Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

I present the Prime Minister’s statement.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I move, That this House express its confidence in the Government and commend its programme for 2025 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement.

Well, I have to say it is great to be back, because this Government has roared out of the blocks with a massive focus on going for economic growth to make Kiwis better off. We have refreshed our fantastic team to underline growth as the priority, we’re setting up a one-stop shop for foreign direct investment to get better infrastructure built much faster, and we’ve kicked off the biggest reforms in the science sector for 30 years so our world-class research earns much more money for our country and for those who make those groundbreaking discoveries.

This year is all about unleashing our economy, and we have already started by signing a free-trade agreement with the UAE. It was an agreement that was delivered in just four months after talks began—New Zealand’s fastest ever trade negotiation. I want to tell you what that means for Kiwis. What it means is that duties on 98.5 percent of exports to the UAE are gone, and that is a fantastic result for businesses all across this great country of ours. I want to say that Todd McClay is out there, on those planes, getting the deals done. That’s why I call him “Trade McClay”, and I think it’s going to be a name that will absolutely stick.

We are going to be ruthlessly pursuing trade and investment because having more of those opportunities is better for businesses. It means more jobs, it means higher incomes, it means a stronger economy to pay for health and education, and we are making progress. Wages are now growing faster than inflation, and cost pressures, like the Auckland regional fuel tax, have now been removed from the system. Interest rates are falling—falling—and the Reserve Bank is forecasting that more relief is on the way very, very shortly. We delivered tax relief last year, and that means that Kiwis are keeping more of their money for the first time in 14 long years. Our steps now are to be going for growth to build the long-term prosperity that ensures that our kids see a future here in New Zealand. I recently spoke about the need to end the culture of saying no when it comes to economic growth, because Kiwis want to build and they want to grow and they want to innovate, and all too often they’re actually told no.

Let’s talk about fast track, because applications for 149 projects from Kaikohe to Stewart Island open next week. Among those projects are some exciting new renewable energy schemes to give us the electricity that we need and that will be affordable and abundant. In there are tens of thousands of houses that are going to give young Kiwis a chance to own a home, and in there, yes, there are mines and there are quarries so that we create jobs in provincial New Zealand and help the clean transition to take place. I’m proud to say that there are 49 of those projects that are in the South Island. That’s because, on this side of the House, we understand how important the South Island is, and that’s why we’ve appointed an awesome new Minister for the South Island in James Meager.

Now, the absolutely tragic thing is that every single member of the Opposition parties voted against those fast-track projects, right? They voted against creating opportunities for Kiwis. Labour: they voted against jobs and housing. The Greens: they voted against wind and solar farms. Te Pāti Māori: they voted against iwi being able to develop their own land. I’ve got to say that the members opposite remind me of a cat pawing at the ranch slider, yowling away, trying to get in, and then you open the door, and they don’t move. They refuse to come in. That’s what they are—the MPs opposite.. I’ve got to say, we are a coalition on this side; they’re a “no-alition” on that side—that’s what they’re about. They’re all about no; we’re all about yes, on this side.

We must develop a mind-set that says yes to things that are going to make Kiwis better off, and you’ll know that, as part of that, last week I expressed my view on removing the limits around concerts at Eden Park. I think they should be abolished. What was interesting was that the Labour leader Helen Clark—I mean, actually, the former Labour leader—was not happy with me. That just illustrated how we’ve got a hall monitor mind-set happening within the Labour Party right now, because let’s be clear about it: Labour is the party of—

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —no. Yep. What did Labour say to tax relief for working New Zealanders? No. What did Labour say about gene technology and backing farmers and climate change and health? They said no. And what did they say about fast track? To every single project, they said no, and now it seems it’s actually no to more concerts. It’s no to more concerts now. It’s no to more customers, it’s no to more people in bars and restaurants and in taxis, and it’s no to things that are creating a vibrant and growing economy. Every single one of them, they’re just not on board with it. My real challenge to Chris Hipkins is: can you please reject your boss’s view and back more concerts for Kiwis?

While we have been back at work for weeks pushing through changes to make Kiwis so much better off, Chris Hipkins is barely out of his jandals. We’d signed a trade deal before he’d even grabbed the work shirt out of the laundry basket. I do want to commend, though, Chris Hipkins for one thing: his resistance to returning to work has showcased that, in fact, anyone—even a Leader of the Opposition—can be a digital nomad.

On digital nomads, can I say what a great announcement the Government made yesterday: a fantastic announcement, a common-sense change that’s going to mean we’re going to open up for more business and more tourists and more money being spent in our cafes and our restaurants and our shops. All of that is a practical, common-sense, great change, and it is all part of our plan to grow the economy. But what did we hear? We heard a rather muddled response from the Labour Party, saying, bizarrely, that the bigger economic priority should be letting more public servants work from home. It was quite something. Actually, I think there’s quite a good idea in there, because, bizarrely, looking at Labour saying no to everything, the country’s productivity would actually be improved if the members opposite did just stay at home. I’d encourage them to do that.

What I’d say is that when Labour woke from their slumber last week for their caucus retreat, Chris Hipkins told the media—he said this: “Look, it’s just been a year of reflection.” A reflection tour, just going around talking about and apologising for not delivering KiwiBuild or light rail or, frankly, anything. I think all this talk about Eden Park concerts has got in his head, because he got it a bit mixed up, because people wanted the Eras Tour; what they didn’t want was the tour that he was proposing: errors—e-r-r-o-r-s. That’s not what they wanted. But there was some very good news for Labour. They’ve decided to take a new approach. From now on, they’re just going to talk about the policies that they can deliver, and we haven’t heard a single policy from Labour, because they can’t deliver anything.

We need to end the culture of no, we need to end the culture of slow, and we need to be able to also move on increasing speed limits. We need to let Kiwis get to where they need to get to faster so they’re much more productive, and what does Labour say to speeding Kiwis up? They say no to speed limits as well—no, no, no. In fact, when Kieran McAnulty was the Minister, he asked the New Zealand Transport Agency to review the speed limits in the Wairarapa, and they came back to him and they said no. Well, I’ve got to say to Kieran: watch this space, son, because we’ve got some great Ministers in Chris Bishop and Simeon Brown, and also a great local MP in Mike Butterick, and watch this space because we can do something about speed limits.

What I’d say is that, on this side of the House, we’ve got some passionate MPs fighting for our folk in the cities, whether it’s Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, or Christchurch, representing all those diverse, different communities. We’ve got MPs in provincial New Zealand, whether it’s in Northland, Waikato, the Bay of Islands, the East Coast, Taranaki, Manawatū, the West Coast, Canterbury, Otago, or Southland, and they are saying yes to farming, and they are saying yes to trade, and they are saying yes to economic growth in 2025 in the regions.

Just over a year ago, this Government was elected with a very clear mandate to change course and to get New Zealand back on track. We inherited a broken economy. We inherited a cost of living crisis. Violent crime was up. Retailers were being smashed by daily ram raids—remember those?—that were going on every single day, and gangs were taking over our towns. The education system was failing way too many children, and the health system was reeling from a restructure that was botched and absolutely failed. We have taken tough decisions, because these are tough times. We are actually making sure that we are backing Kiwis who have a mortgage or a small business and a great idea and are desperate to crack into it. We’re going to be saying yes to those people.

Now, the good news is that change is already happening. Actually, when you think about what was achieved in the last year, we had fast track, we had tax relief, we stopped the wasteful spending, we had Resource Management Act (RMA) reform, we had new roads, we had structured literacy and maths, and we had gene tech. We’re backing the police with the gang law changes that we’ve had. We’ve stopped the ram raids. We’re actually restoring consequences for crime—a novel idea—very important. We’ve got record new investment in health, with $17 billion extra going in, and 26 new cancer treatments. We’ve got an hour a day each of reading, writing, and maths, and we’ve got reduced emergency housing—something we should be really proud about—after one of the biggest failed policies from the Labour Government. We’ve got new trade deals. We’re backing the farmers. We’ve got FamilyBoost. We’re making foreign investment easier, and we’re keeping councils focused on the basics rather than rates rises. We are just getting started.

Absolutely core to our plan in 2025 is unleashing economic growth, because a growing economy means what? It means higher incomes, it means more jobs, it means that our kids won’t look overseas for opportunities but will see that their future sits right here in New Zealand. A growing economy means more money to invest in public services, like hospitals or health, and it means that if you work hard and you’re prepared to work hard, you can get ahead in this great country of ours. We say a big yes—we say a big yes—to New Zealand businesses, big and small, so that they thrive and they make a profit and they pay higher wages and they hire more people and they invest in more growth, because that’s what it’s all about: growth. It’s awesome we’ve got Nicola Willis leading our economic growth plan, because we’ve got a plan to make it happen, and that’s what 2025 will be all about: growth trumps everything.

In Budget 2024, we delivered a fiscally responsible plan that reined in the wasteful spending, provided the income tax relief to working New Zealanders, and set up the conditions for future growth. We delivered FamilyBoost to help those working New Zealanders with their early childcare costs. We froze the fuel tax increases that were planned for three years to give people more relief at the pump, we made progress on breaking the cost of living crisis, and we found a way to deliver $17 billion extra into the healthcare sector, a multi-year boost for health—$17 billion extra. In May, we’re going to deliver our second Budget, and I’m telling you it’s going to build on those strong foundations and we’re going to continue to drive economic growth.

Our Government is making it easier and cheaper, as you’ll see in this fantastic Prime Minister’s statement, to build infrastructure, housing, and transport projects, and, I’ve got to tell you, fast track is just the beginning, because the real prize is actually fixing our broken Resource Management Act. So, this year, we won’t debate and discuss it and have endless hui and discussion, but we’re going to fix it and replace it with a system that’s fairer, faster, and cheaper. That’s why Chris Bishop created the national infrastructure agency to unlock the investment that we’re going to need for roads and hospitals and schools and energy projects, and that’s actually what we’re going to do: make sure we get investor cash flowing through into the projects that we desperately want to power up into this country. We’re going to have a 30-year infrastructure plan, and we hope—seriously hope—that the other side actually come on board and make it a truly bipartisan 30-year infrastructure plan.

In housing, our Going for Housing Growth plan is removing barriers—[Interruption] They’re enjoying it, aren’t they? Aren’t they enjoying it? What’s funny is that when you have six years in power, with the last three with an absolute majority, and you do absolutely nothing, you then get buyer’s regret on the other side, don’t you? You’re looking over going, “Jeepers, we could have done some stuff instead of just talking about doing some stuff.”

What I’d say is that we are very determined to get infrastructure built, but we’re going to do something about housing, because that was a failure of the Labour Government over six years, as well, wasn’t it? We’re removing the barriers for development. We’re going to allow cities to expand, we’re going to boost housing density, and we’re going to cut the unnecessary red tape that exists, and councils are going to be required to plan for 30 years—30 years of growth—so that we’re not constantly playing catch-up, as was proposed by the other side. We’re making it more affordable to remove the barriers for overseas construction materials, and we’re expanding self-certification for tradies—thank you very much, Minister Penk.

In transport, we are making record investments—record investments—to improve how people move themselves and their goods all around this great country. Over the next three years, we’re investing $33 billion into our transport network, which includes 17 roads of national significance—right?—and isn’t it phenomenal to see that in 12 months, we’ve already kicked off the Hawke’s Bay expressway, which I know Katie Nimon and Catherine Wedd are greatly appreciative of.

Farmers and rural communities are the backbones of our economy and they were treated like villains—absolute villains—under that last Labour Government. Well, they are deeply, deeply valued by us in this Government. We’re easing the burdens by introducing practical rules for on-farm water storage, winter grazing, and stock exclusion, halving the emissions trading scheme charges for forest owners, and pausing the freshwater farm plants, and we’ve scrapped that very, very unfair ute tax. That is a long, dim, distant memory. We’re going to continue to proudly back our farmers and rural communities to earn the extra dollars that actually power up New Zealand and enable us to make a difference as a result. But that means farmers need to receive RMA reform, because we want them spending more time actually milking cows than filling out forms and asking for permission from someone. We want them actually doing the farming, which is what they need to do, not having 35 percent of their week tied up in filling out paperwork.

We also know that tourism has a fantastic role to play. What a fantastic industry—an amazing industry, right? It’s only at 86 percent of pre-COVID levels, and we still get wittering from the other side saying, “Oh, we don’t want to bring tourists into New Zealand.” Yes, we do. We don’t have the luxury to turn off growth after three years of recession that Labour created.

The second priority for us, after rebuilding the economy and getting growth into the place and going for growth, is actually restoring law and order. I tell you, Kiwis deserve to feel safe, and they’re feeling safer within 12 months of this new Government—absolutely they’re feeling it. We’ve got two big targets: we want 20,000 fewer victims of violent crime, and we want youth offending cut by 15 percent, and we’re making some good progress there. We are going to reform sentencing laws to ensure that there are real consequences for crime and to keep those violent offenders off our streets, because for too long they’ve been allowed to do whatever they want. We are capping those sentencing discounts. We’re going to cap them, we’re going to tighten the rules on repeat offenders, and we’re going to prioritise the victims’ interests and reinstate three strikes. It is going to be more work to do to restore law and order in New Zealand. We’re going to progress the Crimes Act amendments to increase penalties for criminals who attack first responders—great idea, fantastic idea—and a new law to address stalking, while reforms will be progressed to speed up jury trials and also to expand remote participation for faster access to justice.

And didn’t we do well, taking it to gangs last year? There’s more to come, because you can’t have one-quarter of the population driving 20 percent of the violent crime in this country, and, man, those gang laws and the police’s response to it has been absolutely outstanding—and I bet you that, deep down, those members wish they’d done something on law and order. Apparently, they’re going to better focus on law and order and the economy this year, but, goodness knows—we’ll see what happens. What I would just say is we also need to work on serious youth offending, and we’ve got to make sure that serious and persistent offending is actually dealt with. It’s actually got to be trending in the right direction, and we want to see 15 percent fewer serious young offenders.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us with respect to health and education, because we actually have amazing doctors and nurses. They do an outstanding job. Just to give you a feel for it, in the last year, 700,000 first specialist appointments happened. There were 200,000 elective surgeries that took place, and today there are 50,000 Kiwis getting in to see their GP. We have amazing people, but we need to do a much better job, and I know Simeon Brown knows that we need to do a better job too, so they get the care that they actually need. That’s why we’ve put another $17 billion—and I referenced that $17 billion—into health, because this is the Government that cares about the healthcare system and the people that work in it, and we’re shifting the focus from the back office to the front line.

What I’d also say is that we care about education because we want kids to get an outstanding start to life in New Zealand. That means they’ve got to get to school. They’ve actually got to make sure we teach them to read and we actually teach them to do some mathematics. All of Erica Stanford’s incredible hard work comes to life this year because students and teachers in classrooms up and down New Zealand are getting some amazing resources to kick off the school year. Actually, that’s what parents want to know: that their kids are going to get delivery and they’re going to have a great future, with more resources, more quality training for our teachers, a brand new national Curriculum—fantastic—grounded in mastering the basics: reading and mathematics. That means more skills, more jobs, more talent, and much more investment ultimately coming into New Zealand.

Let me say that, one year ago, I promised that this would be a Government of action, one that takes on the big challenges facing our country and actually delivers. We committed to making some tough choices to rebuild the economy, to restore law and order, and to improve our public services. A year on, I have to say I am incredibly proud of the progress that we have made, but we know that there is still so much more for us to do to realise all the great potential that sits in this great country of ours. What I’d say is that this is going to be a Government that’s going to continue to deliver the change that New Zealand needs, because it’s not just enough to get us back to normal. We actually have an opportunity to be so much better and to realise more of the potential that sits in this great country.

I want Kiwi kids to know that New Zealand is where the opportunities are, not the UK or Australia. I want our farmers to know that we back them and that they’re deeply valued and they’re not villains. I want our Kiwi businesses to know we want them thriving, and I want Kiwi families to know that if you work hard, you can get ahead in the best country on planet Earth. So, 2025 will be another massive year for this Government. Our team are going to do everything it takes to unleash economic growth, innovation, and investment, and, with that, we can’t wait to get stuck in.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I move, 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.”

