Hipkins Chris: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: General Debate[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12451. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):New Zealanders are an incredibly forgiving and hard-working people. They will forgive their Government many many things. When I go out and talk to people in my electorate of Rimutaka what they say to me is that what they want more than anything else is opportunity. They are willing to work for a better future for themselves and their families. They want the opportunity to do so. What they are disappointed in is this Government’s failure to deliver them that opportunity.Every time we see unemployment statistics come out that show an upturn in unemployment as we did today New Zealanders have a right to feel disappointed in that. As of today there are 153000 New Zealanders unemployed. That is not because they do not want to work. That is not because they are not willing to go and work. It is because the jobs are not there for them to go and do. They want to see this Government take action to ensure that they have the opportunities to work and to get ahead. That has to be the unrelenting focus of any Government and it certainly will be of a future Labour Government.We have already outlined a number of very sensible ideas that will ensure that we can get New Zealanders into work. One of them that I am very proud of is converting the unemployment benefit into a training subsidy for young people. It is far far better for us to pay to have young New Zealanders in jobs and training giving them meaningful skills that will lead to future productive and prosperous employment than have them rotting away on an unemployment benefit. That is something that the Labour Party is committed to and I am incredibly proud of that policy.New Zealanders want to work hard so that they can have and they can purchase their own home. It is a big part of the Kiwi dream. Owning your own home is a big part of being a New Zealander and Kiwis know that they need to work for that. They do not want to have it handed to them on a plate. They are willing to get out there and workhard for it to save for it but they want to get a foot on the ladder. They want to have a chance. At the moment they are seeing their hopes and their prospects crowded out by overseas speculators coming in and buying up all the available houses and they are seeing a Government that is simply willing to turn a blind eye to those things.We in the Labour Party are saying that we acknowledge that it is getting increasingly difficult and has been for some time for New Zealand families to purchase their first home and that is something that we as a future Government are committed to addressing. There are many things that we will do. There is no silver bullet. It is not going to be a problem that can be fixed overnight. We are committed to building 100000 affordable homes to give New Zealanders a chance to get into their first home. We will stop the overseas speculators from coming in and crowding New Zealand families out of the market so that people can get on to the housing ladder.We know that New Zealanders are willing to work for it. New Zealanders are willing to work hard but when I go out into my electorate and I meet people who are working two jobs just to get ahead and they still cannot make ends meet that means that something is wrong. They do not have a Government that is willing to back them. This Government talks about backing people into work but it will not back them once they actually get there. There are people who go out there and do a hard day’s labour—and in many cases they are working evenings too—but who are not getting a pay rate that adequately compensates them for that and I do not think that that is right either. Instead what they have got under this Government is a Government that is committed to eroding their rights even further to making life even more difficult for people who are going out there and working hard to try to get ahead.New Zealanders will forgive their Government many many things and they will give it the benefit of the doubt but they want to know that the Government that they have put in place is responsibly exercising the power and the trust invested in it. They want a Government that cares about their welfare and their well-being. This Government has demonstrated in recent years that it will wield the power of the State in order to protect itself and for its own end. Government members will wield the power of the State to protect their own privacy. So when the privacy of the Prime Minister and Mr Banks was being threatened they did not hesitate to send the police in to raid media outlets. They will wield the power of the State to protect the privacy of Mr Dunne who is quite happy to protect his own personal communications whilst voting for a law that removes the right to privacy for many many other New Zealanders. They will wield the power of the State to protect themselves and their own interests but they are woefully inadequate—silent in fact—when it comes to actually protecting the interests of everyday New Zealanders who want to go out there who want to work hard and who want to create a better future for themselves and for their families.