General Debate

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

This is a Government, a National Government, that is completely out of touch with New Zealanders. This is a National Government that is making things for New Zealand families worse, not better. This is a National Government that is resulting in tens of thousands of New Zealanders losing their jobs. This is a National Government that promised to fix the cost of living and instead is making the cost of living worse.

If ever we needed more evidence of how out of touch this Government is with how New Zealanders are feeling right at the moment, it was Nicola Willis’ declaration that the tens of thousands of New Zealanders that have lost their jobs under her leadership shouldn’t take it personally. There isn’t much that people take more personally than losing their jobs. Then we had David Seymour double down on that today and say that the people who have lost their jobs should just put a smile on it and everything would be better.

Things are getting worse, not better, under this Government. We saw more evidence of that today. Official statistics out: 74,000 New Zealand citizens gave up on this Government in the last year and left the country permanently. When the National Party launched their tourism advertising campaign saying, “Everyone Must Go”, I don’t think New Zealanders would expect their Government to be promoting a policy that drives New Zealanders out of the country, and yet that is what this Government have been doing: 30,000 fewer jobs under National—30,000 fewer jobs under National. But here’s an even more startling number: 2,700 businesses have gone under since this Government took office. That is the highest number of businesses going into liquidation in over a decade, and it has happened under this Government’s watch as a result of their bad choices.

Household bills continue to go up. Feeding a family of four in New Zealand now costs $25,000 a year. That is $10,000 a year higher than in Australia. This Government has no solution for that. They have no answers. This is a Government that is making life more expensive for New Zealand families. Our health system descends further into crisis under this Government’s leadership, and they have no answers for that either. The Government’s major cost of living commitment before the last election was giving working families with kids $250 a fortnight in their back pockets. Can Nicola Willis name one family, just one—I’d settle for one at this point—that got the 250 bucks that Christopher Luxon promised repeatedly up and down the country that families with kids were going to get? Suddenly, they’ve gone very quiet, because not one family got the $250 a fortnight that they were promised.

This is a Government that has prioritised foreign home buyers over Kiwi families looking for a home. It is a Government that has prioritised landlords over Kiwi tenants. It is a Government that has prioritised tobacco companies over the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders; a Government that has prioritised pay rises for company directors and not teachers and nurses who go out to work for New Zealand’s future generations every day; a Government that’s prioritised oil and gas companies over tackling climate change, one of the greatest challenges—if not the greatest challenge—currently facing humanity.

This Government’s choices are all wrong. This is a Government that thinks that if things are getting better for them, then that’s better for the rest of the country. Things might be getting better for them on that side of the House, but most New Zealanders are finding that things are getting worse and worse every day under the leadership of this Government. Most New Zealanders don’t get to claim a $52,000 tax-free allowance for their own house. Most New Zealanders don’t get to spend $44,000 flying to the top of a mountain so that they can film a social media video for their Facebook. Most New Zealanders don’t spend 60 bucks a week in the supermarket on their grocery shop. Most New Zealanders are finding things getting worse under this Government, not better.

Well, Chris Hipkins would have woken up on Sunday morning feeling pretty grim about life. On Saturday, he would have woken up thinking, “It’s going to be a good weekend for the Labour Party. We’re going to go into this by-election and we’re going to take back that Māori seat off the Māori Party. It’s going to be good times.” Well, the hangover on Sunday morning would have been pretty grim, and he would have got to work on Monday morning and I know what would have happened, because I’ve sort of been there, done that while in Opposition. His team would have said to him, “Mate, you’ve just got to get back on the horse. Get down to the House and have a swing—these guys are out of control. Don’t worry, we caused the inflation that the Government has had to grapple with—don’t worry about it. We caused the economic crisis and the worst recession since the 1980s, which the Government has had to deal with, but don’t worry. If you just turn up there and just keep blah-ing on and pretending that it’s the Government’s fault that we’re grappling with job losses in construction—don’t worry, just have a go.”

Well, that was a pretty pathetic effort, I have to say. Judging from the looks on the faces, particularly Willie Jackson, who has seemed curiously down in the mouth over the last few days—judging from the reaction of his colleagues—I reckon they were as unimpressed by that as the Te Tai Tokerau public were on Saturday night.

I want to talk about what a putative Labour - Greens - Te Pāti Māori Government might be like, because it’s been extremely revealing over the last few weeks. Now, Nicola Willis and I have been having a bet about what would be the first economic policy released by the Labour Party. We’ve been back and forward. Nicola says that it will be capital gains, and I say that it will be a wealth tax. Regardless, they’re both going to be stupid policies that will destroy value for New Zealanders, but that is what we’ve come to expect from the Labour Party. But I’ll tell you what, we did not expect what actually came out from Barbara Edmonds yesterday, which was extraordinary. Having caused the inflation in the first place through reckless spending, the first economic policy from the Labour Party is to drive up inflation again as a good thing, and throw out the Reserve Bank mandate—the 1 to 3 percent target. “We’re open to a conversation,” says Barbara Edmonds. As one economist said, that is ludicrous—really back to the future.

