Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): Well it's great to be up in New Zealand to talk about the KiwiBuild reset in this housing debate. Of course KiwiBuild was the centrepiece—[Interruption] Sorry I hear it over there—I hear some voices. KiwiBuild was the centrepiece Labour Party policy since about 2012. It started under a guy called David Shearer—actually the best Labour leader they'd had in a decade I would say. They'd then gone through and KiwiBuild has been there and gone through some seven years and several leaders: I think Mr Cunliffe Mr Little and now of course Ms Ardern. The KiwiBuild reset we had last week is in fact a full-scale retreat—that's what it is. They've raised the white flag and they are entirely in retreat.I think it's something Phil Twyford once said—I may be paraphrasing him ever so slightly—You can't live in a reset." You cannot live in a reset Megan Woods. Don't take my word for it that this is a white flag retreat we are seeing from the Government. In fact you don't even have to go to anyone on the centre-right. Go and talk to the woke young things that those men over there follow on Twitter. Go and talk to the serious hard rusted-on left and they will tell you how disillusioned they are with this Government and what it has done with KiwiBuild: the Bryce Edwardses the Chris Trotters the David Cormacks the Bernard Hickeys the Henry Cookes. The list goes on and on and on.Here's what Bryce Edwards had to say. He said "There are a few positive takes on the 'reset' but generally it has been viewed as an embarrassing backdown at best or at worst a sell-out." Bernard Hickey didn't like it much either. He talked about even the changes to it being a distraction meant to sell the capitulation the retreat to the public. He said it's not just a dead rat; "It's more of a rotting and hairy cat."—meow. That's what he had to say. Henry Cooke—and it must have pained Henry to be saying these sorts of things in a column—said it's a "serious humiliation" for the Government. Well this is what he said. I know he didn't like it. Every word pained him but that's what he said. No Right Turn: this is a "broken promise" and the tinkering might actually make the housing crisis worse. Well that's what I found in about three minutes having a look at this. They go on and on and on. It is a full-scale white-flag retreat from the Government.Of course it comes down in large part to targets. They set a 100000 houses target—10000 a year. Now it's—what did the Prime Minister say?—"As many as we can." "As many as we can."—that's what she's saying now. Are they having a laugh? Are they having a laugh at New Zealanders when they say this? It's a David Parker moment: "Trust me; I know what I'm doing." That's effectively what they're doing. You know where that quote comes from? Sledge Hammer! Do you remember that show? If you go on Wikipedia and you look up Sledge Hammer! you see that it's a satire and a farce. That's ultimately what we've got here with this Government with KiwiBuild.There's a serious point about this in KiwiBuild and housing and what they're doing here and that's this: this is what they have done in every other area of Government. It's the same pattern that we have seen in housing. They take away the targets so that there's no basis to judge them on. There's literally nothing there so that it's appearances on social media it's trips to the UN—they're the sort of things that matter not actually the stuff that everyday New Zealanders need like housing. "We're kind and compassionate; we're just not up to much." That's basically where the Government is at on this.We're seeing the same thing in health. We're seeing the same thing in all the social indicators of food parcels getting worse of hardship grants of housing waiting lists. It is a tragedy. It would be satire and farce if it wasn't so serious for New Zealanders. I'll tell you what I think "reset" stands for: removing every single explicit target. That's reset: removing every single explicit target. That is what the Government has done when it comes to KiwiBuild and actually when it comes to health and all the other areas that are in this vote because the Government's like an invertebrate jellyfish. That's what I think—it's like an invertebrate jellyfish. In the year of delivery it is marked by a failure of delivery. They simply can't get it together and they are failing to deliver on all of their promises. The most significant one was 100000 houses in KiwiBuild. That was so incredibly important because if they can't deliver on KiwiBuild they can't deliver on anything—if they can't deliver here they can't deliver anywhere. It was their big promise—I think their big lie actually—in this area. Kerre Woodham got it right when she said it's like you started the marathon in the weekend. It's like the start of the marathon: you look over at that chap and you say "He isn't going to finish this." and they didn't finish it in this area.But again don't believe me—let's look at the evidence on KiwiBuild that they can't deliver anything. There's KiwiBuild but I think that's not their worst failure actually when it comes to public policy epic fails. I'd say fees-free is worse—$2.4 billion to deliver more students and there's fewer. Transport—a tram down Dominion Road. That will never start. And in a bunch of other areas health education economy—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! I'll just draw the member's attention to the fact that we are actually on the estimates for Vote Housing for a whole list and transport isn't one of them. Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I raise a point of order Madam Chair. The point is this: Mr Speaker today declined the snap debate on the basis that I'd come down and have a whirl here. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That's right and I've allowed the member to talk about KiwiBuild which was the point of the letter and the reset—which isn't in the Estimates but I've allowed the member to do exactly that. I'm just asking the member not to go wider than housing or what's covered by this vote. Hon SIMON BRIDGES: They can't get it together when it comes to KiwiBuild or indeed anything. What we've got are working groups—they know how to do that. I'm actually surprised we don't have a working group on KiwiBuild Angie Warren-Clark. I mean that could be one way to spend the $2 billion because there's $2 billion there that they don't know how to spend. By the way if you want to think about how they could spend this money on a working group on housing and KiwiBuild just think about the health one they did where they spent $9.6 million to do nothing. That's $32000 a page for "H2"—$32000. Well I say maybe what they're going to do is have a working group on housing and they'll get Heather Simpson they'll get Steve Maharey and they'll get Sir Michael Cullen in and that can be how they'll spend the $2 billion because it seems that's about as good as their ideas are when it comes to housing. Where was—and I asked her this in the House today—the Prime Minister at Megan Woods' announcement on the KiwiBuild retreat? Where was she? We see her here; we see her there; we see her everywhere. She wasn't there was she? [Interruption] I hear what they're saying; I hear them. She was at the same place she was when Nigel Haworth was having to deal with her staff member—nowhere to be seen; missing in action. Because seriously that's—he knows I'm right actually over there. We know Mark Patterson actually is one of us; he doesn't like it over there. He's been slagging off his Labour colleagues around the country; that's what I've been told quite clearly. That's the truth—he knows it's right. She was missing in action the Prime Minister when it comes to housing and KiwiBuild just like she has been in so many other areas ducking and diving.But I say to Jacinda Ardern that it's entirely marginal to focus on all these other things that she does and not on everyday issues for everyday New Zealanders like housing and KiwiBuild and waiting lists that have grown higher than at any time in history in New Zealand under the New Zealand Labour Party's watch—not under us. All their excuses wear a bit thin some two years in. The Prime Minister's got time for talks with Twitter bosses and Facebook bosses but actually these are the things that New Zealanders want her to focus on and want her to deal on. We've got the plan. We know what to do. We'll be releasing shortly an infrastructure document that will make clear what we want to do in areas such as Resource Management Act reform. This Government's set up yet another working group in that area. She's laughing but David Parker himself has acknowledged the working group in that area won't even report before the next election. They've kicked it into the long grass. Seven years of KiwiBuild a reset and then a working group kicked into the long grass. I say in the words of Megan Woods—and this is what she said at the reset of her retreat last week—"This is actually about calling time on something that hasn't worked." Well I say let's call time on this Government because it's not working either."