Little Andrew: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: General Debate[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7895. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I will move the motion but before I do I will move the glasses of water out of the way to avoid an inevitable risk. I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Parliament has become very shabby in the last couple of days attributable almost entirely to the conduct of our Prime Minister and his fellow members opposite. They will not stand up and provide the leadership that this nation expects and demands. We now are in the shocking situation of a Prime Minister of 7 years’ standing trivialising sexual abuse in this country and around the world.Kiwis are sick and tired of a Government that is interested only in playing parliamentary parlour games and not in the issues that count for New Zealanders. Yesterday our Prime Minister chose the low road as he so often does—the easy road. It was a so-called punchline to him there and an insult to others there. It is the road of cynical nasty politics. He had the opportunity today to rise up above and—Hon Paula Bennett: Kettle black mate. Kettle black.ANDREW LITTLE: I have got news for you Ms Bennett. I have got something about you Ms Bennett. You will be part of it too. He could have stood up and shown the leadership and statesmanship that this country is so long yearning for but he could not bring himself to do it.When we are dealing with New Zealand - born Australians who have lived virtually all their lives in Australia—lived their lives worked there got families and support networks there—and have committed crimes and done their sentence and are now being detained indefinitely he could have got on the phone to Malcolm Turnbull and said: “Malcolm I know we had a great time in Government House in Auckland a few weeks ago. I know we funned around with our rugby ties and it was very funny and we won. But mate you’ve got to do the right thing.” Because what Australia is doing and what Malcolm Turnbull’s Government is doing is the wrong thing.When it comes to people who have lived virtually all their lives in Australia those who have offended at the low end of the scale—the shoplifters those who have got drink-driving convictions and those who have got petty offences even a number of them—their best chance of rehabilitation is not coming back to the country where they have got no support no networks no nothing but is being back in the country that is the country of their upbringing. They are Australians in all but the place where they were born and if our Prime Minister were a leader he would be on the phone to Malcolm Turnbull and he would be making that point.Well what the Prime Minister has done because he will not stand up to that issue is just weak. He will not stand up to his mate and do what good mates do and say: “Mate on this occasion it’s not right.” But it is hardly surprising. Look at the standards at which his Government operates. We have a chief whip the Government’s desk monitor who rather than trying to allow debate on important issues like the appalling state of our State houses—which Paula Bennett is responsible for—or healthy homes runs off and plays tittle-tattle. Here we have the Dominion Post now highlighting the very point that my Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill is all about—young children still after 7 years of this Government suffering and going to hospital. And we are trying to have that debate but the desk monitor opposite—the man of great Christian virtue who leads the prayer breakfasts in Parliament—has not an ounce of Christian charity to allow these people to at least have a chance. That is how appalling it is—that is how appalling it is.But why would that surprise us when you have a housing Minister or at least one-third of a housing Minister sitting opposite who has gone down in world history as the world’s worst Minister in charge of a social policy ever. Not only has she failed Housing New Zealand tenants not only has she failed to get decent-quality housing in New Zealand but she was the one as social development Minister who presided over the nastiest piece of legislation ever to pass through this Parliament whereby cancer patients who cannot continue to work have to go on a job seekers’ benefit and prove to our social agencies that they are looking for work as they are trying to cure themselves of the dreadful cancers that they have. And when they cannot prove that they are working she insists that they have to produce a medical note at their expense from their doctor. What a nasty Minister. What a dreadful appalling nasty uncompassionate Minister.She sits there embarrassed as she should do. Well it is all right Paula; just say sorry. Just say sorry to the cancer sufferers of New Zealand and say sorry to the State house tenants whom you just do not care about. The only embarrassing thing about this and I will have to send a word to the Dominion Post for backing us politically is they have got to stop being so biased. It is embarrassing that they should be so—