There are other policies that we’ve had in the last few weeks. We’ve had poor old Peeni—and I want to acknowledge and mihi to him for the hard work that he did on the by-election. But I’ve got to say that some of the stuff that came out during the by-election, mate—oh man, it’s like really out of left field. Banning gang patches was a personal view expressed as a Labour Party front-bencher. That was contradicted by his deputy leader and then doubled down on by Peeni Henare—bring back the gang patches. Then we had this sort of weird thing about supermarkets being tangata Tiriti - compliant and it got involved in this little weird thing, and Willie Jackson, his putative campaign manager and senior front-bencher, said, “Oh no, what we need is price controls.” All of which had to be denied by Chris Hipkins, who of course has contradicted it. So who is running the show?

It has been interesting to hear from Labour over the last few weeks. It has been a clown show, and then we get to the other clowns from the Green Party. Now, let’s leave aside the wealth tax and all the other crazy stuff. I actually thought that the thing people should reflect on is the actions of Ricardo Menéndez March, because we’ve had this lawyer who’s been going around the place, allegedly, daubing electorate offices with paint and vandalising them. Now, it’s no skin off my nose—that’s all good. But I worry for the staff in our offices—who work very hard—and also, frankly, for the people who want to actually go to the offices and be helped by those electorate office staff. It’s the height of selfishness to do this. It’s actually putting at risk our parliamentary democracy, and what does Ricardo do? Well, he writes a letter to the court—a character reference—for someone who is going around vandalising electorate offices. We are yet to get an explanation from Mr Menéndez March as to why that is tolerable. I don’t think it is, and I think that the public deserve an explanation as to why that sort of behaviour is tolerated. I think that it is really unbecoming of a member of the House, and I think it reflects badly on him and everybody else.

Then we have Te Pāti Māori. Now, where to start on these clowns? Tākuta Ferris posted this on Instagram—let me read out the quote—“Indians, Asians, Black and Pakeha campaigning to take a Maori seat from Maori”.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Yes.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, here we go—“Yes.”, Mariameno says. It doesn’t get much more racist than that. I’m prepared to call it racist. Thousands of New Zealanders think it’s racist—actually, most people think it’s racist.

Does Chris Hipkins think it’s racist? No. Chris Hipkins, who has spent much of the debate over the Treaty principles bill calling us racist, says, “Oh no, no, no—it’s unhelpful to use that term.” Well, I’ll tell you what, I think it’s racist, and we’ve got to make sure that these clowns in Te Pāti Māori and their bench mates in the Green Party—who seem to stand up for all of it—are never allowed anywhere near the Treasury benches, or they will drive this country into ruin.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I think what that speech demonstrates to the House and to the press gallery is that Christopher Luxon is safe for now, because if that was the leadership challenge, it was sadly lacking. I’d set aside a full minute in my opening reply to respond to the key points that the speaker from the National Party would make. In fact, my page is this [Member holds up notes], because he wasn’t able to talk about the economy. He wasn’t able to talk about jobs. He wasn’t able to talk about the housing issues in New Zealand. He wasn’t able to demonstrate what National’s plan is for the current situation. All he could do was talk about Labour, and I think that about sums it up.

Right now, New Zealanders are leaving this country in record numbers, and we’ve got someone making an after-dinner party Toastmasters speech. That about sums up the extent of what this Government offers New Zealand right now, because he didn’t even say that the economy was turning a corner, because he knows it’s not. He didn’t even say that once, because the damage done—the damage done—by this Government is going to take decades to fill back. The jobs gone in construction are 18,000; the jobs gone in manufacturing are over 9,000, around 8,000—high regions there. In the regions, where we’re supposed to be seeing this economic turnaround, places like Nelson—losing Carter Holt Harvey jobs, losing their Sealord manufacturing, and also those jobs in the Waikato. Ten thousand jobs in New Zealand gone in the past three months, and we get a Toastmasters speech from that side.

Well, I’d like to highlight that the new data out today showed that 73,400 New Zealanders left in the year to July 2025. That is a new record, and that breaks the previous record, which was the year to June 2025. So, month on month, for each year gone in the past, we are reaching new records in the number of New Zealanders who are saying a big vote of no confidence and Christopher Luxon’s leadership and no confidence in the direction that this Government is taking people. The reality is that it was caused by this Government. They came in guns ablaze; cutting staff left, right, and centre; cutting jobs, cutting spending, but no plan B—cancelling projects up and down the country, but no plan in place. That is why 18,000 construction workers have left our shores—gone. That is what’s happened as a result.

