Beaumont Carol: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 30 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15737. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): Can I start as it is the first time I have spoken in the House this year by wishing everybody—parliamentary colleagues and all of the staff in this place—a very happy New Year. It is of course an election year and we all have our responsibilities. I just wanted to touch on that because our elections are a central part of our democracy. But unfortunately fewer and fewer New Zealanders have seen the relevance of those elections. I believe strongly that all of the people in this House have a responsibility to try to do something about that. I say quite genuinely in a non-partisan way that we all have a responsibility to look at issues like making sure that people are on the electoral roll and encouraging people to vote to debate issues and to have an opinion. This is vital for a strong democracy. So I just thought that that was an important start at the start of election year to remind ourselves of our shared responsibilities to our democracy.Part of that is about focusing on what matters. Part of getting New Zealanders to vote is to focus on what matters. I want to pick up where Kennedy Graham left off because the Prime Minister’s statement that we are now all discussing actually said very little about anything. So it is not about what matters to New Zealanders because lots of issues are out there for New Zealanders at the moment. It is not easy for most middle and low income New Zealanders and that is a direct result of this National Government’s focus on the big end of town its mates and those on high incomes and everybody else just has to make do. Well that is not good enough. In fact interestingly both the Prime Minister’s speech which really did not say much about anything and subsequent contributions from the other side of the House seemed to be about denying what Labour has actually said in our state of the nation speech. They spent more time attacking us than actually talking about what they believe and what they are going to dofor this country. Again that says a lot. It says a lot because I think across the House that people realise that Labour’s Best Start policy is actually focusing on something that matters absolutely to New Zealanders—that is our children and our grandchildren. Nothing could be more important than what happens to those young people. They are as the saying goes our future.So in contrast to the feeble efforts of the Prime Minister and the nasty attacks and the jokes and all of those things David Cunliffe in his state of the nation speech actually talked about what matters which is our children—our children. In launching Best Start he actually I think has got a lot of New Zealanders interested. For our election I think that is very positive because what that means is that people will be interested enough to vote. Best Start includes a number of elements: first of all financial support. We know that when people have babies they have extra costs. Often—and certainly you know for many families in Auckland where I am based—it is hard to make ends meet. Both parents are in the paid workforce struggling to pay excessive rents and trying to get money to buy a house which is a forlorn prospect for most of them so having money to spend on that child is really important. As others have commented this is not actually an untested kind of idea. Many of us in this House have parents who received the family benefit and often actually that provided a really important source of income to the mothers in the household—to the women. Actually as Labour’s women’s affairs spokesperson I think that that is a very positive thing. It will give families more choices about how they juggle work and caring for their baby.But there is also the focus on early childhood education and increasing free early childhood education to 25 hours per week. We are giving again parents more choices and investing in our children and we all know—if we are honest—that that investment at the early childhood education level will make a massive difference to the start that young children have and their opportunities for the future. Their success in ongoing education will be improved by more early childhood education provided by qualified teachers. I am delighted that we are saying that we will restore funding so that teachers at that very important early phase of kids’ education will be qualified teachers.Paid parental leave—we are expanding that to 26 weeks. Again that is vital for family income and vital for women predominantly to spend time bonding with their new child. That will have positive health and social benefits for children. Also we are giving parents the opportunity to go to free antenatal classes because we assume that people know how to do this very important job of parenting almost by osmosis. Well actually we know that putting investment into people and into ensuring that they know what is available to them is important. So I just want to say that I am very very proud of this policy and I know that around New Zealand people are very interested. This has made election year look a whole lot more relevant for many many New Zealand families.What is interesting to me though is how sensitive the members opposite are on the issue of inequality—really sensitive. It is sort of a combination of heads in the sand—there is nothing here do not look here there is nothing to see—with some vitriolic attacks about how it does not exist and that there is no poverty and inequality and it is not getting worse. Well actually I think that some of the members opposite need to get out in the community more and they need to talk to middle and low income New Zealanders. The census showed that the gap in income between those people who live in South Auckland where my good colleagueSu’a William Sio is from and the other wealthier suburbs in Auckland has grown by 16 percent. What does that mean for our children? What does that mean for their start in life? Get out there and talk to the budget services which tell you about the increasing indebtedness of households and families. Why is that? Because they cannot make ends meet. The income and expenditure do notline up. So I do not accept what that Government is trying to do. It is trying to say there is nothing to see here. Well I think those Government members are so sensitive because they know absolutely that there is.I want to go on to the issue of work. Probably at a headline level we could all agree that people being in work is a way out of poverty. The problem is that this Government is not focused on either the quantity or the quality of jobs. I just want to say for the record that work is an exchange. People provide their labour and they get wages and salaries for doing their job and doing it well—a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Members opposite do not understand that. Wages are languishing especially for lower-income people. Somehow those members opposite are completely of the opinion that employers are benefactors and that workers who have jobs should think themselves damn lucky and they are beneficiaries. Well that is wrong. Work is being undermined. The value of work in this country is being undermined by low wages and insecure work—increasing casualisation. We need decent work with decent wages in this country.I want to talk about women in work and women and their income. Supposedly one of the areas that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is focused on is the economic independence of women. Actually having said that there is no interest at all in issues like pay equity. Next week just so people know a very historic court case will be continuing through the system—theKristine Bartlett vTerranova Homes and Care Ltd pay equity case which has been taken with her union the Service and Food Workers Union. This is about valuing low-paid women primarily who work in the aged-care industry. These women cannot make ends meet despite the fact that they work incredibly hard in a very important and valuable job looking after some of our most vulnerable senior citizens. I think it is a disgrace that the Government is not indicating any interest in this area. I will be very interested to see what the Government’s intervention is in that case. Finally I would just say that we are committed to delivering pay equity and increasing wages.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Denise Roche—5 minutes.