Cunliffe David: Address in Reply 
Cunliffe David: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:244] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 If Wayne Mapp is the answer what was the question? He is the eradicator—the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the National Party; the throbbing cerebral cortex of the National middle bench. He is a man whose highest calling—on display again tonight—is to take New Zealand away from the values that Kiwis have for a long time held dear. Kiwis want there to be a fair shake of the sav. They want the great Kiwi egalitarian tradition reflected in the idea that every New Zealander no matter what his or her race creed gender or orientation deserves to have fair opportunities in life. If that is what that member seeks to eradicate in the name of political correctness it is he and not this Government that is doomed to fail. 
The theme of my remarks tonight is in support of the Speech from the Throne which affirmed that New Zealand’s future will be built upon the passion innovation and tenacity that we see in New Zealand’s past and present achievements in every aspect of our people’s endeavour. On the sports field in the science laboratory in space exploration in film making in fashion design in the arts in technology and in business New Zealanders are creating history for themselves and for us all. Today Kiwis can be found hidden in the underbrush just about anywhere in the world. No fewer than 16 percent of our people are dispersed but they add value when they are prepared to play their part in our future. 
Our Speech from the Throne covered two key issues: it reaffirmed the Government’s aim of lifting productivity so that we can secure a prosperous future and of transforming New Zealand’s business base so that we can lift output and value per hour worked through capital and technology. That is our core economic mission and much of the Government’s programme of the next 3 years will be in support of that. I want to touch on just two themes. Firstly I will address the skills shortage— 
Darren Hughes 
: Over there. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
:—like the one opposite—and secondly I will address the lifting of productivity through technology. 
Let me turn to the first issue. It is my honour and privilege to be the Minister of Immigration in this Government. My aim is to build consensus throughout this House and the community around several key propositions. The first is that immigration is a no-brainer for our economic development. In a country where 56 percent of our firms tell us that skills shortages—the shortage of skilled labour—are a constraint and where one in three firms tell us that it is their No. 1 problem we cannot build a future that is prosperous without addressing that shortfall. We can get skills in one of three ways. We can train people and we are doing that. We can bring back New Zealanders who have gained skills overseas and we are doing that. The New Zealand Now website that we launched 2 weeks ago had 1.7 million hits in its first 2 days. It has had nearly 4 million hits in 2 weeks from Kiwis overseas who say that New Zealand is humming and that it is time to come home. They want to look at that website want to think about how New Zealand has changed and want to come home. That is one thing we can do. 
Another thing we can do is to shift from a passive approach to migration to an active one. We can go out and search for the best talent the world has to offer and we can bring it home to add value to our economy. Under this Government our migration system will be overwhelmingly built around the search for talent. We will make migration work in New Zealand’s national interest by adding value to our economy and our society. In order to do that we must rewrite the legislation which frankly after many years of changes across both sides of the House is now a complex mess. We will align our policy with the drive for skills and talent and we will fundamentally rebuild the New Zealand Immigration Service through a baseline review. Yes there will be some mistakes. Yes there will be gaps in the information that the service holds on individual cases. It will be of no surprise to anybody if we have a few more of those over the coming years but frankly that is not the issue. The issue is not whether there will be the odd hiccup; the issue is whether we can fundamentally redesign a system that suits New Zealand’s national interests. My commitment to the House is that under this Government we will achieve that transformation as part of a larger calling to rebuild this nation. 
The second thing I want to talk about is our technology infrastructure. We live in a world where our children are millennials. They are born digital they live online they have iPods and podcasting they live with multimedia and they do not talk to their friends by ringing them up but by texting them instead. That is how they get dates and that is how they get jobs—that is life; it is online. Those kids cannot and will not stay in a country that is not enabled with world-class broadband. Our businesses seeking to build global channels to markets or to a network of suppliers will not be able to conduct business if their competitors have fast cheap broadband but they do not. That is once again why the Speech from the Throne stated that building a competitive world-class information and communications technology infrastructure around accessible broadband is a must-have for the New Zealand economy. 
The Government is making two key contributions to that aim. The first is called the Digital Strategy. It is a short crisp punchy road map of $400 million worth of programmes that we are implementing systematically over the next 4 years. The aim is to boost the demand for information and communications technology by addressing connectivity user capability and content and we are rolling that programme out progressively over the next 4 years. It is a win-win situation. It is a good news story—the business sector loves it the community sector loves it and it is coming to a town or a city near people. There are contestable funds that individual Kiwi communities and Kiwi groups can apply for support from in order to do cool new stuff in information and communications technology that they could not do before. We will be laying open-access fibre and open-access highband with microwave and we will be doing that to ensure that we break some of the old bottlenecks and get bandwidth to Kiwis who need it. 
But that will not be enough. It will not be enough to do that without giving some serious attention to the regulatory framework. We have the most expensive mobile phones in the OECD. We are 30th out of 30 OECD countries. That is a travesty. That is why when the Telecommunications Commissioner reports back on mobile phone termination rates early in the new year this Government will take those recommendations extremely seriously. I will boil it down. The customer is paying 27c a minute for termination when it should cost 12c to 14c. People are being gouged and that has to stop. 
We have one of the lowest uptake rates in the Western World for broadband Internet. Why is that? It is not just because we have free local calls. It is not just because we have a long skinny country with mountains in the middle. It is because some companies are defending a 20th century business model in the face of 21st century demand. The Government’s message to them is to get with the programme. If companies want to invest for the future and build a world-class infrastructure we will support them. But if they want to starve this country of the highways of tomorrow and isolate our millennial children so that they leave our shores in order to live digital lives then we will not stand for that. That is too important to ignore. 
This country must move forward in the 21st century. This Government is on a historic mission to lift our productivity and we will achieve that. We will bring this House and the people of New Zealand with us because there is at the end of the day no alternative. It is a no-brainer to say that we need skilled migrants to fill our labour shortages and boost our talent pool and it is just as much a no-brainer to say that we need cheap fast available broadband in order to do business and connect with Kiwis around the world. Those are just two of the hundreds of programmes this Government will roll out in the next 3 years in support of the vision that the Governor-General laid out in the Speech from the Throne. 
In conclusion I say this Government is in a hurry. Business as usual will not get us there. This Government is prepared to take the odd risk in order to deliver every New Zealand child the future he or she deserves and I and my colleagues are proud to be part of it.