The reality is, the fact they have no plan was evident from Chris Bishop’s speech, and the fact they have no plan is evident in the actions of Christopher Luxon. When New Zealanders are looking for leadership, he turns up to IKEA—not even for an opening, but to a reveal date. Well, he might like to know that 25,000 New Zealanders applied for 500 jobs at that IKEA shop. That’s what he should be concerned about, not the reveal date. Next, we hear the Amazon data centre gets reannounced from what we all knew in 2021—more desperation from this Government and their leadership. Finally, if all else fails, try and make friends with Taylor Swift. I kid you not—I kid you not. New Zealanders are leaving this country in record numbers, and our Prime Minister is tagging “Tay Tay” on Insta. You couldn’t write this. You know, this is a time when we can’t decide whether to laugh or cry about the direction that New Zealand is taking right now.

There’s no wonder that these rumblings on the backbenches—and there are some more rumblings in the middle benches, but from the speech we just heard, I think he’s safe for yet another coup. We’ve all lost count of the number of coups in the leadership, led by Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis.

But we need a plan. What Labour’s plan is is to make sure that there are jobs where people earn a decent wage and it’s enough to put food on the table and look after your whānau, that there is a health system where you can get a doctor that’s cheaper and easier to get, and that we can have homes—homes that Tama Potaka and Chris Bishop are taking away from people every day. We want to build our communities. We know that by looking after our people, we make our communities stronger, and that makes our country stronger. That’s, sadly, a lesson that this Government is yet to learn.

The Labour Party spokesperson that just resumed her seat, the Hon Ginny Andersen, wanted this side of the House to talk about what we’ve achieved in Government. Well, I’d be happy to oblige today, because after the most egregious example of economic vandalism that this country has seen in generations, overseen by the Ardern-led and Hipkins-led Labour Government, this side of the House—our coalition Government—has proudly leaned in to get the job done. We are all about delivery. We are not about press releases, platitudes, and broken promises that this country had to endure for six very, very long years. We are focused on the things that matter, things that actually make a difference to putting food on families’ tables and feeding our kids and getting them to school. We are focused on growing wages, improving health outcomes, reducing crime, and reforming the education system.

I note that the speaker that just resumed her seat was a former police Minister. She should hang her head in shame. The statistics that went through the roof under her watch are just appalling. Thanks to the work done by Mark Mitchell, our very, very engaged and hard-working police Minister, there are now 29,000 fewer victims of serious and violent crime than when this Government came in. That is nearly 30,000 people across New Zealand no longer being victimised by serious crime. That is the size of towns like Ashburton. That speaker should hang her head in shame.

Equally, we are seeing health targets reintroduced and really starting to turn around a system that was on its knees thanks to the stupidity of the decisions made by that previous Government. They erased a former National Government’s better public services targets. They erased health targets that were being imposed on the health sector, which saw emergency department stays skyrocket. It saw our childhood immunisation rates fall through the floor. It saw less and less people getting the elective procedures they needed and deserved and the cancer treatments they needed and deserved.

The proudest work that we have been able to achieve thus far in a very short 18-odd months is that we are turning around this economy and we are seeing promising signs of economic recovery. Inflation has come down almost five percentage points. It has been quite, quite extraordinary, the turn-around that can occur when a Government takes a firm approach to reforming the economy. We are already seeing 240,000 jobs being created.

That is huge, but as the Minister for Women, I am very, very proud of the gains we have made and what we have been able to achieve and to deliver to improve the lives of women and girls of this country. This Government is very proud to be able to stand up and say we have driven the pay gap down to 5.2 percent. It absolutely stagnated under the previous Government, which took its eye off the ball, got lazy, and stopped doing the work necessary to improve the outcomes for women and girls in this country. We’ve actually put our money where our mouth is. We have launched the first ever Government-backed pay gap calculator tool kit. It has had extraordinary uptake from employers across the country. It has had 30,000 hits already. It is just one part of our reform programme to grow our economy, to improve the lives for women and girls across New Zealand, and to encourage employers to hire people—particularly women and girls.

We know, equally—Stats New Zealand would also acknowledge—that we have not cracked the nut on the ethnic pay gap. We know there is work to do in that space. Again, we are being bold. We are leaning into it, and I will have more to say on that very soon. We are having to make tough decisions to deal with the economic mismanagement that we inherited from the laziness that occurred under that previous Government.

As Chris Bishop rightly pointed out, it is a horrifying proposition for New Zealanders to look at what a future Labour - Greens - Te Pāti Māori coalition might look like. Imagine Chlöe Swarbrick being in charge of finances. Imagine Barbara Edmonds being in charge of finances. Imagine seeing the likes of Chris Hipkins having to accept the Green Party’s Budget proposals to be able to form a Government. What an utterly stupefying proposition that would be for New Zealanders. On this side of the House, we are ambitious for women, for girls, and for New Zealanders. We intend to keep up the hard work.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In this country, our economy is based on rich people trading houses between each other rather than an economy based on hard work that provides people the opportunity to contribute meaningfully and productively to the future and prospects of our nation. We used to have a country where you could work hard, save up for a home, set down roots, get a family homestead, and put away money for your kids to have a good education and a decent future, but now we have a society where there are “haves” and there are “have-nots”. The “haves” have more homes than they need; they’ve got homes in excess—owner-occupied homes, holiday homes, and investment portfolios. They yank the ladder up on the “have nots”, who grind themselves down in their 9-to-5s and then have to divvy up their pay cheque every week to go on higher rents, higher power bills, and the high cost of food. How is anybody meant to save for a deposit and be able to service a mortgage when there’s nothing left at the end of the week? Wage growth has declined and barely keeps up with inflation, and we’ve created a workforce of working poor.

