1. Question No. 1—Prime MinisterCHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister1. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes particularly our investment to boost the teaching workforce with around 700 new teachers from overseas and 300 new domestic teachers. Within a year the investment that we've made has exceeded the goal of a thousand new teachers. In a global shortage there is high demand for teachers so we need to make sure New Zealand is an attractive place to have a rewarding teaching career. While there is no doubt more work to do we've made good progress with more than 3800 more teachers in classrooms since we became the Government.Christopher Luxon: How did he manage to spend $2 billion more a year on law and order but deliver 107 percent increase in serious assaults two ram raids a day and a 70 percent increase in gang members?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course one of the reasons that we know that there are more gang members is that we put more resource into the police chasing gang members and actually making sure that they are being charged. The gang register was only put in place in 2016. Had it been in place for longer under the previous National Government there probably would have been more gang members on it when we actually became the Government in the first place. We've had to do catching up because it was one of the things that the last National Government didn't do.Christopher Luxon: How did he manage to spend $5 billion more a year in education hire 1400 more public servants but deliver fewer students leaving school with level 2 NCEA?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Mr Teacher—Mr Speaker because we are employing—Hon Members: Ha ha!Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Mr Teacher"! Slight slip. Because we're employing more teachers because we are paying them better and when he talks about the "public servants" what he would be referring to are the extra specialist staff amongst others but they would be the extra specialist staff employed by the Ministry of Education to deal with the students and to support the students who have the highest learning support needs. We have managed to start getting on top of the significant waiting lists—for example for some of our most vulnerable young kids who were waiting for far too long to get the specialist support that they deserve.Christopher Luxon: How did he manage to spend half a billion dollars restructuring the health sector but every single health outcome—access to cancer treatment emergency department wait time surgical wait list and child immunisation rates—has all got worse; not one single one has improved?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I know the member likes to pretend that the global pandemic never actually happened but almost every health system around the world has seen indicators around things like elective surgeries and emergency department wait times get worse. And it's because the health system's been dealing with a massive influx of people with COVID-19.Christopher Luxon: How did he manage to spend $2.3 billion more on housing but rents are up $175 the State house wait list is up 20000 and there are four times as many kids now living in cars?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm glad the member mentioned the State house wait list because under the last National Government to get the wait list down they simply deleted a whole lot of categories on the wait list. Those people's housing needs did not go away; they got more severe. And the reason that we've now got people on the more severe State house waiting list is that they simply pretended they didn't exist under the last National Government. We are building more State houses more public houses than any Government since the 1950s. If the last Government had been building public houses at the same rate as we are there would be next to no people on the State house waiting list.Christopher Luxon: How has he managed a special skill set to spend more to hire more but deliver worse outcomes in crime worse outcomes in health worse outcomes in housing and worse outcomes in education?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If I just take the middle one of those again for a moment and deal with health the health system has been under enormous pressure because of a global pandemic. I note the member mentioned immunisation rates. Now that's an interesting topic given members opposite that could potentially make up a Government if they are successful would include apparently a bunch of anti-vaxxers who don't seem to think that vaccinating kids is a good thing to do.Christopher Luxon: Why does he measure success by the amount of taxpayer money he spends rather than the actual outcomes delivered for Kiwis that improve their daily lives?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't and I'm happy to have the opportunity to recap—for the member—from yesterday some of the highlights of this Government's time in office: wages growing at 6.9 percent over the last year unemployment below 4 percent for two years in a row more Kiwis in work than ever before 110000 low-income New Zealand families having cheaper and healthier power because of the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme and 77000 fewer New Zealand children living in poverty under this Government. We've seen record levels of renewable electricity generation under this Government. We've seen significant efforts to improve the quality of the school property portfolio that was so badly run down under the last Government that we had kids parked in hallways in gymnasiums and in libraries because they simply did not have enough classrooms. On the international front we've secured more progress on free-trade agreements than any Government in recent New Zealand history to support our exporters. We've got more people in apprenticeships—274000 people taking up free apprenticeships and targeted trades training under this Government. One thousand three hundred more classrooms—to put a number on the figure that I was using before. Three thousand more teachers in our classrooms—something that we are incredibly proud of. Supporting schools so that parents don't have to top up school budgets with donations in the way they had to under the last National Government. Or what about the hundred million free school lunches that have been delivered in our schools? Increasing paid parental leave to 26 weeks. Increasing health funding so that our hospital doesn't have to go begging. And here's one for the member given his announcement: increased Pharmac's funding by 51 percent since we became the Government. Twelve thousand additional public housing places under our Government and there are more under construction right now because we want to see Kiwis with a roof over their head. One thousand eight hundred extra police on the beat under our Government. And let's not forget the record levels of investment in our infrastructure with $71 billion due to be invested in infrastructure over the next five years as we catch up for the years of neglect of our infrastructure that we saw under the last National Government. There is so much more I could talk about.Christopher Luxon: So what I would say to you is why despite that very long spiel is crime worse is education worse is health worse and is roading worse; why have we not seen improvement in any of those outcomes at all?Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I utterly reject the assertion that the member is making in his question. If he thinks that having fewer children in poverty is a worse outcome if he thinks that building more State houses since the 1950s is a worse outcome if he thinks having more teachers in schools is a worse outcome—that could actually explain their track record on under-investment in teachers. If he thinks having more nurses and more doctors in our hospitals is a worse outcome—that could also explain the mess that we inherited from the last Government. We actually think those things are good signs. They are good investments in the future of our country."