Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. So here we are today debating the Prime Minister's statement after four years of her Government being in power. The speech was riddled with platitudes self-congratulation and hyperbole. That's not to say the Government hasn't achieved anything; I want to acknowledge that it has. But I think there is something that has occurred under this Government that is much more insidious; in fact it is invidious. It is undesirable and it's unwelcome. It has seeped out and spread throughout our community and our country. It is the issue of how divided a society we have become.The Prime Minister is very accustomed to delivering edicts to New Zealanders. Standing on the podium of truth she has happily proclaimed the new rules and an army of public servants have set about implementing them. And while this has been necessary in the short term during periods of crisis over the longer term this has left many New Zealanders feeling steamrollered confused and alone. The Prime Minister has made it clear that her Government knows best that Wellington is the centre of the universe and that there is nothing she won't centralise. What this serves to do is to alienate many New Zealanders. The Prime Minister persists in using the term the team of 5 million people". But only someone who is wilfully putting their head in the sand could be blind to the dysfunction of this so-called team. New Zealand is divided because the things that we all thought were what New Zealand stood for have been tossed out the window. They are being contested leading to unfair outcomes. There are the haves and the have-nots. The gaps have widened and we have all witnessed the huge divisions that have emerged. For a start the Prime Minister is excluding the million Kiwis who are currently living and working overseas the so-called flightless Kiwis. We have all seen the callousness of this Government. We have heard from our elderly superannuitants stuck in places like Australia for more than 26 weeks who are now getting letters from the Ministry of Social Development demanding that they repay their super because they haven't been able to get back to New Zealand. They do not feel like they are part of the team. Then we've had the really cruel outcomes. We've had families split apart because members can't get through the house of misery called MIQ—managed isolation and quarantine. They've been unable to see their loved ones before they die or even attend a funeral. It is totally unreasonable that a person has to go on a hunger strike to be able to see their dying father. It is not any surprise that they do not feel like they are part of the team. And then the division between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated those who accept the mandates and those who do not as evident outside this wall—their anger is palpable. Then there are those who work from home calling for greater restrictions while hard-working New Zealanders go out to work every day in places like petrol stations and supermarkets. But when the Government centralises—sorry forcibly takes rapid antigen tests that forward-thinking New Zealand businesses have ordered and when Sir Ian Taylor has to speak to the media because many New Zealand businesses are too scared to criticise the Government is it any surprise that these people do not feel like they're part of the team? Then there are those who are in work and those who are on benefits. Why is it that there are 187000 people on the jobseeker benefit now when there are businesses crying out for help? What is the Government doing to get those people back to work? Instead we have a Government that is in the business of growing benefit dependency. One out of nine working-age Kiwis is now on a benefit. That is not kindness; it is shameful. Then we have the old and the young. The elderly are fearful that they will get COVID but they are also angry. Many can't understand te reo and feel threatened and disrespected because they can't. They don't know how to use a computer well and they're confused about the robot on the end of an 0800 number and they worry about internet banking. On the other hand our young are angry at the older generation. They feel that they're ruining our planet and not embracing climate change faster at a time when this Government is importing a record amount of coal from Indonesia. They're upset that they will never own their own home because they have been priced out of the market. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team?Talking of property the Government's cocktail of policies will lock and is locking our younger generations out of homeownership. New banking regulations are making it harder for people to get a mortgage. Interest rates will rise as a result of inflation skyrocketing and the new DTI—debt to income—limits that Grant Robertson has allowed the Reserve Bank to look into and investigate will only make it much harder for first-home buyers. Weekly rents are up by $125. Almost 25000 people are on the waiting list for a State house. That's a fivefold increase in four years. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team? Then there's the divide between city dwellers and rural communities. Urban dwellers are blaming the farmers for poor water qualities; while farmers blame urban dwellers and developers that lead to sediment run-off and poor council-owned waste-water treatment stations that foul our waterways and beaches. And don't get me started on the rules and regulations and condemnations being raised and rammed and directed at our farmers. Is it any surprise that these Kiwis do not feel part of the team?And a really worrying aspect is the divide between those who respect the law of the land and those that do not. Hundreds of law-abiding citizens and gun owners turned in their rifles and their handguns while the gangs held on to theirs. And while we're talking about that we're also seeing a growing divide by race. Proposals like the three waters have done untold damage because many people see them as a takeover of assets built up by all New Zealanders and the uncertain future role of Māori in the management and ownership of those assets. Rather than being open and transparent and taking New Zealanders along with them we have a Government that has been less than transparent with discussions held behind the doors. I'm ashamed of what this is going to do to the race relations in New Zealand and what it's done already. Finally there are the many small-business owners who've been prevented from trading as a result of Government-imposed lockdowns. In the meantime massive multinationals have hoovered up their customers and their trade. These are people crying out for our help. I talked to a tour operator on Friday. I said "How's your business?" "My revenue's down by 50 percent" he said. I spoke to my taxi driver last night: "How's business?" He said "Shocking." I spoke to a restaurant owner—he has six restaurants in the lower part of Queen Street; he's closing one down at a loss of about a hundred jobs. And then over the weekend I got this message about a person saying all the foot traffic is leaving Queen Street and how it's taking his profitable business and turning it into an unprofitable business. And what have we got? We've got a Government that thinks the only solution is a wage increase. Is it any surprise that these small-business owners do not feel part of the team? We are in a bad place."