More than half of all household wealth in this country is in land and in houses. If we live in a home-owning democracy, what does that mean for the third of New Zealanders who do not own a home, and what of the growing number of people who are rough sleeping—sleeping in cars and in tents or sleeping on the streets tonight? There is no better way to understand the inequality that exists in this country than to take one look at our housing system. We believe that housing is a human right, but our politicians treat housing as a business opportunity—a chance to cash in on the uncertainty and hardship that many New Zealanders live in every single day.

As we saw yesterday in the House, nobody in a position of power wants to give a straight answer as to whether they want house prices to go up or down. The Prime Minister wants house prices to rise. New Zealand First have abandoned whatever few principles they had left and allowed the door to be opened to overseas speculators because they’re more concerned with the last names of Patel and Singh and policing the definition of woman and rearranging words on our passports than they are with New Zealanders, who they used to care about.

They won’t give you a straight answer on where they want house prices to go, but I’ll give you a straight answer based on their actions and based on their choices. Their choice to cancel 3,500 public homes has driven up house prices. Their choices have meant that building consents are at their lowest in over seven years. Their choice is to allow 10,000 tradies to leave the construction industry—the industry hit hardest by this Government’s decisions. The Deputy Prime Minister chooses to undermine the Government’s one genuine attempt to address the housing crisis—to increase housing supply—by saying that he doesn’t want more housing in his backyard, in Epsom. The Prime Minister, as of last week, has decided to open the floodgates to overseas speculators to buy houses worth over $5 million, which will push house prices up. Their choice is to drive 191 New Zealanders out of the country every single day; the 18- to 30-year-olds who make up our working population are leaving in droves to go overseas to try and reach that dream of homeownership, which is out of reach in this country.

Housing will continue to be out of reach for everyday hard-working New Zealanders, and homelessness—even for the working poor—will continue to rise so long as our country’s leadership continues to deny young New Zealanders a fair shot at homeownership, which is, essentially, the pathway to social and economic freedom. We need more public housing to house people in housing desperation, to stimulate productivity, and to decouple our economy from housing. We need to zone for more housing growth but, alongside that, we need to introduce measures that break down the financialisation of housing. Most importantly, we need normal people in this House who, like most New Zealanders, don’t own entire portfolios of investment properties and who make choices that make them even more wealthy and sorted.

As a consequence of the weekend, Labour is in crisis. They actually have figured out everything but how to win. They faced the weakest candidate that Māoridom has ever produced in a by-election—she who had to rely on a cell phone to answer basic policy questions and then found that the cell phone wouldn’t work and then was given an easy pass by TV 1.

Of course, they say—and Labour should bear this in mind, apparently—that losing teaches you something. Well, let me list the things that Labour ought to learn. Number one: stop driving international investment away. Stop announcing summarily that you’re going to destroy people’s rights such as reinstating the ban, stopping people from creating new opportunities to boost our energy and gain better employment outcomes. Stop threatening New Zealand investors. But, most importantly, make your mind up where you stand with Māoridom. Do you sleep with John Tamihere or are you the proud former party that stood up for blue-collar interests, fairness, and empowerment, or have you been completely overtaken by identity politics, trans issues, wokeism, and lost your way?

They say, “Show me a good loser.” I’ll show you a basic loser. They have stumbled from failure to failure and, sadly, the winners of that tawdry experience are the Māori Party, despite the fact of “Ferris Wheel” continuing to assault and insult verbally. I’m glad he’s suffering some sort of review, investigation, by the Electoral Commission. Maybe that will teach the lad a bit of humility and whakaiti.

Come closer to the matua. I know about those matters, because they might say to me that I’m warm-blooded, but I’m cold-hearted, because I believe that unless we use our own resources, our own coal, our own minerals, and we fly away from all this climate change folly that’s designed to undermine our economy—this notion that somehow New Zealand will single-handedly save the planet. Leave all that cultural Marxism for minority groups. One of them from the Green Party just said “normal people”. Well, obviously, she’s talking about the matua, because there’s no great normalcy in that party. They want to import Karl Marx. They want to import a whole lot of other dangerous ideas that will have the effect of ruining our economy.

Ah, my colleague has said, “Why do they love Indonesian coal and hate Huntly coal? Why are they so internationally orientated and willing to undermine the resilience of our own economy?” I’ll tell you why. Because they’re basically not only confused, but they’ve fallen under the thrall of these UN dictates, these UN global imperatives, that are designed to drive New Zealand down into the ground, ruin farming.

