Debates — General Debate
I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.
I’m proud to lead this ACT team in this House. We may not be the biggest, the loudest—we may not be the newest—in New Zealand politics, but we are the most effective and consistent party when it comes to unlocking New Zealand’s potential.
Let me count the ways. Just today, we saw the first oil and gas exploration permit issued in this country in eight years since the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government banned them. We were right then to oppose it, and we were right now when we put oil and gas exploration back on the table so New Zealanders can provide for their own energy future.
Just last week, we saw resource management law reported back to Parliament, with a tremendous effort by Chris Bishop and our own Simon Court working together to ensure that the biggest handbrake on New Zealanders prosperity is let off so that Kiwis can get on using their own property under a law based on property rights. Again, the ACT Party has been consistent, because this law will not have Mana Whakahono ā Rohe or iwi participation agreements as were put in by the National Party and the Māori Party 10 years ago. They are now gone.
We’ve seen infrastructure funding and financing law passed so that Kiwis can not only build more homes under this new resource management law but that the pipes and the pumping stations to connect those homes to opportunity—meaning education and jobs—can be funded and financed too. That is something we have campaigned for a long time. I was pleased to hear Chris Bishop point to the efforts of, once again, Simon Court making that happen. After this debate, the Parliament will consider two bills, both of which have been long in the planning, intense in the work, and important to the future of this country.
The first is the Arms Bill. The old Arms Act from 1983—a good year, I might add—had not aged as well as some products of that year. In fact, it looked like an old bicycle tyre, with so many patches. Until along comes Nicole McKee to give a brand new Arms Act, including a separate arms administrator, that will keep the public safe while treating licensed firearms owners with the respect and dignity deserved by law abiding New Zealand citizens, which, in case anyone forgot, they are—another area where ACT has stood against the whole Parliament to arrive where we are today. When others wavered, we were principled and looked to the North Star, only to be proven correct.
After that bill, we’ll see the Employment Leave Bill, the replacement for the Holidays Act, which is so bureaucratic and so complicated that even Government departments, with their vast resources, have not been able to fairly calculate Kiwis’ pay, let alone small business. When Brooke van Velden took it on, former Ministers from National and Labour took to Facebook and they said, “Good luck, girl, but this is not going to be an easy rodeo.” Brooke van Velden threw out the work that had been done, because that work was unworkable, started again, and this afternoon New Zealand will have common sense in holiday pay, a task that had been failed at for 10 years by successive Ministers from nearly all parties.
Just last week, we celebrated record school attendance, the best term 2 school attendance in 10 years, and that is unlocking New Zealand’s potential in a very real way. The work this Government is doing is important—Erica Stanford making sure we’ve got a good Curriculum, that we’ve got good teachers, and that they’re well trained and have the latest pedagogy in all matters—but none of it makes any difference if the children aren’t actually at the school. The honour for that goes to the parents and the children who got it done and got to school despite the carping about a fuel crisis, but I’m proud to have played a minor role in revamping the policies to have made some of that possible.
That is just a small selection, a current selection, of things that have happened in the last two weeks, and today, that the ACT Party—not the loudest, not the biggest, not the newest, but certainly the most consistent and effective on the issues, bringing about real change to unlock the potential of this great country. I can’t wait to bring another and even bigger team yet again. While it is wrong to refer to the absence of members, we can talk about forthcoming members: Henry-mania is coming here to Parliament.
We are at a very exciting time in the term. This is the time when parties start announcing their election manifestos in anticipation of the general election, and our party has taken great pleasure in announcing some of our ideas for building the future that New Zealand deserves. Meanwhile, the Labour Party has also started making some announcements of their own. Now, how’s that going for them? Well, it has been observed—not just by me but by many others—that the more policy they announce, the lower their polling goes. The small target strategy which Chris Hipkins was choosing, by which the least he said the better he would poll, is, sadly for him, coming to an end.
What have we had from the Labour Party? Well, it has been, I think, a bit like watching one of those episodes of Grand Designs—you know, the ones where the beautiful, aspirational couple sit down and they say, “Let’s design a spectacular mansion.” They skip over the whole bit about the budget and the fact that it might have to be practically achievable and you might have to pay for it, and they sort of think that they can build the whole thing on a fantasy budget.
Then the episodes of Grand Designs play through and that same aspirational couple just look quite surprised and dejected when it turns out they’ve run out of money halfway through the project and all they have is four walls without a roof. Well, the looks on the faces of those people on Grand Designs is very similar to the looks on the faces of the members opposite me today. They’re looking a little sad. They’re looking a little dejected. Because here’s the thing: fundamentally, the question at the election is not whether things are perfect in New Zealand right now. Of course they are not. The question for New Zealanders is: are we going forwards or do we want to go back to the prescription of the last Government?
The data is compelling, because let’s think about where we were three years ago. Inflation at 7.3 percent; today, yes, too high at 4.1 percent, but nothing like what Hipkins managed to drive it up to on his watch. Food inflation, now at 2.8 percent; was 12.3 percent under the Labour lot. Rent inflation; rents which had increased by more than $100 a week under the last Government are now having the lowest increases in 25 years of New Zealand’s history. GDP growth—the growth of our economy; we were growing three times as fast as Australia in the first three months of the year and twice as fast as the United States. Business investment is up, exports are up, business confidence is improving, and Treasury are forecasting real wage growth and 220,000 more jobs.
