Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament lays out the Government’s agenda for the year ahead. This Government is focused on saying yes to growth opportunities and rejecting the negative politics of the past in which we invented reason after reason to say no to economic growth, because it’s easy to say no to things. It’s the easiest thing in the world. As any new parent knows, saying no to kids is easy—as I’ve discovered. It’s incredibly simplistic and it’s incredibly easy. Actually, the tough decisions—the things that make a difference—are when you need to say yes, and, for too long, this country has made a habit of just saying no.
Everyone says that they’re in favour of growth—well, apart from the Greens. The Greens are the official de-growth party. They’re not in favour of economic growth, but most rational political parties are, apart from the Māori Party—they’re also not in favour of growth. Let’s leave Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party out of this, and let’s just pretend that this conversation is happening amongst rational, normal people. The National Party and the Labour Party and New Zealand First and the ACT Party—we’re in favour of growth, and most reasonable people can agree on that.
The problem with that is that it’s easy to say that you’re in favour of growth, but there’s always a “but”: “I’m in favour of growth, but growth has got to be equitable”—as if that’s a real thing. “Growth has got to be sustainable”. “I’m in favour of growth as long as it doesn’t involve foreigners making money”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as it doesn’t involve trading with the rest of the world”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as we make sure that live animal exports are not allowed”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as we preserve every wetland everywhere in the country”—even if it is, in fact, not a real wetland.
“I’m in favour of growth as long as someone doesn’t make a buck out of it”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as it doesn’t involve trade with the rest of the world”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as we don’t build any McDonald’s in Wānaka”—which is the latest thing, today. “I’m in favour of growth as long as I can see everything”, “I’m in favour of growth as long as I can see Mount Eden from every part of Auckland”—including on a particular part of the Auckland Harbour Bridge where the toll booth used to be 30 years ago, until we removed it.
“I’m in favour of growth except”—except, except, except. That’s been the story for 30 years. We just say that we like growth, but we’ve found every reason under the sun to say no. We wake up in 2025 and we find ourselves 35 to 40 percent poorer than Australia. We find ourselves with a productivity growth rate that’s lower than most of our trading partners that we’d like to compare ourselves to, and then—
Steve Abel: It’s called neo-liberalism.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: See, I told you that they were the de-growth party. The Greens don’t believe in growth. Well, here’s the rub: they’re the first people to complain about underfunding in hospitals and schools, and all of the living standards and the public goods that the New Zealand Government should and does provide. But, I tell you, here’s the rub: how do you have a better public health system? Growth. How do you have a better standard of living? Growth. How do you have a better education system? Growth. In fact, here’s the truth: what are the countries that look after the environment the best? Wealthy countries that grow. The poorest economies in the world desecrate the environment. They ravage the environment.
I invite the member to travel through the developing world. He would find the developing world going hell for leather on growth, and, actually, half the time utilising natural resources from fossil fuels to grow, because the great driver of human history is growth. This idea that we should lock ourselves in a hermetically sealed vacuum off from the rest of the world and pretend, and wear hemp and eat vegan food all day is nuts. It is nuts, and that’s what the Greens believe. They’re entitled to those beliefs, and New Zealanders are entitled to believe in them as well, but I aim and we aim for better things—we aim for better things. Fast-growing economies look after their people better and they look after the environment better, and that is why we are going for growth.
About 20 years ago, there was an interesting exchange in the House about why Australia has access to better cancer drugs than New Zealand, and why Australia has better access to pharmaceuticals. The simple reason is that they are wealthier than we are, and Michael Cullen said that 20 years ago.
We’ve got to go for growth, and that means everything the Government is doing. That means fast track, and, yes, there will be projects that the Green Party does not like, but I’ll tell you what this country needs: it needs more roads, it needs more mines, it needs more renewable energy, and it needs more solar farms. It needs to be easier to build wind farms in this country. It needs to be easier to do just the simple task of subdividing a house, the simple task of putting a house on a section of farmland so that people can live in those houses, or the simple task of adding extensions to houses without going through endless red tape by the local council and the regional council, and all of the plans that get in the way of that. We need to say yes to trade. Todd McClay—where is Todd McClay?
Tom Rutherford: “Trade McClay”.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: “Trade McClay”—I don’t want to see him in this House ever again! He needs to be offshore, doing trade deals. He’s just come back from the UAE, and we’re in the first 14 days—a fantastic deal.
We’re doing an investment summit in the coming weeks, in March, and I make a prediction that the Green Party will turn up and say, “This is really bad. We can’t have foreign pension funds investing in New Zealand infrastructure, because it might mean that someone makes a buck.” I predict that; in fact, I hope that the Labour Party won’t say that, but we’ll see—we’ll see. They are vaguely rational, sometimes, on growth.
We need foreign investment. We need fast track. We need trade deals. We need our investment summit. We need planning reform, and this year we’ve got a big programme of work around the Resource Management Act. I’ll guarantee you that the Labour Party—TBC—will oppose it, and I guarantee you that Te Pāti Māori will oppose it.
It’s time to stop saying no to everything, and time to start to say yes. It’s interesting to look back over the Labour Party’s response to this Government’s ambitious agenda so far, because we’ve got “Mr No” and “Mr Slow” over there. “Mr No” is Chris Hipkins, and “Mr Slow” is Kieran McAnulty.
“Mr No”—Chris Hipkins—is not in favour of fast track and they voted against it, but it looked like he was in favour of digital nomad visas. We had this great idea and Louise Upston, Nicola Willis, and Erica Stanford announced it, and we thought that this was pretty good. It went down extremely well and it had a huge amount of interest from overseas. Chris Hipkins said a year ago that this was a vision for New Zealand: “Digital nomads calling New Zealand home while using the international time difference to work productively and remotely.” Well, I agree, but it turns out that the Labour Party opposes that, like they opposed fast track, even though they came up with the original idea for that in the first place.
Now, “Mr Slow” over there, when it comes to the speed limits in the Wairarapa—and let me talk about the speed limits. There’s been quite a bit of debate about them, and I want to acknowledge Mike Butterick, who’s right down the back of the Chamber, but he’s at the forefront of this debate. He’s done a fantastic job on campaigning and overturning it.
Who remembers the policy bonfire when Chris Hipkins came into Government? Jacinda Ardern resigned as Prime Minister, and everyone got very excited about life—all the stupid ideas that that Government was advancing? New Zealanders said, “Oh, this is quite good—a policy bonfire.”, and Chris Hipkins stood up and said, “I’m getting rid of all the speed limit changes.”, because he knew they were really unpopular, and he then did nothing about it. I think that the good people of the Wairarapa got very excited because they thought, “Oh, this is quite good. This stupid 80 kilometre stretch from Featherston to Masterton—we’re going to get rid of that.”, but nothing happened, and it took the election of a local National MP and a National Government to get rid of it. I’m pleased I’ve made Kieran McAnulty’s day around that.
