Borrows Chester: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Borrows Chester: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19546] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in this debate and I think what we have seen from the last speaker is that as long as the other side want to bang on about there being no jobs or there being no plan it shows the rest of the world exactly where the Labour Party is coming from. It reminds me of a little quote that we have heard a number of times:  
Two men look out through the same bars:  
One sees the mud and the other the stars. 
What we have seen in that speech is a reflection of the aspiration that the Labour Party has for this country which is absolutely zero. When this Government talks about the creation of 170000 jobs it knows it can create an environment in this country where those people who have the ideas and who have the wherewithal to be able to create work for those who need work will do exactly that because they have an environment created for them that is not punitive on aspiration that is not punitive on good ideas and that rewards success by the terms of trade that they can engage in not only within New Zealand but also around the world.  
Yesterday I went to the Hawera Training Centre Trust and I spoke to young people who are involved in trades training and alternative education. Those people are wanting to gain qualifications they had not previously obtained through the education system so they can get a job—not so they can just get any job but so they can get a job that will take them somewhere. I spoke to a young man there a 14-year-old who had been asked to draw a picture of the things that meant something to him. He drew a picture of an urupa and he drew a picture of the Hawera Training Centre and he drew a picture of a prison and he drew a picture of a Black Power glove in front of Taranaki. Those were the things that were important to him and his aspiration was pretty much zilch as to where he was going. His father was in prison and was going to be there for a long time. This young man had almost zero aspiration for where he was going to. Can any member of this House give any indication of how the message of that last speaker’s speech would give any hope at all to that kid? There was nothing in that speech that would give somebody with the life expectations of that young 14-year-old boy any hope that life under a Government led by Phil Goff and the Labour Party would take them anywhere.  
Last Friday night I met a man from Eltham. Eltham is a depressed area in terms of employment and in a number of different deciles but this man who 15 years ago was illiterate had been running a motor cycle business. It went belly up he had to get rid of everything and he started working on trailer couplings in his garage. He marketed those trailer couplings. His wife taught him to read. Then he started selling these things. He started employing people and over the last 10 years he has built up a business where he was employing 33 people. He got a contract to make window winders in Toyota cars with a laser-cutting machine. He got another contract to make hinges for boot lids on Nissan and Holden vehicles. He got another contract to make power poles for BHP in Australia. He is an inventor. He is an entrepreneur. He has a workshop that has more robotic welders operating out of this business in Eltham than in any other single business in New Zealand of its size. He has recently invented some bars that clip on to bulldozer and digger tracks that stop sideways movement. Last month he went to Caterpillar in America. They have ordered containers for next year. Next year he will sell $12 million worth of these gadgets to America and he now employs 70 people in businesses run out of his engineering shop in the back of the premises in Eltham. He has been employing one person a week for the last 10 weeks.  
He is doing that in an environment that was created by this Government which has some aspiration and some goals of where it wants to take this country and has set about preparing this country for that. That is where those jobs will come from. Whenever National members have stood up on this side of the House and talked in that way what have we heard from the other side? All we have ever heard is: “Where are the jobs where are the jobs where are the jobs?”. Those members have not a single plan or a single direction to show where they would take this country.  
I want to talk about items in the Budget around youth and youth skills. We have seen money set aside in previous Budgets and in this Budget for the continuation of programmes like the Job Ops scheme which gives $5000 subsidies to employers to hire low-skilled young people and give them real work and experience. We have seen the intervention of the Community Max programme and Skills for Growth which in Budget 2011 pays $5000 to employers for employing and training young people in high-demand industries and setting them up for the future. We have seen the expansion of the Limited Service Volunteer courses. These are 6-week residential programmes run by the New Zealand Defence Force for those people who are unemployed and cannot find work. Recently I went to a graduation of six young people from Wanganui who attended a Limited Service Volunteer course in Canterbury and the changes in their lives were phenomenal. A number of those young people had been sacked from the AFFCO works in Wanganui for various reasons. The chief executive officer of AFFCO was there and offered every one of them their job back because— 
Su’a William Sio 
: Did they get them back? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Yes they are all working at AFFCO now because it works. It amazes me that just a few weeks ago I heard members on that side of the House complaining about the Limited Service Volunteer course and the expansion of it because they felt that there was a resignation in young people that this was all they could hope for. The fact is that those Limited Service Volunteer courses turn the lights on for young people. They teach them about tipping out of bed first thing in the morning having some breakfast going to work and doing something productive with their day. Members on that side of the House would rather those people stayed at home and did nothing because as long as they never have to look at themselves for the wherewithal to get on in this life they will vote Labour if they bother to vote at all. They have no aspiration for where they are going.  
The trades academies incentive that has started under National is replacing back into high schools those old courses of woodwork and metalwork which recognises that not every child in our schools will make a living from staring at a computer screen. Some kids do not learn from being folded into desks and chairs and being talked at for 10 years of their life. It is an absolute disaster that these young people can go to school for years and years and years and under the previous Government 20 percent of them left high school with no qualifications and unable to read write and count functionally in order to operate in the modern world. But all we hear from members opposite are excuses about why that is OK. Well this Government says that it is not OK.  
I am also pleased to note that in the Budget $43 million has been set aside for assessment of young people in care. Young people in the care of the State in this country have a dumb deal and that is a disaster. Thankfully we will assess those young people’s health and education needs. We will make sure that during the time they spend in the care of the State they are looked after and nurtured in the way they deserve to be. We know some tragic statistics. We know that a young child growing up in a house where one parent went to jail is seven times more likely to go to jail than someone who did not have a parent in jail. If both parents went to jail that goes up to 15 times more likely. If they are living in the care of the state that rate is an atrocious 17 times more likely. One would think that with the intervention of the State their chances of success would be even better. The other statistic released in recent times is this: half of the young people who commit suicide in this country are in the care of the State.  
Thank God for John Key as the Prime Minister of this country and for his Government. They are going to address those horrible statistics. We will be better for that. We look forward to hearing what Labour’s plan is if it ever comes up with one. It had better hurry because it will not be too long and the country is going to be distracted.