Ah, but wait! There is a champion in the form of New Zealand First, and we’ve come from a highly successful conference where not only have we put difficult issues such as compulsory savings back up on the agenda—and, yes, we’re providing Kiwis with the opportunity to establish whether there is a place in the future for appropriate models of nuclear energy. Of course, people might quiver, they might tremble, but that’s the cost of being a bold and imaginative group of politicians. We don’t shy away from these difficult issues, because we know that there has to be a trade-off.

In the event that no one wants to have that discussion. I will continue on your behalf to dig for coal. In fact, I see a future—massive coal diggings all throughout the Waikato to save the electricity system. Of course, the Green Party privately believes in me. They privately believe that we should go for coal, whilst Megan Woods kills what’s left of the gas and the oil industry.

It’s sad for the Labour Party. The only reason they’re holding on to that untruth is because of the vanity and the shallow sense of that particular MP and unwillingness to actually admit they were wrong. I have offered penance on their behalf and that exile, otherwise known as the political fugitive Jacinda Ardern, now living at Harvard, never to come back to New Zealand and face responsibility for not only having destroyed the economy but having undermined energy. But the matua will be back in all occasions, warm-blooded and cold-hearted.

National promised to get New Zealand back on track, and despite all the global headwinds and the deep hole we found ourselves in, less than two years on we are making some real headway. Kiwis this week can be so proud of our police, the commissioner, and of course our police Minister. Overall, Kiwis are feeling safer, helped by no gang patches around, helped by very few ram raids, and helped by restoring real consequences for offenders, and putting victims front and centre of our justice system—and of course, more bobbies on the beat, including West Auckland.

National is now also more trusted on education: higher standards, higher attendance, and many more learning support coordinators and teacher-aide hours as well—the biggest learning support package in a generation, and I commend Minister Erica Stanford for that.

National is squarely focused on growing the economy, thanks to the laser focus of our finance Minister and Minister for Economic Growth, the Hon Nicola Willis. Inflation is down, interest rates are down, farm gate prices are up, and farmer confidence is well up—well up. Growth will start lifting in the last quarter of this year and will only strengthen and accelerate next year.

We are getting back on track, and when the dust settles next year, Kiwis won’t want to put that all at risk with that rabble over there. They won’t want to risk that. We’ve come too far digging this country out of the hole that they put us in to have them do it all again to us. Imagine Labour, Greens, and Te Pāti Māori coming together in Government—a fellowship of fiscal doom. A fellowship of fiscal doom—or is it an axis of taxes? The choice is pretty stark.

Let’s look at just three indicators, three examples of why they should never be in Government for a long, long time, if at all. Exhibit one: according to Treasury, it was the largest spend-up in the history of New Zealand. I’m talking about Labour’s completely over-the-top spending response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Treasury now estimates that Labour spent a mammoth $66 billion—all borrowed, all still collecting interest, and now all limiting investment choices for us. Treasury has declared that not only did their spending go on for too long, but it went against official advice when they told them to put the brakes on. They refused to listen, and, in fact, borrowing spending only accelerated after COVID, fuelling inflation, fuelling the cost of living crisis, and—guess what—history is already showing us that they should be ashamed of themselves.

Exhibit two: listen to this from an Opposition member. “This blows my mind! Indians, Asians, Black and Pakeha campaigning to take a Maori seat from Maori”—that was a post from a Te Pāti Māori MP during the recent by-election. If that wasn’t bad enough, Opposition leader Chris Hipkins refused to call it out as the racism it was. That’s not the New Zealand we grew up in. That’s not the New Zealand we want, but a divided, separatist policy agenda will be the reality if this Opposition ever gets the chance.

Exhibit three: you have a woman convicted of wilful damage for vandalising buildings across Auckland, including MPs’ electorate offices, and what does the Opposition do? They try to get her off the hook—they try to get her off the hook. At this woman’s sentencing for wilful damage, a Green MP writes a letter of support wanting this convicted vandal to walk free of any consequences. That would be the alternative Government. That’s the look and feel of an alternative Government, and not to mention the absence of any policy so far from the Labour Party. The Green’s “tax and borrow” alternative Budget would tax Kiwis by another $88.8 billion, with net Crown debt lifting to 53.8 percent of GDP by the end of the decade.

National is getting this country back on track. We are focused on delivery, growing the economy, restoring stability, lifting standards, building opportunity, and making our community safer. National is putting stability first and rebuilding confidence in growth for every New Zealand family. Kiwis have gone through too much and worked too hard to put all of that at risk. The choice in 2026 will be very, very clear indeed.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, the Minister for Disability Issues announced that this Government is finally bringing back flexibility to Disability Support Services funding after this Government took it away, effectively, 17 months ago, in March 2024—17 months of unnecessary confusion, devastation, and harm that they caused to disabled people and carers across New Zealand.

Disabled people said that their world was shrinking because of decisions made by this Government. Disabled children couldn’t use their funding for therapies that helped them cope with school. People couldn’t use their funding for equipment that helped them to avoid pressure sores when they were wheelchair-bound. Disabled people couldn’t use their funding to travel to a different city to see their family and said that they were being isolated. Carers, parents who looked after disabled children full time couldn’t use their funding to take a break and access respite and get some sleep, all because this National Government took away flexible funding in March last year, and in 17 months, it reversed the dial and brought it back and decided that they were saving the world. It was dire and it was caused by them.

