Ngaro Alfred: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ngaro Alfred: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5677. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 Kia orana Mr Speaker. Before I start I want to acknowledge our Pukapuka community in the gallery. Kia ola koutou katotoa enunui matoa ya. 
I rise to speak today in the general debate but firstly I want to acknowledge—we have been talking about jobs this afternoon—that today is National Social Worker Day a day of celebration to celebrate our social workers. Approximately 1300 of them in Child Youth and Family address 400 notifications of abuse and neglect in our country every day. Often as a Government we have been accused of not caring yet in this regard the Government announced funding to increase the number of front-line social workers by 96 last year and around half that number are now at work. There are about 149 full-time SWIS workers—that is Social Workers in Schools—and as was quoted by the Minister for Social Development this afternoon Child Youth and Family target achievements have increased. Non-notifications have increased and we are now being able to address 97 percent of those targets compared with 42 percent previously. So that is a great result. I do want to acknowledge that. I do have family members who are social workers and who are doing a great job. The Social Workers in Schools programme offers early responsive social work and intervention and we are increasing those opportunities of employment where it truly matters. 
I want to talk about the welfare reforms that are coming up because this becomes very important. The purpose clauses that are in the Social Security Act 1964 clearly indicate: “to help people find or retain paid employment;”. The principle and the duty of that Act says this: “work in paid employment offers the best opportunities for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. That is why the reforms become important. That is why this Government is focusing where it should—on providing employment. 
But wait for it—it will come. It is like Tourette’s. You will hear “Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?”. It often gets spouted out so very quickly from either side of the House. No matter how many times we quote from TradeMe or from SEEK about the 60000 jobs that have been produced by this Government and encouraged by this Government you will still see that it is not enough. Can I say this: with this Government not only are we increasing the opportunities for jobs but also there are about 1000 people who have now come off the unemployment benefit. There are more than 5600 people who have come off the unemployment benefit in the last year. Not only are we increasing opportunities but also we are trying to encourage our people into jobs. 
Dr David Clark 
: There are 1000 people a week going to Australia. 
ALFRED NGARO 
: So here it is for Mr Clark over there across the way. I was in your home town Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson in an area of South Auckland and here is the interesting thing. We were there with the Prime Minister in the heart of Mangere and we met with some of the providers businesses and local trusts. This is what they said. From the Rise Up Trust which works with families around education which is very important to us one of the members the chief executive officer stood up and said to the Prime Minister while we were there: “Prime Minister we want to say thank you for national standards.” Thank you for national standards—that is right. And she said this: “The people of this community the Pasifika and Maori people of this community do want to know how our schools are performing.” That is important to them. This is what they also said: “Not only thank you for national standards but also thank you for your Minister of Education Hekia Parata.” The reasons why? They said: “Because she’s a woman who has a woman’s heart and sometimes we need to have that essence for us for our young people so that they go through an educational journey.” 
Here is the last thing. You will like this. They said “Give us charter schools.” [ 
Interruption 
] We were taken aback too and the reason why they said “Give us charter schools.” is this. They wanted to know how they could bring greater opportunities for training and employment for their young people. Yes they too are sick and tired of the lack of training and opportunities and the underachievement that is happening in their communities. 
 These communities are supposedly the heartland of Labour and this has got to hurt. This has got to hurt because in your Pasifika communities you did not listen to your spokesman on Pasifika who said “Don’t do this because we’ll lose 30000 votes.” Guess what! The Labour Party did not listen. Its spokesman for the Pasifika community said it was a betrayal but it did not listen and guess what happened. That community is beginning to change and they are beginning to say this: “Maybe there’s another option. We have voted for Labour for so long; we haven’t seen all the results.” Guess what! They are coming to our meetings they are standing up and speaking up and they are saying “National provides another opportunity for us.” That is right. You can wave your head from side to side Mr Robertson but guess what the truth speaks louder than words.