Tuesday, 7 February 2017

TUESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2017

TUESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Resignations

David Shearer, Mt Albert

Mr SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from David Shearer resigning his seat with effect from 31 December 2016.

By-Election

Mt Roskill

Mr SPEAKER: I have received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Michael Philip Wood to be elected a member of Parliament to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of the Hon Phil Goff. I understand that Michael Wood is present and wishes to take the Oath of Allegiance. Would he please come forward to the chair on my right-hand side.

Members Sworn

Members Sworn

Mr Speaker administered the Oath of Allegiance to Michael Wood, who then took his seat in the House.

Points of Order

Leave for Introduction and Setting Down as Members’ Order of the Day No. 1—Health and Safety Immunity for Pike River Recovery Bill

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the Health and Safety Immunity for Pike River Recovery Bill, a member’s bill in my name, to be introduced and set down on the Order Paper as members’ order of the day No. 1.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Tabling of Documents—Solid Energy Reports on Pike River Mine Re-entry

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table the 650 pages of reports prepared by Solid Energy as to why re-entry of the Pike River mine was not possible for sound safety reasons.

Mr SPEAKER: Before I put the leave, is that information freely available to members? If it is not, I will take—[Interruption] In that case, I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that voluminous report. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Motions

Queen Elizabeth II—Sapphire Jubilee

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I seek to move without notice a motion in respect of the sapphire jubilee of our monarch, which is today. I seek leave to move that motion.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Can I just clarify: it is a motion without notice and without debate?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is right, yes.

Mr SPEAKER: That is what the member is seeking. [Interruption] Order! I just need to put the leave and get it clarified. Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is not.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I thank the House. I move, That this House congratulate Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories, on becoming our first monarch to reach a sapphire jubilee, marking 65 years on the throne.

Motion agreed to.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): I move, That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2017 as set out in the Prime Minister’s Statement to Parliament. Mr Speaker, happy New Year to you and to the Parliament, and to all of those who look after us here in 2017—election year.

I want to confirm that the Government will remain focused on delivering for New Zealanders more opportunities to get ahead. At a time when there is so much distraction and negativity in the wider world, this Government will proceed with the programme laid out in the statement: backing New Zealanders who take the risks to create new jobs and businesses, backing New Zealanders who work so hard each day so they can bring up their families, and backing New Zealanders who need support to improve and change their lives.

In remaining focused on the things that matter this year, I want to acknowledge the support of our partners the ACT Party, United Future, and the Māori Party. Collectively, our commitment to stable Government is what gives New Zealand so much of an advantage in a world of so much uncertainty. Nothing illustrates that focus better than the announcement last week of over 1,100 new police staff. This commitment of half a billion dollars over the next 4 years comes with tight performance requirements for the police, to ensure that our communities are safer because of this investment. It comes after many years, actually, of work with the police to ensure that they can both catch criminals now and improve their crime prevention over time.

And we can make that choice because we have a strong economy and almost uniquely strong Government finances. We have a strong economy consistently delivering benefits, higher incomes for families, and more jobs.

The current forecasts show this economy growing at around 3 percent on average for the next 5 years. Of course there are risks about what might happen in the world, but that is the potential that we have: lower unemployment and an average wage reaching $66,000 by 2021. I want to particularly remark on the record participation rate, because this is a dividend of growth. Our participation rate is now at a record high. What that means is that a greater proportion of working-age New Zealanders is now available for and looking for work than ever. That means that because of the growing economy, young people who were disconnected, older women, sole parents, and people with mild disabilities are now more likely to be available because they can see hope for a job. That is a pay-off for our strong economy.

It is no wonder that so many people were happy yesterday about Waitangi Day in New Zealand. It is no wonder. I want to thank the iwi and the urban marae of Auckland and the people of Auckland, hundreds of whom—thousands of whom—showed up to these events yesterday, for showing to New Zealand how Waitangi Day can be a celebration of our nation. It followed on from an excellent discussion between half of Cabinet and the Iwi Chairs Forum in Waitangi just a few days before, along with our partners from the Māori Party. What was striking about that whole week was the desire from people for New Zealand to be open, and for there to be fairness, tolerance, and enterprise, rather than a history of protest and distraction.

When we look around the world, so many other countries are trapped by their internal conflicts. New Zealand is not. We have helped resolve them. Just one startling piece of information: there have only ever been 82 Treaty settlements signed. Of those, 66 were signed by a National-led Government, and 56 of those were signed in the term of this Government. I want to acknowledge our colleague the Hon Chris Finlayson, who has done all that work.

But it appears not everyone is happy. Not everyone is happy, and some of them look unhappy, like the Leader of the Opposition in Waitangi, with only two MPs, one of whom had said it was not a good idea to go. My deputy was there, with a significant delegation of National Party MPs—more than 10. What we saw there made me think of a new bestseller—Lessons in Leadership, written by Andrew Little and Winston Peters. Chapter 1 was written by Andrew Little: “How I Went All the Way to Waitangi to Tell Them I Wasn’t Coming”. Chapter 2 is “How, On the Way, I Picked a Star Political Candidate and United the Labour Party”. Chapter 3 was meant to be written by Winston Peters, but he did not turn up. I think it would have been “How I Accidentally Spent Time in My Electorate on the Way to Shane’s Party”. Chapter 4 is going to be written by Ron Mark, and it is going to be a potboiler, I can tell you that.

New Zealand is confronted with the political version of what used to be Waitangi Day, and that is Labour and the Greens endlessly moaning about New Zealand—endlessly running down their country, so much so that the moderates and optimists have left the Labour Party. We saw one more resignation today, of the man Labour members now know they should have stuck with as a leader, and that is David Shearer.

It is not as if we had not tried to cheer those members up. You would think that the first benefit increase in 40 years would have made them happy. No. No, it did not. You would have thought 130,000 new jobs last year would make them happy. No. You would have thought a new way of dealing with our most disadvantaged children would make them happy. No. You would have thought a 10 percent increase in the number of police would make them happy. No. You would have thought that better educational achievement, particularly for the Māori and Pacific students whom they think they represent, would make them happy. Did it make them happy?

Hon Members: No!

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, it did not. You would have thought that—[Interruption]—listen to this—50,000 fewer children in benefit-dependent households would make them happy. Did that make them happy?

Hon Members: No!

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, there is a reason why that did not make them happy, and it is that there are 50,000 fewer people dependent on the Government machine, and 50,000 more children with the spark of aspiration that they can grow, get their opportunities, in an economy driven by enterprise, not by big old-fashioned government that the Labour Party now stands for.

The things that we are going to be doing this year, I guess, will not make them any more happy. The programme we have here, in the statement that I have tabled, outlines the legislative progress of the Resource Management Reform Bill. This is one part of a comprehensive programme to improve the supply of housing. I will tell you just a bit about the other ones: special housing areas and the HomeStart grants, which are going to help 90,000 young New Zealanders into homes. There is the Housing New Zealand and Crown land large scale building programme, which is getting up and under way, particularly in Auckland, with the requirement that councils now take into account land values when they are deciding their zoning. The $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund currently under discussion between the Government and all the growing councils around New Zealand, the unit title reforms, and the upcoming urban development authority legislation—all of these are focused on improving the supply of housing. And, of course, it takes some time for houses to get consented and built after their subdivisions have been consented and built, but we are on the right track. Last year 10,000 new houses in Auckland—in the long run, it is only more houses on the ground that will enable a reasonable housing market, and we look forward to the Opposition’s support for those measures, because I believe it too actually does want to have a reasonably operating housing market.

The other thing the Opposition is not happy about is our extensive programme of investing in infrastructure for growth. This is about a shift in mind-set—a shift in mind-set—and, in a sense, this Government has shifted its mind-set along with what has happened with Kiwis, because here is one very good measure of how New Zealanders see their own country. Four years ago 40,000 people left this country to go to Australia. That was the net effect. Now, it is a net zero—in fact, a bit more, I think, a slight inflow. There are tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are staying here when they used to leave, and they need more schools, more hospitals, more housing, more transport, and, actually, more investment in the core public sector infrastructure such as defence, police, security, tax collection, and so on.

So the capital spend by this Government in the last 5 years was $18 billion. In the next 5 years it will be $32 billion. And that is the story of a consistently growing economy, a now consistently growing population with moderate and consistent growth and incomes, a country with a clear sense of direction, and a Government committed to the policies that will support that direction.

I look forward to—and this is going to make the Opposition really unhappy—the opening of the Waterview Connection in Auckland. This is a project started by this Minister of Transport, facilitated by legislation that the Opposition opposed, and it will be the biggest single change in Auckland transport in decades. We know the Opposition will complain about it the whole time.

Another one that is dear to my heart, and so important to rural and provincial New Zealand, is the extension of ultra-fast broadband (UFB). Two weeks ago, before we announced the 1,100 new police staff, we announced that 150 more towns will get UFB. I met a couple who have installed call centres in Waverley and Ruatōria—Waverley and Ruatōria. They said that the next generation of technology they need will come with UFB, and they are on the list. So is that not fantastic? New jobs, real jobs, in the regions are part of a comprehensive focus on regional development that is being carried out by a number of the Government senior Ministers.

We have seen the enthusiasm for that in Southland, where they went to launch the plan and 500 people turned up. Even I could not get a crowd that big—in Invercargill 500 people turned up. On the West Coast they have got their own internal argument over what should go in the plan. But there is absolutely no doubt that in the regions they are engaged and invested in a process where the Government is working alongside them. We do not pretend that the officials here know what is going to work in Gisborne or on the West Coast, but in the regions they know. We can help them and we can support them because we back them instead of the Government department.

Another part of our agenda this year that is so critical not just to the regions but to the rest of the economy is trade. I know it is fashionable to talk it down, and I know on the other side of the House they are right in line with the US policy, which is to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Is it not amazing when you find out whose friends are whose? I am sure half the Labour Party members feel comfortable with that and half of them cannot believe they have found themselves in favour of a closed, isolated, inward-looking economy in New Zealand. We support open trade because we are open to investment, open to people, open to the world, and, yes, it is a bit harder.

We do not expect the support of the Labour Party to do something in New Zealand’s long-term interests, like find our way through the challenges of a free-trade agenda when much of the world is making that harder. But, one way or another, working with like-minded countries we will do that because what we know is when we open the door to our exporters, they are better than anyone in the world at getting through it—better than anyone in the world. We back them. But we are not going to pack up and stay home, crying into spilt milk just because the US has made a decision to pull out of the TPP. The Asia-Pacific is still the most dynamic economic region in the world and we want to ride that dynamism.

So New Zealand is in an increasingly uniquely positive situation, with a very good outlook compared with almost any other developed country. We have political stability, and it is part of the responsibility of the National Party this year to ensure that it stays that way. There is only one party that can guarantee political stability in this country through this election, and it is the National Party and its potential support partners. Anything else—anything else—creates uncertainty when we need more certainty, not less. We have got the opportunity for so many positive choices, because we have Government surpluses. We can increase family incomes. We can invest in more public services. We can invest in the infrastructure for growth. We can pay off debt, which we had to run up to rebuild Christchurch and get through a recession, which of course on “Planet Labour” never happened. I am beginning to wonder who else is on “Planet Labour”—the Greens and, well, Willie Jackson might be there, or he might not be.

We are going to continue to be a reliable and considered partner for our friends around the world, at a time when advocates for openness can make a difference, and that is going to be the story of this Government this year.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That all the words after “That” be deleted and replaced with “this House expresses no confidence in this National-led Government because it is out of ideas and out of touch on the housing crisis, because it has cut the health services New Zealanders rely on, because it has underfunded education and undermined our children’s futures, and because New Zealanders are crying out for a leader who will stand up for Kiwi values.”

Suddenly I am looking forward to this general election campaign way more than I was a wee while ago. This is going to be a fantastic year. I begin by acknowledging you, Mr Speaker, and all my colleagues, and by saying “Welcome back” after what was called, in the Prime Minister’s adjournment speech, the summer recess. He cannot keep even that promise.

So we have turned up here now, and we turn up in the wake of our national day, Waitangi Day. How significant that the first debate in Parliament should come after that day when we have so much to celebrate as a nation, in terms of our values—the values that have forged who we are, forged our identity as a people. This is a nation built on a covenant based on mutual respect and understanding, on national unity, on openness, and on shared prosperity, because that is who we are. That is New Zealand—a new nation whose newest settlers, at the time of its founding, came here for a better life and to do things differently than in the countries they came from, back home.

For a long time, we all know, the Treaty did not live up to the promises made of it and the expectations people had of it. But in 2017 we have much to take pride in: a sense of reconciliation, a sense of partial reinstatement and restoration, and a renaissance of Te Reo and Māoritanga—a recognition of Māori as our unique and distinctive element. That is what yesterday was about, in celebrations right across the country. I saw it for myself when I visited Sydney on Saturday and saw the Sydney Waitangi Festival—that Māori has gone international. I do not quite know what citizenship celebrations they were having in Santa Monica, however, but I am sure we will hear from our resident citizen there about how he has championed the cause of New Zealand. But right now—right now—New Zealanders are very proud of our values and who we are.

But here is the thing. Here is the thing. We expect, on our national day of celebration, that our country’s leaders will front up to the place that is the birthplace of our nation. But what we had was a leader who ran away—scared, afraid. He was afraid of a little bit of controversy, afraid of a little bit of argument, afraid of a little bit of debate—because, you see, as a nation grows and develops, no matter how young or old it is, there are always points of debate and disagreement and argument. But right now we have a Prime Minister who is simply not up to engaging with New Zealanders on what we agree on and what we differ on—a Prime Minister who runs away from his own people. Well, that ain’t no leader. We might have a Prime Minister, but we do not have a leader.

Ever since the “sales and marketing division” resigned in December last year and has been replaced by the “chief financial officer”, it has all gone downhill. We have had no vision, and New Zealanders are fast running out of hope. In a world where division and hatred and exclusion are growing in currency, we need to assert our values and what we stand for, which is a country that talks about openness and engagement and mutual respect. That is the New Zealand spirit. That is the New Zealand spirit. And we should do that not just because that is what the Treaty embodied and gave us to do but because that is who we are as a people.

That failure of leadership comes as no surprise, because it did not start with the failure to turn up at a place where the Prime Minister might be confronted with people who disagree with him. It started with his failure to front up to people who are aggrieved because the promise that was made to them was breached—the Pike River families. At his first opportunity as Prime Minister to show leadership, he failed to do it.

He had another opportunity, because the thing that New Zealanders are most worried about now is whether or not that Kiwi Dream of homeownership is going to be made real for the generation that is coming through. He could have fronted up to his best mate, Nick Smith, and said “Nick, we might be good mates—nothing personal, but you’ve fluffed it for so long it’s time for you to go, and I’ll put someone else in who can do the job.”, but he would not even do that. He would not even do that. It is not leadership. It is not leadership if you cannot turn to your failing colleague and say: “Mate, it’s time to move on.” He should have done that. He should have done that.

When the Prime Minister’s flagship announcement of a policy is something that Labour announced 6 months ago, and is something directly contrary to what he signed off 9 months ago—that ain’t no leadership. That is a failure of leadership.

We all saw that, in a time with a rising population and with rising crime, freezing police numbers was a failure. That was a failure, and Government members know it. They know it. They know he has failed. They know he got it wrong. He has failed. He has failed New Zealanders. To freeze police numbers when crime is going up and the population is going up and New Zealanders are crying out for safer communities—that is not leadership. That is yet another failure. That is yet another failure.

Our nation faces great challenges. We face great challenges. There are 15,000 more people unemployed today than there were at this time last year. There are 90,000—90,000—young people not in work, education, or training—

Hon Annette King: It’s gone up.

ANDREW LITTLE: No hope—it has gone up; it was 70,000 people this time last year. Households last year ran up an extra debt of $50 million a day. That is how households are getting by, because wages are not good enough. Wages are not good enough, and thousands of young New Zealanders are still not able to afford their first homes—not just in Auckland but around the country. There are 40,000 people still homeless. School funding has been frozen, class sizes are getting bigger, and parents are having to dig deeper in their pockets. That is not a mark of success. National has had nearly 9 years in Government, and that is what it has got to show for it. New Zealanders are demanding a change.

There were 60,000 people last year—60,000 people last year alone—who went to their doctors, were told they needed a specialist appointment at their hospital, and could not get one. The hospitals told them: “We can’t afford to fix you. We don’t have the money. The funding has been cut.” That is New Zealand today. That is the experience that too many New Zealanders have of their Government services today. It is wrong, and it is going to stop in September this year.

It is time to have a Government that works for all New Zealanders. That is the difference between Labour and National, and it is time to make that change. It is time to have a genuinely comprehensive housing package for all New Zealanders, so that once again young New Zealanders can genuinely hope to own their own homes—at the moment, a forlorn hope for too many. We have got to get offshore speculators out of our market. We are not alone in that. Six other countries party to the agreement that used to be called the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement—they have got it, but under that agreement we signed away our right to legislate for it. Now we have got it back. Now New Zealanders have the opportunity to seize the chance to do what is right for the next generations, to pass that law that says that if you want to live overseas—whether in Santa Monica or otherwise—and own a house here, then you have got to build a new house. What could be wrong with that? Give New Zealanders a chance. That is all we are saying. That is all we are saying.

We will build more homes—100,000 more houses over 10 years; half of them in Auckland, because that is where the need is most desperate. Affordable homes, homes of a range of different sizes and types—that is what New Zealanders need. That is what young New Zealanders are looking for. That is what their parents and their grandparents talk to me about. They talk to me now and they say that they cannot see how those generations coming after them can ever have the chance that they had, which they expected when they worked hard and saved hard, to own their own home. This Government has sat on its hands year after year after year for the last 8 years and done nothing and ignored the plaintive cries of New Zealanders, and it is time to do something.

I make no apology about being passionate about the future of young New Zealanders and wanting to do the best for them, because they are sick and tired of a complacent, smug, out-of-touch Government that will just do nothing on the most important issue in New Zealand today. And it does not stop at housing. It does not stop at housing. We want to make sure that those people who have to rent have a decent chance of renting a safe, warm, dry home and have decent rights as renters, because that is what they need now too. That is what they need now too.

In education, this Government is failing the next generation. It has frozen funding in schools—it somehow claims it is a good thing—and the schools are struggling. The schools are struggling to do the job that parents expect of them. You know, we leave our kids in the charge of those schools. It is not too much to ask, when we leave our kids at school, that the principals and the teachers will have the resources they need to do the job. But they do not have them, and it is getting harder. They cannot send the kids on field trips. They cannot put the gear in the classrooms, as once upon a time they were able to do. Schools go to parents and say: “Listen, you know, we can do a little more here. We can look after your kids. We can put a bit more money in. You’ve got to dig deep, though, and we will run more cake stalls and we will run more raffles. We just need a little bit of extra help.”

Well, I say this. I say that the Labour Party is the only party in the Commonwealth that has spent the last 2 years talking about the future of work and understanding that what it means is that what we do in education will define this country’s future for the next several generations—and that is vital. Parents and grandparents around New Zealand want to know that they have got an education Minister who cares about their future, and we have got an education Minister in waiting who has got every reason to care about that future because in 4½ years’ time he is going to have a direct stake in it—because we want to see Charlie doing his best. We want to see Charlie doing his best and we want an education system that is going to be fit for Charlie.

What this Government has done to the future generations of this country is nothing short of criminal. It is freezing funding when work, work demands, skill needs, and technology are changing so rapidly that we need to be investing in schools, education, skills, skills acquisition, and people and young people as much as we can, because that is what will give us opportunity in the future and that is what will give them a sense of security and hope for the future. But this Government has run it down, and we know what the consequences of that will be: larger class sizes—you can see it happening now—and parents prevailed upon to give more and more and more. Well, there is only so long you can bleed the hard-working parents of this country before you have actually got to admit that this Government got it wrong—it got it wrong.

In the end, it will come down to priorities. Which is the party that cares most about those things that build a foundation, that give our people hope, that give our people a chance? On housing and on education, it is Labour.

Look at health. There has been $1.7 billion cut out of the health budget. Do you know who is suffering? Do you know who pays the price for that? It is the 60,000 people who go to their doctor and are told: “You need help. You need to go to the hospital. You need your colonoscopy to find out whether you’ve got bowel cancer. You need to get your hip done, because you can’t walk around much longer in that state, you’re going to put your back out.” And what happens? Those 60,000 New Zealanders last year turned up to their hospital and were told: “We can’t see you. We can’t see you because we can’t afford to see you. We want to see you, we’d like to help you, but we are starved of funds. We’re running a deficit, and we can’t do it anymore.” That is what they are doing. That is what the hospitals are doing, and the people paying the price are the New Zealanders who live in chronic pain and with chronic conditions and who cannot get the care they need. If is not them, it is—in a country with the highest teen suicide rate in the developed world—the mental health services. They are the ones being starved as well. They are the ones being starved.

We can do better. We can do better than that. We can look after our people. We can provide a foundation that gives families and people a sense of certainty and security that help will be there when they need it. Because that ain’t there any more—that Government has taken it away. Oh, Government members are very good at talking about how well they have done. They are very good at talking about their ambition and what they do for themselves and their mates, but for hard-working New Zealanders right around the country—the people who want a school for their kids that can just do the job and prepare them for success for the future; the people who just want the healthcare that they need to stop their being in chronic pain—they do not care about them. They are being written off. They are just a cost saving.

Well, we can do better. We have a plan for all of that. After our housing plan, where we give people a sense of security and certainty and hope for the future of those young generations—that they can live the Kiwi Dream—we will get to work on education so that we have an education system that is fit for purpose and will give our kids a chance of success for the future. Whether it is early childhood, whether it is primary, whether it is secondary or tertiary, we will have our 3 years’ free post-school education and training, because that is what we have to do to make sure that we have got the skills for the future. Every business I talk to knows that and understands it and cannot wait any longer for it. That is why we will do it. These opportunities face us in September. These choices will face New Zealanders in September.

In health, we will start the long, hard, slow task of putting back together a health system that is there for people when they need it. For the elderly who cannot get their hip operations, their knee operations, their eye operations, ophthalmology—they have got to get help as well. We are going to give it to those people. You see, when they get that health treatment, it does not just give them back quality of life; it means that they can do stuff and that they are not a burden on other parts of Government-funded services. It just makes sense. That is why its needs to be done and that is why the next Labour-led Government is going to do it. That is why we are committed to doing that—because it is about making a positive difference for all New Zealanders.

In the end, it comes down to this. What this country is crying out for, after 8 years of not seeing much of it—any of it, in the last 2 months—is a leader who cares about the people of this country and the chances and opportunities they have got. Right now we do not have that leader. We have had Punch and Judy, we have had dog and pony shows, and we have had all the entertainment, but right now 8½ years of this Government have left 90,000 young New Zealanders with no hope, 60,000 New Zealanders with no healthcare, 40,000 New Zealanders without even a roof over their head, tens of thousands of New Zealanders on low incomes, and one in five wage and salary earners now paying more than half their take-home pay to pay the rent or the mortgage. That is not success. That is not success, and we can do better.

A real leader gives all New Zealanders a sense of opportunity and a sense of hope. A real leader steps up to the hard questions, steps up to the New Zealanders who just want to ask questions at places like Waitangi, talks to people, debates, respects difference and respects disagreement but comes up with solutions that are about building a nation that is there for all people, and draws upon the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi, which is about unity and mutual respect and building a nation of shared prosperity. We do not have that right now. Far too many New Zealanders are missing out, wanting more, and wanting better.

Well, this is their year. This is their year, and so many of them have spoken to me over the holidays, just over the last weekend. The Kiwis I met in Sydney explained to me why it is that they were there. There was the young family from Porirua who went there only 4 years ago. They went only 4 years ago, and they said the job opportunity, the level of pay, the school for their kids—it was more than what they could have expected back here. That is the sad story. They did not say it with any glee. They did not say it with any happiness. They have had to leave whānau and friends behind. There was the truck driver who told me that his base level of pay for driving the same hours, the same work, with the same skills as in New Zealand—$40,000 more there than he was getting here. That is the difference.

We are a great country. We are a great people. That is why we celebrate the day we did yesterday, in the way that we did. We are never afraid of hard decisions. We are never afraid of rising to the challenges. But, as a country, we get to do that only when we have a leader prepared to step up and stand up and speak up for the things that matter and the people who matter.

September is fast approaching, and New Zealanders will have a choice to make. Are we going to be that country that is prepared to rise to those challenges of the future? Are we prepared to pave the way and chart the course for the next generation? Are we prepared to have a leader who will do just that—engage with New Zealanders and restore their sense of hope again? That is the Labour Party. That is me. It is time for new leadership.

JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, ki a koutou ōku hoa Pāremata huri noa i Te Whare, ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and my compliments of the New Year to you collectively, my fellow parliamentary colleagues throughout the House.]

I would actually like to start by congratulating the Prime Minister on his speech, which successfully disguised how dull the statement was that got distributed this morning. It contained a whole bunch more half measures and a sort of pointless tinkering around the edges that will not—will not—fix any of the long-term challenges that this country is facing, whether it is housing affordability or whether it is homelessness, climate change, child poverty, and so on. He did say that he will encourage more oil exploration, but has he not noticed that all of the big oil companies are actually abandoning their explorations here in New Zealand? It is like he is a salesman of fax machines. Nobody is buying them any more. He says he is going to crack down on multinational tax evasion. Well, what has he been doing for the last 8 years? Tell me that. He is going to continue to flog his hyper-targeted vulnerable children’s strategy, ignoring all evidence that no dent is going to be made in child poverty until incomes start to rise.

Today’s statement to Parliament showed, if anything—like last week’s state of the nation speeches—one thing: we have got the vibe and they have got the shivers. The Greens’ and the Labour Party’s state of the nation—[Interruption] I am just getting warmed up, Todd, I am just getting warmed up. The Greens’ and the Labour Party’s state of the nation speeches last week showed that New Zealand has a well-organised, a stable, a ready, and an energised Government-in-waiting, a Government that has values and a vision—a vision of a country that is prosperous, that is inclusive, that is compassionate, that is innovative, and that is productive.

In his state of the nation speech, Mr English announced that, if re-elected, this Government will make a commitment to having more police in New Zealand, thus matching other parties’ commitments to restoring vital public services that have been run down by his Government—that was it. Providing his assessment of the state of the nation and his vision for the country, the best that he could say was “Me too.”

A day before that, he announced that on 23 September the Government will change, and I would like to thank him for continuing his predecessor’s convention of announcing the election date early in the year. When the country does finally get a proper written constitution, I do hope that it will include a fixed election date. Christmas has a fixed date, and the turkeys did not have any say in it.

When he announced the election, the Prime Minister said that this election would be all about growth. He said it was going to be all about growth. Well, let me tell you what is growing. You have got growing greenhouse gas emissions. You have got growing water pollution. You have got growing endangered species lists. You have got a growing house price bubble. You have got a growing cost of living. You have got a growing dairy farm debt. You have got growing unemployment. You have got the kind of growth that, if it was growing on your body, your doctor would pack you off to a specialist pretty darn quick.

Under this National Government—

Hon Member: Probably that homeopathic stuff, though.

JAMES SHAW: How is it going? Are you having fun? Under this Government—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjection coming from my far right is now excessive. It will cease.

JAMES SHAW: Under this Government, we have growth without prosperity. I get irritable whenever anybody says in passing that National is somehow the “party of business”. A long time ago I worked for one of the world’s largest accounting firms. I co-founded a small business that is still going strong today and I have worked with people and with projects in about 30 different countries around the world, and can I tell you that nowhere before have I seen contracts that are as badly written as the ones that these guys write.

Last week we found out that they put $9 million into a fund and got bought out for $10.2 million, which sounds pretty good because it means that they made a cool $1.2 million profit. Meanwhile, their business partner, US tech billionaire Peter Thiel, invested $7 million, which is $2 million less than the Government invested, and he made $23 million profit—minus a $1 million donation to charity—and Peter Thiel’s citizenship papers came with a $22 million upside. It is a bit of a surprise that Peter Thiel does not believe in Government, given how well he has done out of this one. He has actually done twice as well as that Saudi sheep farmer, who got only $11 million out of this Government, in return for, um, uh—oh, no, nothing at all. It was in return for nothing at all. Maybe we should have thrown citizenship papers in to sweeten the deal. That way, he and Peter Thiel could have cleared customs quickly together and then caught a cab to SkyCity. Give me a break, “party of business”.

I do want to talk about some businesses that are doing some good in the world: businesses like Taupō Beef & Lamb, founded by Mike and Sharon Barton. It is one of the leading environmentally friendly farms in the country. They are not only not polluting the water, they are actually cleaning up Lake Taupō while they do business. They are making a heck of a profit and struggling to meet demand. They are doing well by doing good.

Samantha Jones and Hannah Duder of Little Yellow Bird make organic-cotton fair-trade uniforms in India for clients here in New Zealand, but their business model actually supports girls from the Indian communities in which they work to stay in school, supports women to get trained for the workforce, and they extend microcredit loans for women to start businesses. Sam and Hannah are building a sustainable, ethical clothing brand that their customers here in New Zealand want to be a part of. They are doing well by doing good.

Eat My Lunch—set up by Lisa Wong and Michael Meredith—operates a “buy one, give one” business model, where the lunch that you buy yourself pays for another one for a hungry kid at school. It is supporting 40 schools with over 1,300 lunches every day. They are doing well by doing good.

Zealong Tea Estate, which converted a Waikato dairy farm into New Zealand’s leading organic tea producer, is selling tea to China at a huge premium—a premium that it can charge only as long as it can demonstrate that the tea is “100% Pure New Zealand”: organic, pesticide-free, and grown with pure water, clean air, and rich soil. It is doing well by doing good.

