Lee Melissa; Rurawhe AdrianMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. That is 10 minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back. I wish I wasn't actually sitting here listening to that because that was a lesson in what I would call verbal diarrhoea. It is what I call 10 minutes of loud talk with no content. I thought for a member who used to be a broadcaster on radio—and I used to love him on radio and I used to think that he was so excellent on radio—here in Parliament he spoke with utter rubbish content.He yelled about how the Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters coalition was delivering for New Zealand apparently but he couldn't come up with any proof that they are in fact delivering. He spent I don't know something like seven minutes talking about We are a Government of this." and "We are a Government of that." but no content. I think he was probably playing the air guitar as well.So let me remind that member of some of the things that the Prime Minister in fact spoke about during the Prime Minister's statement. One of the things that I—you know it's a little while ago so I'm trying to actually remember what she said. I think she actually talked about child poverty how this Government was eradicating child poverty and that she is in fact the Minister responsible for child poverty. Guess what! Seven out of nine indicators for child poverty are worse under this Government than before.She also talked about how this Government—the coalition Government; the Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters and Green Party coalition—was going to get rid of people sleeping in cars. Guess what! There are more people sleeping in cars. They were going to have people not housed in motels because they were going to build more houses. They were going to deliver KiwiBuild houses. Guess what! How many were they supposed to deliver? One thousand KiwiBuild homes in the first year 5000 KiwiBuild homes in the second year 10000 KiwiBuild homes in the third year. I don't think they've even gone as far as their first year target. I think they've only delivered a couple of hundred.If that is what this Government calls aspirational I want no bar of that aspiration. I have no dream to share their dream of delivering for New Zealanders because they're only delivering a couple of hundred homes when they've actually promised 10000 homes 5000 homes. That's actually 16000 homes by the end of the first term and they're only doing a couple of hundred. I say that's a very very low bar. That is actually not even a target. That is a very very low bar. I would actually like to ask the gentleman who sat down whether he believes that that is delivering for New Zealand. That is really not delivering for New Zealand.How about fees-free education? They're spending billions of dollars on fees-free education and everything else but the thing is that how many more university students did that policy deliver?Hon Member: Surely thousands—surely.MELISSA LEE: No no. There are no—the thing is university students you know there are children who actually want to go and study at university including my son who has actually just returned to university in second year after doing a gap year. So there are students who will actually go to uni. The thing is I believe they should have targeted it instead of actually making it for free. Today I discover from my colleagues that there are some people who are actually rorting the system who should not have got the fees-free but they got it anyway. So it is actually open for rort. This is failed policy as far as I'm concerned.There is so much more—I mean we talked about coronavirus today. There are a lot of people who are actually concerned about it. I'm not so sure if the Government actually acted quickly enough. There is so much concern out there. Today I heard from one of my constituents a Chinese New Zealander a New Zealand citizen of Chinese descent. Her daughter was going to school and was bullied by a boy walking to school. Guess what: the boy asked her daughter if she has "the Chinese virus". That is sad. I know that members opposite would actually agree with me that that should not happen.But the thing is information should go out there. People should be informed as to how the virus is actually transmitted. There should be more happening at the airport. People are not being tested. People are actually asked to self-isolate. They're getting a piece of paper saying "self-isolate". They don't quite know what they're supposed to do. They have nowhere to go. They've got a home. So do they check into a motel to self-isolate? What about their family? I don't think there is actually enough done by the Government. Talking about the things that the Government's not doing very well I just want to talk a little bit about the portfolio that I am responsible for: broadcasting communications and digital media. One of the things that has actually happened—over the years on this particular portfolio they haven't actually done very well. They were going to be the Government that was going to be most transparent. The Minister who was supposed to deliver the transparency the Hon Clare Curran—we know what happened with Clare Curran and Radio New Zealand right? There was the issue of not being so transparent. Let's actually not go there.But the thing is there were Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand which this Government and the current Minister of Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media were going to merge. He took it to Cabinet. He actually told me before Christmas that he wanted to have a conversation with me about it—I'm still waiting for that phone call. But we find out through the media that he has already taken it to Cabinet. Minister Faafoi is the Minister. He took it to Cabinet. It got rejected—guess why—because they believe that he should have done the business case first.I would have thought doing a business case—Hon Mark Mitchell: Willie would never have done that.MELISSA LEE: Willie would never agree to that. Not doing a business case actually coming to Cabinet—Willie would have said "Go back mate and actually do the business case first. Come back with a really good idea."So now they're going to be doing a business case. This is so typical of this Government. They don't do the homework and when they think that they've actually got the answer they deliver and they have to think back because now they're going to have to go to a working group to ask the right questions to see if they can actually deliver it for New Zealand.The thing is when I mentioned the whole issue about coronavirus one of the concerns that I had was if this is being managed the same way that measles was actually handled. That is actually a shocking way that they've mishandled the measles epidemic.Dr Deborah Russell: Repetition.MELISSA LEE: I haven't actually mentioned measles. With measles we ended up exporting that disease to a Pacific nation and I think we should be ashamed of that.One of the things that I wanted to mention was in relation to the ethnic communities portfolio. Earlier the Minister for Ethnic Communities talked about how the Office of Ethnic Communities budget has actually gone up. I applaud that. I think it's really fantastic that the Minister feels that the ethnic communities are important enough to actually increase the budget. Having said that what is that budget delivering for the ethnic communities? She mentioned a couple of huis. More talk more working groups—what else?Hon Member: No doing.MELISSA LEE: Yeah. No doing; just more huis—exactly.One of the things that happened last year: Language Line was something that the Office of Ethnic Communities and the Minister for Ethnic Communities was responsible for in the previous National Government and also under this Labour Government. But in October last year the contract for Language Line got changed to a new company a new deliverer called ezispeak. Guess what: in October when it actually switched only one client out of—I don't know I think it was like—161 agencies that were supposed to get the service could access that interpreting service—only one out of 161.That transition I have to say it wasn't actually the responsibility of the Minister for Ethnic Communities because—guess what—even though it is delivering interpretation for 180 languages and should be at the hands of the Office of Ethnic Communities and the Minister for Ethnic Communities she's lost control of it to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). She is no longer responsible. Why is MBIE responsible for the interpretation services that are delivering to the ethnic communities? That was something that worked really well; apparently now the Office of Ethnic Communities are not even consulted. They have no say in the deliverables for the ethnic communities on this score. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Dr Deborah Russell—five minutes."