What do Labour have to say about this? Well, they say it’s terrible. Mr Hipkins gets all offended when he’s asked how he would pay for his promises. Here’s the thing: all he has proposed so far is more taxes, more borrowing, more red tape, and more spending. That comes with a hidden bill of $18 billion. And so he doesn’t want to answer how he pays for that bill.
But the good news is, guys—the good news is that the Greens have the answer. They have worked out how to pay for the bill. And here’s what the answer reads like: wealth tax, inheritance tax, land tax, gift tax, company tax hike, personal tax hike, new property taxes. Te Pāti Māori have a suggestion too; they want a ghost house tax. Now, it isn’t clear, members ,whether this is just referring to the ghosts of Te Pāti Māori past, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris, but nonetheless, that’s what they want, a ghost tax.
What we have is a very clear case of Labour putting forward prescriptions that will not solve the challenges that New Zealand faces. I just want to mention here another regression to the past that got played out on Radio New Zealand today, because Vanushi Walters, on behalf of the Labour Party, was asked whether she would support flexible wage provisions, and what she said is she would be more mindful of World Health Organization guidance about the need for women to stay at home and breastfeed. While welcome to 2026; New Zealanders don’t want your paternalism. They want parents to choose. Labour haven’t learnt their lessons. They want to tell you what to do in your own family. They want to tax you more. They want to drive up inflation. And New Zealanders won’t vote for it. Bring on 7 November.
Well, I’ve never heard more bravado trying to cover over the fact that the Government’s failed to take action on the cost of living than that contribution from the Minister of Finance. If I could summarise her contribution, her entire defence of her record is that we’re going backwards less quickly.
Right now in New Zealand, there are over 1,300 nursing jobs sitting empty in hospitals across the country. We all know how busy nursing jobs are, and while those roles sit empty, people are not getting the care they need. Under National, there are huge delays in hiring staff. That’s why there are so many gaps and why it takes so long to get the care you need. Christopher Luxon won’t let hospitals hire the staff they need. When someone leaves a role, it can take months to get approval to replace them—in one case in Wellington Hospital, over a year. Our hospitals are busier than ever; yet, over the past two years, the nursing workforce growth has completely stalled, and, in that time, hundreds of nursing graduates were left without jobs in our hospitals. Our hospitals are struggling and New Zealanders continue to wait for care. Our graduate nurses, they’re already trained—they were ready to work, but they’re forced to go to Australia.
Of course, we have raised these issues with Simeon Brown. What has Simeon Brown been doing? Throwing long tantrums on his Facebook when the truth about vacancies is reported by journalists; passing laws to make every doctor and nurse in a public hospital a public servant so they can silence their criticism of him; siccing his personal troll farm on to a journalist who asks questions about appointments to the Medical Council. Removing the independence of professional regulators to make them kowtow to his ministerial edicts; disestablishing Māori voice in the health system, because Māori have a tendency to disagree with him; repeating lies about the findings of a royal commission. And he never pays this House the respect of actually answering a question.
Well, I’ve worked for 20 years as a doctor, and I can diagnose a case of Napoleon syndrome when I see one. He spends most of his time on vindictive little hit jobs on me, on journalists, on unions, on medical professionals, and doesn’t actually run the health system.
Perhaps if he were focused on his job, he would’ve paid attention to the official warnings and that due diligence on the rapid-build ward at Waikato Hospital would’ve been done. Perhaps if he did his job, they’d have that ward already. Actually, it was planned originally for completion last week.
National promised to fix the health system, but, three years on, things are worse. Health costs are soaring right in the middle of a cost of living crisis. GP costs have gone up 21 percent under Christopher Luxon. National has no plan to reduce the cost of basic care, and that’s why people end up sicker and in our emergency departments.
Just today, it was reported that Christchurch Hospital is in code red almost on a daily basis. A doctor there said that practice made it impossible to deliver the standard of care that patients deserve. “You can’t ask them intimate questions [in a corridor], you can’t examine them”, he said. “It’s very difficult to do tests … in [a corridor] … things like ECGs and blood tests are challenging … . Patients don’t have call bells, so they can’t call for help [when something goes wrong]. It’s a dangerous place”—this is a doctor describing a public hospital as a dangerous place. “You certainly can’t offer good care”, he says, “It’s substandard care.” He said patients were often left in corridors overnight. “You can easily have 20 [or] 30 patients waiting in the [corridor] … for hours.”
Right now, the reality in public hospitals includes rats, cockroaches, fleas, and leaky buildings. Let’s not forget that National has cut the maintenance budgets for hospitals. Waitākere Hospital was promised 30 beds; it’s now been revealed they’re only getting 11.
Labour is the only option to stop National’s cuts. We have a plan to make sure that care is affordable for every New Zealander. We’ll back doctors to set up clinics right across New Zealand. We’ll make sure people can see a doctor when they need it so that a hospital is there for emergencies. I ask you: what will our health system look like after another three years of National’s cuts? Well, New Zealand can’t afford to find out.
