Sio William: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sio William: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6597. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 So far the contribution from the Government I would say is insulting to New Zealanders listening. It lacks empathy and it lacks understanding of the reality of the situation that we now face. In fact Government members have attempted to try to couch it in fairy tale terms describing real problems as “grumpy” and “bouncy”. They are attempting to defer the problem elsewhere by saying that we were better off than other countries. The reality is that that Government needs to pull its head out of the fairy tale clouds and face the reality. We live in the here and now. We live in New Zealand. We do not live in any other country. It is New Zealand people who are experiencing difficulties. 
As of last Thursday the rate of unemployment is 7.3 percent. That is 175000 people on the unemployment roll. If you combine that with the number of jobless people of almost 300000 with over 113000 people who are working part-time or casually but looking for more work that is more than 400000 people out of work or looking for more hours to work. That is the here and now. That is the reality. Those are real people and real families struggling to make ends meet who have children to support. That is what we are facing and that side continues to treat it as if it is somehow some fairy tale—that it is not real. I suspect that many of them on that side will not know what poverty is like. Probably many of them—and I know of one or two on that side—have never worked in their life because they have been in politics ever since they have been 18. So they will not know the reality of not having a job of not having work. 
I want to make reference to Mr Henare with reference to the Maori unemployment rate. He said that with the Maori population being generally younger that was one of the reasons why there were more unemployed Maori. I think our populations Mr Henare—Maori and Pacific Islanders—are predominantly younger. But that is not the reason why they are unemployed. They are unemployed because there are no jobs. They are unemployed because this Government is refusing to invest in their future. They are unemployed because everything this Government has done has not panned out to what it promised. 
Let me tell you. Do people remember the Job Summit when those members came into Government? We have not heard any more from that Job Summit. Do people remember the 170000 new jobs which was the target the Government was going to set? Well we did not get 170000 jobs. Instead we lost jobs and now we have got 175000 people unemployed. Do people remember the tax switch? We were told that by giving tax cuts to the top 10 percent of employers that somehow we were going to get more jobs. Do people remember the 90-day bill? If employers were able to fire people easily we would get more jobs. Do people remember the youth rates? Somehow by paying young people less—80 percent of the minimum wage—there would be more jobs created. There are no jobs created and I know that the surge in unemployment means that this Government has not been able to keep any of its promises in respect of unemployment. 
I want to make reference to this. Those members blamed it on the recession. Well the recession officially ended in 2009 but they blamed it. They blamed it. Those are your reports. Those are the reports of the Government. 
I want to make reference to the last time that we had such high unemployment numbers which was 13 years ago when Jenny Shipley of the National Government was the Prime Minister. In 1999 under that Government Maori unemployment was 14.8 percent. It was the same for Pacific Islanders. It was the Labour Government—a Labour Government—from 1999 to 2008 that reduced Maori unemployment to 8.2 percent and to 7.3 percent for Pacific Islanders. Where are we now? Both Maori and Pacific Islanders are at 15 percent—15 percent. In so far as Maori and Pacific communities are concerned whenever National is in power unemployment for Pacific Islanders and Maori is always high.