, and we are causing a generational divide by locking people out of the housing market. We have an inability to get things consented and an inability to get things done. This Prime Minister is not the person to do it, and we need Christopher Luxon and a National-led Government on the Treasury benches.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I just want to acknowledge the passing of members of Parliament. We’ve had three members that have passed in the last week or so—especially Chester Borrows, who was in my year in Parliament. Whoever comes in this place, whatever side they’re on, it makes a great sacrifice from their family and their community, so I just want to acknowledge all of the leadership that’s been delivered by those three people.

I also just want to acknowledge my good friend Tama Potaka here, who did an excellent maiden speech yesterday, and really showed the leadership, I think, that he ensues as an individual. I think there’s a great political career ahead of him, so I wish him all the very best in representing Hamilton West, which is the second part of Hamilton, behind Hamilton East, of course, but an equally important part of Hamilton as well.

I couldn’t help, when we just heard that last speech, but look across the side at the other side, and I don’t think any of them are coming back. I can’t see any one of these people that will actually come back at the next election. I just couldn’t—OK, I don’t know the names of some of them, and I must admit that’s very poor of me, but, effectively, none of those people on that side will come back. OK, Willie might have a chance. He may have a chance on a really good day—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Bennett.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —but it’s unlikely—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Bennett.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —he’s coming back.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Bennett, could we use full names, please, in the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: The Hon Willie Jackson is the only one that, potentially, is going to come back, but that’s a big call too. But I guess that’s what happens when you come in on the big roll and you go out with the next big roll. The Prime Minister’s statement was the chance for all that backbench there to actually think they had something salvageable out of this year, and they would have sat there and they would have been so disappointed.

The only person I saw that had a little tinge to their smile was Michael Wood, and he was sitting there going, “How do I put this leader under the bus? How do I actually make sure that this guy gets smashed at the next election?” He was sort of thinking in his socialist-communist way of how he could achieve that goal, and he’s fomenting, in his little corner of the House here, and working out what his little tricks and trades will be to take the Prime Minister down.

You know, it’s unfortunate when a political party gets to that stage, and it does happen and we’re seeing it now in the Labour Party. They’re falling apart. Every day, there’s another ex-Labour Minister in trouble for breaching the conditions of the cushy jobs that they’ve been given by the Government. Every day, we see Ministers in this House that can’t perform, don’t know what to say around education, don’t know what to say around transport—they just don’t know what they’re doing in their jobs—and every day, good Ministers like Willie Jackson have been silenced in this place. The great plans that he had have been cut out from underneath him, and his legacy will be a Minister that tried but never got there. When we see that happening in this House, it’s a real disappointment for the Labour Party, but it’s the reality of a party that’s going under.

Now, I want to talk about something serious for the last minute and a bit, and that is around the infrastructure that New Zealand needs. Now, Jamie Strange, he’s my colleague from Hamilton, and he knows how effective Hamilton has grown and the infrastructure that National delivered to that city. When we came in, the hospital had leaking walls, we had to build the roads, and we gave the infrastructure that actually made this into the great city it is.

Then when you go to somewhere like Whangārei and you look at that now, when there’s a natural disaster people don’t have the resilience because the infrastructure hasn’t been built by this Government. It’s all right saying, “Oh, we’re going to get Bailey bridges in, and we’re going to fix things up.”, but the reality is when you’re in Government, you’ve got to make some really big calls about building resilience for New Zealand. It’s not only just the infrastructure; it’s the business resilience. It’s our ability to withstand issues as a coastal nation that is going to be undertaking global warming and having to deal with those issues.

But we need those decisions to be made around infrastructure, and they didn’t do it. They sat on their hands for five years and just gave money away, and we’re paying the price now.

I’m delighted to take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement and to follow the list member in Hamilton there. But I was trying to understand his speech. He spent about four minutes talking about the Labour Party. He seems to be transfixed with what we’re doing over here in terms of our Government.

Now, if you go back about six weeks, the Opposition were feeling a little bit cocky, really. They were feeling a little bit cocky—they were. They were thinking, “We’re going to win this election.”, but a lot can change in a few weeks, can’t it? A lot can change in a few weeks. We have a new Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins. We have his statement here, which we’re debating today, and the Opposition are quaking in their boots, and you can tell what’s going on there. They’re either obsessed with the Labour Party, or they’re starting to get a little bit worried—they’re a bit quiet, asking, “What’s going on here?”

