Shearer David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7509. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 The Labour Party will oppose this motion. It has no confidence in the Government. The only thing missing from Mr Key’s speech was the punchline because surely that speech was an absolute joke. 
I am flattered though that Mr Key spent so much time talking about the Opposition. Clearly he is quite worried about what we are proposing and the policies we are putting forward. But he quite clearly has no way and no idea of the way ahead. New Zealanders actually do not want stand-up comedy. They want somebody to stand up for them. These people work hard. They pay their taxes. They bring up their kids the best they can. Who is standing up for them and who is backing them? Certainly not this Government. Did you hear the words “ambition” or “aspiration”? Those words are not words you hear any more from John Key. You used to but you really hear them only at election time. What we hear now these days are tired old one-liners and excuses—excuses. Excuses like the housing affordability crisis being the Auckland Council’s fault! Our economic woes are the problem of what? The Canterbury earthquakes! And do not forget the global financial crisis. Remember that great claim last year by John Key that that was the problem on-caused by the Labour Government? So it is actually our fault the global financial crisis! 
After 4 years New Zealanders expect more than that. After 4 years they deserve much much more than that and deep down John Key knows it. You can hear it in that slightly shriller voice. The relaxed easygoing John Key is going. He is being replaced by the “Mr Angry” and the “Mr Defensive” John Key. Now he is this week “putting … our political opponents on notice that the government’s got to move and act this year.” Well that is kind of him to give us a heads-up. We have been waiting for 4 years for the Government to move and act. On behalf of New Zealanders I would like to thank him for that. 
I can understand why the mood has changed because it is all downhill from here for John Key and this Government. He must be thinking what must his legacy be and I can see it now: “At one time this man was popular.”—because there is precious little else. Let us look at John Key’s record. There are 180000 people who have left for Australia. A thousand people a week are going to Australia. We have got 7.3 percent unemployment—the highest unemployment in 14 years. There are 85000—85000—young people not in work and not in training. And above all we have the worst economic growth of any Government in 50 years. Well I will give him credit for one thing. At least he had the decency to fess up to dropping the ball on Sky TV last year. 
 He said: “It’s been quite a strong performance from us with the problem of one exception. The unemployment rate is just simply too high.” Well that is the epic understatement of the year. It is an epic fail from this Government. Unemployment is at a 14-year high the highest since that lot was last in Government. And these are not just statistics; they are real people. They are the miners who lost their jobs at Spring Creek. They are the Hillside workers made redundant by KiwiRail. They are the teenagers leaving school to go on the unemployment scrap heap. They are the New Zealanders whom John Key and his “Mr Fix-it Steven Joyce have forgotten. 
Talking about Mr Joyce the “Minister of Everything” the jack of all portfolios and the master of absolutely none his bureaucratic empire just gets bigger and bigger. The great white hope of the private sector will be best remembered for creating the great white dysfunctional whale of a bureaucracy called “Mobie”. Apparently Mr Joyce has done such a bang-up job of employment that he is now the man to fix Novopay because Hekia Parata of course cannot fix it—although she caused it. Did anyone actually know he was responsible for unemployment—unemployment? He is the “Minister of Unemployment” with 7.3 percent unemployment. It is no wonder that he keeps quiet. The only jobs he is creating are the ones that he is creating for himself. But to be fair to Steven Joyce there is really only one person he wants to make unemployed and that is Judith Collins because she and she alone—and she will admit it herself; she will tell you—can stop him from adding the job of leader of the National Party to all the other jobs that he actually has as well. So he is doing the next best thing which is to become the “Minister for Everything”. 
 The clock is ticking on John Key and his Government. They have had their chance and they have blown it. In his first week—last week—John Key finally decided that we need more apprentices. Well I am so glad that he accepted the complete obvious. But we have had a 20 percent drop in the number of apprentices since this Government took office—a 20 percent drop—so he is actually only playing catch-up. Despite our having 85000 young people not in work education or training we are now having to import foreign labour. It turns out there is a skills shortage in Canterbury for the rebuild and the Government has only just realised that. I would have thought that was so obvious that even Treasury could have forecast it. It was obvious to us at the last election that there was actually a youth unemployment problem. That was when we announced our plan to pay employers the equivalent of the dole to take on unemployed people as apprentices. It is a plan that John Key pooh-poohed. “Well actually” he said “we’ve got it all under control. The market’s going to do it.” It will not—it will not. 
We need an active smart Government because New Zealanders are tired of working harder and not really being able to get ahead. They are tired of scrimping and saving and not being able to buy a house despite saving hard. They are tired of a Government that says the market will fix it. That just does not cut it any more. We are facing a new era. We are facing an economic landscape that has changed. It is not just a blip. It is time for a new direction. It is time for a hands-on Government. It is time for a Government led by Labour. And we will take on the big issue. We will make the big decisions. 
 We will start by putting 100000 Kiwis into affordable homes. These are first homes. These are first homes. They are not dream homes but they will give Kiwis their first step on the housing ladder. Currently it is possible to buy three to four-bedroom homes in Auckland for about $430000. The New Zealand Housing Foundation is doing that as we speak. Just imagine—just imagine—the savings that we can make when we do that on a much much bigger scale building thousands of homes a year. Construction companies tell us that they can build those houses for way cheaper than they are being built at the moment. This is a hugely exciting programme for New Zealand. It will be the biggest building programme in 50 years. It will create thousands of jobs and boost the economy. That is what a Government can achieve if it decides to be hands-on. 
