Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Well, Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament and, as the last speaker here tonight in support of this statement, this Government is on the side of economic growth and productivity and backing New Zealanders to succeed. What a great statement that was. It talked about where we have got our country to in only 14 short months, and where we are going as a country, and setting a very clear direction and a very clear agenda: that we need to grow our economy.

We just look back over what this Government inherited when we came to office in late 2023: inflation—inflation out of control, left behind by those people on the other side who, as the Prime Minister describes, are like arsonists who’ve just lit the house on fire and there they are criticising the people, the firefighters, trying to put the fire out. Well, that’s what they’ve been doing every single day for the last 14 months. They lit this country alight with inflation, with their reckless spending, and we are getting it under control. We’ve got inflation back into the band. We’ve got Government expenditure back under control.

We are seeing the benefits of that for New Zealanders, with interest rate relief coming through and flowing through into people’s back pockets. As, I think, Infometrics put it earlier this week, up to $45 million per week should be expected in lower interest rates by the end of this year, for people with mortgages up and down their country. That is good news for the people of Northcote. It’s good news for the people of Coromandel—it’s the good people of the South Island and Waimakariri; it’s the good people of my electorate, in Pakuranga. That is good news. Right across this land, people are celebrating as they see those interest rates are coming down, but, of course, there’s a few of them on the other side who are there still, the arsonists—the arsonists watching as we are putting out that fire.

We know how important economic growth is on this side of the House, and it’s not just a term that we talk about; it is the benefits that it provides for New Zealanders. It’s more jobs. It’s more opportunities. It’s the ability for people to start a business, to be able to get ahead. It’s also the ability for the Government to have choices about what we invest taxpayers’ hard-earned money in. It’s about being able to invest more and more in healthcare, in education, in the roads that the Green Party hate but New Zealanders love. It’s about investing in more hospitals, in our schools, and investing in law and order, which was left in such a terrible state by the people on the other side. I’m so proud of the work that the Hon Mark Mitchell has done—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Oi, oi, oi.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —getting gangs under control. And the Hon Paul Goldsmith; he’s right here. He’s been working very closely with the Hon Mark Mitchell and leading the way on justice reforms while the police are, of course, getting law and order under control.

Of course, at the heart of the statement it was about saying yes; yes to things like more tourism—more tourism into the country. What did they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes to more farming and backing our farmers. What did they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes to more mining. What did they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes to more solar, wind, and geothermal through our fast-track legislation. What did they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes to fast-tracking housing developments up and down our country so Kiwis—young Kiwis—can get into their first home, and what did they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes to more concerts at Eden Park. And of course we all know what the patron saint of the Labour Party—Helen Clark—says to that. What does she say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: That’s what she says. Yes to more international investment, attracting investment to our country. And what do they say?

Hon Members: No.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Of course, because they are the party of no. They lit the house on fire. They then turned up complaining that the firefighters are putting it out and now we’re trying to build that house back better, and now they’re sitting on the sidelines saying, “No, you can’t do that, no you can’t do this, no, you can’t do that.”

Hon Scott Simpson: They’ve got the sign above the door.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, they’ve got “Noes” above the door; they’ve even got their “Noes” sign here. They are the party of no, no, no. As I said, because we’re saying yes, we are able to then invest in more of the things that New Zealanders rely on and the things that they deserve.

One of my new roles as Minister of Health is to make sure that our health system is delivering for New Zealanders, and I’m proud of the record investment this Government has made in our healthcare system. But, as everybody knows, there is always going to be a demand for more money into healthcare. There’s always new technologies, there’s always new investments required, but what we also need to do is make sure the money that is being spent is delivering the results that New Zealanders rely on and the results that they expect.

I think it’s an absolute shame what that last Government did to our healthcare system. It is one of the crying shames that they have left behind after their six years in office—what they left behind for New Zealanders. When National left office in 2017, the vast majority—almost 90 percent of New Zealanders—were able to get seen and discharged through their emergency departments within six hours. That had dropped back around 20 percent. The number of Kiwis who were being able to get an elective surgery and the number waiting beyond four months was just over 1,000.

Over the six years, that number had increased into the tens of thousands. In fact, when we left office in 2017, only 1,037 Kiwis were waiting more than four months for an elective surgery. When they left office, that was 27,497. That is a 2,551 percent increase in the number of people waiting more than four months. Shame on them. When it comes to people wanting their first specialist assessment—those people wanting to get their first specialist assessment—918 Kiwis in 2017 were waiting more than four months to get their first specialist assessment. When they left office, that number had increased to 59,818—

Hon Peeni Henare: COVID-19?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —a 6,400 percentage point. Fail and shame on them; shame on them.

Hon Peeni Henare: Stop rewriting history, Mr Brown.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: And what was their big idea; what was their big idea? I hear the excuses coming out from the Opposition—the excuses. What was their big idea to sort that out? Focus on making sure we did the right number of doctors and nurses, making sure we’re focusing on delivering for Kiwis, making sure we’ve got targets in place? No, they got rid of the targets. What were they focused on? Restructuring the entire health system in the middle of a pandemic. Shame on them. They’re more focused on the bureaucracy, the back-office functions, the number of people on the senior leadership team; that’s what they were doing, sitting around the Cabinet table working out how many people we can have on the senior leadership team rather than focusing on the outcomes for patients.

On this side of the House, we make no apology that we are on the side of patients. That’s why we brought back those targets. We’re going to focus the system on delivering against those targets. That is what we’re focusing on, and it will be a patients-first policy from this Government, and that’s what we’re going to deliver on. I have no doubt there are significant challenges facing our health system, left behind because when you don’t measure something, you can’t manage it, and that’s what they did. The first thing they did was to stop the measuring so that Kiwis were left in the dark as to the performance of their health system. We have shone a light on that; we’ve shone a light on the challenge that New Zealanders face, and we are focusing the system back on delivering against that.

In conclusion, this Government has a huge agenda ahead of us this year. We are focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. We’re focused on growing our economy, because, with a strong economy, we can have better jobs. We can have better-paid jobs, more jobs, the incomes that we deserve. It means that we can invest in the healthcare, the education, the law and order that New Zealanders rely upon, and we will deliver that because that is what Kiwis voted for us to do, and we are not going to stand by like those people on the sidelines complaining. We’re going to get on and make the decisions that get New Zealand back on track.