It is not just start-ups and entrepreneurs that are doing well by doing good. Airways Corporation has helped reduce carbon emissions from airlines by 37,000 tons every year. It estimates that that saves its customers $16 million in fuel costs. It is doing well by doing good. Z Energy—currently the No. 1 retailer of concentrated dinosaur juice—has invested $21 million building the country’s largest biodiesel plant, turning the agriculture industry’s waste fat into low-carbon fuel. It is doing well by doing good. Interface is one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, making nylon carpet from discarded fishing nets that are clogging up the reefs and the ocean floors of the Philippines. It has actually doubled its revenues in the past 20 years through its mission of becoming the world’s first fully sustainable enterprise anywhere in the world and showing the world how it is done. It is doing well by doing good. These are the innovators and the social entrepreneurs and the pioneers who are showing the way.

I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle saying in response to all of this: “Seeing as the private sector and the communities and the charities are doing so well all by themselves, why does the Government need to act? The invisible hand of the market seems to be doing just fine.” And if that were true—if the invisible hand of the market was resolving all of our challenges for it—why is it that New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased 19 percent since 2008, which is when this Government came to office? Why is it that you still cannot swim in 62 percent of our rivers without the risk of catching some horrible disease? Why are people all over the country now worried that the 5,000 people who were poisoned in Havelock North represent some kind of canary in the mine, and maybe we cannot even trust the water that comes out of our taps anymore? Why is it that around a third of all plant and animal species in this country are at risk of extinction? Why is it that Auckland is the fourth most unaffordable city in the entire world to live in? Why is it, in a time of record low inflation, that living costs for families are higher than their ability to meet them? Why is it that kids are still hungry or living in cars?

Well, it is because those people—the innovators and the social entrepreneurs—do not have a Government that backs them or the future that they represent. The Prime Minister’s statement today once again shows that we have a Government that looks to the past. It looks to flog enough dead horses to fill an entire animal graveyard: more offshore oil exploration; new coalmines; high intensity, high pollution, low-value commodity agriculture—a Government that by its own admission has reached the limit of what it thinks that it can do to lift its own people out of poverty and into greater opportunity.

Just as there are businesses that are showing what leadership looks like, so too are other Governments around the world showing us what leadership can look like. Ireland will be the first country in the world to divest all public money from fossil fuels; National will not go there. Dutch trains will now be 100 percent powered by renewable wind energy. In New Zealand we are actually ditching electric and aiming for 100 percent diesel freight trains. Canada has put a NZ$53 per tonne price on carbon emissions; National is too timid to go there and to put a proper price on pollution. The UK introduced a mere 5p charge on plastic bags, and within 6 months there was an 85 percent drop in plastic bag use in the United Kingdom. The Japanese passed a recycling Act in 2001—16 years ago—that means that they now send only 5 percent of all waste to landfill. They actually recycle 98 percent of all their metals—metals that are valuable commodities in industry. New Zealand? Tumbleweed thing.

In Germany—the fourth largest manufacturer of motor vehicles in the world—you will not even be able to buy a fossil fuel - powered car there after 2030. In the Netherlands and in Norway you will not be able to buy a fossil fuel - powered car after 2025, which is only 8 years from now. And in New Zealand? In New Zealand, the National Government’s goal is to get nearly 2 percent of all vehicles on the road to be electric by 2021—nearly 2 percent. Wow, such vision! Many ambition. Very leadership.

As the former Saudi oil Minister once said, the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone. And the “Oil Age” will end well before the world runs out of oil. But we have a Government that is stuck in the Stone Age: too timid, too ignorant, or too scared of the vested interests that it represents to put in place policies that have been proven to work in other countries—and, I might add, policies that were often put in place by conservative parties that are the brother and sister parties of this National Government and they are too scared to follow. The Prime Minister’s predecessor famously once said that at least when it came to climate change, New Zealand should not be a leader but a fast follower. This Government is not even following, let alone fast. Because it does not want New Zealanders to be leaders, other countries are taking advantage of what could be the greatest economic opportunity of a generation—the opportunity of a sustainable, smart, green economy that works for and includes everyone.

Kiwis want to be leaders. I am inspired by the huge crowd of people who came together to fund the purchase of Awaroa Beach and add it to our national parks. While we are on national parks, I am inspired by those who forced the Government to abandon its plans for mining in the most precious parks a few years back. As Ricky Baker’s buddy Hec said, New Zealand is majestical. And New Zealanders want to keep it that way.

I am inspired by the people who forced the Government to accept even a handful more of those displaced shell-shocked refugees from Syria last year in the midst of the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II. I am inspired by those innovators and social entrepreneurs who are building a better world from the ground up. That is why we need to change the Government. New Zealanders deserve a Government that backs them to be leaders. Today’s statement by the Prime Minister just shows how stuck in the past this Government is. It is time to change the Government, and change is coming.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): They say that body language is everything. I want to congratulate the gallery on staying awake and on their stamina. I want to say that the events thus far put me in mind of nothing so much as a guy stepping up to kick a ball 80 metres—80 metres—over the goal to get a penalty to win the game. All his supporters and colleagues are sitting there breathless, expecting that he might just get it over except that they know in their mind’s eye that he does not have a hope in Hades and nor have they. I have never seen so many nervous Nellies on the backbench. The only thing that the National Party backbench agree on is that despite its party’s blatant, awful economic and social mistakes, we are still somehow a country of opportunity. Do members know how it determines that? It determines that by looking at its front bench. Have a good look at these tired, old, uninspiring, visionless men—in the main. Nick Smith makes me look young. It is unbelievable. They have not got any idea at all. They are just hanging on for dear life. Talk about unity! Eighteen members are going.

Ron Mark: How many?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Eighteen. That means that the Government must have chosen some bums the last time around—that is what that means.

Two things happened today. The Prime Minister put out that statement this morning, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank said: “I’m gonna join John Key; I’m gonna quit.” That is what happened today. They know that the game is up for them.

It is time for some truth on our economy. This Government has a serious inability to address the problems that it and its policies have created, and no amount of spin, hype, and grandiose talk will dispel the fact that as we go into the 2017 election it is on a hiding to nothing. All the Government members know it. They are trying every dirty little tactic behind closed doors. They are financing the Māori Party; they fund it. They are propping up the guy in Epsom.

I do not want to say these things, because they can be misconstrued, but have you ever seen cuckold politics? And what is the other one—in Wellington? Ōhāriu. How can any self-respecting party—[Interruption] Oh, yes, the Māori Party—I know. Boy, is it big on tino rangatiratanga. Oh, is it big on that, until it comes to standing on its own two feet and showing a bit of old-fashioned Māori tribal pride—no, no. It is “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”—that is its policy. Talk about tino rangatiratanga! It would not understand the concept. To stand on one’s own feet, like this party is, the hope and salvation for this country, is not easy. It is not easy.

New Zealand is not an economic success story. Do you know what the old Māoris say about a hen making too much noise like a rooster? [Interruption] What do they say? [Interruption] What do the old Māoris say about a hen making the noise of a rooster? Anyway, I cannot say that today. The fact of the matter is that this is not economic success. The rock star economy that Bill English constantly touts, as he did today, is a fiction. If we look at some of the facts we will see how easily his claims are dispelled. If we strip out population growth—it is at a record high. It is almost four times that which saw Brexit in the UK, saw Donald Trump win in the United States, and saw a dramatic change in the Australian election last year as well. We are also seeing a dramatic change in Germany, France, and Italy. If we strip out this massive population growth, what do we have? We have a very boring economy performing at below 1 percent growth. All the rest is immigration.

Therefore, New Zealand’s productivity performance is amongst the lowest in the OECD. How do I know that? Because in the old days a guy called John Key—no, not John; John would say anything. A guy called Bill English used to say things like that. If we strip out population growth, our GDP per capita is below the OECD average. With the export of goods and services and our total economic output around 30 percent by international standards, we are not an export-driven economy—and this country is export-dependent for its survival and prosperity.

It is amazing, you know; the Government used to have a target to increase the contribution of exports to the economy from 30 percent of GDP to 40 percent by 2025, and it has dropped it. Government members have dropped it. It has gone from their targeting. They know they cannot do that, and we have a staggering net liability internationally of $163 billion, and in the House today he releases a statement saying he is getting on top of debt. At $163 billion, and a chronic balance of payments deficit, there is no prospect of repaying our debt. What do you think a balance of payments deficit is? Well, for those untutored people over there, it is called debt. That is where we have got ourselves.

On jobs, well, they fling open the door for immigrants at record levels—a net influx of 70,000 a year—and unemployment is going back up. Another 10,000 unemployed were added to the jobless in the latest quarterly household figures released last week. Let me tell you about the deceit of those figures—and New Zealanders need to know that. You go, under the National Government, from being unemployed to employed if you get 1 hour’s work a week—just 1 hour, or 2 hours, or 5 hours, and they say you are employed; you are off the unemployment statistics. It blows away the phony optimists who have been predicting that unemployment would be falling throughout 2017. The insanity of having record immigration whilst they have got almost 140,000—mainly New Zealanders, but many of them are new immigrants—officially unemployed is obvious to all Kiwis now. Of course, the headline figures, the tip of the much bigger iceberg, are those who are in part-time work and cannot get nearly enough work to keep their families and themselves going.

The latest unemployment data confirms what New Zealanders have long suspected, and that is why the National Government is in trouble in 2017. As for their puppets, well, they are all going to go out. Their puppets have not got a hope in Hades. When they realise that their so-called guardsman is not up to it, then the public will send them on their way.

The real aim of open-door immigration policy is to suppress the wages of ordinary New Zealanders. The real objective of mass immigration—at almost four times the level of the UK, far greater than Australia, and far greater than the USA—is to drive down wages and drive up competition. Migrants are soaking up entry-level and basic jobs around the country. Having Kiwis fearful of their jobs from new migrants desperate for work is a disgraceful unemployment policy, and that is why we are going to clean the floor with you in this campaign. That is why we are going to go around the country, pack the halls, and take you guys to the cleaners—because you do not deserve to survive, and you have not got the brains or the skills anyway.

Talk about the Green leader, the Green leader forgot the fact that they are so bad at business they gave South Canterbury Finance $800 million and did not cap their guarantee, so it blew out $800 million further—a blowout of $800 million. They gave Rio Tinto hundreds of millions. They gave Skycity Casino $42 million extra a year. They dish money out like an eight-armed octopus and then go down to Rātana, as the Prime Minister did, and say: “We have got no more money; we cannot help you.” And what did the two Māori Party members say?

Hon Member: Oh yeah, is that right.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Is that right?

Hon Member: Nothing. They said nothing.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, they said: “Amen, brother.” They said: “Amen, brother.” They were quite religious. Unbelievable—no wonder they are so desperate. And if you have got Tuku at the head of your party, you have got trouble. You have got serious trouble.

Ladies and gentlemen, last week Bill English went to Auckland to a rotary club. They must have been desperate, because they invited him. There he gave a speech about the “state of the nation”. And guess what? In the city with the fourth-worst housing crisis in the whole, wide world, he never mentioned the house price debacle. How do you like that? He went to Auckland and talked about the state of the nation—and the No. 1 thing glaring in his face is the housing crisis of Auckland, where people cannot buy a house, where generations are being shut out, where they cannot now rent, and where teachers are saying: “I might be qualified, but I’m getting out of here because I can’t afford to stay here and practise my profession. I’ve got to go somewhere else.”—and he did not even mention the house price debacle. That is an utter mess.

Marama Fox: Is that like when you go to Rātana and don’t mention the Treaty?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I want to tell that Māori Party member, who makes far too much noise, that 75,000 Māori just want a house—75,000 Māori want a house. I want every Māori out there who is looking for a house, looking for a chance to do what great parties once delivered, to know that we have got in this Parliament two Māori members trying to over-talk another one who is far more experienced than them, and that as far as these two members go, they would rather keep their ministerial home than get the Māori people a home. Yes—unbelievable. They would rather keep their ministerial home than give the Māori people a home—75,000. And just to make sure that 75,000 Māori cannot get a home, they back mass immigration. To make sure that Māori cannot get a job, they back mass immigration. In fact, do you know what that party said? They said we should not be criticising this mass immigration; we should be going to the airport to give them a pōwhiri. A pōwhiri is a welcoming message. That is how dysfunctional these sociology-trained academics in the Māori Party are. They are totally devoid of the condition, economic and social, of the people in places like Moerewa, Kawarau—all around the country.

When I go down there and I say to the Māori people: “Have you got a snapper from this Māori Party? Have you got one inch of land from this Māori Party? Have you got anything from this Māori Party? Do you know what Whānau Ora is doing for you? Is it uplifting your life?”, they say to me: “Brother, we don’t know what you’re talking about, because we’re getting nothing.” The sooner we get some real representation—representation that understands that the condition of Māori is the same as the condition of Europeans in this country—the better. People in this country want four things. They want First World housing that they can afford. They want a health system they can access, be it for their child or their grandmother or grandfather. They want an education system that keeps the escalators going so that they can progress regardless of their race. They want First World jobs and First World wages. That is what Māori want.

Come to think of it, that is what everybody in this country wants and one party understands that and you are talking to it—only one party. We are going to shock you guys in this campaign and we are going to shock you guys as well. We are going to turn your polls into confetti. I would have thought from the Brexit campaign and the campaign in Australia and the campaign in the United States that you in the gallery might learn that your polls are drivel.

I thought you might have learnt it from the Northland by-election. The man over there said I did not have a dog’s show and we won over 17,412 and busted them in 4 weeks flat. Got you worried? Yes, I know your knees are knocking; they should be. That is going to be a very short ministerial post. Do not get too used to the cars. Do not get used to the house. Do not get too used to all of those places, because I will tell you something: it ain’t going to last much longer. When we get down there in the South Island and start spreading the word, it will be all over for you—it will be all over for you.

Hon Jacqui Dean: You don’t even know where it is.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, yes. Unlike your former leader, I live in my electorate. [Interruption] And they hate it. I know what they are saying up there. They are going around and saying: “He doesn’t even live up here.” Everybody in my village knows they are lying. They have seen me travelling those dusty roads, going over those single-lane bridges, trying to go out on the water to get my phone going because they are not delivering the services, speaking to people in Kerikeri because they have not got the ultra-fast broadband they were promised—Paula fooled us. No, they know all about it. Also, they decided they are going to put a cop up. That is three in a row. How do you like that? Bit stupid are they not? But, anyway, back to my point.

You know, it became very clear today what Bill English intends to do. Do you know what he is going to do? He is going to blame the Public Service. He is going to go to all those desperate provinces, like the North, like Gisborne, like Rotorua, because they have got such a terrible collapsing environment there. The three mayors of these three areas are all saying that they are pushing for anti-poverty tools. They are asking for a chance to take over the agencies and help their local people, but they do not realise that it is not the agencies’ fault when they are massively underfunded.

The Government’s clear and transparent line is that it is going to blame the agencies: “I know what we will do, we will tell the people of Rotorua and Northland and down the East Coast and Gisborne that their condition is brought about by the Public Service.” How do you like that? Unbelievable. They, the provinces—and the North is a good example of it—are in the top half of the export-earning electorates, and down at the bottom of everything else. Our job is to expose people who would keep them there, like the Māori Party, like the ACT Party, and like the party that has been around for so long and calls itself the National Party. It should be up for false pretences.

There is nothing national about the National Party. It is a globalist party. It is the party that believed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). When we said a year ago that it is dead in the water, they ignored us—and yet they are the first to talk to Donald Trump. What a joke that is. And the media write that they are going to get a free-trade agreement with the UK, with the EU, and with Donald Trump. Meanwhile they collapsed our chance of getting a decent deal with the second-biggest dairy and beef importer in the world, namely Russia.

What a bunch of clowns in a diplomatic china shop. It is one disaster after another. What is Tim Groser doing in Washington? Pray tell me: what is he doing but having a few red wines all the time? He has got no purpose to be there. Nobody is going to talk to him over there.

Ron Mark: TPPA’s dead.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: TPPA is dead on the water—dead on the water.

Ron Mark: He’s unemployed.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Dead in the water—that makes him unemployed. Why do you not bring him home? And they say, of course, now and again: “We’ll make more progress. At least we can talk to them. At least we can talk to them.”

Can I just say one thing on the police: the National Party claimed for 8 long years that crime was falling. Every criminal lawyer in this country was saying: “Look, they have got a catch and release policy.” Why they can say that is that they are catching people, but they are not charging them, they are warning them. And they kept it up for 8 long years under successive Ministers. This is how deceitful they were. They capped the police numbers so the police per thousand dropped dramatically.

We had hundreds of stations in this country with nobody on at night and nobody on at the weekend. People rang up Dunedin, as I did one time in Dunedin. I rang up Dunedin and guess what I got? I got Auckland. I got the Auckland police station, and I thought—excuse the language—if I have been on there for an hour, guess what Joe Bloggs is going to be putting up with. But no, no, the Government members kept it up and then they thought: “Hang on. New Zealanders are not falling for this. We’ll go and get some extra police people over the next 4 years.”, but 800 front-line men and women does not even cut it. That is not even half the number that is required—1,800 places to get back to where we were going in 2008, and he had the temerity to get up in Auckland and say that the security of the citizens on the streets is his No. 1 priority. That is what Bill English said.

Well, I can say, Bill, I do not think you are going to last very long. I think your campaign in 2017 is going to be about as successful as it was in 2002—as successful as it was in 2002. The only common thing between those two campaigns is one party was as ready in 2002 as we are going to be in 2017, and we started that campaign with the polls saying we were on 1 percent, and after 4 weeks flat we almost made 11 percent. That is about to happen again in 2017. Look at the political scenery at that point in time and stop writing this drivel about who is going to be the next Government. You are looking at it. You are looking at it.

I know that Gerry, being the patriot he is sometimes—even he hopes it is going to happen. I know in his heart of hearts he wants to know that he can retire with somebody running the economy that can keep it going soundly. I know he knows what retirement looks like, but he wants to be able to know that we could even afford the parliamentary retirement fund. And the only chance of him getting that is if we make it. The only chance of him getting that is if we make it.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The member’s the only one left on it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no, no.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: He’s got the gold-plated pocket. Oh yes, he has.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I walked out of Parliament on a matter of principle and sacrificed 35 percent of mine.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No one believes that.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, I did.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No one believes that.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, I did. These people do not remember that but I do, because keeping our word and having integrity and principles is what one party is famous for. And again, you are looking at it.

Can I just say in closing, we are looking forward to this campaign. When they announced that it was going to be on 23 September, it ticked every box of our planning, down to every tranche of our candidates, the launch of our campaign—I cannot tell you where; but I know it is the most exciting news for you—and also our AGM and what city it is going to be in. So I can promise New Zealanders right now something very, very significant. I know things are difficult and troubled and I know it has been very hard for you, but hang on, because help is on its way.

Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, ka mihi ki a koe i te tīmatanga mai o tēnei tau hōu, otirā, ki a tātau e hui nei i tēnei rā, ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a tātou katoa.

I a au e tū nei, hei whaiwhai haere i te āhuatanga o ngā tikanga o te marae, ka mihi ki ngā mate huhua kua pā mai ki a tātau, he pērā anō te āhuatanga ki a au, e hia kē nei ngā mate kua pā mai ki a au, ki taku rohe, i ngā wiki tata kua hipa ake. Ka tangi ake ki a rātau ko tāku ko te kī haere koutou ki te pō uriuri, ki te pō tangotango ki reira moe ai, okioki ai, koutou ki te pō.

Te hunga ora e hui nei i tēnei ahiahi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātau katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge you at the start of this new year but, at the same time, my compliments of the New Year to us all gathered here today.

As I stand here, and in terms of following marae customs, I pay a tribute to the many deaths that have affected us. I experienced that situation as well, where many deaths occurred in my electorate in weeks just past. I mourn and say to them: go forth to the deep, dark night; sleep and rest there in the void.

To us, the living assembled here this afternoon, I acknowledge and salute you collectively and commend us all.]

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and a happy New Year. As I said before, I pay respects to those who have passed on, and there have been many in the last couple of weeks or so that have affected me. Unfortunately, I have had to travel to about eight tangi since the start of the year. So I think about those people as we think about a new year. Let them rest. I come back to the noise and shenanigans of Parliament, day one, 2017. I wish us all well for the future of this year, despite our political affiliations.

I want also, at the time when we reflect on Waitangi, to acknowledge the statement from the Rt Hon Bill English as the new Prime Minister. I have not had too much of an opportunity to congratulate him on his office, taking up the reins, and also, importantly, on offering the Māori Party the opportunity to stand as a partner with them, by invitation as it happens, to improve the lives of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Māori people of this country, as we should do, as we came away from Waitangi just yesterday.

I want also to acknowledge the people of Tūwharetoa, and Ngāti Manunui in particular. The day before Waitangi I was at Ngati Tūwharetoa, at Pūkawa, the founding place of the Kīngitanga Movement. It was a wonderful occasion, with Māori and Pākehā all together by the lake, at a beautiful concert. Also, yesterday there were the people of Ngāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, and Waitaha, at Tamatea Wharenui, Ōtākou Marae in Dunedin. Some of my colleagues were there yesterday, from both sides of the House. It was a wonderful occasion, with 200-plus people there, celebrating the Treaty and what it should mean for us.

The day, as everybody has said, has offered us an opportunity to reflect on the promise of the Treaty. It was an opportunity for us to reflect on what has happened to us as a nation, to question whether we have lived up to all the expectations of our tupuna on both sides of the Treaty and what they fought for, and, I suppose, to think about the whole notion of the Treaty, which is about rights and obligations, which we continually work towards in the Treaty settlement process and in this House.

In that respect I support the statements from the Prime Minister in respect of the progress being made by the Hon Chris Finlayson, and moving forward settlements at that pace has certainly brought a new invigoration to Māoridom, allowing them to become economic giants in this country. We, as the Māori Party, absolutely support that.

It is a future that in the Māori Party is expressed by way of our kaupapa tuku iho. Since the founding fathers and mothers of the Māori Party, namely Dame Tariana Turia and Sir Pita Sharples, we have always talked about the founding kaupapa of our party as being hugely important.

But I want to divert just for a minute, in respect of Waitangi Day. I sat here rather intrigued at some of the statements from some people about the Treaty of Waitangi and what it means or did not mean for them. It seems a huge contradiction to me that people will go to Waitangi, talk up Waitangi, talk about what it is all about, but not support Treaty legislation at all—in fact, attempt to get rid of Treaty legislation. I mean, come on! You are either going to do it or you are not. So do not talk up the Treaty, do not talk about rights and obligations, etc., when, on the other hand, what you do is actively vote against legislation about the Treaty. One party in particular does that time and time and time again.

I also find it a little bit contradictory that people will go to marae like Rātana, make all grand statements of plans about what they are going to do for Māoridom, and talk about their ability to understand tikanga, but go there and say: “Oh, I’ll send you the koha down the line.” Well, come on! That is not how tikanga works. Do not say that you are going to give the credit card over and that you will transfer it by credit card. That is not how tikanga goes. So I find it hugely contradictory that some people can come into this House and talk up their Māoriness, talk up what it means for them to be Māori, and yet violate tikanga on a regular basis.

As I said on a number of occasions last year, that is where the country has got to wake up to the agenda by at least one party that is almost Trump-like. What they do is they roll out—and it is starting to happen already—the anti-Māori flavour, the anti-Māori gun. That is what they pull out. Immigration—anybody who is not a Kiwi, oh, you are up for it. So look out, Māoridom; the person is still here, their party is still here, and they have still got the same policies that they have been going on about. It is going to come around the corner.

This campaign is going to be huge on anti-Māori. That is what it is going to be about. That is a disappointment. Having just one day, yesterday—being at a place where everybody celebrates the Treaty, as Treaty partners should do, with an element of respect and integrity, is what we hope we will stick by throughout the election campaign.

I want to say—and I want to express this today—that the Māori Party feels passionate, hugely passionate, about whānau, and pleased that our new Prime Minister has spoken up about Whānau Ora and our key policy. Why? Because whānau is about tamariki. It is about our mokopuna. It is about the descendants who are coming. That is why we picked it up from the very start. That is what it was all about—for us to focus policy on our families, on our tamariki, and on our mokopuna. Ko ngā tamariki he taonga nō te ao. [It is the children indeed who are the treasures of the world.] That is how it should be.

So, as the Māori Party, in terms of Whānau Ora, our reality is that 11,500 whānau every year have benefited from Whānau Ora. I was really pleased to hear the statement from the Prime Minister up at Ōrākei, when he said, apparently: “actually any whanau has some spark of hope which we can support, which we can grow because that is who in the end fixes the whanau. It is not the department of social welfare, it is not the Ministry of Health. Much as we have good intentions”—he says—“the truth is we have not realised the promise of our tamariki yet of protection from violence, safe community, a good education and some type of support that encourages aspiration and not dependency. For many we have, but not for everyone. And for the ones where we haven’t met it, they were not just a cost to the system. They represent a failure and in my time”—the Rt Hon Bill English says—“30 years of public policy, whānau ora represents the next or the best, the truest, the most honest approach to dealing with those, supporting those, who we haven’t dealt with.”

That is an important statement. And although Mr Peters reflected on Whānau Ora and help to our whānau, actually, he should talk to his sister about Whānau Ora because she would probably be one of the greatest advocates of Whānau Ora in the Tai Tokerau. So he should talk to his elder sister and show respect to her—that is what he should do.

Those are the sorts of things that we are on about. We are on about support for whānau. We are talking about safe communities. We want our whānau to be protected from violence, and that is why our focus is going to be on a few things going into this year.

We are proud of the achievements we have been able to move forward during 2016—things like helping Māori land owners, regardless of whether they have large or small shares, to develop their land through the Whenua Māori Fund, to establish the Māori Land Service to support iwi to lead, the revitalisation of Te Reo Māori, and to commemorate our history, the New Zealand Land Wars, for instance, and, to date, we have secured a fair bit of money to commemorate those sorts of occasions.

But we have done more than that. Just to reflect on how the Treaty was supposed to work—the amount of money that the Prime Minister referred to earlier regarding benefit increases, the first one in 42 years, that increase came about because of the Ministerial Committee on Poverty, set up by the Hon Dame Tariana Turia, which she co-chaired with the Hon Bill English in their time. These are where those ideas have come from—from working together as colleagues and as partners to find solutions. That is what we have done—not just lifting the benefit by that amount of money for those who are struggling, but things like warming up our houses and allowing our kids up to the age of 12 or 13 to get to the doctors at no cost. We lifted the age. Those are the things that come about from the partnership that was envisioned by the Treaty of Waitangi. We do not just talk about it; we actually do it. That is our promise.

To all our Māori Party supporters I say: arā te kōrero, ki te hoe! [there indeed is the aphorism, to the paddle!] Paddles up, get ready to roll, because this is election year and this is when we come back and take those Māori seats home.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Mr Deputy Speaker, greetings to you, to the House, and to the people of New Zealand, particularly to my constituents in the Epsom electorate and particularly to the parties to my immediate left and right—the parties that make up the current Government. We have heard a lot today but I would just like to remind the House of one thing, and that is MMP. Now, I did not vote for MMP—mainly because I was in standard 3 at the time—but MMP is a reality and it requires coalition Governments. And everything that has been discussed today can only happen if you are able to assemble a majority in this House.

What are some of the options? Well, you could have a Labour-Green coalition but, if today’s speeches were not enough to put you off that, the fact of the matter is that when they launched their state of the nation speeches—Winston Peters criticised the National Party for not talking about housing in Auckland—Labour and the Greens did not have any policy whatsoever, and, judging on the quality of the policy they usually put up, that is probably a good thing.

Winston Peters thinks that he is going to be at the fulcrum in the centre of any future Government. He believes that his time has come because it has come elsewhere. Well, I will give you a prediction: I think New Zealanders are going to get a little bit tired of self-congratulation and imported politics from New Zealand First. And why would they want him back? This is a guy who has been in Cabinet three times and has been fired by every single one of his Prime Ministers. He has been voted out of two electorates and is about to be voted out of a third, because when I have been up North people say one thing about him: “We never see him.” New Zealand can do better than handing the balance of power to New Zealand’s Trump movement—which is opposed to trade, which is opposed to openness, and which is opposed to rational dialogue—and, these days, that sadly includes the Labour Party and the Greens, which are running the xenophobic lines as hard as anyone ever has.

For 5 years the Act Party has had only one MP and, by stark contrast to that rhetoric, it is extraordinary what we have achieved with one member of Parliament. No. 1 is that we have kept those people over there—we have allowed the stability of public policy and we have allowed rational, orthodox economic policy under which people can build their lives, their homes, their families, and their businesses, and the country can prosper.

We have also had a few projects of our own, because it is a tragedy that in New Zealand in 2017 we have one of the most unequal education systems in the developed world. We have not just carped on about it; we have actually done something about it. We have said that people like Raewyn Tīpene from Whangarei, who observed that 86 percent of Māori boys in Whangarei were failing NCEA level 1 and not getting one NCEA qualification—we have said to people like Raewyn Tīpene that we do not think that is good enough either. We have let her set up her own school, where, guess what, more than 86 percent of students are getting not just NCEA level 1 but level 2, and on their way to university entrance.

I would like to thank the Māori Party for its staunch advocacy of partnership schools kura hourua, along with National, because this day—the first day of school for many schools in New Zealand this year—we have one thousand - plus students who have taken the option of going to a school of choice, and they have chosen a partnership school kura hourua. This is a new option set up by the fabulous educational entrepreneurs who are bringing the kids who most need it new options.