So I’m going to talk about some of the things that our Government has delivered. The electorate know that we have a leader who is capable of leading New Zealand. They’re not sure yet about the Opposition’s leader. They’re still having a look at it, and the Opposition members—I think they’re starting to think, “Hmm, is he the right person?”, and they’re starting to sharpen the knives in those back rooms. But the Opposition will do what they do. We’re going to focus on what we’re doing as a Government, which is delivering for New Zealanders.

I’m going to talk about Hamilton as well—as well as the previous member there—and I would like to acknowledge the Hon David Bennett for his service to Hamilton, and I’d like to acknowledge the new member, Tama Potaka. Welcome—welcome to this House, sir. Hamilton will be New Zealand’s second-biggest city at some point in the future. We have an opportunity to grow well and it’s important that we make the right decisions now and that we make the right investments now in order to grow well, and I do partly agree with the previous member. We do need to take a long-term approach, with Governments working together on key infrastructure projects, and we have seen examples of that in terms of the Waikato Expressway, in terms of the Te Awa Cycleway, which is a 60-kilometre cycleway between Cambridge and Ngāruawāhia.

So a couple of key transport aspects: the Te Huia passenger rail, which, Mr Speaker, is very popular and if you haven’t tried it, I certainly welcome you and all members of this House to come up and have a look at the inter-regional rail. We are the envy of many other regions in New Zealand in terms of having an inter-regional passenger rail service. We used to have a lot of these across the country, but various Governments, for whatever reason, decided to move away and focus simply on only roads. Now, roads play a key role in our transport system, and we acknowledge that, but we do need a multimodal, diverse transport system. The Te Huia passenger rail service, which has been delivered by this Government, is certainly the envy of many other nations, and we’ll continue to grow and improve that service between Auckland and Hamilton.

Other Government investment in the region includes the Ruakura Inland Port: $57 million from this Government. Now, the “golden triangle”: we recently heard from the member for Tauranga here this afternoon, and he spoke about what’s happening in that area. But also I’d like to acknowledge that “golden triangle” aspect, the Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga segment—half of New Zealand’s population, half of New Zealand’s GDP—and the Government recognises and acknowledges that and are investing in that. The Ruakura Inland Port is a $3 billion inland port and logistics centre that this Government is proud to invest in.

I’ll mention a couple of other investments in the last minute. The Waikato Regional Theatre: $13 million from this Government. The 1,300 seat theatre will be the best theatre in Australasia, and, again, I welcome others to come and enjoy that. The Pan-Pacific Hub: $8 million from this Government. It’s the first of its kind, and I see members nodding who were there at the opening. The first of its kind in New Zealand in terms of a Pacific fale.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Where did the Government get the money?

JAMIE STRANGE: $8 million from this Government, Mr Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Eh?

JAMIE STRANGE: $8 million. The IAF, or the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund: $150 million—the largest investment of any city, even more than Auckland. So I am pleased as a local MP in Hamilton that this Government is investing in the regions of New Zealand and, in terms of the “golden triangle”, in Hamilton in particular. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always an honour and a privilege to stand as the member for the Ōtaki electorate—my first for this year—and to support the Prime Minister’s statement. But first, if I can also acknowledge, like others have in the House today, the passing of Georgina Beyer—definitely a wāhine toa, and a trailblazer. Not only did I get to hear her talk around her advocacy and staunchness for women, for takutāpui, for Māori and for human rights I also need to acknowledge that she whakapapas to my rohe as Ngāti Raukawa with Ngāti Tukorehe, so moe mai rā rangatira.

I want to make one more acknowledgment: Margaret Hayward, who is sitting in the gallery today. It is International Women’s Day, so poignant that I acknowledge Georgina Beyer’s passing, but also poignant that I acknowledge Margaret Hayward who is the first ever woman private sec in New Zealand, under the Kirk Government. So welcome back, Margaret, and she is sitting with Dr Ian Scott—the first openly gay candidate back in the 1980s. So thank you for coming. Kia ora.