Then the press release by the Minister last week: it basically talked about the changes that they were making—flexibility that people have marched down the streets for over the last 17 months. There have been rallies. There have been public meetings—disabled communities calling for flexibility to be brought back. Finally the Minister does that, crows on about it in her press release, but doesn’t mention a few salient points. She doesn’t mention that next year there will be interim budgets that will be put in place for disabled people that will be based on how much they spent in the last 24 months—16 months of that was after flexibility was removed, which means that they couldn’t spend the budget that they were allocated—and now that will dictate how much they get to spend next year. How is that fair, and why was that not in the press release? Why was it also not in the press release that there will be a new assessment and allocation tool that will then determine, from October onwards, how much funding disabled people will get?

The sweetener was announced in a press release, to much fanfare. There will be flexibility coming back, but what was not foreshadowed was the potential cuts that will come in next year, within which flexibility will be brought back. That is in the Minister’s own Cabinet paper, where she says clearly that it will be perceived as a blunt tool to improve financial management: “There is a risk that we will continue existing inequities, given the lack of data or explanation of the gap between allocation and spending. There is also a risk of unintended consequences.” She says this pretty clearly. She also foreshadows the fact that a fixed allocation based on current or past spending could be perceived as cuts to packages, because they are cuts to packages that are coming. All of this is unfair and not foreshadowed by the Minister.

Now, the total impact of the cuts that this Government has made—we know that one in eight children in New Zealand live in material hardship where they cannot afford the basics like food, power, and rent. The rate for children with a disability or living in a household where someone has a disability is almost double that. One in four children who are disabled or live with someone who is disabled cannot afford the basics, all of which this Government is making harder to afford, directly because of the decisions that they make, plus, of course, unemployment for disabled people—7.9 percent in 2022, which almost doubled to 14.1 percent in June this year.

The care and support workers’ claim was cancelled by the Minister for Women, who just took a call in the general debate and went on about how life is becoming better for women—33 active pay equity claims cancelled, including making it more difficult for those who work in disability facilities as well.

Ultimately, the responsibility and the blame fall on the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, who is weak, out of touch, and doesn’t have a plan for New Zealand. The decisions made by this National Government are directly causing harm. They can only make their numbers add up by slashing services and cutting funding for those who are doing it the toughest in New Zealand. They’re making it worse, and that’s why Labour will keep fighting.

A Government of action and delivery—we’ve heard a lot of talk from that side of the House, but on this side of the House we’re all about the action, we’re all about the delivery, not just dreaming about ideology, wasteful spending, light rail in Auckland. We are delivering infrastructure in New Zealand, and it starts with the Hawke’s Bay Expressway—how good. Hard hats, shovels on the ground, diggers on site—that’s what a Government of action and delivery really looks like, not just dreaming. Unlike Labour, we see the value of infrastructure.

In fact, this road could’ve been built by now. We campaigned on four-laning the Hawke’s Bay Expressway back in 2017, but, no, Labour came in, they wiped it off the table, they said it wasn’t important and it wasn’t needed. Well, it is important, and we are now delivering on it. We see the value. We see the value of a growing Hawke’s Bay population. We see the value of growing productivity, of getting our exports to the port faster. In fact, it was short-sighted to stop that Hawke’s Bay Expressway. Labour was wrong to put the brakes on, literally bringing us to a standstill. The frustration we see every day in Hawke’s Bay—stuck in traffic lined up from Links Road to Taradale—well, we’re taking the brakes off. We’re getting things moving in Hawke’s Bay, our economy moving, and moving our wages up. That’s what good infrastructure does. That is the way to achieve this, by building strong infrastructure.

Our region is an export region. We are the fruit bowl of New Zealand. We grow the best produce in the world: the best apples, the best wine, and the best red meat. We want to grow our exports—in fact, double the value of our exports in the next few years. The way to do this is to build good infrastructure, build that four-lane expressway in Hawke’s Bay, and get our produce off to the markets a lot faster. This is what grows local economies, and this is what creates jobs.

It was so exciting to have our amazing Minister of Transport, Chris Bishop, in Hawke’s Bay a few weeks ago announcing a $600 million investment into the four-lane expressway, announcing it will start in November. That is real hard hats on site, real shovels in the ground, real people, real diggers. We are driving progress and getting things built, and we are walking the talk, because that’s what action looks like—$6 billion of Government-funded infrastructure to start by Christmas. Great news for Hawke’s Bay, and this will provide great Christmas cheer for the region, because, wow, is this going to create a pipeline of work for our local families: over 300 jobs. We do appreciate it has been really tough for our local contractors, so this is welcome news. The four-laning of the expressway doesn’t just create a long-term connection between Hastings and Napier; it creates a strong pipeline of work for our local people and our local families: 300 jobs forecast and many local businesses and families supported.