Kiwis looking for some hope from the Prime Minister at the beginning of this year would be disappointed by that contribution. If that is the best the Government has to offer, it’s going to be a very long year for the National Party backbench—as evidenced by the fact that you could see them pulling out their phones after only a few minutes and frantically dusting off their CVs. The fact that they’ve given up already is a real warning sign for this Government.

New Zealanders were looking for more: a realisation from this Government that, despite all the big talk last year, it’s still getting harder for New Zealand families and it’s still getting harder for New Zealand businesses. An acknowledgment from this Government that they have driven New Zealand into the worst economic recession since 1991 might have been a good place to start. An acknowledgment that the deepest cuts to Government spending since 1991 made that situation so much worse than it needed to be would also have been a good place to start. New Zealanders were looking for the Government to finally step up and take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences of them, but they would have been disappointed by that because the Government won’t take responsibility for the choices that it has been making.

All Governments have choices, and this Government has been making the wrong ones, like $2.9 billion in tax cuts for landlords because they promised that rents were going to go down—what’s happened? Rents have continued to go up under this Government—like $200 billion in tax cuts for tobacco companies while our health system descends further into crisis, like $14 billion in tax cuts that the country could simply not afford, like slashing affordable water reforms, leading to record rates increases up and down the country, like underfunding sectors like early childhood education (ECE), which sees parents paying higher fees every week to send their kids into ECE, like scaling back and stopping new public house builds—what’s resulted is builders, plumbers, electricians, and tradies losing their jobs at a time when we desperately need more houses to be built in New Zealand—like pausing and cancelling major infrastructure projects, which means some of our most skilled workers have given up already and left the country. Record numbers giving up and leaving the country is one of the early legacies of this Government. All Governments have choices; this Government’s making the wrong ones.

A Government that promised to get New Zealand back on track has derailed the New Zealand economy. You don’t just have to take my word for that; look at the HSBC’s estimates that said that New Zealand’s economy had the largest contraction in GDP last year in the world. The economists that previously called us the “rock star economy” have pointed out that we took the biggest hit in the world in 2024. Forget the rock star economy; Nicola Willis is aiming for rock-bottom! Businesses can see that the Government has derailed the economy. According to the Reserve Bank—who, suddenly, the Government wants to claim all the credit for—business investment will be lower at the end of this year than at the end of our last Labour Government. That is the early legacy of this National Government. We see businesses every week going to the wall as company liquidations continue to go through the roof. Companies that survived COVID can’t survive National. That is what this Government is doing for the New Zealand economy.

Kiwis are just getting more hollow words and rhetoric from this Government—no real action on power prices, on groceries, on rates, or on transport costs. In the real world—that’s the world where people who aren’t “wealthy” and “sorted” continue to face prices that climb, insurance that goes up, rates that are increasing, energy bills increasing, and transport costs increasing—Kiwis are struggling, and this Government is busy telling them, “It’s all OK. It’s getting better.”, when those New Zealanders know it’s not getting better; it’s getting harder. All they’re getting from the Prime Minister is more words. He’s like a walking Dale Carnegie seminar. He spent the last year talking about the cost of living prices; New Zealanders are still waiting for the fix. He spent the last year talking about growing the economy, and all he did was prove that talking about growing the economy doesn’t actually grow the economy. New Zealanders want to see that this Government has a plan, and so far this Government has proven it doesn’t have one.

Oh—no, actually, Christopher Luxon does have a good idea. He’s decided that the person who drove the New Zealand economy into the deepest recession in nearly 35 years should be tasked with economic growth. The person who made everything so much worse for New Zealanders is apparently Christopher Luxon’s magical solution to New Zealand’s lack of economic growth. What she doesn’t realise and what Christopher Luxon doesn’t realise is that Nicola Willis’ austerity agenda is utterly incompatible with raising living standards for all New Zealanders.

It’s not just about growing the economy but what we grow, and how we grow it actually matters as well, and that’s a discussion this Government isn’t willing to have, because this is the most hard right, neo-liberal Government that New Zealand has seen in a generation. They are following the typical right-wing playbook: defund public services so that they struggle; defund public services so that they are destabilised and New Zealanders get dissatisfied. And we know what comes next—privatisation—because that is what they’ve done for the last 40 years and that is exactly the playbook that we are seeing now: underfund public services, run them into the ground, cut them, and hock them off. That is what this Government wants to do.

How did that work for the railways? When they sold it off, it got asset stripped by its private owners, and the taxpayers ended up having to buy it back and bail it out. How did that work with the power companies? Well, if you’re a shareholder in the power companies, pretty well actually, because they are gouging New Zealand consumers every day—every day, gouging New Zealand consumers—under this privatised model introduced by the last National Government, who said that more competition would lead to lower power prices. How’s that working out for New Zealanders so far now? And they are now promising more of the same. How about the botched Transmission Gully public-private partnership, which ultimately meant that the private sector took all the money, and the public covered all of that risk in the supposed public-private partnership?

Instead, all we get from Christopher Luxon is more hollow words; no real action on dealing with the lack of competition in New Zealand. Here’s some news for those members opposite: competitive free markets require rules. Cutting regulation actually helps the monopolies; it doesn’t help everyday New Zealanders. When they talk about cutting red tape, they’re actually talking about cutting protection for consumers and they’re actually talking about making it easier for the monopolies to gouge consumers more, rather than protecting everyday New Zealand consumers.

Instead, we’re now seeing, once again, that tired, old rhetoric from the right about privatising assets—and our hospitals, of course, are first in the firing line. I remember, back in the 1990s, going to hospital with a member of my own family, and before we could even get through the door, they had to write out a cheque for the care that was about to be delivered, because the National Party decided a privatised, user-pays model was going to be more efficient. How did that work out? We on this side of the House believe that your access to healthcare should not be determined by how wealthy you are, which is the view on the other side of the House. Whether you live or die should not be determined by your bank balance, which seems to be the view on the other side of the House. If privatising health is so great, why is it that the privatised American health system costs more per person than just about any other health system in the world and yet delivers worse health outcomes? That seems to be the system that they want to mimic.

Once again, don’t just take my word for it. Just last year, the Commonwealth Fund studied 10 health systems around the world, including New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the US. They found that privatised health systems came in last for administrative efficiency. New Zealand was third. We actually, according to them, had quite an efficient system. What does this Government want to do? They want to mimic the worst of the health systems across the world, and they think that that’s going to deliver better outcomes.

This Government doesn’t like evidence and it doesn’t like facts, because, let’s be clear, this is a Government that is more interested in entrenching privilege than supporting everyday New Zealanders. David Seymour, our future Deputy Prime Minister, gives speeches where he rails against two standards of citizenship, then delivers a speech where he said the country’s divided into two tribes—according to David Seymour—the rich and the mediocre. That is the view of David Seymour, our future Deputy Prime Minister, and it reflects the views of this Government: the people that work hard every day are mediocre losers. We know—Andrew Bayly gave us a hint of that last year, and, now, David Seymour is reinforcing it—that the people who choose to teach, the people who choose to be nurses, the people who choose to become police, and the people who enter the Defence Force are mediocre according to this Government. Those with disabilities: mediocre, according to this Government.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. To completely misrepresent what someone has said in a way that reflects badly on, for example, the police of this country, I think, brings this House into disrepute, and he should withdraw the comment.

SPEAKER: This so far has been quite a robust debate. I would’ve interrupted it earlier, but I noticed that most of the additional comment coming from the floor of the House were coming from the Government’s own side, so I didn’t then. I think one of the points about this is that there will be things that are said that are debatable. I’m not about to rule on every little point that upsets everybody in the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker. There are some of us that think that the standards of this House have seriously declined. Now, when you’re giving a ruling, it is not right for a member of Parliament to stand there impatiently waiting for you to stop. That shows no respect for you or this institution. I would ask you to check what Mr Hipkins just did and tell him not to behave like that in the future.

SPEAKER: Yes, please remain in your seat until you’re called.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, point of order, Mr Speaker. Generally, members stand when they wish to be called.

SPEAKER: Yes, but I was actually ruling, so, technically, you’re just a bit ahead of the gun, as it were.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Mr Speaker, it is just the enthusiasm that we have on this side of the House, because, on this side of the House, we actually oppose the Government’s view that you should entrench the rights of people who have wealth to the detriment of people who don’t, which is clearly the agenda of the ACT Party and is now going to be the agenda of this Government as well.

This Government’s done a lot of punching down over the last year, but they have demonstrated they have no plan to lift New Zealand up. This is a Government that believes that New Zealanders who work hard for a living are mediocre. That is David Seymour’s position, and it is the position of this Government.

Let’s talk about David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill, a bill that says there should be two levels of rights in New Zealand: rights for those who have wealth, and lesser rights for those who don’t have wealth. That is the position of the ACT Party. But don’t just take my word for it; even Roger Douglas thinks that that is now the position of the modern-day ACT Party, that their goal in politics is to entrench privilege rather than provide opportunity for New Zealanders. Those aren’t just my words; Roger Douglas, the founder of the ACT Party, now believes that that is the ACT Party’s mission in this Parliament. Well, I can tell you now, the Regulatory Standards Bill is a bill that has no place in this House, and I can guarantee you this: in the first hundred days of the next Labour Government, it will be repealed, because on this side of the House, we believe that responsible regulation is about protecting New Zealanders—protecting all New Zealanders, not just those with a healthy bank balance, which seems to be the position on the other side of the House.

This is not a Government working for everyday New Zealanders who are working hard to get ahead. Christopher Luxon says the bottom line is that we should say no less and yes a lot more. What did they say to delivering new inter-island ferries? No. What did they say to delivering a new Dunedin hospital? No. What did they say to delivering affordable water reform?

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What did they say to delivering new State housing?

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What did they say to delivering school classroom upgrades?

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What did they say to delivering improved infrastructure for the country?

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What did they say yes to? That’s probably a bigger question, because they have said yes to a few things: 13,000 more kids living in poverty; they said yes to that. Scrapping all meaningful action on climate change; they said yes to that. Higher unemployment; they said yes to that. Cuts to support for people with disabilities; they said yes to that. Higher public transport costs; they said yes to that. Tax breaks for tobacco companies; they said yes to that. Suppressing wage growth; they said a very big yes to that. And slashing regional manufacturing jobs; they said yes to that. There’s been no action from the Government to turn any of those things around.

The Prime Minister now thinks that more tourism is going to be the answer for New Zealand. He does know quite a lot about tourism, though. In fact, he visited Te Puke so many times that he forgot he was actually in Hawaii. But they cut funding for promoting tourism in last year’s Budget. They hiked up the international visitor levy and then gouged that money back out of tourism once again. Now, they suddenly think that more tourists is the answer, when one of our biggest tourist destinations—Queenstown—is saying that they’re going to have to stop all development because their infrastructure can’t cope. So not only did the Government grind infrastructure to a halt, it’s now saying it wants to cram more people in and put the infrastructure that already can’t cope under even more pressure.

They say they want more investment in science. They cut $500 million of investment from science in last year’s Budget; 500 science and research jobs have been cut. Take GNS, the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences: they cut 59 science jobs, including scientists, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists—the sorts of jobs that we need more of in New Zealand. Take the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, climate research: 90 jobs down the drain under this Government.

Now, I also do want to mention road cones, because it seems, according to the Prime Minister, that road cones are the thing holding the New Zealand economy back—or, more to the point, health and safety is holding the New Zealand economy back. Well, let’s put a few facts on the table, facts that this Government won’t like. New Zealand has five times the fatality rate at work of the United Kingdom, twice the rate of Australia, and yet this Government seems to think that health and safety is the problem. In New Zealand, 5,000 to 6,000 hospitalisations happen every year because of injury and illness caused by work. Health and safety is not too high a price to pay. Knowing that someone is going to go home at the end of the day is not too high a price to pay. Work should not kill people, and it should not make them sick. That is not too high a price to pay.

I think before the Government goes gutting health and safety regulations and rules that are designed to ensure that Kiwis can be healthy at work and make it home at the end of the day, they should understand why those rules were put in place in the first place, because, actually, most of them were put in place under the last National Government, who recognised that people shouldn’t die at work and that our rate of workplace death and injuries is far too high.

Too many New Zealanders are giving up hope and leaving the country. They were looking to Christopher Luxon and this Government for hope; they will have seen none in the last week. But there is reason to be optimistic. We can look around the world, and we can see the worst in the world, or we can look around the world, and we can see opportunity, and we can see what New Zealand could be. We could be an international powerhouse for renewable energy, where renewable energy is a competitive advantage for New Zealand. We could be investing in our future now, rather than cutting and delivering austerity, which is what Nicola Willis and this Government are delivering.

Things can be better here in New Zealand. We can have a Government that wants to back New Zealanders, rather than a Government that’s all about entrenching privilege, helping out their mates, and making the wrong choices. We can have a Government that wants to see the New Zealand economy grow and get Kiwis back to work, but grow in a way where everybody benefits, not just those at the top, which is all this Government has been focused on. New Zealanders deserve better from this Government. They deserve hope, and they haven’t been given any.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe; tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Prime Minister is talking a heck of a lot about growth, and I’ve got to say he knows a little bit about it because his Government is knowingly making decisions to grow climate-changing emissions. It is knowingly making decisions to grow inequality, poverty, homelessness, and—notably—record numbers of New Zealanders leaving this country.

The fundamental question in a commencement speech like this should be: what’s the point of government?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, hysteria.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I mean it. What’s the point of government, the Rt Hon Winston Peters? Government is supposed to make the best possible decisions on behalf of the welfare of everybody in the country. It is supposed to be about ensuring that everybody gets access to what they need not only to survive but to thrive. It is supposed to be about making long-term decisions on behalf of all of us—that is, right now and into the future. It is supposed to be about protecting the vital, fragile ecosystem necessary for life as we know it. The point of government is to look after this thing that we call the social contract, to ensure the rules that we put in place to govern our relationships with each other and the planet that we live on are fair and good.

The point of government is to organise us and create the things that all of us can only create when we work together. That is what makes a nation: working together in pursuit of our shared values. That is where the idea of public services and fundamental human rights comes from. Everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand is entitled—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: New Zealand! That’s its name.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —Mr Deputy Prime Minister—to housing, healthcare, education, a clean environment, and a stable climate. And it is the job of government to ensure that everybody gets those things—and I mean everybody.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Next paragraph! I repeat: next paragraph!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: No one, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, is actually entitled to make a profit, but everyone is entitled to their basic human rights, to a roof over their head, to kai on the table, and to have access to basic opportunities. But enter stage right: the cost of living and the decline of democracy. The connection between these two things is, I think, important to understand, because it’s actually a pretty wild idea when you think about it, this notion of the cost of living; the idea that, from the moment that you are born, there is an immediate life sentence financial cost to your life.

Two-hundred years ago, there was no concept of the idea of the cost of living in Aotearoa. There was no idea of private ownership here. There was no notion of profit. The founding agreements of this nation, Te Tiriti o Waitangi me He Whakaputanga, were governance arrangements.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: And you were there?

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: They promised that everyone on this whenua would be looked after, but then, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, came the dishonouring, the slow and the winding process of privatisation. Over time, fewer and fewer people owned more and more of the resources at the expense of everyone and everything else, and today in this country, 311 households hold more wealth combined than the bottom 2.5 million New Zealanders.

That inequality and that impoverishment and that theft of human potential didn’t just happen naturally. It happened because of Government decisions to privatise profit at the cost of people and planet, Government decisions which have allowed those at the top to fight their way to that place to pile and hoard all of that wealth at the expense of everybody else and the fraying social contract under immense pressure to hold our country together.

The Government wants New Zealanders to think that the only way that things will improve for them and for their whānau is if they, too, mercilessly fight their way to the top, but New Zealanders need to know that that is just not true, because if every single year the rules of this game and this thing that we call the economy see 90 percent of people worse off while 10 percent of people claw their way to the top, I think we should change the game, because it’s not just a game; it happens that that is our lives.

