Adams AmyDEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENTDebate resumed from 9 February.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): What an absolute pleasure it is to rise and speak in support of the Prime Minister's motion. It is great to be back in Parliament for 2017. Can I just say what a contrast we have seen at the start of the year between the Government and the Opposition. I do not think I have seen such a contrasting start to a year in all my time in this place. I think that since the start of this year you could actually say it has been the political equivalent of A Tale of Two Cities: on this side it has been the best of times; over there it has been the worst of times. It has been the winter of foolishness and incredulity that Charles Dickens warned us about. In contrast under Prime Minister Bill English in the National-led Government we have as much energy and as much determination in year nine as we had in the first year.We are proud of the record of this Government. We are incredibly proud of the work that we have done to date. But even more than that we have got more to do. The last month alone has shown the absolute energy and work programme that this Government is still delivering. In the meantime Labour has been divided. Its members have been down at mouth they have had no policy and they have had nothing to say about New Zealand and New Zealanders. All they have talked about is themselves their internal dramas and their power plays. We have had their own leader making calls so bad that his members are denouncing them. His members are denouncing them and his caucus is denouncing them. All they can talk about is what is going on inside that rickety old tent of the Labour Party.By contrast we are not rolling out tired old retreads from the hard left of politics who split the party. We in the National Government under Bill English are unified and we are hard at work and we are relentless in our desire to back New Zealanders to succeed. Just look at the last month. The last month alone—we are only in mid-February. In the last month we have announced more than 1100 more police staff thanks to police Minister Paula Bennett. That is a 10 percent increase in our police numbers.We have announced that 400000 more New Zealanders are going to get ultra-fast broadband (UFB) and I commend my colleague Simon Bridges. It is taking UFB—gold-standard connectivity—to 85 percent of the population. That will transform regional New Zealand.We have announced just recently—and I was very pleased to announce it—a pathway to allow historical homosexual convictions to be expunged from the records of men who were convicted before 1986. I am very proud of that. It is this Government looking to put things right and I am very proud to be able to announce it.My colleague Judith Collins has announced a review into petrol price margins. We are going to make sure that New Zealanders are not paying more for their petrol than they should be.Today as you heard in question time from Gerry Brownlee from Jonathan Coleman and from others on the day that is the 3 month anniversary of the Kaikōura earthquakes we are continuing to stand by the people of Kaikōura. We will continue to stand by them as we did for the people of Canterbury for some time. While I am on that topic can I just for one moment acknowledge those in my own electorate who have been evacuated from their homes due to the big fires on the Port Hills and wish them all the very best.I want to come back to those announcements made in the last month because they really are significant. Let me start with one that is close to my heart the UFB programme. I do not think many New Zealanders realise just how incredibly advanced this makes New Zealand. This sort of connectivity is the gold standard worldwide and this will make New Zealand the fourth-best-connected country in the world—the fourth-best—behind Japan Singapore and Korea. With a country of 4.5 million people on a large geographical area that is quite extraordinary.When you talk to people in Australia in Canada in the UK and in America they are not even aiming for broadband anything like this. Frankly what we are rolling out is the envy of most of our colleagues around the Western World and this is the Government that saw the benefit of it. This is the Government that put $2 billion into these programmes. We are going to make sure regional and rural New Zealand are able to partake of the digital economy. I am excited about it and New Zealand is excited about it. It is a National-led Government that delivered it while Labour voted against it.Let us come back to that law and order package. Minister Bennett talked about it in question time. This Safer Communities package is fundamental to making sure that Kiwis continue to be safe on our streets. It is about reducing our criminal gangs it is about addressing the increase we are seeing in some communities around meth consumption it is about targeting child abuse it is about responding better to burglaries and it is about ensuring we have got the police force to support the family violence work that Minister Tolley and I are leading which I talked about earlier.I agree with Minister Bennett: I think the non-emergency number is huge. I think the non-emergency number is something that Kiwis get and like. They want to know Who do I call? It's not an emergency but I need someone and I don't know who to call." It is us showing that we understand what Kiwis need. As a rural MP I have got to say that taking 95 percent of us to be living within 25 kilometres of a 24/7 manned station is massive. It is massive. Almost all of our communities will know there is help at hand close by. I am looking forward to seeing as we all are which of those 15 to 20 stations are going to go 24/7. We know they will be spread right across the country. It is truly this Government standing up for every single New Zealander from Kaitāia to Bluff.Can I just point out that the Safer Communities package also includes of course quite significant top-ups for our rehabilitation programmes our legal aid service and the court system to make sure that the whole system can cope with that work programme. I want to congratulate the Minister and the Prime Minister on that announcement because it is absolutely significant.I want to talk a little bit about the role that I am absolutely delighted the Prime Minister has created and given to me which is around social investment. Actually this is at the heart of what we are doing as a Government in the social sector. It is about recognising that if we can get in earlier respond better and spend our money more wisely we can create much better lives for the people in need and we can create a much smaller bill for the New Zealanders who pay their taxes and who go to work every week to pay their taxes.It is early days but we are already seeing outcomes from this piece of work that absolutely prove the theory. Already we have seen 50000 fewer children living in benefit-dependent households since 2011—50000 fewer. We have seen $12 billion Minister Tolley come off welfare liability thanks to our making sure—it is pretty simple. We know our customers we target our services and we understand the impact of what we are doing. This is a piece of work that is going to see right across Government and right through the social sector our business-as-usual approach becoming more targeted and more effective. As I said it will create better lives for those most vulnerable in society and I am very excited to be a part of it.I also want to talk a little bit about social housing because I think there is a lot that New Zealand does not know about social housing. I want to tell New Zealand for a kick-off that we are spending $2.1 billion every single year helping Kiwis afford the cost of their housing. That is a remarkable commitment but actually that is not the whole of it. Did you know that last year we committed $350 million to emergency housing? Let me ask members of this House whether they know how much was permanently appropriated for emergency housing under Labour.Hon Members: How much?Hon AMY ADAMS: Zero—zero. Not a single dollar—not one single dollar. Last year we committed $354 million to make sure that for every Kiwi if they are in need of a roof over their heads we can get them into something while we find a longer-term solution. This is a Government that actually acts for the vulnerable in our society. It acts to look after our vulnerable children it acts to improve our education system it acts to reduce youth crime and it acts to help people in need of housing with social housing assistance.We are going to be putting another 6500 social housing places into the long-term programme over the next 4 years. As the Prime Minister said it is not just about Housing New Zealand—we want to work with everyone in the community sector who can provide targeted and effective places that will support our vulnerable to get their lives back on track. It is not just about their housing—it might be about a range of issues and the initiatives we are announcing are about that.In the meantime the economy continues to soar. This is a country that is the envy of most of the Western World. We have got jobs growing we have got unemployment falling and we have got $2 billion less of ACC levies—$2 billion we have put back into the pockets of New Zealanders. That is why this is a Government that is fired up and ready to go. It started this year at a gallop and it is not slowing down."