Tirikatene Rino: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7803. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou huri noa nga mema o te Whare. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Speaker and to you collectively members throughout the House. 
] 
I am very pleased to make the final contribution from the Labour Party in opposition to the Prime Minister’s statement. It has been just over 2 weeks since the Prime Minister stood before this House and the nation and so sneeringly told us what a great start to the year it has been. He delivered the speech in that John Key jokey manner which really just screams insincerity. For 4 years we have had carefully crafted excuses as to why this country of ours is getting nowhere and why we cannot get ahead. It is the fault of the global financial crisis it is the fault of the Canterbury earthquakes or it is the fault of the illuminati or some other fanciful excuse. It is the fault of everyone but the National Government. 
Could it be that this country is getting nowhere because we have a Government that refuses to take direction and show some leadership? It is hands-off. It is rich of Mr Joyce to talk about focus groups when we know that he had a whole book written about him as one of  
The Hollow Men 
 in terms of focus groups Crosby/Textor and strategic communication consultants—all of those sorts of carryings-on that we know underpin this very poor National Government. 
I want to focus on three things that are dear to me: kids poverty and health. Last year there came out damning statistics on child poverty. They were really sorry reading. The statistics showed that too many kids live in unhealthy homes. They are going to school tired and hungry and have zero chance of learning under that sort of regime. 
 Although we all know it is wrong to identify schools by their decile rating the fact of the matter is that it is the decile 1 2 and 3 schools that have the breakfast clubs not the decile 10 schools. You see in the Prime Minister’s perfect world everyone is as rich as he is or they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and reach for the stars. It is the same with this National caucus. But they would not know Struggle Street. They do not know about Struggle Street. 
Here is a scary thought: if you are Maori or Polynesian and living in this country you definitely are on a road to nowhere or you are flocking to the departure lounge and heading like 350000 other Kiwis over to Australia. But do not blame Labour for it blame the National Government. It is the one with the Ministers who fail to understand the clients it serves. We already know the two casualties. Kate Wilkinson is gone. Phil Heatley was no good as a housing Minister and he is gone although he did mention in a select committee today that he is down but not out and good luck to him. 
Now when we look at the state of the housing market we see it has blown out. We know that there is another property bubble that is getting bigger and bigger in this country. The Government has made it too expensive to build the Kiwi dream because the parameters on the Reserve Bank are too narrow. Inflation targeting is not working in the context that we are in now. The world is awash with debt. Countries around the world are debasing their currencies and it is just putting more pressure on our currency and crippling our manufacturing sector and our export base. So there are many many things that are suffering right across our economy. 
I turn to Christchurch. There is not enough housing stock in Christchurch. There is a crisis down there. The ones that have been shafted by the Government and the greedy landlords of Christchurch are the same old Maori and Polynesian whanau who have limited resources and even less money and/or jobs. Rents have gone up in that city and it has forced whanau into seriously overcrowded situations which has led to poor health. 
Children from these environments are going to school every day tired sick and hungry and so are unable to learn anything—that is if they are going to school at all. Nowadays we have the real problem of kids not going to school because they cannot afford basic tools for learning—basic things like stationery. Kids are not going to school because mum and dad cannot afford just basic things. 
That is the type of New Zealand that this Government has created. It is a New Zealand where kids live in substandard housing and poverty where kids go to school if they are lucky on a packet of 2-minute noodles—and that is if they have eaten at all. It has created an environment where if your child gets a strep throat it leads to some serious diseases. It is tough being a little kid in this country especially so when you are broke. But New Zealand is not a poor country. We are a rich country but we have a problem with how wealth is spread. 
This Government is too concerned with accumulating wealth at the top end of society while leaving just little crumbs for everyone below. It is a “me” approach to governing a winner-takes-all approach to society and it is wrong. That is why the Anglican Church’s Family Centre has calculated that we need a living wage and that $18 to $20 an hour is what is necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life. Under this Government 750000 people earn less than or about that amount—that is the number of working poor in this country has ballooned. Even beginner teachers who most would say are skilled workers earn less than that amount. Not only is this a Government of low expectation but it is a Government of low wages. 
I want to turn now to training and education because we have spoken a lot about and heard a lot about that in this debate. You know 90000 rangatahi across the country are not in employment education or training. Those are horrific numbers. We have figures that show that the unemployment rate for Maori and Pacific is three times higher than it is for Pakeha. What do we hear out of the Prime Minister? As we heard in his statement to the House this is the Government that actually trains people as opposed to spending money and getting absolutely no result—and this is the rub; it is wasting millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. One word: Novopay. 
If anyone needs a better example of a Government wasting millions of taxpayer dollars and getting no results it is “no-pay Novopay”. We have heard that it is costing the Government over $5 million and then it has got commissions of inquiry as well trying to rectify the mess. It is an absolute mess. “Novopay” has become the new word in the Kiwi lexicon for a total and complete balls-up. Minister Parata is right at the top of it. She signed it off. And she is definitely not the smooth communicator because she is umming and ahing—she really is in the hot seat—and getting grilled by my colleague there Mr Hipkins and long may it continue. 
Last week we had the terrible news about the Mainzeal Property and Construction receivership. If the Government is talking up how great our economy is I say that Mainzeal’s demise is a huge blow to the whole construction industry and also to the many hundreds of thousands of workers and subcontractors who were all supported by that enterprise. The Government is screaming for apprenticeships and skilled workers—or so we think—for Christchurch. When young men who want to be trained as brickies or chippies go to a Mainzeal site see that that site is closed down and see contractors who are not even able to go in there and get their tools those young men will think twice about taking up a career in the construction industry. So we are not actually attracting new apprenticeships. 
What does the Government want to do? It wants to fly in cheap labour from overseas. But the biggest scandal of all for this Government is the record high unemployment 7.3 percent. As I said before the unemployment rate for Maori and Pacific is three times that for Pakeha. That is the highest rate since the last National Government in the 1990s. Again it blames the global financial crisis soft demand overseas and the Labour Government. But the Labour Government left the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD and low public debt. The blame lies squarely at the feet of this National Government. 
I am proud of the new initiatives that Labour has announced. With our KiwiBuild policy we will get more low to middle income earners into affordable housing and increase the supply. If anyone talks about numbers about what $300000 will get you I just say haere mai ki Te Wai Pounamu come to the South Island. In Blenheim you will get a three-bedroom home for $249000 four bedrooms in Dunedin for $270000 and in Lumsden you can get a three or four-bedroom home for $69000 to $159000. If you want to be real landed gentry you can go to Lumsden and get 4.6 hectares of land for—wait for it—$165000 and the $135000 that you have left over will probably get you a home and a rental property. There are many opportunities for affordable housing and we are looking right across the country and not with an Auckland-centric view of the world. I am very proud that across the Maori electorate there are many opportunities for that housing development that KiwiBuild policy to take place. 
We do oppose this Government. We oppose everything that it is about. It is right; we are left. It is blue; we are red. It is ugly and we are the attractive opposite. We are ready to take this Government down come 2014 because the people out there definitely want a change. Kia ora ano tatou.