English BillRt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition): I move That the following words be added to the Address: That in the context of a strong economy and strong government books the government be held to account for its progress based on improvements it delivers for New Zealanders beyond the impressive achievements of New Zealand in the last decade. They will be held to account for delivering economic growth faster than is forecast. The rate of job creation faster than it is occurring. Growing real wages faster than the last nine years. Reducing debt and maintaining surpluses and reductions in poverty and benefit dependence rates and those supported by the previous government's Family Incomes Package and its programme of social investment. The Government will also be held to account on progress for lifting the number of new houses built and first home buyers assisted lifting measured improvement in water quality lifting Māori and Pasifica NCEA achievement rates lifting numeracy and literacy levels in year 8 and reducing reoffending and substantiated child abuse."Mr Speaker I'll come back to the substance of the amendment in time but can I congratulate you on your election. As I said yesterday you have the opportunity in this unique MMP Parliament to be Parliament's man. It is absolutely clear already that the speed and complexity of the Government's programme is going to require strong parliamentary scrutiny if only to save the Government from itself—as we saw yesterday—but more importantly to ensure that the legislation that it passes through this House does in fact benefit New Zealand.In that context I agree with the comments Mr Speaker you made earlier this year about the role of select committees and the unique situation we now have with four or five—five I think—select committee chairs with the Opposition. That is a capacity we will use responsibly and robustly. Can I welcome in particular the new members to this House—those of all parties in fact but particularly our own new National Party members. Coming into Parliament in Opposition is actually a better opportunity than coming in in Government. You will develop fast and enjoy the experience.Can I congratulate the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters on forming a unique MMP Government with the consequence of a unique MMP Opposition. I note reflecting the uniqueness of the Government they have kept New Zealand First and the Greens far enough apart that they hope each of them will forget the other is there. In that context we do look to the Greens in particular to be true to their kaupapa of being monitors of the procedures of Parliament because when a Government comes in with a new programme they do want to push this place pretty hard and I suspect this Government is looking for a lot of urgency. I note that the Greens in the past have always opposed that and this is their opportunity through this term of Parliament to demonstrate consistency with the many statements I have heard from them over the last 20 years that they've been represented here in Parliament.Can I particularly for the benefit of the Prime Minister acknowledge the privilege it is to become Prime Minister. I am one of those who know that privilege and the Prime Minister will be experiencing the great respect New Zealanders have for the office of Prime Minister. Equally they expect the individual in that office to earn the respect for themselves and I wish the Prime Minister well in that task. And it is an indication of our goodwill. We also wish the Prime Minister and her team well in the job she has to go and do just in the next day or two at APEC to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is really important for New Zealand and for the stability of the Asia-Pacific region that that agreement is completed. We understand the new Government has domestic policy concerns it has to meet and it does have the job of making the trade-offs required to achieve what is a complex and demanding agreement but one that is critical given the general level of global instability.The Government will of course in carrying out its programme as laid out in the Speech from the Throne have the benefit of starting with a country in great shape. New Zealand is more confident and more aspirational because of all the efforts and good government over the last 10 years. But we have found just as indicated by the Speech from the Throne the Opposition is more aspirational about New Zealand than the Government is. We have greater confidence in New Zealanders' ability to maintain their economic strength and deal with long-running social and environmental challenges than the Government has and that is going to be one of the distinguishing arguments of this term of office. We fundamentally believe in the ability of individuals and families and communities to know what the problems are to grapple with them honestly and solve them where they can.What we heard this morning in the Speech from the Throne was the fundamental belief in the power of Government to do good; the fundamental belief in the good intentions of Government. And they don't even know that that's a completely different thing and I'll come back to that in some detail. But the Government needs to keep in mind that the kind of New Zealand they are inheriting is the result of an accumulation of a whole lot of decisions over recent decades that have made us a confident country open to trade investment and migration—confident that we can handle our path in the world and bring everybody along on that journey. That has become a comparative advantage for New Zealand. It's one of the reasons why so many people have stopped leaving and so many people want to come here—because we've had the cohesion and stability of a country that has been able to continue to make progress and I'll talk about some of the measures of those.The early indications from the Government are that they