Sio William: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sio William: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 22 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2233. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
10. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement on job creation “We can effect things like labour laws and if you look at the jobs creation that we have been promoting; the SkyCity convention centre more mining and exploration Australian companies coming back … they will create jobs.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 No I do not stand by that statement because that was not my statement. But I do stand by my full quote which was: “We can effect things like labour laws whatever it might be and if you look at the job creation things that we’ve been promoting—Skycity as a convention centre more mining and exploration irrigation Australian companies coming back—Labour have rejected every one of those and so have plenty of other people been opposed but they will create jobs.” I stand by answer because that is what Labour is opposed to: all of these things which create jobs for New Zealanders.  
Su’a William Sio 
: Is his Government incapable of coming up with a plan to create jobs that does not come at the cost of eliminating the rights of employees increased social cost of gambling and further environmental degradation and low wages?  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No.  
Su’a William Sio 
: By how much has unemployment decreased since he promised to do something about it? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I have been promising for a long time to make sure that New Zealand grows jobs and we created—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the Prime Minister. I guess the members want to hear the answer to the question their colleague asked. The noise today has been unacceptable. I do not blame any group of members in the House just across the House except maybe the members at the back who do not normally make too much noise. So I ask members to please be reasonable. I call the right honourable Prime Minister; I did not hear the answer.  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I have been saying for quite a long time that the country needs to create jobs. We created 60000 in the last 2 years. We have had quite a significant drop in those on the unemployment benefit from the last few years and I remember quite clearly when there were a number of commentators saying that unemployment in this country would rise to 10 or 11 percent—I think Phil Goff was cheering them on at the time—and that never proved to be right.  
Su’a William Sio 
: If the 18000 new people in the labour force are looking for jobs because as he said the economy is coming right then why is it that half of them could not find a job in this quarter?  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: What is true is that New Zealand has one of the higher labour participation rates in the world—much higher than Australia’s. Our participation rate is 68.2 percent and Australia’s is 65 percent. Or to put it another way the employment rate in New Zealand as a proportion of the population is greater in New Zealand than in Australia.  
Su’a William Sio 
: What initiative has his Government taken to ensure that jobs currently advertised that require particular skills have been translated to investment in training for those looking for jobs?  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The best person probably to answer that would be the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment but I can tell you on his behalf that enormous amounts of money are being poured into a variety of different training schemes and actually upgrading the quality of those training schemes over recent years. The Government has had a number of other programmes running from Limited Service Volunteers right through to Community Max and Job Ops. The Government has made significant increases in training for Christchurch including $42 million we announced last year to go into upgrading the skills sector. The truth is that if we want to get more people into skills and into training then we have to do a better job of making sure those one in five young New Zealanders who leave school unable to read and write properly do get the proper literacy and numeracy skills they require. That was something on which the Labour Government failed those people and particularly that member’s community and he knows it.  
Su’a William Sio 
: Two years ago he said that the unemployment rate was a lagging indicator and 2 weeks ago he said: “In terms of the unemployment rate it’s a very weird one at the moment.”; given that what it really is is a reflection of his Government’s failure to stimulate and grow the economy when will he admit that this Government has failed to provide any kind of a future for New Zealanders let alone a brighter one?  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No.  
Su’a William Sio 
: Does he agree that his trail of broken promises merely highlights his lack of economic leadership given that unemployment forecasts this year were wrong the number of jobs expected to be created this quarter was wrong and 55000 more people are on the unemployment benefit in the last 3½ years—almost double the number of people—since National took office in 2008? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I think it is worthy of just taking a moment to look at some of the points that Labour has been making today in answer to the member’s specific question. When the Christchurch earthquake came it cost this economy about $20 billion and Labour argued that the Government should do a lot about it. Today it wants to ignore that impact on the economy. When the global financial crisis came Labour at its campaign launch signed up— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The questioner was very clear as to the questions he wanted answered— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Forgive me; the member will resume his seat. Order! The member will resume his seat.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well not unless you are clairvoyant. I haven’t even given my point of order yet.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I do not need to hear any point of order. If the member had listened to the question asked he would have heard a question that was barely in order. It talked about the trail of broken promises and all sorts of things. The Prime Minister is at liberty to answer it any way he chooses. A member who asks a question like that deserves to get any answer almost as long as it is within the bounds of acceptable language in the House—any answer they choose to give. That kind of question deserves nothing more than that because it was just a litany of views of the questioner so now we are hearing the Prime Minister’s views and I invite him— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am still on my feet. I will now hear the member’s point of order.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assumed you had finished your first ruling. My point of order is that if that is correct in respect of the question then why did you not rule it out instead of turning this place into a farce by allowing the Prime Minister— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The reason why I do not is that I do not want to rule that member’s questions out all the time.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect if you have got concerns about my questions then please raise them at the time rather than that sort of lesson because we can soon pass a motion— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will resume his seat immediately. He should just have listened to the question asked. I could have ruled it out indeed but I did not want to do that. Because members should learn that if they do not want to get the Minister’s view back an equal political statement back they should not ask that kind of question. I would rather let the House flow. I could rule but today I probably would have had to rule out at least half the questions being asked because most of them contained more statement than question and the Standing Orders do not allow that. I would have had to be ruling out at least half of them and I did not want to do that. I want— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: We don’t agree.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is skating on thin ice now and I just remind him that the remedy is in the hands of questioners. Ask straight questions and I will insist on straight answers. The Prime Minister is still answering that question should he wish to continue.  
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Let me summarise these things very briefly. When all of these particular issues came along—the global financial crisis the funding requirement for New Zealand deposit takers the Christchurch earthquakes for all of those issues Labour argued that this Government should throw enormous resources and support at them. And today on “Planet Labour” none of those things existed. That is why they have no credibility at all with the New Zealand public. They are the Blues of political parties and we over here are the Crusaders.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
]  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the member but I want to hear the member’s point of order.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If that is allowed as an answer then frankly anything can be an answer now.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Not at all and the member will cease arguing with me. I just invite the member to listen to questions. I listen very carefully to questions and if members want to avoid that kind of answer they should ask a question instead of making a political statement. That is what question time is about. If one side of the House is going to make political statements I am not going to deprive the other side of the House from making political statements in return. But I would encourage members to ask straight questions because I will do my best to get answers to those straight questions. Members will notice now that where there is a question on the Order Paper that seeks information Ministers give it. Today when I had not heard clearly the information sought in relation to question No. 8 I asked the member to provide the information. The Minister pointed out that she had and that I had missed it and I apologised for that. Where straight questions are asked I will seek to make sure Ministers give answers to them. But today questions I have got to say have been pretty loose and it has been extremely difficult therefore to pin Ministers down in their answers. But that is where the remedy lies—ask straight questions rather than trying to make clever political statements.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Sio asked in an earlier question whether unemployment had risen. That was a very clear question—very direct. He got no answer at all.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I will not take any more on this. If that was what the member had asked we would have got an answer but it was not what the member had asked. The member should listen to all the elements to the whole question not to just one bit of it. I as Speaker have to listen to the entire question and that is where so many members get into trouble. They cannot help adding a bit at the end of it and that then gives the Minister an excuse to add political comment to their answer and I cannot prevent them. But when a member is asking a straight question—the member will recollect the Hon Trevor Mallard questioning the Minister of Finance and my insisting on the Minister of Finance answering the question because it was perfectly— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Not that he did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It was a perfectly straight question about the handling of current account data. It was a perfectly straight question. The remedy is in members’ hands. We are not going to waste more time on this question.