Simpson Scott; Rurawhe AdrianHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well if ever there was an example of the adage that was made famous by Kermit the Frog that It's not easy being green." it's those last two contributions from Green Party members—Green Party members who came into this Parliament ambitious hungry for Government hungry for change and wanting to make good some of the policy ideas that they had. And here we are two and a half years later in a position where those two members have to stand up and basically present a humiliating apology for the lack of action the lack of progress that they have been able to achieve in Government—completely made irrelevant by their senior Government partner the New Zealand First Party who block their moves at every single turn. As Kermit the Frog said "It's not easy being green."A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the funeral of the late Prime Minister Mike Moore. It was Mike Moore who first sparked my interest in politics as a schoolkid. My parents were living in the marginal seat of Eden in Auckland and Mike Moore was the sitting MP. He'd been elected in 1972 and he was ousted in 1975 by Aussie Malcolm and was a victim of the great Muldoon routing of the Labour Government in those days. And as I attended Mike Moore's funeral I was able to reflect on the similarities between that one-term Labour Government and the current Government. There were a lot of similarities particularly in that they had a leadership that was kind and generous and well-meaning but utterly ineffectual utterly unable to make progress on their policy initiatives and completely inept in terms of handling both a downturn in the domestic economy of the time and then also unable to respond at all in any effective way to the uncertainties of the then international situation that was caused by the oil crisis of the time. So the similarities between that Government that was turfed out after one term and this Government are uncanny: similar backdrops a similar well-meaning but ineffectual approach to policy implementation and a difficulty of actually achieving anything—a failure to deliver if you want to put it that way. And it's in my electorate of the Coromandel that we see the actual nothing that has come from this Government. My colleague Chris Penk spoke about nothing and he thought that nothing had happened in his electorate since this Government came to office. Well I can assure you that nothing this Government has done has helped in any remote way the good people of the Coromandel. In fact arguably the good people of the Coromandel who are struggling valiantly against the extra costs the extra taxes the extra regulations the extra red tape that inhibit and hinder their every move in terms of business and entrepreneurial initiative—those people are suffering more than they ever were before. If you ever want an example of how poorly this Government has been achieving for regions like mine in the Coromandel think of our rescue helicopter taken away at the whim—a policy decision to take away a rescue helicopter that for 12 summers has been based in the Coromandel and this summer was the first time it wasn't there. A community facility built and funded by the community somewhere north of $1 million funding sat empty this summer because of a policy decision—not a funding decision; a policy decision—taken by David Clark the Minister of Health and also his ACC Minister.It was a decision to prioritise Auckland's needs ahead of those of the people of the Coromandel but what they neglected to think about of course is that most of Auckland was holidaying in the Coromandel over that period of time. There are never more people in the Coromandel than there are over the summer. That's why a rescue helicopter has been based there in the past. So this year the people of the Coromandel and our hundreds of thousands of visitors have been sadly neglected and let down. We were promised by the Minister of Health that there would be no reduction in service and the good people of Coromandel took him at his word only to find out a week before Christmas that no rescue helicopter would this year be based in the Coromandel. That's an appalling indictment on the priorities of this Government and their policy-making decisions as it affects folk in my part of the world.Currently it's very dry in the Coromandel. This Government has been incredibly slow to respond to the drought conditions across the entire Waikato the Hauraki Plains and indeed the Coromandel Peninsula. Only in the last few days has an adverse weather event been declared and some of my farmers who have been farming in the region for a long period of time are describing this summer's dry period as the worst since the summer of 1945-46. That's saying something because what it means is that the dairy production from the most productive part of the country in terms of dairy production is going to be down and diminished and it will further slow an already weak and turning economy. That's not going to be good over the next couple of years.So roading. My colleagues have been talking about roading. Roading has been totally neglected by this Government in my electorate. The last Government funded consented and had ready to go a piece of road—much needed—from Pōkeno at the bottom of the Bombay Hills through to what's known as the Mangatarata roundabout. It was funded consented and ready to go—shovel-ready—and this Government came along and cancelled it. Cancelled it. It's not even on their list of announcements that they've made now.So we suffer on what is effectively the driveway to the Coromandel. We continue to suffer a substandard piece of roadway that was consented funded and ready to go and this Government's dislike of cars and roads has put that at further disadvantage. That's to say nothing of the new highway that's needed so desperately between Ōmokoroa and Tauranga—nothing. There's no mention of the Katikati bypass. Winston Peters came to Katikati last election and said "Vote for me and you'll get your Katikati bypass." Gone silent—gone silent he has. So he's completely forgotten about it. The people of Katikati and the people of Coromandel won't forget that. They won't forget how they have been let down and dismissed and forgotten by this Government.Then we come to matters relating to the environment. They said from the Speech from the Throne "No mining on the conservation estate." Now they didn't campaign on that but that's what they said—a surprise in the Speech from the Throne. No mining on the conservation estate. What do we find after 2½ years? Fourteen new mines on the conservation estate—14 new mines on the conservation estate under this Government. That's more than were ever granted during the term of the last National Government.The Greens campaigned along with us on this side on the establishment of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. What progress have we had? Nil. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. A potential for New Zealand's exclusive economic zone to have—it depends how you calculate it—somewhere between the third- and the fourth-largest marine no-take reserve on the globe and this Government which speaks so highly of their environmental credentials but delivers nothing haven't been able to achieve it. They promised us a royalty on bottled water exports. Well that's been quietly dropped quietly forgotten quietly put aside because the campaigning promise that they made they've simply found too hard to keep.I've been driving a 100 percent electric vehicle (EV) for more than 12 months now—clocked up 40-something thousand kilometres—and I've watched with interest the lack of progress that this Government has been able to make in terms of transitioning our fleet of light transport vehicles into EVs and away from carbon fossil fuels. They put forward this bizarre "feebate" scheme and actually now that's been stopped. The perverse outcome of all that has been that bizarrely EV sales have slowed as a result because people who were thinking about buying an electric vehicle have decided "Well maybe we'll just wait. We'll put off putting that decision because this Labour Government's promised us something like $8000 worth of subsidy." which would have been funded by people who were buying petrol cars and couldn't afford EVs. They put off that decision and so for 2½ years people have been putting off a decision to buy EVs. That is utterly hopeless and it is a sign of the lack of ability of this Government to deliver at all.So I conclude my comments in this debate on the Prime Minister's statement by again referring to the last one-term Labour Government—the Labour Government that was turfed out after one term because they couldn't deliver on their promises they couldn't manage the economy and they weren't capable of delivering one little bit. I think come 19 September—in just 200 short days—the same will occur again.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call the Hon Clare Curran—five minutes."