That would be one of the most ridiculous speeches made by somebody that should not be in this House. There’s a COVID inquiry out today, and, amongst other things, it points out that she and Chris Hipkins, in terms of the 100,000 young people, gave them treatments which they should never have got. There she is sitting there, and the first thing she did when she was asked that question in the House by me was she and Hipkins said they didn’t know. Well, all the evidence out there today says they were not telling the truth. They knew. What on earth is she doing here when times will come when there’ll be all sorts of civil cases being brought against her and Hipkins—and how he could still be the leader of the Labour Party is beyond me—because they were irresponsible in the extreme. You’ve been found out for the useless, hopeless personality you are.
What’s worse is Hipkins, Verrall, Robertson, and Ardern refused to turn up to give public evidence after being questioned. We now know why.
Ingrid Leary: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I understand we’re supposed to not just use second names, and the speaker has referred to many of my colleagues by their second names without using their full names.
SPEAKER: I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll start his time again. The Rt Hon Winston Peters—please use full names.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: From the moment we saw the COVID inquiry terms of reference, we were against it, because they were grossly inadequate. No proper inquirer or commissioner would have taken the role on, given how limited the terms of reference were. Here we come now, despite that, Hipkins, Verrall, Robertson, Ardern—
SPEAKER: No—no, no.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —refused to turn up to an inquiry.
SPEAKER: Yeah, no, look—
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: These people were responsible—
SPEAKER: Sorry—sorry, sorry. Look, we’ve just given you an extension of time so that you can actually say Chris Hipkins, Dr Ayesha Verrall, and others, so that will satisfy other members of the House.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: All right. Well, four leading Labour Party Ministers—past Ministers—refused to turn up to an inquiry. How damn arrogant! And there she is, walks out of the room, the former Minister of Health—wouldn’t even turn up to the inquiry because you know why? If anybody asks the right question, she’s going to be a goner. The original sham inquiry even failed to identify that Chris Hipkins and Verrall knew about advice that highlighted danger to under-17-year-olds having two shots and suffering from myocarditis. They knew about it, and then they claimed they didn’t know.
Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Are you vaccinated?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I’m not making it up, sunshine. I noticed you came here five minutes ago. Go back to your own country—that’s where they lie like a flatfish, but they don’t lie like that here, all right? This is called a democracy—this is called a democracy, unlike what you’re used to. Go back to where you’ve come from, you loudmouth, and maybe you’ll learn something about the political system of New Zealand in time before you go streaming out of here in three months’ time.
The fact is, it’s not informed consent if people don’t know. That’s the second thing; the mainstream media have been silent on this issue. They have been a damn disgrace to let responsible Ministers get by. Guess why! Because they all got sucked into the podium of truth—unbelievable. They all got sucked into the podium of truth. You’ve got people who are trying to come back to Parliament who called all those protestors out there—rightfully, after they were losing all their business after 30 or 40 years—this person called those people out there the river of filth.
Hon Shane Jones: River of filth.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The river of filth. Not only did he say that, and he wants to come back to Parliament, but 12 times he wouldn’t declare a document he was required to do as a Minister—12 damn times! Then they have a huge article in the Sunday paper—no mention of that whatsoever about the river of filth. What on earth are the mainstream media doing in this country? They’ve sold out, and on this issue in particular, they were the worst, because they said that anybody who went down there was complying with breaches of the law. Anybody who went down to speak to those people rightfully protesting in a democracy that’s been going since 1854 with the right to say, “I disagree”, was being shut down and gaslit by the media of this country. This is a whole disgrace.
You know something? Here we are—here we are, look, the commission also found that more than half of the $60 billion COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, spread across more than 800 programmes, was not directly related to the pandemic. More than half of the $60 billion was not even related to the pandemic. This has left New Zealand carrying higher debt, higher costs of living, and higher everything as a consequence—and she has the audacity to get up here and criticise the Government on this side of the House and say that Labour’s the only help they’ve got. The only hope for desperation, despair, and bankruptcy is what we’ve got if Labour’s the next Government, and we’re going to do our utmost to make sure that does not happen. That’s one promise I make to New Zealanders: no matter what happens, we’re going for broke—we’re on a mission to stop these people ever getting back into Government again, because their irresponsibility knows no bounds, and their record is just dreadful.
How can two people responsible—and there will be many, many people who will be short of life, or dying early, or dying unnecessarily because of this second vaccination, and who will have on their lawyer’s plate the very people who were responsible—persons called Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall. And here they sat in this Parliament. How could Labour even bear to have them anymore as their leaders when they’re as guilty as sin. But I want to know this from the mainstream media: why aren’t they asking questions? Why did it take Mr Cheung to do the proper article? Pages and pages of identified—Derek Cheung has done this country a favour. But why has it been so remote? Just one guy getting behind the scenes, doing the hard work, finding out the detail. We owe him a debt of gratitude, because the truth is coming out.
I see those Labour members over there, heads down now—not shouting out now, are they? Because they’re all guilty by your association. By your deeds, we know you. You’re damned useless. You should have been protesting back then. In whose interests? In the interests of your constituencies, in the interests of ordinary people—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Keep slurring, old man.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —in the interests of young people. No, no, no no—I’m not losing my hair. I might be growing old, but I ain’t losing my hair like somebody I know—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Lost his mind.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —and besides which—look, mate, you were senile when you were 20 years younger. You were senile then. You weren’t making sense then. I know you’re just jealous, but I’ll tell you what: I’ll be around here long after you’re gone.
Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Under this Government, house prices have stabilised, and first-home buyers made up 28 percent of the market in February—the highest proportion in more than 20 years. Rental affordability has improved by 7 percent since December 2023. GDP is growing and inflation has fallen from a peak of 7.3 percent under the previous Labour Government. Manufacturing activity has reached a four-year high, with orders at their highest level since July 2021. These are not just signs of a recovery; they are evidence that our plan is working to fix the basics. Our responsible economic management is building the future that New Zealanders deserve, and people across this country are recognising that change. The effects are even more felt beyond New Zealand. Our recovery is contributing to more New Zealanders returning from Australia, with an additional 12,800 people choosing to come back to help shape New Zealand’s future.
However, this hard-fought recovery has never been more at risk, with policies from the other side of the House that could reverse it all and send us back to stagnation that had taken hold before this Government came into office. A capital gains tax would affect every single New Zealander who invests in small business, rental properties, and funds such—
Hon Damien O'Connor: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t do this very often, but for such a senior member to be reading a speech in this House, when clearly, we know Standing Orders prevents the reading of speeches, and he should at least make an effort to have a little bit of an ad hoc contribution.
SPEAKER: Well, I didn’t hear his contribution as read—I heard his contribution as a flow taken from notes, which, as the member knows, is perfectly reasonable.
Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, it’s pretty obvious that when I mentioned the words “capital gains” it starts to get a little bit of concern from the other side. But I tell you what, have a little think about poor New Zealanders who will bear the brunt of a capital gains tax by a Labour Government. I can tell you what: no New Zealander wants that as a future.
That’s why, on this side of the House, as a Government, we are focused on fixing the basics and building the future. We are focused on investment, ambition, and also innovation; not putting more costs on businesses and households. We’ve been hearing also—and this may get a reaction—about the concept of a wealth tax from the other side of the House. Well, a wealth tax is a tax on envy, and that should be a legacy of the past. It has no place in this nation’s future.
On this side of the House, we are ambitious about this country. We are focused on economic growth, we are focused on increasing productivity, and we are focused on increasing jobs. Backing that innovation will create more opportunities for New Zealanders. We know that Treasury numbers have signalled already that even a small wealth tax of around 2.5 percent would trigger a behavioural response in the region of 40 percent. What that means for those watching at home is that is less investment in the New Zealand economy, less growth, and more borrowing to fund political promises made off the back of shoddy promises.
When the money from these taxes doesn’t come in, instead it goes offshore, every single Kiwi household and business will pay the price for that. More taxes; less growth. We can see that the contrast between a National-led Government and the Opposition is no more clear than because of the reality that an increase in taxes will stymy our economic growth as a country. That is why I am very proud to be part of a Government that is focused on improving the outlook and benefits for all New Zealanders. We have spent a significant amount of time fixing the basics of which we have inherited. We have also spent considerable time building the foundations and platforms to build a better future for this country.
The election on 7 November places the reality of this in a significant light. If we do not continue to implement the changes in which this Government have undertaken and reformed in the past 2½ years, we put at risk and we put at threat that progress. The only people that will pay the price of that threat not being continued are New Zealanders. We owe it to them to do better.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Once again, we’re seeing Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our education system under attack by this Government. We have already seen some of the submissions and also some of the findings at the Waitangi Tribunal over the removal of section 127 in the Education and Training Act. It has been considered and it has been noted that the Crown has breached its Tiriti obligations, yet we’re seeing just in recent weeks that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is proposing to disestablish Ngā Poutoko Aromatawai Māori. This is a serious concern for ākonga Māori, for whānau, for mātauranga Māori, and for kaupapa Māori in our education system.
Ngā Poutoko Aromatawai Māori was established in 2021 to bring together dispersed kaupapa Māori assessment functions throughout the assessment division of NZQA into a single, integrated, organisational capacity. It looks after aspects of that assessment and aspects of Māori education in general. But what we have seen is this proposal to disestablish the unit without consultation, with no Māori in the leadership roles within NZQA, no Te Tiriti impact analysis, no consultation with ākonga Māori, whānau, hapū, or iwi. This should be a concern for everyone. This, in particular, should be a concern for this Government when we have a Minister of Education repeatedly suggest and note that it is her responsibility to uphold Te Tiriti obligations as part of the Crown, yet we have seen that being violated again.
It is important to note that with Ngā Poutoko Aromatawai Māori being disestablished, we will see immediate and long-term impacts to our ākonga. We’re going to see that rather than having mātauranga Māori being integrated as a part of our education system, it will be continuously treated as an add-on. We’ll see a moving away from some of the core fundings that we’re seeing for kaupapa Māori education. We have already noted that despite repeated evaluations and reviews where we know that for ākonga Māori they have achieved success and also succeeded within a Māori-medium context, we do not see the level of funding that is reflected in puna reo, kōhanga reo, and kura kaupapa settings.
