Upston Louise: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeUpston Louise: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 12 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1558. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Land Information):It is really an honour to speak in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement today. It is somewhat confusing because if you were to listen to the speeches of the Opposition members you would think that New Zealanders up and down this country are in a mood of doom and gloom and there is nothing positive on our horizon. I can say only that if you reflect on the mood at Waitangi this year there was a bit of hype and conversation about how combative it might be. But I actually think Waitangi Day is a really good illustration of the mood of the nation. It was quiet. It was peaceful. There were not protests. There was not frustration.It is really interesting because the speaker before me Iain Lees-Galloway talked about the fact that the leader of the country should be in touch with ordinary New Zealanders. There is no way that the National Party would have got close to 50 percent of the support of all New Zealanders in the election last year if we had a leader who was not in touch with ordinary hard-working New Zealanders. Of course what are they interested in? They are interested in having more jobs available. They are interested in their wages going up. They are interested in interest rates remaining low. They are interested in unemployment rates falling. That is exactly the results that the first two terms of the National Government led by Prime Minister John Key have delivered and we are keeping our promises to hard-working New Zealanders. We are focusing on the issues that matter to them: raising education standards lowering crime providing better access to health services and genuinely and generally improving the lives of ordinary New Zealanders and their families.I think it is quite the opposite of Annette King’s suggestion that this side of the House is not energised and excited. I can tell you this Government is raring to go enthusiastic and energetic about what we have in front of us which is quite different from the mood if you were watching when Andrew Little delivered his first speech in the House this year. It felt awkward and awful and the Opposition benches were trying to be enthused about the kick-off of their leader this year.I want to focus on a couple of specific areas. The previous speaker Iain Lees-Galloway talked about the employment market. He talked about the workforce in quite a lot of detail. What he did not say is that in terms of the latest household labour force survey women’s participation in the labour market and women’s employment are at record highs. He did not mention that. He was not excited about that. It must have been a bit disturbing for his female caucus members who I would have thought should have been quite excited about those sorts of statistics. I know I am. The participation rate for women is 64.6 percent and the employment rate is 60.4 percent. They are the highest since the survey began in 1986. So that is what this Government is delivering: great news for women up and down New Zealand. I want to cut into it in more detail: 7300 more Māori women and 1800 more Pasifika women are in employment than in December 2013. Again they are results we should be celebrating and I am not hearing the celebrations from the other side of the House.We are relevant. This side of the House focuses on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. Prime Minister John Key in his very first speech said he would lead a Government for all New Zealanders and that is exactly what he is doing. If you look at where some of this growth in women’s employment is occurring Canterbury is a great example. Women are playing a really critical part in the rebuilding of Canterbury. An example is that there are 7700 more women employed in Canterbury than at the same time in 2013. Part of that is because of the consideration of girls and women looking at what were considered non-traditional employment opportunities. That is where the growth is. So as Minister for Women I have committed to having some courageous conversations with business with community and with families about what some of the biases are that exist for girls and women that restrict their opportunities and their opportunities for economic independence in New Zealand.One aspect of this is the current gender pay gap. You know I have had a number of people who have asked me why we even have a Minister for Women. Well it is incredibly clear to me that while we have a gender pay gap of 9.9 percent there is work for the Ministry for Women. But it is not just women in the workforce that I want to focus on because if you look at other areas that are critical to them some of them are very clearly around their families. When we talk about employment relations legislation—the speaker before me did not say anything about the Act that we have just passed. He did not say anything about the fact that part of that legislation was for flexible workplaces and flexible work practices. So no longer is it just the fact that somebody has caregiving responsibilities that means they can ask their employer for flexible work arrangements. I think that in terms of women in the workforce it is an incredible advantage and I have been waiting to hear the Opposition members who pride themselves on being the champions for the workers to celebrate this incredible result for women in our workplaces. But no they tend to be fairly silent on that one. This is a Government that recognises the diverse and very different needs of workers. This is a Government that is delivering for workers and that is just one example.I want to give you another example: paid parental leave. This is a Government that is focusing on making sure that our paid parental leave and our parental tax credits are actually accessible and available to more New Zealand families and that is something I am incredibly proud of because when we have families where women or men choose to be in the workplace we want to provide the opportunities and provide the support that they need to get ahead.One of the clear areas that I as the Minister for Women will continue to focus on is reducing violence. We have already made some good inroads in terms of reducing crime rates in this country and reducing reoffending. But I am very clear that our homes and our communities should be the safest places for New Zealanders and particularly for our young girls and our women. That is why working with my ministerial colleagues on this area of domestic violence we will be finding more ways and broader ways of reaching out and working with others to ensure that that level of violence is decreasing and looking at unique solutions that actually work for families and work in communities.The other clear area that I am responsible for is the area of land information and this is an area where not many people are actually aware of the contribution that this makes to our economy. We have a system of property rights in New Zealand that is very robust and very strong and that really underpins a lot of information and a lot of decisions that we make in central government and also across businesses. Just recently the 2014-15 Open Data Barometer global report showed that New Zealand continues to be one of the best countries in the world at allowing open access to Government data—and of course open data is a key indicator of a country’s innovation transparency and lack of corruption. If you were fortunate to attend the New Zealand Spatial Excellence Awards like I did last year you would realise the wizardry of some of our New Zealanders in terms of using location information to solve some of the very large challenges that we face as a country and it is underpinning an important part of our economic recovery.In closing I want to say that we really are living in exciting times. We have a country that is growing and expanding and where we are reducing things like crime and raising educational achievement. This is a Government that is raring to go. This is not a Government that is anywhere near having completed our work and our plan. We are in this together and we are fortunately led by a Prime Minister who has said very clearly that we are not here to fill the green seats; we are here to do a lot for New Zealand. We have done a lot there is still a lot more to go and it is great to know that nearly one in every two New Zealanders is backing us. Thank you.