That is one of the things that the ACT Party can achieve with just one MP, but it is also an existential crisis for the Labour Party. It is trying to court Willie Jackson, who knows that were it not for this ACT Party policy he would not have one of his most prized projects—he would not have Te Kura Māori o Waatea.

So where is the Labour Party on this issue? Is it backing the kids who have been left out—the kids whom Peter Fraser was talking about when he said that every New Zealander would be extended to the best of their abilities? Or is the Labour Party backing the public sector union representatives who are heavily packing the selection meetings of Labour Party MPs?

Hon Annette King: Ha!

DAVID SEYMOUR: And there is Annette King scoffing, but she knows exactly how it works, even though she secretly wishes it were not so. That is the challenge for the Labour Party but it is not a challenge for this side of the House, where we are innovating education and making the world a better place for the kids who need it most.

I have stood alone in this Parliament, prepared to put a member’s bill in the ballot for an issue that 75 percent of New Zealanders believe should be addressed. That is, the question of what choices people should have at the end of their lives. At present, the choices that are allowed are gruesome and barbaric, purely because we in this House have not had the gumption to grasp the nettle and take on that issue. That is another example of the initiative that just one ACT MP can take.

But what could ACT do if only we had a little bit more support? The answer, for people who think that ACT has not done enough because we do not have enough support, is very simple: on 23 September, vote for us. Here are one or two things that we might fix—and fix with Bill English—that John Key neglected. One of them that has been raised roundly in the House is the housing market. In my state of the nation speech a little bit earlier, which was in Auckland, I did raise this issue.

The fact of the matter is that the Labour Party has a big problem on the housing issue—the fact of the matter is that the problem emerged when it was in power. Labour can criticise National for doing nothing about it, but that is exactly what it did itself. Nobody can credibly believe that a Labour Party in 2017 and beyond is going to be any better at fixing the housing crisis than it was when it caused it in the first place.

If we are going to be serious, we know that National will not solve it either, because it has had 9 years. It is very simple: it is because it is inherently a conservative party. It is not a right-wing party; it is a party that has been in Government five times, and each time has preserved the policies bequeathed to it by the preceding Labour Government. That is just yin and yang; that is the rhythm of New Zealand politics.

If you want to reform the housing market, then what you have got to do is fundamentally reform land-use planning, not just tinker. That means taking urban areas with more than 100,000 people out of the Resource Management Act and replacing it with fit for purpose urban planning legislation. It is wrong that we use the same regulations that we require to protect places like Fiordland, the Bay of Islands, Coromandel to protect a paddock with a horse in it somewhere in Henderson.

We need to change the way that we fund infrastructure. It is not right that central government has $80 billion and local government has $10 billion, and the biggest constraints on housing supply is infrastructure and one of the biggest cost drivers for Government is a shortage of housing. Here is another issue that we could be fixing with a bit more gumption.

Everybody under 100—at least everyone under 40, at least everybody younger than Gerry Brownlee—knows that they are not going to get superannuation at 65, because it is just not sustainable. Treasury puts out reports every year telling us this, and if the Government was serious it would either tell Treasury that its long-term fiscal outlooks are rubbish and stop paying it to publish them every 4 years and put Treasury out of its misery, or it would take it seriously. I think the ACT Party stands alone in this House in saying that we must look into our future and confront such long-term challenges instead of simply kicking the can down the road.

We need to expand the partnership school kura hourua programme. It is not good enough that schools can be punished for doing just about everything to do with their inputs, to do with their administration, to do with their finances—they can have a commissioner put in—but they can fail generations of students year after year after year and there is no consequence for that. We must expand the partnership school kura hourua policy to failing State schools, give them performance standards, and give them the flexibility to achieve them for the sake of our children.

We need to get smarter on crime. The National Party’s announcement that by 2021 we will have the same ratio of police to citizens that we had in 2009 is hardly inspiring stuff, and I look forward to talking about new ideas for getting smarter on crime at our party conference on 25 February.

But, finally, I return to the fact that we live under MMP. If we are going to have stable government that also reforms, a Government with Bill English as Prime Minister but dealing to the issues that John Key neglected for too long, then we need a much stronger, more powerful, and emboldened ACT Party. Thank you.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): A couple of weeks ago the people who run the doomsday clock shifted it from 5 minutes to midnight to 3 minutes to midnight—a timely reminder of the dangerous and challenging times that the world faces at the moment. We have seen some dramatic examples over the last 12 months. Who would have predicted Brexit? Who would have predicted not just that Donald Trump would be elected but that he would set about keeping his promises? And the tragedy of all of that has been that the response of a number of the Western democracies of which we are part has been to try to pull the drawbridges King Canute - like and say: “Well, look, we’re going to have to make changes to accommodate these things.” The consequence of that response has been that a number of the solid, liberal, democratic values that our societies have been founded upon are being put at risk.

United Future makes no apology for standing against this trend. We are for cultural diversity. We stand up for what the various cultures and their backgrounds and their traditions contribute to making all of us better and we do not believe in walls or other impediments being put in their place. We are not opposed to immigration. Immigration is a good thing. Well managed, it grows our skill base, it grows our country, it makes us better.

And we are globalists. In these days where neo-protectionist policies seem all the rage, it is worth standing up for some of the things that actually made this country the great country that it is. New Zealanders are open-hearted, they are open-minded, they are forward-looking, they are modern, they are green, and they are internationalist. They need a voice that says all those things for them, demonstrates it by action, and makes a contribution in Government, and that is what United Future seeks to do this year and beyond.

There is a compelling logic to the case. We are not going to let the populists run amuck with our country. We have seen the damage they are causing elsewhere—the division, the chaos, the instability, the uncertainty. I take my hat off to the Prime Minister. Good on him for having a favourable conversation with the President of the United States yesterday. But it is a mark of how unreal this world has become that the fact that conversations on telephones between world leaders are now judged on whether one hangs up on the other or not. In this very uncertain, unreal, unpredictable world some constants are needed, and standing up for the traditional liberal values that have made New Zealand the country it is is amongst those constants. It is time to recognise diversity.

We had a wonderful display marred by one or two incidents in the last 24 to 48 hours of what New Zealand can be at its best: people coming together to celebrate our shared heritage, our background—what we have in common by virtue of the fact that we reside on these islands. We should never ever shy away from standing up for those things, because if we do what we do is we yield to prejudice, we yield to intolerance, we yield to bigotry. There has been too much of that in evidence around the world over the last couple of years and it is little wonder that the doomsday clock now ticks at just 3 minutes to 12.

All of this brings the focus back to being about what Governments can do to benefit the people whom they are elected to represent—a people-centred approach to policy that builds on our respect for each other, our traditional sense of value, and creates opportunities for families to thrive and for communities to grow and become more powerful and vibrant. I want this afternoon to throw out just four ideas that could contribute to New Zealand making significant progress in a number of critical areas where we have concerns at the moment.

There has been a lot of talk in this debate already and in this country over the last year or so about housing, and there are huge issues with the supply of adequate and viable housing for young families. Some of those are land-use issues. Some of those are capacity constraint issues. Some of them are financing issues. One step that the Government could take at no cost would be to allow young families, young couples—recipients of Working for Families—to capitalise on an annual basis their Working for Families entitlement to go towards the cost of either bridging the deposit gap or meeting their housing costs. That is a very simple concept. It comes at no cost because the money is money they are already receiving. It is simply advanced and paid in a lump sum for housing purposes, and I think that would make a significant contribution to many struggling young families at the moment who want to know—forget the niceties and the details of where the house might be; they are not interested in that—how they can even afford to think about a house. Here is one step that could be taken to make that a possibility.

We talk a lot about our clean, green environment and preserving it—and rightly so—and I think there are a couple of steps we could easily take now that would give effect to that and send a signal for future generations that would be very powerful. Why not impose a levy of $25 on every visitor coming to New Zealand, to support the conservation estate, to make sure that the walks, the track, the huts, and the infrastructure are maintained? That would raise about $75 million a year and that would free up other resources within Vote Conservation for the protection of endangered species and other areas of critical concern, and it would be a signal that we care for our future and are determined to ensure that our environment is best protected and best enhanced and best able to be enjoyed by those who visit.

At the same time there is a huge push today to promote greater use of electric vehicles, and a lot of worthy steps have been taken. I understand that since the end of last year there has been a charging network literally from North Cape to Bluff. But the problem is still an access one for people being able to buy that electric vehicle. And what United Future proposes is that the Government set up a $5 million fund for the purchase of such vehicles—cars, scooters, or even bicycles. That would be up to $5,000 for each individual—or one-third of the total cost being able to be claimed—offset against the cost of that vehicle.

Let me give you an example. The best scenario I can think of is the purchase of a Nissan Leaf, which could cost around $15,000 second-hand. Under this policy a person would be able to claim $5,000 of that grant towards the purchase of that vehicle. What the scheme would do would be to fund approximately a further thousand electric cars a year coming on to the road, and that would be very beneficial for all of the environmental progress, for the use of electric vehicles, for the protection and enhancement of our wider natural environment. It would not cost very much but the benefit would be huge for New Zealanders.

I want to go to the other end of the scale now and pick up some comments made by my colleague to my left, when he spoke about superannuation.

Grant Robertson: Not to your left, Peter.

Hon PETER DUNNE: No, he is not to my left. It was a figurative comment, I assure you. He is probably way off beyond the Labour Party in the solar system when it comes to that. Never mind. He made some comments about superannuation. I want to come back to something that United Future has proposed for years, which is still the most viable solution to superannuation, and that is to take the choice out of the Government’s hands and place it back with the recipient—Flexi Super—allowing people the choice of whether they take a discounted rate of superannuation from age 60 or an enhanced rate if they defer to the age of 70. What that does is it gives people control over their own lives, over their own futures, and they can make their plans based on their circumstances and their assessment of them.

Bear in mind that increasingly most people have access to KiwiSaver; more will in the future. So the combination of compulsory KiwiSaver and Flexi Super does give people a good package for their retirement. It puts a peg in the cost. It does not cut the cost of superannuation but it allows it to plateau at around existing levels, and it ensures that people, as they live longer and more healthily, can continue to live productive lives.

The Prime Minister made a couple of references in his statement to the virtue of stable and reliable Government in uncertain times. I want to reiterate that virtue, because a lot of the success that New Zealand has achieved in recent years, where we have become the envy of a number of other countries that say to us “How did you do that? We can’t imagine being able to do these things in our country.”, has come about because the Government has been stable and reliable right through the 2000s—not just this current Government but its predecessor as well. That stability and reliability has occurred because of its support partners.

So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I see you are giving me the evil eye or the winding hand to conclude. I will certainly conclude by saying that this is an important year for New Zealand to stand up for its traditional values of tolerance, respect for diversity, openness, and globalism. I will do all I can during this parliamentary term and beyond to promote those virtues.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Good afternoon, Mr Deputy Speaker. Happy New Year. It is wonderful to see you in the House—wonderful to be back in this incredibly important Chamber for our country’s governance. I thought I might start today by telling you a little bit about my summer holidays.

Grant Robertson: The veges are good.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not referring to the veges, but thank you, Grant. I thought I would talk about my trip, actually, down to Hokitika during the summer break, where I had the opportunity to check in on how the people of—sorry, Kaikōura, to check in on how the people are going with the Kaikōura earthquakes and the work that was being done to open the roads, to open the harbour, and to get Kaikōura back on its feet again. It was great to see the people of Kaikōura bouncing back rapidly from the challenges of late last year. I was very, very impressed not just with what they were doing but with the work of all the agencies and the contractors helping them get their town back on its feet.

I also went to the West Coast because there was a big announcement on 26 January on ultra-fast broadband, where ultra-fast broadband was extended to 151 more towns across New Zealand—151 more small towns. I had a bit to do with setting up the ultra-fast broadband initiative, and at the start of setting it up it was almost beyond our dreams that small towns like Reefton, Rūnanga, and Hokitika would get the opportunity to have fibre to their homes. I had the privilege of being in Westport when we announced to the people of Westport gathered at the Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus there that not just some time but very, very soon Westport would get ultra-fast broadband, and they value that because it is all about their economic future. It was not just broadband that day. I then drove down to Greymouth and visited the site where the Grey Base Hospital is being constructed by this Government, supplying medical facilities that are not just modern but are state of the art—state of the art—for the future of the medical support of the West Coasters.

I then also drove over the Taramakau Bridge, where this Government is committing to a brand new Taramakau Bridge. So the gentleman whom I talked to in Hokitika, who had to stop and guide a visitor across the current single-lane road-rail bridge because they were worried that there might be a train coming the other way, will not have to do that again because they will have a brand new road bridge on the West Coast. This is happening in regional economies up and down this country because of this Government’s investment in regional growth.

But that is not it. That is not it at all. This Government is focused on growing the economy. Just last week we saw New Zealand post a record number of people in employment. We have never had 2½ million people in jobs before, and just last week we posted that for the first time. We now have the third-largest rate of employment in the developed world—the third-largest rate of employment in the developed world.

Of course, it is not just about the economy; it is about, for example, public services. At his state of the nation address we saw an announcement by the Prime Minister of an additional 1,125 police staff over the next 4 years—a $503 million investment in public services for a growing country. Then last weekend, just before Waitangi Day, I was at Waitangi on the Friday for the Iwi Chairs Forum, and also for the Northland Regional Growth update where Simon Bridges announced that two new bridges at Matakohe, plus Taipā, plus Kaeō will be under construction this year—meaning, of course, that Mr Bridges lives up to his name yet again. That was all before 6 February, Waitangi Day—that is just what I have seen before 6 February, Waitangi Day, of the Government’s action in 2017.

Then, of course, we had our new Prime Minister, Bill English, talking in Auckland yesterday at the Waitangi Day celebrations about the future of the Treaty, about the vision for the future of the partnership between Māori and non-Māori, and doing it in a way that even impressed some of the more cynical journalists who were along for the ride yesterday.

Grant Robertson: Careful—careful!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Just a few of them—most of them are not cynical, Grant. So what was the Opposition doing during this time? Well, I had time to keep an eye on them too, in between tending the garden and doing all these other things. I did tune in to their state of the nation speech—the all-combined Labour-Greens state of the nation speech on the feed on Facebook. I was one of the 24 people who took time out of their day to tune in to the newsfeed, the livestream of the Labour-Greens state of the nation. I listened for the messages and I listened for the vision, for not just—actually, any announcement whatsoever would have been good. I listened for it and this is what I heard. Broadly, it could be summed up across the two speeches as (1) “We don’t like the Government.” Well, that is sort of a given. You are the Opposition and that is sort of the job, actually. And (2) “You shouldn’t like the Government.” That was their second point. So, “We don’t like the Government. You, the public, shouldn’t like the Government.”, and (3) “Can we have a turn, please?” That was it. That was the whole afternoon: (1) “We don’t like the Government.”; (2) “You shouldn’t like the Government.”; and (3) “We want a turn, please.”

It is no policy. There were no ideas. It was unbelievable. At the start of election year, the two biggest Opposition parties came together to say nothing, except that they could work together, which is sort of news. To be fair, that is news. The idea of Labour and the Greens actually working together is news, and, I think, pretty exciting in its own wee way. So maybe that is an opportunity. Maybe that is what they achieved out of that. However, I do have news for them: the ability to work together is a necessary, but not sufficient, ground for people to vote for you. It is generally seen as necessary, but insufficient. Saying “We can talk to each other.” is generally not enough. I do appreciate it is a big step forward, but it is not enough.

And then, sadly, out of the victory of sorts that was their ability to work together and talk to each other, we had an unfortunate breakdown of communication.

Tim Macindoe: Oh no! Tell us.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes, we had a couple of captain’s calls, I think they are called, which did not work out for “Captain Little”. Firstly, we had what is known as the Greg O’Connor call, and suddenly—and it is completely unrelated. It is completely unrelated. The Greg O’Connor call happened and then, suddenly, there are no electorate deals between Labour and the Greens. There has been talk of electorate deals for months, and then, suddenly, Greg O’Connor is a Labour Party candidate and, weirdly, there will be no electorate deals. There will be no electorate deals.

That was the first captain’s call. The second one, which I thought was inspired, was bringing back Willie Jackson—bringing back Willie Jackson. The future of the Labour Party is the Alliance party. Labour brought back Willie Jackson to show that it was all coming back into a broad tent, except nobody told Poto Williams. Nobody told Poto Williams. So the Greg O’Connor captain’s call managed to upset the Green Party, and then the Willie Jackson call upset the Labour Party, and it has not even had the Laila Harré call yet. Well, she has made the call. She has rejoined the Labour Party. She has seen the future of the Labour Party, which is the Alliance party.

All I can say to that is I was talking to some of our campaign people the other day, and I thought to myself: “The Labour-Greens boat has come back. It has to come back. We have to bring back the boat with the red people and the green people all rowing against each other, because 3 years on nothing has changed.” Despite the fact that they devoted their whole state of the nation—not just speeches but an extravaganza, I am reliably informed—extravaganza to saying “We could work together.”, within a few days they could not work together.

2017 has started and, I have got to say, it looks a little like Groundhog Day at this point. We have—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member’s time has expired.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): They say that leadership is about priorities, and I am not 100 percent sure the Prime Minister has got his priorities right, because he devoted 10 minutes of his time to listening to Steven Joyce. If there is any indication that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has his priorities wrong, it is that.

But it was an interesting thing that happened in New Zealand towards the beginning of last week. New Zealanders recoiled in horror at the sight of the President of a great country, the United States of America, instituting a policy—the so-called Muslim ban—that runs absolutely counter to what this country stands for: a spirit of tolerance and acceptance, and a spirit of inclusion, of openness, and of accepting the world’s most vulnerable people into your nation.

New Zealanders right across the political spectrum, including people who are not even that interested in politics, recoiled in horror at seeing that kind of policy implemented, and they looked to their new Prime Minister, and what did he do? He blinked. He froze. For 2 days, there was nothing—not a word. The media had to chase him down. He was on holiday for Auckland Anniversary Day. It is a hell of a long way from Dipton, and even further from Messines Road in Karori, in some ways. He froze. He was not there. He did not stand up.

In contrast, here is what somebody else said: “In a world of turmoil when we seem to be going backwards at an alarming speed, New Zealand must stand up and be counted amongst the mature and civilised nations who know that the only way forward is tolerance.” That was Andrew Little. That is leadership. Andrew Little stood up and said that New Zealand can do two things in the face of this. We can fulfil our destiny as a country that stands up to bullies and welcomes people by doubling our refugee quota. He also said that we could stand up, stick our neck up, and say something to world leaders. Bill English was not there, and that is because New Zealand has got a Prime Minister at the moment but it does not have a leader.

Just imagine what would have happened with Norman Kirk when he faced down French nuclear testing, David Lange when it came to warship visits and a nuclear-free New Zealand, or even Helen Clark when it came to the very issue of refugees on the Tampa, or be it with Iraq. That is New Zealand leaders standing up. Bill English, faced with his first challenge on that, blinks, freezes, takes a focus group, comes back a few days later, and finally says something. That is not leadership. It is not standing up for New Zealand’s values. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, the former American politician, he ain’t no John Key.

Bill English ain’t no John Key, and that is clear every single day to New Zealanders who have backed John Key—and we have to acknowledge that they have—for the last few elections because they backed a leader they believed in. That is not the person I saw here today. The person I saw here today was weak and without vision and without a plan for New Zealand for the future, and that question of leadership is what New Zealanders will look for. They will look for a leader who stands up and does not run away, and “Run Away Bill” is what we are seeing.

Andrew Little stood up at Waitangi; Bill English ran away. We have got a Mt Albert by-election going on, and the National Party, under Bill English, ran away—does not want to be part of it. The Pike River families came here, as they had been promised by the National Government that somebody would look after them and would do everything that it took. They came here, and Bill English ran away.

We cannot have a “run away” Prime Minister. We need a leader. The only signs of leadership I have seen this year have come from Andrew Little, with our support partners in the Greens. What we have seen from Bill English is that he has failed that key test of leadership.

In his speech today Bill English talked about the long-term interests of New Zealand.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s right.

GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right, Dr Smith. What is it about the long-term interests of New Zealand that sees $1.7 billion cut from the health budget? What is it about the long-term interests of New Zealand that sees education funding for schools frozen and parents having to reach deeper and deeper into their pockets? What is it about the long-term interests of New Zealand that means that since 2009, the National Government has not put one cent into the Superannuation Fund?

Those members are stealing from future generations. They made a promise that when the books got back into surplus—and that took them a bit longer than they thought—they would restart contributions to the Superannuation Fund. They have not, and future generations are now $18 billion worse off because this Government has not restarted contributions to the Superannuation Fund—$18 billion has been stolen from the next generation of New Zealanders. We hear line after line from the National Government about its amazing management of the economy. I will tell you what is irresponsible about managing the economy: $18 billion taken off the next generation. Pushing a problem away is not looking after the long-term interests of New Zealand. Those members are looking after their own short-term interests.

What we need is a Government that is prepared to invest in our future, and that is the priority for a Labour Government. We are not prepared to sit around relying on an economy built on a sandcastle of record household debt and speculation in the housing market, and chasing the gold rush. Now it is tourism; it was dairy. We actually need an economy that is founded on a sustainable, long-term plan for New Zealand, an economy that recognises—let us just start with this—that education and investment in education is the most critical indicator of economic success for a country.

Look around the world and you will see that the countries that succeed, the countries that have wealth, and the countries that have good quality of life are those that invest heavily in education. If you wanted any lesson about how this is not a Government for the long-term interests of New Zealand, take a look at the figures for those young people not in employment, not in education, and not in training—the so-called “neets”: it is 90,000. That is more people than the population of Palmerston North. These are 15 to 24-year-olds who are not working, who are not earning, or who are not learning—

Kris Faafoi: And what did he say about them?

GRANT ROBERTSON: —he told us they were “pretty damn hopeless”, those people—but the Government ignored that. Unemployment went up last week: it is at 5.2 percent. That is not success. There are 90,000 young people not earning or learning. That is not success.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: 130,000 new jobs.

GRANT ROBERTSON: We have the plan, Dr Smith, to do something about it. We have spent the last 2 years listening to New Zealanders about what is needed to make sure that young people have success in the future. That means 3 years’ free post - secondary school training and education. No one will leave school not knowing what they are going to be able to do next. Every young person in New Zealand will have the training and will have the opportunities to adapt to and be part of a new economy.

We are going to make sure that there is proper career guidance in every single school. We are going to make sure that there are programmes like Ready for Work and Gateway, which are targeted and tailored to people who are struggling to work out what to do next and struggling to get the training and the skills they need to get a job. We are going to invest properly in that, and we are going to make sure that apprenticeships are available through our Dole for Apprenticeships scheme. Why not take that up today? Why does the National Government not take that up today? If you are a young person on the dole, let us take that money and give it to an employer as a subsidy to take on an apprentice. We are not prepared to sit back and let 90,000 young people do nothing. This Labour Party is going to prioritise that kind of investment in the future.

Our plan for housing means that all New Zealanders can expect the security that comes with housing. Sometimes when we have the debate about housing it is about the technicalities of how many homes we are going to build—100,000 over 10 years. It is about cracking down on speculators through getting rid of negative gearing, through making sure that those people who are not prepared to come and live here cannot buy an existing house. Let us be clear about what housing really is about: having a home that is yours, or where you are secure in your tenancy, is about building a strong community. Without that, people do feel insecure.

Housing is at the core of what the next Labour Government will do, because it will help provide security. Education and training are at the core of what we will do, because that is about providing opportunity, as is a properly funded public health system. We will make sure that New Zealanders’ values are stood up for and that real leadership comes—and that will come with an Andrew Little - led Government.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): New Prime Minister Bill English has got off to a cracking start, in stark contrast to the confused, disunited, and very messy start to the year that Andrew Little has made. In this contribution I want to contrast the progress and the leadership that the new Prime Minister has made, relative to that mess opposite.

We begin the year with significant international uncertainty. Any Prime Minister who was putting this country’s interests at the forefront would make it their No. 1 priority to connect early with that world. That is why it was absolutely the right choice for Prime Minister Bill English, in the early weeks of January, when most of us were sunning on the beaches, to go to London to meet with the new Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, to go to Brussels and meet with Jean-Claude Juncker, in terms of the EU and the instability and issues that were there, and to meet with Angela Merkel in Germany. You see, at the same time as Andrew Little was lying on the beaches, Bill English was already out of the starting blocks, looking after New Zealand’s interests.

Then we move to Rātana and Waitangi Day. What I saw at Rātana, and what I saw at Waitangi, was the most comfortable Prime Minister I have seen in two decades, engaging with the issues that matter in respect of good race relations in this country. You see, Bill English is moving race relations into a new chapter where we can honestly celebrate Waitangi Day. He had his finger absolutely on the pulse of New Zealand public opinion in refusing to be part of the fiasco that has become part of Te Tii Marae.

I contrast that with the contradictory messages from Andrew Little: in one breath criticising the Prime Minister for not going to Te Tii Marae, and then saying in the next breath that if he were Prime Minister on 6 February 2018 he might not go. That is just so symptomatic of the lack of vision and of the confusion within Labour around something as important as our national day. I stood yesterday with our Prime Minister at the maraes in both east and west Auckland, and felt a sense of optimism amongst New Zealanders about the future of race relations. The contributions of our new Prime Minister on the issues of enterprise for iwi and on the issues of whānau show that he has got his finger on the pulse of the issues that matter for Māori.

Then we came to the Prime Minister’s announcement of the date of 23 September for the general election this year. Again, the Prime Minister was showing leadership, in the very good culture that has been set by his predecessor John Key, in being open and honest and straightforward about that most important of institutions, and that is the election of this Parliament by democratic means.

I contrast it: how much notice of elections did Labour give, when it was in Government? Labour used it to play political games. Labour gave just 6 weeks’ notice of the election in 2002, and just 8 weeks’ notice in 2005 and 2008. In stark contrast, the approach that this Prime Minister has taken shows real leadership in not playing games with our democratic institutions, but being fair and upfront with New Zealand at the beginning of the year as to the date of our general election.

Can I contrast that with the moves inside the Labour Party. If there is anything that we know about the world, beginning this year of 2017, it is that it is an uncertain and unstable place that requires stable government, and we do not even have stability within the Labour Party. I say this to my colleagues: can any member of my team remember a time in the last 10 years when a new candidate has been announced for the National Party and, on the same day, attacked by their own colleagues? I have checked the record: there have been over 30 talented candidates joining our parliamentary team here in Parliament, and I challenge members opposite to tell me once—when on the very day Willie Jackson is announced as the candidate, the Labour Party is ripping his guts apart in public. Labour pretends it is fit to govern the country, and it cannot even govern itself.

Then you come to the core issues of policy. Again, the contradictions stand all over the place. I ask members opposite where they stand on important policy like charter schools, which is about getting kids ahead. Willie Jackson is a strong advocate, and is now a member of your team. So what is it? Is it the Labour Party’s bowing to the teacher unions and the opposition to innovation and education that is going to rule, or the championing of Willie Jackson for those sorts of causes?

Then you get the same contradictions in Whānau Ora, for which Willie Jackson is an advocate because of what this Government is doing with the Māori Party, but Labour has pledged to rip it up. It does not know what it stands for.

And then we come to the state of the nation speeches where New Zealanders were looking for substance from their political leaders on issues that matter. You had a speech from Bill English that was not only tough on crime but tough on the causes of crime.

I can say, from my community in Nelson, that the additional 1,100 police staff, the extra investment of $500 million into additional resources for Police and Justice—but the real visionary part of that speech from Bill English was not just a debate about putting resources into the Public Service but expecting results from the public sector: results in terms of crime reduction, results in terms of responsiveness of key public services, like the 111 number and the proposed non-emergency number as well.

I contrast that with the warm fuzzy and sizzle that you got from Labour and the Greens. Did they answer any one of the substantive questions of contradictions of policy between Labour and the Greens and what they would do in Government? Because there are over 20 questions that the media have rightly asked: what would a Labour-Green Government do—would it be Green Party policy or Labour policy, were they privileged to form the next Government of New Zealand? They could not answer, and a Government-in-waiting that cannot answer those basic questions is not fit to govern.

I want to finish with Pike, because today the Leader of the Opposition again showed that he is unfit to govern and riddled with contradictions. We have got over 650 pages of very detailed analysis showing that it is not safe for men to enter the drift of that mine. But here is the contradiction: the Leader of the Opposition has argued, in one brief, that it is safe, but in the next he has argued that we have to exempt it from the very workplace safety laws that we put in place in response to that disaster. Both of those positions cannot be true. Either it is safe and you can do it under the law—that, noteworthy, Mr Little said was too weak—or it is not safe. His position on that issue shows that he has failed the most basic tests of leadership and that his contradictory position shows just how weak and hopeless the Opposition is.

I am proud to be part of this Bill English - led Government, with the vision and the leadership that it is providing for New Zealand, and I am looking forward to the election later this year.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member’s time has expired.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Just as I start I suggest that the previous speaker, the Hon Nick Smith, get some of his names right. He was mentioning the head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and I am afraid his pronunciation would be a little bit embarrassing if it was in town this week. Maybe I could lead him in terms of the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, so that he does not call him “Tuhsk”. I am hoping that when Bill English was over there in Europe meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, supposedly missing out on holidays, he was talking about climate change, among other things.