Privatisation means that basic needs will cost more. That is because the same basic things—whether it be housing, healthcare, or education—are still needed. But, now, New Zealanders will also be paying for a profit and shareholder dividends and fat CEO bonuses. Privatisation not only means higher costs of living but also a lower quality of life, and New Zealanders do not want to live to work. Privatisation is precisely that death sentence that the Government would like to take us down.

In November last year, as this House debated the Treaty principles bill, I said that capitalism needs colonisation. This insatiable economic system needs new frontiers to constantly assimilate and exploit. As it happens, the same guy who is doing his best to currently tell everybody in this country that Māori are apparently coming to take more and more rights is the same guy who is trying to sell off New Zealanders’ rights to access public healthcare. And that’s just the start.

Public ownership protects the dignity of everyone, especially those who can least afford it. Privatisation means that if you can’t afford it, you don’t get it. It literally means that people who cannot afford their medicine die. Once upon a time, not all too long ago, everything—the land that produces our food and the resources that go into what we eat and what we drink and what we use—well, they weren’t divvied up, and they didn’t have fences around them, and they weren’t owned in such a way that those who couldn’t afford it didn’t get access to it. The very idea of the cost of living came from privatisation. When we privatise healthcare and when we privatise housing, education, and energy, you end up paying more to access those things, and, if you can’t pay, you don’t access those things.

In October of last year, I asked the Prime Minister about whether his Government was intentionally starving public services of the investment that they need in order to sow the seeds of privatisation. Government members laughed at me, the Prime Minister accused me of conspiracy theories, and the current and the incoming Deputy Prime Ministers joined in. Now, he’s telling us that he’s going to take privatisation to the next election, which means that this Government, right now, is currently managing our country’s assets and wellbeing with a mind to selling those things off in the not-too-distant future.

Just think about the former National Government’s decision to ignore an overwhelming public referendum not to sell public assets. More than a decade ago, that National Government sold off parts of our electricity sector against the wishes of the public. Today, we all pay the price of under-invested infrastructure and a manufactured electricity crisis powered by fossil fuel dependency every single winter in order for us to keep shareholder returns high.

Now, let’s look at just what the Prime Minister is saying. Last week, he told everybody in his state of the nation speech about his plans to—and I quote—“roll out the red carpet” for international investment in key infrastructure like transport and energy. This Government has decided to cut public services to the bone to pay for landlord and tobacco tax cuts, and now it’s becoming crystal clear that this Government has no real interest whatsoever in investing in, or building or growing, our public services or infrastructure.

Instead, they want it to be bought, built, and owned by major foreign corporations, foreign Governments, billionaires, or hedge funds. That story does not end well for the little guy. The Government is currently actively and openly asking the world’s richest people to build and own the public services that all of us ultimately rely on, because they are refusing to tax rich people fairly to maintain the services and the assets that we all rely on.

Christopher Luxon’s Government doesn’t want to govern; they want to farm out accountability. They want to sell it off. If we privatise our healthcare system, the Government will no longer be responsible for those wait-lists. They will have sold off that responsibility, and then we’ll all be told that responsibility is far too expensive to buy-back, because the corporations making exorbitant profit by charging whatever they want will charge far too much.

One of the greatest fibs that those proponents of privatisation tell us is that somehow it will cost us, the people of this country, less, but I ask people just to look at the United States of America, where the Government spends over 16 percent of GDP on an almost fully privatised healthcare system, compared to around 10 percent for most OECD countries. Meanwhile, Americans gets comparatively lower lifespans and much poorer health outcomes while corporations rake in astronomical profit.

Under privatisation, the value of human life decreases, but it’s not just about human life; it’s about all life. The Prime Minister wants to privatise our conservation estate and our seabed for mining companies’ profits. This Government is more interested in the rights of corporations than the rights of its citizens. The public services aren’t just nice-to-haves; they are the necessities of life. Public ownership means that everybody gets what we need because we all collectively pay for it, and the job of the Government is to manage our collective dreams.

New Zealanders do not dream of lining of pockets of offshore multinational corporations and billionaires; we dream of spending enough time with our whānau, of doing the things that we love, and of getting out into nature. We do not dream of living in order to work. We do not dream of fruitless competition and exhausting ourselves into the ground.

Hon Shane Jones: Exhausting!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: We dream of things, Mr Shane Jones, that are actually pretty basic—that is, everybody’s human rights being upheld, everybody having housing and healthcare and decent work. Privatisation takes away those rights. The building-up of our public services, however, is the best way to protect those rights, and we need to have that here at home.

The wealthiest 311 households, who hold more wealth than the bottom 2.5 million New Zealanders, pay an effective tax rate of less than half that of the average New Zealander. What that means is that the multi-multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires pay half the effective tax rate of our nurses, our teachers, our midwives, our farmers, and our firefighters. The Government knows this; in fact, actually, the last Government knew it too because they commissioned the report, but this Government went a step further, and in its first month or so in the job, they removed the enabling legislation to report on the inequities of that very tax system: “Nothing to see here, don’t worry.”

Not too long ago, one of the new Ministers of Commerce and Consumer Affairs said in a debate in this very House—and I quote—“There is such a thing as legitimate tax avoidance.” That was a member of this Government stating on the public record that he knows, as this Government knows, that we have set up the rules in this economy in such a way that if you can afford the right accountants and the right lawyers, you can afford to avoid paying your fair share. It’s totally legal.

But what is legal is not always what is right. In fact, much of history over the last 100 years alone has been a fight for making what is right legal: to redistribute resources and power and to make the dream of democracy real. Privatisation erodes democracy. It takes away our shared resources and, therefore, our shared power, and it hands those resources and that power to a tiny few. The consequences of that approach are clear.

Those with a whole lot of money are doing their best to take over the media landscape and our politics and, therefore, our imagination. They do not want regular people to have the space to dream or the time to organise. In fact, the wealthiest in this world have made it pretty clear that they’re setting their sights on colonising space while letting the planet burn. Building up our shared public resources strengthen that democracy. It gives all of us more control over what happens in our country, and through public accountability. That is supposed to be the point of government.

Aotearoa can and will be a country where we uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi; where there are homes for everybody that are warm and dry and affordable; where we recognise housing as a human right; where we can run on 100 percent renewable energy; where everybody gets access to high-quality education and healthcare, including dental; and where everybody has a livable income that ensures their dignity, their security, and their freedom. This is Aotearoa where people and planet come first. This is the Aotearoa that we are working together to build.

More and more people, I believe—and I hear about when I talk to them out there in the real world—are realising that they are not crazy, but this system is crazy-making. The more people who realise that the failings in the system are not a personal failing but, in fact, something which goes to the root core of the greed on which this system is built, then more and more New Zealanders will realise that they have an opportunity to step into their democratic power and change this system.

We have seen that the impossible becomes possible when regular people organise and work together to make history. Civil rights, Te Tiriti rights—

Hon Shane Jones: Wake up—wake up.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —queer rights, women’s rights, and environmental rights did not come from nowhere, Mr Shane Jones. Once upon a time, we were told that they were entirely impossible, but when we organise, when regular people work together and find the things that unify us, regular people win, and the old guard, as has been well evidenced by the harping on from the Government benches throughout this speech, are quaking in their boots. They want the little guys fighting, not organising.

When New Zealanders hear spin about efficiency or progress this year, I want them to remember that the only ones who win in that game are the “wealthy” and “sorted”. Everyone else is left to fight over scraps, but it does not have to be that way. At the end of last year, the Green Party released He Ara Anamata, our alternative emissions reduction plan. Our plan outlines an economy that can support people and the planet instead of exploiting and exhausting both. What that means is a green jobs guarantee: planting native trees instead of pine, efficient public transport, sustainable food production, restoring our wetlands, designing our cities better, distributed and resilient renewable energy, real just transition plans led by local communities, and so much more. He Ara Anamata offers a pathway to build a world in which we not only reduce the cost of living but also improve the quality of life.

In my final remarks, I just want to point out that this is Aotearoa. We do not want imported culture wars and the privatising of public services that, in turn, hurt and bankrupt our people; we want a Government that honours Te Tiriti and ensures that we are all looked after, as was the promise in that founding governing agreement. We will work together in unshakeable faith to make precisely that dream a reality. My message to New Zealanders is to not let this Government frustrate them to the point of disillusionment and switching off. Politics belongs to those who turn up, and in 2025, Aotearoa is going to turn up.

As I was waiting for the response to the Hon Chris Hipkins’ speech to subside, I forgot to mention that we are now debating the question that the amendment to the motion be agreed.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Happy New Year. It’s nice to see you, and I hope that you have had a sunny summer down in Christchurch.

SPEAKER: It was utterly dreadful. Never mind.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I’m sorry to hear about that, Mr Speaker, but to all members, I welcome you and us back to Parliament. To all of those who support us and make this place tick, to staff in all sorts of jobs, welcome back to Parliament.

I spent the summer, much of it, travelling around, listening to people, and asking them what it is that they are looking forward to, what they’re worried about, and what they hope for in 2025, and I went as far north as Northland and as far south as Southland. I listened to people who were police officers, tradies and builders, accounting people, people who write software, people who teach in schools—you name it. I heard from New Zealanders, and if I was to play back the mood music of those responses, it would be a little bit like something Crowded House once said—“now we’re getting somewhere”.

You see, people understand that we’ve got a big mountain to climb—there are a lot of challenges—but I think they’d find it totally implausible for Chris Hipkins to stand up and say, “Everything is terrible, but only 18 months ago, when we were in charge, it was fantastic.” One reason that they would find it implausible—and with all of the hyperbole and all the exaggeration we heard from him, I think Chris Hipkins might have got a thesaurus for Christmas. People know that the facts are that one of the biggest issues they have is the cost of living. When this Government was elected, inflation was running at 5.6 percent per annum, and it peaked at 7.3 percent per annum a year prior to that. Today, it is down almost at the mid-point of the target band—2 percent inflation.

That is a real change. That is a real victory for New Zealanders. While prices may still be high, they have stopped rising because this Government has killed inflation. Then people would say, “OK, we know that that has been tough, and we know that hard decisions were required, but we still want to see this economy get going and get growing.” They can appreciate that that is not easy and that if it was, everybody would be doing it, but we can start to have a mature discussion about what the factors are that make economies grow.

Now, I listened very carefully to the speech of Chlöe Swarbrick. She seemed to romanticise a time in New Zealand’s history 200 years ago when there were no fences, there were no property rights, there were no buildings, and there was no profit. Perhaps what she forgot to say is that 200 years ago, life expectancy in New Zealand was 40. That tells you about the sense of rationality that we’re getting from the Green Party. In fact, Chlöe Swarbrick’s speeches these days are so unhinged that voters are actually moving to Te Pāti Māori—you wouldn’t believe it.

On this side of the House, we have an orthodox view of economics which understands that if we want our economy to grow, if we want people to have security in their jobs, if we want, as one young person said to me, to be able to get ahead without leaving the country, then we need to understand where growth comes from, and it starts with having investment so that people have capital to work with. Somebody digging a ditch with a digger can dig it a lot faster than someone with a shovel, but you need investment capital to do that. The same goes for every business up and down this country—how do we get capital to grow and be more sophisticated so we can sell better products and pay our workers more to make them?

So what’s this Government doing? We’re making it easier to get capital from outside the country as well as inside it. We’re reforming the Overseas Investment Act, and I hear people on the other side say, “This is terrible. We’ll be serfs in our own land.” Imagine if other people in other countries actually wanted to send their money to New Zealand and invest in businesses so workers could produce more and get paid more. That’s what they’re really saying; that’s what they’re really opposed to, but this Government knows that, if we want workers to get paid more, they need more capital.

Here’s another thing we could do: we could improve our banking sector. For example, we have a Reserve Bank Governor who put in place capital requirements that have pushed up the price of borrowing to every firm, every farm, and every family in this country. Now the Minister of Finance can pick up the phone and say, “It’s not going to work, mate. Just drop it.” These capital requirements were put in place in order for us to get through a major shock, and when the shock of COVID-19 came along, guess what! Actually, we were fine with the old capital requirements. We never needed to have them phased in at all, and we should drop them today. That would reduce the cost of borrowing for New Zealand families and New Zealand firms

Another thing that we need for economic growth, beside a supply of investment capital, is skills. In particular, we need to make sure that when a child spends about 12,000 or 13,000 hours in the education system, they actually receive the knowledge and the skills and the habits and the abilities required to succeed in a modern economy. I’m proud to be part of a Government that is upgrading the Curriculum and is working hard to stress the importance of actually going to school, since New Zealanders were told for years that maybe that wasn’t so important.

I’m proud to be part of a Government that, this week, is having seven new charter schools opening, because the school that the student is at today is the one that they may not be going to too often and they’re not learning. One example is a charter school in Christchurch, opened by a collaboration of four State school principals, and they’ve said, “There are students that we know we are not serving and cannot serve to the best of our ability as educators.” They’ve set up and sponsored a separate charter school amongst four State school principals so that those children will have a place to go where they can flourish and reach their potential.

Another thing that we need beside people with skills and capital is a regulatory environment where people can spend more of their time doing the thing that their business and their career is set up to do and less of their time trying to fill out forms, get permission, and be told “No” too many times.

It’s the teacher or the early childhood educator who said, “All I wanted to do was help children reach their potential, and all I actually do is fill out forms for the Ministry of Education.” It’s the builder who says, “It takes twice as long to get permission to do this as it does to actually do it.” It is the person who goes along to get a loan and finds that they can’t, because the hurdles they have to jump over are absurd. We actually heard this from Chris Hipkins in his speech. He said that this Government’s approach to regulation would strip New Zealanders of their protections. He couldn’t give a single example, but I’ll give him one.

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA) changes that his Government brought in at the end of 2021, effectively, tanked the housing market that November—actually, it was that December; November was the peak—because people went along to their bank and they found that to get a minor increase to their credit limit, they had to tell the bank how much they spent each month on pet food. People think I’m making that up. That actually happened in New Zealand under the previous Government, and they knew it was wrong because, to give them credit, they actually removed the rule. Again, if we’re going to have a rational discussion about what sorts of things a Government can and should do, then we can all agree that there are some regulations we need and others that we don’t, and we should get rid of the ones that we don’t.

Thankfully, this Government has a fantastic agenda of regulatory reform: Nicole McKee on anti - money-laundering and countering foreign terrorism laws; Brooke van Velden on health and safety at work laws; Chris Penk on building materials—making it easier to get in foreign building materials; Chris Bishop and Simon Court on replacing the big daddy of bad regulation, the Resource Management Act, so that New Zealanders can use their property and develop it on a basis of respecting private property rights.

Hon Shane Jones: And aquaculture—aquaculture!

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And aquaculture, as Shane Jones says, will be easier to do in this environment.

That is the kind of regulatory reform that will mean that everybody—from people who are farming the land in order to feed the world in this country, to people building a home, to running an early childhood centre, to giving out a loan to someone who’s trying to get ahead—will be able to spend more time doing their actual job than doing their compliance job. And the most important change the Government will make, in my view, is to introduce and pass the Regulatory Standards Bill so that, finally, New Zealanders will be able to actually point to a statute that sets out the rights that they have when the Government wants to regulate away their ability to use and exchange private property.

That is absolutely essential to any society that wants growth and wants to be wealthier. You just have to ask yourself who would work hard and give up today for a better tomorrow if they think that their rights can be wished away with the flick of a pen. It is essential in any society that you are not subject to arbitrary takings, regulatory takings, or having what you’ve worked for taken away at a moment’s notice by a Government that doesn’t hold to its own standards of regulation making. This is the kind of progress that this Government is making: serious, well-thought-out progress in order to ensure that we have better policy so that New Zealanders can thrive on their own terms.

Then we hear, again—and it’s low-quality debate—people talking endlessly about privatisation as if it is some enormous evil. The simple fact is that in all societies—some people may be interested to know that even in the Soviet Union—people covertly held private property; you can never quite get rid of all of it, I’m sorry, folks. The thing is, in all societies, there is a mixture of public and private ownership and a mixture of public and private activity. It is true in healthcare today. Every GP clinic, every pharmacy, many of the theatres where operations are done—they’re all private. Many of the doctors who are working, doing those operations or doing those consultations, guess what! They’re working for private businesses as specialists. Many of the medications—in fact, all of the medications people are taking and all of the medical devices they’re using are private.