I grew up in Levin in an ex-State house. My mum, when she came to New Zealand from our farm in Samoa, was a cleaner and a seamstress, and when she had us, she had to quit work to stay home and look after us because mum and dad couldn’t afford the childcare. Labour have changed that now so we make it much more accessible, however dad was our sole income earner and he worked at Kimberley Centre.

We didn’t have a lot of money, we didn’t have a lot of material things, but we had an abundance of love, so I was very loved and very lucky that way. We know the cost of living was real then, and it’s real now. Our Prime Minister gets this—he gets it—and so that is why, in his Prime Minister’s statement, he said we are focused on targeting support for working families and the cost of living. Our Prime Minister and the Labour Government understand that to get through hard times you need to support everyone. You need to make sure that you look after everyone, your whole community, all New Zealanders—not just a select few—and that is what we do on this side of the House, and that is what we will continue to do under our Prime Minister’s leadership and this Labour Government.

Part of doing that is to continue the winter energy payment, something that this Labour Government also initiated in 2018. We know and we saw the need then and we see the need now to continue this initiative. When I worked as a case manager and I would have our superannuitants or our pensioners come in and speak to me when this initiative came in by this Government, they said to me, prior to that, they would have to sit in the cold with a blanket because they were too scared to run their heating, not knowing if they could afford it. Now, with the winter energy payment, thanks to this Labour Government, they are able to have a little bit more in their kitty to be able to run their heating and know they will be able to pay that heating bill. We know, with the cost of living, this is still true now as it was then, and that is why we are committed to continue this great support for our elderly and our most vulnerable communities—just another way we are helping people get through those cold winter months here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Likewise, another Government initiative we have done in terms of our cost of living or helping New Zealanders through is the free lunches in schools initiative, just to help to ease some of those costs and pressures on some of our whānau. Having been a board of trustee member, and also having three children myself, food takes a big chunk of my budget—always has—and I’ve heard from these teachers and from these whānau what a difference this has made to their budget. Some people are saving up to $50 in their family budget. But, for the teachers, they talk about how now these kids are focused on their learning instead of being focused on their hungry tummies. This is another initiative, along with things like our school donations scheme that we put in place, and also our free period products in schools. So no longer is it that if you can’t afford a period product and you have your period, you can’t go to school. No longer is it that you can’t afford lunch, so you can’t go to school. No longer is that you can’t afford the school fees so you can’t go to school.

We understand the need. Cost of living is true as it was when I was a kid or even an adult, true it is now. We have a Prime Minister who understands that—a real understanding. We have a Government and we have a leadership team that understands that. We will continue these initiatives and that’s why I support the statement.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call tonight on the Prime Minister’s statement, and, like other members in the House, may I begin by acknowledging the three former members who have passed recently. I do want to just pay particular note of Chester Borrows, actually, who I first met as a young activist around 15 years ago, when the section 59 law change was happening. I just want to particularly acknowledge the principled way that he approached that law change and how much I valued the small time I got to spend with him. Our thoughts go to the friends and family of all of the former members who have passed recently.

Like many members as well, I’d like to also acknowledge the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle on our friends in the Hawke’s Bay, in the Coromandel, in Northland, and in other parts of the North Island. In Nelson, we understand the impact of severe weather events only too well. Recently, we’ve had flooding, and about two or three years prior, we had severe fires in the region. But what we’ve seen through Cyclone Gabrielle is another whole scale of natural disaster. It’s had a whole other level of impact on the community and on the land. We, as a Government, are committed to supporting the region to rebuild, to get through this, and also to learn from our rebuild of this area and what that may mean for other parts of New Zealand, particularly as we adapt to the significant impacts of climate change.

Can I acknowledge civil defence, the National Emergency Management Agency, all of the first responders, the firefighters, all of our health workers, all of the volunteers, our marae, and everyone who has been involved in responding to the situation in the North Island.

I am proud to be the member of Parliament for Nelson in a strong Labour Government, and we are supporting New Zealand families and businesses through difficult economic conditions. We’re continuing to invest in healthcare, education, transport, and infrastructure projects so that we have a strong economy that supports good quality, well-paid jobs.

Today is International Women’s Day. We, as a Government, have a commitment to addressing pay equity issues. We are lifting up wages and incomes for our lowest-paid workers, many of whom are women. We are taking other steps as well to address cost of living challenges and the economic pressures that families and individuals face.

