Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 17 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5901. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 Well that last speech by Winston Peters really did read like the opening chapter in a Jeffrey Archer novel: complete fiction based upon the member’s own loose grasp of facts in his own case throughout his own political career. There is no one in this House who is more condemned by amnesia than that member over there. 
We have had a very interesting week so far in Parliament. Last week we saw the Opposition parties’ David Shearer Winston Peters and Russel Norman cosy up on a bench—oh I am sorry David Shearer and Russel Norman were cosying up; Winston Peters was an arm’s length away—showing the nation what an alternative coalition might look like and claiming that there is a job crisis in this country. So having gone out there and spruiked all this up what did they do when they came into the House this week? They went back on to the old stuff of Mr Dotcom the Government Communications Security Bureau and everything else that is completely irrelevant to the daily lives of New Zealanders. 
I have got to say that this side of the House is delighted to look at the question sheet every day and see that the Labour Party the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party have once again failed New Zealanders by choosing to look at all of the beltway stuff that makes very little difference to New Zealanders’ lives. We had Mr Grant Robertson come into the House today and in his speech in his contribution to this debate first up was he talking about jobs? Was he talking about the difficulties that people have in their daily lives? No he was talking about the Government Communications Security Bureau and saying what a terrible situation has developed around it. This is the first member of Parliament I have ever seen stand up and take a point of order asking the Speaker to stop the member giving the answer from giving the answer because the answer did not suit his narrative. That was what we got from him yesterday—completely irrelevant—and now today another attempt to try to push along this Jeffrey Archer - type novel that these guys are collectively writing. 
I heard Mr Robertson also say that the Minister of Education has failed people in Christchurch with the education plan. That is typical of the Labour Party. There are 9500 spare spaces in schools in Christchurch there are 4500 students off the rolls in Christchurch and the Labour Party says: “Do nothing. Just leave it all. Just put up with it.”—just have shonky facilities for these children in their learning opportunities going forward and ignore what is a very very big challenge. I am sorry if some of the members and their mates feel that that does not represent them but that is what Mr Robertson had to say in the House today. 
What I can say is that in Christchurch yes there is disappointment about this and yes there is disappointment that there were ever the earthquake events in the first place. But there is also a deep realism about the need to make good decisions so that we get a solid recovery and our young people and our children’s learning are central to that. 
I go back to that job summit those members had last week trying to create the idea that there is a crisis. The media sadly always want to cover a story about some job losses somewhere but just look at the record. Since this Government came to office—in fact just in the last 2 years—60000 more New Zealanders have found jobs in New Zealand. There are 60000 more jobs net in the workforce than there were 2 years ago. There have been 13000 jobs created through the 90-day trial. Labour said no to that but it created 13000 new jobs. There are 1000 new jobs on the Waterview Connection motorway which is part of a whole programme of roads of national significance creating jobs throughout the country. Labour is saying no to that as well. 
There are 350 jobs in the expansion of the Marsden Point refinery which is a big infrastructure project. We can look forward to that being replicated in other parts of the country through different projects. There are 400 jobs at the IBM centre at Unitec 500 construction jobs at the Methanex plant in Taranaki and 1500 jobs at Fonterra’s new dairy plant at Darfield in Canterbury. These are real jobs for New Zealanders who need them real opportunities for New Zealanders who need them and they occur only because we have a growing economy. 
New Zealanders look every night at the news and they see what is happening around the rest of the world.