Davis Kelvin: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8943. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou ki a koe ā ki ngā mema katoa huri rauna i Te Whare.[Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Greetings of the New Year to you and to all the members throughout the House.]Obviously our Working Futures policy is a good one because National is railing so hard against it. What does Chris Bishop have against helping people to get ahead? We know from the figures that in 20 years’ time 40 percent of the jobs that exist now will not exist at that time so the Labour Party is doing something about it. We are focusing on the Kiwi Dream on the Kiwi future; not just railing about what is happening today and being focused on today. He is obviously a guy who has grown up with a hint of privilege whereas people like the people I represent up north—Jacqui Dean: Oh that’s so Labour.KELVIN DAVIS: —do not quite have the same level of privilege. We actually do have to graft. We do struggle. There are a number of people up north—although they have the potential and everything that it takes to succeed at university the one thing they do not have and it is a barrier to their participation in university is the money. And that is just a fact. I heard a member over there screeching out—Carmel Sepuloni: Talk about privilege.KELVIN DAVIS: —yes talk about privilege; exactly—about this policy and railing against it and that is because members opposite do not really mix with the type of people who are in the Tai Tokerau or on the East Coast. They mix with the people of their own sort who have grown up with a measure of privilege.We saw how New Zealanders reacted actually to the Prime Minister at Eden Park on the weekend when instead of turning up at Waitangi Marae to face all those angry people—people who have not really had all the information regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement put in front of them. I mean look at it. There it is there I think in the grey folders on the Table there. I mean all the folk up north are expected to read that and absorb what is in those folders. I am not sure whether that is the TPP in its entirety or whether that is just one chapter but certainly it has not been touched. Nobody can actually be bothered to read through it and decipher what it really means for us out there in the provinces. But John Key—instead of turning up to Waitangi to talk to the people and to allow Māori the opportunity to throw questions and challenge him on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement he ran off to Auckland to the Nines. He walked along the side of the field in front of the terraces and the people in the terraces—our people—soundly roundly booed him to the point that he scurried upstairs to where he was comfortable in the corporate boxes and he was happy taking selfies with people. He was happy to be seen there. He was all relaxed. But out on the terraces where our people watch the sports there was not quite the reception that he hoped for.In fact it just reflected a measure of the anxiety that people up north at Waitangi had regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But where I really took offence—because I was one of the people at the meeting 2 or 3 days before Waitangi Day who voted on whether or not the Prime Minister should attend Waitangi. I was one of the people who stood up and said: “No. I think the Prime Minister should be allowed on to Te Tii Marae.” and I voted for him to attend on the basis that it is an opportunity the one and only time that Māori will have the opportunity to challenge him on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. But instead he said: “I’m not going to turn up because they’re banning me from speaking.” Well look that did not stop anyone else from turning up. We were all told we were not to talk politics but we did in fact talk politics because we know—those of us who are in touch with the history of the area know—that on 5 February the day before the signing at Waitangi all the chiefs sat at a place called Taurangatira at Waitangi and they discussed the Treaty which in their day was the equivalent of discussing politics. So if you know the history if you know tikanga and if you are in touch with all New Zealanders including Māori you would know that no one is going to stop you from standing up on a marae and saying what you want to say.But instead the Prime Minister said: “Oh it’s a bit mickey mouse.” Let me tell you. When he said that it was a bit mickey mouse—the Te Tii Marae trustees—he is talking about half a dozen 70 to 80-year-old pensioners. He is the man with all the resources of the State at his disposal. He has goodness knows how many Ministers how many MPs how many spin doctors and how many advisers he has got Crosby/Textor he has got the resources of the State at his disposal and the best he can do is turn and pick on half a dozen elderly pensioners who are just trying to do the best for their marae. That to me was insulting. To me it also signified how out of touch the Prime Minister is with the people of Tai Tokerau and Māoridom in general. How dare he stand up there and belittle and denigrate elderly New Zealanders who are just trying to have a role. I bet you he does not even understand what they do in their role on the marae. Over the course of 3 or 4 days they had to sit there for probably 10 to 12 hours at a time and welcome group after group after group on to the marae. He does not understand that because he is out of touch.What I have suggested to Shane Reti the National MP for Whangarei is that next year the Government—because the Treaty is the partnership between Māori and Pākehā and it should be the Government and Māori actually sitting on the taumata of the marae and welcoming the rest of New Zealand in. That is what those members should be doing as a Government. I hope they take up that suggestion.Working Futures—the dream for New Zealand. The Kiwi Dream has been roundly criticised by the people on the other side of the House and that is to be expected. They were quite stunned by the audacity of the plan—the fact that it is forward-thinking and the fact that it is going to help New Zealanders. It is going to get people ahead. Instead what they want to do is saddle our young people with debt into the future.My daughter is one of those people. She is in her fourth year this year of a law degree. She knows that she has to pay off all that debt $20000-odd before she gets to start saving money for her house—getting on the property ladder. That is the Kiwi Dream—owning your own house. But that is out of touch for so many of our young people.A nephew of mine was lucky. His parents are quite well-to-do. They helped him to get into a house in a fairly average suburb in Auckland. That house cost $400000 and 4 years later he sold it for $790000. That is the skyrocketing cost of housing. That is the price our young people are having to pay for those houses and yet they have to pay off their student debt first.We really do not ask for much in this country. After the essentials such as oxygen and food and water we want a decent job. Let me tell you. I was appalled to read this the other day. David Clark has done some fantastic work to get the Mondayisation of Waitangi Day but then we heard about an employer who has insisted that their employees if they are called up must turn up for work on a public holiday—a statutory holiday. If they do not turn up on that day then they face the sack. What sort of a country do we live in where an employer can just break the law and demand that people turn up to work on a statutory holiday and give them the sack if they do not do that? That is absurd. All that New Zealanders want is fairness. That is part of the Kiwi Dream.Serco last year—I have to say that the previous Minister of Corrections did not cover himself in glory last year. Already we see the makings of another ministerial train wreck in the Minister of Customs who really is just not on top of the game. Nicky Wagner is probably the first nominee for the “Sam Lotu-Iiga Ministerial Incompetence Award”. All she talks about in terms of combating the importation of P and drugs is SmartGate. I suggest she should buy her own SmartGate install it in her office and walk through it about a dozen times a day in the hope that something—anything—rubs off.All that New Zealanders want is a fair go. We do not want to live in poverty. We do not want our children to struggle through life. I believe that Gareth Hughes summed up superbly what is going wrong in this nation and I congratulate—