Salesa Jenny: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: General Debate[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): This last week has been a week of contrasts of highs and lows. Just before Easter we saw the lowest low when the results of the Prime Minister’s vanity project came in in terms of the flag referendum with an expensive whimper. Over $26 million has been wasted on a flawed process to change our flag. But New Zealanders have spoken. They have spoken loud and clear: we are keeping our current flag. Only six out of 71 electorates voted for a change in flag. The Prime Minister could not even convince his own electorate of Helensville to change the flag. At Helensville 56.6 percent voted to keep the current flag and only 43.3 percent voted for a change of flag which is quite ironic. It is ironic because that is exactly how the rest of New Zealand actually voted.This Government has spent so many millions just to keep our current flag. But there are so many other issues so many other issues that should be of priority. For instance let me give you a few examples. Addressing child poverty—we have over 300 kids in Aotearoa New Zealand who are living in poverty. Addressing homelessness—ensuring that people including children have a roof over their heads. That is another issue that could be of priority. Investing in our hospitals is another issue. Ensuring that those with melanoma cancer have access to first-line treatment and at the same time saving hundreds of lives—I would have thought that saving lives should be a priority. It would definitely be a priority when this side of the House gets into Government—let me assure you.Another priority—fixing up and maintaining our State houses so that they are warm dry and healthy and so that they stop contributing to children dying. The young toddler in my electorate of Ōtara in Manukau East Emma-Lita Bourne died because she lived in a State house in conditions that were so bad that the coroner said—[Interruption] Honourable Minister the coroner said that the condition of the house that she lived in contributed to her death. Instead of continuing to waste millions of dollars on things like the flag referendum this Government needs to get back to focusing on real issues—issues that affect people’s lives on a daily basis. As my colleague Jacinda Ardern spoke about earlier let us focus on the things that matter.While this wasteful flag process has been under way Labour on the other hand has been working hard to build a national conversation about the future of work. We have been engaging experts business leaders economists and workers alike to help define pathways into the future that will offer opportunity a fruitful life and a shot at the Kiwi Dream for all New Zealanders not just the privileged few—and it has not cost us that much money. We have convened lots of consultations across New Zealand over the last year and a half and the results have been that we have developed 10 big ideas. That has given us a snapshot of the kinds of ideas from the ground up that would help us with our policy development.OECD countries are looking at the future of work. We are not the only party that is looking at the future of work and instead of burying our heads in the sand like the current Government is doing we are actually looking and addressing and talking to people and asking them how we address this. When the New Zealand of Economic Research comes up and gives us a report that states that 46 percent of our current jobs in New Zealand are not going to be around in the next 10 to 20 years we do not bury our heads in the sand. As the party of big ideas we try to develop policy ideas to address those head-on—the future of work. Thank you.