Ross Jami-Lee: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoss Jami-Lee: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9305. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): It was interesting looking at the first general debate for 2016 and watching the faces of the Labour Opposition members as their leader was speaking. I understand that Labour is going through a process of getting rid of some of its old policies that are unpopular and getting rid of some of the things that lost it the election. Well if those members are looking at things that were not working they probably need to look at the leader who cannot even get one in 10 New Zealanders to support him in the opinion polls. If they are looking for something to scrap I think they saw during that speech the first place they should look.This Government is getting on with the business. This Government is growing the economy. This Government is growing jobs for New Zealanders. We are delivering better public services for New Zealanders. We are delivering better education outcomes. We are delivering better health outcomes. We are delivering increases in the Working for Families increases in child benefits. There is a lot that this Government is doing. When New Zealanders go to the polls in 2017 they are going to ask themselves: “Can we rely on the Government that is delivering a huge amount of benefits for New Zealanders or can we rely on an Opposition party that does not even know what its position is on many issues and does not even know the policies that it thinks it wants to implement if it is in Government—an Opposition party that does not even support free trade for New Zealanders any more?”. Those are the questions that New Zealanders will be asking themselves.If we look at some of the things that the Labour Party has been presenting to New Zealanders in the past few months New Zealanders will really be questioning whether or not Labour is actually fit to govern. I think the first one we can look at is the flag referendum because New Zealanders will be getting their voting papers in the mail fairly soon. Of course not that long ago the Labour Party was all in favour of having a flag referendum and changing the flag. It was not until John Key proposed it that those members then had a flip-flop and changed their minds. It was not so long ago that the Labour Party was opposed to anything that New Zealanders should be doing in Iraq but all of a sudden Andrew Little popped up a few months ago and said that all of a sudden he wants to send SAS troops to Iraq—another flip-flop.In the past week or so we have heard the Labour Party talking about funding Keytruda and yes the Government will be looking at the health budget very carefully in the coming few months. But it was not so long ago that those members were going up and down the country with the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party saying: “Oh this is terrible. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may undermine the Pharmac model.” Well the worst thing that could happen to Pharmac is having politicians decide all of the drugs that it should be funding—Hon Annette King: Like Herceptin.JAMI-LEE ROSS: —because that is what those members are asking us to do. That is what they are asking us to do.Whilst we are on the topic of health let us just say to Annette King that nobody believes her when she says that we have underfunded health. I want to give her some numbers. The health budget that Labour left was $12.2 billion. The health budget right now is $15.9 billion. I do not know how good she is at maths but the way I look at it that is actually an increase in the budget. Nobody believes the Labour Party when it says that health has been cut when actually there are billions of dollars more going into the health budget.I also want to talk about those members’ position on free trade because it was not that long ago—actually only weeks ago—that they were saying to New Zealanders: “We are the party of free trade. We are the party that believes in getting more free trade for New Zealanders.” Well if those members really believe that they should be fronting up and supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).When they talk about the TPP they claim they have these bottom lines they wish the TPP to meet. Well the TPP actually meets every single one of their bottom lines. If they really want to be consistent they should be coming over to this side of the House into the Ayes lobby and supporting the TPP agreement. Does it include protections for Pharmac? Yes it does. Does it include the ability to restrict foreign ownership of land? Yes it does. Does it protect the Treaty of Waitangi? Yes it does. Does it result in meaningful gains for farmers? Yes it does. Most of the Trans-Pacific Partnership tariff benefits actually go to farmers and it also ensures that New Zealanders get access to 800 million customers. It ensures that we are part of a big trade agreement that gets out to 40 percent of the world’s GDP. Labour members should be supporting that. The investor-State dispute settlement provisions which they are opposed to as well are exactly what they put in the China free-trade agreement and also supported in the Korea free-trade agreement.New Zealanders want a Government that they can rely on. They are getting that under the John Key - led Government. There is absolutely no way they would ever get that with the Labour Party.