Kaye Nikki: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKaye Nikki: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15648. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Food Safety): I am very pleased to speak in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. I must say that yesterday I was very sad to listen to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech and I want to tell you why. I reflected on the fact that I had been in Parliament for 5 years and there are times in this House when we hear the rhetoric when we hear the same arguments. But when I reflect back on us coming into Government I think it is important to remember the situation that we were handed and where we are now. This is important because this year New Zealanders will go to the polls and they are going to have to ask themselves some fundamental questions. One of those questions is about the record. I am proud that when we came into this House 5 years ago we inherited a current account deficit that was almost 9 percent of GDP and it is now 4.3 percent. Net external debt had blown out to 84 percent of GDP and it is now 71 percent of GDP. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent; it is now 1.6 percent. Mortgage interest rates averaged 10.9 percent; they are now 5.9 percent. The list goes on from an economic perspective.But what made me sad yesterday was that we heard this rhetoric from the Labour Party—that our party has not done anything for children. That is not true. Our record inthe area of helping some of our most disadvantaged is outstanding. Part of it is a philosophical difference. On this side of the House we believe that fundamentally one of the greatest things that you can do to enable children to get the best start in life is actually to have their parents in work because the life chances of a child are much better if their parents are in work than if they are on a benefit. Our welfare reform under the Hon Paula Bennett has done everything that it can to see more New Zealanders in work.The second area where we have invested in children is in immunisation and our health system. The other area that obviously I am intimately involved in as Associate Minister of Education is education. I want to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata because when you look at our record in education what you will see is that under this Government every year we have increased the education budget. That is extraordinary when you look at the deficits that we came into Government with. We have prioritised fundamentally for the young people of New Zealand.I think that the second question that New Zealanders should ask themselves this year is if you look at the record then what are the policies that each political party is going to fight on? We saw the opening shots and I think they were very telling. I think that when New Zealanders sit back and decide at the end of this year whom they are going to choose to lead they should ask themselves this: are the policies costed? Where is the money coming from? Are they well researched? Are they targeted at those who need it?If you look at our education policy that was announced by the Prime Minister and the Hon Hekia Parata it is costed and it is targeted at our students who need the most in terms of lifting achievement and improving their life chances. It is not a blanket “Let’s hand out money to people who don’t need it.” It is actually focused on those young New Zealanders who need help from an achievement perspective. That is why when we look at the people who have really stood out there and said that this is a great policy they are diverse. They are from across the political spectrum. They are everybody from business people to unions and if we look at the Principals’ Federation President Phil Harding—and I believe that the statement has already been quoted in the House—he said it was “a pleasant surprise and he was certain principals would be keen on it” and “It’s hard for me to say it but I am pretty damn impressed.”This is a policy that is about taking our country to another level. We have shown that we have the record but now we are showing that we have policies in areas like education and the economy that will take New Zealand to another level in terms of being a smarter nation and a more open nation. What I say to New Zealanders is that we are the only party that has the vision and the policies to take New Zealand to that level. The reason for that is that in two key areas there is a massive contrast and difference between the two sides of the House. Education is clearly one of those areas. We believe that through areas like technology there will be more of an opportunity for honest conversations about children’s learning and that will happen online with parents and teachers and students.We have spent $200 million last year and that is saying that our Government is committed to uncapped data and fast connections funded to every State school in the country that wants it. That is incredibly significant because again what we are saying is that this is about providing more learning opportunities and also resolving traditional issues of equity. So when members opposite say that this party does not care about children well how about you go and have a look at that policy. The $200 million is saying that we will finally be able to provide some opportunities that mean that every child wherever they grow up in New Zealand will have access to drive their own learning and other learning opportunities.This is a party that has not only the economic policies but also a very strong heart but our idea of a strong social conscience is not a whole lot of welfare dependency. It is not a whole lot of schemes whereby we say to middle New Zealand at the election: “Yeah here’s a little bit of money and everything will be sweet mate.” It is about turning the country into a place where we value work more where we actually see real opportunities for young people. We have shown with this policy at the beginning of this year and with the fact that it is accepted by so many different parts of New Zealand that we are serious about investing in young people.Again if we look back through history we contrast that with what I think we are seeing: a Labour Party that has not learnt the lessons of the “noughties”. In that era—and I do give credit; there was a level of economic management. The problem with it is that Labour spent everything. That is why we had the deficits that we had. So we were in a situation where we have had to have careful economic management to get to the situation that we are in. But what Labour has shown again is that it has not got fully costed policies and that it is prepared to give out lolly scrambles again that it is also prepared to have basically middle-class dependency. That is what we saw with their first policy this year.My belief is that this election will be fought on record this election will be fought on vision and policies and finally this election will also be fought on leadership. We have seen from Prime Minister John Key an ability to lead the country and have a caucus that is united and that backs him. So in all of the areas from policy to record to leadership I think that our team our National Government should be given the opportunity to have another term to be able to take the country to another level and not go back to the old big-spending policies of the past. Labour has not learnt.