Mahuta Nanaia: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: General Debate[Sitting date: 04 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7711. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I want to join with other Kiwis today to welcome the All Blacks home to celebrate their success and to give them accolades because their success is our success. To the team the management the coach and their whānau: welcome home. And it is great because we can show that as a small country we punch well above our weight on the world stage but we need to come back home where the rubber hits the road.There is a sobering reality here in New Zealand that the Government cannot get away from. Growing inequality and poverty are hurting the great majority of New Zealanders. I have been listening very carefully to the debate and it goes like this. It is as if National is sitting in front of a roomful let us say 99 percent of New Zealanders and saying to them: “In 2008 we gave you a promissory note to be able to purchase a home but it’s not valid until 2016 or maybe 2019. Well hang on just trust us. Things will get better.”Well many New Zealanders have heard that message and 7 years after National sat down on the Treasury benches they are finding that that promissory note may well become null and void. Inequality and poverty are increasing in New Zealand and unless we recognise the detrimental effects that they are having in our communities on various population groups then we are dooming the next generation to some very significant challenges. That should not happen in a country like ours.The challenge is real and it must be addressed because it goes like this: there are more vulnerable children several living in poverty many of them in benefit-dependent households and that does not look like it is getting better. It is getting worse and at the coalface families feel the struggle in very real ways. They are going to budget advisory services and going to food banks because there are increasing fixed costs that are becoming a huge burden on families.Let us look at the Māori population in the electorate I represent and across our country. The median Māori household income is $28000. Well after you take out rent and power and food and costs for the kids to go to school and costs to get to and from essential services if there is no public service network the struggle is real. Of Māori in the labour force 12.6 percent are unemployed. It is really difficult. When you go to faith-based services and social services they will tell you that now the profile of the demographic coming to seek assistance is actually the working poor. Why is this that we are now having gradients of poverty? This is New Zealand and things need to change.Last year only 59 percent of Māori school leavers completed the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. Notwithstanding the Minister of Education’s ambition to have 85 percent of students reaching NCEA level 2 it is not being achieved. And if we cannot make a fundamental difference to improve the learning outcomes for our young people how will this country ever benefit and gain the economic opportunities that the Government talks about? There is a significant challenge there.But this is where it gets real: truancy remains high. There are high levels of transience in pockets of New Zealand because of housing inaffordability. There are numbers of families living in multiple-family households where people simply try to pool their limited resources together to get by. Is that a better opportunity for children or a worse one? I ask you. People will quickly say that it is actually a worse situation than ever before. We need to do better.The whole thing about housing affordability is not just a matter for Auckland. In fact what you will find when you go out into the regions and even into small semi-rural towns is that the encroachment of the Auckland effect artificially inflates housing prices everywhere. Aucklanders will buy houses anywhere else in the country except in Auckland to lump some of their ability to invest out into the regions. It makes it unaffordable for people living in small communities.I listened to the Minister of Education during question time and she made a very simple statement in response to questions by saying: “We are targeting our resource the education resource to meet those most at risk.” That is not happening. The Government has no plan to lift the opportunities for children and young people. Income inequality has not gotten better; it has gotten worse but if we really want to ensure that the prosperity of this country transforms opportunities for everybody we have got to address this issue now. It cannot wait.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.