Sepuloni Carmel: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:58. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston):Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker and I start by congratulating you on your new position. Having worked with you on the Justice and Electoral Committee I know that you will be fair. I also congratulate the Rt Hon David Carter on his appointment and Lindsay Tisch and Trevor Mallard on their appointments to the position of Assistant Speaker.I like Stuart Nash have got some dust to blow off these papers having taken a 3-year sabbatical but on reflection actually some of the best MPs that we have have had a 3-year sabbatical so I hope that I Stuart Nash and Kelvin Davis will go on to have as efficient and effective and productive careers as people like Trevor Mallard Phil Goff and Annette King. We are back. We have all been productive over the last 3 years—so productive actually that I went on to have a baby while I was gone and Stuart was even more productive because he had two while he was away.I listened closely this morning to the Speech from the Throne and the speech ticked all the boxes and told us many of the things New Zealand wanted to hear. But the reality is that the rhetoric does not match the reality. I was fortunate at this election to be elected by the people of Kelston—the new electorate of Kelston—as their MP. Over the past 3 years I have spent much time trying to be involved in the local community to find out what is going on to get involved at every level—as a representative on the board of trustees for my son’s high school and a member of the Thrive Teen Parent Support Trust board of trustees. I have seen firsthand that actually despite what the National Government says a lot of people are actually struggling out there. I am speaking here tonight on behalf of the 25 percent who did vote for us the 25 percent who do know that this National Government has not served the majority of New Zealand well.The contradictions that we saw throughout the speech that was provided this morning were many and I want to talk about some of those contradictions. The first contradiction I want to point out is the contradiction around one of the points that was raised by the Prime Minister. We heard: “in response to the Government delivering high-quality public services focused on getting results.” So the Government was saying that it wants to focus on getting results seek new and better ways to deliver public services and contain and reduce costs. It talked about continuing to deliver high-quality public services but actually over the last 3 years—in fact over the last 6 years—we have seen anything but high-quality public services.Let me just point out Novopay which I know my colleague Chris Hipkins has done a lot of work on. I think that would be considered anything but a high-quality public service. We have seen ACC and the many instances of it leaking its own documents under Minister Judith Collins’ watch—e.g. in 2012 involving Bronwyn Pullar who was sent nearly 7000 files. That does not sound to me like a high-quality public service. We have seen privacy breaches at the Inland Revenue Department. In 2012 there were 32 separate privacy breaches at the Inland Revenue Department. That shot up to 151 incidences in 2013—again anything but high-quality public service from this National Government. In 2012 blogger Keith Ng walked up to a kiosk in a Work and Income site and was able to access thousands of confidential files. So if John Key when talking about continuing to deliver high-quality public services is talking about examples like that then I think as a country we should be very concerned.We heard the Government talking about its commitment to tertiary education. We heard the Government saying that it wants to continue providing high-quality tertiary education but when we think about the tertiary education system that we have at the moment then again we have to be concerned. Just recently we heard Sharn Riggs on behalf of the Tertiary Education Union talking about the job cuts at the Manukau Institute of Technology one of our polytechnics. So at a time when people are being pushed off benefits—pushed off benefits—into work and study and at a time when people need to upskill to get good paying jobs in the workforce we see proposed redundancies at the place that they can go to do that their local polytech because those polytechnics are under the crunch by that National Government.What we saw today or I think it was in a media release that came out today was that Manukau Institute of Technology staff in the faculties of engineering and trades—engineering the very area that that Government said it would be investing in—and of education and social sciences found out this week that that they face a massive restructuring. The Manukau Institute of Technology has proposed 64 full-time equivalent job losses in two faculties. The polytechnic is also proposing 18 new positions and union organisers are working to ensure existing staff can redeploy into those new positions. The impact on staff and students will still be devastating.The Tertiary Education Union National Secretary Sharn Riggs says those impacts include halving the staff in early childhood education English and foundation studies as well as losses in sport social services manufacturing automotive construction engineering and administrative positions across both faculties. So early childhood education another area that that Government purports to be investing in is going to see cuts. Engineering an area that that Government purports to be investing in is going to be cut. In a number of other areas that we would deem important moving forward as a country we are seeing cuts at one of our major polytechnics in this country.We heard today that the Government is committed to ensuring that we have quality housing in this country. We heard today that this Government is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to quality housing in this country. And yet I think all of us as members of Parliament have recently been contacted by our local Work and Income offices to let us know that there are some major changes coming up with regard to social housing. I got a phone call from Work and Income New Zealand telling me that it would brief me during that phone conversation. I said: “Actually this is not the time to do it.” I said that I want to meet face to face I want to meet with our social services and I want to know what real impact this is going to have on our community.When the Government says it will be investing in quality housing and making sure that everyone has access to it we find it a little bit difficult to believe when we see then that it is planning on selling off a significant chunk of New Zealand State housing. This is something that I do not recall National actually campaigning on. Even now having been elected only 3 or 4 weeks ago whatever it was the No. 1 thing we are already getting phone calls about in the Kelston electorate is housing and I do not think that is too dissimilar to the rest of the country. Already we have people ringing us distraught because they do not know where they will be living. The other day I had someone—this is a good example—ringing me to say they are living with their mother-in-law in a State house. It has only two bedrooms. They are a couple with two children and they were given 2 weeks to go and find another place. He is on ACC. She is working part time. How on earth could they get a bond together and find a place in 2 weeks?But actually those Government departments are only reflecting the lack of social conscience that this Government has. They are only following the direction that this Government has set. This Government from the time that it was elected in 2008 always had every intention of privatising our State housing. That is exactly where we are heading now. It is not about devolving social housing to our community; it is about devolving responsibility. That Government does not want to be responsible for all the poor and vulnerable people who actually do need support from the State. The National Government members can tell us as many times as they want that individuals can make better choices for themselves. They can tell us as many times as they want that it is up to the community to decide how they are housed or where they are housed but at the end of the day what we know is that that Government does not want to take responsibility for looking after some of our most vulnerable people.The rhetoric in the Speech from the Throne this morning was impressive. But as I said at the beginning of this speech what we know as MPs on the ground—and I know that many of the people sitting across the House who are electorate MPs in particular know that this is the reality as well—is that that rhetoric does not match the reality. It does not match the reality of many New Zealanders. It does not match the reality of the New Zealanders whom we represent. Over the next 3 years our job here in Opposition will be to hold the Government to account to ensure that more than 25 percent of New Zealanders know at the 2017 election that this Government is not there serving their best interests. Thank you.