We’ve got “Mr No” and “Mr Slow”, and then we’ve got “Miss No-show” over there—the finance spokesperson for the Labour Party—who is just not part of the economic debate. She’s got two different positions at any one time. On the one hand, it’s “They’re borrowing too much.”, and then at the next minute, it’s like “You need to borrow more because we need to invest in this and that and the other thing.”
Then they can’t make up their minds about the capital gains tax, and I’ll make another prediction for the year ahead. I’ll make another prediction for the year ahead, because we’ve got “Mr Piketty”—David Parker—down the back, alongside the merry crew, and Helen White is smiling over there. She’s nodding and smiling, because what’s happening is there’s a—I hesitate to use the word “coup”, but there’s a lobby in the Labour Party. Helen White, Phil Twyford, David Parker, and, let’s face it, 80 percent of the Labour Party membership are going to push hard for a wealth tax, and the Labour Party needs to sort out its position. Oh, I’ll tell you our position: they’re both dumb ideas. Wealth taxes are stupid and capital gains taxes are stupid.
I’ll tell you what is a good idea: going for growth. That’s what this Government is going to do, and only when the Labour Party starts saying yes to economic opportunity will the public take them seriously. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This Government is arrogant, it is incompetent, it is disingenuous, it is heartless, and it is cruel. If we go by the previous speech, you’d also think they’ve given up. That was supposed to be their brightest star. I’ve seen duller things in the middle of a paddock. That was pathetic. Did you see the level of energy? The most energy that Chris Bishop could bring up, and the most energised his bench mates were, was when Mark Mitchell crossed his arms—that was it. That was the best they could come up with. The reason I think they’re so deflated is because they know that they have stuffed up. They know that the public is starting to wake up to the fact that they were told fibs during the campaign. That is why the Government is arrogant: because they think because they say it, it must be true. It is not true. It is far from true.
Think back to the campaign. Everyone told them that their tax plan didn’t add up—everyone—except Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop and Chris Luxon. “No, no, we’ve got it. We’re all good.” Who was right? Was it them? No. It was everybody else. And now they stand up and they tell regions around the country, “We don’t have money for your hospital. We don’t have money to replace your orthopaedic surgeons. We don’t have money to replace your birthing unit. We don’t have money to fund our roads that we promised. We don’t have money to fund houses. We don’t have money to fund early childhood education, despite our promises—we’re going to make it so hard to apply, to save ourselves money.” All of these things come from one thing: that party misleading the country during the campaign, and it’s coming home to roost now. They have failed the economy: 2.4 percent growth in GDP when they took office, and now we’re in recession.
We saw it today in question time, didn’t we? When the Prime Minister comes under pressure, he just makes things up. When he was being asked about the economic performance of this Government, he said, “We’ve been in recession for three years.”, and everyone’s standing around going, “No, we haven’t.” We’ve been in recession for nine months—entirely in your time. We saw it again today: “Oh, we’ve built 2,000 houses.”—bull. Not true. Not even close to true. They have built zero houses. The only houses that have been built are the houses that the previous Government paid for. Now they are so desperate to claim some sort of win, that they are claiming the work of other people. Should this come as a surprise? No. What do they do when they’re confronted with their own mistakes? They blame other people. That is the typical behaviour of an arrogant person: claim credit for somebody else’s win and blame them when it’s actually your fault.
They are so incompetent that the only thing that they can grasp at now is the failed policy of privatisation—the very policy that has led to unaffordable energy bills, because John Key sold 49 percent of the power companies. Apparently, the solution to that is to sell the rest! It is dumb—it is dumb. It’s been tried before; it’s failed before, but when you’ve got nothing left, what have you got? That is the only thing that they can grasp. The reason I say they are disingenuous is because they stand up in this House and they say they care about people’s jobs.
Hon Members: Rubbish.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Rubbish. They stand there after firing thousands upon thousands of people, after pulling funding out of hospital builds and school builds and social house builds—to the tune of 14,000 people have lost their jobs in construction. That is their decision. That is on their heads, and when we raise it to their attention, what do they do? They blame everybody else except themselves. Well, they’re going to have to suck it up because that is a direct result of their decisions. It is actually the reason why I call them cruel and heartless.
Homelessness is growing. That is proven in the Salvation Army State of the Nation 2025 report released today. Homelessness is growing. Compare that to the findings in last year’s report that said we are finally finding some momentum and finally making some ground in housing people. Why? Because the Labour Government invested in houses and actually built houses. We built so many houses, they think they can claim credit for 2,000 of them and no one will notice. But we do notice, because we know that they have funded and built nothing. When homelessness is growing, a caring Government that actually follows through with its promises would have done what they said they would do during the campaign.
Tama Potaka said that they would build more social houses than the previous Labour Government. That’s a big commitment, because that’s 14,000, right? Chris Bishop said that they would build so many houses that they would eliminate the housing wait-list, and Nicola Willis signed a pledge, with her own name, that they would build a net increase of a thousand State homes in Auckland every year. What’s happened? They have stopped the expansion of State houses. Despite all the bluster and the attempts to do witty points of order, Chris Bishop needs to front up to the country. His policy means that there will be no increase in State houses.
They have only funded community housing providers to the tune of 750 houses a year from next year. That’s all they’ve funded, so they can’t lay claim to anything up to now. Then, from 2026 onwards, it’s 750 a year. There are over 20,000 people on the social housing waiting list, and their solution is to fund 750 a year, but the thing that I find most egregious and most disingenuous is the claim that they have met their emergency housing target five years early. It’s just not true. Do they think New Zealanders are thick? That they can turn around and say, “Look at this, we’ve reduced it from 4,000 to 600 just like that.” You’ve got to ask the question: why?
If you look into the numbers, everyone that has left emergency housing to go into a social house has gone into a social house that we paid for and built. Twenty percent that have left emergency housing are unaccountable for, and Tama Potaka is on the record to say that he doesn’t care if they’re on the street. If you don’t believe me, look it up—it’s in the Stuff article. Here’s the thing: the Salvation Army and other front-line providers stood in front of the Minister and they said, “Your policy is preventing people from getting in.” He didn’t care, because they only care about reducing costs, and they only care about meeting targets—arbitrary targets that don’t actually mean anything because they don’t give a true reflection.
Homelessness is going up—while they stall State houses, underfund community housing providers, and literally prevent people from going into emergency housing to make their numbers look good.
Camilla Belich: Shame.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY: It is shameful. Just in the last two weeks, we have presented the Minister with examples of people that he has looked in the eye and said that, if you are in genuine need, you will get help. The example today is a Rotorua mother who’s pregnant and who is sleeping in a doorway; the man from Christchurch who was sent out of hospital, denied emergency housing—readmitted to hospital from complications from sleeping in his car; the mother with a four-month-old in Tauranga who was denied the opportunity to apply for emergency housing and is living in a tent; and the woman and her children in the Wellington region who escaped domestic violence and wasn’t even able to apply.