And what has John Key got? He has got zip zero nothing. He is making up the numbers to try to convince people that all of this will not work. Well we might not be able to build an affordable house in his neighbourhood but we can certainly build a house in his electorate for that price. He is putting the boot into first-home buyers. He is taking away the little hope that they have got because he has got nothing. He is telling the Auckland Council that it does not have 15000 sections. Well he might have wanted to listen to the radio this morning because Len Brown was saying: “We do have 15000 sections actually.” He is telling the Auckland Council that it takes too long with building consents. Well he may want to do his homework before he says those sorts of things because if you go around the country what you find is that actually councils are delivering. The Auckland Council is 95 percent compliant on building consents and resource consents. So he is making it up as he goes along but it is a great story: “Let’s put the boot into first-home buyers. Let’s give them absolutely no hope.” Well that is not good enough for me. Labour will do something about it and we will do it with hands-on Government. 
Its secret weapon on housing—its secret weapon—is to appoint the fresh-faced Nick Smith as the housing Minister. No disrespect to Nick but he is not so fresh. And neither are National’s ideas because from what we heard from Mr Key just now National has zero ideas—zero ideas—and now he is telling us we do not need to have zero Budgets any more. So after last year whacking up petrol taxes to get a surplus what has changed? What has changed with this Government so that suddenly we do not need to be worried about zero Budgets any more? Well clearly John Key has got a crystal ball that economists do not have. Or maybe simply he has read the writing on the wall and he is getting out his chequebook—getting out his chequebook something that he accuses us of—and he thinks that by spending more he will become more popular. Well it will not work. Kiwis are smarter than that and we are going to be holding the Government to account. They know that National is better at spinning excuses than at actually getting up and making a real difference. We will be holding it to account and so will the rest of New Zealand. 
Labour is prepared to take the tough decisions on the tough issues. We will make the tough decisions. National might be happy to sit back and watch as the high kiwi dollar kills our exporters and our manufacturers haemorrhage jobs. What Mr Key did not say about HamiltonJet was that when he was asked yesterday what he would suggest it should do he said: “Change the Government.” That was what you said Mr Key. You missed that part out. Labour will take the tough decisions so we will get hands-on and change monetary policy so that our businesses can compete with the rest of the world. We will back our risk takers and our innovators with tax breaks for research and development. We will build a smart and sustainable economy that delivers more jobs and better wages. We will introduce a capital gains tax to encourage investment in job-creating companies rather than encourage speculation in the Auckland property market. 
We are prepared to take the tough decisions. We will support looking at the superannuation age of eligibility going up so that we can afford superannuation for our younger people right now in the workforce because in 3 years’ time as John Key knows the education budget will be smaller than the budget that we spend on superannuation. It is simply unsustainable. 
And we will help our young people into training and jobs—something that the Government has just woken up about. Too many of them are drifting and dropping out of school. So we will make the transition from learning to earning much easier. We will extend Reading Recovery and put food into low-decile schools. Someone once wisely said: “An empty stomach and an empty lunchbox set kids up for an empty life.” 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who said that? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Actually that was John Key in 2007. It was a great line—it was a great line. It is just that he forgot about it after he said it. Since he said it we have actually had no change. There actually has not been any change. I guess it just sort of slipped his mind. But if he does get round to changing his mind and he does put it through he will have Labour’s support. We will back good ideas if they do come from the Government and we will work with it to improve them. 
John Key’s answer to education is to back his education Minister Hekia Parata the woman he calls “one of the smoothest communicators [National] has ever had.” It was a smooth performance trying to cram more kids into classrooms. It was a great communication job shutting our schools down in Christchurch. She is someone who has created despair in the hearts of teachers and parents. She is someone who unbelievably can make Anne Tolley look good. John Key’s defence of Hekia Parata puts him squarely in the frame for her failures. Her next stuff-up is his to own because kids and their parents deserve better and we are behind them. 
From education to the economy Labour will flesh out our new direction for New Zealand in 2013. We need new policies to lift our kids out of poverty and violence. We need an economy that works for all New Zealanders not just the few at the top. We need our environment to drive our economic success and our economy to keep our environment clean. And we need this country to be a place that our children and grandchildren are proud to call home. We want all that. Even John Key I believe wants that. But he has shown he does not know how to get New Zealand back on track. 
His deputy certainly does not have a clue. Bill English tells us that his big priority is not jobs or growth; it is actually welfare reform. Well here is news for him: you can reform welfare all you like but people actually need jobs to go to. This is Bill English who said that Labour should apologise to the nation for its time in office. So what we should say sorry for running 9 years of surpluses? That is something this Government has not been able to do one of yet. Sorry for paying off debt? Sorry for getting unemployment to the lowest in the Western World? It is Bill English and John Key who should say sorry for mismanaging the economy letting unemployment skyrocket and for coming up with just one answer one answer only—selling off our best assets. 
So I am putting Mr Key and this Government on notice. John Key has had 4 years to live up to his promise—[ 
Interruption 
]—5 years now—to close the gap with Australia and build a brighter future. It is a future that he does not want to talk about any more. He has had 5 years to deliver higher wages and a more competitive economy. He has had 5 years to deal with the housing affordability crisis and has done nothing. The time for excuses is over. In 2013 we will hold this Government to account but we will also offer New Zealanders a real alternative. It is time National got out of the way and let a Labour Government get on to making New Zealand a place that it really should be.