Robertson Grant: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12801. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]3.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) to thePrime Minister: Is he satisfied with the performance of his Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment and are there any areas of his performance that need to improve?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I say to contestant No. 1 yes—and I can see why the member is concerned about employment because all he has been thinking about for the last 20 months is his own employment opportunities which is why he stabbed his—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There were two parts to that question. The Prime Minister answered the first one but he did not answer the second.Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion if the Prime Minister could address the second part of the primary question—are there any areas that require improving.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am sure the Minister himself would say he is not perfection but he is pretty close.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer could the Prime Minister tell the House according to the latest household labour force survey how many New Zealanders are unemployed?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: On the numbers I have in front of me 153000 according to the household labour force survey. That is 65000 fewer because in the last 2 years employment has gone up. What we know is that labour markets are very fluid. Last week one person lost his job; now there are three people looking for it.Grant Robertson: Is he satisfied that 153000 New Zealanders are unemployed?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: To be precise it is 153001 because one got sacked last week by the Labour caucus.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the Prime Minister now please address the question that was asked which is whether he is satisfied with 153000 unemployed.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No but what I can say—Grant Robertson: So what are you doing about it?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well the Government is doing a long list of things and actually it would be very interesting if we could go through contestant Nos 1 2 and 3 and see which ones support these. This is a Government—Grant Robertson: Supplementary question Mr Speaker. If he is deciding what to answer I may as well ask another one.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The House needs to settle down. The Prime Minister did answer it very directly and said no he is not satisfied but then the member himself interjected and said “So what are you doing about it?” so he gave the Prime Minister a perfect chance to continue his answer.Grant Robertson: Does the Prime Minister know where New Zealand ranks in terms of unemployment in the OECD and if he does not know does he think it is higher or lower than it was at the same time in 2008?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am advised it is 11th. I am also advised that this is a Government that is moving up the OECD rankings. This is a Government that has had 65000 more people in work in the last couple of years. But what is absolutely fascinating about this question is that this is the member contestant No. 1 who has had this responsibility for 21 months—Mr SPEAKER: And the Prime Minister has no ministerial responsibility for that.Grant Robertson: To enlighten the Prime Minister I seek leave to table figures from the OECD that show that New Zealand ranked sixth in terms of unemployment in 2008 and 12th in 2013.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Grant Robertson: So is the Prime Minister telling New Zealanders that they should be satisfied that after 5 years of his Government 153000 New Zealanders are out of work?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly New Zealand relative to the rest of the world is doing pretty well. There have been 65000 jobs created in the last couple of years. There has been a global financial crisis that we have had to go through. Our unemployment rate over time is tracking down while the rest of the world is tracking up. But on this side of the House we want to do things to create employment so let us go through the three contestants and see—Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no need for that in this answer.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table figures from the household labour force survey that show—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Such figures are freely available to all members.Hon Member: They should be chucked out.Mr SPEAKER: No I do not intend to at this stage but if I see those signs raised by any particular member again then I will be asking that member to leave the Chamber for the balance of question time.