believe so much in their own rhetoric that rather than try to build on that progress they want to fritter it away. That's the early indication. Well we are here to hold them to account to ensure that all the hard work done by New Zealanders—not just in the last 10 years but previous to that—building this confident aspirational country is not frittered away that it turns into real gains for every New Zealander who wants the opportunity to be able to realise their dreams.So we heard it this morning a speech dripping with good intentions. We are not going to hold the Government to account about its intentions; we share many of them. It would be a bit difficult to find many New Zealanders who didn't which is precisely the danger of relying on your good intentions and this is a Government that does. I have heard the Prime Minister say it. I have heard her say when you're leading the pack "intention is reality." Well no—reality is reality. Reality is homes and businesses and individuals who need decisions that are going to enable them to realise their dreams. Well here's a good example just from the last couple of days of good intentions. Let's go to Australia and show them how firm and fresh the new Government is by talking about retaliation for their tertiary fees policy. Well that was the intention. Guess what actually happened: Australians found out we're offering them free domestic tertiary education in New Zealand.Now some of my best friends are Australians and I would have to say New Zealand is now less credible. We went to push back and we got rolled over. That's actually what's happened. So that's the gap between intentions and reality. Well of course the reason we're in this position—I guess it wasn't intended; I agree it's the product of the free tertiary education policy which is just a wrong policy. If you look at the needs of today's young people the next half billion would certainly not go on helping lawyers and accountants get through university more cheaply. It certainly would not. And I hope the Government enjoys explaining to the checkout operators and the truck drivers why they are paying more when the tax cuts are abolished—paying more to make tertiary education cheaper. Well here's a simple question for the Government: what will be achieved from that half billion apart from giving Australians free tertiary education in New Zealand? Well all we've heard is it will "make New Zealand more prosperous". That's it. Well I am waiting and would be interested to hear the answer about what that is. So that's the good intentions.Well we're going to have to look in detail about how those good intentions roll out because there are some benchmarks these days. People want Governments to work for them. So here are a few—here are a few: 2.6 million people in work more than ever; the third-highest employment rate in the world—in the world. The last two years have seen job creation at the rate of 10000 per month. Now I can concede it could be better. Well let's see. Let's see if the rate of job creation is going to pick up—if the rate of job creation is going to pick up. And by the way what's a "quality job"? I heard the Minister of Finance talking about "We don't want low-quality jobs; we want high-quality jobs." Let's find out what a high-quality job is because the Government's going to have to do a high-quality job.So the Government says it's going to do better. It's going to do better. OK there are 60000 fewer people in benefit-dependent households today than there were five years ago. Let's just see what happens. Let's just see what actually happens with those numbers. The gender pay gap—well it's just dropped from 12 percent to 9 percent. So the test is: can it drop faster? Can it drop faster? Well we will see. We will see whether it can drop faster. More houses—31000 building consents. Housing matters; people need houses. In the last 12 months there have been 31000 building consents. I assume the Government wants to be held to account for delivering more—more than that. [Interruption] Don't you get the sense that they're already thinking this sounds a bit unfair? Don't you get that sense? Well it's not. It's not.OK incomes. The Government's talked about incomes and when they talk about incomes of course they generally mean some incomes—well some particular incomes. Well let's see how that goes. The average annual wage is now at $60000. It's gone up 28 percent in the last nine years twice the rate of inflation. Well it needs to go up faster for a Government that's promised higher incomes; that has to mean faster real wage growth. Let's see what happens with faster real wage growth because New Zealand is ahead of Australia the USA Japan and the UK. They're getting a lot of their ideas from the UK apparently—zero wage growth since the global financial crisis.Hon Steven Joyce: Zero.Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Zero. So we're doing a lot better than everybody else. So let's just see how that goes. And they've got to do all of this and reduce debt and maintain fiscal surpluses. The Government accounts just came out yesterday. Government debt is $59.5 billion. It used to be lower. We ran up debt rebuilding Christchurch cushioning the economy through a recession so let's see what happens to that number. Let's see what happens. Let's see whether debt goes down. We answered questions for years about whether the nominal level of debt should be dropping. Well let's see. It starts at $59.5 billion.Let's move on to one or two others. Child poverty—now this is going to be interesting because you see we have a Government who think that all you have to do to reduce child poverty is decide you don't like it and have the intention to reduce it. That's what they think. OK well we've ticked off "Don't like it". I think everyone agrees on that. We've ticked off "We'd like to reduce it"; that's the intention. Now the question is what they are going to hold themselves