Peters WinstonRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. Being the Prime Minister of a country is an achievement and holding that position for 8 years is a significant feat. So let us begin this debate by remembering that and thanking the Prime Minister for his service to the country. We wish him and his family well.Whenever a Prime Minister leaves the stage we glance back to consider what has been achieved. He has been rated by the media as one of our most popular Prime Ministers. There is no doubt that he had that teflon factor that many of his peers will be coming to envy very soon. But no matter what side of the political spectrum one comes from many ordinary New Zealanders have been able to relate to him. From the State house in Bryndwr to the ninth floor of the Beehive it is something that John Key aspired to from the days when he was a young boy and he can be proud of that.As a politician he became an astute pragmatist plotting his moves with his eyes fixed firmly on the polls which the National Party takes every 3 days. The question that as time passes people will ponder is: so what really is his legacy? Is New Zealand in as good a shape as he told us yesterday or is the reality something very different?Well take housing: what has been the legacy on housing? Eight years ago he campaigned on a four-point plan to solve what he called the housing affordability crisis". He talked of "the enormity of the problem" and that it was the second-worst housing affordability problem in the whole wide world. He said in 2007 that the housing crisis had got worse and that the crisis would only deepen. In 2007 he promised to deliver as PM and build more houses. He got his chance became Prime Minister and had 8 years to fix it.So what is the record? Eight years later the housing crisis has seriously worsened. A recent report said that one in seven houses in Auckland is being bought by speculators who already own five or more properties. In most cases they have taken these homes at the expense of Kiwis looking for their first home. In spite of all the denials from National the massive flood of immigration into Auckland and offshore buying have shut out New Zealanders and sent the price of housing straight into orbit. The average price for a house in Auckland went beyond $1 million. There have been some corrections later but the reality has not changed. A generation of New Zealanders is growing up and will never ever own their own homes. For them the Kiwi Dream of homeownership has been shattered. They have faced the dreary prospect of being renters for life. That is the housing legacy.And on State houses—well with 40000 homeless families living in cars and pensioners scraping by in camp grounds the Government started selling off thousands of State houses. The latest sell-off will be 2500 State houses in Christchurch—going on right now while we have got massive homelessness in this country. Now the same city where our Prime Minister grew up in a State house has got 2500 being sold. Rather than selling the Government should be keeping State houses upgrading them and building more. But it is not. Again that is its State housing legacy.And on poverty: over the last 8 years poverty has become more entrenched and more apparent with family poverty frequently wrongly described as child poverty as some sort of diversion. It is families that are poor in this country not children; it is families. Under Mr Key's leadership poverty has become more entrenched.And when those people say "Be generous; he's retiring." I want them to look at that homelessness and those people out of work in despair with no chance in this country's future in poor families and ask what they would think. We now have 220000 New Zealand children or 21 percent of those under the age of 17 living in poverty. At Tautoro School in Kaikohe the number being fed by the school has doubled in the last 4 years from 15 to 20 to now up to 45 pupils out of a total roll of 75 and Tautoro School is not unique in this country. Again that is another part of the legacy for those who care about a balanced fair assessment.On youth unemployment: there are 75000 young New Zealanders who are not in employment education or training. Seventy-five thousand. You want to talk about a legacy? This is what the next election is going to be about. If you want to believe shonky puffery polls you go on believing them but that is what the next election is going to be about. Seventy-five thousand—a ticking time bomb that in the last 8 years has never been addressed.To make matters worse hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been allowed into this country. Many of them are on student visas and are entitled to work. It has driven down wages. It has seen some appalling abuse of work conditions illegal hours under - minimum wage payments wide-scale corruption of export education and 20-hour work visa conditions breached all the time. All of this has made it difficult for young New Zealanders to find jobs—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Stop reading the speech.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I beg your pardon?