Nash Stuart: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9239. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): What I would like to talk about is equality of opportunity and the Kiwi Dream in the 21st century. Nikki Kaye stood up and she talked about an aspirational Government and what it was doing but the facts speak for themselves. At the moment in New Zealand there are over 300000 Kiwi children living in poverty our jail numbers are at a record high and there are over 150000 New Zealanders who are unemployed. The world that Nikki Kaye speaks about is the world of people who have succeeded; they have had opportunities and I celebrate them and I say: “Well done. Good on you. You’ve worked hard. You’ve got to where you are by getting out there and really making it happen.” But I have grave concerns for those without hope without opportunity or without aspiration.Equality of opportunity is my reason for getting into politics and my underlying philosophy. Equality of opportunity means it does not matter what your postcode is what your parents’ income is where you live or what your last name is. It is about allowing Kiwis to reach their full potential and it starts with education.Education allows people to reach their potential—to be as good as they possibly can be. We are not talking about everyone becoming Oxford dons but what we are talking about is people achieving and becoming part of society. A generation ago if you were not so academically inclined there were jobs in the freezing works in the wool stores at the forest service at the ports in the Ministry of Works and in the post office. There were jobs for everyone. In fact they used to joke in the 1950s that the Minister of Labour knew the name of every single unemployed person because there were only about 11 of them. That has changed.These days if you want to be even a grunt in the army you need National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. Education is where it starts and education is a way forward. It is the way that Kiwis can reach out and make that Kiwi Dream a reality. It has never been so important in providing young Kiwis with the right to a life that we have had and that our forebears have had but at the moment it is just out of reach of a generation coming through because they have not got that ability. Education is so important that it cannot be underestimated. It was why the Labour Party a Labour Government and Andrew Little have really trumpeted education as a way forward as a transformational policy to allow Kiwis to achieve to their potential.We are going to enter into a referendum on the New Zealand flag. Sir Roger Douglas in this House—you know we disagree on certain fundamental philosophy—said that he had never ever seen a Prime Minister come into power with so much political capital as John Key and completely waste it. I simply cannot understand for the life of me why Mr Key is burning so much political capital on something like the New Zealand flag when there are so many things that he could go incredibly hard on that would change the lives of good hard-working Kiwis and that would transform this country from one where we have begun to almost accept that child poverty is just the way it is.When you think that this is a country founded on such egalitarian principles that people moved from London from the UK and from around the world to come here to have a fresh start and to start again in a society that valued everyone. The thing is that a Labour Government has always been the Government of transformation of social evolution that is not social revolution and it will be again. There is a different way. I know this; New Zealanders know this. There is an alternative. We cannot keep going the way we are. If you are doing really well life is good but for more and more and more Kiwis life is a struggle and life is a challenge. As mentioned I celebrate those who have done well—good on you—but for those for whom life is a challenge we also need to work hard for them. Thank you.