Salesa Jenny: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 22 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:143. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East):Kia ora tātou katoa. Good afternoon. Talofa lava. Malo e lelei Fakafeta’i ki he ‘Eiki pea ‘oku ou tuku pe ‘a e Kololia moe fakamalo ki a Sihova he koia pe taha ne lava ai e feinga ko eni. Tuku mu’a keu hufanga he ngaahi talafakatapu kae ‘ata mo e ki’i fefine tu’a mo ma’ulalo ko eni ke fai atu ha ‘uluaki lea ki he Falealea ‘o Aotearoa Nu’usila.I give my congratulations to the honourable Speaker on his election and to Deputy Speaker Chester Borrows as well as the Assistant Speakers Lindsay Tisch and my good Labour colleague Trevor Mallard on their election—congratulations. I would also like to acknowledge my predecessor Ross Robertson from Manukau East who served our communities for 27 long years and was himself an Assistant Speaker of the House.On Monday here in this House I swore an oath of loyalty and service to Parliament and to our nation. It is such an honour and a privilege to enter this House with its history and traditions. This is the House of Government and with that honour comes enormous responsibility. It is a responsibility that I feel as I stand here for the first time today. I was honoured to take my parliamentary oath but it is not the only oath that I feel bound by. Since I was selected to be the Labour candidate for Manukau East I have also sworn another oath—an oath to the people of Manukau East and to other hard-working people in New Zealand. They are the kinds of people who do a lot and ask only for a little—people who really ask only for a just and equitable society. The oath I have taken is to serve to listen and to work for the people of Manukau East. The reason I have come to this House is to represent them—the thousands who elected me to come here to bring their voices into our nation’s conversations to remind our nation of Manukau East and to make sure that our Government works for them as well as for others throughout New Zealand much like them. The oath I made is to stand with and to stand for everyday working New Zealanders—the young and the old the people who are the backbone of our nation.We should remind ourselves that many of our nation’s voices have not always carried into Parliament. We would do well to listen more carefully to the many voices that have not always been heard clearly in this House—the voices of our poor of our young of our seniors of our new migrants of women and of Māori and Pacific New Zealanders. Parliament is the people’s House and we would do well to remember all of the people when we sit here. Let us remember most of all those we do not hear those who do not have the money or the power to gain the ears of their representatives. I come to this House today as a proud New Zealander as an Aucklander and South Aucklander. I come as an immigrant to this country from the Pacific and as a Tongan. The fact that a girl from Lotofoa Ha’apai and Nuku’alofa Tonga can be elected to New Zealand’s Parliament says a great deal. It says a great deal about the strength of our democracy.I was born and raised in our Pacific Island neighbour just north of us in the beautiful Kingdom of Tonga. My family moved to Aotearoa New Zealand when I was 16 years old so I could complete my education. My upbringing was always one that celebrated service. I grew up with a father who for so many years was the only pharmacist in Tonga. If he did not go to work people could not get their medicines. I saw what a difference he made in people’s lives and how much everyone gains when we honour each other with our hard work. For my father who is 84 years old and who is here today a life spent in service to others was the true hallmark of a Christian life. For my mother who is also here as she went to work in a factory in South Auckland then as a part-time cleaner in the evenings her service to our family was from a mother’s love her commitment to her church and our community. Not only did my family many of whom are here today make my aspirations possible they also gave me the values of service and hard work that made them achievable for me.My way of serving has been through my work as a public servant in policy and in funding and through my voluntary work in the community. But behind this are the values and work ethics of my parents: respect your elders and respect others love and serve your family help those in need and serve your community work for a just and equitable society be humble and act with humility and do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. These are Tongan values these are New Zealand values they are Labour values and these are my values. The challenge has been how to put these values into action.Labour values when put into bold smart policies have been completely transformational and have made New Zealand the wonderful country that it is. I joined the Labour Party because it is the party that shares my values and ideals. However I stand here today for the Labour Party because not only is it a party of values; it is the party of ideas of bold and wise change of transformations that have lifted the living standards of all New Zealanders and that have made our country prosperous and also more humane and a better place to live. Labour delivered social security to New Zealand in 1978. Labour created the 40-hour 5-day working week with eight public holidays. Labour recognised the Treaty of Waitangi and allowed for claims to be retrospective. Labour made New Zealand nuclear—free. Labour codified universal free health care. Labour promoted Samoan independence and global decolonisation. Labour stopped the Springbok Tour in 1973. Labour passed the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Labour created KiwiSaver the Superannuation Fund and the Supreme Court. Labour recognised Te Reo Māori as an official language of our country Aotearoa. These are the kinds of ideas that make Aotearoa a better place for everyone. I look forward to being a part of the Labour Government that resumes such far-sighted and transformative Government in the very near future.These past few months have reminded me that in our great country there is still so much work to be done. In large parts of New Zealand including where I come from child poverty is not a policy abstraction but a lived issue—one that too many families face or have known. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children now live in poverty. The fifth Labour Government showed that with smart Government and with good policy the numbers in poverty can be reduced. But in the last few years the number of children in poverty has grown. Let us not forget what poverty really means in this country. If you are a child living in the most deprived parts of New Zealand you are 20 times more likely to go to hospital with rheumatic fever. If you are poor you are five times more likely to die a sudden unexpected death in infancy. These children remember are New Zealand children. Child poverty affects health and child poverty also affects education. Research confirms what some teachers and principals have told me—that in some schools in my electorate up to half of their students move from school to school each year because their families are moved from house to house. This is such a problem in so many of our schools and it has a name: churn. This is real insecurity—not even knowing where you will live—and this insecurity of tenure is not just a housing problem but it is a problem for families it is a problem for us in this House and it is a problem for our nation. It is a problem of education health and opportunity.Almost every day I see families coming into my electorate office in Ōtara asking for help especially with housing. Many of these families do not have a place to live in. Many are homeless. Some live in garages. Some live in cars. Some live temporarily with relatives until they are asked to move on. Most of these families are on the urgent priority list for housing—priority A. In 2007 there were 133 families on the priority A waiting list. In June this year 3188 such families were on the same list waiting for a house. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Treasury estimates that tens of thousands of New Zealanders are living in severe housing deprivation. In 1935 the first Labour Government realised that in order to ensure both quality and quantity of housing it was not enough to sit back and wait. The Government had to lead. Showing that leadership the first Labour Government built thousands of homes. Those Labour State houses were little slices of Kiwi paradise. Labour’s State houses were built to last.But New Zealand is no longer at the forefront of social housing and homeownership. We have gone from a nation that made bold and wise investments in the lives of families to a nation that has one of the lowest rates of social housing provision in the developed world at only 5 percent. Politicians on both sides of this House grew up in social housing but things have changed since then. Doing it hard in New Zealand used to mean living in a three-bedroom brick and tile house on a quarter acre. Now doing it hard in New Zealand means living with your six children in a car or waiting for nearly a year on our “most urgent” housing list or living in a caravan or a garage.I came from Tonga to New Zealand because of New Zealand’s schools and universities. I have no doubts that a quality education is still the best way forward in New Zealand but even education is shaped by child poverty. We have a high-quality educational system but it is also highly unequal. The challenge for us as a nation is to ensure that all students get the same chance in schools and we have not been meeting that challenge. We now live in a country where the most important predictor of your future education performance is your socio-economic status. Some progress has been made but not enough. We have not addressed the root of the problem. We kid ourselves if we think that all problems we see in education can be solved within schools because so many of these problems do not originate in schools. When kids are sick cold and hungry they are not going to be as ready to learn. Seriously addressing child poverty ensuring that the hundreds of thousands of kids living in poverty get out of it is the giant leap we need to make in education. It is one thing to give a speech about it and declare child poverty a priority but if we do not have a hard target if we do not have genuine priorities that we publicly measure these will all be just empty words. We will talk the talk about child poverty and the numbers will continue to grow as they have. People cannot eat a speech. People cannot live on a promise a consent or a plan and a white paper does not fill a student’s empty stomach.These past few months have reminded me again of just how we all are tied to each other. The road to Parliament is not one that can be travelled alone; nor should it be. Today I thank with all my heart my family friends supporters and colleagues who have made the journey for me possible. For me these are the people who live Labour values and their commitment to serve has been inspirational. Their words have been full. Thank you very much to my husband Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa; my daughters Mahalia and Esmae; my parents Samiu and Loketi Latu; my in-laws Yvonne and Ieremia Salesa; and my whole campaign team and support team especially Matila Latu-Ali Leila Michael Aiolupotea Sina Dawn Felicity Lotu Seini Moeaki Akesa Sefita Paane Aleki Kite Siale Leilani Fia Mele Lile the Gordons and Reece and Fa’anana you have my deepest gratitude. To my Labour whānau especially Vui Su’a Carol Carmel Hermann Nick Jerome and Judith thank you.Malo ‘aupito. Tu’a ‘ofa atu. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.