Davis Kelvin: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9304. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The speech from Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga the member who just sat down—he was throwing around figures here and numbers here and amounts there—reminds me of the old saying: “It is a truism that 62.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.” He just proved that right there and then. This Government—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I hope it is a point of order.Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: I am happy to table the figures that relate to my remarks in this House.Mr SPEAKER: So the member is seeking leave to table—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Well I am seeking leave—I am happy to table those figures that are—Mr SPEAKER: The source of the figures and the date of the figures?Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Well they are research figures—Mr SPEAKER: No I am not putting the leave. Sorry to interrupt the speaker.KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you Mr Speaker. Obviously the nuances of that one-liner were lost on the Minister there.Look this Government is arrogant. It is out of touch. It is ignoring the big issues that face New Zealanders. When we say “arrogant” and “out of touch” we just need to present exhibit A who was sitting in the blue dress over there earlier on. Judith Collins exudes the arrogance and the out-of-touch state of this Government like nobody else we have ever seen.Look New Zealanders do not ask for much but we have a dream. And the dream is that we have a good house—a decent house; a warm safe dry house—we are able to provide for our families and we have a decent job. But this Government has made it almost impossible for that dream to be realised by anybody. Let us take a look at the warm dry home. How many people these days who are just leaving school or leaving university and are trying to get into the home market—how many of our young people really have that chance today? With the skyrocketing price of houses how many young people these days are really going to see that that dream is reachable or attainable?On the Labour side of the House we talk about providing free education—3 years’ free university education—for our people. On the other side of the House there all those members want to do is criticise and condemn that. What we are trying to do is give young New Zealanders a leg-up. I was talking to my colleague Megan Woods who said that she had a $100000 student debt and she has only just managed to pay it off—$100000. That means she has had to pay off that debt really before she can actually start saving for a house—saving for a place for herself to live in—and yet Megan is in a well-paid job and has done very well.But there are other people in New Zealand we know who do not have such great jobs because jobs in themselves are hard to find. So we want to have a place to call home. We want to be able to provide for our families. We want to be able to provide food shelter and clothing for our families. That dream is becoming harder and harder to come by. In particular we see that the minimum wage has been raised to $15.25—well something is better than nothing I must admit—but Labour was calling for a minimum wage of $15 two elections ago and only now is the Government saying that it can afford it. It said that if it was raised by another 50c 2000 jobs would be lost. Oh really? Again I say that 62.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.Then we have the zero-hour contracts campaign. You know what sort of Government does this to people? A zero-hour contract means that somebody basically has to sit at home. They cannot really go anywhere. If a family wanted to go to the beach on a Saturday afternoon for example they would plan for it but they cannot do that because they have to sit at home and hope that the phone is going to ring for work or because they think that the phone might ring but then again it might not. How can a family actually plan for quality time? How can a family actually do things together when they know that if they are on a zero-hour contract they have to sit around and wait and hope that the phone is going to ring? What sort of Government does that to its people?Zero-hour contracts—we say we are committed on these three matters. We want to remove the ability of employers to put people on contracts where they are on call but with no permanent hours. Employers should not be able to cancel shifts. Imagine somebody who is wanting to work and expecting to work and the next thing you know the shift has been cancelled. How fair is that? What sort of Government agrees to those sorts of things? And where practical hours of work should be included in the employment agreement so that people can actually plan and have some security in their lives.This Government is actually trampling on the Kiwi Dream.