It’s not just the four-lane expressway that we’ve committed to in Hawke’s Bay. We’ve announced the Waikare Gorge realignment: over $1 billion worth of investment. This is the single largest investment in Hawke’s Bay in years, and the four-lane expressway will provide road users with easy-moving freight—12 kilometres of it, straight to the port and off to market our product.

Building infrastructure isn’t just about bricks and mortar; it’s about connection and building communities, and we saw this in Hawke’s Bay, where our infrastructure didn’t stand up in Cyclone Gabrielle. I was recently humbled and touched in the communities of Puketapu recently and Kereru, where we reconnected those communities with strong, resilient infrastructure. This is progress, and this is what gets New Zealand back on track.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When New Zealanders voted two to one for the End of Life Choice Act in 2020, they voted for compassion and for dignity. It was based on a simple belief that no one should be forced to endure unbearable suffering when they would rather go peacefully and on their own terms. Since then, more than 1,200 terminally ill people have taken that path. They have chosen to meet death with grace, calm, and on their own terms, often with their families beside them.

But when the law was passed, it was a compromise, and to get it through Parliament, David Seymour, now Minister Seymour, had to agree to some restrictions so that, unfortunately, some New Zealanders are still missing out. While it was a remarkable effort by David Seymour to get this bill through, there are people who aren’t able to meet the restriction in the law of having a terminal illness that means that they’ll die within six months. As we all know, it’s very hard when you’re living with a terminal illness or degenerative illness to put down on paper that your life might end in a strict time line. It doesn’t necessarily follow a calendar. I’ve had many people who’ve had to sit beside or next to loved ones with degenerative illnesses—motor neuron disease, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, end-stage lung disease—where their decline might stretch over a number of years, but it’s known that their death by the disease that they’re living with is going to be inevitable. They continue to live with immense suffering. Unfortunately, under the current law, they’re told, “You do not qualify.” That is not compassion.

I was very moved last year when I actually accepted a petition in August of last year which Social Justice Aotearoa had organised. Again, it was signed by over 3,300 New Zealanders, really drawing attention to this issue. It had actually been initiated by the plight of Nicole Martin, who lives with a degenerative illness in Taupō, and she, unfortunately, wasn’t able to access the end-of-life regime.

I’ve heard from families across New Zealand about this issue, and that’s why I’ve proposed amendments to the End of Life Choice Act which will make it more compassionate, will draw it closer to the original intent of the bill by removing this arbitrary six-month cut off. The safeguards that New Zealanders expect will still remain—the law will remain safe, it will remain careful, but it will become finally a bit fairer.

We know that end-of-life choice is not for everyone, but I want those who do want to access it to know that they can take comfort that the disease that they’re living with will be accessible for it. Again, what we’re trying to do is just give New Zealanders back a sense of control, and often that is taken from them by an incurable disease. I’ve taken the step in the last few weeks of writing to every member of the House, and they will have received this letter. In addition to dealing with the sixmonth restriction, I’ve also taken the opportunity to pick up the 25 recommendations that the Ministry of Health published in their report, which was released at the end of last year. This was, again, a piece of excellent work done as part of the End of Life Choice Act, which required a review. I’m asking to meet with all MPs—some I’ve already met with, and I know there’ll be some in this House that don’t support the change, but I’d still like to meet with you and talk over the options, because it’s important that we do actually have a dialogue around this.

I also want to thank the End of Life Choice Society, Russell McVeagh, and Social Justice Aotearoa for supporting the efforts to date. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Maryan Street who has, once again, come back on board to try and build some political consensus around this sensible amendment that I’m asking is made to the End of Life Choice Act.

I look forward to delivering for New Zealanders, because, at the end, this bill isn’t actually about politics or law; it’s about love, compassion, and dignity, and I want to make sure that that is abided by.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Teachers across Aotearoa are rightfully angry. They’re angry at this Government continuously and relentlessly undermining, underpaying, and undervaluing them. We are seeing events unfold in Aotearoa that are unprecedented in our history, where teachers—primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, support stuff, specialist staff from the ministry—are coming out to oppose the relentless attack that this Government has on their profession.

We’re seeing organised strike action by teachers over the last few months because they have had enough. They have had enough of this Government, and they have had enough of this Government gaslighting them. What does it actually mean when we’re looking at the offers that are being presented to the teachers? We’re looking at offers that do not meet inflation. We’re looking at offers that mean that teachers will have less for their whānau, while we are funding other things disproportionately, like defence and landlords.

What we are seeing are figures continuously misquoted by this Government, trying to undermine the profession. We are seeing the Government talking about teachers getting a 4 percent increase in salary without realising or acknowledging the fact that 68 percent of teachers, who are on the top step scale, do not see that increase. We are seeing Ministers talking about teachers earning $140k a year—wouldn’t that be nice? We are seeing the removal of active pay equity claims. We are seeing the cancellation of resource teachers in Māori, resource teachers in literature, kāhui ako, Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Creatives in Schools—just to name a few things that have been cancelled by this Government.