We are seeing that once again the Government not only has let down ākonga Māori in Māori medium but also the 97 percent of ākonga Māori in the English-medium setting. We’re seeing again that rather than achievement outcomes as Māori, this Government is only interested in achievement outcomes for Māori. We are seeing the undermining of matauranga Māori, of taonga Māori, and of that breach and violation of article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
It is important for us to note, as we are moving forward as a country, that the Tiriti obligation within our education system is paramount. The Green Party, as a Tiriti party, is fully committed—myself as well as our Māori education spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon—to upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as well as the original intent of Te Mātaiaho, to ensure that we have an education system that is for all of us, not simply what we’re seeing, which is a whitewash of our current education system. We are deeply concerned with the proposed disestablishment of such a unit.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. National has a long-term plan to fix the basics and build the future. At the heart of that plan are mums and dads who balance hard work with the pressures that come with raising their children. In June, Christopher Luxon announced that a re-elected National Government will make unconditional KiwiSaver contributions for working mums and dads who choose to take paid parental leave and are sometimes not contributing themselves—the Government will step in. That’s because we know that many parents choose not to contribute because it is the time when everything is so expensive with a new baby. I remember 27 years ago, nearly 28 years ago, when my son was born, everything was strange. Everything was so expensive. You had to get nappies, you had to get cleaning products to actually clean the bottles which was different to normal dishwashing detergents, and you also had to sanitise them. You had to do so many things that, as a new parent, you have to discover, and it takes a lot of time and effort, and it is actually very expensive, and so the Government is coming to support these new parents, to make sure that we are helping them contribute to their superannuation so they can have better savings for their retirement.
Now, we’re talking about the next steps to modernise paid parental leave as well. The arrival of a new baby should be the happiest time, but sometimes it is really difficult. As I said, 28 years ago, when my son was born, I didn’t realise that parents actually didn’t have much sleep, sleepless nights, and I didn’t even know how to change nappies, and all of that comes with being a new parent. The modern economy depends on parents being able to take the time that they need with a new baby so that they can return to work with confidence. That is why a re-elected National Government will gradually increase paid parental leave to 30 weeks by 2029. We will start contributing to 27 weeks in July 2027—that is more than what we currently have—followed with increases in 2028, and ultimately, in 2029, we will lift the entitlement to 30 weeks. That is with the long-term vision that we will get to 40 weeks of paid parental leave in the future.
We are making this commitment to paid parental leave, as well as making it more flexible. Currently, parents who actually get paid parental leave only have 26 weeks and they cannot take it at the same time. It’s either the mum or the dad who can take parental leave, and we want to make paid parental leave more flexible so that they can take the paid parental leave together, all at the same time, or separately. That is what New Zealand’s National Government will deliver for people.
Under our policy, parents will actually have the option, as I said, and it means that we also protect the changes in the new Employment Leave Bill that remove an unfair penalty on working mums and dads who take paid parental leave as well. Annual leave is currently paid based on average weekly earnings over the previous 12 months, and if parents take paid parental leave, that means that when they do take the leave, then it is much smaller, and so we want to make sure that the parents are not punished as a result of taking leave.
I think everyone who is a parent will agree that it is a very special time when newborns are born.
Dan Bidois: It’s the best time.
Hon MELISSA LEE: It is, in fact, the best time, but also the worst time because you are running on very, very, small amounts of sleep. I remember my son was the most terrible sleeper. He only slept for, like, an hour at a time. In the middle of the night, you’re waking up, and me being a nice partner to my then husband, I wanted him to sleep, so I would wake up and do the nursing and take care of my son. But that is so bad when you’re trying to cope with a new baby with the view that you will ultimately return to work. I did eventually return to work after five weeks of my son being born. I didn’t have the kind of paid parental leave—we are very generous in this country—that we have now.
I think it’s wonderful that the Government is actually supporting new parents to be able to share paid parental leave in terms of time, and doing it together, or it is ultimately their choice. They can do it separately; mum can take 10 weeks and then the dad could take so many weeks. They can split it or do it together. I think it’s a wonderful thing and I’m really proud that the New Zealand National Party is actually committed to fixing the basics, delivering a greater future, and building the future for New Zealanders.
That wasn’t really the speech from someone that was confident they are going to come back in a few months was it, and it wasn’t really the speech of a Government that are confident that they have delivered for this country. The lack of energy coming from the Government side today is quite telling, and it is no real surprise that the National Party are worried. They keep looking at the polls and they keep seeing themselves languishing in the twenties, and there are MPs in marginal seats who know, deep down, they’re not coming back, and there are list MPs over there who think, “Gee whiz, there’s actually a genuine chance that we might not have any list MPs!”
In that context, is it any wonder now that the National Party, the party who has opposed the introduction of paid parental leave, the party that has opposed the extension of paid parental leave, are desperately trying to rewrite history now doing a speech—a lacklustre speech that it was, but a speech nonetheless—and did you hear her say only 26 weeks? She tried to claim that parents only get 26 weeks of paid parental leave. The question I have for the National Party is: why did you vote against it?
