Parker David: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9216. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Before I attack him I will say I do have some respect for the Hon Bill English. Can I say in respect of his speech that although I disagree with parts of it which I will cover he at least did cover the Government’s proposed programme this year thin though it is. In contrast the Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago when he delivered the Prime Minister’s statement laid it on the Table and then proceeded to act like a court jester telling jokes and attacking the Opposition rather than talking about his own programme.Bill English just gave a speech then and he criticised the increases in spending by the last Government. In question time he was good enough to acknowledge that by the end of the last Government Labour had reduced gross Government debt from 38 percent to 18 percent and actually reduced net debt virtually to zero. When you included financial assets like the Cullen fund it was in a positive balance and since then we know that debt has grown.He then said: “Well of course the problem was the increase in Government spending.” Well what were the biggest increases in Government spending by the Labour Government? Well the biggest one was the Working for Families tax credits which the National Government to this day—although they are tax cuts effectively for people—actually counts as spending. At the time the now Prime Minister and I think Bill English called them communism by stealth. So that was the biggest increase in spending. Those members called it communism by stealth even though they were tax cuts. Have they reversed it? No they have not.What was the next big initiative? Well research and development tax credits they did not like. Did they reverse those? Yes they did reverse those. KiwiSaver—those members said that they did not like it. Have they reversed KiwiSaver? Well they have stripped back some of the incentives so it is not working as well. They have taken away the $1000 kick-start payment that gave hope to young people as they started on their savings journey but no they have not done away with KiwiSaver.Interest-free student loans—remember how vexed those members were with interest-free student loans in 2005? They were apoplectic about interest-free student loans—another increase in spending under the last Government. Have they reversed them? No they have not because they were good policy.Having dealt with the misrepresentation of the previous Labour Government which left the Government books in such good order that Bill English was forced to acknowledge in 2008 that “This is the rainy day that Government has been saving for.” because we ran nine surpluses in a row he then did not say much about what has gone up and what has gone down under the National Government. Well what has gone up? What is happening to Government debt? Well we know Government debt has gone up. Net debt was down to zero; it is up about $60 billion or $70 billion—a huge increase in Government debt.What about growth? Has growth gone up or down? Well growth rates in the 2000s were held a bit high by increased rates of private borrowing—I will acknowledge that—but we were criticised by National for having growth rates of between 3 and 4 percent. What has the growth rate been in the last year Dr Smith?Hon Dr Nick Smith: 2.4 I thought.Hon DAVID PARKER: Per capita—zero. Per capita growth rates—the per-person rate of growth in New Zealand over the last year—has been zero and that is even with the huge amount that is being spent in Canterbury on the Canterbury rebuild. Nick Tuffley of the ASB is the author of that calculation. Per capita growth rates over the last year have been zero and indeed there have been prior references to that from the likes of Mr Glass another investment banker who made similar comments last year.What about exports—a great indicator of health or otherwise of the economy? Well the Government came into power when exports were over 30 percent of GDP and those members promised they were going to increase them to 40 percent of GDP. What has happened to exports? They are down to between 27 and 28 percent of GDP and the Government’s target of raising them to 40 percent of GDP is shattered. So much for the brighter future that it was promising.What about homeownership? Well Bill English may say that the huge public meetings that they are having in Auckland are a sign that things are good in Auckland. Actually people are coming out in droves because they are protesting about the state of the housing market in Auckland. And Dr Smith is doing his best but it is not good enough because after 8 years in power we have got the highest house prices ever in Auckland—a disgraceful average house price in Auckland—of around $900000. People cannot save to buy a house in Auckland if they are an ordinary waged worker and they have to inherit money to do so and that is the reality of life under the National Government. Really the privileged few succeed and most people struggle to get ahead—the lowest homeownership rate in over 60 years and still declining.If there is any part of the Kiwi Dream that is more fundamental than homeownership in New Zealand well I do not know what it is. You know The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise was the name of the book. Now people cannot afford their slice of our paradise and we have got the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s—indeed since the 1951 census over 60 years ago—and it continues to decline.There are measures that could be taken by the Government to make it better. It does need to roll up its sleeves and actually build some affordable houses and to control land supply in respect of some big subdivisions that are needed. It needs to actually stamp its foot and say “We do need intensification in parts of Auckland.” if we are going to have the rates of net migration that this Government insists on inflicting upon Auckland throwing fat on the fire and making these things even worse.Well what has happened to wages? We heard Nick Smith saying that average wages are up. I read the Prime Minister’s statement in this regard and the paragraph in it said “Wages are going up.” and then you could see quite obviously someone had gone through proofreading it and they had inserted the word “average” at the front of it. It sort of read rather bluntly in the way it was phrased and you could see it was a late addition.Well why is that? Why are those members focusing on the average wage? Because in truth we know that wage increases are concentrated at the top 10 percent of the population and that earnings for most New Zealanders are stagnant. Indeed I think the latest statistic was that 46 percent of New Zealanders got no wage increase last year. The income gaps are growing just like the wealth gaps.On the environment I heard Nick Smith here today heralding his collaborative process outcome saying that the Government has got to an end point by when rivers have to be fenced against dairy cattle and beef cattle: 2030 for our mid-country and 2025 for our flat land. It is different if you are a dairy farmer but the dairy boom is over. The pressure environmentally is now coming from the beef boom.No wonder the NGO in New Zealand that is most connected with freshwater quality the New Zealand Fish and Game Council—the people who represent the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who every year get money out of their own pocket to pay for a licence to go fishing in our riverways—pulled out of the Land and Water Forum. It was so disgusted by these consensual outcomes being the lowest common denominator that it said: “We’re out of here. We’re not up for an outcome that says we’re not even going to keep our dairy cattle and our beef cattle out of our waterways until 2025 or 2030.”Our rivers after 8 years of the National Government are getting dirtier still. I see that. I am a person who swims in rivers I fish and I tramp. Outside our national parks it is a disgrace the number of our waterways that can no longer be safely swum in because under Nick Smith the minimum standard that is being required is “wadeability”—that is clean enough to walk through but not clean enough to swim in and put your head under because you will get sick. That is a disgraceful bottom line Dr Smith and something that you should not be proud of as the Minister for the Environment.Education—do you know we have reached the parlous position in New Zealand where the OECD says that the cause of the big tail that we have got in New Zealand of underperformance amongst some of our students is caused by their economic deprivation? The gaps have got so big in New Zealand that our kids at our poor schools do not get ahead. I thought it was disgraceful a couple of weeks ago. I was ashamed to live in the country where a school providing free swimming lessons in South Auckland—and too few kids learn to swim these days—said that a substantial proportion of the class were not participating because their parents could not afford togs and there had to be a public fund-raising effort to raise the money for them to buy togs.That is what is happening in New Zealand. We have got people living in cars and garages and parents cannot even afford togs for their kids when they are getting free swimming lessons.