This is a result of your decisions, a result of the Budget that each and every one of you voted for. No wonder you’re deflated, and no wonder your heads are hanging in shame. They deserve to be.
This is a split call. I call on Tim Costley.
Well, I guess if you’re bereft of your own ideas, you just start talking about everybody else’s, because I didn’t hear one idea on how to actually improve the quality of life for everyday Kiwis in that last 10 minutes of whatever that was. All I heard was wanting to point the finger and deflect from the track record of the last six years.
If you want to go back, read the Hansard from 16 February 2022, when the Salvation Army State of the Nation report came out, where they said, “Oh, it wasn’t just a housing crisis; it was a catastrophe.” Of course, the Ministers that day were, “Oh, no, no, no, we haven’t done anything wrong. We’re making everything better.” It’s never the fault of anyone over that side; it’s just a mystery to people like their finance spokesperson how we landed up in the worst recession in 30 years. It’s a complete mystery, and it doesn’t surprise me when I hear the questions that come from them that it would be a mystery.
We actually need to make progress for everyday Kiwis. We heard it from the last person to speak, Kieran McAnulty, talking about the fact that as a country we have no money to pay for things. No kidding. Look at what happened for the last six years under their Government. That’s why we need growth. If we want to pay for more doctors, if we want more teachers and more nurses and more social workers, if we want to have better welfare, if we want to have better public services, we have to pay for it, and that means we need growth.
Growth gives us choices; it gives us opportunities. It means family can make a few decisions at the end of the week. That’s what our plan is all about. Yes, I’m proud that we’ve done stuff like going from almost 5,000 households in emergency accommodation, to 591 in a year. We set a target of six years; we did it five years early. That is outstanding, but there is more to do, and that’s why we’re going for growth. In my five minutes—it’s less than that now—let me give you five ideas that are actually going to help us get growth.
Firstly, we need a skilled workforce. That’s why in schools last year we took away the cellphones, we started doing the basics brilliantly—an hour a day of reading, writing, and maths; and this year we’re bringing back structured literacy, structured maths. I had messages from families of Paraparaumu Beach School, families telling me how excited they were to see the new textbooks that were funded coming home. This is, of course, the first time we’ve also fully funded textbooks in te reo Māori. This came out from another principal that says, “We’ve definitely seen the benefits of children completing, now, their maths knowledge work, reinforcing their basic maths skills in our class learning.” They are loving what we’re doing because it gets results, and if we want to have a growth economy, we need the skilled workforce to deliver that.
Secondly, we need to improve regulation. It’s not just Resource Management Act reform or improving the rules and simplifying them for building new homes. The things that annoy you, like traffic management—I was speaking with Horowhenua District Council staff about this; more than $35,000 in traffic management for an Anzac Day parade. How do we get to the point in this country where we think it’s OK that we’re spending tens of thousands of dollars to let our veterans march down the street when there’s a police car up the front and the back anyway? It’s this kind of unproductive spending that doesn’t create growth. It doesn’t help anyone in our community. It is just wasteful spending that we are focused on getting rid of. If we keep taking this lowest common denominator approach, we’re never going to grow our economy, we’re never going to deliver the opportunities that Kiwi families need.
Time ticks on—number three: we need innovation at home and from offshore. I think of some great local businesses in Ōtaki, like Stanmore Farm, that produce grapevine stems for all around the country and overseas, exporting them overseas. The technology that they have developed themselves on site is amazing. We’ve seen what Rocket Lab can do. Last year, I went to visit Robinson Research Institute. They’ve developed high temperature superconductors to power little satellites; it’s just gone up on a NASA space station, but there was no plan to commercialise it. This is the best and the brilliance of Kiwi scientists. We need to be commercialising these opportunities so that we bring the opportunity back home.
Four and five really quickly: we need to strengthen our international connections. It’s not just free-trade agreements; it’s getting rid of non-tariff barriers. It’s the work that people, like our Defence Force, do overseas to build those relationships. Number five: it is about investing in quality infrastructure. In my area, that’s things like the Ōtaki to north of Levin expressway, 110 kilometres an hour on day one. It is going to be magnificent. That’s something we’ve campaigned for, for a long time, but it helps get our community moving. It’s also things like the solar farm in Foxton that this Government has committed to supporting, and we’ve put through the fast track—well, they’re open for applications now in the fast track. I look forward to seeing it.
If we do these things, if we have the skills starting from a young age, if we improve regulation, if we innovate at home, if we strengthen our global connections and invest in quality infrastructure, we will have a growth economy. Growth isn’t a certainty, but with our plan, Going for Growth, we will deliver it for everyday Kiwis, so they get the public services, they get the quality of life, and the choices they deserve.
I love Waitangi week—love it. Love being in Northland, love what it is that we’re celebrating up there, love the vision. Last week, of all the things that I had the privilege of doing up there, my highlight was, I think, on Tuesday when I was able to visit three different Northland businesses with a number of our Ministers here. I want to speak briefly to each of them today and then pivot from there to one of the most exciting things that I’ve seen in our plan for this year, which is to turbocharge Invest New Zealand. Those three businesses were Kawiti Glowworm Caves, Ngawha Springs, and Manea Footprints of Kupe. Every one of those are a hapū-owned and -directed business and every one of them have been able to weave the pūrākau o ō rātou tīpuna i roto i tēnei kaupapa. [stories of their ancestors in this issue.]
The richness that that brings to the experiences—it really was an unforgettable day. It was an unforgettable day not just in terms of what we learnt and what we what we felt and what we were connected to in terms of those places but it was unforgettable too in terms of the inspiration for what is possible when communities are supported and resourced and enabled to actually develop their own economic growth and their own economic independence. That’s what every community, every hapū, every family in this country wants. They want the ability to be able to look after themselves. They want the ability to be able to create employment and care for their own, and that is why, as I mentioned in my introduction, I’m so excited about the turbocharging of Invest New Zealand.
Rima Nakhle: Tell us, Greg.
GREG FLEMING: I will. Invest New Zealand, under New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE)—and on this one, can I just acknowledge my colleague, friend, and former constituent Courtney Wilson-Yalden: rā whānau ki a koe e Courtney mō tēnei Rāmere [happy birthday to you, Courtney, for this Friday]—coming up there. Under NZTE, in just three years, Invest New Zealand has backed 324 Māori businesses, generating $753 million in investments. It is a New Zealand success story that we are taking to the next level; we’re going to scale it and it’s going to have massive impact on Māori communities, on Māori businesses, and across the whole country as well.
I also want to speak about a couple of businesses in my electorate of Maungakiekie and give them as an example to the House of how it is that businesses drive community flourishing. These are the businesses owned by Will Batts and by Dmitry Gafiyatulin. Will owns the Sentinel Homes franchise. He lives in Onehunga. Dmitry’s business is called Reliance Utilities and it’s based in One Tree Hill. These two guys are both in their early- to mid-thirties and they stand, I think, as fantastic examples of why it is that we, as a Government, are focused on economic growth and why we believe that economic growth is the best way forward to seeing our communities actually flourish. The single biggest thing in Dmitry’s business—he is an energy retailer—that he needs to be able to provide better services and more affordable products to his customers is more energy. That is what fast track is all about: it’s actually entirely about driving that kind of rapid development so that we can have more energy going to businesses like this that will then help our communities flourish.