It’s crazy to think that there is only public or private healthcare. Every system has a mixture of that, and my challenge and my question is: do we have the right mix? In the last five years, we’ve increased spending by $10 billion and still most New Zealanders would say we have First World people with a system that is letting down those doctors, nurses, orderlies, and allied health professionals while still failing to satisfy the desires and the needs of every single patient. Perhaps we could have a grown-up discussion about it. How do they do it in France? Well, for the most part, the Government assists people to buy private insurance, which has them treated largely in private facilities. Now, if France is a bit too scary and capitalist for the left, perhaps we could have a look at some of the countries in East Asia. There is more than one model, and there is more than one way of doing things. If we want to succeed as a society, then we need to do better in health and education.

The same goes for the Government’s balance sheet of capital assets. We’re a Government with $200 billion of debt, scheduled to pay nearly $10 billion of interest on the debt. That’s real money. That is, doing quick mental arithmetic, $2,000 per New Zealander in interest payments next year. That’s just the interest on the debt. Now, if we’re going to pay—

Sam Uffindell: Thanks, Labour!

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Did I get that right? The guy from King’s is just checking my maths.

Sam Uffindell: I said, “Thanks, Labour!”

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Oh, he said, “Thanks, Labour!” He’s still in the tribal politics—I thought he was helping with the maths.

You see, the thing is, we need to ask ourselves: if we have $570 billion of assets and $200 billion worth of debt and a major shortage of capital assets in critical areas such as Auckland where Watercare has red-zoned whole neighbourhoods saying, “You can’t do any more development, because we can’t afford the pipes and the pumping stations.” Do we have the balance right? Do we have the balance right when our nearest neighbour is seriously improving and increasing the size of its defence force? Do we need to be putting more of our balance sheet into that? Again, imagine if we could have a mature discussion without the carping and the ideology and the people who may have swallowed a thesaurus for Christmas, as far as I could tell, pulling out all these tropes. We actually need to say, “Look, these are the assets we have as a Government. How do we get the best results, the best defence, the best healthcare?” How do we make sure that we really do the best we can so that all of us can leave this place and feel like we have succeeded as a country and as a Government and as a Parliament. That’s my challenge or wero that I lay down.

There’s one more thing that numerous people brought up with me. Someone said to me just earlier this morning, “David, I was thinking about the debate you’re engaged in.” I said, “Which one?” He meant the one about the Treaty principles bill. So many people came up—and I want to acknowledge those people—thousands, I would guess, actually over the summer break, who said, “We’re right behind you. Keep going.”, because there is something deep down and innate in New Zealanders. It is our sense of fairness. New Zealand, at its heart, is an egalitarian project, a project of immigration that spans 1,000 years and counting, a nation of people who come here seeking better, but also a nation that believe that Jack’s as good as his master. At some basic level, we all breathe the same air, we all bask in the same sun, we’re all wet by the same rain, and we all deserve the same fundamental human rights. I found it so interesting, in the last day or so, that all these people have said that Parliament has no right to debate the meaning of our Treaty in the modern context by defining the principles and statute. Well, you know what? They all showed up to participate in the debate. I think the mystery for some—not for me, I have to say—opponents of this bill is why it has raised so many critical issues that New Zealanders want to discuss and, I believe, need to discuss.

The answer is that, for too long, questions like “Is Parliament ultimately sovereign?”, “Do we have equal rights?”, “Is there a special place for Māori?”, and “Does it give different seats reserved at the table or different rights to be consulted in resource management law?”—those are questions that this country fundamentally needs to decide in a civil and democratic matter, and I’m so proud to see that that is exactly what is happening. Even people, who say they don’t want the debate, rushing to the debate is actually a triumph and a fabulous thing for New Zealand.

Even if, which I still doubt, this bill does not pass in this Parliament, I believe that sooner or later a bill very much like it will pass into law, because, ultimately, a House divided cannot stand. This country must decide: are we truly committed to universal human rights? Are we truly committed to the idea that each of us came to these islands to seek a better tomorrow for our children and their children, and, therefore, are we going, as New Zealanders, to give each other equal dignity in politics and before the law and in everyday life? If that is the truth, then I would put it like this: all Kiwis will be equal, for ever, for ever, for ever. It’s actually quite fun to say. This Treaty principles bill really stands for: all Kiwis are equal, āke, ake, ake.

With that thought, I look forward to the debates in this Chamber and to working in Government alongside my partners Winston Peters and Christopher Luxon, and all of us across the coalition side in the House, doing the work to deliver on the hopes and dreams of the people that I asked questions of and heard as I travelled the length of New Zealand this summer. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The political year begins with this debate. Now, one can’t raise the question of where members of Parliament are or are not, but I can recall at the beginning of this debate that the Labour Party was here, but so was the Green Party and so was Te Pāti Māori. We all sat over here and heard them out. So my next question to those people who are in television land—and I hope they change the screen around to show you just what’s happened here and how some people are not prepared to be questioned or challenged. This is an extraordinary circumstance which begins with the number one question in this debate today, which is: from what we’ve just heard from the other side, why did Labour lose in 2023 when they had all the power to themselves?

In 2023, the dire state the economy was in was grossly understated and not understood by most. It was part of the New Zealand First speeches leading all the way up to the election and pointing out that we were heading for a recession and that we would have a serious battle on our hands to turn our economy around. And here, today, the Labour Party—this party that’s meant to be the alternative face of a future Government—has one economic spokesperson here, and she’s very recent to Parliament. I’m not putting her down, but, frankly, you would have thought some senior people might have stayed here to assure you what’s going on. [Assistant Speaker stands up] What’s wrong with that? Oh, sorry. Well, you’ve got to say something. You can’t just get up on your feet. We’ll have a few rules yet.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Peters, you’ve got a bit of leeway in the first minute. As time goes on, there’ll be less. Please don’t comment on the absence of other members or parties from the House. Continue.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, I was not commenting on the absence of parties in the House. I know what the rule is.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Or comment on the Speaker’s—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: But I’m entitled to ask.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Peters—sit.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, I’m not going to be put down on this matter, right? I’ll sit down in my own good time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Or comment on the Speaker’s ruling.

Hon Shane Jones: Point of order on the Speaker’s ruling.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah, point of order. Mr Speaker, I am entitled to ask why some people are not taking part in the debate. They could be sitting here or they might not be here. I did not refer to their absence, and I want you to approach this matter with a bit of acuity and particularity and not just feel like you’re going to stamp a decision down and I’m going to accept it. I’m not going to accept it. But I know the rules: you cannot mention a person being absent in this House, but you can reflect on why they’re not engaged in the debate in the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Did you just sit down, Mr Peters?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Yes, he did.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): You did. However, you’re early on in your speech. You may resume if you wish, despite your having sat down—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: He knows the rules, apparently.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): —but can I just ask you, Mr Peters—you’ve had leeway; you’ve made your point—please continue without having to comment on the absence of other members or parties in the House. And then we can all enjoy what I’m sure will be a very informative speech.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Look, actually, you were giving a ruling and Mr McAnulty decided to comment on that. Are you going to reflect on that?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): We’re going to continue—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Are you going to reflect on that?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): We’re going to continue your speech.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, OK. It’s one rule for some and a different rule for others. I see. So here we go.

Now, to use a metaphor—that’s the Labour Party metaphor—a massive economic tanker was on autopilot, heading for disaster unless we did something about it. And the present Government got hold of the wheel with the expectation of turning away from its wayward course. Those are the circumstances we inherited.

Arena Williams: You don’t have any ships.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Beg your pardon?

Arena Williams: What wheel? You don’t have any ships.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I don’t have any what?

Hon Members: Ships.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Ha, ha! Actually, I kind of wonder where these people get their training. They come here—and I’m talking about a ship being out of control and on autopilot, no one knowing what on earth’s going on in terms of a metaphor for our economy, and she wants to know if I’ve got any ships. I mean, I can remember the days of Lange and all the people like Parker, should I speak, Mike Moore, all with exciting gibes in the House. It was quite fascinating to be here, but along comes this new crowd, untrained in the extreme. It’s sort of amateur hour, and they show it all the time.

Yeah, look, the reality is we understand about hard-working Kiwis. We understand how things are biting on them, and we’re going to set out to ensure that we turn that around, but there are so many inherited costs which were inflationary in the extreme and arose from their squanderous spending, with no idea that if you’re going to spend, you must spend on added value, on wealth creation, on export increases, and not on consumption. They did it to the extent that we’re in the circumstances we’re in today, and no amount of defence of them and their past will get us past the situation we’re in at the moment.

New Zealand First understands with great clarity the struggles of workers in this country. I’ll make one very certain judgment for you right here: there’s nobody in the labouring workforce out there that supports Labour any more. Let me tell you, there are so many workers out there—real workers, with two or three jobs—and they abandoned Labour a long time ago. New Zealand First understands the responsibility we have as part of the Government to turn the cost pressures around and give overdue relief to ordinary New Zealanders. We cannot continue to tinker around the edges without realising our economy is in dire straits and needs fundamental and decisive change.

That’s the reality we’re in in 2025, and it’ll take considerable time to do this, but if we set out on the right pathway with the right policies, slowly but surely we’ll get there. New Zealanders will understand one thing: tomorrow will be better, and the year after that will be better. That is the only pathway forward this Government has got. We were left with an out-of-control Labour Party debt caused by a myriad of wasteful, failed, ideological projects and ballooning inflation.

Now, look, in a moment of great honesty—almost probably by mistake—over the weekend, Chris Hipkins said, at the Labour Party caucus retreat, this: “Some of the commitments that we made and I’ve mentioned some of them, things like KiwiBuild, Auckland Light Rail and so on, we hadn’t worked through the exact details of how that would be and therefore we weren’t able to deliver on the commitments that we’ve made,”. What an admission. You had all these policies, and you had no idea how it was constructed or how it would work out, and in a moment of great clarity and great honesty, he said that at the Labour Party caucus retreat—and “retreat” is the right word for it, with a capital R, and he made the submission.

Now, he could have gone on to talk about the $3.1 billion light rail. Can I ask you, Arena Williams, how many metres were built? I can’t hear you. Over there—Labour’s sitting there. How many metres of light rail were built? All right. The $54 million spent on the cycleway across the Harbour Bridge. How many metres were built? I can’t hear you. No, I didn’t prepare this—not like Hipkins. He came along with a yes and no session today. They’ve been focusing for weeks. That’s the one part he got sequentially right. For a brief moment, the Labour Party showed unity. It’ll be back tonight, fighting itself and up against the grindstone. But, for a brief moment, though, they showed great clarity. So there he was, right?

Now, the multimillion-dollar RNZ-TVNZ merger, do you think, Arena Williams, that that was right? Or the Cook Strait ferries blowing out to what? $4.2 billion. They were charged in May of 2020 with $401 million to find two ferries. Why on earth are we talking about $4.2 billion as a project? You’ve got all these darn people in the gallery and journalists trying to say—and it shows their appalling political bias—“Oh, look, forget that. What are you doing? Forget that. What are you guys doing?” Well, the answer is you spent four years stuffing it up. We’re going to spend about 2½ months trying to fix it as a Government. We inherited that—an appalling circumstance. Boats were never contemplated in terms of size, nor were real questions as to whether they were capable of being manoeuvrable, and, then, when it came to the infrastructure, no side of the Cook Strait had the infrastructure prepared, and they said, “Oh, we’ll buy that.” How come you go out to buy two ferries, and when it’s all over, the cost of the ferries will be less than 20 percent and the rest is going to be infrastructure? And which parts of the disclosure and transparency did you tell the public and taxpayers about when you made those decisions? This is grinding incompetence, and they are not going to get away with it. Those are the realities.

Oh, and here’s the one: the $4 million playing whale music to save kauri trees. Now, look, when I heard that, I thought, “Hang on. There’s so much”—as some President said—“fake news these days that it can’t possibly be true.” Over $4 million to play whale sounds and music to save kauri trees from kauri dieback. Now, around about then, I think, they might have gone to the sociological class of Auckland University and heard all about tikanga and how it can change the whole world. This is the Te Pāti Māori idea—that’s how unrealistic it sounds to me. But that’s what they did.

Rawiri Waititi: No, it’s not.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, yes, it is—oh, yes, it is. We know you live in dreamtime, sunshine, and we’re talking about the real world—we’re talking about the real world. The list goes on with the waste, the incompetence, and the indifference that has, today, led us to the grappling and struggling economy that we’re dealing with.

What solutions did the Labour Party caucus come up with on their recent retreat? C’mon, some of you are here. Could you, please, tell me what were the solutions you announced after your caucus retreat, having spent all that time examining what the state of the economy was? Can anybody mention one? The only decision they made was not to roll the leader just now—to not roll the leader just now. It reminds us of that ancient Greek proverb: “Those the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.” I’ve never seen such foolishness in New Zealand politics as I’ve seen in recent times. But who could take him seriously? We have had problems as a country, and he was walking around at that retreat in jandals and shorts. Jeez. Jandals and shorts. Standards? No, he hasn’t got any. Commitment? No. Now, as I was looking at the TV and I saw the rest of his caucus, I thought, “Some of them must be seriously worried. They’ll know we can’t go anywhere here. They’ll know the old dictum ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.’ ”, but there he was, “Chippy”. All he had missing was a sausage roll!

We need to turn the economy around and need an expert-led economy. We’ve been working very hard, extraordinarily hard—all of us—to fill the vacuum overseas that we inherited: appalling vacuum of neglect; no one visiting anywhere. It’s essential that we increase our production and ensure added value is priority in the primary industries that we have always relied upon so heavily as a country. We need incentivisation and investment to get our economy running again. You know, we set out the focus on turning our economy around via wealth creation in our fundamental industries, and I’m sure we’re all on track for that, but the reality of it all is that we need less bureaucracy and fewer of those woke elitists holding this country up—less red and green tape, less of the woke, pearl-clutching do-gooders, and more of the Kiwi can-doers. We need less whining and more mining. If we run across Freddy the Frog, we’re going to relocate Freddy to a paradise and carry on with mining, because extraction is critical to the economy that is coming. Every country in the world knows it, all the Greens overseas know it, but one bunch in New Zealand doesn’t. The current Government is doing a sound job in turning Labour’s drifting economic tanker around that it’s left for us. The reality is that it takes time, but help, as we all know, is on its way.

Now, could I just say about fast tracking—who could be opposed to fast tracking? If you know anything about house buying or small businesses or any businesses, and here you are, your family’s saved up, you want to buy your first house, you want to build your first house, and your greatest obstruction—about 30 percent of the cost—is planning permission. This is appalling, and we are seeking to turn that around, and you’ve got all those people who are saying, somehow, they’ve got protection in place that is needed. If that was true, why haven’t they got that in Canada, the United States, and Australia? No, it’s our own; we’ve got a master plan of red tape, and it’s slowing everything down. We intend to change that and ensure that families and business people get a chance to buy homes, to build homes, and to start businesses.

By the way, did you hear Mr Hipkins today talk about privatisation? Well, the greatest privatisation we ever saw in this country was 1984 and 1990 with the BNZ being flogged off. It didn’t go to tender. One-third flogged off in a private decision. Then you had—oh, here’s the one—Electricorp. Electricorp was sold to Fletchers for eight months of its earnings. Right? For eight months of its earnings. Now, I’ve got a friend—we’ve all got a friend—called Hart; he gets his first big break, he gets to buy Government Print that’s worth $42 million to $48 million, but guess what! He paid for it! He paid $6 million for it, and he got $1 million for redundancies, and all the staff working for him the next day. Now, I’m an admirer of Hart because he did far greater things than other businesses, but what a break to get. And who did that? These people over here that tell you they know about economics and who are opposed to privatisation.

Francisco Hernandez: It sounds like privatisation’s bad.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Beg your pardon?

