Robertson Grant: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: General Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4714. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to join with other speakers in acknowledging the hardship that the people of Wanganui and the South Taranaki are going through at the moment in recovering from the devastating floods. It is quite clear for many people in those areas that this will be a long road back and they deserve the support of everybody in this House. It was pleasing to see the Minister of Civil Defence and the Minister for Primary Industries showing up in those regions in recent days. In the community that I grew up in down in south Dunedin people were not feeling quite so much love from some of the authorities there. I think—I hope certainly—that some lessons have been learnt there as they should have been from the Northland floods last year when an awful lot was promised but not a lot was delivered. So I do hope the Government will apply its largesse evenly across those who have been affected.When I look at the floods that have affected the people in south Dunedin it gives me cause for thought to reflect on my upbringing in that community. South Dunedin has never been a particularly wealthy community. It has got a lot of elderly people; it has got a lot of low-income families. But when I grew up there I got a fantastic start in life. I went to some great schools. I lived in a community that was tight-knit. There was not a huge amount of money around but all of us growing up there felt that we had the same opportunities living in St Kilda as someone who was living in St Heliers. There was nothing that held me back in terms of achieving what I wanted to growing up in that community. I ask myself today whether that is still the case in New Zealand today—that it does not matter where you grow up that you will still get the opportunities to succeed and achieve your potential.I would say for Emma-Lita Bourne that was most definitely not the case. She did not start her life in a situation where she had the same opportunities as somebody else to achieve her potential. Her life was ended so tragically early in large part as the coroner has told us because of the house that she was growing up in. I look at the case of Bonnie and William Moa and their family in South Auckland and I ask whether they are getting the same opportunities as I got when I was growing up in south Dunedin when they live in a home that they have had to describe to the public as covered in faeces graffiti and mouldy and rotten floorboards. I look at the opportunities for Melissa Nganu and her family where she has had to move her children out of a rodent-infested house with mice faeces and rotting floorboards through which the mice get in. I ask whether her family is getting the same opportunities as other New Zealanders as we pride ourselves on in New Zealand and the answer is that they are not.We are told by members opposite that this is compassionate conservatism. Well I would hate to see the hard edge of conservatism when people are being made sick and are dying because of the homes they are living in. Then we have Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing whose response to this was to say that people dying of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new. That is not an acceptable response from this House. It is not an acceptable response from a Minister who claims to be part of a so-called compassionate Government. There is nothing compassionate about people growing up in houses that make them sick and that they die from.I watched on the news the other night a story in the Good Sorts section of the Television One news. It was about a lovely man in Kāwhia who was giving technology to the schools there—a decile 1 school. I thought what a fantastic thing it was for that man to do.Chris Bishop: What a good guy.GRANT ROBERTSON: But by the same token Mr Bishop how is it that we now come to rely on the charity of one man to make sure that kids in a decile 1 school are getting the same opportunities as kids in a decile 10 school? That is what this country has come to under the National Government.We need to focus as a country on giving everybody the opportunity for success. Every New Zealander deserves to grow up in a warm dry home. Every New Zealander deserves to be part of a school that has got the technology and resources that will unlock their potential. Every New Zealander deserves to be able to get a job where they are paid well and where they can support their family. The Labour Party’s focus is on giving every New Zealander a fair shot at success—a life where your success is not based on your parents’ wealth but on how we as a community can support all New Zealanders to achieve their potential. That is the focus of the Labour Party whether you grow up in St Kilda or St Heliers or South Auckland. Every New Zealander deserves the same chance. They are not getting it from this Government.