In Will’s case, he is all about building homes—building dozens of homes for our communities. The three things that he needs more than anything else is residential land, he needs faster building consent processes, and he needs more competitive building products. Well, we’ve got great news, Will. We’re delivering all three of those, and we’re delivering them at pace. Because Dmitry and Will, and dozens and hundreds and thousands of small-business owners, like them, invest their capital, they create employment for people, they generate income, and from that income they pay tax, which allows us in this House the privilege of funding the public services that everyone needs and deserves. But then Will and Dmitry do even more. From what’s left over after delivering services, building homes, funding employees, paying tax, and feeding their own families, they choose to invest further in their community. They give substantially and generously to charitable causes from the fruits of their business, including, just beginning this week, the co-funding of a 24/7 youth worker at One Tree Hill College.
That’s the differences that businesses make. That’s how we make our communities and our hapū and our whānau in this country flourish, and that’s why we’re about economic growth and productivity.
Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party, from the very beginning, has always been about improving quality of life, about understanding what real wealth is to people. Real wealth is not measured in GDP; it is measured in the time that we are able to spend with our children. It is measured in the flourishing of ecosystems of which we are part—being able to see nature return to a city like Pōneke Wellington. In my electorate of Rongotai, we have a predator-free peninsula. We have record numbers of native birds coming back to the city. This is a unique position to be in in the world right now, because the ideology, of the last century, at least, has been growth for growth’s sake, and that is the ideology of the cancer cell. It means we have more pollution, we have more waste, we have more people getting sick, and all of that may be higher GDP, but it’s not actually real wealth—it’s not improving quality of life.
I mean, imagine this: we could have an Aotearoa where all people have access to a healthy, dry, simple, and lovely home that is powered with plentiful locally generated renewable electricity from wind and solar. You know, having an energy-efficient home means you don’t have to use so much electricity, and the electricity we use could be more affordable if we were investing in the right solutions. We could have neighbourhoods where when our kids left the house, we didn’t have to worry about them being run over by a double-cab ute or some other fast-moving vehicle. They could have the freedom to walk or cycle or scoot to school, and that is productivity, because that is time saved for parents. That is less traffic on the road. That is healthier, happier kids that learn better. The people in the Government apparently think that this is a terrible thing, the idea that kids should be able to walk and cycle or roam around their neighbourhood without being worried about getting run over by a fast-moving vehicle. To them, they don’t understand that that is actually harming our society. It’s hurting us. It’s costing us.
The best way to improve productivity is to invest in our people, to look after our natural resources, and to get off fossil fuels. We can’t thrive—humans cannot thrive—if we have an unstable climate. We cannot live good lives if we are constantly dealing with droughts, floods, and catastrophic fires. We have known for quite some time now that our use of fossil fuels and land use that is overly in agriculture and not in enough native biodiverse ecosystems is driving catastrophic climate change, which means we are going to have an unstable climate and it’s going to be more difficult to grow food and we’re going to have less access to fresh water. Globally, we all have this opportunity to work together. The steps that the Greens know that we need to take—which are pretty much the opposite of everything the Prime Minister laid out in his statement—and the steps that we can take will not only benefit Papatūānuku, will not only look after nature; look after our peers, our friends, our communities, and look after ourselves. It’s all one and the same.
Here’s a really good example of why this Government is so off track. Everything they’re proposing is not going to work to deliver the things they say they want. A perfect example is the fast-track project in my electorate, Rongotai, a proposal for a road tunnel that is going to cost billions of dollars. Just in the news yesterday, it’s been reconfirmed that the Government’s own documents show it doesn’t save travel time; it makes traffic worse. This is what we’ve been trying to tell people for decades. This isn’t a culture war—if you designed a transport system where more people can walk, cycle, take public transport for the short trips, then the roads we have would work perfectly to move freight and to move the things that need to be moved by road. That’s how cities all over the world function—in countries that that party, the National Party, said that they admired; places where less than half the trips are made by car. Yet they’re still going to fast track this project, which is going to cost billions of dollars, and it doesn’t even solve the problem.
Then they say we’re the irrational ones—projection, much? I mean, the least rational thing you can do is keep doing the same thing and expect to get a different result. We need a Government that’s going to show real leadership, that understands values, that understands the interconnectedness of our world—and the solutions are there; they are Green.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to take a call in the Prime Minister’s statement.
It’s always interesting, in these things, that what’s not said is often more important than the things that are. The Prime Minister didn’t mention the southern hospital even once in his statement, and no wonder why: we find out why, a few days later, when his newly minted Minister of Health confirmed that the hospital rebuild would proceed but it would proceed with less beds than the current Dunedin Hospital. Now, this is totally unacceptable, but the Prime Minister must have been glad for the support from the other legacy party—from the Labour Party—when they celebrated it. I’m holding up the quote. It’s a very small thing; should have reprinted it. It says, “Fewer beds but still a win for Dunedin.” The Greens will never celebrate a cut in the beds as a win for Dunedin. We will keep fighting with the people of Dunedin to get Dunedin the hospital rebuild and the southern region the hospital rebuild it deserves.
What was also interesting in the Prime Minister’s statement is that he thanked National Ministers, he thanked National backbenchers, but he didn’t thank a single one of his once and future Deputy Prime Ministers; not a single mention of his coalition partners. Look, no wonder why: this is their second year in office, and what have these two once and future Deputy Prime Ministers actually accomplished? Well, the future ex - Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has set up a few white-elephant bureaucracies. He’s degraded the school lunches programme so that, where there were once healthy, nutritious lunches for kids, they’re feeding them inedible slop. Earlier this week he ram-raided Parliament. No wonder—no wonder—the Prime Minister isn’t dishing out praise for these coalition partners. The current Deputy Prime Minister Peters, well, you know, he’s picked fights with our allies within the Pacific and across the Pacific, so no wonder he’s not getting gold stars from the Prime Minister either.
The one thing that the Prime Minister did mention in his speech—well, more alluded to—was the Government targets. He said that they were making good progress on reducing violent and youth crime, but what he didn’t say in his speech is that they’re actually wildly off track. If you look at the latest Government targets update, which was released in September, it shows a sea of red and a sea of yellow against the Government targets. When we heard from the Salvation Army earlier today, they confirmed that this Government isn’t delivering better public services for New Zealanders. What they are delivering is crime going up, what they are delivering is child poverty going up, and what they are delivering is unemployment going up. That’s what the Prime Minister and his Government have said yes to—all these things going up.
