Brownlee Gerry: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 10 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1388. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard can I begin my contribution this afternoon by congratulating you on a recent significant event in your life. We all I am sure wish you well from this point. I also want to offer greetings and best wishes to the House as we start this new year.More important I want to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister the Rt Hon John Key and oppose the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister outlined in his very extensive speech the very wide programme that the Government is currently running. He outlined some of the achievements of the last few years but overall I think he indicated that this is a Government that is responsive to the needs of New Zealanders that does recognise the difficulties that are in people’s lives and that also wants to encourage New Zealanders toward the sort of prosperity that this country can enjoy on the current policy path that we have.There were a number of things that have come through in this afternoon’s contributions and they seem to focus both on national security and on the issues of jobs and housing. I want to make a couple of comments. Firstly there were 217000 new jobs in the New Zealand economy in the last 5 years under the leadership of the National Government. That does not happen because a Government has policies; it happens because people are able to respond to the policies a Government has. It is the private capital inside our economy that creates the opportunities that provide the jobs.The Business Growth Agenda with its 300-plus initiatives is about opening markets for New Zealand. It is about getting rid of unnecessary red tape from businesses and creating an environment where the free flow of capital goes into the productive sector to provide those jobs—80000 new jobs last year alone. That is the sort of progress that we want to see year on year on year. It contributes to the overall3-plus percent economic growth that we can expect for the near future. It will make a difference to the prosperity of New Zealanders. I did not hear one thing from the Leader of the Opposition today that would convince us that there is anything more that we should be doing. But I can tell you that if there is more we will find it and we will do it.On the issue of housing which has been brought up by almost every speaker I think there are a couple of things that I would take an adverse stance to Mr Dunne on. His belief is that the Resource Management Act simply needs a little bit of change but no change to the purpose because if you change the purpose you destroy a whole pile of case law. He actually says that the case law now drives what you can do under the Resource Management Act and that is the very problem that we are trying to solve.It must be great if you are a developer hearing the likes of the Labour Party New Zealand First the Green Party and now Mr Dunne saying they do not want to see changes to the Resource Management Act because it is that Act that creates the scarcity—the unnecessary scarcity—of land for development that ensures that you do have that price moving upward. We have seen that there is now a quantifiable gap in the amount of housing that is needed in New Zealand to get to a steady state to get to a state where places like Auckland will have to put in only about 14000 to 15000 houses a year to keep pace with things. That gap is what forces the price and that gap is largely created by scarcity of land and by Resource Management Act rules that ensure that those who are in a position to put big capital into their developments can sell them at a premium. We do not mind people making a few quid but we are not going to have the sort of soft protection that a law like this provides in the guise of it being environmentally friendly. It is utter rubbish and Mr Dunne is in the wrong space on this.I also found it fascinating that when the Leader of the Opposition started talking about affordable housing today he started out by telling us about the terrible story of a young couple who had just bought their first home and had to take on a $700000 mortgage. Well let me tell you I did a bit of quick calculating. What that would mean is that that young couple had to have an income between them of somewhere in the vicinity of $207000 a year to be able to afford the repayments on a 40 percent mortgage. If the Leader of the Opposition is actually telling us that people on joint incomes of $200000 a year are their target then he has failed before he starts. We have a programme that will start in April of this year allowing young people to combine their savings by way of KiwiSaver and their own resources at much much lower levels to buy into housing. What he also says is that because he does not want Resource Management Act change he accepts that there is going to be this massive escalation in first home prices. That is the sort of thing that you are getting out of the Opposition members. It is never going to take them anywhere because it will not provide opportunities for young New Zealanders. It is totally the wrong face.The other issue that has come up this afternoon somewhat repeatedly has been the issue of the nation’s security. People will have heard the “passioned” way in which Mr Key spoke about his reaction. I think that typifies the reaction of most New Zealanders watching on their screens seeing in their social media learning about the evils of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or as it is better named Daesh. Giving it the title of being an Islamic State is unreasonable to everyone who proclaims the honest and peace-loving aspects of the Islamic religion. So let us call them Daesh these evil people who have desire to take over a significant part of the world if not the whole world.When we look at their tactics it is ridiculous for anyone to say that a country like New Zealand would be immune from that type of activity; we are not. No one can accuse this Government of rushing to war as one or two speakers have suggested today. We have been extremely cautious in the way we have gone about things and we will continue to be cautious. There has been no decision made about what sort of contribution we might make but I do want to inform the House this afternoon that I have asked the Chief of Defence Force to begin some preliminary training of troops who may be asked to assist in a capacity-building mission in Iraq. That is one of the things that we are currently considering but I want to make it very clear that the request made of the Defence Force today does not pre-empt any decision Cabinet might be making about a contribution. It is simply recognising that things are moving very very fast in this regard and that we do not want to be caught on the back foot.Since the initial decision we have had some of our military people in the Middle East go into Iraq to have a look under their own reconnaissance at what the situation is. Then of course we have had an interaction with the Australians considering what a wider mission might be. But that mission if it were to be approved is very much to have a focus on the training of Iraqi troops on increasing the capacity of the Iraqi security forces. To those who say: “Well look that’s no good because the Americans spent all that money over those 10 years and it failed.” all I will say to them is this: it failed because there was a corrupt Government there that allowed that military security force to fall apart. There is a Government there now trying to bring all parties together and I want to make it absolutely clear and repeat the view of the Prime Minister that it would take an invitation from the legitimate Iraqi Government for us to be involved in any capacity-building exercise. So to sum up no decision has been made. There is a lot more work to be done but there is a preparedness should we get caught short and I think that is perfectly reasonable.I want to reserve my final comments for the Rt Hon Winston Peters who keeps doing this dance of the seven veils about perhaps going to stand as the candidate in Northland. Well I want to say and if I can quote to you that he said of a former member of Parliament who was then a list member of Parliament going to stand in a seat that the member was a carpetbagger who conveniently forgot his pledge to serve diligently as a list MP and that he took taxpayers for a ride by not resigning in order to campaign for the by-election seat. I want to say then that if Mr Peters stands by everything he said when is he going to resign?Well he will not be resigning because he will not be standing. He did not stand in Helensville. Everyone remembers in 2010 that he was out there and was going to be in the 2010 election challenging the Prime Minister. He was the guy who was going to take him down but what happened? He limped off into the corner and nothing happening there. In 2011 he ended huge amounts of speculation when he kept saying he was going to stand against Simon Bridges in Tauranga. There was big loud noise and lots of headlines—Winston was going to do it—but what happened? Off in the corner again—off in the corner again. Then of course there was the same old act in the last election. As soon as Colin Craig was in the picture Winston was up there standing alongside him on the hustings saying: “This is the seat I’m going to stand for. I’m going to take Mr Craig down. I’m going to take the National Party down. I’m the man.” And what happened? Straight back to the corner. Well Pita Paraone let me tell you that you are likely to be the New Zealand First candidate. Good luck to you. See you on the hustings.