Moroney Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 17 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): That was the sound of the National Party MPs struggling to find 5 minutes’ worth of good things to say about their own Government. We have just heard it from Melissa Lee and from Scott Simpson before her—running out of things to say. New Zealanders listening to those debate speeches must be scratching their heads and wondering whether they are living in the same country because the rose-tinted approach from the National Government just does not bear out in reality—the reality of everyday New Zealanders’ lives and what they are struggling with. According to Scott Simpson the country is in great shape because the members of the National Party caucus all went and spent their Christmas holidays up in the Coromandel. That is the best thing he could come up with—how his Government is apparently somehow relevant to ordinary New Zealanders’ lives. So I think it was very disappointing to hear those two contributions.I missed the Prime Minister’s statement. I was not in the House the day that he set out his vision for the country for the coming year. However it would appear that I did not miss much at all because the Government is completely distracted. Instead of actually focusing on the vision for the brighter future that Government members once used to talk about for this country—has anyone noticed they have stopped saying that? I have noticed they have stopped saying that. In fact they have even stopped saying they are on the cusp of something big. They were saying that just before the election and they have stopped saying that all of a sudden. But instead of addressing those issues they are now distracted. They are completely distracted by issues like their Skycity shambles. They are distracted trying to dodge the Mike Sabin bullet. And they are distracted by their plans to sell off State housing. And none of those things are going very well for them at all.Let us just consider the Skycity shambles. The Prime Minister said that he promised a 3500-seat convention centre—world class—for New Zealand. That is what he said. He said today at question time that it is a done deal by the National Government. Well that done deal turns out to be nothing like 3500 people sitting in a convention centre coming from overseas. It is not going to be the iconic convention centre that the Prime Minister once gloated about. In fact again just like we do not hear them talking about the brighter future much any more just like we do not hear them talking about being on the cusp of something big any more we are not going to hear much about an iconic convention centre from that Government any more. And yet Skycity has done fabulously well out of it. This done deal—the deal done—by the National Government is actually very very good for Skycity because it got 3500 people’s worth of gambling concessions that will actually cause New Zealanders harm. So that is very good for Skycity but it is not good for ordinary New Zealanders.What about the Mike Sabin bullet? Well the Government is not doing very well at dodging that one either. I do not know how those Ministers feel but every time I see Anne Tolley and Michael Woodhouse on TV desperately trying to hide what they knew about the Mike Sabin affair it makes me cringe. I am sure that ordinary New Zealanders watching that performance on the news night in and night out are cringing as well because they know that those Ministers are avoiding telling New Zealanders what they knew and when they knew it. What New Zealanders are asking is: why—why will they not just come clean and say “I knew this on such and such a date.”? Mike Sabin has left Parliament. What is the point in continuing to hide this information? The answer has to be that they are trying to protect the Prime Minister. That can be the only answer but it is not looking very good for them.And the sell-off of State houses? Well in Hamilton it looks like that is going to be a double whammy because we have just had our city council sell off a couple of hundred pensioner housing flats and now what we have learnt is that probably somewhere between 200 and 800 State houses are going to be sold off in the Waikato in the few years ahead. Of course the Government will not tell us how many it is. It seems to be hiding that information as well because it is ashamed that it is going down exactly the same pathway the National Government has always gone down—selling off and flogging off State housing even though in cities like Hamilton we face increasing homelessness.Meanwhile the story that the Government has constructed about itself—about it being a good economic manager—is disintegrating before Government members’ very eyes. We heard earlier from Chris Hipkins—and he is absolutely right—that when Labour left office there was zero net Crown debt. That means we did not owe money. It was a huge thing that the Labour Government did. It took 9 years of being absolutely focused on ensuring that we paid off our debts as a country. Then the global financial crisis came along. The Government changed around about the same time. Treasury predicted that by the end of 2013 the country would be in debt to the tune of about $13 billion. And yes that sounds like a lot of money. But what has happened? It has ballooned under that Government to $60 billion—$60 billion of debt has been accumulated by that Government. That is not good economic management under anyone’s set of rules. So if the Government believes that it is a good economic manager then it is operating under a completely different set of rules from what ordinary New Zealanders would understand as being good economic management.Then today at question time we also learnt that the Government is so bad at managing the economy and so bad at managing the Government’s books that the only way that it will get within cooee of having the surplus it has been promising year after year after year is to dip into the pockets of ordinary working New Zealanders and business owners to over-inflate the levies it is charging on ACC. That is right. That is the grand plan. It does not intend to get to surplus by growing the economy by growing jobs by creating more opportunity. Its only plan for getting to surplus is to rort the ACC levies so that workers are paying more every week through their ACC levies and so are business owners.Today the question was put to Bill English and he would not answer it that that rort—the Government’s inability to bring about economic growth and its inability to address these issues—is going to cost households $60 more a year and businesses $1500 more a year. That is what is propping up Bill English’s surplus. Yet even though the Government has got its hands in the pockets of workers and business owners through its ACC levies guess what? Treasury says that the Government still will not get there—even though the Government has got its hands in the pockets of workers and business owners Treasury says that the Government will still not make surplus. It is going to crash and burn and it is going to come in $500 million under.So what is the plan Mr English? You have already put your hands in the pockets of workers and business owners. You are not going to be able to milk them any more. What is the plan? Because I can tell him that in the Waikato that plan is not going too well. Dairy payouts are down and jobs are going every week from the Waikato. While dairy payouts were at their highest—at their highest level ever—we had 300 jobs going from Ruakura the local research facility; we had hundreds of jobs going from New Zealand Post; we had hundreds of jobs going from the Huntly mines; we had jobs going from Genesis Energy; and we have got jobs still to go from our local hospital kitchen as that Government contracts out their jobs. All of these are jobs that have gone in the Waikato because of decisions made by that Government at a time when dairy payouts were at their very highest. We can only shudder to think what is going to happen to the Waikato economy with those dairy prices plummeting as they have done last year and early into this year as well.So the rosy picture presented opposite is not a picture that is the reality for ordinary New Zealanders. They know that they are not being told the truth by the Government and they are looking forward to the straight-talking honest approach of Andrew Little and the Labour team because that is what people have been telling me. They are saying “What a breath of fresh air. We’ve got the Prime Minister going round and round in circles and not being able to say a straight answer and we’ve got the straight-talking Andrew Little telling it how it is.”