Muller Todd: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMuller Todd: General Debate[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): It is great to be able to finish the general debate this afternoon and to be able to talk about how effective the Government is in providing sound economic management that allows families to be successful and then the economic dividend can get reinvested in social services to help people who really need it.If there is an electorate in the country that reflects the success of this approach it is the Bay of Plenty. Here are some statistics to paint a picture of progress. Job growth in the Bay of Plenty is extraordinary. We have unemployment down to just over 5 percent; it was 7 percent a year ago. Job adverts are up 29 percent year on year. The Bay of Plenty is at 20 percent and that is the highest region in the country. Pay rates have jumped 6.7 percent and they are rising faster in the Bay of Plenty than anywhere else in the country.In the last 2 years 353 businesses have moved to Tauranga and that has led to a huge lift in building and construction. Five suburbs in Tauranga including two in my electorate have delivered $1 billion—$1 billion—worth of residential and commercial development in the past 3 years. In the last month alone $66 million worth of building consents have been approved by the Tauranga City Council. It is the fastest-growing city in the country but its growth is supported by a Government that invests in schools in Papamoa and invests in roads in the Tauranga Eastern Link to enable the eastern communities of the Eastern Bay of Plenty to connect to the most efficient port in the country.But it is not just economically. There are 50 percent more people in the Bay of Plenty receiving elective surgeries this year than when we came into office. Fifty percent more of the Bay of Plenty community are now receiving elective surgeries than when we came in. Not surprisingly our city has been rated the most confident and economically upbeat in the country. The longer terms are positive with kiwifruit recovering from Psa; the information and communications technology clusters taking off; and the merger of the two polytechs the new central business district university development and the trades academy all point to providing skills pathways for those who need them.So it is not surprising that Tauranga was chosen to participate in the Social Housing Reform Programme. Why is that? Because it is an innovative city. It is a community that has a proven track record in community housing provision and we are open to new ideas to help fix challenging problems.What do we get from the other side? Unrelenting negativity. No to innovation. No to social investment that delivers results. No to foreign investment. No to migration. No to free trade. Listening to the arguments of members on the other side tells me that they are caught in the 1990s. When we talk innovation—when we talk innovative social investment models that are collaborative that are backed by increased funding that is targeted to achieving a better result for children and families—they hear privatisation. When we talk about helping the most vulnerable with the first benefit rise in 43 years they think we are being cynical and they vote against it. When we talk about an open engaged vibrant culturally diverse New Zealand connected to the world and open for business they talk of Chinese surnames external threats and run to isolationist anti-American tendencies which have always existed in that party.The Labour Party is stuck in the 1990s and it thinks we are still the party of the 1990s. Labour members are rehearsing their old socialism versus neo-liberalism lines. Labour is tired it is old and it is yesteryear. Labour members are tone deaf to the changes that have occurred in society in our party through the leadership of John Key and Bill English.We have changed; they have not. Public policy has changed; they have not. New Zealand has changed; they have not. The world has changed; they have not. And the reason is that a quarter of their caucus were in those seats over 20 years ago—the 1980s the 1990s. They are caught in a paradigm of the 1990s. We are the true heirs of social policy innovation. They are an embarrassment to their legacy—an absolute embarrassment to their legacy. That is why around the country regional New Zealand trusts this Government. They see its competency they see its character they see its compassion and they trust our ability to apply the best of tomorrow’s ideas to fix the challenges of today. They believe that this Government can best support their families into the future.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.