They voted against it because they don’t believe in it. They never have believed in it, and, actually, New Zealanders have seen right through it. This is not a policy announcement of a party that believes in supporting working parents. This is a party that is worried about their jobs. It is a party that is worried about their re-election chances, not about supporting parents. If they were about supporting parents, they wouldn’t have shafted women workers by scrapping pay equity. They would not have pulled back on many of the support structures that families and young working parents need in this country that they have pulled back. Add in the disability community; add in Māori; add in young and low-wage earners; add in those on the minimum wage. There is a long list of people that have paid for this Government’s dumb decisions and their prioritising of landlords, tobacco companies, and oil companies over working families and workers in this country. Then, they try and turn around, thinking that New Zealanders are thick and that they’re going to swallow what this Government is giving them and say, “Don’t worry, we have always been the party of paid parental leave.” Nonsense. Absolute rubbish. They try to hoodwink New Zealanders, but New Zealanders simply will not fall for it.
Just look at the behaviour of this Government today: they’ve issued some public relations claiming that they have built 3,000 houses in Auckland. What a load of rot. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out they promised 1,500 houses in Budget ’24, and 600 houses in Budget ’25—that doesn’t add up to 3,000 houses. Also, if you actually dive into it, how many houses have they built? There were 270 out of Budget ’24, and 263 out of Budget ’25. It takes a special type of person to have a special type of confidence and, I would argue, arrogance, to think that you can actually only build 270 and 263 and then try and pretend to New Zealanders that it adds up to 3,000. Why are they doing this? It is because their record on delivery on housing is so abysmal that they have to count redirects and they have to count the houses that were funded and commenced under the last Government.
Why are they doing this? Because Nicola Willis signed a pledge that this Government would increase the number of houses in Auckland by 1,000 a year, and they know they’re not going to meet it. They know deep down that there’s yet another broken promise by this Government, so they’ve tried to do a little bit of creative accounting to make it look like they’ve done it, but they haven’t. People involved in social housing know they haven’t. People that need social housing—God knows they know that this Government hasn’t delivered. But their arrogance is so much that they think that they can say something and New Zealanders will swallow it. Well, they have had three years of broken promises, they have had three years of empty promises, they have had three years of infighting, and New Zealanders are sick of it.
Even in question time, they can’t help themselves. They’ve given up, to some degree, trying to talk about their so-called achievements, and now they’re asking patsy questions of themselves to have a crack at their cooker mates in New Zealand First—it’s quite extraordinary. They are worried because the National Party is leaking votes to New Zealand First, and God help us if that party continues to grow, because I would hate to think what half-cooked ideas they come up with next. New Zealand has almost run out of tinfoil because of that crowd over there. Just listen to Winston Peters’ speech today; it was actually quite extraordinary.
New Zealanders are pretty clued up to this, though. They know that the National Party’s empty promises have gone on too long. They know they’re full of it, they know they’re a pack of blowhards, and New Zealanders won’t back them. My pick is half of them will lose their jobs, and they deserve it.
Thank you. I will start my general debate speech with 10.93 seconds—that there is the time it took Zoe Hobbs to get down the 100 metres at the Commonwealth Games earlier this morning, the first New Zealand athlete to be able to win the 100 metre sprint in a Commonwealth Games.
Hon Damien O'Connor: Tell us what you’ve done!
DAVID MacLEOD: I think it was an extraordinary outcome and one that I’m sure everybody, including the person heckling from the other side, should all support in congratulating Zoe.
Grant McCallum: Where’s she from?
DAVID MacLEOD: Where is she from? That’s a good question. She happens to be from Taranaki. Thank you—Taranaki. She is a very proud athlete and an athlete that I know that New Zealand is very proud of.
It’s been a great couple of weeks for New Zealand in sports. Ryan Fox—what an outcome with that one! Ryan Fox winning the The Open Championship, otherwise known as the British Open, and what an amazing last round he had. He had a rare round on the last six holes. He birdied numerous of them, but I want to talk about one hole. That was the 15th hole. On the 15th, he drove a very good drive, but unfortunately not quite good enough. It fell into a bunker and it fell into an extremely difficult position. It was so difficult that when he got there, he made a very quick decision, because Ryan Fox is now renowned worldwide for making very quick decisions and getting on with the job. He took his medicine, he hit the ball away from the hole backwards—he took his medicine. It was a par 3; that was his second shot. He hit it on to the green, close enough for him to be able to put the ball in with his putter. He first-pumped when he got it in there because he knew that taking his medicine was exactly the right thing to do.
Why am I talking about that? Well, a Government of the day has to make difficult decisions at times, and this Government had to do that very early on in this term. Early on in this term, we had to make a very challenging decision to do restructures through numerous departments, numerous agencies, where—and my heart goes out to the individuals—people actually did lose their jobs as a result of the restructuring.
That is the medicine that this Government chose to take. Why? Because we feel it is critical for us to reposition our Government moving forward to be in a strong position to be able to cater for any catastrophes or anything like that that comes our way. We are an island nation in the middle of the South Pacific, we are exposed to earthquakes, we are exposed to cyclones—all that type of stuff. So we want to make sure that our books are in order, and one of the tough decisions was indeed what I just mentioned.
It is said that, in terms of the employment of bureaucrats within Government, the norm of the past, historically, has been about 1 percent of GDP. Well, we saw an expansion since 2017 to 2023, going from 48,000 up to 65,000 people employed by the Government of New Zealand—65,000. One percent of that is not the population of New Zealand. We have an intention as a Government to head back to that 1 percent over time—55,000 by 2030 is the anticipated level that we’re aiming for, and we’re on that journey.