Now, the most egregious thing about this is that it didn’t have to be this way. You can understand our scepticism when the Minister in charge of delivering these improved public services has now been reshuffled off and put in charge of delivering economic growth. We’ve already seen what one year of her economic stewardship has delivered to this country: unemployment at record levels, poverty at record levels, the economy breaking at the seams, and more and more New Zealanders leaving this country in record numbers. So, forgive our scepticism; she didn’t deliver on better public services, and there’s no evidence that she’ll deliver on economic growth, either.
I want to use the last part of my speech to thank the New Zealanders out there for their work in holding this Government to account. Thank you for all the hundreds and thousands of submissions that you’ve made against the terrible bills and the terrible legislation that this Government has introduced to this House. Thank you for your continued support, whether you’re sharing social media posts, whether you’re hitting that “Like” button, or whether you’re donating to the parties of the left, here. While we have occasional disagreements, we are all united and we will all make this a one-term Government. Thank you for your courage. This is not an easy Government to be living under. Every day, there seems to be another fresh attack on the environment, on the people, on Te Tiriti, and it’s not an easy context to be dealing with.
Thank you, everyone out there, for your courage. The tide is turning and we will make history by making this the first one-term National Government.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to be able to take this split call to be able to speak on the Prime Minister’s statement, and, of course, what we are going to do to help build this economy, and what we’re going to do this year.
In 2023, the ACT Party campaigned on real change, making sure that we had change that was going to affect the lives of people of New Zealand, and, boy, have we been getting stuck into that. We’re growing our economy, especially needed after the last effort of the last Government and their “drunk uncle” ways of spending taxpayer money with no accountability, and wrapping everybody up in continuous red tape. This Government is about supporting businesses. This Government is about supporting communities. This Government is about removing the red tape and all of the regulations that are binding people up and stopping them from going about living their lives. We have listened to the people of New Zealand and we’ve been sitting here as Ministers of the Crown, thinking “What is our little bit that we can do to help improve our economy?”
One of the portfolios that I have is in the AML/CFT space—which is the anti - money-laundering and countering financing of terrorism space—and we’re making changes there. Part of the changes that we are making actually come in relation to what businesses have told us that they need, what customers have told us, what the people have told us.
I’ll refer now to a letter that I received from Catherine—she’s my age, I could tell—who told me, “Do you remember when we were children and when you went to school when you were five years old, you were given a little bank account card and you were taught how to save, and you put money into the bank account, and the people from the bank would come to the school and they would take your money, take your little booklet, and they’d bring it back, and you had typewritten in there exactly how much money you had, and you were taught how to save.” Catherine wrote me a letter to tell me, “I can’t even open a bank account for my child. I can’t do that anymore.” The reason why is because the AML/CFT regime is so strict that unless she can prove that her child lives in that house and has some sort of letter that has the child’s name and address on it, she can’t prove the existence of the child and can’t open a bank account for her child.
Then we have the elderly widows, those who have relied on their husbands throughout their lives to keep them safe, to take care of the bills and all the bank accounts; then, when their husbands pass away, they have to go and have a bank account put into their name and transfer everything over, but, lo and behold, they can’t find a letter that has their name on it from a utility, like a power bill. They have no proof to say that they live in the home that they may have brought their children up in over many, many decades. They too cannot just get on with life in their elderly age.
What I can do is help provide regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses and create a system that’s more responsive to the needs of Kiwis. In October last year, we announced a major overhaul of New Zealand’s anti - money-laundering and countering financing of terrorism regime. We’re going to be introducing reforms—some are already here; some are still coming—which are going to allow the system to be more responsive to industry and community needs. They will be more agile and more focused on the real risks posed by money-laundering and New Zealand businesses. This relief is going to have flow-on effects for lower costs on customers because there will be lower costs on businesses who are trying to comply with the burdensome and unnecessary red tape that has been placed upon them.
One of the things that we’re going to do in the first instance is make sure that we remove the three confusing bodies that are meant to give advice to our businesses and make it just one so we can get on with giving that advice and also get on with giving that relief. This includes a couple of bills that I’ve already lodged that will give small but effective changes to Kiwis and to businesses. I’m so looking forward to this continuing forward through the Justice Committee, because I think everyone in this House wants Catherine and her children and their children to be able to open bank accounts and be normal Kiwis living a normal life. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I think it would be rude of me to not address the speech made by the previous Green member, Francisco Hernandez. I think the Deputy Prime Minister in waiting has achieved an awful lot in this Government, as have quite a few of the Ministers from the ACT team and across the House. What I would say is we have a Ministry for Regulation set up to cut that red tape, the likes of what Nicole McKee has been talking about—a hotline where Kiwis can actually tip off this bad regulation; something that people have been screaming about for years. This regulation has been crippling small and medium enterprises—possibly that regulation landed me in this position in the first place.
Secondly, the most important thing that he’s done is probably charter schools, and that’s quite fitting because this is what today I’m actually going to speak to you about. This week has been a fantastic week—well, actually, the past fortnight of new and improved choice for parents and for children in where they can actually send their children to get education. For too long, we’ve had schools that are not meeting the needs of our communities, not meeting the needs of our kids, and we’ve got a whole array of children that are disengaged.
Now, the two charter schools in Ōtautahi Christchurch, my hometown, I could not be more proud of—the first time that Christchurch has actually had two charter schools. We’ve got Mastery Schools. They are an Australian proved model. Kids at risk of falling behind—maybe they’ve got a little bit of neurodiversity—in years 1 to 7 will be brought up to speed. They’ll have tailored programmes that are actually what these kids need, teaching their level, not just the year that they’re in. We’ll also be utilising our trainee teachers, because they’ve created a programme with the University of Canterbury to actually hire some of the trainee teachers. These teachers that would otherwise just be working in a cafe—not that there’s anything wrong with that, but why can’t we be utilising these in the classroom? I’m super excited for them and I can’t wait to see what they achieve.
Christchurch North College—the next charter school to open. That deals with the kids that are from year 7 to year 10 that have really fallen between the gaps. Some of these kids have not been at school for between one and two years. This school’s going to provide the opportunity to get them the education they need and focus on some of those vocational skills, because, guess what, going to university, having higher education, isn’t for everybody, but we all know that we need some kind of education to get a good quality head start in life. I’m very excited for those kids.
Look, I just want to recount a story about one of the children that I actually met at Christchurch North College. He was sitting next to me during the pōwhiri, the opening, and he was shaking quite a lot, and it made me reflect on how nerve-wracking it must be if you’ve not been in education for a couple of years and you are taking that risk, you’re getting out there, and you’re getting back engaged in that system, how scary that might be. I wanted to talk to these kids and let them know that ACT and this Government actually support them. We want you guys to get back into education and we hope that you have more choice in doing so when you get there.
Secondly, I think that these kids, they look around and they think, “What has gone wrong in the system? Where have I fallen through?” Maybe it’s that they had some kind of neurodiversity. Maybe it’s that they couldn’t get to school for various reasons. It could be that they’ve got poor mental health, and they’ve been looking to find ways to be engaged but there has been nothing. Their poor families—their parents—have been screaming out for help. While, yes, there are some services out there, none of them can offer the wraparound, tailored service that something like Christchurch North College can offer. The future is bright for these guys, and I could not be more excited.
