Woodhouse Michael: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 23 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:216. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration):It gives me great pleasure to speak in this Address in Reply debate. It is great to be back for the 51st Parliament with such a good mandate I think nationally. The public saw through the nonsense saw through the sideshows and saw the plan that the Government had been laying out to them over the previous two terms and returned I think a very strong mandate for a John Key - led National Government.Locally the goal for the party in the Dunedin electorates of Dunedin North and Dunedin South was to win the party votes in both of those electorates. It is an area of New Zealand that is traditionally pretty hard red but I think it is one where there is a definite mood to see a different point of view. It was my great satisfaction to see that party vote wins did go to National both in Dunedin South—for the second time—and for the first time in Dunedin North. That is an electorate that is surprisingly left in its leaning. If people have seen the vote compass page on the New Zealand Herald website there is a very interesting analysis of the sorts of attitudes of all of the constituents around the country and it surprised even me to see how very left-leaning the electorate is. But nevertheless there was an openness to consider a different point of view and the six booth wins in and around the University of Otago are I think a very very good measure of how things have changed down there. The party has now doubled the party vote as a percentage in the last four elections and increased the party vote in real terms by over 230 percent since 2002.Look there have been plenty of pejorative comments about the role of list MPs in New Zealand’s parliamentary democracy. I am very clear that every list MP has a responsibility to represent a constituency whether that constituency is ethnicity gender or geography. For me of course that is Dunedin so I commit to continuing the work over the past 6 years to represent and serve the people of both of those electorates with a great deal of vigour.And of course we heard the Speech from the Throne on Tuesday. It has laid out a very busy agenda for the 51st Parliament and for this Government. It is an active programme that looks I think more like a first-term Government than a third-term Government. I think that reflects the new energy the new ideas and the new faces that the National caucus has brought to this Parliament. I want to congratulate not only my own colleagues on their election to office but all new MPs from right across the House who have been elected. I think we are quite fortunate in this country with the calibre of the people who offer themselves for public service. This Parliament’s new MPs are I think a good reflection of that.It was certainly my great honour and privilege to be asked again to serve as a member of the executive and retain a portfolio that I held last Parliament as Minister of Immigration. I think we have a unique opportunity as the Prime Minister has laid out to set out an economic agenda that positions this country for a step change. There is no doubt that we want our young to be at the front of the queue to benefit from the social cultural and economic opportunities that exist in this country. But there is also no doubt that we are a small open economy trading with the rest of the world and migration and immigration are going to be a very important part of that process. There is no doubt also that we are going to need to rely very heavily on tradesmen and women from around the world to help us rebuild our second-largest city.I think we have made very excellent progress in the immigration space. It did sadden me through the election period the peril that some parties were prepared to promote—irrational discussion and deliberate confusion I would suggest at positive net migration being somehow trumped up as a migrant wave coming into this country. The simple fact is—Rt Hon Winston Peters: What do you reckon 45000 net is?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yes I thought it would not take long before we heard from the member—there we go the yellow peril again. It is all right Mr Peters the election is over. That member is sitting in exactly the same seat he was in in the last Parliament. I suggest he is going to have a little more time on his hands. It is the same old tired rhetoric from everybody on the other side of the House. The more things change the more they stay the same.I must say I am very pleased with the three portfolios that I was given responsibility for because they are interlocking. The immigration portfolio does fit very nicely with the newly named portfolio of workplace relations and safety. Certainly both of those interconnect nicely with my role as Minister of Police. So it is going to be a busy time. I want to just lay out in a little more detail a couple of the priorities of this Government through that period. I will start with workplace relations.We campaigned in the last two elections on improving flexibility in our employment relations framework. We are considering a bill that I think will do just that and will be passed before too long. The irrational rhetoric that we have heard around some measures in that bill again reinforce that not a lot has changed. I heard that Mr Little issued a release yesterday talking about the fact that workers’ rights would be taken away if they did not join a union. It is a good marketing strategy for the union and he is clearly dog whistling to the people he wants to vote for him for leader of the Labour Party but it is simply not true. For those people who have taken the time to email me and post—in some colourful language I have to say—on social media their views that this provision somehow takes away their rest breaks and meal breaks I say this: that is nonsense. Do not listen to the cloth cap - wearing members on the other side. Nothing could be further from the truth.Hon David Cunliffe: Yes it does. Read the bill.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The member says: “Read the bill.” Of course I have read the bill. The bill says it must be by agreement. You know what? The really interesting thing is those members do not think workers can think for themselves. That is what that says—that they are too stupid to actually work out what is good for them and they need protection. Actually they are slapping the unions around as well because it suggests that the unions cannot even fix that. Again nothing could be further from the truth. The real priority I think in workplace relations and safety is the safety element. We have a bill the Health and Safety Reform Bill that has been transferred into this Parliament that will revolutionise health and safety in this country. It follows the task force recommendations and the Pike River royal commission.I say about the legislative framework that it is a very important recalibration of people’s thinking around workplace health and safety. But until we have a culture change in this country and until we have people who understand that health and safety strategies are not something one does at work when they are not busy we will not get that step change we are looking for. I am actually really encouraged by talking to workers and unions—and their chief executive officers at a recent health and safety forum in Auckland just this week—that the message is now getting through that we do have an unacceptably high level of people who die and are injured at work and that we need to change that. The Government has set a pretty bold target of a 25 percent reduction in workplace injuries and deaths by 2020 and I think every member of this House will join me in ensuring that the legislative framework is put in place and showing leadership in what is important to achieve that.I will finally end by congratulating the 12000 men and women of our New Zealand police force. It is a great honour for me to be the Minister of Police. I look forward very much to working with a very very professional and committed group of men and women right across the country who have contributed to a significant reduction in crime in this country. We will need to be very clear to continue to stay ahead of the gangs their criminal networks the drugs that they peddle and the money that they launder. This Government has a very comprehensive whole-of-Government strategy for doing just that in order to discourage people from joining gangs to give them opportunities to leave gangs and to investigate and punish the crimes that they commit. I think that is a very very high priority for this Government. I congratulate the New Zealand police on some quite high-profile situations that they have found themselves in over the last couple of weeks already in my time as Minister of Police. I have been very very impressed with their professionalism.