Robertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1466. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):We know we live in strange times when the “Mayor of Messines Road” old “Double Dipton” over there is the person upholding probity on the National Government side because that is what is going on today. Steven Joyce and Bill English are at war for the attention of their daddy John Key. They are at war for him. We have the surly middle child Bill English who today at the Finance and Expenditure Committee could not have run farther away from the Skycity deal—it had nothing to do with him; he was not part of the negotiations—as he desperately tried to cling on to the last scrap of fiscal credibility. And then over there is the problem older child Steven Joyce wanting to go out there and do deals with everybody—Hon Steven Joyce: I’m younger than him.GRANT ROBERTSON: —wanting to protect the deal that he did. You certainly look a lot older than he does.Mr SPEAKER: Order!GRANT ROBERTSON: Not you Mr Speaker. He is trying to do deals out there. Well what we have to say on this side of the House is that the Government’s chickens have come home to roost on Skycity. This brings together everything that is wrong with this Government: cronyism incompetence and lack of concern for the social harm that that will cause. There is an extra $130 million up for Skycity. What could that be used for? It could build 500 State houses. Instead it is going in corporate welfare from Steven Joyce to the people whom he got done over by in a deal and Bill English knows that—this from the Government that is meant to be the great negotiator the great manager of our economy. And here we have a deal for what we now know was a $402 million convention centre; not this whole other convention centre that is being talked about now—a $402 million convention centre that was meant to be free to the taxpayer—and straight away Steven Joyce is done over.But that is no surprise coming from the man who contracted a defective payroll system in Novopay. His solution to that? Buy it. Buy the thing—buy the thing. The brilliant negotiation skills of Steven Joyce—when he contracts a defective payroll system his solution is to buy it. That is this Government’s track record. It does a deal with Rio Tinto. It spends $30 million of taxpayers’ money and there is not a guarantee of one single extra job or one job guaranteed for the long term. That is the kind of economic development that this Government puts forward. Every time the Government gets itself into a negotiation—be it with Chorus; be it with MediaWorks Mr Joyce’s friendly old company—the Government gets done over and the taxpayer of New Zealand gets done over. It is time for this Government to front up to its failure to negotiate deals on behalf of the taxpayer or to actually think of the best interests of the taxpayer.The Minister of Finance has just spoken in rosy terms about the economy but it is important to dig into the promises that have been made. The promise that has been made by this Government year in year out is that we are on our way to surplus. Every single time we do not see that surplus. We know that Bill English will come to this House with a Budget in May. He will fiddle the figures again. He will fudge the numbers one more time. He will make sure that New Zealanders pay more on their ACC than they need to. He will make sure that the money is shifted about so it looks like there is a surplus. But that is it. That is the one-trick pony that we have in our finance Minister. There is no plan to diversify the economy. There is no plan for long-term growth in this economy beyond the Christchurch rebuild. This is what John Key and Bill English have brought to New Zealand.But at the same time the level of debt grows. Of course debt was going to grow out of the global financial crisis but the extent of borrowing by this Government outstrips borrowing by any Government in New Zealand’s history. Since this Government got into office it has borrowed a million dollars an hour every hour every day that it has been in Government—a million dollars an hour every hour every day that it has been in Government. And the Government tells us it is the responsible fiscal manager. The Government tells us we do not know how to run the economy. We ran surpluses. That finance Minister has not run one and he borrows a million dollars an hour every hour.More than that $10 million a day in interest is being paid out on behalf of the taxpayer by a Government that does not have a plan to grow the economy by a Government that does not know how to negotiate a good deal for the taxpayer and spends its time doing dodgy deals with its mates. That is the legacy of this Government. If extra money does come in for the Skycity convention centre that will be the political epitaph of Steven Joyce and John Key. The wide boys from Auckland up against Bill English and Gerry Brownlee from down south know it is not working. Bill English sat in the select committee today and he said that his preferred option was to walk away from the Skycity deal—to walk away.So watch this space—watch this space to see whether it is Bill English or Steven Joyce who wins the day with John Key. If it is Steven Joyce it is testament to the fact that this Government cannot negotiate a deal and is more interested in covering its political backside than it is in doing what is right for New Zealanders.The unemployment figures came out last week and they made for very sobering reading—up to 5.7 percent. [Interruption] They laugh but they are up. Everywhere else around the world in countries we like to compare ourselves to unemployment goes down but not under this Government’s watch. But within those figures are some very instructive lessons. In Wanganui today 9 percent of people are unemployed. That is more now than in Northland at 8.5 percent and 8 percent in Gisborne. It is the regions of New Zealand that are being neglected by this Government. It is the people who work hard in the small businesses in those towns who know that the Government is not there to support them. Steven Joyce likes to fiddle the figures wave around his charts and have his laminated cards on his desk. But the reality for the life of those people in Wanganui is that they know unemployment is rising. Any trip down the main street of Wanganui today would tell Mr Joyce that those shops have shut. You can play the game of trying to guess what shop used to be there. The regions of New Zealand are being neglected by this Government and unemployment is growing.Speaking of Wanganui 46000 more people in New Zealand are unemployed than when National took office. That is more than the population of Wanganui. There are 46000 extra people unemployed. Years after John Key and Bill English declared the global financial crisis over there has not been an improvement in the lives of many New Zealanders. Whatever economic growth there might be out there is not being shared fairly in this country. We know that as the gap between the rich and the rest grows.On this side of the House we want to give priority to the issues that New Zealanders are talking to us about—to grow sustainable jobs. I can tell members on that side of the House that as we have been going around on the Future of Work Commission the main piece of feedback we are getting is that National is not interested. It is not interested in looking ahead to the kinds of decent sustainable jobs that New Zealanders want. National is not interested in making sure that people are getting the skills and training for those future jobs. The small-business people especially are saying they are welcoming Andrew Little’s words—that small-business people will be at the centre of Labour’s policy—because they are not seeing that from National. They want more skilled staff. They want fewer compliance costs. The Labour Party will be delivering to them on that.On this side of the House we believe that it is time for a conversation in New Zealand about how we ensure decent sustainable work with growing wages for New Zealanders that reduces inequality. That is our focus and this Government is failing to deliver in that area.