My question to the Opposition would be: if having more choice in education, if giving our children the best start in life has become a political football and so controversial, and you don’t want to hold the hand of that child that is shaking in their boots about attending school, then what are we doing here? The public and parents, they are sick of education being a political football. They want us to all get along. They want to have choice where they send their children. This should not be an issue that we continue to flick around. It should be that, actually, you know what, we all actually agree that kids need a good start in life.
My challenge to the Opposition is to go and visit these schools, see what they’re about, get on board. If you really care about the futures of our children, then come along, have a look at it, get behind, and we can all have a bright future. Thank you.
I’m very pleased to be able to stand in this House today and speak about the Government’s focus on what the important matters are that New Zealanders care about and that affect all New Zealanders’ lives. This Government’s focus is on economic growth and infrastructure to drive the very important growth that New Zealand needs, especially now. We are delivering with a strong focus on growing the economy to make New Zealanders better off—New Zealanders throughout the country, including New Lynn—by advancing trade initiatives and pushing for trade relationships to be stronger and more dynamic.
Our trade Minister, Todd McClay, has been all over the world and constantly on the road pushing for agreements to be strengthened and put forward—for example, the United Arab Emirates free-trade agreement that’s reduced 98.5 percent of the duties that are due on New Zealand exports. Wages are now growing faster than inflation, and cost pressures are reducing. We look forward to more relief from the Reserve Bank, with an economy that is fighting back the inflation that it has found itself in.
In recent years, we’ve faced many challenges, especially in our cities where the pressures on transport and healthcare, the cost of living, and the effects of crime have been keenly felt, but despite these challenges, we are moving New Zealand forward. The National Government has made it clear that to alleviate all of these pains that we are struggling with, the challenges, the way forward is to drive economic growth and long-term prosperity for New Zealand.
We stopped wasteful spending. We’ve provided tax relief. We’ve had Resource Management Act reform, fast track, and new roads, and we are restoring the consequences of crime, including the Crimes (Coward Punch Causing Injury or Death) Amendment Bill, which has been newly picked from the ballot. We hope to pass it this term.
The investments in healthcare are new and record-breaking—$17 billion in healthcare and new cancer treatments—a refocus on the basics in education, and making investment coming into New Zealand a much easier and more transparent and clear process. We are keeping councils to the basics, and we are getting things moving for all New Zealanders to feel better off.
This is what our local businesses need, especially for exporters throughout New Zealand. What a big help it is to the growers and all producers of products that go all over the world. We can now tap on all of these opportunities and bring growth to businesses, and that enables higher pay and more stable employment. Trade isn’t just about making money; it’s about creating those important local jobs that support our local families and that strengthen our communities.
We’re also working very hard to cut red tape and the barriers to growth. It is what 2025 will be about for this Government. It’s all about growth. It’s all about bringing New Zealand forward. It’s all about helping New Zealanders feel better about living in New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to rise and speak on the Prime Minister’s statement, and I don’t know if I’m breaching the Standing Orders by saying it’s great to have you back, Madam Speaker, as well, and the House is brighter for you in it. Kia ora tātou e te Whare.
新年快乐, Year of the Wood Snake. Happy Chinese New Year. Today is the Lantern Festival, which marks the official end of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and I just acknowledge the Chinese community, in particular those in Hamilton East who have been a tremendous support—
Tim Costley: And lucky to have you as their MP.
RYAN HAMILTON: —for me back home. Thank you, Mr Costley. It’s great to speak on behalf of Hamilton East, Kirikiriroa Rāwhiti, and on behalf of the city which is now New Zealand’s fastest-growing city—the city of the future. It’s truly a privilege and an honour.
What a great speech we had by our Prime Minister only a few weeks ago. What I loved about it was it was such a pragmatic speech. He touched on so many things which are so key for New Zealand and our economy. He talked about law and order, health, education—
Shanan Halbert: How’s that going in Birkenhead?
RYAN HAMILTON: —productivity, law and order, education, Shanan, productivity, investment, and unlocking potential. The latent potential that we’ve been sitting on within New Zealand, particularly over the last six years, we’re about to unshackle. We’re about to unlock the potential of this great country, and within the regions, and it’s going to be awesome.
We’ve got a productivity plan and it starts with education. Our great Minister Stanford is doing incredible work there with structured literacy and maths and educating our future—it’s so good to see. Technology and innovation, less regulation, infrastructure investment, and investment support. And, of course, we’ve got the investment summit in March, a few weeks away, which is going to be so good.
Arena Williams: Who’s coming?
RYAN HAMILTON: It’s invite-only, so you probably won’t be invited to that one. Speaking of the economy and boosting all good things, I’m so excited that Hamilton Airport is going to be having international flights from July. We’re excited to share that that will bring in about $45 million to the regional economy a year; 100,000 passengers will be leaving and going forth to Sydney and the Gold Coast, five flights a week out of Hamilton, the city of the future. Very exciting indeed.
I’d like to talk about the idea, the prospect, of this third medical school. We’ve got short-term health challenges which Minister Brown is tackling head on, and we’ve got some long-term challenges. The medium-term solution is a medical school in Waikato, and that’s before a business case at the moment, but I’m optimistic, because it’s also like a fast track: instead of the usual six-year degree, doctors will be able to do it in four years. It’s a graduate degree, it’s innovative, and it’s exciting, and it’s a key part to New Zealand’s future of our GP shortages. I’m looking forward to hearing about that.
One of the other key points in the Prime Minister’s statement was the emphasis on infrastructure development. Only recently, we opened up the Peacocke bridge over the Waikato River, connecting east and west, Te Ara Pekapeka Bridge, across our mighty awa. That was started under the National Government HIF loan—or Housing Infrastructure Fund loan—and it was great to start it and complete it under National, the party that gets things done, in collaboration with our great partners in the coalition agreement.
I’m also pleased to announce that I’m on the Environment Committee, and we’re doing some awesome stuff around Resource Management Act (RMA) reform: housing, infrastructure, farming, water, emergency, and natural hazards. Fast track—55,000 homes potentially going to be unleashed throughout this country, and 19 projects in Waikato, which I’m super stoked about. The Government, this year, plans to introduce legislation to finally replace the RMA with a fairer and more efficient system based on property rights that make it easier, faster, and cheaper to build while still protecting our natural environment, because we know we can do both.
Moreover, this Government’s focus on creating a high-wage, innovative economy aligns perfectly with Hamilton’s aspirations. Just last week, I met with some individuals at Innovation Park in Hamilton at a company called Farm Medix, and they’ve got a technology that supports mastitis and foot disease for cattle, and they export that intellectual property all over the world. They’re also looking at a climate technology where they can burn slash or other waste products, capture the carbon, and palletise it into what’s called biochar, and earn carbon credits.