Maybe the Minister for the Environment might want to hear this: New Zealand’s effort around climate change is going to hell in a handcart. Unfortunately, it has been intentional, in part, by this Government for quite some time. It goes down the unsustainable in terms of agriculture—it is emissions paradise in agriculture, and yet there are good alternatives. Clearly, often I have spoken in this House about the organic alternative: way less emissions, way less leaching and spoiling of our rivers, but this Government carries on, intent to go down the high-production course, rather than the high-value course, in agriculture.

But there are other areas where it fails in climate change as well. Clearly, transport is one. We have heard from James Shaw in the House today the reminder that this Government would rather go down the diesel propulsion direction for trains, rather than electric. It is crazy stuff.

Just at the end of last week the Environment Court from Auckland made a decision around the emissions of methyl bromide by a new applicant for discharge to air of methyl bromide at the Port of Tauranga—the biggest user of methyl bromide, probably, in the world. Methyl bromide is an ozone depleter. It is worse than some of the fluorocarbons that we work together internationally on to reduce the level of damage to the ozone layer. The Port of Tauranga uses 2.5 percent of the anthropogenic part—the human part—of methyl bromide production in the world. That is 2.5 percent, but it is actually, by volume, something like 7.5 percent on a per-capita basis. New Zealand should be embarrassed.

The judge saw that we were not doing our bit—as we agreed as a country in the Montreal Protocol—in reducing our emissions of methyl bromide. Yes, there is an out for New Zealand. You can use it for phytosanitary purposes, and we must. We must use methyl bromide if there is not a good alternative for killing insects, snakes, or whatever, coming into New Zealand in imported goods, and we must use it for exporting to some countries, but we must recapture it. That judge pointed out that the applicants and other users of methyl bromide in this country—and the forestry industry is totally at fault here, along with the Environmental Protection Authority.

We must stop emitting methyl bromide. We must recapture it. So there is a decision that is admirable. This Government must take notice of it, and quickly starting recapture of methyl bromide fumigations. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): This is a split call—Denise Roche.

DENISE ROCHE (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call for the Greens on this debate. The Greens believe in a fair New Zealand, a place where we care for people, where we care for the planet, and where we are responsible and prudent stewards of the resources that we have, and I was disturbed to hear in the Prime Minister’s speech today a real lack of vision and solutions for some of the pressing problems of our time.

I was looking to hear how the Prime Minister and his Government think we should be working to ensure that in this country all our children and all our families are thriving. I did not hear a solution from the Government for the 40,000 people in New Zealand who are living in their cars, in sheds, and in garages. I did not hear that. That lack of vision for me is increasingly worrying.

I did not hear from the Government the solution for increasing wages so that people could actually live on what they are earning. There are several hundred thousand people in this country who are just getting by on the incomes that they can squeeze out of their employers. What I did understand is that there will be an increase in the minimum wage up to $15.75. That means that 120,000 people who are currently on the minimum wage will have an hourly increase of 25c, but you simply cannot support a family on this. Increasingly, it is working families who are ending up in those homeless situations, and are reliant on food banks, as well.

This Government has fostered a low-wage economy, and that, I think, is something that we should all be concerned about. We have created a narrative. Helen Kelly used to call it the narrative that the employer was the benefactor and the employee was the recipient of that charity. What that has done is it has increased the vulnerability of workers, to the point where they cannot ask for or demand or negotiate decent working conditions and wages. Some of the most vulnerable workers in this country are those who are on temporary visa contracts. They are at additional risk of exploitation by unscrupulous employers, and that is happening more and more. There is research from several sources that suggests that about one in five people on temporary working visas are actually being exploited, and that is just not good enough. The solution to this is the redistribution of wealth. I know it sounds terribly radical, but actually what that means is fair wages that are negotiated by workers with their unions.

We support a fair and transparent immigration system. What we have seen from this Government is a two-tier immigration system. We have the situation where this Government will pass on citizenship to a multibillionaire, and in just about the same breath will move to deport nine students who have paid thousands and thousands of dollars to come to this country to study. In the Prime Minister’s statement it does say the Government wants to increase the economic contribution from international students. That is fine, but actually we need to be treating them fairly, and so the Government should be looking at the deportation orders, and exercising the same discretion that it used to welcome Peter Thiel to lift the deportation orders from those nine students, who are currently seeking sanctuary in a Ponsonby church. Thank you.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of the Prime Minister’s statement for this Parliament, for this year, and for the people of our nation. This year is going to be a busy and ambitious year in terms of legislation to bring changes through into this nation that will continue to undergird and support New Zealanders.

Just for the sake of the previous speaker, Denise Roche, and her comments, there are a number of levers that the Government can utilise to improve the well-being of New Zealanders. The minimum wage is one. Secondly, last year, for the first time in 42 years, $790 million was allocated to families with children who are on benefits and who are at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. That is another lever that this Government has utilised in order to ensure that those most vulnerable are supported. We hear time and time again from the left about the borrowings of this Government, but when we went through that worst recession in 60 years and we borrowed money week after week to protect those people, to shield them and protect them from those sharp edges of recession, there was not one word of thanks. There was not one word of acknowledgment that we used the equity and the strength of this nation, often won by strong business, in order to be able to protect those most vulnerable.

It is also good to see, and important to acknowledge, that the average annual wage is now almost $59,000 a year. That is up more than $12,000 since we came into office—double the rate of inflation. Average wages are expected to reach $66,000 by mid-2021. So all we hear from the Opposition is an alternative fact regarding the growth and the opportunity that New Zealanders are getting under this Government. I have to say that it is 8 years of solid and careful management of this country that has enabled us to do that. We were one of the first developed countries in the world to get back to surplus after the global financial crisis, with a $1.8 billion surplus last year. We are on track to reduce Government debt to around 20 percent of GDP by 2020. That is good by anybody’s standards. We are rated first in the world for prosperity and ease of doing business, first equal for anti-corruption, and second for quality of Government. Those are all statistics that have been hard fought for by this Government and by the people of New Zealand, who, through some very difficult and challenging times, proved to be resilient and proved to work hard.

I take my hat off to business owners, because they are the ones who generate the job growth. They are the ones in changing circumstances. They are the ones, when markets are unstable or uncertain around the world, who have to take the risks. I know business owners who have increased their own borrowings against their own house in order to pay their staff. We take our hat off to those sorts of employers, those sorts of people who care for the people who work for them and who are prepared to invest in them at their own cost and, at times, at their own peril.

This Government backs New Zealanders. We back those people who take those risks to create those new jobs and those new businesses. I am pleased that we are No. 1 in the world for the ease of doing business, because what that means is that those business people have a Government that supports them. They have a Government that is facing them, that does not have its back against them but is listening to what they need in terms of being able to run their businesses.

This year we have a further $126 million reduction in ACC levies. Since 2012 that equates to $2 billion less a year that we are taking as a Government in ACC levies. That is good for New Zealand individuals and workers, and that is good for New Zealand business. We do that instead of gathering and gathering. We take only that which is necessary to offer back that strong and robust system of accident compensation.

We also back New Zealanders who need the Government’s support to improve their lives. As I said before, there was that $790 million package that came into play on 1 April last year to help those New Zealanders who need support.

We would have to say that attainment through education is another huge gain for this Government and this country, yet all we hear is criticism and alternative facts from the Opposition. We have seen NCEA achievements go from 68 percent up into the 80s. We have continued to see Māori achievement in NCEA be surpassed by only a very few. There are huge gains. There are huge gains in those places—

Carmel Sepuloni: Then why are there 90,000 young people not in work or education, an increase of 20,000 since last year?

JONATHAN YOUNG: —which have made tremendous efforts, as that member will know, in order to support young people into education. Of course, she will know great organisations like Taranaki Futures that are working very hard with students in high school and school leavers to help them gain trade qualifications. I remember the first year that that organisation worked with young men and women, young boys and girls from high school. Every single one of those students who were engaged in that programme went into an apprenticeship. That is a community that is pulling together and proving these things.

During this time we are seeing huge numbers of people who ordinarily would not come to New Zealand, because they would rather stay in Australia, come back to our country—New Zealanders—because they see this as the land of opportunity. If there is one phrase that I would love to see in 2017, it is “increased opportunity”. The word “opportunity” should be a word that we become very comfortable and familiar with, because this Government has created a platform under the wise leadership and financial leadership of Bill English, our Prime Minister. He has brought in great policy and great decisions that have given us, right now, a platform that enables us to see this increased opportunity for all New Zealanders.

We know that we live in a fragile world; 2016 saw cataclysmic change across this globe. That is not over yet. We know that for a nation as small as we are—4.5 million to 4.6 million people—living at the very end of the world with the great distance to our markets, we need to be productive, we need to be focused, we need to be deliberate, and we need to be strategic. Eight years of incredible experience on the international stage, 8 years of taking us through some of the most challenging times—whether that be economic or natural cataclysmic events—we know that this Government has experience. This Government has learnt what it is to lead and to govern during stressful times, and this world is in a stressful time.

It is important that we have a Government that is not divided, that is together, that is unified, that is cohesive, that is coherent, and that has very clear policy—oh! Is that not wonderful that we have policy? So far, we have not heard of any policy that has come from the Opposition; all that we hear is how good the vibe is. What we do not need is people jiving to the vibe. What we need are people who are smart, intelligent, strategic, and experienced, and who have got depth, and who know how to make decisions. This is the party. The National-led Government is able to do that, as we continue to lead this nation through reduction of costs for business, through the support, where needed, for New Zealanders, and through supporting those businesses that go out there and take the risk and increase the job opportunities. What we need is a Government that is able to engage internationally across the world and see those relationships fostered so that, indeed, we can see our businesses prosper.

This economy is diversifying. We have tourism now—a burgeoning opportunity for this nation. We are doing much in the regions to see tourism increase. We are doing much to see our regions come together with great plans of growth and development. I am very happy and privileged to stand in support of the Prime Minister’s statement.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): We heard Bill English, the new Prime Minister, in his opening contribution to the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. We have a new Prime Minister, but we do not have a leader. It is leadership that has gone missing from this National Government, and we have gone, in the space of a few short weeks, from the “Key Team” to the B-team. It is sad to see. The really telling example of Bill English’s leadership deficit was when he turned up at Rātana this year and gave the people at Rātana a lecture on small government, and said to them that National had reached the limits of what Government could do—unbelievable.

Māori homeownership under this National Government is falling through the floor. Māori homeownership is now less than half the rate of the general population. Māori have been hammered by National’s housing crisis. They are four times more likely under this National Government to be waiting for a State house, and five times more likely than the general population to be homeless, according to the last census. Bill English says he has reached the limits of what Government can do. He has run up the white flag. He has got no ideas. He has got no appetite for reform.

By contrast, what did Andrew Little say at Rātana? He said: “We will work with you.” We will use KiwiBuild to build 100,000 affordable homes for first-home buyers and, in doing that, we will house thousands of Māori families in their first home. We will partner with iwi and other Māori organisations. We will look at collective mortgages. We will look at innovative ways that we can work together to drive up the Māori rate of homeownership. That is leadership, and that is the kind of thing that we have not heard from Bill English over the last few weeks.

It is hard to lead and be courageous and tackle the real challenges and problems that this country faces when you are in denial, but denial is the National Government’s mind-set when it comes to the No. 1 problem, the biggest challenge facing New Zealand today, and that is the housing crisis. It was appropriate that we kicked off the start of the new year with a new report from Demographia, the international thinktank that monitors and indexes housing affordability. It was a real wake-up call to the 8 years of failure and excuses that passes for a housing policy under this National Government. The Demographia report showed that once again New Zealand ranks as one of the most unaffordable countries for housing in the world. It showed that Auckland, our biggest city, ranks behind only Sydney, Vancouver, and Hong Kong for unaffordability—that is, the cost of purchasing a house relative to income. That, more than anything, shows that 8 years of failure of this National Government in the housing area has made this country an international basket case for housing.

But did Bill English have anything to say about housing in his state of the nation speech? Not a word. He offered no hope to the tens of thousands of frustrated Kiwi families who only want a crack at the Kiwi Dream of owning their own home. He had nothing to say to the more than half of the New Zealand population who live in rental housing these days, who are facing, because of the state of the housing market, the most astronomical rent increases. In Auckland, according to the most recent data from TradeMe, average rents have gone up by more than $5,000 in the last 5 years. How can working families find an extra $5,000 to pay the rent? No wonder—no wonder—the leading statisticians and analysts tell us that it is the housing crisis, it is housing costs, that are driving the big increases in poverty and inequality that we are seeing. But Bill English had nothing to say about this in his state of the nation speech. He had nothing to say, no hope to give to people who are living in squalor because of his housing crisis.

I want to mention the case of Auckland woman Tracey Penny, who featured in a Television New Zealand story recently that was brought to light thanks to the excellent work by my outstanding colleague Carmel Sepuloni. Tracey Penny has been on the waiting list for more than a year to get a State house. She is a tetraplegic after a childhood accident. She has been living in a van for the last 6 weeks with her partner and a 4-year-old toddler. It is completely unacceptable that this should be allowed to go on in New Zealand today, but for a year she has been languishing on the State housing list because in west Auckland there just are not any available State houses. There is no emergency housing, for people like Tracey Penny and people like 84-year-old navy veteran Frederick Shimmen, who was living in a shed in my electorate, a shed that was open to the weather. He was sharing makeshift cooking and bathroom facilities with several other tenants who were paying hundreds of dollars a week to rent buses and a shared shed and caravans on a property in west Auckland. This is the face of Bill English’s housing crisis, because Bill English has been the architect of what passes for a housing policy under this National Government.

It is all about leadership, and when Bill English said that they had reached the limit of what a Government could do, he exposed the bankruptcy of ambition and the bankruptcy of ideas. What is the result of this? The result is that families have been shut out of homeownership. People are living in squalor, and all the Government can do is tell them to be patient. All over New Zealand, people are facing steep rent rises, and not just in Auckland. In regional centres like Tauranga, Wellington, Hamilton, and, actually, all over New Zealand we are seeing rent increases of 10 to 15 percent a year.

What is the Government doing? It trots out an endless series of announcements that are designed to make it look as if it is doing something about the housing crisis, but in fact it is just an elaborate series of excuses designed to throw people off the scent and provide cover for a deliberate policy of inaction. Nick Smith’s vacant Crown land policy, which the Government has been talking up for the last few months, has resulted in not a single new house being built since it was announced a year and a half ago. He promised that new houses would be built by the end of last year, but they are still in the planning stages and doing earthworks. He promised 500 hectares of land would be available; he will be lucky—on the latest information that we have got under the Official Information Act—to deliver even 1/20th of that.

Bill English has been going around talking up this great Government-backed building programme and talking about a building boom. Well, there is no boom—there is no boom. We need 16,000 houses a year just to keep up with population growth in Auckland—16,000 new dwellings. The latest data shows they have only just consented 10,000 in the last year. The deficit of 30,000 homes that has built up in Auckland under National’s watch is increasing by 6,000 a year. It is getting worse. Is there any wonder that house prices continue to outstrip people’s ability to pay them?

What will Labour do? We have a housing policy that is jammed full of constructive, positive solutions. We are going to build 100,000 affordable homes. We are going to raise the build rate to what it was in the early 2000s and what it was under Norman Kirk in the 1970s. But the National Government says it cannot be done, because it lacks ambition for New Zealand. We are going to ban foreign speculators from buying existing homes, just like they do in Australia—a policy that has channelled $30 billion into the construction of new homes in the last year. We are going to improve rental standards and make sure that every rental home in New Zealand is warm and dry, because it is not good enough, in Labour’s view, that 50,000 kids are hospitalised every year with infectious and respiratory diseases.

These are our policies. We are going to reform the planning system to make it more pro-growth, to encourage people to build more without sacrificing the quality of our built environment, and we are not going to continue to sell State houses. National is selling 3,000 State houses in Christchurch, even John Key’s childhood home, when it should be building thousands and thousands of extra State houses. That is the kind of leadership, that is the courage, that is the determination and the ambition that Andrew Little’s Labour-led Government will show when we fix the housing crisis.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is great to be back in the House. I know many of my colleagues enjoyed a very good break over the summer period, but I spent most of my time back in the electorate. Given the difficulties of getting around, it takes a lot more time to cover the area, but we are in pretty good shape. In fact, we are in excellent shape in terms of the economy, and I think about why that is important. It gives us choices—the fact that we have that ability to make some economic choices. We have got forecast economic growth of 3 percent per annum over the next 5 years, and over that period we expect net debt to fall to 18.8 percent of GDP. That is a phenomenal performance. When we set that target some time ago, it seemed like a pretty difficult target to reach. However, it seems it is in sight. But, as I said, that gives us choices. Despite spending something like $18 billion on the rebuild of Christchurch, the Government is able to have its books in the shape to get its net debt down below 20 percent of GDP, and I think that when you consider where other countries around the world are sitting with their positions on their books, ours looks pretty good.

But I want to actually focus on another rebuild, which is the rebuild in my electorate following the Kaikōura earthquake, and also to pay tribute to the people who have worked very, very hard over this period. In the Hurunui area the roads are pretty much back to the shape they were in pre-earthquake due to the phenomenal amount of work that has gone in, particularly by their contractors, and particularly Downer EDI, which did a fantastic job getting the roads back up and running—the inland road notwithstanding, which the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) took over. But as for the other local roads, some of them were really badly damaged, and it makes a tremendous difference for people to be able to get around when these roads get back up and running again. I think what has to be borne in mind for most people is that Hurunui, although it is a reasonable size geographically, has quite a small number of ratepayers. In fact, it has the most road per head of population in New Zealand of any council. So it is quite an impost on that council to get those roads up and running again.

I also want to talk about the inland road that was, obviously, taken over by NZTA. The work that was done on those roads by the crews right up through Christmas and New Year, to ensure not only that they were open but that they remained open as much as possible, was phenomenal. I have talked to some engineers on the road, one of whom has interrupted her PhD to work on this rebuild, and she told me she had had 4 or 5 days off—and this was early in January—since 16 November. So when you count the days that are the statutory days, she worked pretty hard, as most of those people did. Downer EDI actually had a crew working on Christmas Day to keep those roads open. So I really want to pay them due credit.

The marina reinstatement is going on really well at the moment, and it is phenomenal, if anyone gets a chance to see those diggers working, deepening the harbour. It is quite a challenging job, and they will be putting a coffer-dam in soon so they can get in and actually deepen the marine area rather than the channel. It is quite amazing progress that they are making. State Highway 1 north—I think most of the TV photos and the photos that you see in the newspapers just do not do it justice. The huge slip at Ōhau Point is over 1,000 feet high, and when you see the helicopters working, putting sluicing on those slips, and you see how small the quite large helicopters look dropping 800 to 1,000 litres of water on the slip and it looks, really, a bit more than a teaspoon going on there, it really puts it into scale. They are doing a good job. They are actually targeting it, and they are directed by engineers who are pointing out the areas where they need to put that water. So it is all targeted, and it is doing a fantastic job. They cannot get on to the road until they make it safe, and I think we would all agree that that is the right thing to do

We also have some damage in Ward and Seddon, but those areas are recovering quite well, and there has been quite a lot of damage done in the wine industry in Marlborough, to wine tanks, but, fortunately, that is all in hand.

I really have great pleasure in standing here to support the Prime Minister’s motion today and the confidence in the Government, which is doing a fantastic job in the rebuild after the Kaikōura earthquake. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to take part in this debate to support the Prime Minister’s statement. I wish a very happy New Year to you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I know it is already February, but just recently I was at a function and a gentleman came to me and said it is OK to wish people a happy New Year until June, because it is after that that we start going towards the other end of the year. So keeping that advice in mind, I wish you a very happy New Year.

I have had a great start to 2017 attending varied events in Mount Roskill and a multitude of ethnic events up and down the country. I am very proud to be part of this fabulous Government. This Government is bold and ambitious for New Zealanders. The Safer Communities package, which was announced by the Prime Minister, Bill English, to add 1,125 police officers, which includes 880 front-line police officers, is a great announcement, and the best part of that package is that all districts are going to receive extra front-line officers.

Making communities safer is not just about police numbers, which is hard for the Opposition to understand, because in our package we have a targeted approach that is targeting our regions. We are targeting ethnic communities. For the regions, there are going to be 140 additional police officers. For ethnic communities, we are adding another 20 ethnic liaison officers, as we know that currently our ethnic liaison officers are doing a great job supporting migrant communities in various ways. That is why we are listening to people and want to add another 20 ethnic liaison officers. There is also going to be a 24 hour, 7 day non-emergency number, which is great. People will have access to this number, which is going to be easy to remember.

We are about delivering results. We are about outcomes. We are about doing things that are effective. To see the effectiveness of the work that we do, this National Government is known for setting Better Public Services targets. Even within this package, the Safer Communities package, we have targets. For example, home burglaries have been a concern that has come to me several times. We know that 96 percent of them are already attended, and 86 percent of them are attended within 48 hours. We want to increase that rate to 98 percent, because that is what people want. We are listening to people, and we are acting accordingly.

We also know that there is a market for stolen goods and there is a market for drugs. That is why that kind of crime happens, and that is why we are setting another target, which is to seize assets and cash worth $400 million from gangs and other organised criminal groups. The current figure is $230 million.

As I said, making communities safer is not just about police officers. We are also investing $150 million in our justice system, because that is important to provide additional support to victims and also to hold offenders responsible. Making communities safer is a much, much deeper issue than just police numbers, and that is what we are doing. We understand what communities want, and that is what the Safer Communities package is about.

I know that the other issue, as the National list MP based in Mount Roskill and in Auckland, is housing. That is why we are reminding high-growth councils to apply for funding from the $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund. We have taken several measures to improve the supply of new houses, and slowly we are starting to see some results. Yes, we are starting to see some results in our housing market, which is great news.

We know that New Zealanders know that there are more people in employment under this National Government. It is a record number of 2.5 million in employment. Wages are increasing in a steady way. The minimum wage is being increased under this National Government all the time, and again we are increasing the minimum wage from $15.25 to $15.75 an hour. That is a 3.3 percent increase. This is a big contrast to the previous Labour Government. Kiwis from all around the world now want to come to New Zealand because we have better opportunities here, within New Zealand, under this National Government, whereas under the previous Labour Government, Kiwis were leaving New Zealand, looking for better opportunities overseas. They were leaving at an alarming rate. This National Government, under the leadership of Bill English, is in action. We know what the demand is of a changing and also increasing population. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Can I say a happy New Year to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to the other Speakers of the House. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First. I have to say that I have returned to the House with a little bit of—well, let us say, some—reluctance because the Christmas break did give us an opportunity to reconnect with the communities, put our ear back to the ground, catch up with friends, whānau, and family, and remind ourselves of what it is we are actually in this House for.

I have to say, from listening to some of the drivel that we have been subjected to, the only enlightening moment in this House has been from the New Zealand First leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who, as always, speaks straight from the heart, straight from the shoulder. One of the things I admire is that he actually tells it as it is, and, increasingly, New Zealanders are telling all of my caucus colleagues that they are tired of hearing some of the rhetoric that they have just been listening to over the last hour or so. They want to hear more parliamentarians, more politicians, saying it as it is, speaking their language, articulating what is really happening in the community, and not falling back on a raft of statistics that are actually meaningless when you are sitting in your electorate office, with someone in tears, trying to help them. Those figures are wonderful!

The speech from Bill English here today reminded me of something that I heard over the holiday period from someone who used to be a National Party supporter, who said: “The trouble with the National Party today is it has lost its way. In its endeavour to move to the centre, it has moved left. It has gone left. Worse than that, it has gone left, left, left, to pander to and cater to the Māori Party and others like it who think that they will succeed in this country by emulating the Labour Party.”

It reminds me very much of a speech that I gave down in Southland—first in Gore, and later at the conference—where we actually pointed out that National and Labour are the same. There is no difference. Pepsi and Coke—one in a red wrapper and one in a blue. Pour them both into a clear glass and try to tell the difference. One cannot. This was not me saying it, over the holiday period; it was good, staunch rural folk who used to be card-carrying members of the National Party, who are now joining the New Zealand First Party, and, in actual fact, joining our committees. Tracey Martin has seen this; Richard Prosser has seen it; Ria Bond has seen it; Clayton Mitchell has seen it.

Sarah Dowie: Well, those six would know.

RON MARK: Oh, Sarah Dowie. Is it not wonderful? I am so pleased that member chipped in, because that member needs to go home, stay home, and listen to her people, otherwise that person is actually going to lose her seat. There are people in Invercargill who are telling us that they have had a gutsful of their representation down there.

I listened to Bill English’s speech. I like Bill. He is a good guy. He is a nice guy. A lot of people would actually—you could not say that Mr Bill English, the Prime Minister, is an offensive chap. But he sounded like he was giving one of those Clinton speeches. You know: “It’s about the economy, stupid, and because we’re managing it brilliantly and because we’re such a fine manager of the national economy and of business, we deserve to be re-elected.” Well, hey, newsflash. It is not about the economy any more. People are looking at it and saying: “Look at the gap between the stinking rich and the working-class poor.” They are not just talking about the people living in poverty; they are talking about the people who have a job and cannot make it. These are people who have two jobs and cannot make it. These are families where dad comes home from work and mum goes out to work, and they cannot make it. If this National Government does not get it, stop and spend 5 minutes talking to the cleaners who clean this building. Listen to them. Spend some time with them.

I only have to do one thing, which I do regularly: pick up a hitchhiker. Pick up a hitchhiker and ask them their story. When you have a young man, who is a shearer, do not tell me he cannot work, do not tell me he is lazy, do not tell me that he is work-shy—this is a shearer. Got it? Half the National Party members used to work in shearing sheds, woolsheds, but they would not have a clue what the heck that is, these days. I said: “Where are you going to, bud?”. He said: “I’m going to Carterton.” I said: “I’ll give you a ride. Whereabouts in Carterton?”. He told me it was Moreton Road. I said: “Give me the number, and I will drop you right there.” He said: “Oh, I need to stop at the Sallies.” I asked: “What for?”. He said: “Oh, I’ve got a stove in this backpack and I need some money for the week. I reckon I might get 40 bucks for it.” I said: “Forty bucks? What’s happened?”. He said: “I’ve been living in a caravan for months now, but that last big storm—I had a tree come through and it crushed my caravan.”

He was broke, but he was a shearer, he was a seasonal worker, and we all know that for seasonal workers, part-time workers, under this Government’s administration, when it comes to looking after those working poor, they do not qualify. They end up in a queue. They end up going through the hoops and the loops and putting up with bureaucrats, to get an extra dollar. So what did he do? He takes the portable stove out of his crushed caravan and takes it to the Sallies, to try to cash it in, to get 40 bucks to get by for the rest of the week.

That is real New Zealand, and that is what this election is going to be about—about who represents real New Zealand. It will be people like Tracey Martin, who represents the real New Zealand when it comes to talking education; it will be people like Clayton Cosgrove—Clayton Mitchell. Ah, caught me out. It will be people like Clayton Mitchell, who represents real business people. We have heard all the stuff over here.

Hon Member: That’s a scoop.

RON MARK: Clayton is gone, just like half of the National Government caucus, OK?

I hear this Government talking about how it represents business. Well, I do not know where the members in rural provincial New Zealand are, whom the heck they are listening to—probably their donors; that is probably all. But go and talk to people who own commercial properties in Waipukurau and Waipawa and Woodville and Carterton and Martinborough about the earthquake legislation. Go and talk to them about the occupational health and safety legislation. [Interruption] Mr Hudson—he is wincing right now. He is getting really monkey with me. He does not like what I am saying, because he is hearing the same things. They think this Government is demented. They think they have gone from nanny State Labour to “ninny State” National. These people are implementing and passing laws that are costing them an arm and a leg in compliance costs, the likes of which they never ever imagined they were going to get from a National Government.

So listen up, National: we are so pleased over here on these benches that the National Government has called this election and we now have a firm date. We are so pleased because we have been working hard and building hard. We are actually so pleased the media has not been attending our meetings. I mean, why would they want to report on a packed-out meeting in Morrinsville, with Winston Peters stacking 300 people in? They were overflowing out the door. Why would they want to report on a meeting in Dannevirke—Dannevirke, in the middle of the week, middle of the day, 350 people? Why would they want to report that?

The media are going to learn exactly what they learnt in the United States, exactly what they learnt in Britain, exactly what they learnt in Australia, exactly what they learnt in Canada, and what they are going to learn in France, in Germany, and all over the world: people have had enough. They have had enough of being preached to by politically correct idiots who would shut them down and mute them because they dare say things that are politically incorrect. Well, I am sorry—this is a democratic country. These battle honours on the walls of the Chamber all around us were paid for with the blood of New Zealanders, which guarantees people the right to speak freely and speak their minds without fear. But no, between two parties they have been muted.

Well, they will not be muted in the ballot box, let me assure this House. They will not be chastised, or frowned at, or sneered at by some politically correct person who thinks that they should not say what they are saying on immigration and on security. They will just tick it and flick it. So get ready. And I know that the National members are wincing and squirming in their seats, because their polling has told them—their polling has told them—what we already know.

There will be more New Zealand First people speaking as this debate goes on and they will cover off trade, but the one person I am going to give some congratulations to in my last few minutes is my erstwhile colleague Mahesh Bindra, who has been appointed by the World Hindu Democratic Forum to host and organise a forum here in New Zealand, which will take place in Auckland and in Wellington, and to which 90 MPs from 20 countries will be invited. There will be 22 speakers, all speaking about strengthening democracy.