I want to talk about tax. Tax is a choice; revenue generation of a Government of the day is a choice. You can generate it from taxes, and you can generate it by borrowing more money. And didn’t we see that from the previous Government? We are endeavouring to get that under control, and I congratulate the Minister of Finance on the great work that she has done over the Budgets where she’s been here. They measure the actual balance sheet of a country as debt to GDP. And it is said that the sweet spot is somewhere around 33 percent to 34 percent. We are now close to that through some tough decisions that we’ve had to make.
A lot of people would not realise how much tax we actually gather annually. I look to my members beside me. What is the total amount of tax that we actually gather from New Zealanders every year? If I ask that to a layperson, they wouldn’t know. I can tell you that it’s in the vicinity of $146 billion.
Dan Bidois: That’s a lot of money.
DAVID MacLEOD: That is a lot of money. We get more revenue from the likes of the State-owned enterprises with their dividends, and many other places as well. Our total revenue is about $184 billion. We need to be very careful with every dollar we spend.
Clearly, David MacLeod knows that, come 8 November, the excellent Amanda Clinton-Gohdes will be coming to this House as the MP for New Plymouth, and that’s why we had an audition to be a sports reporter over there.
As I stand here today, we’ve come through yet another set of storms in New Zealand, storms that have taken our roads out, storms that have created flash flooding, storms that are perhaps not more frequent than they used to be but are certainly much more intense because of climate change. That’s having a real and serious effect on our country. If we’re reading the news of the world, people would have seen that there are extraordinary forest fires in Spain and in France, fires that are perhaps not started by climate change but are exacerbated by it, so that one fool with a Zippo can start an enormous fire because the air is dry, the tinder is dry, and there is not weather coming through to put a fire out. And so enormous firestorms have swept across those countries. The same thing has happened in Canada.
Climate change is real and it is happening now. Worldwide, we have had a real response to climate change. In fact, we need to do our bit. It won’t make a lot of difference what New Zealand itself does, but we need to do our bit as part of a world community to reduce our emissions. Even if we hadn’t committed to Paris, our trading partners are demanding that we do our bit. Just in this last few days, I’ve heard that supermarket chains like Waitrose are starting to question our commitment to sustainability, and they are the purchasers of our products.
So even if a person didn’t believe in climate change, their insurance company does. Even if we thought we shouldn’t do much here in New Zealand, our trading partners think we ought to do our share. But last week, what have we heard in terms of New Zealand’s work towards reducing emissions? We are at risk. The independent Climate Change Commission has presented its annual monitoring report, and it turns out that, now, in terms of meeting our second emissions budget and our third emissions budget, we are at significant risk of not meeting those budgets, of not doing our bit. The policies of the current Government, they said, will put us at significant risk of not meeting our climate budgets.
And then they pointed out that what we need to do is accelerate decarbonisation. We need to move faster now, within the next 12 to 24 months, to start working harder on decarbonisation. But here’s the thing: working on decarbonisation saves people money. It saves people’s back pockets. It’s cheaper to work on decarbonisation than it is to continue with the current high-emissions processes.
Let’s start with the simple things. Alternative transport modes save people money. Making public transport less expensive gets people on to public transport; it reduces emissions. Using modes of transport like walking and cycling saves people money, and it cuts emissions. Promoting those alternative modes of transport now would make a difference. Electric vehicles make a difference. On current purchase prices, buying an electric compact SUV saves you about $7,000 over five years, in comparison to buying the same type of vehicle that is driven by petrol. Over time, electric vehicles are cheaper, and they save emissions. This is what the Climate Change Commission is telling us. Solar panels save people money; it’s cheaper, and it creates resilience during climate disasters. That’s the sort of action we need, and the Climate Change Commission is urging us to take this action now, because—because—it will cut our emissions, because it will help us to meet our climate budgets, and because it will save us money.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, if there’s any issue that defines the difference between this side of the House and the Opposition, it is tax. In fact, the Opposition are nothing more than the coalition of tax, a coalition of taxing ambition and success. As we approach the election, I say to those parties on the other side, who are obsessed with campaigning on increasing taxes, “Go ahead, make our day.”
What are the taxes they’ve all come up with so far? And this is only the start; it’s only just starting. We’ve had the ute tax. We’ve got the fart tax, the land tax, the tax on landlords, the higher company tax, the new income tax thresholds, a ghost tax, a wealth tax, a capital gains tax, and inheritance tax. That is quite some list—that is quite some list—of taxes. So let’s work through a few of these and the impacts they have on people’s lives, starting with the ute tax, which was nothing more than a tax on people that work hard and prop up our economies: people like the tradies—the electricians, the plumbers—that come round and do those jobs for you, or the farmers who had no choice but to buy a ute to help run their farms. There was no alternative, so guess what, they had to pay the tax.
Then there’s the fart tax—
SPEAKER: Hang on—wait. I let that go once, but not twice. It’s not called that. Call it by its proper name or don’t bother to continue with the speech.
GRANT McCALLUM: Sorry, Mr Speaker. A tax on methane emissions—there we go. I think that’s more appropriate. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take that on board.
SPEAKER: Now everyone knows what you’re talking about.
GRANT McCALLUM: Ha, ha! Oh, I think they knew, Mr Speaker!
