Ross Jami-Lee: General DebateText is subject to correctionRoss Jami-Lee: General Debate[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14203. Text is subject to correction.]JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Being lectured on job growth by Carol Beaumont and Darien Fenton is like being lectured by David Cunliffe on how to write a CV because they have no idea about how badly the policies they are pushing would hurt workers. They have no idea about how successful the New Zealand economy is right now and how many New Zealanders are gaining jobs because of the policy settings that this Government has put in place.I want to go on to that a bit further on in my speech but first I want to turn to Metiria Turei’s speech at the start of this session. I have nothing but disdain for the Greens and the sanctimonious duplicitous bile that comes from their mouths. They have the cheek to come into this House and claim that members on this side have some great conflict of interest and even though they are democratically elected to this Parliament they cannot vote on a piece of legislation.I have never seen a Greenpeace submitter declare conflicts of interest in a select committee. I have never heard the Green Party declare conflicts of interest because it is associated with Greenpeace and other green organisations when it promotes policies. I have never heard the Labour Party declare conflicts of interest despite the fact that it has tens of thousands of dollars of union backing every election. Good on the Labour Party. That is its right.But if the Green Party wanted to be consistent if the Green Party actually believed in policy and principle then it would be saying exactly the same thing about the Labour Party and about itself as it has been saying about Sam Lotu-Iiga and other members on this side. Sam Lotu-Iiga stands up for his community. Sam Lotu-Iiga stands up for job creation for his constituents. This Government stands up for job creation for New Zealanders. The other side wants to just oppose everything that this Government does to improve the case for New Zealanders. I have absolute disdain for those Green Party members across the way.I want to turn to David Cunliffe a little bit as well. I would like to refer to David Cunliffe as “Dr Jekyll and Mr Cunliffe” because he says one thing on one side and he has absolutely another message going out around the place.Oil and gas has been touched on by a number of my colleagues. We had Mr Cunliffe talking about the fact that the Labour Party opposes a range of oil and gas exploration initiatives despite the fact that they will create jobs for New Zealanders. Shane Jones goes out on the other side and says that Labour supports them. We had the Labour Party saying publicly that with its mates in the Green Party it would repeal the Skycity legislation but just behind the scenes Mr Cunliffe was telling Skycity that no it will not do anything there. We heard Mr Cunliffe talking about Labour’s great plans for union membership and everything that it is going to do to extend paid parental leave and increase the living wage but when he talked to the media afterwards he backtracked immediately.On regional growth just last week Mr Cunliffe tried to paint a story of absolute destruction out there in the regions but then the figures came out and he was absolutely wrong again. We have done a lot for jobs in New Zealand—65000 people have jobs in this country because of the policies that we have put in place. Everything we try to do Labour opposes. Let us take the 90-day trial—13000 extra jobs—the 1000 jobs being created by the International Convention Centre the 225 jobs through Bathurst Resources escarpment mine and the thousands of jobs through the roads of national significance. If Labour really was serious about jobs—you can wipe that smile off your face Mr Faafoi—it would be supporting what we are trying to do.Let us remind the Labour Party of the economic climate that we inherited. We inherited a current account deficit of almost 9 percent. That is now at 4.3 percent. External debt had blown out to 84 percent of GDP. We have got that down now to 71percent of GDP. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent. It is now at 1.4 percent. Anyone who has studied economics for even just a few years would know that inflation is the biggest thing that harms workers. They would know that mortgage rates going high harms workers considerably too.Under this Government we have seen a much improved economic climate. We have seen much improved economic figures. We are seeing jobs being created. We are growing faster than the average growth rate of the OECD. Those guys do not understand it. They actually do not care. The Green Party is duplicitous and sanctimonious and the Labour Party really should be dissociating itself from the Greens. That would do Labour a lot of favours but it is not smart enough to do that.