We have seen the Government shamelessly parading around saying how much they’re putting into education, without looking at the real numbers. They say that they are putting in three-quarters of a billion dollars into learning support; in fact, it is only a third of that. To use the Minister of Education’s own word, “most” of that is reprioritisation from cutting other parts of the sector.

Why are teachers doing this? It is not simply about the pay. It is about the treatment, and value, and their voice within the sector. We’re seeing that NCEA is being scrapped because of one professional advisory group made up of 12 people, who have to sign non-disclosure agreements and cannot go and consult with the public until it is too late. We’re seeing an open letter written by 121 principals—that is over 20 percent of our schools—saying, “Do not scrap NCEA.” We have yet to see a response from the Minister.

Fundamentally, I reiterate what I said in the beginning, from the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand report in 2023, that the teachers are feeling underpaid, undervalued, and undermined, which then leads to a real issue that we’re going to be seeing with teacher retention. We’re seeing, from the same report, that 58 percent of teachers are likely to leave the profession within the first five years. A survey done in 2018 showed 50 percent, or half, of all secondary school teachers would be leaving the profession in the first five years, and 20 percent of primary school teachers.

We are seeing the ever-increasing—at an alarming rate—average age of teachers. Within a decade’s time, we’re going to have a real issue with a shortage of teachers. If we can fund $9 billion for defence and $2.9 billion for landlords, we can do that for teachers. It’s not just about teachers; it’s about our tamariki, it’s about our parents, it’s about our whānau, and it’s about our communities.

“Hutia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te kōmako e kō?”—“If you cut out the centre of the flax, where will the bellbird sing?” If we don’t support our teachers, then how do we expect our students to learn?

I cannot believe in 2025 I have to stand in the House today and give this speech to address the concerning actions of Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March, who wrote an official letter of support for someone convicted of vandalising MP electorate offices. What a disgrace in 2025. That member used his official MP letterhead to write a character reference for Hannah Swedlund, a lawyer who systematically vandalised MP electorate offices across Auckland. This included the offices of Christopher Luxon, Judith Collins, Simon Watts, Paul Goldsmith, Melissa Lee, Dan Bidois, and a sign belonging to ACT leader David Seymour.

This is the same MP whose party colleagues are the first to complain about intimidation of MPs and who’ve actually just had one of their own resign because of intimidation. But let me be clear what this member chose to support: Hannah Swedlund orchestrated nine separate acts of vandalism across three nights, beginning in November 2023, with the targeting of the United States consulate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade offices in Auckland, before moving on to throw red paint, symbolising blood, on National MP electorate offices. The paint was intended to be a clear act of intimidation. The judge noted that Ms Swedlund, a practising lawyer who knew this was illegal, took steps to cover it up. This was sustained, it was planned criminal activity that cost over $5,000, and it disrupted the services to constituents. Yet Mr Menéndez March saw fit to write a character reference for this individual.

The decision to support someone who vandalised parliamentary colleagues’ offices is extraordinary. His choice to use official MP letterhead makes the support even more inappropriate. This isn’t just about MPs; it’s about the people who work in these offices. Imagine turning up to work to find your workplace splattered with paint symbolising blood. Staff and constituents would have been intimidated by this display. The disruption this would have caused for constituents is significant. Meetings would have been cancelled while offices were cleaned and secured. Vulnerable people seeking help from their local MP would have been turned away. Yet that member thinks that this behaviour is acceptable enough to support with an official character reference.

Everyone in this House talks about the abuse we receive as MPs, both online and in person, and threats that MPs experience. Parliamentary security now requires us to secure our electorate offices. We have to lock front doors, and staff must confirm who’s coming in before opening them. My own electorate office is getting more security installed over the coming months, which is required by parliamentary security, including meeting rooms having two exits and more doors with deadlocked bolts, along with many other changes. While the rest of us deal with these security realities, Ricardo Menéndez March is writing letters of support for people who create the very intimidation we’re trying to protect against. It’s shameful.

The member doesn’t have an electorate office himself, but for those of us who are electorate MPs, his support for this behaviour directly impacts our ability to serve our community. This limits our ability to interact with our constituents who need help. Imagine if a Government MP wrote support letters for someone who vandalised Chlöe Swarbrick’s office—we’d be criticised heavily. Yet he faces no scrutiny, and I’m calling that out. I’ve never ever seen an MP write a character reference for someone convicted of vandalising MP offices. Ricardo Menéndez March’s judgment call deserves scrutiny from this House and an explanation to the public. These actions undermine the democratic processes. Electorate offices are where constituents access their representatives. By supporting vandalism of this office, he legitimises intimidation tactics that have no place in our democracy.

If we want a democracy where all MPs can serve their constituents safely and effectively, we cannot have MPs selectively supporting those who engage in intimidation when their cause aligns with their politics. The message it sends is clear: vandalism and intimidation are acceptable as long as you agree with the cause. That is not democracy; that is mob rule.

The member’s time has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.