Rima Nakhle: All in New Zealand.
RYAN HAMILTON: There’s some exciting stuff happening—all in New Zealand, and especially in Hamilton East, Rima, you’ll be pleased to know. But, Madam Speaker, the future is bright, and I’m pleased just to share those few insights with you. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement, and I stand by the words by the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins in the amendment to that motion that all the words after “That” be deleted and replaced with “This House has no confidence in this coalition Government because under its incompetent, arrogant, shambolic, and divisive leadership, New Zealand is going backwards, Kiwis are losing their jobs, record numbers are leaving the country, and their priorities are wrong and out of touch.” I absolutely stand by those words from the leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of the Opposition because that’s exactly what we are seeing on a daily basis from this Government.
I was really interested to see a number of MPs on the other side during this debate actually spend more time, rather than speaking about what they’re going to do, giving pot-shots to this side of the House. I noticed quite an interesting strategy, actually. Half of those National Party MPs were trying to talk about that Opposition finance spokesperson—that Opposition finance spokesperson. How about you talk about your Minister of Finance? How about we talk about the Minister of Finance and that one out of three National Party voters don’t believe can make this economy grow? How about we talk about that Minister of Finance where 50 percent of New Zealanders do not trust her to make this economy grow?
I understand why you’ve changed the strategy a little bit to try and throw back at the Opposition finance spokesperson, to try and destabilise the Opposition finance spokesperson, but I’ve got some news for you.
Tim Costley: Give us some ideas.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: See, here is Tim Costley, the Ōtaki MP, who is saying, “Give us some ideas.” Well, guess what, Tim Costley! You’re in Government. You are accountable for the last 16 months. The interesting thing is that this Government, in the same way that Tim Costley from the Ōtaki electorate says, “Give us your ideas.”—of course they want our ideas. Of course Ōtaki wants our ideas, because unlike Tim Costley where all politics is local politics, part of my electorate in Mana covers Kāpiti, and my office has been open for just over three weeks. Guess how many cases of homelessness, people that cannot access emergency housing, social housing—
Tim Costley: It’s been 16 months. Where were you for the first 15 months?
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: It covers the Kāpiti area—and you can keep interjecting, Mr Tim Costley, but the thing is I’m not going to back down, because the evidence is showing through electorate offices across this country that this Government is making cuts, is refusing to build more houses. It’s actually just today confirmed that they’re going to take the numbers of community housing providers and claim them as their own, never mind the funding. I’m waiting to see where the funding is to support those community housing providers who do want to build more houses, but I’m not seeing any funding commitment from this Government. You cannot claim, in terms of all those community housing providers, who possibly may get no funding from this Government, that those houses are yours.
Then what you also heard from this Government, just today in the House, was there’s this new strategy. First of all, attack the Opposition finance spokesperson, because it’s quite clear the Minister of Finance is rattled by the polls and by the way the economy is falling. The second strategy is fudge the numbers a little bit—just a little bit. See, the problem is, though, that could work during an election, but when you are sitting on those benches, when you are a Government Minister, when you are the Prime Minister, you are accountable for your words. That’s why Kiwis across the country do not believe the buzzwords that are coming out from the Government benches.
When the Prime Minister says that New Zealand has been in a recession for the last three years, well, let’s fact-check that. I did. I asked the Treasury chief economist, “Has New Zealand been in a recession for the past three years?” Well, actually, just for nine months in 2024. Again, as much as the Prime Minister wants to say that we’ve been in recession to try and fudge the numbers, to try and convince the country that things were worse under Labour, and that they’re doing something to improve it, the actual numbers don’t lie. The actual evidence from Treasury says that we have not been in a recession except for the last nine months under this Government.
The second little piece of fudging which I observed today from the House—and it was something that my good colleague and friend Kieran McAnulty picked up—was saying that, “Yeah, we built 2,000 more homes.” Absolute bull, I think were the words that Kieran McAnulty used. Again, it was the Labour Government that funded those 2,000 homes and continued the build, which is why we have 2,000 more homes. Every day, I am reminded through the people coming through my office in the Mana electorate who were homeless, who cannot access emergency housing, who cannot access transitional housing because the criteria has been tightened. It has been tightened because this Government is cutting the funding and making it more difficult for those Kiwis who need support to get that support.
I heard Tim Costley earlier, in his speech, talk about the lowest common denominator approach. Well, I’m sorry, but on this side of the House, the Opposition believes that a country and a society should look after those who cannot afford housing, who cannot afford lunches in schools, who cannot afford to catch the bus to their rural school. That is an atrocity, the fact that funding to rural bus routes has been cut and that a parent is having to tell their child and teach them, “This is how you hitchhike safely.” Is this the type of society which doesn’t have any regard to that lowest common denominator approach? Well, that’s not the society that the Greens, that we’ve heard from Te Pāti Māori, that the Labour Party will stand for, because we believe that you need to look after those who are the most vulnerable in your society, the reason being that’s how you get growth, that’s how you get productivity, and that’s how you get families to go to school.
I do want to acknowledge the ACT MP Laura Trask, who talked about attendance at school. I was a board member. That was back in the day of decile 2 schools. Attendance is so important for children to get to school, but what did Labour do to help with that attendance? Social workers in schools, lunches in schools, and we helped remove school fees, but this is a period where, for children across the country, their parents are having conversations about how they afford to send their children to school when public transport subsidies were taken away by this Government.
Lunches in schools: in order to save $130 million, you’re now having lunches arrive late if they arrive at all. The quality of the lunches—this is the stuff we are serving our children in some of our poorest communities. But that’s OK, because that lowest common denominator approach means that, sure, you can give them a $3 lunch, even though I may be having a really fantastic lunch in Epsom. That’s not how this side of the House wants our New Zealand society to go.
You will see time and time again—you’ve heard it from the other side of the House—“We are going for growth”. Yes, growth in unemployment. Those unemployment numbers would actually be higher had 125,000 New Zealanders not left New Zealand for overseas. They’re going to Australia. One of the reasons which I saw recently why they’re going to Australia—and it goes back to, again, one of the very earliest decisions that this Government made. When this Government came in, within their 100-day plan, they removed the remit for maximum sustainable employment for the Reserve Bank.
Ryan Hamilton: That’s right.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Ryan Hamilton says, “That’s right. We removed it.” Yet in Australia, there is lower unemployment, their inflation levels are better, and 125,000 Kiwis, a large portion of them, are going to Australia because they know there are jobs. Yet the Reserve Bank of Australia, guess what they have which this Government removed in the first 100 days!
Tim Costley: Take off the rose-tinted glasses.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: They have maximum sustainable employment. I love hearing the other side of the House saying, “Take off the rose-tinted glasses.” Again, every day in my office, we are having homeless people, we are having people who cannot access emergency housing and transitional housing—those are the facts, because you have changed the criteria on which people can access help, which is why one in two Pacific children is going hungry, which is why one in 10 Pacific people does not have a job. All these figures are evidence. There is data about it, so the people that need to take their rose-tinted glasses off are the ones that are sitting on that side of the House.