Francisco Hernandez: It sounds like privatisation’s bad, then.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: When did you show up, sunshine? How long have you been here? “It does sound like privatisation.”—yes, it is privatisation. It’s an example of privatisation—

Francisco Hernandez: Took the bait.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —and you shouting out, opening your mouth, and letting the wind blow your stupid tongue around—

Francisco Hernandez: Keep rambling.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, no, no, no, I’ve got the microphone, and I’ll be here long after you’re gone. I’ve seen your type before: all bulldust, all noise; here today, gone tomorrow.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Right—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And that’s why he’s sitting back there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Both gentlemen, settle.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Did you enjoy that? I did. Unbelievable. Could I just say that the Government parties, the three here today, are in a fight to the top. We have disagreements, but we are in a fight to the top to turn our economy around and to turn our nation’s future around. The Opposition, of course, are the very converse. You’ve got the Greens and Te Pāti Māori in a plunge to the bottom, and lately have you ever heard them speak about economic policy, about export policy, about added value, about personal responsibility, about parental responsibility? Their version of democracy is collective pinko demagoguery.

I never thought I’d sit here and listen in Parliament to a modern version of Das Kapital from the leader of the Green Party. Unbelievable. She went on to say, though—this is how foolish she is—that we’re going to colonise capitalism. In that brief moment, she just confessed that capitalism was good, so it should be colonised. Oh, who wrote her darn speech? She read the whole thing out, from start to finish—and that’s a rule we have in this Parliament: you can’t read your whole speech out, and this is all detailed. What happened to the—oh, you weren’t in the Chair, so I won’t make any more comment about that.

But here’s the sad thing for Labour—and I know Labour know that; I know enough people from the Labour Party from way back. The Labour Party, at its core, knows that these parties over there—Te Pāti Māori and the Greens—are dragging them down with them. They can’t see a way coming back unless they can get rid of these two parties. These new parties have got no respect for democracy, they think somehow that they’re special, and they have got no respect for anybody else in this Parliament or, dare I say it, for the voter.

The “workers party” is now the “wokesters party”, and Labour’s in difficulty with respect to that. You know, Chlöe came here today; she read her whole speech. She talked about, as I say, capitalism being colonised, and how confusing is that? And then she didn’t mind; she wanted it to happen. She said that $32 billion of emissions payments should be taken out of our economy and paid to another economy. How unbelievably fatal would that be? That’s what she said today.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: He’s talking a lot about us.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know, he’s sitting over there. He just arrived five minutes ago as well. He thinks he knows about this country. He wouldn’t know what day it is.

But here’s the point: then, she did us the greatest insult: she started talking about a country that was not licensed for her to talk about—no permission, no democracy, no mandate, no referendum, no plebiscite, no nothing. She starts talking about Aotearoa—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: So triggered.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —this French Polynesian name. Yes, that is true, sunshine. You just arrived five minutes ago; some of us have been here a thousand years, and we’re not taking your dictatorship. You got that clear?

Francisco Hernandez: Thanks for the attention.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You got that clear. You’re not going to win the next campaign doing that. This country is called New Zealand, and the mass majority of New Zealanders want it that way. And the mass majority of New Zealanders want equality, where everybody’s treated the same. It doesn’t matter what the origin is, it doesn’t matter what the sex is, and it doesn’t matter what the race is; we’re about equality.

I know they’re laughing. The Greens are laughing at that because they find that comical—they find that comical. The very people who are here on the very refuge that we give to them have come here with their ideas, foreign to our country and native to theirs, and they wish to impose them upon our Parliament. No, you don’t. You’re not going to succeed here. You might be laughing now—you might be laughing now—but you’ll be crying tomorrow. If you come to this country, show some gratitude! No. Let me tell you what our policy is, sunshine: when you arrive in New Zealand—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Peters, less of the sunshine; more of the first names. As someone who respects the tikanga of the House, let’s stick to that part of it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, with the greatest respect, I didn’t call him sunshine; sunshine is everybody. You know, if you can’t take it, let’s go and have some lessons on how to do the job.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Peters, you’ve had a lot of latitude. Please accept that you’ve had that latitude, and respect some tikanga in the House. Use proper—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I beg your pardon?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Use proper names.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: We don’t have tikanga in this House; get that straight.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The procedures of the House, the order of the House.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: All right then; I’m not having that rammed down my throat. Can I just say that when people come to this country, the least we can expect is that they obey our laws as they are for the time being; that they respect our flag as it is for the time being; that they have to respect other people’s right to believe in other religions, as that is the law that’s written for the time being; and that they believe in equality, whether it’s gender or whether it’s race. That’s the least we can expect.

If some of these people from the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori think we’re going to accept something else, then let me tell you the enormous confidence we’ve got, because out there in the real Māori world where people are working two or three jobs a week and slaving it out and saving, they’re losing ground big, big time. They don’t have any time for those sorts of people who don’t understand what it is to be a worker and to sweat it out and to have pride in the job that they’ve got. And that’s what New Zealand First stands for.

This Government also believes that they are a priority going forward in our planning, not this kind of elitism which saw so much going to so many who are at the very top in our society and which saw 14,000 bureaucrats taken on that we didn’t need. Now we’ve been told that we’re the reason for the collapse of Wellington’s economy. Oh no, we’re not. The reason that this has happened is because of so much waste in the past which we’ve still got to absorb. But, over time, we are confident we will succeed. The most important reason why we’ll succeed is because our message is one of national unity and not difference.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I’m standing on behalf of Te Pāti Māori today to constructively give our view on the Prime Minister’s statement. I’ve got to be really honest: what I’ve witnessed this afternoon is showing that, even day one, the deterioration of our behaviour in our debate can’t be healed. And ka aroha to the rest of Aotearoa and New Zealand who have to watch this.

For us, the statement—actually, it’s everything it didn’t state. What we saw was a 9,000-word statement with 32 mentions of growth, 27 mentions of infrastructure, yet absolutely nothing that related to Māori. We had the Prime Minister stand up and say in front of the nation that, in fact, he wants to lead and be part of a culture where he’s going to get rid of the “no” culture. Yet, culturally, there was no Māori, there was no iwi mentioned, there was no whānau mentioned, there was no hauora mentioned, there was no kāinga mentioned, there was no Te Tiriti mentioned, there was no tangata whenua mentioned. Nau mai, hoki mai ki tā tātau Kāwana. [Welcome back to our Government.]

We’ve got to try and figure out this year the challenge for Te Pāti Māori—it’s actually how we don’t buy into this behaviour. One of the things that we have seen is that we have found the magic juice and the power to mobilise tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands, in fact; if not, hundreds of millions—of people to be aware of the politics in Aotearoa. For us, the theme is 2025 and, contrary to what the Prime Minister’s speech is saying, we will not be thanking him for what it is that his party has put on Māori this year, because it is not what we have experienced—a year of thriving—from him.

As Te Pāti Māori, as tangata whenua, as tangata Tiriti, as tangata moana, we’re refusing to become a part of the culture that the Government perpetuated last year. I know that some senior Ministers hate hearing this, but it is a reminder that we have endured that for 184 years. So 2025 has to be what it is: we’re going to hold you to account. Ani Mikaere said yesterday in her oral submission to the Seymour and Atlas bill, “The Crown occupies its current position of privilege by virtue of the fact that it has lied, cheated, and infected its way to dominance [for] decades”. Dominance “immediately following Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

We don’t expect a heck of a lot from this year’s statement and the way that things have been panning. We won’t thank the Government for the gang patch law that you so proudly boast about that you can’t wear—even our whānau can’t rest at tangi. We asked, I think, last year, nine days since the gang patch law, “How many Māori have been arrested?” Guess how many, whānau! We have 1,352—nine days into this new bill—and 306 who belong to Te Tai Hauāuru electorate.

We won’t be thanking you for the economic benefits that most people saw here. As you know, they catered to the 2 percent hoarding the wealth and furthering disparity. We won’t thank you for the disestablishment and dismantling of anything Māori. We won’t thank you for aiding genocide—and as we saw beautiful Palestinian whānau returning to their homes that no longer exist, we may never forget the role of this Government and what it played and were extremely embarrassed and disappointed that they turned their backs on another indigenous people in this time. No thankyou there.

You have allowed, sadly, Prime Minister, a nation that has feasted off division, hate, and fear like never seen before, and Aotearoa 2025 is a country where we’ve seen a lot of our whānau suffocating from the cost of living where we’ve got a Government that can’t balance its books, we’ve got hard-working whānau that are trying to juggle multiple jobs putting kai on the table. There is absolutely nothing that is affecting the wellbeing of our communities. You have fed the wealthy, the gentry, the landlords, while our whānau have been left behind. Mr Prime Minister, you have allowed the Māori solutions, the marginalisation of tangata whenua, the whitewashing of the Treaty tribunal. The iwi that you want to partner with economically are lining up, submitting against you, against your policies, and the policies that you have allowed to come through the front door.

Then we come to the Treaty principles bill—and I did stay and listen to every leader—and I guess, as you can probably guess, we will definitely not be thanking you there. A week out from Waitangi, we as Māori, together with tangata Tiriti, once again will show how we rise and how we mobilise kotahitanga—our Queen, carrying the strength of our tūpuna with mana and grace as we collectively throw a bill that your Government allowed in the bin. Actually, that could be our next activity in the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Miss—Ms Ngarewa-Packer—

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Mrs.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): —you’re liberally using the word “you”.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Thank you for the reminder.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Through the Chair, please.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Apologies. Here we have another round and we’ve got the regulatory standards bill, which is about allowing further corporate exploitation. We will stand with those who share the same values as us. We will make sure in the first 100 days of the next Government, which we are, no doubt, going to be a part of, that we will get rid of all of those bills.

Yesterday we saw Ngā Iwi o Taranaki telling the Prime Minister: “kia tūpato”. We heard Ngāti Toa speak to the promises made in their settlement. We saw hauora experts like Helen Leahy tell you how Māori would be disadvantaged; lawyers like Natalie Coates spelling out the legal ramifications; rangatahi like Te Kanawa Wilson explaining what this bill would mean for him as a young man raised fully, confidently in te ao Māori. You, as the Prime Minister, will find so many more once the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of submissions come through. These—please remember, Prime Minister—are not the radical voices of radical Māori that Hobson’s Pledge promote they are; these are everyday tangata whenua, everyday tangata Tiriti who are sitting there saying “kia tūpato”. We won’t be thankful for any of the damage that has been going on at Aotearoa; the embarrassment that the rest of the world has seen in the race relationships in Aotearoa.

I need to be really clear: as we move into 2025, to everyone who wrote and submitted and is allowed to speak to Seymour’s kino bill, you continue to show where the real mana and unity and kotahitanga in Aotearoa lies. We are filled with immense pride as we see all of you showing up, all of you watching the lives, all of you now political commentators, and we are absolutely proud to be able to see the continuation of the energy of the hīkoi as we saw last year, so, one day, our mokopuna will all look back at this with real pride. Toitū Te Tiriti.

I’ve just come from Rātana last week, as has the party, and I’d like to mihi to all of those who’ve been there and are a living example of what this Government could and should be striving towards. These examples are all around us. Please, Prime Minister, don’t just show up and use these kaupapa; live it. Don’t just fill empty words; listen to theirs. We have to be examples. Yours aren’t and theirs are. That’s what 2025 is about.

I mihi, and we mihi, to the hundreds of thousands of tangata whenua, tangata moana, tangata Tiriti who marched and stood and continued to fight against this anti-Māori agenda. We mihi to those who’ve chosen to wear their hearts on their sleeves, who continue and have learnt and actually wānanga and teach others what submissions and what to be a submitter is. I mihi to the 70-plus Pākehā women who pulled me up, the Pākehā parents, the Pākehā businesses who have never voted Te Pāti Māori who were previously National voters who will never ever vote for them again, saying that they will never stay quiet against the division that they’ve had to see. They stand with Te Pāti Māori on the side of peace and aroha because that’s what kotahitanga and our role in this place has to be. You either get to yell and scream and behave in a way that the rest of the country is just embarrassed by, or you come together and you manaaki our manuhiri, we manaaki each other’s kōrero, and we have indeed a dignified discussion.

This will be, sadly, a time where we see a Government that has put wealth before people. I want to be clear: Te Pāti Māori is not anti-wealth; we’re just anti a system where the tax system is not fair for all. And it seems like it’s become real—the elephant in the room—every time we mention that. That’s not being anti - economic development; that’s actually calling it out for what it is.

Sadly, what we see is the Government and our Prime Minister’s tyranny and the ability to completely leave Māori out and to carry on with this platform. Our prediction is this will be a one-term Government because this year we will continue to use our influence, our political platform, to unite this nation, to leave no one behind, to make sure that the spirit of Te Tiriti and indeed the honour of being tangata whenua is realised and felt by all.

Where there is fear, we will give light. Where there is hate, we will give aroha. We’ve seen thousands of Māori join the Māori roll over the past few months. We look forward to seeing tens of thousands more before the next election. This is another reminder of the influence that Te Pāti Māori has. No party in here can do what we do, and we get that no one gets us. Where you hate and berate, where you divide and conquer, we will continue to use Māori activism and we will continue to be driven to make sure that there’s somewhere for people to go, leaving no one behind.

Removing our rights was an urgent priority for this Prime Minister. Economically—I’ve said this before—we will focus on redistributing wealth. We will fight the tax and fight the hyper rich. We’ll focus on what our options are. What are our economic options? What does economic transformation in Aotearoa look like? How is it that iwi who have suddenly become long-term perpetual investors are performing better than those who have been 200 or 300 years ahead of us? There are lessons to be learnt in economic development, but we’re not having that conversation, because the Government will not let go the rails of conservative, old-style economics.

Our growth plan will not revolve around stealing Māori rights, lands, and resources and selling them off to the highest bidder; it will be focused on issues like we saw in He Kai Kei Aku Ringa, partnering with iwi, looking at public-private partnerships, developing sustainable energy solutions, creating community regional economic investments, developing papa kāinga and capital solutions for those who cannot access it. This Prime Minister’s solution to the cost of living crisis is investing in New Zealand by exploiting our whenua—a quick buck. That is not going to work in the long run. If there’s anything we have more than anyone else in Aotearoa, it is the experience of having to redevelop an economy when it has been wiped out.

Nowhere are we seeing intergenerational focus on the economic development and wellbeing of Aotearoa—nowhere. Cutting benefits, cutting the minimum wage, voting against GST-free kai: these are about bringing down the cost of living, and caring—caring—about everybody in Aotearoa. The economic solutions in the Prime Minister’s agenda have no care for ordinary people, ordinary New Zealanders. There’s no care in here at all. We take real serious issue, and we will continue to fight hard against the Atlas agendas, because that domination cannot be the way that we grow our wellbeing, our economy. We will continue to do it every time—prioritise our whole community wellbeing and collective responsibility and obligations against corporate exploitation—because that’s what fast track allowed in. We’ll ban seabed mining, we’ll invest in science and innovation and education to move away from twilight industries, and we will be active in transformation and energy equity for communities. It’s clear—it’s really clear—where this Government’s priorities lie. At no stage did we see any solutions: oranga whānau, oranga tangata, oranga whenua. All we saw was the rich getting richer. That is not enough anymore.

Where is your innovation, your promised transformation? The Treaty principles bill has shown us that we need to have a constitutional discussion. I found myself uncomfortably agreeing with parts of what David Seymour said, but the discussion should be led by iwi and hapū. It does not belong in this place, and we will invest proactively in Matike Mai, because nowhere else has the degree and the extent of 280-plus hui that happened across the nation, like Matike Mai. I would bet that if I was to ask “How many recommendations? What do you know about Matike Mai?”, there are not too many in the coalition Government that could sit there and talk about it, because it has not been embraced as the solution that it should be. That kōrero needs to continue. We will never ever be able to have the kotahitanga that a nation that has tangata whenua, has indigenous peoples—we were here and our rights existed before anyone else. As much as some people may not want to admit there are indigenous peoples in Aotearoa, there are, and it’s us, and we make up at least a million of us, and we are proud to be Māori. Te Pāti Māori is proud that, as proud Māori, we have proud tangata Moana and tangata Tiriti.