That is going to be at the heart of this next election: democracy. Real democracy—listening to the people, not preaching down to them from on high and telling them that they do not understand. Not telling them that their opinion does not matter because it is politically incorrect to say such things. Not telling them that their concerns about security and certain ethnic groups and certain people who come into this country are wrong. Not preaching to them and telling them that you have got to allow all of these foreign students into the country who are defrauding the system and cheating to get in here and then subsequently being abused. Raising those issues is legitimate and it needs to be. The only reason we are in the mess we are in right now is because people on those benches over there are too scared and too shy—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. The next call is a split call. Matt Doocey—5 minutes.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is a pleasure and honour to rise and take a call in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. Mr Assistant Speaker, can I first wish you a happy New Year and say how refreshed you are looking, coming back after the break. I must say what an excitable New Zealand First caucus.

Hon Members: Hooray!

MATT DOOCEY: I have never seen them so excitable. But, really, what that is about is they know one of them has got to go, do they not? As the media said, one of them has got to go to clear the way for Shane Jones. Look at them—they are like peacocks posturing amongst their caucus, looking at each other and thinking “Who’s going to go?”. There is Ron Mark leading from the front—he is worried, is he not? He thought: “Oh, I better start off on the front foot or I will be up for the chop.” Look at them—nervous. Who is making the way for Shane Jones?

Can I say that I join with my colleagues in the “Waimak”—Mr Prosser. We were out and about meeting the locals of Waimakariri in the adjournment break, and I must say that although things can change and we can always improve, it is fair to say the general consensus—like the “Waimak”, like New Zealand—is that people are feeling that things are on track and we are heading in the right direction.

There is one line from the Prime Minister’s statement earlier on today about infrastructure that I really want to pick up on. We know that the National Party is a party of infrastructure. We know this Government is the Government of infrastructure. And there was a line there that the Prime Minister quoted in his very eloquent speech: $32 billion is earmarked to be spent on infrastructure over the next 5 years. That is on top of $18.5 billion that was spent in the last 5 years.

We know this party is about infrastructure. We know that this Government is about infrastructure—infrastructure that will keep New Zealanders connected, regionally, nationally, and internationally. It will keep us moving and it will keep the economy growing. “Waimak” is very similar to the rest of New Zealand when I look at the infrastructure and the spending on infrastructure going into the Waimakariri. Look at education infrastructure spending: 11 schools in the Waimakariri will open new classrooms this year as part of a $1.1 billion spend on education infrastructure in greater Christchurch. That is great news for our young people, great news for their parents, and great news for our very dedicated educators. Whether you are from the towns of Oxford, Woodend, Swannanoa, Fernside, Rangiora, or Kaiapoi in the “Waimak”, they are all opening new classrooms this year—11 new classrooms.

Let us look at the spending on health infrastructure: over a billion dollars in Canterbury for building three new hospitals, one of them the Rangiora Hospital, which opened last year. It is a great investment into infrastructure that provides first-class healthcare services on the doorsteps of rural communities, so it is great that that is going to be expanded on. The recent announcement by Canterbury District Health Board is that it is going to be expanding after-hours care in Waimakariri and in North Canterbury. That just shows we are delivering services—first-class services—out in rural communities on their doorsteps. I visited the mobile operating theatre last night. That has got its open day at the Rangiora Health Hub next Tuesday. It is going out there for the first time. Local people from the “Waimak” and North Canterbury are going to be able to get surgical procedures on their doorsteps. That is what I am talking about: when we invest in local infrastructure, it supports local communities.

Look at the roads of national significance. In my electorate alone we have got two new roading projects: the Western Belfast Bypass and the Christchurch Northern Corridor. Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into those roading projects will make a real difference to “Waimak” commuters. It will give them reliable travel times. I am looking forward to the Western Belfast Bypass opening up at the end of this year. It will make a real difference for my constituents and give them reliable travel times.

I just want to close by acknowledging the announcement by the Prime Minister a few weeks ago of ultra-fast broadband to 121 new towns, three of them in my electorate—Waikuku, Oxford, and Woodend. This is a party of infrastructure. This is a Government of infrastructure. Bring on 2017. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Brett Hudson—5 minutes.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Happy New Year to you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is wonderful to be back here in our Parliament, particularly against a backdrop of an economy that continues to truck along at a great rate. Growth is still projected to be around 3 percent or more over the coming years. Thousands of jobs are being created—in fact, on the jobs scene, it is worth bearing in mind that this past week we have achieved record workforce participation levels in this country. We have never had this many people seeking work in New Zealand, and that is a sign of confidence. It is a sign of the confidence people have in our economy, that they believe the jobs are out there for them and that they want to get amongst them. That is really the backdrop of the story of this National-led Government.

This Government is a Government that backs New Zealanders to succeed. It is a Government that is focused on delivering more opportunities for people to get ahead, and New Zealanders are keen to take a hold of those opportunities. They see a Government with a plan, a Government that understands and is outcomes-focused. They see a Government that considers what we need to do to deliver the outcomes we want and then sets about providing the resources and the plan to deliver just those things.

The most recent example is our Safer Communities package, that half-billion dollar package announced recently by the Prime Minister. It is one that has outcomes of reducing crime, making New Zealanders feel safer in their communities and understanding that police have the resources to deliver those safer communities for them. It is not just a number of police officers plucked out of thin air in the vain hope it will create some populist positive sentiment, such as we see from Opposition parties. No, when a Government has a plan that is outcomes-focused, it takes time to consider what we would have to do to deliver these outcomes and what resources they will require, and then it sets out that plan to the people to consider and to implement. So the Government announced a further 1,125 police personnel—

Sarah Dowie: How many?

BRETT HUDSON: 1,125—880 of whom will be sworn officers. Of those 880 sworn officers, we announced that 140 of them will be dedicated to regional and rural areas, such that 95 percent of all New Zealanders will live within 25 kilometres of a 24/7 police presence. Eighty officers will be in the organised crime task force, an area that helps to secure and confiscate assets from criminals and then reinvests those in reducing crime and the effects of crime. One hundred and forty officers—and this is extraordinarily important—will be in the area of child protection, sexual assault, and family violence. A further 20 officers will be ethnic liaison officers. All of these are not just people, are not just numbers, but are targets, such as that 98 percent of burglaries will be attended within 48 hours, that over 90 percent of 111 emergency calls will be answered within 10 seconds by June 2018, that the police will contribute to a 10 percent reduction in deaths resulting from family violence, and that, on top of that, police will also contribute to a 25 percent reduction in reoffending by Māori by June 2025.

That speaks to a Government that has a plan, that presents a plan, and that does not simply go: “What will make people think we care about law and order? Oh, 1,000 police or 1,800 police.” As Winston Peters and Andrew Little seek to outbid each other for popular support amongst the voters, what do those voters really see, though? They see a Government that has a plan, that appreciates what it takes to deliver outcomes and then sets forth those outcomes, particularly in a year such as this, which is so important.

If the Government has a plan and projects the plan and puts that out to New Zealand, what are we witnessing from the Opposition? Well, with Labour it is a return to the old faces and the failures of the past when it thinks that Willie Jackson is the answer to its electoral problems, particularly as members know and the public know that that particular candidate has expressed very strong views in the areas of sexual violence in recent years. Alongside Labour returning to the old, we have the Greens, who spend half their time arguing with their so-called ally. I noticed today that Mr Shaw argued about the investor-friendly provisions that the Labour Government installed in 2002 with the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund. Then there is New Zealand First banging the age-old drum of immigration. Let us build a wall around Winston Peters—New Zealand will pay.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Can I say happy New Year to everybody in the House and can I make a special mention of Nikki Kaye—welcome back to Parliament.

Last Wednesday was an important day. It was an important day because it was the day that Labour announced that the regions matter and that Labour will invest to create jobs in our regions. It was the first announcement in a series of regional announcements to unlock potential and create jobs. It was an announcement in Dunedin and it was an announcement that a centre of digital excellence will be created, which will build on Dunedin’s strengths as a centre of knowledge, innovation, and expertise in the new economy. It is a significant signal to regional New Zealand, and it is one of many.

Wednesday was also special because it was the day that the election was announced—23 September. It is now 228 days until the election, and Labour is ready. We welcome that announcement because we are ready and we are raring to go. Wednesday was also a special day because it was in the evening on that day that Andrew Little turned up to speak at a public meeting in Dunedin and the place was packed. It was packed to overflowing, so much so that the Otago Daily Times rushed the photographer down to the meeting because, as it said, it had never in years seen a meeting that big—certainly not since, probably, the 1980s. And here is a picture on the front page of that packed, overflowing meeting. I note that when Bill English spoke earlier today he said that he was unlikely to be able to fill a hall of 500. Well, I tell you what, Andrew Little did and he will continue to do so around New Zealand, because people want to hear what Labour has to say.

This election will be fought on the issues of housing, health, and education. In his state of the nation speech last week, Bill English ignored the housing crisis, he ignored the rising cost of education, and he ignored the underfunding of the creaking health system. Instead, all he did was announce a skinny version of Labour’s policy for 1,000 more sworn police, announcing 880 more police. He is also ignoring the regions—or he is conning them. The announcement around UFB2, which I note that the members seem to be trumpeting, sounds good but most of those towns will not get better broadband for 6 or 7 years, and in internet terms that is a lifetime—and this is not just homes; this is businesses. So that is a big con.

Talking about the neglect of regional New Zealand, this Government hardly knows that Dunedin exists. The rebuild of Dunedin Hospital has been on ice for years. The Government has slashed 56 jobs at the Invermay Agricultural Centre. Many of them are highly educated positions at the forefront of agricultural research and development, and good, stable, well-paid Government jobs at Government agencies have shifted north under this Government’s policy of centralisation.

Housing is a major issue in Dunedin—not the same sorts of issues that are in Auckland, but housing affordability and the availability of affordable rental housing for people who just cannot get it. I have got a case at the moment: Jacinda and Jamie, with their three children, one in a wheelchair, who have been forced out of their house. Their lease has expired. Fifteen houses they tried to rent but could not rent—either the house was unavailable, or they could not afford it—and now they are living in a caravan park. They cannot get on the Housing New Zealand list until they are homeless. Well, they are now homeless, and this is just one of many.

There is a housing crisis, there is an education crisis, and there is a huge hole in our health funding. This Government is ignoring all of those three. That is where this election will be fought.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, tēnei te mihi ki a koe i te tau hou, otirā, e ngā mema o Te Whare nei ā, tēnā tātau katoa.

Āe, he tika te kōrero o Te Minita o ngā Take Māori, e mihi ana ki ngā mate kua wehe atu i te pō, ko Āti Pīhopa Brown Tūrei rātou mā, o ia whānau, o ia marae, haere, haere, haere atu rā.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, I extend New Year greetings to you but at the same time to all of us members of this House.

Yes, what the Minister of Māori Affairs referred to is correct, and I also pay a tribute to the deaths that have departed to the void, such as Archbishop Brown Tūrei and those from each family and marae; depart, farewell, go forth.]

There are leaders, there are great leaders, and there is Bill English. Bill English may be the Prime Minister but he is definitely no leader. The National Party members themselves realise he is not John Key and they also realise—and have to swallow a bit of a rat in realising—that what they have got governing this country is actually the B-team.

Members on this side, under Andrew Little, are preparing to take the Treasury benches when we come to 23 September. We are keen to take our message and our policies to the people in New Zealand. And why do I say that Andrew will be the next Prime Minister? It is because he has a history, as a former union leader, of standing up for people. That is what Andrew brings to the role. He also, as a husband and as the father of a teenage boy, realises the importance of housing affordability, like many on this side do, and the importance of education for the next generation. As a cancer survivor, Andrew Little has a passion for making sure that we have the best possible health system in this country. So we are ready. We are ready to go to the polls. We are ready to actually show to this country what Labour can bring.

My colleagues over here and I quite rightly agree that housing is a big issue that we will take to the polls—as to who has the best plan to address that. I want to, in the time that I have left, talk about how housing impacts the electorates, the regions, and my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which goes from the very top of the East Coast right down to Wainuiōmata. There is an absolute shortage of good rentals throughout my electorate. Pretty much 90 percent of all my constituents’ issues are to do with housing. I want to share with you how it works.

Literally, people are trying to get on the housing waiting list, but they have to show that they have actually gone out to look for private rentals. And when they, literally, are not there, then the next best thing is that they get put into hotels. So every hotel from Napier to Gisborne is full from housing people who cannot get on the waiting list, which is good and fine until you have a major event in these towns, and guess what happens? Those people are out. They are either out in their cars or they are sleeping on someone’s couches until the weekend, or whatever the event is, is over. That is the New Zealand and the legacy that this Government of the last 8 years has provided in some of the smaller towns throughout this country. That is in Gisborne, that is in Napier, and that is right down in Wainuiōmata—a housing shortage.

I also am dismayed at some of these communities that still have Housing New Zealand houses empty and boarded up. They are empty and boarded up, and yet we are being told that they are coming: “Wait, they’re coming.” Well, we have been waiting for 8 years, and I do not think we are going to see any difference in the next 6 months till we go to the polls. Housing is going to be a big issue.

Yesterday, with my colleague Stuart Nash, we attended Waitangi Day, and it was a great day to celebrate with our civic leaders and our iwi leaders what this country can be and has the possibility of being if we have the right leadership. But right now, under this National-led Government, I think too many New Zealanders are missing out—too many New Zealanders are missing out.

In my final, closing comments, I note that we have a mirage party—I mean the Māori Party—that is constantly saying that it is sitting at the table of this Government and pushing the needs of our people. Our people will know when we go to the polls that we have rising unemployment for young Māori. We have young Māori disengaged from any learning, training, or employment. We have a high number of Māori who do not own their own homes, and that is the legacy of this Government, supported by the Māori Party. Our people will know what the truth is when we go to the polls on 23 September. Kia ora tātou.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Youth): Firstly, can I just say thank you to the many members of this House who have been in touch with me over the last 4 months since I have been sick. It has been really beautiful, actually, to receive those messages. For all of those people watching who might have a negative view of politics, I can tell you that my view of many of the people in this House, right across the spectrum, is incredibly positive. I just want to acknowledge all of those people who have been in touch. Can I also acknowledge members of the public as well. There were so many beautiful messages, and my heart goes out to all those people who are going through or have been through what I have been through.

What a difference 4 months can make in terms of politics. We have a new Prime Minister—and I do just want to take the opportunity to acknowledge John Key. I have not had the opportunity to do that. I know a lot of people in this House want to rewrite history, but he is an incredible man and he has dedicated, I think, 10 years of his life to be the leader of the National Party, and then 8 years as Prime Minister. I think history will show the incredible job he has done—whether it is through the global financial crisis or whether it is through the Canterbury earthquakes—and I just want to acknowledge you, John.

I also just want to talk a bit about the leadership. We have heard a lot from Opposition members over the last couple of hours about Prime Minister Bill English. I just want to tell a little bit of a story as to why I actually got involved in politics, and it involves our current Prime Minister. I will never forget watching him leave the building after we went through the worst election result ever. One of the things that I really admired about him was the way that he got back up. He has always said that the reason he did that was his children and the example for his children.

So I guess my first message to members of the Opposition is that I know how this works. You guys have a script that currently says: we need to say he is not a leader; we need to say bad things about Bill because then people are going to vote for us and they are going to prefer Andrew. Well, actually, that is not going to work, because this guy is the real deal. He is one of the greatest finance Ministers that we have ever had, and he is the architect of a lot of our social policy. Bill English is a great leader, and New Zealanders are seeing that. I have no doubt that the polls will reflect that. Can I also acknowledge Paula Bennett, our new Deputy Prime Minister.

In terms of the state of the nation speech, I want to make a few comments about that. Prior to this Prime Minister’s statement, I do not think we could have seen a better contrast from the Opposition versus the Government. Ultimately, you know, everything that I have learnt about politics is about whether you are doing the things that matter to people: are you ensuring that you do everything you can to make people safer; are you doing everything you can to ensure that young people get the best opportunities at school; are you doing everything you can to ensure that we raise wages so that people have the best amount of disposable income possible? Our Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech was about how we make New Zealanders safer—$500 million worth of expenditure to ensure that we have more police on the beat, to ensure that we have home burglaries responded to quicker, to ensure that we have a new emergency number. It is a tangible package for New Zealanders.

The Opposition turned up to the state of the nation speech with no policy whatsoever. It is not good enough to have a state of the nation speech whereby you do not actually deliver anything for New Zealand. I think that part of what we are seeing this year is a Government—and it is absolutely outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement—that has a huge amount of policy under way. There is an aggressive agenda in the area of law and order—$500 million—a very detailed policy that is not just about more money, is not just about more police on the beat; it is actually about much better deliverables for New Zealanders. Ninety-five percent of New Zealanders will be within 25 kilometres of a 24/7 police presence. I know, as the member for Auckland Central, what it means to have police on the beat in terms of prevention of crime. That is a very tangible package, and I can say that through my electorate office I have had amazing feedback. People know that we are in this position only because we have had a very strong set of economic policies.

That leads me to the next area where I think New Zealanders are going to have very clear choices this year. You have a party that is pro-trade, that believes in an open nation, and that has a good record in terms of our trade agreements, versus an Opposition where nobody is really clear what its position is at the moment. In terms of Labour, that is because it has been all over the place in terms of trade. The reality is that when we open our borders and ensure that we have trade, that leads to exporters being able to sell more products. Basically, we increase the pie for New Zealanders. That is a very good thing, and that is where we have a very clear differentiation between this Government and the Opposition.

In terms of educational achievement, again, we can see what the script is that Labour has written. Labour has written a script that says—in fact, I could not believe it; I sat here and listened to the Leader of the Opposition say that education funding has been frozen. Someone out there, one journalist—please, one journalist—just fact-check that. We had $11 billion in expenditure. As Associate Minister of Education, we have so many building openings that it is difficult to get Ministers to them. This is because we have invested hundreds of millions—actually, billions—of dollars in upgrading the terrible mess that we were left with by the last Labour Government. It is not true that education funding has been frozen, and it is not just about more money. The reality is that Hekia Parata has done a stunning job of overseeing significant reform that has seen educational achievement rising, and it is not just rising for those Pākehā kids; it is actually for Māori and Pacific students, for whom she announced the other day that the results are climbing. That is incredibly important for the future of New Zealand.

So, again, you can see a Government that is focused on significant policy, from raising educational achievement to communities of learning and to investing more in infrastructure, and those are the facts. Education funding has not been frozen, but, again, we know what the script is from Labour. Those members will say whatever they want this year, even if it is not true.

In terms of other areas where we have got huge amounts of investment under way, if you look at the transport area alone—when I first became an MP, people had talked about the Victoria Park Tunnel for decades. In fact, people had talked about the City Rail Link (CRL) for, I think, a hundred years. What we have seen in my electorate alone is massive projects either delivered or signed off. The Victoria Park Tunnel was delivered under budget and in quicker time. The Waterview Connection is another massive infrastructure project that this Government has invested in. The CRL is now under way. These are huge infrastructure projects that have been talked about for generations and that are being delivered by this National Government.

We have a lot more to do. If you look at the area of health, in the last Budget we announced significant amounts of money in terms of Pharmac. That is very important in terms of access to medicines, but it is another example of where we are very focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders—and that, ultimately, is about leadership.

Leadership is not changing your suit and maybe getting rid of the glasses, and turning up and having a great photo op at the state of the nation speech but not delivering any policy. Leadership is about turning up and saying: “We are actually going to deliver $500 million, 1,100 police officers, and 24/7 police stations for 95 percent of New Zealanders.” That is leadership.

Bill English is a great Prime Minister and he is going to continue to demonstrate that leadership and deliver on real policies, and that is what our Government’s record is. We have a significant record in terms of our economic management. In fact, if you look at our economic management, the economy grew by 3.5 percent in the year to September. If you look at annual wages, when we came into office—$12,000 more, to $59,000, which is on track to be $66,000 in 2021. If you look at jobs, 130,000 have been created in the past year. These are real achievements and real deliverables. That is what leadership is about. If the Opposition’s strategy is to run Bill English down, that will fail because, ultimately, people out there know what we have delivered and they are listening to the actual, tangible policy announcements that we make, like we made at the state of the nation speech.

In conclusion, it is great to be back, and I just want to acknowledge again all of the members of the House. But, ultimately, this election will be fought on real policies, real deliverables, and real leadership—that is, the Prime Minister Bill English - led Government.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, tuarua, ki ngā mema o tō tātou Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and, secondly, my greetings, salutations, and acknowledgments to you, all members of our House.]

I must say I am very pleased to see the Hon Nikki Kaye back in the Chamber with all of the energy that she had before the time she had away to deal with some very serious health challenges. So, welcome back.

Many MPs have bounced back into this Chamber refreshed and invigorated by a summer break and time with family and friends beyond these walls, but unlike our MPs, the environment has not had a break, and nature’s news over the summer has been pretty dismal. We have had water theft in Northland because of the huge drought there; we have had people stealing public land in Canterbury riverbeds, clearing vegetation and destroying habitat, and turning it into farmland; and we have had more drought in the Hawke’s Bay—these droughts are going to get more severe if we are faced with catastrophic climate change. Under this Government and its refusal to do anything much about getting emissions down, it is increasingly likely that we are not helping there.

At Waitangi, the water in the Bay of Islands looked very inviting with the sun sparkling on it, but the Ministry for Primary Industries has issued a health warning against collecting and eating any shellfish—mussels, scallops, oysters—throughout the Bay of Islands because of the risk of getting diarrhoeatic shellfish poisoning, which is when shellfish ingest the neurotoxins that microscopic algae produce. And there is a similar warning against taking shellfish from along the Canterbury coast from Gore Bay to the mouth of the Hakatere, or Ashburton River.

In Canterbury you cannot swim in many local rivers, because, again, there are health warnings about the toxic cyanobacteria algal mats. You cannot even take a dog walking in rivers like the Waikirikiri/Selwyn or the Hurunui because of the risk of them ingesting or messing around with some of these algal mats. In Canterbury in January, I wanted to go for a swim, yet we saw massive phytoplankton blooms off the Sumner - Taylors Mistake coast and across extensive areas in Lyttelton Harbour. They turned the water a lurid shade of green. Apparently, they were not toxic, but Environment Canterbury estimates that they were caused by nutrients being flushed down the Waimakirikiri River by heavy rain. So not only is nutrient pollution causing major issues in our rivers; now it seems that our coastal seas are suffering from a similar nutrient overload.

So what is National doing about it? What is National doing to ensure that Kiwis can enjoy their birthright of going for a swim in their local river or gathering kai along the coast without the risk of getting sick? Very, very little. It is a tired, caretaker Government that is lacking in new ideas. The Prime Minister did refer to the environment, in passing, in his statement, but he was recycling past policies that National has failed to implement. They were promises about water—doing something about water standards. That was promised last year. Nothing much happened. They were promises about marine protection. Well, we have not seen that. That has been promised for the last 7 or 8 years. What we have seen with National is a total failure to strengthen the rules in the national policy statement on fresh water to provide bottom-line standards that provide for rivers that are fit for swimming, not wading, and that provide decent controls on nitrogen, not ones that would take some rivers to the same standards as the Yangtze River in China.

National continues to give handouts and subsidies to the big irrigators and to agribusiness, tilting the economy towards more dairy and more destruction of our waterways. As the Green Party, if we get into Government in September, which is our intention, we would have a suite of policies aimed at protecting water quality and improving and protecting the health of our environment, on which our economy depends.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Catherine Delahunty—5 minutes.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Great to be back. I would also like to acknowledge the Hon Nikki Kaye. It is really good to see Nikki looking so great and to hear her voice again in this place. Being a champion of women’s health is something that we all need to be, because so many women experience the scourge of breast cancer. Having lost many friends to it, I am delighted to see you back here with us, to help remind us that health is everybody’s responsibility.

Continuing on from the theme that my colleague Eugenie Sage just outlined, the Prime Minister said today that the Government will continue to work on improving the quality of fresh water and will make progress on fair and equitable allocation systems for water and discharges. I have to say “Is that it?”, because it is tired rhetoric that has been recycled every time we have made a challenge about water.

There is a simple message: people in this country want swimmable rivers. They want to be able to swim in their local river—not just the rich being able to drive to somewhere where there is nice clean water, but where every child living in a community can walk down to their local creek and swim. That is no longer possible.

I know this. I live in a region where children walk many kilometres—because their parents do not have cars—to find a place to swim. The place they come to is my river, the Waiwhakaurunga, the beautiful, amazing river in the Kauaēranga Valley, which I am privileged to live next to, and which I jumped into every day that I could this summer, because we were lucky and had a summer.

It is about more than E. coli. The healthy ecosystem of a river means it is swimmable for people, for tuna, for insects, for all kinds of macro-invertebrates—for life—and that is what a good river, a swimmable river, looks like. I jump into my river and I can feel the fresh energy of that clean water, because upstream there is a whole lot of forest and not a whole lot of dairy farms, not a whole lot of industrialisation, and not a sewage plant. I know that I am living in luxury. What used to be everybody’s reality has become a luxury, and that is a deep shame on this Government.

Our people are really, really clear. Everywhere I go—everywhere everyone goes—we are talking about water quality, because people know it is at risk of degrading, and because they simply want their rivers to be places where they can swim and where they can gather food. Throwing that away because of the low value, high volume production that has overtaken our agricultural system is a disaster.

We have got some solutions. To start with, change the national policy statement on fresh water. Get rid of the joke of “wadeable” water and let us start being serious about “swimmable”. Set some decent standards for regional councils. Start looking at the fact that having 10 million cattle beasts on the land is stressing our waterways and producing far too many nutrients. Start looking at the numbers. Start retiring land next to waterways, as they have at Taupō—very successfully, because it works. Start looking at an immediate moratorium on dairy conversions—enough is enough of that. Start seriously fencing, planting, and looking after waterways. Make polluters pay a levy. Protect water sources, and ensure that water quality rules are created that actually make regional councils bring some urgency to the situation. Waikato’s river plan is great, but it has got a time frame to being swimmable of 80 years—and, then, people are still moaning about it.

We have got a lot of work to do. I have also been getting water alerts. This is my feed; I am going to read it out: “Today, Horowhenua District Council is set to take another look at its treatment plant after it was closed this morning when too much mud fell into the local river.” Honestly—too much mud fell into the river? This story is repeated all over the country. Sediment, nutrients, mud, dairy effluent, you name it—it is all in the rivers.

People want rivers to be swimmable. They can be swimmable, but people have to face up to the fact that this Government is not going to act. We are going to have to change the Government to get the action. A new Government with the Greens in a strong position would lead on this issue. It is simple: without clean water, we are screwed. Thank you.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Prime Minister): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 13 December 2016.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): Welcome, everyone, to the Chamber today. I hope it is a productive session that we now face before the election period coming up. I wish everyone the best of luck, but, yeah, I am looking forward to a good contest.

To the bill: we were speaking about business tax, exchange of information, and remedial matters, and I thought it was an opportune time to acknowledge the new Minister of Revenue. There are certainly some possibilities there—ha, ha! She does have the personality, which means that people are hoping she might make some bold changes and get a few things done. If she does make some of those bold changes, and if she makes the right few changes in the right direction, it will be a pleasure to support her in those efforts.

The business tax bill had a few hiccups, and I just want to touch on them briefly, because, as I acknowledged in my contribution before the House rose last year, New Zealand First actually supports the bill. But the few hiccups were, and perhaps still are—unless something is done about it, and there is still time—the fact that the IRD has asked for quite significant powers to make changes to legislation without Parliament’s approval. That is quite a significant measure to ask for, and it certainly does go beyond what New Zealand First would traditionally be comfortable with—and to that end, actually, I would like to acknowledge Mr Chris Bishop. In the select committee process he was, perhaps, the most efficacious and the most dogged in trying to understand on our behalf just what the motivation was behind this particular part in the bill.

IRD spoke about the very fast and rapidly changing nature of technology, and legislation’s need to keep up with it. To a certain degree, you would have to respect that constraint on legislation and the speed with which technology is moving, but the reality is that the IRD is asking for something that is over, above, and beyond its purview. In the first instance, we would suggest that it should not get it and that the legislation would need to be rewritten to take into account new technologies, without trying to predict what they are—but we are clever enough to word legislation in such a way that shows we know things will change and technologies will improve or, in fact, change completely. Here is our chance to account for that. But if the National-dominated Finance and Expenditure Committee decides that, actually, it will proceed as dictated—well, not dictated; that is an unfair statement—as prescribed, then what we suggest is that the Minister’s abilities to make those changes without Parliament’s approval must be highly constrained and highly prescriptive in and of themselves.

The other thing I wanted to say as a negative was that the predominance of the feedback from submitters was that the Government was trying to do too much, too quickly, and that what was actually happening with this particular piece of legislation was to do with the size of it, and the preponderance of it. It is huge, and it is trying to do a lot, which, in the main, we do respect that a lot is trying to be done—hence our support. But the feedback was that the size is complicating it, and that there are too many mistakes getting through.

One of the examples, which is quite frightening, was from one of the very last submitters, who said that if you do not change the definition of what a foreign trust is, you will not actually have any of those foreign trusts in New Zealand being obliged to show detailed accounts of their transactions, and who their stakeholders are, etc., etc. We would have missed the point entirely, and nothing substantive would have changed. To the Government’s credit, it took on the submission, the officials listened, and, yes, now we are in a position where the actual intent of the legislation will be actually enacted, but it has taken us a long time to get there. It was a big example, but there are other issues that we need to take account of, and I think there will be mistakes that will need fixing as we progress through this process.

I did have a lot to say about the trust programme, but I think I will curtail my contribution and just reflect, in the time before the dinner break, and say that we still need to get to phase two. The Government has not acknowledged the fact that in this piece of legislation, yes, it has done so much work toward the Shewan report that New Zealand First will support it, but it is a half measure that will get a lot done. The Government has still yet to acknowledge that the trusts of real estate agents, lawyers, and accountants are still almost literally a black hole into which money disappears in this country. We know it is legal, it is being misused, and it is being abused, and the reputation of this country is being made the worse for it.

