Faafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 12 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7727. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 May I express to you Mr Deputy Speaker a happy new parliamentary year. I also join other parliamentary colleagues in congratulating our new Speaker the Rt Hon David Carter. We wish him all the best in his new role. We have seen his first outing as Speaker in his first question time today and I think we will give him a provisional pass—it used to be a C- back in the fifth form a provisional pass. We wish him all the best in that new challenge. I know he is a Canterbury man born and bred so he has what it takes to be able to succeed in that role. Can I also wish members of the House a happy New Year too. 
I apologise to those people watching at home because they have just had to put up with three speakers from the National Party—that is 30 minutes uninterrupted of absolute spin and drivel from the Government. We heard that from the last speaker David Bennett from Hamilton. Hamilton is a lovely place. I have got nothing against it other than what the MP for Hamilton East has just said. He said that this debate is important because it is a philosophical debate about what our party stands for and what their party stands for and he is absolutely 100 percent correct in that. I cannot agree more with what Rodney Hide said about the Government when he was in this House: this is a do-nothing Government. It is a do-nothing Government and we have seen that for the last 4 years. 
And then Cam Calder earlier talked about judging a country on how it treats its vulnerable. I want to talk a little bit about that because Mr Calder one vulnerable part of our society is the Pacific Island community. If you want to talk about how that Government’s track record over the last 4 years has gone about looking after that vulnerable community last week when the unemployment statistics came out we saw that 16 percent of Pacific people are unemployed—16 percent. That is roughly one in eight of the Pacific people in this country who want work have no work. Let us look at that track record over the last 4 years. It has gone from 15.6 to 16 percent—so another rise in the last quarter. At this time last year the Pacific unemployment rate was 13.8 percent. So how is this Government looking after the Pacific community when in the last 12 months it has looked after the vulnerable Pacific Island community by letting unemployment go up by 2.2 percent? How is that Government going to be judged by the Pacific community when it looks it in the face in 2014 and says “We’ve looked after you. You’re a vulnerable community.”? You have not. You have not one iota because 16 percent is more than twice—more than twice—the current average national unemployment rate. So when that member of Parliament says “We’ve looked after vulnerable communities.” you have not and especially not the Pacific community. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: I am sorry Mr Deputy Speaker. This Government has not; it has not looked after the Pacific community. 
We are talking about the Prime Minister’s statement and you know the brave effort that he made. I thought it was not his best—potentially his worst. But I want to know what has happened to the old John Key. What has happened to the old John Key? Back in 2008 and before that he was positive about our country. He used to say “We’re aspirational for a brighter future. We’re turbocharging. We’re kicking the tyres.” But that John Key has gone. That John Key has gone. We have seen someone who said he stood on principle—and then Mr Bennett says that voters want to know what this party stands for. I think it is clear to see that the people of New Zealand know that the National Party stands for whatever the last focus group said. The people of New Zealand know that this National Government stands for whatever the last focus group said. So where is the old John Key? The “Shucks!” happy-go-lucky Prime Minister whom the people of New Zealand thought was the be-all and end-all and would change the future of this Government—a man who said he was going to be a leader for New Zealand to a brighter future but who has become only a manager of a bleak present. He said this pretty soon after he came into power: New Zealand would be coming out of recession “reasonably aggressively” by early 2010. So New Zealand would come out of the recession “reasonably aggressively” by early 2010. Well one measure of that is our unemployment level and it is still—still—much much higher. And I think it was Steven Joyce at question time who started patting himself on the back because last Thursday the unemployment rate went from 7.3 percent to 6.8 percent. 
But let us do something that the National Party hates and let us look at the facts. Let us look at the facts. When those figures came out it was very interesting to read and a very helpful lady at Statistics New Zealand the industry and labour statistics manager Diane Ramsay said: “We’re seeing fewer people working and looking for work and more people outside the labour force. More younger people are solely in study and more older people are entering retirement”. So basically what she is saying in her statistical frame is that it is bleak out there for most New Zealanders. It is bleak out there for most New Zealanders. And the sad thing about that is that when she is saying that fewer people are looking for work she is saying they have lost hope that they can find work. They have lost hope that they can find work. This Government will be worried about that because when people start losing hope that they can find work that is going to start really impacting the Government and I think that will really impact it over the next 12 months. 
As the MP for Mana I want to take a bit of a closer look at those figures take a closer-to-home look at those figures because Wellington unemployment is at an 18-year high. Wellington unemployment is at an 18-year high. Not since 1994 has it been worse. It went from 7.1 percent in the September quarter to 7.9 percent in the December quarter—1 percent higher than the national average. Basically the raw numbers are that there are 22600 unemployed people in the Wellington region and in the previous quarter there were 21000. So 1600 more people in this region in our capital are now unemployed compared with the previous 3 months. Again those are people who are losing hope that they can get a job and losing hope that this Government can do anything to help them to try to find a job. Those New Zealanders are the forgotten New Zealanders whom National does not care about any more—whom National does not care about any more. Kiwis across the country are working harder than ever. They are doing their fair share. They are either working or looking for work but they feel let down by this Government which promised them a brighter future. Where is this brighter future? This is a Government that has forgotten about those people—those people who have gone off the register who are no longer looking for work. It is only a Labour-led Government that will stand up for those hard-working Kiwis whom this Government has forgotten. 
As I said before this is a do-nothing Government and in 2014 the people of New Zealand will elect a hands-on approach that will be different from what this Government has done. This Government has been a do-nothing let-the-market-decide Government. Well that has not worked for the last 4 years and you can feel the sense of unease that the people of New Zealand put faith in that Government in that party that things would turn round and all they get is excuses and more excuses that things have not. There needs to be a new era here in New Zealand and that is what we are promising in terms of a hands-on Government. We need a smart hands-on Government and a Government that is prepared to be a player and not a spectator. 
I think one of the best ways that we have done that—and we actually promised this at the last election—is we are going to help our young people whom Mr Bennett claims he was going to help. We on this side of the House have been saying that apprenticeships have been a priority for a lot longer than this party which thought it was a good idea in early January because the focus group said so. Back in 2011 when we put out our policy we basically said that we would make an investment in our young people who wanted to upskill and get into work and we would help those people—those chippies those plumbers those electricians who needed help with an extra pair of hands—by having a policy of making sure that we turn the dole into a subsidy for those employers that need an apprentice. And when we go around—and I was speaking to a builder in my electorate the other day—they love that idea. They love that idea and they do not necessarily buy what the Government is doing at the moment: coming up late to this party saying that apprenticeships all of a sudden are important to the Government. This Government has done very little around jobs for the last 4 years and then all of a sudden— 
Hon Michael Woodhouse 
: Rubbish. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: He calls it rubbish but look at the figures. Look at the figures. The figures do not lie Mr Woodhouse. The figures do not lie and the people know what is going on there. When you come late to the party around apprenticeships people will notice that. People will notice that. Our policy of turning the dole into a subsidy for employers is a good thing for those young people whom Mr Bennett says he cares about but also a good thing for those employers that are struggling that need an extra set of hands and that would love to take on somebody but cannot quite make the commitment because it is too much of a financial barrier. So that is one of the hands-on things that we are going to do. That is not stand-offish. That is not letting the market decide. That is a hands-on approach. 
And then you look at our KiwiBuild scheme—100000 homes over 10 years to address not only the employment problem but also the housing affordability problem which this Government has done nothing about. Its only answer to the housing affordability problem is to make Nick Smith in charge of it. Is this some kind of joke?