Two particular initiatives I want to mention today. One is our move to increase the dental emergency grant from $300 to $1,000. A couple of weeks ago, I was at an event in Nelson and I spoke to some dentists who told me that they are seeing an immediate impact from the increase in that grant. They can do more dental work, they are able to support people better, and they’re seeing better outcomes for people who need support with emergency and immediate dental treatment.

The other big policy that we’ve introduced that will be significant for many people in my electorate is the introduction of fair pay agreements. I do want to acknowledge FIRST Union, who I used to work for, who have initiated for a fair payment for supermarket workers. It’s something I’ve been advocating for a very long time. It’s something I’ve been advocating for for a very long time so that we can have an increase in wages for the workers who work at profitable supermarkets around New Zealand, but many of them are on the minimum wage and deserve to be paid properly.

We have a number of significant investments and projects in Nelson that have been worked on over the last couple of years but that are continuing to be rolled out, and I want to mention a few of those tonight. The most exciting of all of them is the investment in the new Nelson Hospital. Nelson Hospital is earthquake-prone. It’s very well known that it is earthquake-prone, and when one of our former health Ministers, Dr David Clark, did a stocktake of hospital buildings across the country, it was found to be the most severe in terms of the state of it and the need for it to be significantly rebuilt. It will be the biggest capital project in a generation. It will employ thousands of locals and people from around New Zealand.

Last year, we secured the first piece of funding in Budget 2022 as part of the Government’s $1.3 billion spend last year in capital infrastructure in health. We will be seeing over the next few years the rebuilds of Nelson hospital and the removal of the George Manson block, which is earthquake prone. As part of that, we will have a new energy centre, which will replace the outdated coal burner, which is something that members of that Nelson community have been pushing for for a number of years, so I’m very excited about this project.

What’s coming this year—which is very exciting—is on 1 July, we will finally have some significant improvements in public transport in Nelson. When I moved to Nelson 14 years ago as student president, I discovered that many of our students were unable to catch public transport into the polytechnic and were using their own vehicles at significant cost and having trouble finding car parking and also contributing to congestion in Nelson. We have been advocating for improved public transport in Nelson for a significant period of time, and I’m very excited about the changes that are coming. We will be increasing the frequency of public transport in Nelson, which is the biggest barrier for people to use it.

Whenever I have posted about our half-price public transport fares, that response, right back, is that people want to see more buses, and it would be easier for them to use those buses. In fact, Nelson City Council’s own survey have found that 60 percent of people would use public transport more if it came more frequently. We will be having buses to Motueka at only $6 each way, and $4 if you use your Bee Card. So it will be very affordable for people to be able to take the bus from Motueka, which is normally a 30- to 40-minute car drive. We will have a bus to the airport, which people have been asking for for a long time. The buses will all be electric, and Nelson-Tasman will have the biggest regional electric bus fleet in New Zealand. These changes are coming on 1 July, people are excited about them, and I look forward to those changes.

We have been investing in public housing and community housing in Nelson. Kāinga Ora have announced 18 more homes in Richmond this year, which is an area with a low number of public houses. Kāinga Ora have purchased the former Masonic lodge on Nile St, where they’re building another 15 to 25 houses. We are upgrading former Nelson City Council flats in Stoke and Tahunanui, and the people living in those flats have told me that their health has improved as a result of the improved insulation and upgrades of those homes.

Through the sale of those homes from Nelson City Council to Kāinga Ora, Nelson City Council is investing in community housing with organisations like the Nelson Tasman Housing Trust. Habitat for Humanity is building homes using our progress homeownership fund. We are investing in an affordable housing fund in Nelson. Finally, $35 million is being given to Nelson City Council for our infrastructure acceleration fund so that people who want to build up in Nelson, which is desperately needed, will be able to do that and increase the number of people living in our inner city so that inner-city Nelson can thrive.

I want to finish by just making some quick notes about climate change. Last week, I joined the students of Nelson who participated in the School Strike 4 Climate in Nelson. Climate change continues to be the most serious threat to our globe today. New Zealand must play our part to reduce emissions, not only for ourselves but for the world and particularly for our neighbours in the Pacific who are most vulnerable to climate change events.