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Stop reading your speech; say what you really think. Stop reading it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well I am telling you what I really think Mr Brownlee because unlike you some of us people in this country are concerned—nothing to do with you Mr Speaker—enough to do something about it. Not get our snout in the trough—not get our four feet and snout in the trough and think that is where life stops. Oh no and what they are going to do about it—Hon Gerry Brownlee: He's up to the elbows in the trough.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —is get rid of you. That is the first thing they are going to do—get rid of him. That degradation in the workforce and the absolute abandonment of fair play amongst the young coming to this country in the workforce—it is a disgrace; it is a legacy.On the economy claimed to be a rock star miracle: well lately a number of economists have described it as nothing like that but as a mirage. For the year ended—Hon Gerry Brownlee: What's that?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: A mirage is mainly about your lifestyle. For the year ended June 2016 New Zealand's current account deficit ran at $7.4 billion. Net international investment position: well we owe the rest of the world a negative $163 billion. They claim our GDP growth rate is 3.5 percent. That is bulldust because you have got a 2 percent population growth and before you start you have got to extract that from your so-called projections. So what is your growth rate? It is 1.6 percent which is the OECD average. Stop misleading people with rubbish and I wish some journalists would get themselves a basic understanding of fundamental economics because when you are talking about the GDP growth rate you have to factor in your population growth. Every idiot knows that except some whom I cannot name because I am too nice a person to do so. Without this adjustment for the population growth the numbers are totally deceptive. Again that is the real legacy.On the other things: the flag referendum—$26 million needlessly frittered away on a referendum on a great splash of advertisements and on the Flag Consideration Panel going to ridiculous meetings at empty halls up and down the country. Even today the retiring Prime Minister said that he had a hope that that would be his legacy. In this case there is a flag legacy belonging to someone else in a different age.Then the Government hitched its wagon to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) and it railroaded the law through this Parliament to welcome its arrival. And it has all crashed as New Zealand First said it would in February of this year. We said it in February of this year. We also said that Donald Trump was going to win so stop wasting people's money and time. Oh no they cannot listen. They have got all these experts who know a lot about everything until he comes to say: "When did they get their forecasts right?". Millions were spent on the TPPA to achieve absolutely nothing. Put it alongside the Korean free-trade deal which is heavily biased against New Zealand producers with tariffs of 176 percent. This is not a legacy.On the Resource Management Act (RMA) amendment legislation: they did a deal between the Government and the Māori Party to push the RMA changes through and that has been an absolute disaster. National chose iwi over Kiwi. His Government has forced parallel unelected race-based control on this country. In its planning and consent laws—and as more New Zealanders learn about this whether Māori or European they will come to bitterly resent this legacy which some other Government is going to have to fix up.So what is his place in history? Well let us be fair here. He has done better than many. But this is not Seddon Savage and it ain't Holyoake—before some of these commentariat who do not seem to remember even what happened yesterday think he is up in that league. Look at the fundamentals. There are serious storm clouds gathering: the decline in manufacturing the decline in exports against GDP. There are millions of people in this country who are disillusioned and even National supporters are beginning to think twice. At the Tauhei Hall 16 kilometres from Morrinsville on Sunday night we got 220 people out in a country place that has got no shop but just a school.Pita Paraone: How many?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: 220. I know there is a sea change whether those members know it or not and this sea change which you saw in the UK which you saw in the early elections in Australia and which you saw in the United States is sweeping—Hon Gerry Brownlee: No you didn't.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes I did.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it's rubbish.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I did. I looked around you—not easy to do—and I saw it. I saw it and I said so; not after the event Mr Brownlee but beforehand. I mean real signs not shonky polls which were so badly exposed by Brexit.But you have got to give it to Mr Key. A bit like Kenny Rogers—you got to know when to hold 'em you got to know when to fold 'em know when to walk away and know when to run. He saw the bells tolling. He saw those polls as we have seen them and he decided: "We'll leave it to people like Gerry. I don't want to be around" he said "when it all falls apart next year." That said I wish Mr Key—and so do my colleagues—well in his future knowing with total confidence that his successor will be as worried about his legacy as New Zealand First is."