to account on for actually achieving for actual children—like real ones in real households. Well there's already quite a bit of work in train. They've got an incomes package coming along. They'll cancel the tax cuts—the right of a new Government—and implement their own package. I think the figures are that that will reduce the number of children living in a household below half the median wage by around 50000.But here's the benchmark. In the campaign we said we'd reduce that number by another 50000 within two or three years because under good fiscal management the country could do it. Well on the face of it now that Government can't do it and meet the fiscal constraints that they—not us; they—imposed. So there's the benchmark. Can they reduce it by 100000 from today? Because there was a plan in place to do that just on that income measure. Now you can argue about whether it would actually have happened but let's be aspirational. Why can't they say "We could do what the National Government said it would do."? Or maybe that's not aspirational enough; maybe they want to do more than that. Well we've got the Prime Minister getting up in a couple of minutes to tell us what is going to be the legislated child poverty target and there are a whole lot of different measures so she's got to pick one.Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: There won't just be one.Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Oh there are going to be several so that you can shift around—oh yeah.That brings me to the other half of the poverty equation and this is somewhere where we will also hold the Government to account. New Zealand under the last Government developed the best tool kit in the world for understanding the context and culture of poverty and disadvantage. It has the label "social investment"—that's the label it has.Hon Dr David Clark: It's never been implemented.Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well I disagree with that. The Government needs to understand that higher incomes are part of what you need to reduce poverty but the other part of it is to create some stability and framework in a household with a family working with someone they trust in order to have the behaviours that can sustain the benefits of better incomes or getting into a job. The sad reality is that the work done by the previous Government shows a hard core of chaotic very challenged households where they need individual attention. But you know what the Government's doing already? It's going to give away—it said so in the paper yesterday or today—the tool kit that enables you to know who those families are. So oh yes great intentions—"We've got great intentions. We want to help these people. We're just going to make sure we don't know who they are."The case in the New Zealand Herald today—Marie is it?—the domestic violence death Marie. It's the same story—the one we tried so hard to fix and this Government could fix if it starts where we left off. It is a case where a terrible death occurred when lots of people knew a bit of the story and if someone had known the story they would have stopped it. That is what social investment delivers and if the Government gives that away they will cost children and families a start in life and in fact in some cases their lives—in some cases their lives. So I just say to the Prime Minister: we will back her on child poverty provided she gets over Labour's problems with social investment and uses the tool kit with the intention for which it was meant and that is to assist our most vulnerable.That is going to be a challenge for them because there's a whole lot of other ways of telling so I just want to ask them this. We had a target there for reducing hospitalisations for children under 12 with preventable conditions. That's built into the system. Is the Prime Minister going to get rid of it?Hon Grant Robertson: Is that an intention?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No no no. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want to remind people in the galleries of something I know well: you're not allowed to intervene.Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Or the one that's in place for the reduction of substantiated child abuse? Here's a test for the Labour Party.Clayton Mitchell: Why don't you talk about predator-free?Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think you should listen to this because right now there are public servants all around Wellington putting their feet up on their desks leaning back on their chairs and thinking "Thank God we don't have to think about what we actually achieve any more. All we've got to do"—this is what they're thinking—"is keep the Minister happy. Shovel the money out the door and it doesn't matter too much what actually happens because the Government has already said it doesn't want to know."—it's already said it doesn't want to know. Well the point of those targets which we accounted for for five years—about what actually happened—we measured it published it for five years. So here is the challenge to the Prime Minister. Please tell us she'll keep that system because if she gives it away 25 percent of the economy loses its focus on actually achieving things and will fall into the Labour trap of just shovelling the money out the door. I could go through any number of those.Hon Member: Attack attack attack.Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yeah attack. Here's one: housing—housing. [Interruption] No listen to this. Apparently first-home buyers are really important so here's the first question. Are the 100000 KiwiBuild houses additional? Is that over and above? [Interruption] OK—we'll get the answer to that sometime. The Labour Party have chosen a policy—[Interruption] Hang on. The Labour Party has chosen a policy that helps fewer people than the existing HomeStart scheme—fewer people. HomeStart was going to do 80000 first-home buyers over the next four years. The latest figures I've seen say KiwiBuild will do 16000 and I don't think they'll do that. It sums up the differences. You see the Labour Party want people to be grateful that the Government built them a house. So the bureaucracy will decide where they are what they look like and then they're going to run the ballot where you'd feel lucky if you got one and they're going to do this at scale. HomeStart gives them the cash to go and find their own house and—better than that—it's not luck. You can earn your way to it. You know the criteria; if you meet them you get the money and then you get the house. But they want to run it differently—they want them to be grateful for getting a house built by the Government.You see what's at the heart of the policy is not actually the individuals and families; it's what Labour would prefer as the delivery mechanism. That's their driver and it's always the Government system. We're going to be the only country in the world I think reliant on a State-owned monopoly for social housing. No-one else does it. Why? Because it doesn't work in the long run.But here's another example. If children really are at heart of what the Government's on about why are they abolishing national standards? Why? Parents didn't ask them. Kids didn't ask them. The only people who asked them to do it were teacher unions. We agree with progression reporting but if you want progression reporting it's got to be based on a standard and I'm just saying to the Minister: don't re-enact the shambles of the start of NCEA where they tried to have assessment with no standards. That's exactly where you're headed. I'm warning the Minister right now. He's in for two years of torture not from us but from the system.But the core of it is this: we don't care about the average or the sample. Parents say "My child's not average. My child's not a sample. I want to know about my child and I want a report on my child and I want to know that that report means something." It can only mean something—[Interruption] Well actually national standards work best for those kids for whom public education matters the most. There's never been more attention on Māori and Pacific achievement than in recent years because the standards showed us the truth. We were honest we wanted to know it and we wanted to grapple with it. The Government has already decided to hide the truth—to hide it because it's inconvenient and more importantly because you have to change things to get it fixed.Well here's another challenge. I invite the Prime Minister to go to Vanguard School and stand in front of those kids and tell them the Labour policy which is that they'd shut them down if they could and then ask them her famous question—ask them her famous question. Say to them "But how do you feel?" Ask the 15-year-olds in the letters "How do you feel?"—the young people whose lives were turned around because it's just a little bit different that school; one of half a dozen or 10—just a bit different. Not every kid fits the mainstream system—that's reality. Reality is what a 16-year-old says about what changed their life and if the Prime Minister doesn't go there then she never really meant it did she? She never really meant that those children were right at the heart of the Government's considerations because 15-year-olds know.I know what they'll tell you. They'll tell the Prime Minister "That's changed my life" and she's going to have to say "I don't care. You're wrong. Your parents are wrong. Your teachers are wrong. You aged 15 whose life is better—you're wrong and we'll shut you down if we can." Well maybe she can do it. Let's wait and see—I'm looking forward to it.One other issue that was debated—I'd say on partnership schools just don't go backwards. Don't steal from the kids who depend on—Hon Members: Oh!Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well if they're doing badly—here's the other question for the Prime Minister: if they're doing badly at their State school what are you going to do about it? And I don't mean your intentions; I mean this child in this school—what is the Government going to do about this child?And here's one that's just a bit off the social issues and that's fresh water—much discussed. The Government will be forced to follow the policy of the previous Government because again with fresh water they think it's just a matter of political choice—you just choose to have high-quality water. OK so here's a measure or two measures. One is: we will track the measure of quality in the Avon River in Christchurch—right? The measure of this Government's success is the Avon River in Christchurch. And one other: the number of spillage days of raw sewage and stormwater into Auckland Harbour. According to the mayor it's 160—an event you'd be prosecuted for in rural New Zealand. So we're going to track it and I wonder if you can just choose fresh water quality then that will be better by next Christmas. So there's a benchmark; next Christmas we'll go back and have a look and see if they chose it or not. I know what their intentions are—that's to clean it up—but let's just see what they're going to do about it.There's so much that we could talk about from that Speech from the Throne but as I've outlined good intentions aren't enough. New Zealand's done so well—it's done well—and we are going to hold the Government to account on two things. One is maintaining the strength and vigour and resilience of the New Zealand economy because however you measure it—whether it's jobs it's incomes it's improvement in people's lives or it's opportunities and dreams. Secondly we're going to hold them to account on their own social policy and I don't think we'll have too much trouble embarrassing them because it's pre-internet. These are people who haven't thought about it. They'll be held hostage by lobbyists and laziness and so many vulnerable New Zealanders need us to keep their feet to the fire."