New Zealand First does support this legislation, but we are perhaps only halfway there. Shewan said it in his report, which, to his credit, was an amazing statement, not only in terms of the transparency and the requirements of foreign trusts in terms of their reporting requirements, but, actually, that we needed to go further. He said it, and the Government has completely ignored that part of the report. The reality is that we have cleaned up all these reporting requirements for foreign trusts in New Zealand, but the avenues still exist and the pathways are still there for overseas interests, and others—locals can abuse this system as well—to hide money in what I described as a black hole, which it technically is. We need to do something about it, and we need to do something about it now. Although, traditionally, New Zealand First would not support a bill such as this, because, substantively, it was only a half measure or a window dressing, I acknowledge that the select committee worked particularly hard. The IRD officials were very, very hard-working in their contributions in terms of advice, going away and coming back with improvements.

So today I am pleased to say that because of the efforts of the committee in tidying up the legislation, and because of the efforts of officials, New Zealand First will support this legislation, and hope that we can make a very rapid start that this new Government—this new Minister—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Mr Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in Parliament for 2017, and my best wishes to you and also the other Speakers.

My privilege tonight is to talk to the Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Bill. This is obviously a very exciting topic and one I find very interesting. I thought I would just slightly refresh because this debate got cut in half with the interlude of Christmas.

The four things that this bill is trying to cover are, firstly, measures to make the taxpaying processes much simpler for businesses; secondly, the implementation of the OECD standard around the disclosure of information; thirdly, measures to support and enable the deployment of stage one of the IRD’s major Business Transformation programme, and, fourthly, of course, putting in place the Government’s inquiry into foreign trust disclosure rules. The one thing I find most enthralling and interesting about this package is actually what we are trying to do around business and helping New Zealand businesses pay their tax more easily. The key objective of this bill is to simplify the GST process.

At the moment, you are probably aware that it is a very complicated process, but the ability to pay provisional tax, in particular, is going to be simplified through the accounting and income method, which basically means that we will replicate the GST payment system where businesses in New Zealand will pay tax as they go. To my mind, that is an excellent process and one probably not fully appreciated by New Zealand businesses, and, of course, the New Zealand economy is dominated by small businesses. So this ability to manage their cash flow against the timing of their tax receipts and the payment to the IRD I think is incredibly important and a fantastic achievement in terms of helping New Zealand businesses.

The other area that we are going to deal with is the use of money. There are 67,000 companies per year that incur use of money through the late payment of fees or whatever. This bill basically does away with that provision, which, again, is helping New Zealand businesses to create more jobs and make their businesses a lot easier to manage and operate.

Then there are some trade-offs around whether people want to deal with debt that is accumulated. This bill actually puts in place some measures to make them able to trade their way out of debt that they may have incurred over time. This involves reform around late-payment penalties and also Working for Families credits. Again, those three things are, I think, very, very important for securing and helping smaller businesses in New Zealand.

The second thing is, of course, transparency, which we talked about earlier. It is interesting. Just to be very clear about this: what the bill does propose is to require New Zealand financial institutions to review the accounts, and collect and report information to the IRD on accounts held by or controlled by non-residents. Of course we have had a lot of publicity around this.

I think the reforms that the select committee has been talking about have dealt with this matter very substantially. I think the reforms that are coming through in this bill are excellent, and I think it will go a long way towards addressing this issue that we all want to see—namely, that everyone pays their fair share of tax. So, on that basis, I commend the bill. Thank you very much.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): The Labour Party supports this bill but with a number of substantial reservations. If you listened to the previous speaker, Andrew Bayly—who has obviously enjoyed a great evening at the Science Forum dinner tonight, and I am glad to see he is a great supporter of science—you would think that this bill was nirvana. Except, when you delve into the details, the bill fails to implement the core recommendations of the Government’s own inquiry into foreign tax disclosure rules: to immediately implement phase two of the anti - money-laundering law changes. I know a little bit about the anti - money-laundering law changes from when I was Associate Minister of Justice.

The question for the Government, which we will look at as we go through the stages of this bill, is why that phase two, a recommendation of its own inquiring body, was never implemented. Those reporting requirements would have extended the scope of this to lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents. With no disrespect to any of those professions, they are all vulnerable to nefarious behaviour within them. It is interesting that what this actually does is leave a massive gap within the reporting regime. It is a failure. It is a failure to meet not only the obligations put upon us by the international community, because the anti - money-laundering changes are international obligations, as we know, but it also leaves a gap and a weakness within the legislation itself.

Secondly, we would argue that in order for New Zealand’s foreign trust regime to play a useful and relevant part in cracking down on tax evasion and corrupt practices, you need greater transparency, and here, again, the bill is deficient. The rate of transparency for us means that there should be, as a starting point, a register—a publicly available register—of foreign trusts. The Government has never been able to identify where the difficulty in that proposition lies. After all, of course, you have just such a register for companies and other forms of trusts. So the question is why you would not have total transparency and why the Government would not support a publicly available register of foreign trusts. I have looked at the legislation, I am on the select committee, we have heard the submissions, but I cannot understand—maybe one of the lawyers over there can tell us—why that would be deficient, how that would negatively impact on either the beneficiaries or trustees in respect of foreign trusts. Again it is another recommendation and another recommendation that was not fulfilled.

So it would be very interesting as we go through this if the next National Party speaker, if there is one, wanted to take a call, or the Minister—we will be examining this, of course, in the Committee stage—to answer those two simple questions: why it fails to meet phase two, why it does not include and extend to lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents, why it does not fulfil our international obligations in terms of the anti - money-laundering legislation, and why the Government has chosen a path that is less than full transparency by not having a public register of foreign trusts. It seems this Government, when it comes to registers, has an aversion to them for some reason—I do not quite know why. But I have not seen an argument that says to me that there would be a negative impact either on beneficiaries or trustees of having a register of these trusts. It assists in cracking down on international tax evasion and corruption. Surely that is the objective, which the Government first denied was ever a problem, of course, but then set up an inquiry and was told it was a problem, and then included a few bits and pieces of window dressing within this legislation.

Finally, I just want to touch briefly on what Mr Bayly said in respect of the so-called flexible tax options that he put forward. I have run a small business. I agree with Mr Bayly that they are the lifeblood of the economy. I just wonder why it was that the Minister at the time who I think put this proposal forward, Mr Joyce, waited until Labour had drafted, released, and had vetted by the former IRD commissioner Robin Oliver a policy for flexible tax that went far beyond this particular policy. As one official, whom I will not name, said to me: “Well, the day you guys released it Mr Joyce rushed into his office, grabbed his officials, and said ‘How the hell are we going to respond to this?’ ”. Out of that came this.

I say to Mr Bayly: congratulations. He came to the battle when the war was won, the war was over, or as a mate of mine used to say, a day late and a dollar short, but nice try.

BARRY COATES (Green): I rise to talk about the Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Bill 2016. The Green Party is continuing to support this bill. We have major reservations about it. It is, however, a step forward. We will be supporting this bill, although with some concern that what we regard as our constructive proposals so far have not adequately been incorporated in the bill.

At the core of this bill are two issues that the Green Party has campaigned on for a long time. The first is to simplify the tax treatment for small business. Certainly we regard the pay-as-you-go tax provisions to be a major step forward for small business. Part of my background is working with small business. I see the importance of cash-flow considerations for small business. As they say, cash flow is king. This provision in this bill will help cash flow for small business, so we warmly support its inclusion.

The second major aspect of the bill, from our perspective—again, it is an issue that the Green Party has been campaigning on for a long time—is greater transparency around foreign trusts. There is a lot of history to this issue of foreign trusts. I pay tribute to the former Green Party leader Russel Norman, who in 2011 banged on about foreign trusts, at a time when nobody else was doing so. We should not really be patting ourselves on the back for introducing this regulation 6 years later, given the warnings of New Zealand’s risk to our reputation—an issue that was then subsequently highlighted by the Inland Revenue Department.

Our international reputation has been put sorely at risk by our policies in the past. Unfortunately, it appears that the National Government was lobbied. As many people will remember, the former Prime Minister’s personal lawyer visibly lobbied for this issue to be swept under the carpet. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Peter Dunne, talked about legitimate tax avoidance in the spirit of leaving things as they were. It really took the leak of the Panama Papers to bring this issue to public notice. I think we ought to congratulate those investigative journalists who brought this issue to a public audience in a way that has forced this change.

Subsequently, the Government inquiry into foreign trust disclosure rules, the so-called Shewan review, came up with what we think are some sound proposals and why we are supporting this bill, but they do not go far enough. I would like us to remember why this is a problem. It is a problem because tax havens are a trillion-dollar industry worldwide; they are the driver behind the situation where the obscenely wealthy are able to avoid paying tax. As Oxfam’s research recently showed—many members know that I headed Oxfam New Zealand for a number of years—62 people in the world own as much wealth as half the world’s population. One of the reasons they are able to maintain this obscene disparity is that the obscenely wealthy do not pay their fair share of tax. We need to do this; we need to close these loopholes properly.

In the time I have left, there are two aspects that I want to highlight. They were highlighted in the minority report that the Green Party participated in. Firstly, the anti - money-laundering provisions, phase 2, covering lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents, have not yet been implemented as was recommended in the Shewan review. We think that that legislation should be brought forward quickly. Hot money is sloshing around from organised crime and from China, in particular. We need to make sure that New Zealand does not end up as a haven for hot money as well as a haven for tax. Secondly, we do not think that the legislation on disclosure of foreign trusts goes nearly far enough. We would support a public register of foreign trusts. This is the disinfectant of sunlight, of transparency, that is needed in order to properly ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share of tax. Thank you.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to rise in support of the Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I was quite pleasantly surprised, in fact, to hear Mr Coates talk in favour of small businesses. He even talked about cash flows, which are of course the lifeblood of and essential to small business. Now all we need to do is convince the rest of his party to support small businesses by supporting free-trade agreements, for example. I was really pleased that you kicked off on the right foot, but you sort of deviated and ended up in a plane crash, unfortunately.

I am going to focus on the accrual income method relating to provisional tax because, again, as Mr Coates said, it is all about cash flow. I was a bit disappointed not to hear much about this part of the bill from the Opposition members. Perhaps it is because they do not understand provisional tax and how difficult it has been in the past. I mean, provisional tax is difficult to manage. You have got to estimate it. I will give a simple example.

Tracey Martin: We know how it works.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Well, why did you not talk about it? If you know how it works, why did you not talk about it? Why did you not support it?

Tracey Martin: It’s not my bill. I didn’t get a call.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Why did your colleagues not—

Tracey Martin: We know how it works. Don’t treat us like ninnies!

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Well, I need to explain it to some of the Labour members, at least. If a small business has a good year and pays the appropriate tax, almost automatically they are obliged to pay a similar amount in the following year by way of provisional tax. Now, of course, if that small business has a bad year, whether as a result of a weather event, a market event, or a foreign exchange event, they have trouble paying their provisional tax. This accrual method allows that business to pay as it goes, which is important. As Mr Coates says, it is all about cash flow. That is the key to it.

It is important that we support small businesses—small and medium sized enterprises—because these are the guys who employ people. These employers are taking on an extra employee every day. They are taking the risk of taking on another employee. So, we have to support the employers if we wish more employees to be in the system. This bill reduces compliance costs, it reduces red tape, it reduces bureaucracy, and it allows small businesses to manage their cash flows more effectively and, for that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Excellent call.

STUART NASH: I do not know whether there was much choice there, Ruth.

I always find it interesting when members of the Government stand up and say: “We are the party of small business; we support small business.” We think they are going to launch into a wonderful 10-minute speech about how good they are for small business. Even that gentleman opposite, the member for Wairarapa, can speak for only 2½ minutes on small business. Mr Scott, you are better than that. I know you are. I know you understand the intricacies of business. But maybe I am wrong.

The interesting thing about this is that all the historical data shows that Labour is better for business. It really does. A friend of mine ran a number of businesses. He said to me: “You know what? The interesting thing is that I know I should be National because I earn so much money”—we did not get into my campaign—“but Labour is so much better for my business.” So he goes in there and votes Labour. We all know this.

As Clayton Cosgrove highlighted, Labour came out with a tax package, a tax policy, for small business that made it look up and go: “There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it starts with Labour.” To be fair, Mr Woodhouse—I think it was Mr Woodhouse; or it might have been Judith Collins. Who is the Minister of Revenue now? I am not too sure. He did take it and said: “Well, we do need to do better.” But it is one of these things, is it not? They are very good at the managerial. Labour comes up with the policy, and they take it and they start implementing it, or they come up with a strategy to announce it. Labour’s tax package for small business was actually, I think, a lot more user-friendly. It was around PAYE: you earn the money, you pay the tax. That is fair. We get that.

As Mr Scott did allude to, and as we all know—anyone who has had a small business—provisional tax was like a noose around your neck sometimes. As you mentioned, you have a bad year and, goodness me, you are hit with this tax bill. It means you cannot do anything else. You have a good year and you are not paying much tax. It just did not make sense and it was not fair. Tax pooling smoothed it out a little bit, but, basically, provisional tax is not the way forward, especially in this day and age of packages like Xero that make small business accounting a hell of a lot easier.

The thing is, the party for business has been there for 8 years, and only now are we looking at a tax package that is going to help small businesses, whereas Labour was going to implement our business tax package within the first 100 days—in fact, we probably still will, because the way things are going, I doubt we will get to the third reading of this bill before the election. But 8 years? The MPs must have had constituents come to them and say: “Can you do something about provisional tax?”. Ninety-seven percent of New Zealand businesses are classed as small to medium sized enterprises—that is, they employ 19 people or fewer. Ninety-nine percent of New Zealand businesses employ 50 people or fewer. This is a major problem for business, and it has taken us 8 years to get here. I personally do not think that is good enough. That is not good enough from the party that purports to represent business, because it does not. It just does not.

The other thing that has taken too long here is the foreign trust debacle. This has been well played out in the media, but it is worth just going over it a little bit again. We all know in politics, whether it is local, national, or even global, that perception is the reality. Whether we were a tax haven or not, it did not really matter. The reason I say that is that the Australian Financial Review, The Guardian, and all these reputable international newspapers reported New Zealand being a tax haven. So that became the reality.

Let us be very generous here—I am going to make an assumption, which is completely false, but let us make an assumption here that the Government did not know about this. Well, you would think that when New Zealand’s global brand was under attack from reputable newspapers in the financial hubs around the world, we would have done something about this immediately. Yet I believe that what the Government did in this case is what it does with a number of issues. It buries its head in the sand and hopes it will go away. Why are we only having the second reading of this bill now, when it was such a major issue? Those of us who have worked overseas know what our brand stands for. We know what being a Kiwi means. It means acting with integrity. It means being trustworthy. It means working hard. Every young Kiwi who goes to London ends up with a job if they want one, because we have a reputation for being good people.

What this trust debacle did is it just began to chip away at that reputation of Kiwis being businessmen and women of integrity. So the Government launched a report—probably a wise thing to do. Well, not a report, an inquiry. It had to be done, and what this inquiry said was that the rules are not good enough. What the inquiry said is that there needs to be a much higher level of transparency so that not only New Zealanders but the global environment, the global business sector, can have confidence that when they invest in New Zealand, when they deal with New Zealand businesses, when they are having dealings with New Zealand businessmen and women, they know that they are dealing with people of integrity. The last thing we need is to be known overseas as a dodgy company or a dodgy place to do business.

Part of the problem with this bill is that there is going to be more information but that is not going to be made available to the public. Of course, there is a risk with this. If all the information is made available to the public, then someone who has a foreign trust set up in New Zealand for whatever reason—and it might be because of the safety of their family, etc.—could be compromised. But the thing with transparency is that it is about letting New Zealanders know what is going on in our country. I would have thought that if we have not got somewhere where New Zealanders can take a look at this and understand—or even a report somewhere that New Zealanders can access and understand that we are in fact acting with integrity, that the Government has our back, so to speak—then we have not met the requirements of where we need to be.

I do not know whether there are dodgy guys, drug dealers, murderers, and money-launderers investing in our foreign trusts. It was hard to tell; there was so much information out there. But if there was, then that is really bad, and if there was, we need to close that down completely so people do know they can invest and deal with New Zealanders in confidence. That is why I am a little bit concerned that we have not gone as far as we need to.

Barry Coates talked about evasion and avoidance. Well, there is a big difference: evasion is illegal; avoidance is not. But if we look at our tax base at the moment, there are estimates from $500 million, which is very conservative, through to $7 billion—which I think is probably too high, but it is a figure that is out there—of avoidance. This is largely big companies structuring their affairs so they do not have to pay their fair share of tax. Initially, when this came out, the Minister said: “There is not a problem here—nothing to see, move on.” The Prime Minister actually then came out and said: “Well, we do have a problem. This is not illegal, but it’s immoral.”

I suspect this is why we have a new revenue spokesperson at the moment—because the old revenue spokesperson just could not get his head around these issues. And they are complex; there is no doubt about this. I mean, the number of tax bills before the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) in the last 24 months, and the number of tax bills coming before the FEC, is huge. The reason for that is that these are complex, and it does require quite a degree of consultation, but just because it is hard to do does not mean we do not do it. I just find, disappointingly, that what this Government seems to think is: “Well, it is hard—let’s bury our heads in the sand.” But we just cannot do that, and I think what the people of New Zealand are looking for is leadership.

I think that Mr Key failed to provide leadership in this area, as did Mr English by association—he was his finance Minister for 8 years. If Mr English had been concerned about the level of base erosion and profit shifting or legal avoidance, then he, as the Minister of Finance, could have done something about it, but he just did not show leadership. What it took was Labour and, admittedly, the Greens to come out, and New Zealand First, because we all went hard on this issue, and say there is something wrong here. I just think that when it comes to this sort of behaviour, New Zealanders demand leadership and they demand action. Waiting so long for this sort of legislation is just not good enough. Thank you very much.

Amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Charities Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 6 December 2016.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the last time we debated this bill, Poto Williams had the call. She has 5 minutes remaining to speak.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Mihi mahana ki a koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not have an awful lot more to say in this contribution, but I do want, up front, to say a couple of things. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, and I want to say on behalf of our community, the Cook Islands community, that we are very proud to have Alfred Ngaro as the Minister. I am also very keen, as Labour’s spokesperson for the community and voluntary sector, to engage with the new Minister on some very robust discussion about how the community and voluntary sector can be supported better, and, in particular, the longstanding issue of whether the promised review will actually take place—in particular, looking at the provisions around charitable purpose, which is a discussion that the community and voluntary sector has wanted to have for several years. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss that with the new Minister.

There are more than 100,000, perhaps 120,000, organisations in this country. They help our kids with sport, provide community services, and support older people. There are environmental groups and surfing groups. There are many, many organisations in the community and voluntary sector without which this country would really fail to exist—our kids would not have access to sports and a lot of our environmental projects would not get off the ground without the hard work that our community and voluntary sector does.

Of that sector, there are about 25,000 organisations that are registered charities. There are some benefits for those organisations to be registered. Some of the benefits are, of course, around their reduced tax obligations. Also, if these organisations are wanting to have a relationship with philanthropic trusts or to seek funding from funding entities, it has become almost a requirement to have registered charitable status, because it implies that there are good processes in place, that audit processes occur, and that the management and governance structure of these organisations comply with and meet certain standards, and that is well and proper.

With this particular piece of legislation there have been a couple of slight changes to the Charities Act, just to, I guess, assist these organisations with meeting some of those necessary audit processes. One of the key aims of this particular bill has been around ensuring that people who are officers and office holders of charitable organisations are people of good character and that they have not had convictions under the Tax Administration Act.

There is also another change, which is largely administrative but is in place for good reason, and that is about community organisations that are staffed largely by part-time or volunteer staff. If their registration form to charity services—if the information to ensure that those charities continue to be active and comply is not received within a particular time frame, their charitable status will be withdrawn. There was a bit of discussion within the charitable sector about that because there are often some constraints upon small organisations about their ability to maintain a consistency of personnel to actually manage these organisations, but this change was thought to be a mechanism to ensure that Charities Services could have a way to withdraw registration that would not place huge compliance costs on organisations.

There is one other point I want to comment on, and that is around clause 55, which looks at ensuring that there are certain protections to charities from public and malicious and criminal individuals by ensuring that the calibre of people who are actually employed in these services is such that there are certain protections for charities.

I am sure my colleagues will continue this discussion further, and it has been a great opportunity to speak in the House this evening. Thank you.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I rise to take a call on this third reading of the Charities Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge and thank the member Poto Williams for her comments, and I do appreciate the support. I think that for both of us as Cook Islanders here in this Parliament, where we did not have many representing our communities, it is a proud moment for us to be able to do that too.

I want to acknowledge the previous Minister, the Hon Jo Goodhew, who was the Minister for this portfolio, for the work that she has done, and also acknowledge the Government Administration Committee, and the Hon Ruth Dyson as well, for the work that they have done. I know that this has been important, and we know the importance of that to a lot of our charitable organisations in our communities—27,879 are registered charities. But we know there are a whole lot more too that are looking to seek registration—there are about 114,000, and 110 not-for-profit institutions.

As the previous speaker, Poto Williams, has said in regard to the role that they play and the importance that they have in civil society up and down our country, they make up almost 70 percent of our voluntary fire brigade. They are part of our surf lifesaving clubs. They are part of the Rotaries and Lions. They play such a significant role that, really, they are the bedrock of our civil society. We do not often use that language, but they make a huge contribution as well. We also know that under the not-for-profit institutions their contribution is equivalent to $6 billion, which is about 2.7 percent of the total of our GDP, so they make not only a physical contribution in the time that they give but also, in kind, the contribution that they make to that GDP is quite critically important as well.

What is also important, I suppose, is the public trust and confidence in these charities. Our priority there is to increase public trust and confidence so that New Zealanders, who are generous by nature, know that this resource is being used in a way that does make a difference to our communities. So this pathway to higher trust and confidence in the sector is an important part of the work that is being undertaken as well.

Key to maintaining that trust and confidence is to have good regulations surrounding the registration of charities, which is a key part of this bill. Even though this bill has three small technical components, they are important as well. If I can just make mention of them briefly: there is the introduction of the 20 working day time frame to respond to a notice to provide further information as part of the registration. That becomes important because it means that through that iterative process it will provide greater certainty for all concerned as well. It will reduce the time and cost for registration and applications and will remove the reputational risk that could arise if its application is formally declined. This bill provides for the application to be deemed withdrawn if the entity does not respond to requests for further information, as well. Likewise it also makes sense to include the tax evasion and similar offences under section 143B of the Tax Administration Act of 1994 in the list of offences that disqualify someone from being an officer of a registered charity. I am sure that most people, or all people, would agree that it is important to have the credibility and integrity of our charitable organisations as well.

I just wanted to make these brief remarks. I want to acknowledge the role up and down our communities throughout New Zealand that charities and not-for-profit organisations play, and again I just want to acknowledge that this is one part that I think is important in providing support for our charities and support for our communities as well. So with that I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): That speech actually had a lot in common with the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech. Here was the big opportunity for the Prime Minister, brand new in his job, to make his mark, to identify the issues that face New Zealand, and to say what he is going to do about it. But instead of that the Prime Minister totally ignored the housing crisis—it just did not rate a mention—did not mention the huge financial stress that is on the education sector and now is being passed on to parents, and did not acknowledge the underfunding in the health system. In the same way, Alfred Ngaro, the brand new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, in his chance to make his mark in this portfolio, hardly mentioned the bill. It did not get a mention until 4 minutes into a 5½-minute speech in a 10-minute call.

I would really encourage the new Minister—and I want to congratulate him—to get a bit more on top of his portfolio and put some passion and energy into it, so it makes it look like he wants the job. That did not really look like he wants the job at all.

I want to also acknowledge the former Minister for this sector, who has shepherded this bill through the House since it was split off from the Statutes Amendment Bill: the Hon Jo Goodhew, who did a lot of good work in this space. I just want to acknowledge that, as well.

This bill started off as part of a statutes amendment bill, and it had one controversial piece. It was Part 3, I think, of the Statutes Amendment Bill. It had one controversial issue in it, so, in the view of the Government Administration Committee, it did not meet the criteria for a statutes amendment bill. So we did the right thing and took it out.

We did another right thing at the Government Administration Committee, which was to say that it was not our intention, by taking that part out of the Statutes Amendment Bill, to delay its progress. We did not have any difficulty with the policy that was included in that part; it was just that because it was policy and because it was controversial, it did not meet the criteria for a statutes amendment bill, so we took it out. It has become the Charities Amendment Bill, which we are now seeing through its third reading.

I want to acknowledge those in the community and voluntary sector, and particularly commend them for the way that they tried to explain to the officials—and certainly strongly presented to the select committee—their concerns about the one controversial part. This is a sector that is clearly under pressure. These people did not come along to the select committee to moan about it, but it was obvious from the information that we gathered as part of our deliberation that this sector has actually been ignored by the Government and, I think, treated in a really poor way.

The new Minister, quite correctly, acknowledged the contribution that volunteers make in our community. New Zealand would not be the country it is—and we are all really proud of it—if it were not for volunteers. They should be not just acknowledged but properly recognised for the contribution they make. Many of the volunteers work in the community and voluntary sector, obviously, but a large number of those organisations also have contracts with Government departments, and they are no longer treated as partners in the delivery of service. They are treated as somebody at the other end of a contract, and I do not think that is the New Zealand way. I do not think that is the way that we should work with organisations in our community. On a competitive tendering, short-term contract, you have just a signature at the bottom of the page sort of relationship, and that is what the National Government has done.

We also learnt of a state of the sector survey that had been done by ComVoices last year. It said in the survey—it told us—that 65 percent of organisations in the community and voluntary sector have more work now than they did 2 years ago, but only 34 percent of them—so, quite a big difference—have more staff. So you have the same number of people doing a huge amount more than they did just a couple of years ago. That is not good, if you are talking about a respectful relationship—if you are talking about working in partnership. Sixty-eight percent of the organisations in the sector are required to do more work than is actually outlined in their contracts. The job would not be done unless they did more, but it is not in their contracts and, therefore, they do not attract any funding to support that work. And, of course, one of the first acts of the incoming National Government in 2008 was to scrap the 100 percent funding of our social service sector. That was in the 2008 Budget. It had 4 years of money rolled out. Paula Bennett, as the incoming Minister, scratched that fund, and so the social service agencies no longer are on a path to 100 percent funding, and have not been for nearly 9 years.

Why did the National Government do that? Because it wanted to give tax cuts to the highest-income earners in New Zealand. That was the choice—to fully fund, in their contracts, social service agencies or to give tax cuts to the highest-income earners—and John Key and Bill English chose tax cuts for the highest-income earners. Our social service agencies and our community and voluntary sector agencies are still struggling as a result of that.

The financial pressures were also outlined in the survey that I just mentioned. Forty-two percent of organisations in the community and voluntary sector were unable to offer any staff increases in the last 2 years because of the pressure on funding that I just mentioned, so 42 percent gave nobody any increase in their wages. That does not seem to be fair. Are they not working hard enough? Do they not deserve it? Well, the answer to that is of course they are working hard and, yes, they do deserve it, but the organisations just do not have the money to put in. Two percent of those organisations are facing imminent closure, and over 40 percent are worried about their future financial viability.

So Minister Alfred Ngaro can talk all he likes about working in partnership and being respectful and thinking highly of volunteers, but the money has to go where the mouth is, Mr Ngaro. You have to put your funding and resources behind your contracts, behind the work that you are requiring organisations to deliver, if you expect them to continue to do it.

Just back to my final points on the bill. The bill, I think, gives better protection, so that people who have been convicted of tax evasion or a similar offence under the Tax Administration Act cannot be officers of a charitable entity. That has been a gap in the legislation, and one that Labour totally supports filling. If an applicant does not respond to a request for information or some sort of notice from the chief executive when they have applied for registration as a charity—so they do not front up with the information that is requested—that application lapses.

The contentious part, which I will just mention, is whether the chief executive or the board make decisions that can then be appealed by the charitable entity. That proposed change to section 61, in clause 13, was the one that was struck out. All the other changes that are in this bill—possibly they would have met the criteria for a statutes amendment bill, but I actually think we have had a very worthwhile debate by separating that part out and having it run as an individual bill.

We called for submissions. We did not receive a large number. They were all entirely focused on the controversial issue and they all adamantly opposed it. I regret that, despite the best urgings of the select committee, we were not able to get the officials and the representatives of the sector to talk together for long enough to get agreement. Perhaps it is just not possible because there is quite a fundamental disagreement about the interpretation of the law and how it was originally drafted, and about whether the intent was represented in that original drafting or whether, in fact, it was an error. Regardless, we have worked our way through. I think we showed respect to the sector as it made its submissions, and I think we have returned this bill in a much better state than it was at the beginning.

So I am pleased that we did that work. I am pleased to be able to support the bill. I commend its progress through to its final stage. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tuarua, tēnā koe. Gong xi fa cai. Happy Year of the Rooster to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and indeed to all of our community of Chinese New Zealanders who will be celebrating this occasion. May your year be prosperous.

In commenting on and speaking to this Charities Amendment Bill in this third reading debate, I want to acknowledge the new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, the Hon Alfred Ngaro. He is a very highly respected colleague of ours on this side of the House. But I also acknowledge the previous Minister, the Hon Jo Goodhew, who did the formative work on these provisions, which will, hopefully, be passed through and come to fruition this evening.