This whole concept of sparking a conversation and talking proactively about the foundation for constitutional transformation in Aotearoa must be something that is put on the agenda, because I tell you, our mokopuna—my mokopuna—are laughing at how politicians talk about Te Tiriti, how little knowledge is talked about. Yesterday, I listened to a submitter who actually truly thinks that we are so bad as Māori that she is unsafe from Māori. What permeates and creates such hatred in somebody that they could really fear Māori to that extent, really fear what it is that we would do? It’s just crazy. I challenge the Prime Minister in his statement: you cannot be a Prime Minister with a statement that ignores that we exist, because we’re going nowhere. We are growing, and we have a strong, robust economy. I repeat this: we will not—we will not—invest with the same parties and partners that we’re standing in queue submitting against. We simply will not.

I guess the other thing that I want to leave is that our Kīngi has reminded us about being Māori every day and what this means to us individually, but what this means to us in Aotearoa. Do you truly, do we truly, do politicians truly, does this House truly, even every day in here—how does it allow and encourage Māori to be Māori every day, when we’ve spent a year with this Prime Minister, defending who we are? I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me—I really don’t care what they think and have to say about me—but I do about my mokopuna. I will rise and encourage every influence we can to make sure that our mokopuna never have to feel berated or left out.

I think the other thing we have to talk about is how we make sure that we have the strength of who we are as tangata whenua. We talk about foreign affairs, and it’s something that Rawiri is actually really passionate about. Our foreign affairs policy is to actually extend and strengthen off the relationships that we have as indigenous peoples. Those are relationships that no one else across the world can do as well. That is a strength for Aotearoa’s future, and those are discussions that we should be having. This whole “same old, same old” isn’t cutting it, because not only are we politically extremely divided at the moment but we’re also leaving some really great opportunities behind, because we can’t sit down and have a discussion truly of what it is that is our strength. Instead, what should be our biggest uniqueness—having an indigenous nation who never ceded sovereignty—has now become a real sad point of defence.

I want to finish with some of these things. I want to say also to our whānau: you have been able to prove without a doubt what kotahitanga looks like. Do that every day individually in your home, in your communities, your marae, however it looks. Make sure you keep up that kotahitanga, because kotahitanga is not a noun; it’s an adjective. It’s a doing thing. It is something that we need to be seen as doing every day and hold ourselves. Rest is resistance. We’ve got a lot on this year. We’ve got the Māori wards referendum. We’ve got the bill coming up—Seymour’s bill—in May. We have a whole lot of kaupapa to make sure that we rest and settle and continue to grow.

I do want to finish with something that actually came from a well-esteemed man and somebody that Māori really rate—a tangata Tiriti who is actually an ex-National Minister. It was something I heard him say in the submissions yesterday. Chris Finlayson said, “Parliament can legislate the Earth is flat. That doesn’t make it flat.” And, to our Prime Minister, let’s stop spouting flat-Earth policy energy and actually embrace the fact that you are surrounded by tangata whenua, and it doesn’t have to be any of us in Te Pāti Māori, but they are here for ever, and tangata whenua and Te Tiriti is here for ever, and, as was stated at Rātana, you’re not.

That is our feedback on this statement. I hope that it’s taken constructively, with the aroha and the time that we gave to thinking about it and talking about it. Nō reira i te āhua o tā tātau tūpuna, tēnā koutou, kia ora koutou katoa. [So, with respect to our ancestors, greetings to all.]

Well, Madam Speaker, thank you for that warm applause. Very good to get the full, wholehearted support of the Māori Party as I stand to talk today about the Prime Minister’s statement and the start of the political year.

The starting point, of course, and very much the focus of the Government this year, is to get some growth into this economy, to create some wealth, and to make a living in a competitive world. I think all of us who have been out and about on the beaches and in the bush and having a break in electorates all around this country, and I’ve been way up North and in far-flung parts—the conversation, apart from the weather around here, the primary conversation, has been, yes, it has been a difficult economic time. There are a lot of people, particularly small-business people, who have been really struggling after a long, extended period of a down cycle in the economy.

Now, we can point to many of the mistakes made over the past few years that contributed to that, but a lot of it’s also global changes and pressures going on. The reality is that many New Zealand families have been finding it tough. That is why, when we look at the things that New Zealanders are most concerned about and most worried about is, they want to see some relief in the cost of living that their families are facing: buying the groceries, getting ready for school, all those things. They want to see a growth plan so that, when we look out into the future, this is the place to stay.

It makes sense from an economic point of view. That is precisely what this Government is focused on and what the Prime Minister talked about in his speech only a couple of hours ago. The recipe for getting greater growth is not dramatically difficult to understand or to change; it just hasn’t been done by previous Governments. It’s about encouraging investment in the country. Ultimately, if you want to get growth, it’s about businesses, large and small, investing and growing their business, starting a new business, buying new plant and machinery, hiring new people. It’s all about investment decisions. Creating an environment where people feel confident to invest is critical. We’ve seen, actually, already a lift in business confidence levels, notwithstanding all the challenges, and that’s because they see help is on its way.

We’ve also seen the important focus on technology and innovation, and there’s a lot going on there. We were very much inspired last week at our two-day caucus for the National Party to have an address by Peter Beck—rocket man. What a wonderful, wonderful entrepreneurial story that is in New Zealand. We should be celebrating that sort of thing. The fact that a boy from Invercargill went on to create a highly, highly successful business in the world of rocketry and sending satellites into space, competing with the best globally, is a really great thing to see. New Zealanders do have the ability to reach for the stars, and we celebrate that, and we need more of it. We’re also out there looking for export markets and we’re thinking also long term around education, because, ultimately, a skilled workforce is critical to all that. That’s why Erica Stanford is making sure that (a) the kids go to school and (b) that they’re taught a world-class curriculum and (c) that they’re actually going to measure progress against that curriculum.

Then, of course, another core foundation of getting growth into the economy is getting some discipline around the regulatory environment and trying to remove the roadblocks. That’s what the fast-track legislation is all about, and many other areas. We’re going to get on with it. We’re going to dig up some stuff. We’re going to make some money in this country. I’m so sick of hearing people saying, “Oh, the people get paid more in Australia. The doctors and nurses and the teachers get paid more in Australia.” They get paid more in Australia because Australia does more things. They dig stuff out of the ground, and they make some money.

If we want to compete, if we want to have high-quality living standards, we can’t just keep on saying “No” to everything; “We don’t want everything.” We’ve got to say, “Yes”. We’ve actually got to say, “Let’s go and do some stuff. Let’s make a living in this country. Let’s get active and competitive.” Anybody who’s got eyes looks upon the world and they see not many countries of the world struggling, going sideways. They see the United States going gangbusters economically, and they still want to go faster. They’re out there hustling and doing well. That’s what we, in our country, need to be doing as well, hustling and doing our best to compete effectively in the world. If you want to be competitive, if you’re going to grow, you’ve got to look at your cost structure, all those basic things which this Government is doing. That’s why Nicola Willis is doing a great job getting the Government’s fiscal books in shape.

Now, another element of this whole broader context of a strong economy is safety, public safety, and dealing effectively with crime is also an important element, and that is what I’m particularly responsible for as Minister of Justice. In this Government, one of our clear three priorities is to restore law and order, because we had a revolving door of police Ministers and justice Ministers in the last legislation, and they kept on coming and going. They were soft, they came up with excuses for crime, and it was always everybody else’s fault and not the criminals’ fault for crime. That led to encourage the big increase in crime that we saw which concerned many people.

This Government’s about restoring consequences for crime. That’s why we’ve already brought back three-strikes legislation. We’ve passed the gang laws which give the police extra powers to deal with gangs who are a tiny fraction of the population but are responsible for a very significant amount of the violent crime in our community; we were sick of it. Isn’t it great to be able to have gone around over the summer and not seen gang patches everywhere where we went? Thanks to the work of the police and the legislation that’s passed. People will say, “Oh, well, the problem’s not solved.” Well, we’re making progress and we’re putting pressure on those gangs and making their lives difficult and uncomfortable, and that’s what we’re all on about. My colleague Mark Mitchell’s been working very hard in that area as well.

Then, on the sentencing laws we’re about to be passing in a week or two—the overall cap on the amount of discounts that can be allowed in sentencing—again, if you read the newspapers or listen to the radio or go online and see stories, there’s been more stories of people who are convicted of serious crimes and had their sentencing reduced on a colossal scale so that the consequences are not very severe. People want to see consequences for crime, and so that’s going to change. There will be a limit on the amount of discounts that can be offered and people will be held more accountable for what’s going on.

Another piece of legislation coming down the track is stalking legislation. Also, over the next few months, we’re getting some good advice out of the Retail Crime Advisory group led by Sunny Kaushal, with some practical things that we can do to help those retailers who have been on the flick end, on the violent end of completely unacceptable behaviour in some of our towns and communities. We’ve made real progress on the ram raids, but there’s a lot more to do so that New Zealanders feel safe in their community, they feel safe when they’re around, because we’re focused on reducing the number of victims of crime, but also creating an environment where people feel confident to invest and start new retail businesses without having to worry about security being the number one focus of attention, because that doesn’t make sense for anybody.

Separate from that, of course, we’re also interested in ensuring that we’ve got a good, efficient legal system that’s predictable and people know where they are, and they can get judgments and outcomes for the work that they’re doing. I just want to make mention of the progress we’re making on the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey. In the latest figures that we had for the 12 months to October 2024, we had 24,000 fewer victims of crimes than they did in the 12 months to June 2024. Now, it’s early days, but it goes to show that if you’re clear about what you’re trying to achieve, that you’re not making excuses for crime all the time, but people are accountable and the Government of the day sends a clear message that we back the police, we back law-abiding citizens, we’re not in favour of the gangs, we’re not in favour of explaining and coming up with excuses for people who do criminal acts and steal from other New Zealanders and create violence in our community, then you start to make some progress there.

I’m also conscious of the fact that we’re coming up to an important week next week up in Waitangi. I’ll be up in the North—very keen to talk to the broader Ngāpuhi community. There are two things that will make a real difference to Northland: one is a decent road, and now Chris Bishop is focused on that; and two, getting the Ngāpuhi settlement through. There’s lots of discussions that I’ll be having there and I’m looking forward to those discussions, recognising that there’s been a long process over 30 years to work away on Treaty settlements. National Governments have made a lot of progress in the past and it’s my sincere hope that, over the next week, we’ll have some good constructive conversations, and we’ll get on it, because there’s, again, all number of people that will say, “No, no, we don’t want to do this” for a whole lot of reasons. My plea to the many different hapū of Ngāpuhi is: let’s listen to some of the ones who say yes; let’s see if we can make a deal. Let’s see if we can make some progress so that we can get Northland cooking with gas over the next little while. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tuatahi māku, e tautoko ana au i te āhuatanga o ngā mihi ki ngā mate huhua o te wā. Ngā mate o te tau kua pahure ake nei me te tauhou anō hoki.

[Greetings to the Speaker of the House. Firstly, may I say that I support the greetings to the many bereavements of the time. Those of the past year and the new year.]

I would just like to endorse the earlier comments and speeches given to those many who have passed in recent times.

I turn now to the Prime Minister’s statement. If I could sum up what I heard in the 20 minutes that he gave a speech, there was only about 10 minutes where he was talking about National, because the other nine to 10 minutes were all focused on Labour. If I were to distil down what I thought I heard him saying in that 10 minutes of speech, it would be, really, that they are failing the economy, that the cost of living has dropped off their agenda, that they don’t care about people and people’s jobs, and—kia tūpato, kia mataara [be careful and vigilant]—they are opening the door to privatisation.

The Prime Minister, in the last two minutes of that speech, talked about education and he talked about the outstanding start he wanted for our tamariki, and getting them to school. Well, that would be all good if Erica Stanford wasn’t cancelling school bus routes. He talked about the amazing resources. Well, do not forget that those amazing resources, $30 million worth of resources, are coming at the expense of te reo Māori. They took $30 million from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori to pay for these amazing resources for our schools. Why didn’t they do both? Why couldn’t they do both? These are all choices that this Government has made. The Prime Minister talks a big game—he talks a big game about economic growth—but words mean nothing when so many Kiwis are struggling just to make ends meet.

As thousands of tamariki are returning to school this week, families across the country are experiencing stress to meet the costs of uniforms, stationery, digital devices, kai, and more. Far too many families are increasingly relying on support and, for some tamariki, it simply means going without—undermining their ability to learn and to develop their unique talents. In fact, many of those children will also not have enough food to eat, and research released last year shows that teenagers who don’t get enough to eat end up two to four years behind their peers in subjects like maths and reading. We hear this Government going on about numeracy and literacy and their investment and focus on that, yet they are reducing Ka Ora, Ka Ako, the school lunches programme, from a lunch to a snack.

This brings me to the issue of child poverty. Christopher Luxon talks about an outstanding start for our tamariki in the education system, and he talks about ambition, but I did not see or hear any for our children. Last year, this Government made a decision about indexing benefits that put 7,000 children, estimated at up to 13,000 children—more children—into poverty. This year, we know that the Government is going to further weaken how they measure child poverty. All this talk about economic growth is meaningless if it translates to an acceptance that more of our mokopuna will not get the basics that they need to thrive. Our whānau deserve better than this.

This year, we will continue to see the impacts of the cuts to Oranga Tamariki and the services to our children, the cuts in the areas of early intervention and prevention—all of this rhetoric that we hear from the Government. We will see the impact of these deep cuts—and the Minister could not rule out that they would not make further cuts in this year’s Budget—on our most vulnerable children and whānau in Aotearoa. We need to remember that, last year, they cut hundreds of providers and their contracts. It was shambolic, it was haphazard, and the Auditor-General is inquiring into this, and we look forward to that report.

The Prime Minister talked about youth crime and their focus on law and order. Well, this Government is reinstating the failed experiment of boot camps. This Government is putting those boot camps, a pilot, into legislation before it has even been completed, before it has even been evaluated. Tomorrow, we will start hearing submissions on the boot camp legislation, more punitive measures, without any safeguards, and against, once again, officials’ advice, and, sadly, once again, Māori needs are neglected. The bill makes no mention of Māori, makes no mention of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, yet the evidence shows in the officials’ advice that 80 to 85 percent of the young people who will be classed as young serious offenders will be Māori.

That brings me, in my remaining time, to something I didn’t hear in the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon. I didn’t hear any reference to the amazing Māori economy. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s snapshot of the Māori economy, ahead of the fourth report due out soon, shows that the Māori asset base has grown exponentially from $68 billion in 2018 to $118 billion in 2023, with more Māori in high-skilled jobs than low-skilled jobs for the first time ever. The Prime Minister didn’t speak about that today. He didn’t speak about it in his state of the nation speech. He didn’t speak about it at Rātana—all missed opportunities or deliberate oversight; or maybe the Prime Minister just does not even see it or care about it.

They do care about Māori, though. Many of my relations, many of the community, many of my friends, many of the constituents in Tai Tokerau and across the country spent their summer writing submissions to a piece of legislation that the Prime Minister has said will not go past second reading. However, I listened to the contribution from David Seymour, who says, “I still doubt that it will not pass.” It suggests that he’s calling the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, who had said it categorically at Rātana and other places, liars, because he said—the future Deputy Prime Minister says—he still doubts that it will not pass.

Tomorrow night, we will have the second reading of the legislation that repeals section 7AA. This is removing Treaty principles, Treaty provisions, from legislation. The Treaty principles bill is not the only attack on Māori. It is not the only thing that we need to be aware of in the year to come. Tomorrow night, we will see that legislation receive its second reading. I’ll speak more to that tomorrow night.

Right now, this Government is planning to remove or replace more than 28 legislative provisions for Te Tiriti o Waitangi from legislation. That is a New Zealand First - National coalition agreement. So while everybody, rightly so, is focused on submitting on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, do not forget that they are doing it with section 7AA tomorrow night and 28 other pieces of legislation.

Our party will continue to hold this Government to account throughout 2025 on all of the things that they are doing—as co-chair of the Māori caucus—that are anti-Māori. The Prime Minister could have spoken about the Māori economy and what it could have contributed to their plan, but he didn’t, and I think that speaks volumes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just wanted to take the opportunity, as this is my first chance to speak in the House this year, to just wish everyone a happy and healthy 2025. I have to say that the year started in the worst possible way for me as the Minister of Police when I received a call on New Year’s morning from the Commissioner of Police to inform me that two of our police officers—Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay and Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming—had been allegedly intentionally run down.

