Bishop Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1481. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National):Happy New Year to everybody. It is great to be back for another year in Government. I do not know what Andrew Little was up to over the break but he accused me of going kayaking down the Hutt River. I just want to put on record for the House that that did not actually happen but I did explore the beautiful vistas and surrounds of the Hutt Valley over the break. It is great to be back.New Zealand starts 2015 in great shape. There are challenges—no doubt about it—but we are appreciably better off as a country than we were when the National-led Government took office in 2008. The statistics have been well canvassed. We have one of the fastest growth rates in the developed world: 217000 new jobs were created over the last 4 years. The members opposite used to mock the Government about Treasury forecasts of 170000 jobs in 4 years. We have smashed that target as a Government and as a country. There is the highest labour force participation rate ever. In particular I am really happy that we have the highest female labour force participation rate ever.But it is deeper than that and I want to point to three particular phenomena that prove that the New Zealand economy is on the right track. The first is that household savings have been positive now for 5 years in a row. Again members opposite used to talk a lot about creating a savings culture in New Zealand and making sure New Zealanders saved more. Well New Zealanders are saving more and no doubt one of the reasons for that is the tax changes that we introduced in 2010. The second point I would point to is positive migration which we have massively turned round from the situation we inherited. People are literally voting with their feet and moving back to New Zealand and more important not leaving New Zealand for places like Australia.The third thing I would point out is that as Mr English the Minister of Finance pointed out in his contribution to the debate the speed limit for the economy—the natural growth limit that Treasury and the other economic boffins think the economy can grow at without inflation taking off—has been revised upwards. That is extremely important because as you grow faster for longer you have a bigger impact on people’s wages and you have a bigger impact on household wealth and household disposable income. So if we can grow for the next 4 to 5 years at 3 percent or 4 percent or more rather than the limit we previously thought which was 2 percent that will have an appreciable impact on New Zealanders’ lives and we get that growth only through sustained economic reform.Usually third-term Governments slow down become insular and run out of ideas. The Clark Government certainly did that. In fact it ran out of ideas well before the third term but it certainly ran out in its third term. The Muldoon Government did that. But this is a Government that is active that is vibrant and that is energetic. It has been renewed a little bit by myself and my colleagues from the class of 2014 and we are resolutely focused on jobs and growth for Kiwis internationalising our economy and making us more outward looking and not only that but also driving better public services for New Zealanders.We are going to focus on two particularly important things this year and going forward into this parliamentary term. Those things are the reform of the Resource Management Act to make sure it works for New Zealanders and actually delivers the outcomes we want and in particular social housing. Social housing reforms outlined by the Prime Minister in his statement to Parliament in his speech are very important. We are going to grow the number of social housing places available in New Zealand. If you listen to members opposite they would say that we are ripping the heart out of social housing but actually we are investing more money and 3000 more places so that people can move into social housing.Brett Hudson: How many more?CHRIS BISHOP: Three thousand more places. We are also moving people into independence and off the State. At the moment there are around 3300 people who pay market rents for their State house. They are in a Housing New Zealand house and they pay a market rent because their income is too high to access income-related rent subsidies. Those people are taking up a house that could go to somebody who cannot afford to move into a private house by themselves. So we are genuinely and in an appropriate and respectful way going to move those people on.We are also going to make sure that State housing is in the right place and is the right size. Thirty percent of people on the Housing New Zealand waiting list require a one-bedroom house but that is just 9 percent of Housing New Zealand stock. That makes no sense. If the members opposite who always talk about equity and fairness were genuinely in favour of those things they would back these reforms. These reforms outlined by the Prime Minister and the trio of housing Ministers are socially progressive they are socially equitable and they are fair for New Zealanders. They are focused on tenants rather than on who actually owns the house. That is the obsession of the Labour Party. They are stuck in the 1970s focusing on how many houses there are and who owns them rather than on what is actually best for tenants.