On the bill we debated in this House prior to this bill, there was a lot of discussion around corruption. I want to point to a clause in this bill. There are only three clauses, but there is one clause in this bill that prohibits people who have been convicted of an offence like tax evasion, or other offences similar to that under the Tax Administration Act 1994, from holding the position of an officer of a charitable entity. I think it is this sort of measure that helps cement New Zealand’s reputation as a country that actively combats corruption. It is this sort of measure that helps us achieve our rightfully earned position as the No. 1 least corrupt Public Service in the world, as we were recently rated by the independent organisation Transparency International, and I am proud to be a member of its local New Zealand branch.

It was wonderful to see us alongside Denmark rated as the least corrupt countries in the world. It is these sorts of measures that help to stamp out corruption. So, obviously, having someone who has been convicted of tax evasion and having that person involved with an entity that is raising perhaps considerable sums of money from the public, who give freely to that organisation, and to have that money misused is obviously a negative thing and would be corrupt. This small measure will help to stamp that out.

Similarly, beyond having moneys misused, I think if we look around the world we also have organisations that benefit from significant funding streams that are used not just for an illegal purpose but actually sometimes in support of very serious crimes, such as terrorism. So I think having greater scrutiny on the charities and the officers who are in charge of them is a positive thing in cementing our reputation as an uncorrupt country. This bill is to be commended, and I do so now.

MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is a pleasure to be back here after the summer adjournment, and I will take a short call on this bill. The Greens are supporting it. I was one of the members on the Government Administration Committee at the time that heard some of the submissions on this bill during the statutes amendment stage, when we decided that, actually, the proposed changes were too substantive and potentially controversial to go through as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill. So now we are seeing them as part of the Charities Amendment Bill.

The thing that really struck me about the submissions was the level of disagreement, or a lack of trust, between the charities sector and the hard-working volunteers from a very wide range of organisations that essentially form much of the fabric that holds society together, and I saw just how much stress they are under directly as a result of the National Government’s policies. That has placed this sector under huge stress.

It is abundantly clear, as my colleagues Poto Williams and the Hon Ruth Dyson have already mentioned, that we need a full and comprehensive review of the Charities Act, because the experience of having the National Council of Women of New Zealand going through the deregistration process and fighting to be reregistered, with all the massive implications that that has for funding and for their work, has sent shock waves through the whole charities sector as to what had always been assumed and understood among society as being work that they were doing for the common good for other people. All the volunteer hours, etc., were suddenly being put at risk because of these poor relationships, essentially, and differing policy interpretations with the department. So, absolutely, the level of distrust was, to my mind, a real eye-opener and it was of major concern.

I would urge the new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Alfred Ngaro—whom I would like to actually congratulate on his new appointment—to take this seriously. This is a sector that is under stress. Go out and talk to these organisations and rebuild that relationship so that they are not sitting there wondering one minute to the next whether they are going to be sued, whether they have got the resources to function, or whether they going to suddenly be deregistered for something or other, and so that there is a fair and upfront relationship and communication between the Government and their sector.

Also, I would urge him to really consider doing a full review, because that was promised way back when the first bill was first implemented. It never happened, and constantly ignoring it and papering over the cracks is not going to work. There are too many good organisations in there to let them go on this way.

The other thing that really struck me was just the fundamentally different legal interpretations of the proposed clause that got taken out of this bill. I was one of those who said that we cannot allow this clause to go ahead because we could not come to an agreement about what was the legal interpretation of that clause. We had officials telling us “It is not a problem. It is just a minor amendment and will have no impact on society’s ability to appeal decisions.”, and then there was a huge paper by the foremost, front-running charities expert lawyer in New Zealand, telling us the complete opposite. I do not have a legal background. There is absolutely no way that I could balance out the conflicting advice between what the officials were carefully trying to tell us and what the lawyer who was acknowledged as the foremost lawyer in the country, in a very substantial submission, was trying to tell us. So that is why I supported the removal of that clause altogether.

Ultimately, I believe it can be resolved when there is better communication between the Government officials and the sector, and with honest communication I believe we would get somewhere. Thank you. So we will be supporting this bill and we commend its progress through the House.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It is great to see everybody back here after an extended holiday over the Christmas period. Certainly, those people who live outside of Wellington look like they have got a bit of a tan—you are included in that, Mr Deputy Speaker. A couple of Wellingtonians are looking a little bit pale, so let us just hope the summer picks up in the capital and they can actually start enjoying it like the rest of the country has certainly started to do.

On a brighter note, I just also want to congratulate the Prime Minister—although this is not my response in reply to his statement today—on three appointments that he made last year. I have already spoken to those people, but it is great to see the Minister Hon Alfred Ngaro sitting here. The new Minister certainly deserves his position—also Mark Mitchell, and we have also seen David Bennett appointed. It is going to be good to see how they perform in the House. Although I have some sort of scepticism here—it could be a little bit like moving Waldorf and Statler from the ranks of The Muppet Show, who seem to chortle away quite a bit to themselves over in the corner. I notice that they have separated you from the Government benches there, Mr Ngaro, so you might be able to work your way back together. But, certainly, congratulations—I look forward to working with you.

The Charities Amendment Bill, which we are here to speak about tonight, is very innocuous. I have to say, it has got only three points, and they have been articulated on both sides of the House this evening, so I will not spend too much time delving into those three points, although I will touch on them.

The Hon Ruth Dyson does correctly point out that New Zealanders are a very giving people. We do give our time and we do give our energies and our support to the plethora of charities that are around our communities, and time is probably one of the most precious things that we give. But the reality is that there is a minor problem within that, in so far as not all charities could be said to be there necessarily for the right reasons. I am going to touch on that a little bit later on as I go on through my speech. There are a couple of elephants—certainly one elephant and, potentially, a ginormous hippopotamus in the room—that I will touch on.

The first of the three clauses that we have got amendments for in this Charities Amendment Bill amends section 16 of the Charities Act 2005 so that if a person has been charged with tax evasion, if they have been bankrupted, or if they have been convicted of tax fraud, they are not eligible to hold a position as an officer within a charitable organisation, which makes complete and utter sense. Why would you allow people of low standing to hold a position within an organisation that does not pay any taxes and that is there to look after its community for the benefit of the people whom it is there to support? We completely support that.

However, with the tax evasion conviction there is a fine line—and I mean a very fine line—between tax evasion and tax avoidance. Of course, one is completely legal and one is completely illegal. It has been mentioned in the past that we have this line that we can clearly see that people are pushing across. I think, when you look at the number of multinational businesses operating in this country that do not pay their fair share of taxes through tax avoidance, that this is one of the elephants in the room. This fact alone is costing New Zealand taxpayers billions of dollars of lost revenue that would go a long way to helping those very charities that we are talking about here this evening.

The second section that this extended—removed from the Statutes Amendment Bill—Charities Amendment Bill affects is to do with the timely coming up with information to the Inland Revenue Department or other Government departments within a 20-working day period or face losing your charitable status for your organisation. That, again, makes absolute sense. What have these charities got to hide? If they cannot get that information quickly enough, then it would certainly question how well those organisations are being run, and New Zealand First certainly, again, as a good gesture, supports that part of the bill.

The third and final clause that the bill has—it really is just a one-pager—is a small change in wording: the minor draft change with the replacement of the term “chief executive” with the word “board”. So, it is pretty self-explanatory and very, very positive for the charities organisations around the country to have this, and certainly for the greater good of New Zealanders, as I have already talked about—one of those elephants in the room.

I would also like to talk about the other aspect. This is the hippopotamus in the room.

Clare Curran: Elephant.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: No, we have had the elephant. Now we are on to the hippopotamus. This is the fact that the statutory definition of charitability arises from the Statute of Charitable Uses, which is the 43rd Statute of Elizabeth I, dating back to 1601, can you believe.

Tracey Martin: Wow!

CLAYTON MITCHELL: That is right—1601. It sets out four categories: for relief of poverty, religion, education, and other purposes of benefit to the community. That is what it does—right—the Statute of Charitable Uses, the 43rd statute. There have been a large number of cases that developed the law around this and some statute law as well, especially concerning the registration of charities under the Charities Act back in 2005. That Act contains a limited definition in section 5, but there has not been for New Zealand a comprehensive redefinition of the purposes that will be accepted as charitable purposes, and the Statute of Charitable Uses back from 1601 still applies.

This is absolutely ridiculous. New Zealand First is saying that it is well and truly outdated, it is not fit for purpose, and it needs revision immediately so that there is a far better clarification around the purposes of charitability in the circumstances and it is suitable for the 21st century and not some loophole that some multinational and big city businesses exploit for their own benefit. This is the hippopotamus in the room, and I think the New Zealand taxpayers are absolutely sick to the back teeth of seeing this exploitation of our charitable nature, and it is certainly costing, as I have said already, New Zealand taxpayers billions of dollars of lost revenue, which could be going towards beneficial things within our communities. Thank you.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the affirmative on this Charities Amendment Bill in its third reading. I might just note that if the entire contents of that previous speech were to be uploaded and placed into the bill it might be three times as long, and yet would have no greater substantial meaning.

The bill does make three small changes. They are technical in nature, which is part of the way it was able to get processed the way it was, but they improve the coherence of the parent Act, the Charities Act 2005, and in doing so, they will help to improve the public’s trust and confidence in our charities.

The bill seeks to make compliance easier and faster for both the charities and the regulator, and, importantly, it provides greater clarity around the registration application process. Those three changes are, first, to provide that a person cannot be an officer of a charitable entity if they have been convicted of a tax evasion or similar offence under the Tax Administration Act 1994, and, secondly, to provide that an application for registration as a charitable entity can be treated as withdrawn if an applicant does not respond to a request for information in a reasonable time frame. The reasonable time frame chosen was 20 days. That is consistent with many Acts of Parliament—about 175 of them—but in doing so, and in placing that time frame around it, the clause does provide for extensions of time not dissimilar to those that also apply under the Official Information Act.

The third important, although not substantially large, change is the insertion of new clause 12A, which amends section 60 of the principal Act, and that is in the area of the High Court’s ability to make interim orders against the statutory decision maker, pending determination of an appeal. There was a typo in the original Act in that it referred to the “chief executive” when it should really have referred to the “Board”, because the chief executive is not imbued with the authority to have made those decisions. So it was a small, but necessary, change that actually makes the Act workable and also a bit more understandable.

As previous speakers have noted, there was an item of contention. In fact, it was not unanimously considered contentious, but it was an item of contention in the original bill, and that was around the appeals process and which authority could have an appeal made against it—whether it was only the board, or whether it was the board and the chief executive. We were not all in agreement on that, but, ultimately, given the nature under which the parent Statutes Amendment Bill was introduced into the House and the provisions of a statutes amendment bill, this bill also required unanimous support to get it through the select committee and, in fact, through these remaining stages. So it was left out, but, overall, in the context of what we were able to achieve, I think we have presented back a bill worthy of this Parliament’s attention and worthy of passing into law, so I commend it to the House.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is that it was remiss of me not to mention Jacqui Dean’s appointment as a Minister and I apologise to her for missing her out—also big congratulations on her new appointment.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order but it is done now, is it not. A 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party—Sue Moroney.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the very first day of the session of 2017, so I extend a happy New Year to colleagues in the House and also to members of the public who are listening. It is going to be a cracker, is it not, 2017? It is going to be fantastic. I am really looking forward to it.

I am quite surprised to find that my first contribution for this year is, in fact, on the Charities Amendment Bill for the third reading. At the outset I do want to congratulate the new Minister in charge of this bill, the Hon Alfred Ngaro. Congratulations. I hope this is not going to be what we will see from you in the future—that you pick up someone else’s work and run with it, on the third reading. I am sure that the Minister will come forward—we hope—with plenty of new invigorating ideas for this sector because this sector desperately needs it.

I also want to congratulate and thank the Hon Jo Goodhew on her work on this bill because of course she obviously did the lion’s share of the work on it and was the Minister right through until the third reading. I am really pleased to see that she did get to do her third reading speech as the Minister in charge of the bill before the reshuffle happened and she was no longer the Minister. I imagine that when she made that speech—and I am not sure how long ago that was—she probably was unaware that that would be her last contribution as a Minister. But that is the way this place works. It is pretty swift when that occurs and there are winners and losers, and this bill, I guess, is one of the demonstrations of how quickly things can change and who are Ministers and who are not.

This bill has been brought forward now, in its third reading, under the name of Alfred Ngaro and I really do hope—I sincerely hope—that he does bring a freshness and a new approach to this sector. What this sector does need is not the tinkerings of this bill; it actually needs an injection of commitment and of resources and money to be able to do the work that it does incredibly well.

I want to acknowledge—and sincerely—the people who work for the charities up and down New Zealand for the work that they do, because it is mostly volunteers who carry out this work and yet they could be forgiven for feeling like they are being thrashed at times because we do have growing needs in our community. There is no doubt that there are growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots in our communities, and it is largely the charitable organisations that end up picking up the pieces of, actually, decisions made in this House that increase those disparities, which means that charitable organisations are needed more and more. This burden, from decisions made in this House, does not fall on the members who make those decisions in this House but falls on the people who work for and who volunteer for charitable organisations.

So this bill is pretty typical, actually, of the sort of approach that this tired Government has been taking over many issues. There is no doubt that there are many needs in this sector, but this bill does not address them. It does a little bit of tinkering around the edges. So what is the harm that this bill is attempting to address? Well, it turns out that really the big issue that plagues the charities, the charitable organisations in that sector of our community, according to that Government, is that someone who may have been convicted for tax fraud or that type of misdemeanour might be an officer for a charitable organisation, and this bill will ensure that this will not continue to happen.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, that’s pretty good.

SUE MORONEY: Well, apparently that is the big issue facing this sector, according to Simon Bridges. He thinks this is their big issue. Well, how out of touch is that Government? If it truly believes that for these charitable organisations the big thing they would want Government to do is to fix up this particular issue, I think the Government has got it wrong. It has got it wrong and it is completely out of touch, because what this sector really needs is a genuine commitment from this Government to actually recognise that the demand that its policies are creating is driving more work for this sector and yet its funding does not reflect it—its funding does not reflect it.

But here we are, tinkering along, and, yes, it is true. The Labour Party is supporting this bill because what is there to oppose in it? It is such a meaningless little bill that what is there really to oppose in it? Of course we do not want people who may have dishonesty charges against them heading up these charitable organisations. Of course we do not want that, but is that the big issue that plagues this sector? Of course it is not. Everyone who volunteers or works for a charitable organisation knows that this is not the big problem that needs fixing.

Hon Simon Bridges: What is it then?

SUE MORONEY: The big problem that needs fixing is resourcing, Mr Bridges. He has to ask the Opposition what the big problem is that is plaguing that sector. That is how out of touch the Government is. It is resourcing. That is the big problem for it. And we know that because ComVoices, which is an umbrella organisation that represents many in this sector, actually just last year did a state of the sector survey. So it put a lot of time and effort into finding out what was actually going on in the sector. Would it not be refreshing if someone like Alfred Ngaro, the new Minister, actually looked at this survey and acted on it? Would it not be great if the Government itself had done this work instead of relying on ComVoices, with its meagre funding, to find out what is going on in this sector? Why did that Government not do this survey itself to find out what the real issues were, so that it could bring a bill to this House that was meaningful and would make a difference?

If the Government had done its own survey of this sector, here is what it would have found, and it would not have liked to be confronted with the truth. The truth is that 65 percent of the organisations have more work than they had 2 years ago, but only 34 percent of them have more staff than they had 2 years ago. So what does this mean, Mr Bridges? He is scratching his head. He is not sure, but it is pretty obvious that if they have got more work but they do not have more staff, then those staff are under more pressure.

Hon Simon Bridges: You’re good! Why aren’t you on the front bench?

SUE MORONEY: Well, there you go. Simon Bridges could not work it out for himself but now he has learnt something new. He is not good with numbers—that lad.

But it gets worse. There are 68 percent doing more work than is specified in their contracts. This is important because when Labour was in Government, Labour had an agreement with the sector and a plan for the sector to be 100 percent compensated for the work that it did—not 68 percent, as it is under this Government. There are 68 percent doing more work than is specified in the contracts. So the organisations are facing an increasing complexity of needs in the clients in the communities that they deal with.

Hon Simon Bridges: Ha, ha!

SUE MORONEY: Simon Bridges might find that funny, but they have fewer resources to deal with it. It is also the financial pressures. If this Government actually bothered to survey the sector and find out for itself, well, 42 percent of the organisations were unable to offer staff any wage increases in the last 2 years, and 2 percent are facing closure—42 percent are worried about their financial viability.

In my community of Hamilton West one such organisation has actually closed down. It is called the Crosslight Trust. It has closed because of this Government’s inability to actually deal with the issues that these charitable trusts face, day after day after day. That is the sort of legacy that this Government has got. In Hamilton West the Crosslight Trust, which has been operating for years and years and looking after people in Hamilton West, closed its doors at the end of last year because it could not continue under those sorts of pressures that ComVoices shows are happening right throughout the sector.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): I take this opportunity to welcome you back to the Speaker’s Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, and my colleagues to this 2017 year. It is great to be back in the House for what will surely be another great year under this National-led Government. It was an inspiration to be in the House to witness the delivery of the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament this afternoon. It was inspiring, it was motivational, and it gave New Zealanders confidence that the country is in very good hands. It is ably led and our future is secure. What the Prime Minister also articulated very well is that there is no Opposition that can be taken with any measure of seriousness.

We are talking tonight about volunteers, and during my time as a mayor, without doubt the highlight of every year was to be able to accompany the local volunteer group to the TrustPower Community Awards, an annual event that celebrates the contribution that volunteers make across this country. It is always inspiring and always very humbling to see the contribution that volunteers make. I will always remember with some fondness the comparison made one time at one of these events when volunteers were compared to Viagra. They start with small concepts, they rise to the challenges, and they usually always deliver the goods. But another inspiring comment was that volunteers are not paid because they are worthless; it is because they are priceless. Never a truer word was spoken.

Tonight I stand in support of the Charities Amendment Bill in its third reading, which is sponsored by the very Hon Alfred Ngaro, one of our four new Ministers. This bill amends three sections of the Charities Act 2005 and it provides greater clarity around the registration application process. It will also deliver to the public a lot more confidence and trust in charities by strengthening the protection against the risk of financial mismanagement. It is my pleasure to commend this bill.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, ngā mihi nui ki a koe ki roto i ngā āhuatanga o tēnei tau, te rā tuatahi ka noho Te Whare Pāremata mō tēnei tau, e mihi atu ana au ki a koe. Ka huri i tua atu ngā mihi ki Te Minita hōu, ki tōku tuakana ki Te Hōnore a Alfred Ngaro, me tēnei pire ka hau mai ki roto i Te Whare. E te tuakana, e mihi atu ana au ki a koe me te kōrero o te whakataukī a ngā mātua, a ngā tūpuna i matuku mai i Rarotonga, e mihi atu ana au ki a koe!

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and huge compliments to you in regard to the circumstances on the first sitting day of the House of Parliament for this year; I acknowledge you. Furthermore, I turn to offer my compliments to the new Minister and my elder kin, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, and to this new bill introduced into the House. To you, my senior kin, I congratulate you in terms of the saying of the ancestral fathers and forefathers, a heron from Rarotonga: well done!]

Thank you for the opportunity, Mr Assistant Speaker. I just firstly wanted to greet you in the first sitting day of this calendar year, and also acknowledge the member Alfred Ngaro, who is the current Minister in charge of this bill, for his rise through the ranks. I have no doubt that his whānau, his community, and his people of Rarotonga will be very happy and proud of their son. So, to you, I say congratulations, the Hon Alfred Ngaro.

To the bill. The volunteer sector has had more pressures put on it, certainly in my time in Parliament as the member for Tāmaki Makaurau. The volunteer sector has been placed under significant stress in Tāmaki Makaurau and, in particular, in South Auckland, where poverty is at unprecedented levels. Poverty has forced our people to call upon the charity of services such as the Salvation Army and many others. However, what we have not seen is significant support for those charities to make sure that Kiwis from far and wide receive the support that they need during hard times—the safety net that once upon a time was there that allowed them to make sure they had food on the table for their families and to make sure that they had resources for their tamariki and a roof over their head.

This particular bill does just a few things. They have already been well canvassed in the House. One of them, of course, is around the inability for somebody who has a conviction under the Tax Administration Act to stand in a position of responsibility within charities. That is a step in the right direction, because for those who rely on those services and for administrations such as this Government and the ministries, it is important that they have confidence in those charities working hard in the community to provide the services that are needed.

More importantly, it is important that these services continue. I take the point of my colleague Sue Moroney, who talked about the need for this particular sector to be supported properly. The workload has increased. Some would argue administration matters have caused those who were delivering services on the front line to now take backroom office jobs to make sure that administration is kept up with. An important part of all charities is to make sure that the papers are in order, that the books are in order, and that all is transparent so that the confidence of the Government and the confidence of ministries and the confidence of the community exists. So with the increase in work, we wonder, when we look at this bill, exactly how does this make things better.

The other part of the bill is a minor technical error. Referring to the “chief executive” tidies one of those parts up, which is pretty straightforward. We seem to be doing a lot of little tidy-ups, certainly in the 2 years I have been a member of this House, when we have come in and we have had to backtrack on certain Acts just to tidy up small parts of the Acts to make sure that they are more efficient. It speaks to some of the poor processes that many of the bills in this House have gone through. The test will be whether, indeed, this particular bill makes things easier for those on the front line. The test will come after this particular legislation is in force as to whether or not the compliance responsibilities on charities will cause more frustration, more headaches, for the already stressed staff.

Finally, I just want to congratulate all of the volunteers and to spread the love with Te Reo Māori. For voluntary work, the Māori words are mahi tūao—and a volunteer is a kaitūao. In particular, I wanted to congratulate the many volunteers who made Waitangi Day the success it was. I, as a member of the Waitangi National Trust, saw first-hand the hard work by the many volunteers at Waitangi over the past few days. I want to congratulate them, and all of the volunteers who have been mentioned in tonight’s contributions, and say to them that although this particular bill will tidy up some of the fringe elements in the sector that they work within, let us be real that what the sector does need is a significant injection of resources and cash, and a focus from this Government to ensure that those who do use the services of charities and those clubs and organisations that have many volunteers get the support that they need. We support this bill.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I have already spoken tonight, Mr Assistant Speaker, but I just want to acknowledge you in the Chair. It is good to see you back, looking refreshed from a great holiday.

Of course, we are talking about the Charities Amendment Bill at its third reading tonight, and before I start I just want to acknowledge the Hon Jo Goodhew for the good work that she did in bringing this bill to the House and steering it through the Committee. She has done a great job and I just want to take a moment to reflect on that. But, of course, we have now got the Hon Alfred Ngaro overseeing it, and I think Mr Alfred Ngaro looks absolutely splendiferous tonight, almost regal. It shows how fast-working he is to be able to be here on the first day of Parliament in 2017, pushing through the third reading of this bill, and I just want to congratulate him on his fast-moving actions to date. I am sure we will see much more coming to the fore.

Of course, charities and volunteers—tūao, I have just learnt from my colleague Peeni Henare—play an incredibly important part in our communities. I think the work that they do actually underpins a lot of the communities we all live in and enjoy, and I think that point just cannot be overstated enough. So the importance of this bill that we are talking about tonight is really just about securing that and making sure that charities operate efficiently and effectively.

I think we have all heard before the three key parts of this bill, but the main one is to make sure that officers of charities are proper persons to be involved in charities—and also, in terms of people making applications, to make sure that they do make an application and complete it within 20 working days of any receipts or answers required, because often they do not respond and, therefore, charities’ applications have to be declined formally. This is a way of just dealing with that and expediting that process.

I think it is a great bill. It is not comprehensive in terms of having lots of different sections, but it is a good piece of legislation and one we should all be supporting. Thank you, and I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I move, That the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I acknowledge the work of the Commerce Committee under the leadership of Melissa Lee, and I thank those who submitted and appeared before the committee on the bill for their contribution.

The committee was unable to reach an agreement on whether or not to recommend that the bill be progressed. That being said, I am confident that the committee gave the bill thorough consideration and debate. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that imposing anti-dumping and countervailing duties is in the interest of New Zealand in each case. It does this by introducing a public interest test into the trade remedies regime. Dumping occurs when goods are exported for a lower price than they are sold in their own country. Where dumping causes material injury to the domestic industry that competes with the dumped imported goods, the importing country can impose anti-dumping duties. Similarly, countervailing duties can be imposed where a domestic industry is experiencing material injury from competing with imports that have benefited from subsidies from a foreign Government.

Countervailing duties aim to level the playing field by imposing a duty at the border, to offset the effect of the subsidisation. A public interest test would automatically be applied following a dumping and subsidy investigation, where the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs determines that anti-dumping or countervailing duties should be imposed. The public interest test would consider the cost of the duties on downstream industries and consumers against the benefits to the domestic industry. The public interest test contains a list of eight factors that officials must consider. These factors relate to the effect of the duties on prices, availability of goods, and the benefit to the domestic industry.

Where the test determines that the costs of the duties to downstream industries and consumers materially outweigh the benefits to the domestic industry, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs may make a determination that the duties are not in the public interest. There would be a presumption in favour of importing duties. This aims to strike the balance between ensuring that duties are imposed only where there is a public interest in doing so and giving domestic industries sufficient assurance that they would be protected from injurious dumping or subsidisation.

The bill ensures that the New Zealand trade remedies regime follows the rules set in the World Trade Organization agreements on anti-dumping and countervailing measures, while also ensuring that New Zealand’s best interests are at the forefront of our consideration. A number of other countries around the world have implemented public interest tests in their trade remedies regimes, such as Canada and the EU. In developing the public interest test in the bill, the Government took aspects from public interest tests in other jurisdictions and developed a test that is fit for purpose in the New Zealand economic setting.

The Commerce Committee heard concerns about the subjectivity that the public interest test may bring to the trade remedies regime. Users of the trade remedies regime can be assured that the Government intends to run the public interest test as a thorough process using information gathered throughout the dumping or subsidy investigation supplemented by submissions made by interested parties through the period of the public interest test. The commencement of a public interest test would be publicly notified and interested parties, such as importers, downstream industries, and consumer groups, would be welcome to make submissions.

The bill also proposes changes to the regime that would allow the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to take action where users of a good—subject to anti-dumping or countervailing duties—have been affected by a natural disaster or an emergency. The Minister would be able to suspend or terminate existing duties, and to defer, or not, the imposition of new duties. These powers will help alleviate pressure on prices of certain goods subject to duties, where the users of those goods have been affected by natural disaster or by an emergency.

Given that the Commerce Committee was unable to agree on whether to recommend that the bill be passed, no changes to the bill have been recommended to the House. After considering submissions to the bill, the Government will be looking to progress some changes in the Committee of the whole House stage. Those changes, recommended by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to the committee, responded to some submitters’ concerns that the public interest test, as currently drafted, would not adequately account for the benefits of imposing an anti-dumping or countervailing duty. After hearing feedback from submitters to the committee, I will be proposing a small change to the matters that the Government must consider in the public interest test. This will ensure that the Government can consider the full benefit to the domestic industry that arises from imposing an anti-dumping or countervailing duty.

I will also be looking to progress some other minor and technical changes that MBIE recommends to the committee. I once again thank the members of the Commerce Committee and those who provided submissions. I reiterate my view that the bill has been put through rigorous and thorough consideration by the committee members. I thank them for that, and I commend this bill to the House.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to oppose this bill, and in some ways I do it with a heavy heart. We supported this bill at its first reading, because we wanted to explore the idea of a consumer surplus that might come out of this process. Unfortunately, when we came to examine the detail in the Commerce Committee, we could see that the test that was being proposed by the Government was wholly inadequate—wholly inadequate. Unfortunately, there was no prioritisation within that process and no clarity about how it would be applied. We, in the end, decided that it would actually put the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs at risk in trade discussions, because there would be no likelihood of a clear ruling for the Minister to go by in trade discussions, and that may lead to undue pressure when it comes to renegotiating trade agreements, or to talking about non-tariff barriers and other measures.

I want to discuss a few of the aspects of that uncertainty and let the House understand the debate we had in the select committee in order to come to this view. One of the things I should say, though, from the outset is that submitters were overwhelmingly opposed to this bill. Those businesses that are in the market place in New Zealand could see how they would be harmed through the application of this legislation. But they stressed—and Oji Fibre Solutions is one such company that came before the select committee, and said: “We’re not asking for special treatment here—we’re not asking for special treatment. What we are asking for is a level playing field.” The World Trading Organization (WTO) rules are there to create a level playing field. They are there so that companies can compete fairly on the world stage.

We are an exporting nation. We need to compete as a country on the world stage, if we, as a country, are to pay our way in the world. But the way to undermine our domestic producers in that battle for supremacy on the world stage is to dump cheap products on the market that undermine their profitability and send them to the wall. That was the risk that was outlined to us in the select committee by steel companies—New Zealand Steel—and by export companies in the fruit and produce area like Wattie’s. We had a range of submitters come to us and say that this will harm domestic companies and it will cost jobs.

That is without looking at new companies—because those are the big companies that can represent their interests on the world stage, which can have the debate about whether this is a fair law and whether it sets a level playing field. But what about small companies that have got innovative technologies? When the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment goes out and says “Will this dumping harm any existing New Zealand businesses?”, how big is its scope? Does it have in its mind’s eye those little businesses—those micro-businesses—that have a great idea that could succeed on the world stage, only to be dumped on, to have their capital withdrawn, and to have their businesses fail? That is not a fair place in which to do business.