Last year, the Government—and I want to acknowledge climate change Minister James Shaw—released the climate adaptation plan. This is timely, given the issues we are facing across New Zealand, particularly in the Hawke’s Bay, but we are facing it in Nelson too. We will have to make some hard decisions at times about where we can develop, where we may need to retreat from. What is important is that we do that under a proper framework with proper consideration to the criteria for that happening and that local communities can make those decisions under a national framework.

I will finish by acknowledging our new Prime Minister and our new Ministers, who, alongside the rest of the Labour Government, are working hard to both address the issues of the day like Cyclone Gabrielle and like the cost of living challenges we face, while continuing our work to lay the foundations for New Zealand’s future. I commend the Prime Minister’s statement to the House.

The time has come for me to leave the House for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t often get a go in one of these debates. It’s a long time. I can’t remember the last one. I might have written this speech for it. It’s a pleasure to take a call in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, which wasn’t really a statement about the future, actually; more a statement about the dreadful effects of Cyclone Gabrielle—and of course that was very appropriate; I bet there won’t be too many Gabrielles born in the next year or two in the Hawke’s Bay!

Before I get into what I wanted to talk about, I wanted to acknowledge the three former members of the House who have passed away in the past week. I know that everyone else has done this, as well. But a person that I considered a friend was Chester Borrows, and certainly my neighbouring MP—he had a wonderful send-off. I suppose if you can have a wonderful send-off that’s great, but you don’t really want to have it when you’re 65. Paul East, another lovely man and a person I had a great deal of respect for. And Georgina Beyer, who served as a mayor as I did at the same time, and the interesting discussions I often had with Georgina when the meetings got a little boring—we’d be out the back doing nefarious things, and she was a very interesting person. She was also a very courageous New Zealander and I did enjoy my association with her in her time as the mayor.

Like so many other New Zealanders, I have family members living in the affected areas of New Zealand—those areas affected significantly by Cyclone Gabrielle. I know many of those not affected physically in those areas will feel a sense of sort of helplessness, of guilt, and won’t really know what they can do to help. That’s a very challenging thing for a community where you’ve got one half of the community badly affected by an event and the other half not affected at all. So I think it’s going to take some time for that to resolve itself.

From experience of the Manawatū floods of 2004, all I can say is that money is required above all else. Time will also be required to establish how best to provide personal assistance where that can best be used. I think the other thing that’s very challenging for these regions at times like this is the mass of people and a surplus of donations arriving in those areas and then needing to be dealt with. It’s a very challenging thing for those areas that suffer from those floods.

The statement I was particularly interested in the Prime Minister making was that we’ll build back better. Well, from experience, that too is a problem, as we need the roads reopened and the houses, where possible, rebuilt as quickly as we can. “Build back better” is really a play on words and cannot occur without much planning and a look into the future, which historically we’ve been very bad at in New Zealand. This is yet another lesson for us; we’ve had plenty in the past, and our ability to build back better has not been great.

We now have the third iteration of this Labour Government—and I’ll explain why in a minute—and to date, all it’s done is cancel most of the work of the second version. And, of course, the first one did nothing to cancel. I’ve even heard from one of the members opposite that this is now called the “Hipkins Government”—hence my reference to the third iteration; maybe they want to cancel their association with Labour as well!

The extraordinary events of the past few weeks on the East Coast, Auckland, Coromandel, and Northland, and, actually, in some parts of my region as well, where the Pohangina River and the Ōroua River, carrying that Hawke’s Bay rain out to sea, have done an extraordinary amount of damage to a number of properties on the border of those. In fact, the damage there is as significant as it was in 2004.

The real challenges facing New Zealand are our economy, the rising interest rates—and our climate change response, I think, is also an issue that we need to debate as a Parliament and politicians, in the next year or so. Rising interest rates may well dampen house prices and some of the discretionary spend but it also dampens economic growth and our productivity as businesses no longer develop new, innovative products—or take risks, for that matter—unemployment rises, and recession sets in. Not an ideal cycle for a country aspiring to higher productivity and salaries.

Our response to climate change is an area I want to spend a minute or so on. I’ll start with an example from the past, and that was our response to land damaged by Cyclone Bola. Randomly planting pine trees to stabilise land has proved to be no answer. Randomly planting pine trees to offset carbon credits equally is no answer. It’s my view that we need to have a significant review of where we’re at with this business. Obviously, the review into woody debris in the Gisborne region is welcome, and there will be much-needed work to do as a result of that to decide just how we deal with this in the future. It’s a significant issue for New Zealand.