We know Kiwis are doing it tough. When they’re walking through our offices, they’re doing it tough, but instead, all we see from this Government is continual name-calling, a lowest common denominator approach. What do you expect from a Government that doesn’t want to lead?
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Prime Minister’s address and his focus on economic growth. It is under his stewardship that we have seen a focused drive not only towards economic growth but also towards enhancement of the services that a modern-day society demands, from healthcare—and, yes, this will include delivering Dunedin Hospital, which services not only Dunedin but a much wider area including the Waitaki electorate—to education, infrastructure, and digital connectivity.
This Government’s commitment to bolstering these essential services underpins the foundation of our progress. This Government is saying yes to fostering economic growth and stability for all New Zealanders. Over the past year, we have witnessed remarkable progress driven by thoughtful and strategic measures aimed at enhancing our economic landscape. Not only have we delivered legislation that will play a crucial role in progress, like the fast-track consenting Act and the Resource Management Act reforms, we are also ensuring that we have a Budget that will allow economic recovery to occur. These measures and others paved the way for substantial investment in various areas, including our primary industries, mining, and the renewable sector.
The Government’s commitment to creating a robust economic framework is evident in the positive outcomes we are now experiencing, and we have been crying out for this as a country.
Celia Wade-Brown: A bit like child poverty.
MILES ANDERSON: Hold your horses. In the Waitaki electorate, our primary industries have always been the backbone of our local economy and also the regional and national economy, as well. At this stage, I’d just like to give a shout-out to the Totora Estate, which will be celebrating National Lamb Day on Saturday and is the birthplace of New Zealand’s frozen meat industry.
Hon Mark Patterson: I’ll be there.
MILES ANDERSON: I hear Minister Patterson saying he’s going to be there. However, agriculture, pastoral and arable farming, fisheries, forestry, and horticulture are not just economic activities; they’re a way of life for many of our residents, and this is something that our Government supports. Mining is another critical sector in our electorate, and I want to highlight OceanaGold at Macraes and the Oamaru stone quarries in North Otago that provide world famous Oamaru stone all around New Zealand and across the world.
The mining sector’s also benefiting from the Government’s forward-thinking policies. This Government has facilitated exploration and responsible extraction of mineral resources, which will contribute significantly to local employment and economic activity. Moreover, the Government’s focus on renewable energy opportunities is particularly relevant to the Waitaki electorate. Our region is blessed with abundant natural resources that make it ideal for renewable energy projects. The Government’s push to electrify New Zealand has provided the necessary framework and incentives for the development of wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric power. These initiatives will not only contribute to our national energy security but also offer local communities a pathway to sustainable economic growth, and it will create much-needed jobs.
I’d like to highlight the success of several renewable energy projects in our electorate, all based on the Waitaki Hydro Scheme—for instance, that is a shining example of how we can harness natural resources to generate clean, green energy. This project has not only created jobs but it also positions the Waitaki electorate as a leader in renewable energy creation. Government support is crucial for driving such projects, ensuring that they receive the funding and regulatory backing needed to come to fruition, and this Government is offering that support.
In conclusion, I extend my gratitude to this Government, our Government, for their unwavering commitment to economic growth. With that, I take my leave.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call in support of the Prime Minister’s statement. It’s going to be a great year. We are excited. We have turned the dial from no to go; from woe to let’s go. Before we talk about 2025, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about what we’ve done already. Let’s just bear in mind: 2025, the year of the growth mind-set.
So far, we’ve done fast track, 149 projects on the list; inflation’s down; interest rates are down; we have stopped wasteful spending because taxpayers expect better outcomes for their money; we’ve done the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform first tranche, more of that coming, cutting the red and green tape; and we’ve dealt with ram raids, reducing those down significantly. We’ve done new trade deals; we’ve opened New Zealand’s trade gateways across the globe, an incredible legacy being carved out by our Minister; we are backing farmers. this Government has done more for farmers than any Government in decades; we’ve banned cellphones in classes, and we know the benefits of that in our education system; and we’ve put together FamilyBoost—millions of dollars paid out to young families to help with childcare, to get people back into work. We have focused on foreign investment, making that easier, because we want to welcome their money into our country; and we focused councils back on the basics: get the roads fixed, make the pipes work, and get the rubbish picked up—it’s not that hard.
What are we planning on doing next? We’re planning on attracting investors to New Zealand, very clearly a key focus because we have to lift that offshore investment from $70 million back up into the billions where it used to be. We’re ramping up our tourism with better settings. If you listened to the Opposition going on and on about how bad it is in New Zealand, why would anybody want to come here? We can still deliver the services that we want, that we need, by being positive about our story, and welcoming to our country. We are reforming the science sector for the first time in 30 years and we’re giving our best brains a reason to stay in New Zealand for a rewarding career in research and innovation. There’s more RMA reform to come. We’re continuing to support our agricultural sector because we are the best in the world and we want to support that and continue with that legacy. We’re working hard to increase productivity and economic return so we can invest in health, education, infrastructure, and housing.
I want to take a moment to talk about the green shoots of growth already popping up in the beautiful part of New Zealand that we know as the East Coast. How good was it yesterday to see the news with the announcement of the reopening of the Juken sawmill, where an investor has stepped in, bought the mill, and is looking to put back 500 jobs into the Tairāwhiti community. That is a significant change and a turn-around for us. Gisborne has long been the port that exports whole logs and has struggled to find investors. This is a massive boost to our community at a time when we absolutely need to embrace growth.
What about in Kawerau, where next month a large processor will celebrate a $20 million investment into switching a massive manufacturing and processing entity from natural gas to geothermal steam. It’s a great demonstration of how innovation boosts the region’s economy and provides sustainable industry for generations to come.
Then the emails just keep coming from the likes of Forester NZ, working on exciting developments in the Eastern Bay, reducing carbon emissions, exporting, and growing jobs. Mātai research in Gisborne is delivering world-leading research, helping dozens of future medical specialists in their research. Then there’s HUTEC, a wonderful company in Whakatāne employing 90 staff, with 14 apprentices, delivering international engineering projects and heading into 2025 with an ambitious growth plan. These organisations, among others, are confident to grow. They can see that the economic tide is turning and they know that the future of our country, for the services everybody wants, lies in economic growth—not in handing out money. It takes hard decisions, fortitude, and 2025 is the year of a growth mind-set, bold approaches, and getting the work done. You don’t get growth by giving away money; you get it by providing opportunities for everybody.
We live in the first country in the world to see the sun. We get up first every single day in the world—we’re the first to get up. This Government intends to make that count. We are not going to sit back and wait.
I just want to mention, in closing, that this week it’s two years since Cyclone Gabrielle ravaged our region and large tracts of the East Coast. We are grateful for the support of the Government, and the previous Government as well, for getting us back on our feet, but now we need to change it up. We need to think growth—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.
Debate interrupted.