I want to acknowledge that Rachel Boyack, the local MP, is in the House. I acknowledge your role and the support that you provided to the police and the family also, Rachel, through what was a very difficult time, and what continues to be a difficult time for everyone.

I know that when I arrived that day in Nelson, the first thing that happened was that people at the airport immediately came up to me and said that they couldn’t understand what had happened. They couldn’t work out how this had happened in the beautiful city of Nelson. I called the mayor, Nick Smith—and I’d like to acknowledge him and the council and his team—and then I made my way to the police station to be with the team there.

I just want to acknowledge that, as the police service for them was live broadcast, I think anyone that was present or who saw it could see the utter devastation of Bryn, Rayna, and Aren—her husband and her two children. But the total devastation wasn’t just with them; it was with all of us, and, in particular, the people of Nelson. I want to acknowledge them and the way that they have responded to support the family and the way that they have responded to support the local police.

It’s a family with a lot of public service. If you look at Woody, Lyn’s brother, he’s been a firefighter for decades, and I want to acknowledge all of our Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) officers that turned out also on the day—and around the country—who were heavily impacted by this as well and who stood proudly as a part of Lyn’s honour guard on the day.

I want to acknowledge all of our police officers. The one thing that does happen when you lose a front-line police officer is that that blue family comes together and wraps support around one another, whether you are past or present. That certainly happened in the case of Lyn.

I just want all of us to reflect. I know that there have been a lot of statements in relation to the loss of Lyn, but I just want all of us to reflect on the fact that she gave 38 years of public service to our country, and when you think about the amount of people’s lives that she has touched, that is extraordinary and that deserves all of our respect and acknowledgment.

The commissioner, when he spoke at her service, said that he’d gone back through her personal file. Over the years, a personal file will accumulate in terms of whether you get letters from members of the public to say thank you for the assistance you may have provided to them, or reports from supervisors. It really is a catalogue of your service in the police, and he was saying that, on going through Lyn’s, it was just packed full of goodness. What he meant by that was that members of the public had come forward and written letters, reinforcing the type of police officer that she was and the type of leader that she was.

The type of leader that she was is that on the night that she was struck down, as a senior sergeant, she had probably earned the right not to be out working a night shift, but she had chosen to be out on night shift. She’d turned up with snacks for the officers that she was in charge of and in her care so that they were cared for and looked after through the night, and we’ve lost her. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge her service and to acknowledge all of those that have been impacted and all of those that have wrapped the support around, particularly, the family.

By the way, Bryn is a serving police officer himself, and that’s how they met. They had actually both joined originally as officers with the Ministry of Transport, and then, with the amalgamation, as police officers, and they’d been together right through their law enforcement careers.

I want to just acknowledge our police for the outstanding work they’ve done over the holiday period. Through Christmas, they don’t get to take time off. They’re out there, making sure the public is safe, and they’ve had some challenges. But they’ve done an outstanding job, and I’m very proud of them and the work that they do.

I want to acknowledge all of our first responders. With the emergency management portfolio, we had several fires over the holiday season. We all watched with disbelief as the fires in LA got out of control, and, of course, there are going to be a lot of questions asked around leadership and decisions and how that was allowed to happen. But I have to say that I’m extremely proud of our FENZ officers and of our first responders.

There is the leadership there and the decisions that are made early, and the fact is that many of our firefighters, when they respond, are volunteers. They’re coming out of the community and giving up their time and their holidays to be there for the communities that they live in, and I had direct, personal experience of that when there was a fire on the Coromandel, in Kūaotunu. It was one that could have got out of control very, very quickly, and our volunteer firefighters from Kūaotunu, from Wharekaho, and from Matarangi responded almost immediately. They were backed up by Whitianga. For three days, with the assistance of three helicopters, they fought in very arduous and difficult terrain to get that fire under control and to make sure that the houses and the people that live in the community were protected, and I want to acknowledge them.

I’ve only just arrived back in the country myself today, and I want to acknowledge, obviously, the situation that we have in Mangawhai. I’ve been speaking with Grant McCallum, the local MP, and I intend to get up there as quickly as I can to get on the ground—[Interruption] Grant McCallum.

Hon James Meager: Great MP.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah, sorry—he’s sitting right beside me. Yeah, he is a great MP.

I want to acknowledge my Department of Corrections team, because they’re often invisible. The only time we really hear about Corrections is when something goes wrong. They deal with and they have to manage some of the most difficult people in our country—often, violent people, they’re looking for ways of defeating the system, and I want to acknowledge all of our corrections personnel. Whether it be community-based in the work that you did over the summer break, or whether it be our staff in our offices inside our corrections facilities, you do an outstanding job, and I popped in and visited our corrections staff in Nelson when I was down there for Lyn’s service, to thank them because they were there, as well, to support the police and make sure that they were all together. They provided that camaraderie and support, and I want to thank and acknowledge them.

I want to thank our emergency management staff from the National Emergency Management Agency, who have a 24/7 operations centre and who are always there. Again, you don’t hear much from them, but they’re always there, monitoring everything that we have to deal with, as a country, in terms of our risks and weather events. Since I’ve been the Minister, we’ve had fires, we’ve had floods, we’ve had earthquakes, and we’ve had space weather to deal with, and, most recently, a tornado. I want to thank them and all of our civil defence people around the country for their vigilance and your work over the summer period.

I guess I just wanted to finish by saying that over the break, obviously, I’m very proud to have picked up two additional portfolios. They are sport and recreation, which is critically important for us as a country—and I’m looking forward to working with Chris Bishop as my Associate Minister with that portfolio—and, of course, ethnic communities, which is one that I’m very, very proud to have been given, because I’ve been heavily involved with our ethnic communities, as a member of Parliament, for 12 or 13 years, and I look forward to deepening those relationships. I know that certainly, since I’ve had the police portfolio, there’s a lot of interaction, because public safety is extremely important to our ethnic communities, and the other thing that I really enjoy about it is that I’ve had the privilege through my working life to have lived and worked alongside them in their own countries, and not just here in New Zealand. It’s nice to be able to have conversations with them about their village or the areas that they may be from, because I have personal experience. I’m excited to really get involved with our ethnic communities on a new level as the Minister.

Finally, I just want to say that when it comes to the gang legislation—the Hon Paul Goldsmith referred to it—it’s been outstanding. It’s working, without a doubt. It’s tipped the balance back to our police. Our front-line police have reseized the initiative when it comes to organised crime and gangs, and that’s something that you’re going to see more of from this Government this year. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

I call Lan Pham. I understand this is a split call?

It is a split call. I’m Tamatha Paul; that’s Lan Pham. Yeah, kia ora.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Sorry.

TAMATHA PAUL: In the 17 pages of this statement to Parliament by our Prime Minister, there is not one mention of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in this speech, which is ironic given that the bill that the Prime Minister neglected to even mention is the most submitted-on bill in the history of this country. Not to mention it’s also the thing that allows for this Parliament to even stand in the first place, and it’s also the thing that gives him the ability to even be the Prime Minister in the first place. The Prime Minister’s so ashamed that he doesn’t even mention it; he isn’t showing his face at Waitangi. He won’t go out and greet the 100,000 people on the lawn, and now he won’t even mention the words “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. Shame. Just because you refuse to acknowledge Te Tiriti doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just because he refuses to honour it doesn’t mean there isn’t another Government and another Prime Minister—maybe on that side of the House—that actually will acknowledge the agreement that this House and his forebears signed.

I knew the Prime Minister wouldn’t mention the one thing that roughly 6 percent of the people that he purports to represent care about, so let’s talk about the things that he did think were important enough to mention in his speech. He wants to talk about growth. Well, let’s talk about an inconvenient truth when it comes to growth: the fields that he wants to farm on, the mines that he wants to ram raid, the streams that he wants to pipe underground, the mega-prisons that he wants to build and fill my people up with, they all rest on stolen land.

Let’s talk about our international reputation. The way that this Government has treated its indigenous people has made us the laughing stock of this planet. We were once known for punching well above our weight and now we’re just known for punching down on the first people that were on this whenua. It’s like Air New Zealand, back in the day, when they wanted to put the koru all over their plane but they didn’t want to let their own kaimahi wear tāmoko. In the words of Helmut Modlik from Ngāti Toa yesterday, in the hearings, this bill that he won’t even mention is an international embarrassment. How are we supposed to do all these trade deals and all of this growth around the world when we’re just a laughing stock? When the world is watching, they don’t even know the Prime Minister’s name. You know what name they do know? That name over there: Hana-Rawhiti.

Now, let’s talk about international treaties. New Zealand has signed up to 1,900 treaties; we are a party to 1,900 treaties, and the one that founded our own Parliament is the one that our Government does not give a toss about. The Prime Minister didn’t mention the embarrassment of that bill, but he did mention the Regulatory Standards Bill. And let’s put this on the record, because the Treaty principles bill, yeah, it’s going to die, but there are other bills that this Government has signed up to and agreed to legislate within their coalition agreement—the holy coalition agreement—that will impact our laws, which will remove Te Tiriti as a lawmaking principle within this country.

You can get up there and you can talk to the media and you can talk to the people and say that “The Treaty’s not going anywhere; we’re not doing anything to the Treaty.” You are, and people aren’t stupid, and that’s why the Regulatory Standards Bill was also one of the most submitted on bills—consultations from a Government department and the history of this country. That will be your legacy, Prime Minister—that will be your legacy: mobilising and agitating the entire population to get rid of him. That will be his legacy.

His own forebears have warned him. Marilyn Waring, Chris Finlayson, even Roger Douglas are all saying, “What the heck are you fellas up to?” That will be the legacy that you guys continue. It’s like Chris Finlayson said yesterday: this Parliament, it can make laws but it is not omnipotent. Christopher Luxon, you are not God and you cannot change the facts, history, or the founding of this country, and the Government should stop acting like they are more important than the people that were first here and the agreement that established this rotten place.

The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The most golden part of this break has been, alongside many Kiwis, getting some time to focus on the things that really matter. It’s that connection to each other, be it our whānau or our friends or our communities, and connection to te taiao—our environment. It’s a time that makes it so crystal clear that our wellbeing as Kiwis is grounded in that very connection between people and nature under our foundation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It’s been so incredibly jarring to now be back here in this Chamber in 2025, back in the same old, outdated, visionless throes of this Government’s actions that so comprehensively dismantle and destroy not only our foundations, which my colleague has so accurately pointed out, but the only things that have any real value—that’s the health of our people and the health of te taiao, and it’s all for a cheap shot, a quick buck, based on this blind belief that economic growth will solve our immense, pressing challenges.

I wanted to pick up on one of the Prime Minister’s statements about how New Zealand has a culture of saying no. From what myself and many Kiwis have seen under this Government, that’s actually a surprisingly accurate description of this Government’s actions. They’ve “roared out of the blocks”—his words—with a big bulldozing “No” to environmental protections. They say no to honouring Te Tiriti obligations and to climate action; no to protecting marine areas and protecting in a way where commercial fishing can’t just come in and plunder them. They say no to protecting and restoring our polluted waterways, no to even basic levels of funding for our environmental agencies, and no to the data and evidence for them to even have a chance at making good decisions.

It is truly extraordinary how hollow the claims are of this Government around evidence-based decision-making. They persist in saying that they’re committed to it, while directly reducing the processes and funding that allow them to be informed or even allow the science and the mātauranga to actually be undertaken or applied to their decision making.

The PM was equally confused and backwards when he said that they were replacing the Resource Management Act with a system that will “continue protecting our natural environment”. Unfortunately, just because one says it’s so doesn’t make it so. It’s nothing short of delusional to drive a thousand cuts into our environmental and science sectors and across the board of environmental legislation and see that as protection. We know the Government’s fast-track bill overrides almost every existing protection that we have, and it even gives life to zombie projects already declined by the courts. It encourages multinational companies to come to New Zealand, to exploit our environment and pillage the environment for offshore profits, and, once they’ve come and gone, communities are left to clean up the mess, having lost whatever biodiverse or community riches that existed.

The Kiwis that I know and have seen operate in this country of Aotearoa want a living economy full of life, of innovation, and of wellbeing. Dishing out blind yeses to developments that can harm either ourselves or te taiao—our environment—more often than not means chucking out precaution. It means chucking out the Government’s duty of care to protect ourselves and our environment no matter the politics. It often means chucking out the voices of people with actual expertise and mātauranga within our society. It’s our literal basis of knowledge and understanding, and we can’t chuck that stuff out.

The Prime Minister promised this would be a Government of action, and he’s right. It’s the most reckless, narrow-minded, short-sighted actions that put at risk the very things that Kiwis hold most dear, and it’s so jarringly out of step with the culture of Aotearoa. Kia ora.

Madam Speaker, thank you so very much. May I wish you and your colleagues the very best for the start of the new year and to say the sun on the West Coast may have been shining as much as it was in Rotorua, because you are looking relaxed and happy. It’s very good to see you, Madam Speaker.

Can I start by thanking, as our Prime Minister did in his speech in this House earlier today, the farmers of New Zealand, the primary sector, for all that they have done and to reiterate as well about how much they are respected and how much we value their contribution. It’s more than just economic—although they are a very big part of growth in New Zealand and a very big part of the Government’s plan not only to provide greater income to all New Zealanders through the doubling of the value of exports over a decade, —they actually add to the fabric of what is important in New Zealand: the social fabric, the cultural fabric, and the things that make us a great nation.

I know that as, Madam Speaker, you and I have a slight suntan, the same sun that’s shining around the country has grown grass in parts where we needed it, where it had previously been too wet or where there was rain. That grass is going to be transformed by the work of our farmers into high-quality, safe food products that the world wants and wants in abundance. They know, as this Government does, that we have an obligation to produce that high-quality, safe food—the highest-quality and safest food produced anywhere in the world by our farmers. We have an obligation to do that so we can feed people everywhere, because there are parts of the world that aren’t as lucky as New Zealand, where they don’t have enough food and they need to buy it to feed their citizens from other parts of the world, and that’s the role that our farmers play.

It hasn’t happened just by chance. The men and women of rural New Zealand are some of the most innovative, hardest working from anywhere. I’ve got to say, when I’ve had the opportunity to be overseas occasionally, that, generally, farmers around the world are envious of what our farmers do because they have had a Government that has helped free them up to innovate. There are farmers in New Zealand today who have the same land that their families have always had, and they produce much more to sell to the world, to feed people around the world with fewer inputs and a smaller environmental footprint because of that innovation. That’s what’s best about agriculture in New Zealand—the men and women who work hard every single day to meet their environmental obligations and produce more with less to sell to the world. That’s how we become richer as a country and we become more productive.

The reason that I say that farmers in other parts of the world are envious is because they wish they had the ability to be freed up to produce food in the way our farmers do because, ultimately, in my experience, farmers just want to get on and farm. They will meet the obligations, they’ll fill out the paperwork that they have to, but there should be a reason and a point to it. As the Prime Minister has said in his speech today and at the rural confidence tour with Federated Farmers at the end of last year, we want to back the primary sector and have farmers out farming, not sitting in their office, filling out forms to prove things that often can’t be proven or take them away from the land. Yes, we’ve all got obligations and there’s always going to be a bit of paperwork, but when they’re spending 20 to 30 percent of their time focused on that paperwork, then they’re not innovating in the way that we need them to and they’re certainly not as productive as we need them to be.

It’s very good news. As well as the grass growing at the moment, which means that the beef and the lamb—where the prices are starting to improve—will be of higher quality, there’ll be more of it. Of course, our dairy industry will be able to produce more dairy for exactly the same number of cows as they had last year, but they will produce more, and that makes the country richer. Every single person in the country benefits as a result and it means that a high-quality product is overseas where we have to compete but we compete more easily because of that hard work.

