Lotu-Iiga Sam: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLotu-Iiga Sam: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9302. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister for Ethnic Communities): Thank you for the opportunity to reiterate in this House just what the National Government is doing out there after 7½ years. We are back in surplus we are building a competitive economy and we are building more effective public services which the members opposite do not care about. We are also rebuilding Christchurch which is important not just to Cantabrians but to New Zealanders right across our country. So let us just focus on how we are managing the economy.This morning over 2369000 people got up and went to work—over 2.369 million people—and that is more than at any other time in our history. The most people working in this country—and that is up 1.3 percent year on year from last year. What does it mean?Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s got it wrong. Fire the speechwriter—fire the speechwriter.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: It is 5.3 percent unemployment and that unemployment level has gone down 6.7 percent year on year. Mr Mallard knows it. Mr Mallard knows it; that is why he is about to depart.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The number of Pacific people in employment is over 130700.Hon Trevor Mallard: Telling fibs again.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Thanks for staying Mr Mallard. Over 130000 Pacific people and that is the most in any time in our history too. And these are things to be celebrated. These are achievements that this National Government has done on the back of hard work clever policy making and it is done in partnership with the people of New Zealand. It is really important.Why are jobs important? Jobs are important because they support families support kids support the elderly and they keep our community strong. And that is why this Government continues to focus on jobs the economy and growth which is in contrast to the members opposite who continue to deny this country of the trade opportunities that should be available to all New Zealanders.How do I know this? Well I was visiting a company in my own electorate of Maungakiekie Custom Technology Systems a small local company hiring a few local people. They were working on integrated security systems. They are growing they are looking to expand into the United States and they are looking to export their expert services to consumers overseas and to businesses overseas. And for companies like that they want to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership signed; they want to see them hire more people—hire more New Zealanders—so that we can grow together as part of my local community. And I daresay that that is a story that will be replicated over and over again whether you are in rural provincial or urban New Zealand. We want jobs we want to grow and we want to look after our own families independently of the State.It is not just about the economics though. This is a Government that cares about New Zealanders that is compassionate about New Zealanders and that is all about investing socially in New Zealanders early and often in order that those New Zealanders can go and grow and flourish in our communities. How do we do that? Well clearly we have programmes like the Well Child checks. What has that done? It has led to immunisation of 8-month-olds increasing from under the Labour Government 84 percent up to 93 percent for our young kids. It means early childhood education—over $1.5 billion invested in our youth in our young people.National standards are the other thing. Members opposite railed against that. I know Kelvin Davis did not because he understood how important national standards are to getting performance and to getting the achievement levels of our kids raised. Kelvin Davis gets it but the rest of the Labour Party does not.It is also about front-line police. You invest in front-line police and you will see crime go down right across this country; 20 percent crime has dropped. Of course we have still got work to do and Judith Collins is doing that in the police portfolio but that is what an investment in front-line police does. Of course we know about the investment in working prisons and the drug and alcohol programmes that we put in place there in order for offenders not to reoffend or to become recidivist offenders.We know those programmes work. We know that it is about putting money up front into insulation and putting $116 million into social housing to the houses of those families that need warm and dry homes. What did the last Labour Government do? It did not put $116 million into the insulation of Housing New Zealand homes nor did it put $450 million into Warm Up New Zealand. That is a subsidy that has made warm dry homes. We are about the economy and we are about growing our jobs but we are also about caring for New Zealanders right across this country.