We live in challenging times, and challenging brains will be needed to resolve some of the issues that we’ve got in the next short while. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to rise and speak to the Prime Minister’s statement. Of course I’m in support of the motion that was the amendment put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, but I do wish to dwell, as others have too, on the very serious situation that faces our country in relation to Cyclone Gabrielle. Of course, it is not for the part of the world that I’m lucky enough to represent the first time, even within that particular month, that severe weather, and flooding in particular, had devastated the households and businesses of many constituents, nor would it prove the last—even, again, within the space of a month.

I acknowledge those who have lost dwellings, businesses, stock on the land, the use of the land for horticulture, farming, and other primary industry activities. As others have done, from the Prime Minister onwards, I acknowledge too the loss of life. I’m particularly thinking of those two firefighters in Muriwai, with whom I have had the fortune of interacting a little bit, in the case of one family in particular. I acknowledge that whole community. They face considerable uncertainty at an individual household level; the suburb—the community, indeed, as a whole—as well. So please know, to residents of Muriwai and surrounding areas who may be watching, that I will work tirelessly, as will others in this House—and I acknowledge that I’ve been able to do that in concert with some Labour Party members of this House as well—to ensure that as much certainty can be brought to your situation as possible, as soon as possible.

In addition to our brave, heroic volunteer firefighters, I wish to acknowledge, as always, the police, the coastguard, St John, Surf Life Saving, and other first responders. We are indebted to them even in the best of times, and these have not been the best of times. I acknowledge too those who set up evacuation centres in West Auckland, in the rural north of Auckland, and everywhere in between—and further afield, too, of course, but those were the centres that I visited and became quite familiar with a number of individuals who led those so well. Others have, rightly, acknowledged individuals by name, and I would be remiss if I were not to acknowledge not only those who attended and set those up in an official capacity but also those who attended out of the goodness of their heart and simply were there to provide comfort to fellow human beings in their hour of need, from the very first night of that first round of flooding onwards.

I was very struck by a particular meeting that I attended in Helensville that was a group of volunteers: the local school principal of Helensville Primary, there were representatives of local iwi, the church in which the meeting was taking place, various community workers, representatives of organisations—for example, Kindred Family Services. I was particularly struck by the introduction of a lady who said, with all due modesty, that she had only relatively recently arrived in that place to do the work that the others were doing to coordinate a community response. She had to be prompted by other members of the group, the informal gathering, to acknowledge that, actually, the reason that she’d only been involved in the last 24 hours was because she had been out from the very start providing emergency services in her capacity as a volunteer firefighter. That spirit of self-sacrifice and also modesty and concern for others ahead of self has characterised the response in this part of the world. As I say, that is the wonderful electorate of Kaipara ki Mahurangi, which I’m privileged to represent, but also, as I say, I know others in this House would say that of other parts of the country, too. So I acknowledge and thank you all.

Much needs to happen in that part of the world, whether it’s Muriwai facing the uncertainty as to their very existence as a community in that place, along with other beach communities—and I acknowledge the member of Parliament for New Lynn in that connection—the rural north, suffering ongoing issues with power, road access; the rural areas and the use of the land that they have traditionally been able to enjoy for their own benefit and the benefit of all of “New Zealand Inc.”, as we say; and those who have suffered ongoing and repeated flood damage in north-west Auckland and West Auckland particular.

We commit to support the Government in the work that they will do to improve that situation. If there are shortfalls in that response, we will hold them to account, and following mid-October, whichever Government is in place at that time, again we will support and work hard to those ends to support those people of New Zealand in my electorate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise as the final speaker in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. It is true; we’ve heard many, many statements from people across the House. It’s been a long debate but a very thoughtful one, and I want to acknowledge the thoughtful responses that many have had.

It’s an unusual time that we have all had, and I just really want to acknowledge the handing over of the baton from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to our new Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins, at a most extraordinary time. I want to acknowledge that because I think, on International Women’s Day, it’s useful for us as members to reflect on what it is like to be a woman in this Parliament, and that is all I would like to say on that matter. However, I do want to acknowledge today is International Women’s Day.