We should, as a House, be united in our desire to lighten the load and the burden on those farmers so they can farm more, to have fewer regulations, better ones, and regulations that focus on an outcome that actually achieves something, rather than a press release from the Government that says, “We’ve collected all this information.” That’s why you have seen, over the last 12 months, the Government work very, very hard to make it better for the rural sector, to simplify rules and regulations, to help them meet their obligations in climate change or in environment around water quality, because they want to do that, they’re working with us, but to do so in such a way that we focus on the outcome, we don’t just focus on the process.

I’ve got to say that when we came into Government and during the course of last year, confidence in the rural sector was at an all-time low. Year upon year over the last six years of the previous Government, rural confidence was shattered, and we are working hard to rebuild it. I know that it’s not far away from the sector and others doing their surveys of farmers, and I hope that that level of confidence has improved. Nothing to do with the Government; I hope it’s improved because that will tell us that we’re getting it right and that they feel backed by the Prime Minister and the coalition Government and that they are working as hard as they can for all New Zealanders to fix the economy and to grow incomes.

Part of that, of course, is making sure that interest rates come down. We’re starting to see them come down. I won’t mention who, but a farming leader told me that as there was the last cut to interest rates at the end of last year, what that actually meant for him on his small, moderate farm—and he said it now actually takes away the decision that he faced about whether he would keep employing all the people he has on his farm or would have had to let one go. He said it means he can keep them there and can keep working hard and so on. There’s a lot more work to be done there, but the reason the Government has been so focused over the last 12 months on being careful with Government spending in all areas, particularly in agriculture, is so that the interest rates could start to come down as inflation comes down. That is beneficial and good for our farmers.

The other part of this is that they produce the world’s highest-quality, safest food and fibre, fruit, across the board—there must be markets we can sell them to. Can I thank the Prime Minister for going back to work so early whilst the sun was still shining, when others weren’t yet back at work, and flying across to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with me to put on paper the ink that signed the free-trade agreement with the UAE—one of the highest quality on entry into force we’ve negotiated and negotiated very, very quickly. The officials involved in that worked harder than we should ask them to, but they were up to the challenge and they found two Governments—the UAE and New Zealand—that just wanted to do a high-quality deal. We’re going to work pretty hard and I hope there will be support across the House to get that deal through the parliamentary process as quickly as we can so New Zealand exporters and the workers that help produce the things we export will benefit straight away. As we negotiated this in record time, let’s see if we can pass it through the House in record time, offering every New Zealander the chance to submit and speak on it if they want.

There’s much more work we can do. The reason we do these trade deals—and I want to recognise that the Opposition largely supported that legislation or that agreement—is because we level the playing field and we make it fairer for all New Zealanders when they’re overseas. It’s easier for them to compete, they do better, they earn more, they come back, they get to pay their tax, but they invest in the economy.

A very big part of the Government’s agenda is growth, growth, growth. I’ve been given responsibility this year as a Minister, and a new responsibility, for investment, which is foreign direct investment. We’re setting up a new agency which will not be bureaucratic, it won’t be large, and it won’t be expensive. It will be charged with working with New Zealanders to attract investment overseas that is good for New Zealanders and good for the country. It’s as simple as this: we do not have the capital to do all the things that a Government might want, nor to build our businesses or industries in the way that we would like to. Other countries will look to partner with us and invest. and if it is good for New Zealand and good for New Zealanders, we should be open to it. That doesn’t mean that all capital around the world will find its way here, nor should it, but there is a lot out there that can create jobs and can innovate and can modernise the economy and can help build the infrastructure that New Zealanders and the Government will own, but build that infrastructure more quickly so that we can use it and rely upon it and improve our economy.

An economy is about people. It is more than just a definition in a dictionary. An economy is people, and when people are able to work hard and keep more of what they earn in the primary sector and elsewhere and they can provide for themselves, they are happier. It will be my job, along with others across Government, to look for the investment that we need to bring in here to grow our businesses to innovate, to back the scientific community, and to grow the economy. Growth is not a bad word; it’s a good word. When you have growth in an economy, Governments get to provide more. We can provide more by taking less from the workers and the businesses. The Prime Minister has been clear: this is a year of growth, growth, growth. There are three parties in the coalition Government, there are three parts to that growth, and we are united in working hard for our farmers and every single New Zealander.

“Huia e! Huia tangata kotahi. He tōtara kua hinga.”—“The feather of the huia for someone special, one dearly departed.”

On New Year’s Day, the Nelson-Tasman community was rocked with the tragic death of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming, who was killed while working the New Year’s Eve shift to keep people safe in Buxton Square in Nelson’s CBD. Can I acknowledge the support in the comments just made by our police Minister, Mark Mitchell, which I wholeheartedly endorse.

Senior Sergeant Fleming had given 38 years of service to the community as a police officer. She was known as the matriarch of the Nelson police station, where she was a trusted mentor, quiet leader, and kind friend to many. She looked after the wellbeing of other officers while also setting high standards of service and professionalism. Her work extended into the community as a much-loved netball coach. She was humble. Many who worked for the police didn’t know of her dedicated service to netball, while many in the netball community didn’t know she was a police officer. She wasn’t one to blow her own trumpet.

Every person who goes to work should come home safely to their family, and this includes our police and other first responders who work to keep our community safe. The outpouring of grief and support from the community shows how much Nelson values the work of our police and first responders. They and their families make enormous sacrifices to protect our communities, and they deserve our utmost respect. As Police Commissioner Richard Chambers so aptly said, “We must remember: behind the uniform is a human being.”

The Nelson community has come together in the most remarkable way to support Lyn’s family and friends, her police family, and each other following this tragic event. The laying of flowers and notes at the central city police station, the thousands who signed condolence books, the beautiful community vigil held on the church steps where 2,000 people stood in the pouring rain to acknowledge Lyn and our local police, and the minute’s silence at the Saxton Oval and on the streets of Nelson were incredible examples of Nelson’s love and support for Lyn’s family, our local police, and those who witnessed this tragic incident.

I also want to acknowledge Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay, who was critically injured. Nelsonians continue to ask about his recovery out of genuine care and concern for his wellbeing. Adam, please know that the whole Nelson community is right behind you as you continue your recovery.

I want to pay particular acknowledgment to those who were present at Buxton Square and who immediately came to Lyn and Adam’s aid, as well as the other members of the public and officers—who were injured. They were local first responders, witnesses, and other police officers working the beat that night. Your selflessness and care for Lyn and Adam was exemplary.

To the team at Nelson Hospital who worked so desperately hard to try and save Lyn and provided the most remarkable care for her and her family, my thanks to you on behalf of the Nelson community for your incredible skill and service.

Police Remembrance Day is 29 September. Every year, the local police, their families, and supporters gather at the flagpole at Nelson station. I never thought I would see the flagpole outside the Nelson station at half-mast for one of our own fallen officers. Tragic events like this shouldn’t happen, and it is not how anyone in Nelson or across New Zealand wished for the year to begin. I was out in Nelson on New Year’s Eve. I saw and spoke to officers out on the beat. It was a happy and celebratory night. This event was such a dreadful shock and it shouldn’t have happened. I thank Nelsonians for the compassion they have shown to those affected by this senseless tragedy and ask our community to continue keeping Lyn’s family and our local police in their thoughts over the coming weeks and months.

In particular, we continue to think of Lyn’s immediate family: her husband, Bryn; children, Rayna and Aren; parents, Ray and Colleen; and siblings, Woody, Carol, and Jo. As Lyn’s son, Aren, said at Lyn’s funeral, there are no words. There are no words to express the grief and sorrow from this senseless tragedy. Rest in peace, Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming, New Zealand Police LFE773, whose watch ended 1 January 2025.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It is always a privilege to stand in this House, but it is also a heavy privilege to be in this position and to be a member of Parliament. I came in this morning with hopes and dreams, and by about 30 seconds into the Prime Minister’s speech, I think most of those were crushed and destroyed.

As we spend time debating the Prime Minister’s address and his plan for 2025, it is really interesting to listen to his narrative and what the Prime Minister talks about and what the Government talks about. I just want to focus for a moment on the Government; interestingly, most of the Government Ministers spent most of their time talking about us. They talk about unleashing our economy, but I feel like they should be talking more about unleashing economic hardship. If we look at the numbers, if we actually look at the statistics about what’s going on, this Government is failing on the economy. If you look at GDP growth, it has plummeted from what was 2.4 percent under Labour and is now on its steepest decline since 1991—if you take aside the blip of COVID-19. This Government is unleashing economic hardship.

I also think about, when it comes to the cost of living—do we remember that phrase and narrative, which just seems to have vanished from the lips of the Prime Minister and the Government. It seems that they have abandoned their focus on helping everyday New Zealanders when it comes to the challenges of the cost of living, when things like insurance and rates and fuel and energy, and transport costs continue to go up with inflation. They continue to go up. It seems that they have just forgotten about that thing called the cost of living, which they spoke so much about.

Then we look at this Government unleashing, let’s just say, privatisation—the fact that they are flirting with this idea of privatisation, where the soon to be Deputy Prime Minister put that “p” word firmly in his state of the nation speech last Friday. From my perspective, in the community where I live in New Plymouth, we know privatisation well and what it means for our community. Back in the 1990s, the then National Government sold off more than 11,500 State houses around Aotearoa New Zealand, and in New Plymouth, in Marfell, where I live, that ravaged the community. In terms of “The private market will care for tenants.”, “The private market will be OK and fix it.”, if you drive around the community of Marfell today, people often say, “Oh, that must be a State house. That must be a State house. That must be a State house”, but they aren’t State houses; those are privately owned homes that were sold off when they did the privatisation of the 1990s when it came to housing.

If we look at that, we realise that privatisation and flirting with this idea, whether it be health, whether it be education, is something we should be really concerned about. As I think about that privatisation and looking at Marfell from the 1990s, we look at the fact that they seem to be unleashing homelessness. As I look around my community, as we look around the communities of New Zealand, we see that they seem to be just shutting things down; they seem to be ignoring—in fact, stopping—the State housing build, and it is not good.

Then we come to unleashing our climate crisis. Again, in Taranaki, we were working to unleash an economy around clean, renewable energy, but this Government passed the fast-track approvals bill—

Hon Nicola Willis: Say yes to fast track, then—fast-track renewable energy.

GLEN BENNETT: That’s what I’m talking about. They passed the fast-track approvals bill, which will stop, Ms Willis—the fact that offshore wind won’t be able to happen, because on that list is seabed mining, and seabed mining cannot coexist with offshore wind. We were working hard—in fact, one of the big overseas companies has already exited New Zealand because they realise that offshore wind is no longer a possibility because of fast track, because of the fact that they just want to do dirty mining offshore, at sea.

When I look at what’s going on, it’s not about our economy; it’s about unleashing meanness, about unleashing division, about unleashing environmental degradation, and about unleashing economic hardship. We need to be concerned in 2025. We made it through, but how are we going to get to the end? I think and know that we need a change of Government.

It is great to be back in Parliament. It is going to be a good year for New Zealand and for this Government. I hope that every Kiwi out there has had a great summer break. I know that for many workers in New Zealand, there isn’t too much of a break, and I’m thinking in particular of some of those farmers who still have to get up even on Christmas Day because it turns out that cows don’t celebrate Christmas.

There are a lot of people who are working hard throughout the summer break, including our first responders. We really thank them for what they’ve done to help keep Kiwis safe with their families when they’ve been out and about in the community.

A lot of people will be returning in 2025 for the work year and for the school year, and I really hope it’s a good one for them, but we also know that there are some people in New Zealand who have been really struggling, and there is a particular concern about the cost of living and the economy and what we can do as a Government to ensure that more Kiwis can have a better life and a more comfortable life. It’s my hope that we can get some really good wins for everybody who wants to do better for themselves and for their families this year and into the future. That’s why this Government—and, in particular, supported by ACT—has a real focus on the economy and getting the cost of living down.

Now, it’s really good that in 2025, entering the year, we are seeing the official cash rate in the actual band that we want to see, between 1 and 3 percent, but we’re still going to really work hard to get that down so that there’s more money in people’s pockets and the value of every dollar isn’t being sucked away by inflation. That’s a real focus for us.

We have campaigned in ACT on reducing wasteful spending so more Kiwis do have more money in their own back pocket, and it means that we’re focusing on what the Government can do well, where we can get efficiencies and make better moves so that our New Zealand taxpayer dollars go further for more people since we have been in Government.

I’m really proud of our ACT Party Ministers and our under-secretary, who have been working really, really hard across the board. We’ve got David Seymour. He’s been working as the Minister for Regulation, trying to figure out where all those niggles are, all the cost, all that red tape that’s just burdening us down. And he started up that tip line so people could phone in and email in about all the regulations that they want the Ministry for Regulation to look into, and I’d really encourage everyone to do that.

We’ve got Nicole McKee, who is working diligently on improving anti - money-laundering legislation to relieve the regulatory pressure on businesses that is so needed for all of these New Zealand companies who find the burden of anti - money-laundering too hard.

Andrew Hoggard has been working hard at restoring confidence to rural New Zealand by preventing further restrictions on what farmers can do with their own land. That is so important for the rural folk of New Zealand who often got forgotten by previous Governments but have a core part of this coalition Government.

Karen Chhour has been keeping children at the centre of everything she does, and she’s been increasing the efficiency of the care system with the millions of dollars of contracts and making sure it’s going to the best interests of the children and not getting lost in the system.

Simon Court has got one of the most important jobs of trying to reform the Resource Management Act to make sure that we can build and we can grow as an economy. That is so important.

There are so many other things that we’ve been working on, and we are very excited for 2025. In my role in workplace relations and safety over the past year, I spent a lot of time out in the community talking to real New Zealanders, not here in Wellington. I can’t wait to get out of the place most weeks so I can go and talk to people who are actually affected by our laws, people who pay the bills, who help keep this place running. We had the health and safety roadshow. I thought it was really, really important to go and talk to workers and to business owners on the ground to figure out how we get the balance right to keep people safe at work but also ensure that businesses aren’t burdened by unnecessary costs and too-high costs.

Now, nearly every week when I’m in the community, people raise the issue of road cones. We’ve got to fix that. People at the end of last year were talking about Santa parade compliance. Once again, we’ve got to fix that, but we’ve got to fix health and safety reform and compliance for everybody in any type of industry who’s feeling like it’s just too hard to figure out what you’ve got to do right. That’s what I’m focusing on for this year and I look forward to talking to more workers and businesses.

We’ve got a lot happening in the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). We have been focusing on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Internal Affairs over the last year. We found savings of $421 million last year alone, and that work will continue into this year so every New Zealander knows that the Department of Internal Affairs is there to help them from birth all the way to death and everything in between. It’s a huge department, but we’re doing it right and we’re doing it efficiently and effectively. We’re responsible for things like passports and citizenship. I think it’s really important that any person who’s dealing with the DIA has a very good experience with it and it’s an effective and quick experience, but there are so many improvements that we can look to make there in this year ahead.

DIA is also responsible for Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and, once again, I really thank our first responders who do get up every day to think how they can keep other Kiwis in their community safe. We wouldn’t have the fire service if it wasn’t for really dedicated volunteers in our community. Over the past year, we managed to find savings even within Fire and Emergency, so that people who pay for Fire and Emergency through a levy don’t have to pay as much as what Fire and Emergency was originally asking, and we will keep raising that question.

With the time I’ve got still available, I just want to say it’s been a real pleasure coming back in 2025 for the first day here in Parliament. I’ve been out in my electorate, in Tāmaki, for the past couple of weeks, listening to people on the street, and one thing that they’ve been really saying is “Keep going.” They back this Government. They really want us to do well. They know that we have their best interests at heart, that we want to create better policies so that every Kiwi’s life can improve.

We also know that the role of electorate MPs quite often goes by the wayside. We don’t hear about it too much because a lot of it is dealing with very, very personal issues, and I’d like to thank my staff who work, in my absence, to help people on things like their ACC claims, their immigration claims, and working with, for example, a solo mother who had a disabled child and was unable to get them into a specialist school. We managed to get that child into a school so that that mother could return back to work and get back into the workforce.

Thank you, everybody, for your support, not just in Tāmaki but for the ACT Party and for this coalition Government. We are here to have a great year, and we’re here to back you and get this economy moving.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.