The genesis of this bill, we are told, was around the Christchurch earthquakes, when there were exceptional circumstances, and there were reasons why New Zealand might wish to take cheap goods from overseas that had been subsidised by other Governments, or that were surplus to requirements and were being dumped at a price below fair market value. That was a crisis situation, and we saw in this House that Parliament—Parliament—had the nous to be able to deal with that situation and say: “We will make an exception here. This is not going to harm our domestic producers because it is so grand in its scale, and the need is so desperate that we will let this stuff come into New Zealand at a cheaper price.” When that situation arose, Parliament stood up and dealt with it.

Unfortunately, this legislation says that a Minister, on a good day, can give a nod and a wink and say “This thing should be dumped on the market.”, no matter the consequences on our domestic producers—no matter the consequences. They have the ultimate discretion. Then we ask: “Well, surely there must be some protection for the Minister. There must some protection for the Minister in this. There must be some regime in place where it will be measured as to what constitutes something that might harm domestic producers, because the words are in there. We will look at what it does to domestic producers.”

Here is the list of factors that will be considered when deciding whether dumped goods should be allowed into New Zealand. Normally, WTO rules say that there are to be no dumped goods because that is unfair trading practice. But here this Government is saying “Oh yeah, maybe we will. Maybe we will let cheap stuff in. To hell with our domestic producers.” Here are the factors they are going to consider: focus on prices, product choice and availability, product and service quality, the financial viability of the domestic industry, employment levels, and competition in the market. Those are, I think if I am not wrong, eight different factors that we considered. We asked for a prioritisation order: which of these factors will be considered more important because they are directly opposed, many of them. Is dumping OK in this circumstance? “Ah well, we will look at those factors and we will weight them in each individual case.”, I think was the best answer we got—not very convincing I am afraid.

I should have started from the outset by congratulating the Minister on her elevation, and I apologise for not doing that. But this Minister has been sold a pup with this bill. This is a rough start, being asked to defend dumping that creates an unlevel playing field that allows overseas competitors to destroy our domestic producers in this country, due to this Government’s short-sighted desire to say: “We brought you this cheap product or that cheap product here or there.” The interesting thing was all of these submitters whom we heard who were opposed to it, amongst them, of course, too were Business New Zealand, ManufacturingNZ, and Catherine Beard—I found myself nodding along to Catherine Beard in a way that I have never found myself nodding along to Catherine Beard before—but they understood and they expressed clearly how damaging this could be for New Zealand.

Another consequence of this legislation is the uncertainty it creates. Australia has twice looked at similar legislation—twice—and more thoroughly than our process allowed for. They twice looked at similar legislation and resoundingly rejected that legislation because they know it will harm their domestic industry. They prefer a level playing field, not one tilted in favour of multinationals, no. In Australia they look after their domestic industry, domestic jobs, and they want a fair and even-handed market. What we heard from some of these submitters was about their parent companies when deciding where they should invest new plant, say, a new steel mill. Would they put that into Australia where they know there is going to be a level playing field, or would they put that into New Zealand where no one can say what the outcome of this assessment would be when the Minister gets his or her hands on it to decide whether suddenly it is in consumers’ interests to undermine the domestic market? That is the issue that we have before us.

Unfortunately, we could sense around the table in the select committee the concern because these are big players who came to see us, who came to express their concerns. Business New Zealand, of course, does not criticise the Government lightly. It does it only when it is deeply concerned about the impact on domestic producers. That public interest test is highly, highly subjective—as it has been outlined by the Government. The Government will have huge powers and that will create pressure on the Minister to capitulate—to save face. Say, for example, if we were dealing with a difficult trading partner overseas who was introducing all kinds of anti-trade mechanisms and there was pressure coming on, the Minister has pressure on her that was not there before.

This is unfortunate and this Government can fix this. It is not too late. Ms Dean expressed in her initial contribution a desire to bring to the legislation some amendments, as yet ill-described, that in some way may go towards remedying those concerns. But I think that if they were well developed and clear we would have heard about them in her speech. These concerns are serious. These are very, very serious concerns, and we have no idea how that test is to be weighted, how it will be applied, what effect it will have upon investment in New Zealand as companies get the scares because they do not know what is going to happen in this uncertain environment.

The other thing, of course—and related—is the extra costs on business that this will introduce. This legislation, make no mistake, will add additional costs to business because there is uncertainty now. There will be regulatory uncertainty that was not there before. Businesses will have to stump up and deal with this uncertainty. They will have to price it into their products. This will bring costs to New Zealand businesses. This is a terrible piece of legislation. The Minister has been sold a pup, and it is New Zealand jobs and domestic producers who are going to be put at risk by putting this bill through the House. Labour will oppose this bill from here on in, and we ask the Government to seriously consider doing the same.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the second reading of the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. Before I actually get on with the bill I would like to congratulate the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Hon Jacqui Dean, and I would like to wish her well in her new job and elevation. I am sure that she will do a sterling job. If her past experience in chairing committees, which I have actually seen physically, is anything to go by, she will do a fantastic job.

I would also like to wish all members right across the House a blessed Year of the Fire Rooster. In the ethnic lunar calendar it is the Year of the Fire Rooster. As you can imagine, fire is burning and big. A rooster wakes up really early and it is hard at work early in the morning, so I think it is an indication of what this year is actually going to be—a year of hard work and lots of productivity.

To members across the House whom I heard speaking Te Reo as I was coming to the House—I would like to wish kia ora to my brother over there and wish everybody a happy Waitangi Day for yesterday. It was a wonderful thing to be at Ōrākei Marae, to experience Waitangi Day.

The purpose of this bill is to allow New Zealand to undertake its duties in accordance with the World Trade Organization and apply anti-dumping and countervailing duties responsibilities. The bill will introduce a test to balance consumer interests with the needs of manufacturers and ensure that when consumers are benefiting from lower prices, more choices, and availability, when apparently dumping occurs, their benefit outweighs the effect on the impact on our industries. It is important for New Zealand that our market is competitive but that it is also fair to our trading partners. Sometimes that is a fine balancing act.

Talking about a fine balancing act, as the chair of the Commerce Committee, which is in fact a split committee, I would like to thank the members of the committee and the secretariat for the important work that they undertook on this bill. Although the votes were tied and we were unable to agree on whether the bill would be passed, the committee undertook its work diligently and I would like to thank the members for their cooperation.

Currently in New Zealand our trade remedies regime is insufficient for when goods are dumped on to the New Zealand market. The proposal placed before the committee is to allow the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to initiate an investigation when a domestic industry suffers material injury because of dumping or subsidisation. The key points surrounding the investigation would be the public interest test that members opposite and the Minister had in fact said—that is to say, whether the dumping of the goods would be of value to New Zealand consumers, despite the unfair competitive advantage it may proffer to the dumping agent.

The bill would allow the Minister responsible to impose duties if it is in the public interest to do so. It would also allow the Minister to suspend or terminate existing duties and/or defer where appropriate cases may exist. An example would be when a natural disaster, perhaps, occurs, like in the case of Kaikōura or Christchurch.

The bill also seeks to clarify a number of existing provisions in the law. I commend my fellow National members of the Commerce Committee for supporting the bill’s objective to achieve a net public interest through the introduction of the public interest test. I know that members opposite and Government members disagreed on this, and we did actually spend quite a bit of time debating this. But New Zealand needs to maintain an effective trade remedies regime, so our domestic industries have confidence that the Government can, in fact, protect them against unfairly priced dumped goods. I am pleased to support this bill because it actually has that remedy and the protection for our producers. I commend the bill to the House.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): As I begin, can I also congratulate the Minister the Hon Jacqui Dean on her appointment as Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Can I also say that in my 8 years in the New Zealand Parliament, Jacqui Dean is the fourth commerce Minister. Two of her predecessors did not contribute much to commerce, if I may be so bold as to say. Jacqui Dean does have quite a lot to live up to compared with the contribution that Simon Power made as the Minister of Commerce. He was probably the Minister in the House that I most admired under the National Government, particularly for the thinking work, even if we did not always agree, that he did on copyright. I note that this Government, although promising on paper to commit to a copyright review, has not undertaken that to this date. Under Simon Power that would have progressed. I wonder whether Jacqui Dean will move that forward.

My colleague David Clark, in his contribution, which was a sterling contribution—he did much of the heavy lifting on this bill in the Commerce Committee. When I say “heavy lifting”, I mean the heavy lifting across the major parties. We went into this bill with an open mind, as we usually do, and were quite disturbed and shocked by the response of submitters, submitters who represent a significant part of New Zealand’s export earnings, who came before the committee. One after the other after the other expressed their extreme discomfort and distress with the public interest test that was being proposed in this piece of legislation.

Although my colleague David Clark may have jested about listening to Catherine Beard, we had industry after industry—the horticultural industry, the steel industry, the manufacturers’ peak body; industry body after industry body—that expressed grave fears for the export industry in New Zealand. If we are not listening to that message, then what is wrong? What on earth is wrong with this Government that it has not heeded these messages?

I note that the Minister talks about a minor amendment or series of small amendments to the bill that will come before us at the Committee stage. The Labour Party certainly has not been provided with any information on that. There has been no consultation. There has been no attempt to bridge the divide and have sensible discussions about this. One would think that that would have happened if this Government was serious about this.

We cannot fathom quite what the motivation is behind this attempt to introduce this public interest test that nobody supports, or that very few support, other than for there to be somehow a lowering of prices to consumers. There is no problem with being concerned about lower prices to consumers, but if the impact of that is to affect our export industries when there is a goal of export growth to 40 percent of GDP, then what is going on here? Somehow the dots do not join up. On the one hand Melissa Lee talked about choices and a fine balancing act, but on the other hand we hear from the steel industry that its future is in the balance—it is more than in the balance; it is going down the gurgler—should this bill progress.

We also heard from the horticultural industry—numerous industries. What is the point of that? There is something fundamentally wrong. I hope Jacqui Dean is listening. I hope that she has read the submissions on this legislation. I hope that she has reached out and actually done some consultation herself and done her homework herself, because in my view the previous Minister did not do that homework and was woefully inadequate in his approach to several pieces of legislation.

We also sought advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on this piece of legislation. It was quite difficult to actually pin down what its advice was. I have actually got the advice that it provided in front of me, and it is vague at best. Again, this raises questions about what the motivation really was for this piece of legislation and what the Government is actually trying to achieve. I hope that when the next speaker gets up they can actually enlighten us on whether they think that this piece of legislation is actually going to contribute to that target of export growth to 40 percent of GDP, or whether that is going to be affected. I would hope that other Ministers who represent other significant export industries would actually be paying attention to what the impact is of this legislation—

Dr David Clark: That’s you, Mr Guy.

CLARE CURRAN: —I am looking at Mr Guy right now—and would go and talk, if they have not already, to the horticulturalists. Who knows whether Steven Joyce was paying attention when this piece of legislation was going through its first reading and the select committee stage. He is the one who got up in the House, along with Bill English when he was the Minister of Finance, and trumpeted the growth of our export industries and said that there was a target of 40 percent of GDP for export growth.

Dr David Clark: Now below 30 percent.

CLARE CURRAN: Now we are below 30 percent. How does it match up?

If this is actually about driving down prices for consumers—and we have submitter after submitter coming before the House telling us that it is actually desperately going to affect their industries. I will just quickly read a few of these. We have got Wattie’s: “Our view was that the introduction of an automatic termination period … would create a domino effect which would almost certainly translate into a significant loss of jobs in the Hawke’s Bay region and potentially beyond. Attached is a copy of our letter to Minister Goldsmith …”—clearly, that was not listened to. Business New Zealand and ManufacturingNZ said “it will be harder for New Zealand business [in that] aspects of the public interest test look to be speculative/subjective at best.” and “The already long time-lines to get a determination will blow out with the addition of a public interest test.”

New Zealand Steel, as I said, described it as “an unnecessary and radical shift in New Zealand’s trade policy … result[ing] in a materially weakened anti-dumping regime … a significant threat to New Zealand industry.” There were similar submissions from Metals New Zealand, the Building Industry Federation, and the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council—I cannot believe I am reading these out, but I am—“is strongly opposed to the introduction of a bounded public interest test … Such an approach will disenfranchise both small and large companies from a process that is already complex, costly, and time consuming by adding a substantial risk to the outcome of an anti-dumping investigation.”

Well, for goodness’ sake! What is going on here with this Government, which claims to be pro-business, claims to be pro-small business, claims to be the brains trust, and claims to be the one that represents business? Here you have got business telling you that it is—[Interruption] So clearly, they are all wrong? What is going on here? We look forward to being able to ask questions of the Minister in the Committee stage. Let us hope she can answer them.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill in this, its second reading. The Government seeks to ensure that New Zealand has a competitive market, that consumers are getting best value for money, and that includes a balance to ensure that we are also not unduly placing pressures on local businesses, which, of course, employ good, hard-working Kiwi workers. So this is a bill that had the changes that at least this side of the select committee—the Government side of the committee—had agreed to. If those changes recommended by officials had been adopted, the bill would indeed have addressed just that, and there is still an opportunity in the Committee of the whole House for the Minister to introduce some Supplementary Order Papers, which I am sure we will be happy to support.

Listening to Opposition members’ anguish about—and rail against—this bill this evening, it strikes me as a little odd. We had Dr Clark talk about arbitrary decisions by Ministers, when, of course, he also mentioned that the public interest test has eight factors that get assessed to determine whether there might or might not be a public interest in suspending or terminating duties if a case of dumping is determined. To term that as arbitrary ministerial power just suggests that perhaps alternative facts have made their way into this House, which is unfortunate, but I would be happy to build a wall around Dr Clark, and I am sure the rest of New Zealand would pay for it quite happily.

Then we had Ms Curran talking about the deleterious effect of this on New Zealand exports. That is really quite interesting because, of course, the anti-dumping and countervailing duties are actually all about imports into New Zealand, so it is quite interesting that she spent most of her speech talking about exports out of New Zealand.

Another point she also made was about how this was going to add enormous cost because, of course, there is this new step of doing a public interest test. What she failed to mention, and possibly understand, is that the default position remains that if there is a complaint about potential dumping, the investigation is undertaken. It is the default position that dumping is wrong and that the Government will take action against those found, in an investigation, to have been undertaking such activities. It is only after that investigation, and that default position is undertaken, that the decision is then made as to whether there should or should not be a public interest test applied to this case.

It does not have to be applied in every instance. The default position is that dumping is wrong, and in most cases where it is found, the decision may well be that we are not going to undertake a public interest test; we will simply put in the measures we have against dumping. Unfortunately, the members opposite do not seem to understand that, and had they understood it, perhaps they would have found it in their hearts to support these very sensible measures. I commend this bill to the House.

BARRY COATES (Green): Thank you for calling me to speak on this bill, the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. As anyone who has seen the Commerce Committee report from this process would know, the Opposition parties are deeply opposed to this bill. There was considerable discussion during the select committee stage, and I commend our chair for allowing full discussion. I think we had a decent interchange of views. However, during that process I think I came to the conclusion that this bill was even worse and more dangerous than I thought at the beginning of the process.

Let me run through a few of the reasons why. Firstly, it is not clear what the problem is that we are trying to solve here. Is the problem that we are having a Christchurch rebuild and we need to avoid the fact that there may be countervailing duties on dumped goods in New Zealand, at least partly because the Government is not cracking down on cartels in the construction industry? Is that the problem? No—actually, already, that problem can be dealt with under existing legislation, and it is being dealt with now. So the rationale for this bill is absolutely called into question.

A second issue is: who wants this bill? Australia looked at the idea of this public interest test, and it rejected it. Certainly, from submitter after submitter after submitter, New Zealand business does not want this agreement. Export New Zealand does not want it, the Employers and Manufacturers Association does not want it. Exporters, manufacturers, horticulturalists, and companies adding value to our economy do not want this bill.

You know, all we are going to be left with if we keep on decimating our manufacturing and value-adding businesses is commodities and services. So our economy will look like dodgy education services that are completely unregulated and resulting in Indian students getting victimised by our failure of regulation. We are going to be having foreign trusts that are hiding money in tax havens here. We are going to have real estate, financial engineering, and flipping McDonald’s burgers—but where is the manufacturing going to be? Where are the jobs going to come from? Where is the value-add of businesses going to come from in the New Zealand economy? If we keep on having measures like these anti-dumping provisions that are included in this bill, then we are going to drive the remainder of New Zealand’s value-adding industry out of this country. That would be a shockingly bad outcome of this bill. We think the Government is going in entirely the wrong direction in this bill. It is a big, tough world out there. People will take advantage of us and dump their goods in New Zealand markets. We have to be aware of the threat of them doing that.

I think the third issue then is why oppose the imposition of a public interest test at all? I would like to quote from one of the submissions. This is the submission from the New Zealand Flower Growers Association. It says: “We reject that there is a need to tilt the playing field in favour of dumped or subsidised goods from overseas against local manufacturers. We consider that small manufacturers and producers are less able to present a strong voice to Government departments on these issues.” It concludes in saying: “This means that 97 percent of the businesses in New Zealand who are SMEs will not be able to have protection from anti-dumping.” This is the kind of thing that this Government is introducing in this bill, and it is the wrong kind of regulation.

If I might be quite specific about a few of the points: firstly, the approach that is being adopted is unfair in its fundamental approach. It is unfair to a domestic manufacturer to say: “Oh gee, we’re going to let somebody compete unfairly against you because there is a short-term consumer benefit.” That is not a fair solution to those manufacturers. It is like saying “I’m sorry. Let’s just wait till predatory pricing comes in from any business.” This is a licence to foreign business to practise predatory pricing against New Zealand manufacturers. Once they do and they have driven that business out of existence, then they can raise their prices. This is not a sensible bill to introduce for New Zealand. It allows us to be gamed by other companies and it means that our businesses and New Zealand cannot compete fairly.

Secondly, and this sounds like a minor point, but there are deep and fundamental failings in the methodology that would be applied to this public interest test. We have heard that there are eight factors to consider, but those factors are so vague that they do not do what is precisely required, which is to balance the real costs and benefits of this decision not only in the short term but in the long term and dynamically across the whole economy. It is, as we have heard, an unfair and complex test. We went back to officials time and time again and said: “How are you going to do this? What is the quantification of this thing?”. We did not hear any satisfactory answers as to how they are going to quantify these factors. What you will have is a series of qualitative judgments that will not stand any rigorous test and certainly not stand any rigorous test in a court.

Additionally, the methodology suffers because it is only a partial look. What we heard about the methodology is it does not include a dynamic situation where you might have a manufacturer that was trying to grow a business and it was being compared with consumer welfare from allowing a foreign manufacturer to dump products at below their price. What you lose is the jobs. But you do not lose them for one period, you lose what happens to the benefits from that company adding value, employing New Zealanders, having spin-off businesses, building a supply base, and having the dynamic base to the New Zealand economy that we desperately need and we have lost too much of.

The third issue is that we quizzed the officials on what was the fundamental methodology that you would use in order to compare the consumer surplus with the loss of New Zealand jobs and New Zealand value-add, and what we heard back was an analysis that they would use Treasury to do a kind of consumer welfare argument. What they said was: “Well, we can’t ever imagine a situation where the consumer welfare wouldn’t be greater than the loss of New Zealand’s value-add.” What, effectively, the model is saying is that it is going to elevate the short-term benefits to consumers for buying canned peaches at a slightly cheaper price to the viability of the fruit industry for New Zealand over a long period of time.

That kind of failing in the methodology is really fundamental to this bill. It should not proceed. The Green Party thoroughly opposes this bill. We entered a joint minority view, which eventually got integrated into the report of the committee. We think that it would be deeply unfair to New Zealand companies to continue with this bill. We welcome the new Minister, Jacqui Dean. There is still time for her to listen to reason not only to the Green Party—God forbid that she should listen to the Green Party—she should at least be listening to New Zealand business. She should at least be listening to small and medium sized enterprises that are being driven out of business by this stupid policy.

I am sorry to put this strongly, but we do feel strongly about this. We feel strongly that New Zealand business should have a fair opportunity to grow their businesses in New Zealand and that we should not be penalising our local businesses that are being predated by foreign companies. We should offer them the kind of protection under anti-dumping law, which is our right. With that we thoroughly oppose this bill. Thank you.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I would like to start my contribution by giving sincere congratulations to the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Jacqui Dean, and wishing her the best in her role. I would further like to work towards a friendly relationship by sincerely thanking the likes of Mr Hudson and other backbench National MPs who have contributed this evening. Their short, spin contributions have given me ample time to make a full contribution this evening, for which I am truly, truly grateful.

The Minister spoke about the select committee being a robust process over the period. It was a robust process because it was split fifty-fifty in terms of those representing the people of New Zealand on that committee. So it was very robust, but it was only those in the Opposition parties who were actually doing their job and listening not only to industry submitters but to the officials who gave information to the Government. It seems that in having this bill brought forward this evening, the Government has decided to not do the same.

The new Minister seems to have ignored that advice of her own officials, and it does not seem to be a portentous start to her new role. The Minister’s description of the change, in what she describes as a contribution to the latticework of her discretionary powers, will achieve absolutely nothing. It will harm business. If this bill passes, let us be very, very straightforward about what that will do. It is clear that business will immediately—immediately—have to manage new risk in making business decisions, because that is what this bill does, and I hope to have the time to go into the detail of how that is being achieved, unfortunately, through this legislation.

I would like to just highlight the contribution of the chair of the Commerce Committee. She, in her contribution, seemed to imply that by making these changes we were complying with World Trade Organization (WTO) requirements. We already comply with WTO requirements, and further to that, our compliance is very, very discretionary in terms of our anti-dumping commitments under the WTO system. What the chair said did not seem to ring true for me.

I would like to address Mr Hudson’s contribution, but, truly, I cannot be bothered.

This bill was drafted in response to the cost of building materials in New Zealand, with particular significance to the Canterbury earthquakes. “A pragmatic parliamentary response to the Canterbury earthquakes” at a time permitted dumped goods. What that statement means is that at that time the Government reacted, with the assistance of Parliament, to enable the importation of goods at what we would normally define as a dumped price. It happened—it has happened already. Parliament had the power to act, and it did so, but that does not mean that this argument, now, is a sound one.

A well-rounded and comprehensive system of countervailing duties helps to ensure that there is a level playing field for New Zealand businesses, so it is important that we look at this countervailing system. But we did that. We got past the first reading, and then we heard from the experts. It was then that this whole process should have ended. It should have ended abruptly, and the Minister should have gone away and started again.

Where foreign producers benefit from subsidies or where they dump products at below domestic prices here in New Zealand, harming our local businesses and industries, New Zealand First will always oppose this. I stand here, now, in what appears to be a combined stand by this side of the House, to stand against what appears to be blatant stupidity, to be quite honest.

The chorus of feedback from industry and expert advisers to the select committee and to MPs directly has been unanimous, as far as I can tell. I use this one quote as an illustration: “The net effect will enable dumping with no real recourse for local manufacturers.” Away from the backroom Government officials and out in the real world, there is no debate—this bill will weaken protection for New Zealand producers. There has been no debate. There has been only a facile argument from that side of the House.

The most damaging issue was the introduction of the consumer interest clause. It is timely to remind ourselves what it is we are talking about here. We are talking about measures to stop what we call dumping, which is when foreign producers can bring goods into New Zealand at lower prices, not because they are more efficient, not because they are more expert, and not because they have larger scales of production, necessarily, but because they have had assistance from their own Governments—subsidies. So that is what we are trying to stop. We are not trying to stifle competition from around the world, although it seems that that is becoming a harder and harder argument to have, but we are saying: “Don’t bring in these goods, because you guys over there have not played by the rules.”

As Business New Zealand said, in fact, “we depend significantly on international trade and we follow [WTO] rules in all countries we export to.” and this bill “would make New Zealand-made products vulnerable to unfair predatory pricing by international competitors.” That is the simple fact of it.

This bill will affect the innovation of small businesses—the small Kiwi businesses, which already have to compete around the world, and all they really have is their Kiwi smarts, their entrepreneurship, and the reduction of costs. But, no, what this Government will do with this legislation is add another barrier in terms of uncertainty and risk. Those businesses will suffer unduly, especially and most clearly those businesses in our manufacturing and export - oriented sector.

Let us be very clear in the House tonight. The Government officials have acknowledged that the test that will be applied to determine consumer interest will be intrinsically subjective and “that this subjectivity will impose a cost on business, as investment decisions will have to factor an additional level of uncertainty into their risk and return calculations.” New Zealand First, along with colleagues across this side of the House, is absolutely opposed to the implementation of this process.

New Zealand companies are disadvantaged by the uncertainty as soon as this bill passes, and I said that before. Literally, as soon as this bill passes through all stages in this House and becomes law, that will create a level of uncertainty. We have observed, as others have noted, that the Australian Government has refused twice already to make similar changes to its anti-dumping legislation, and for the very same reasons we outline here tonight. The Aussies—not the sharpest tools in the chest—rejected it twice, and what that National Government needs to be cognisant of is that what it is doing now is opening up a window for the Australian economy, because, in trying to counter the uncertainty after this legislation is passed, New Zealand businesses will almost invariably move to Aussie because they know what the rules are, they know what the outcomes will be, and they know how they can best protect their businesses from dumping practices. That is the reality of this situation.

Submitters were overwhelmingly opposed to this bill, warning that it will be likely to tilt the playing field in favour of dumped or subsidised imports, rather than support local producers and jobs. The New Zealand Government will not support domestic producers, but New Zealand First will. Thank you.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): How does one follow a speech like that?

Fletcher Tabuteau: Exactly.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Indeed. We will give it a crack. I am very pleased to take a call on this second reading of the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. Like other members, on both sides of the House, I want to acknowledge the new Minister the Hon Jacqui Dean. I have had the pleasure of working with her in a number of fields, but most recently on the Health Committee. It gives me great confidence as she takes over this role and brings herself up to speed, as she is clearly doing in this area and in others that the Commerce Committee is looking through.

A number of members have touched on an array of themes, which I do not intend to overly repeat. I think someone earlier used the word “robust”—that is certainly how the committee has approached this. There has been free and frank discussion and I think both sides, both Government and Opposition, have drawn their lines fairly clearly. On this side we see this as a positive step, in that the existing legislation does not allow a public interest test to exist. It is an opportunity, if you will, for—well, there is that old adage, that the law is made for the man and not the other way around. So this is an opportunity for the Minister, man or woman, to be able to look, with good advice, through the likes of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials, to see whether there are actually benefits to the consumer that outweigh the benefit, if you will, of continuing a duty. One only thinks of the construction industry. It fact, it was a report from the construction industry that has been the catalyst for this legislation.

One way I look at this is, again, simply as an ability for us to review—humanise, if you will—the decisions made and not just have it as a simple process, instead of laws that absolutely lock the situations in. I think that in itself becomes well expressed, as further expressions in the bill demonstrate that in the times of natural disasters that again the Minister can intervene and say: “Look, those duties have to lapse. It is in the greater good, the public good, that they prevail.” So, again, lines are clearly drawn. It is interesting to hear the debate. I know there is going to be plenty more of it in this and other stages. I commend the bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Mojo Mathers—5 minutes.

MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is my pleasure to take a call on this bill. The Green Party opposes this bill. We were the only party to oppose this bill at the first reading. I spoke then at length about why, and the reasons that I stated then hold still. In fact, they have been affirmed by the committee process. Many submitters from major industries repeated the points that I had made during the first reading.

But, to be fair, why would we weaken the protection, the few protections that we have left for our industries, from illegally dumped goods in New Zealand? It does not make sense. You can always argue that there is a short-term benefit to the consumer through having the cheapest possible goods, but if that price is not sustainable out into the future, then it is not actually in the national interest or for the consumer in the long term, because what you do is you undermine the viability of critical local industries because they cannot compete with unfairly subsidised or dumped goods. We are not talking about competition on anything like a level playing field here. We are talking about goods being dumped and proving to be in breach of the World Trade Organization rules, so we are just trying to level out the playing field a little bit.

At the moment only very few goods have that anti-dumping duty imposed upon them, but the fact that you can sends a very clear message to overseas industries that dumped goods are not welcome here. And that is why it is so important that we maintain a robust regime. Instead, what this whole bill does under the guise of a public interest test is bring in a huge level of uncertainty. So when people are looking to invest here, why on earth would they invest here when just across the Ditch in Australia they can be assured of much greater protection, where they can be assured they will not have to face unfair competition with illegally dumped goods?

We do not support that here. We should not be supporting that here in New Zealand. There are industries like the peach growing industry in Hawke’s Bay, a $15 million industry annually, that would be at risk from dumped peaches from Greece or Spain or wherever. Why would we allow the duties imposed on these imported canned peaches to be lifted for very short-term consumer gain? Not only would you then destroy the industry in Hawke’s Bay, and put thousands of jobs at risk, but then if the prices go up we go “Oops, sorry. We’re going to have to have expensive peaches again.”, and it takes more than 5 years to regrow the trees until they are producing them again. Why would people want to invest in the peach industry again in New Zealand once it has gone?

Similarly for the construction industry, similarly for the steel industry: why, once it has gone, would businesses want to go through the laborious process of reinvesting and restarting a business again in New Zealand? They would not. And that is why for the long-term planning and for the national security of this country, we should be much more vigilant and much more careful about this. Australia has looked into this. It has decided against it. It has moved in the opposite direction. This is our largest, closest trading bloc. We should be looking at what Australia has decided and following its lead in this, because it does not make sense for New Zealand as a smaller economy to try to remove this and have even less protection. It is harder already for industry here in New Zealand.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.