Before I begin my substantive speech, I’d also like to add my voice to giving the condolences for the three previous Parliament members who have passed away. So for Chester Borrows, for Paul East, and for Georgina Beyer, I do want to acknowledge their loss. I’d also just like to say, on a footnote for Georgina Beyer—that I met Georgina when I was a very young radical at university in the early 1990s. Hard to believe, yes, I know—in the 1990s. She was incredible and courageous and exceptional, and gave me some courage around some of the things that we tried to do in student union. I have continued to admire her for many years, and particularly when I was campaigning around prostitute law reform—I remember the most exceptional speech that she made here in this House. I knew, on that day, that I was on the right side of the decision to fight for the rights of prostitutes.

With that, I also want to acknowledge—it’s one of those unusual times, isn’t it, around all this sadness and difficulty? But I do want to acknowledge the devastation from the Auckland Anniversary weekend flooding, Cyclone Gabrielle, and I want to add my condolences, again, as other members in the House have done, for all the lives that have been lost, the devastation of marae, of homes, of livelihood, of crops and of stock, and just the general sense of chaos that has occurred from these weather events.

The Bay of Plenty electorate, the community I serve, suffered a series of localised events. A bridge washed out in Te Puke, and we’ve put a Bailey bridge in to make sure that that community is now able to be reached—the No. 4 Road up Te Puke. We had a log train derail, and it was very significant but very localised. And then we had the houses red-stickered in Maungatapu, which is part of the Bay of Plenty electorate. I was able to visit Egret Avenue in Maungatapu with the Prime Minister recently, and I met the family who was, frankly, so very lucky not to be killed in the landslide that wiped out their house while they slept. Honestly—and I said to them, “It sounds like it was a miracle that you were not all killed.” Their story is chilling, and I cannot begin to understand how difficult it must be for your families, but my thoughts are with them.

I’m also the buddy MP—or, I provide Labour MP support—into the Coromandel electorate, and I acknowledge that even this week parts of that community continue to suffer from adverse weather events. Even this week, State Highway 25 was again closed due to washouts and slips over the last few days. We had thunder bursts occur over the weekend. Everything is so very wet, down came the road again. And so we continue as Government to offer on-the-ground help, Waka Kotahi solutions—and re-solutions, and re-solutions, because the road keeps disappearing—and support to the Coromandel.

We continue to accelerate our economic recovery and lay the foundation for the future while, at the same time, providing the financial, community-led, and practical solutions for those affected. Todd Muller, the MP for Bay of Plenty, during his address in reply speech, said that the Labour Government had done nothing for our community, and I want to refute that. I want to talk a little bit—and it’s a bit of a long list, so I’ll just speed up my language. I want to refute that our Government has done nothing for our community.

We have funded $655 million into the Takitimu north link, to help our community grow sustainably and support productivity. There was never a funded solution from the National Party. There was no Cabinet decision and there was no money put in. We have put that money in. We have fed 2,914 students at 12 schools, to support kids learning. We have funded the underpass in the Bay Link project to ensure our community can safely cross Maunganui Road. We’ve topped up funds for the new Pāpāmoa Surf Lifesaving Club and funded the Port of Tauranga Rescue Centre, a hub for the 19 Surf Lifesaving clubs in the eastern region—and how important is that going to be, going forward? There are 16,727 schoolkids and their families who have benefited from the removal of school donations. There is $17.9 million for the rapid hospital improvements to add more ICU beds, a high-dependency unit, and a coronary care unit. There is $20.5 million to reduce kerbside waste in our city, and it has massively reduced our landfill. There is a net increase of 244 social houses, compared to a net loss of 980 houses under National.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: 980?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Yes, 980. And we funded environmental training cadetship programmes and youth programmes.

I just want to talk very quickly on the infrastructure accelerated fund (IAF) that sits in our city as well. It will unlock major transport and water upgrades in priority growth areas, including public, affordable, and market housing. In the wider Bay of Plenty, from the IAF there has been $80 million provided to provide around 2,000 homes in Tauriko West. There is $67.9 million into Te Papa Peninsula, which is Cameron Road, which is expected to enable 16,000 homes. Rotorua has received $84.6 million, which is expected to enable 3,080 homes. And Ōmokoroa has received $38 million to enable 2,580 homes. Out of all of New Zealand’s public housing stock, this Labour Government has delivered nearly one in seven of them. Let me say that again: out of all of New Zealand’s public housing stock, this Labour Government, in the last five years, has delivered nearly one in seven of them.