SPEAKER: I don’t think so.
GRANT McCALLUM: The emissions tax for methane, right? All that was going to do was tax the farming community of New Zealand, which is propping up this economy and getting us out of the hole we’re in, which the last lot left us in. That is all that would do.
Then we’ve got this thing called a land tax. Let’s think about land taxes. People get brassed off enough about rates and having to pay rates, right? Well, this is just another form of rates, because everyone is going to pay it. For example, if you’ve got a house that’s worth $500,000, that’s another $8,750 that you’ll have to pay, given some tax policies out there. If you’re a farm worth $5 million—a lot of farms are worth at least that—that’s another $25,000 per year that you have to find. What a waste of money that is, and unfair on those landowners.
Then there’s a tax on landlords. Yes, we know all about that. They seem to go on and on and on about it, forgetting the fact that all it is is a genuine business expense for people that are actually renting out houses, saving money, building up some equity for their retirement, and renting out houses for people to live in, whether they be students or retirees who need somewhere to live, for example. You’ve got higher company taxes, right, which, of course, will not exactly encourage people to come and invest in our country. And then you’ve got the new income tax thresholds. Well, that’s just a jealousy tax. It means, if you work hard, they’re just going to punish you more. That’s clearly what that’s about.
Another one that’s of quite a bit of interest is the wealth tax. Well, that’s just another way of taxing people for being successful. And it’s a tax you just have to pay, regardless of your income for that year. It’s just crazy, unfair, and unrealistic. Then there’s the second to final tax—there’s one more after this—the capital gains tax. The other lot are obsessed with capital gains tax, because, once again, they don’t want you to get ahead in life and build up equity in your businesses. But then there is the inheritance tax. All your life—all your life—you’ve been paying your taxes, building up assets, and guess what! When you die, they have another go at you. The Government taxes you again. It’s just totally, totally unfair and what you would expect from people on the other side, who just do not accept that people should be able to get ahead and get rewarded for that. It’s complete socialism.
I’d just like to finish off—and just with the inheritance tax—actually, no, going back to the land tax, I just want to make a reference to a great article written by—the wealth tax, actually—Thomas Coughlan this morning. He wrote in the article—he quoted from Phil Whittington—“I think it’s a risky policy, and I would expect that if it became more likely to happen, the very wealthiest would start getting their affairs in order and leave.” There you go.
This Government really has fossil gas on the brain, and it’s not particularly healthy. I’ve heard the member opposite demonstrate just how unhealthy it is. We know the effects of fossil fumes: they accelerate cognitive decline. This certainly seems to be the case for the Government. The Strait of Hormuz is shut. The price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) continues to spike. No one—not the OECD, not Frontier, not Concept Consulting, not the Sapere report—no one—thinks LNG is a good idea, except this Government, and they’re pressing ahead against expert advice. Their neural connections certainly are not sparking.
What did National tell us prior to the 2023 election? They said electrification was their goal. They said, “We need to double the amount of renewable electricity generation we produce from New Zealand’s abundant natural resources, particularly solar, wind, and geothermal. National will make it happen.” That’s what we were told—that they are fixing their basics and building the future. Absolute bollocks. They are failing on the basics and screwing the future. We just heard that this Government—
SPEAKER: Mr Willis, I have reminded others today about the use of intemperate language, and I would suggest that you take that advice into account for the balance of your speech.
SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’ve just heard that this Government is preparing for a coming catastrophe. They are the catastrophe. Now they’re going to make us all pay for LNG by making gentailers buy LNG. Is this a Government of body doubles? Come on! Were they just spouting bulldust on the election trail and had no idea, really, about what they were going to do? It certainly looks like that. This is a Government that has refused to work on a national energy strategy and, instead, seeks to lock us into a costly fossil-fuelled future for the next 15 years, governing through Trump-inspired ad hoc-ism. No one—no one—undertakes a complex transition to electrification without a strategy, and now we risk volatile price spikes, grid instability, and a hefty bill for missed climate targets.
Remember, this is the Government that slashed the Clean Car Standard, put extra-high road charges on electric and hybrid vehicles, cancelled funding to councils to fund electric buses, cancelled the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, and is offering a $200 million subsidy for the fossil fuel sector through the Gas Security Fund. It is a Government in open climate denial. It is overseeing the active de-industrialisation of our nation, as energy prices continue to spiral out of control.
On top of this, this is a Government openly inviting artificial intelligence (AI) data centres to come and use our electricity. The Prime Minister said yesterday, “we want to attract a lot of data centres to New Zealand.” But the Government has no rules in place around energy supply or water use. In fact, the Prime Minister seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid, like the members opposite, and seems to have not understood that AI data centres do not make money. There’s already a global oversupply of AI compute capacity. The customers for these facilities are businesses that are wildly unprofitable, and yet the Government wants to fast-track AI data centre deployment with no idea on the impact on electricity prices for ordinary Kiwis.
No strategy, no plan, no vision—a Government bereft of ideas and unwilling to lead. We could do so much better—we could do so much better. I am so proud to lead the energy transition for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. Just over a week ago, we launched our energy policy, “Power for all of us”: affordable household power, energy access for renters, community and public ownership, public and Māori housing initiatives, Kiwipower, and energy security.
The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.