We are doing plenty. We are definitely continuing to do plenty also. We will keep cracking, as our Prime Minister has said. We will build back better. We will invest in our people, our places, and our future.

Rachel Brooking: Low emissions.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Low emissions, yes.

Finally, I chair the Social Services and Community Committee, and this Government has consistently put children and families at the heart of our work. I’ve got 38 seconds to read this—I’ll summarise, Mr Speaker. We have taken action across the main costs New Zealand families face: groceries, transport, housing, health, and education. We’ve introduced the winter energy payment and increased main benefits, the family tax credit, the student allowance, the accommodation supplement. Low-income New Zealanders have access to increased support for dental costs. I’m out of time, but I have to say the $1,000 special needs grant for dental costs will transform—

The member’s time is expired. There are two minutes left in this debate for any member who hasn’t spoken to seek the call.

Tēnā tātou. E te Kaiārahi, tēnā koe, pō manahau ki a tātou katoa. E tika ana te tautoko i ngā poroaki o te wā ki ngā mate o te wā me ngā mihi ngā iwi e pēhia ana i te tāruke a Tāwhirimātea.

Ka nui hoki te whakamīharo ki te rongo ki ngā kōrero nunui pahupahu, roroa hoki e pā ana ki te whakatau a te Pirīmia. Ka pai hoki kei te mihi hoki ki ngā whakaaro katoa ahakoa tautoko au, kāore au i te tautoko, e mihi ana. He mana nui tō te tūranga Pirīmia, te tūranga Pirīmia me tōna tinana hou e whakakī nei i ērā hū nui. Nā reira, e mihi ana ki a ia engari, tāku e whakatūpato ana i tēnei wā.

Me āta whakaarohia ētahi o ngā mahi e whai kaha ana te Kāwanatanga ā te marama me te tau te tū nei. Ki tō mātou te rahinga me te nuinga o ngā tāngata e noho ana ki Kirikiriroa ki te Uru, e rua ngā kaupapa matua e pāngia ki a ngāi mātou o Kirikiriroa ki te Uru.

Tuatahi, ko te utu oranga, te utu ora rānei, kātahi. Koirā e whakatāmi nei, e kaha nei ki te āta whakapēhi i ngā whānau o Kirikiriroa ki te Uru. Ehara i te kaupapa poka noa, hanganoa, koretake noa rānei, engari koirā tētahi o ngā mānuka, wero, take nunui o te wā.

Tuarua, ko te mahi hangarau koirā ētahi o ngā tāngata e whai hikareti ana, e whai moni ana ki ngā toa me ngā rārangi toa o Kirikiriroa ki te Uru. Ki a au nei, me tahuri te kei o te waka o te taukī a te Pirīmia ki ngā whānau e pēhia ana e ēnei take e rua o te wā.Tēnā tātou katoa.

[Greetings one and all. To the Speaker, greetings and a good evening to everyone. It is appropriate at this time to farewell the dead of this time and acknowledge the people badly affected by the high winds, Cyclone Gabrielle.

It is amazing to hear the many comments and the lengthy banter related to the Prime Minister’s statement. It is good, and I also acknowledge all the ideas. Whether I support them or not, I acknowledge them. The role of Prime Minister holds much prestige and the new Prime Minister has huge shoes to fill. And so, I acknowledge him, but with a caveat at this time.

We must carefully think about the work that the Government is ardently pursuing in the coming month and year. For many of us, including the majority of residents in Hamilton West, there are two main issues affecting us in Hamilton West.

Firstly, the cost of living. That is putting pressure on and strongly impacting the families of Hamilton West. It is not a random, inconsequential, or unimportant issue. It is one of the major current challenges.

Secondly, there is the criminal activity by those seeking cigarettes and cash from the shops and rows of shops in Hamilton West. To me, we must change direction of the Prime Minister’s statement to address the families impacted by these two current issues. Greetings, one and all.]

Nō reira, kua pau te wā mō tēnei kōrerorero.

[Therefore, we have used the time allotted for this discussion.]