Salesa Jenny: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 10 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1411. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Mr Assistant Speaker I would like to wish you a wonderful year and I would like to wish all my parliamentary colleagues a wonderful year for 2015. The state of the nation speeches from the leader of the National Party and the leader of the Labour Party draw a clear line between the two parties. Labour stands for jobs whereas National stands for selling off our State houses. Labour’s vision is that New Zealand will once again have the lowest unemployment rate in the developed world. Having a job provides people with a sense of purpose whether it is a paid job or an unpaid voluntary one. When people have jobs they have more dignity they have more self-respect and they are better able to pay for rent and better able to afford the basic necessities of life. They are better able to give their families the best chance for a good future.When the National Government came into office in 2008 the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. But let us go back a few years to late 2004 and 2005 when the unemployment rate was 3.8 percent. It went up slightly to 3.9 percent in 2005 and it went back down to 3.8 percent for the last three quarters of 2005 where it stayed. This was a time when here in Aotearoa New Zealand we were proud of having the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. That was under the Labour Government led by Helen Clark. Now the very best that this current Government has done in 7 long years is bring the unemployment rate down to 5.2 percent—Hon Ruth Dyson: What?JENNY SALESA: 5.2 percent. And now we are beginning to go in the wrong direction with unemployment that has risen from 5.4 percent to 5.7 percent according to the household labour force survey from the last quarter in December. In addition to the rise in the overall unemployment rate we have gone from having the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD to being the ninth in the OECD late last year and now we have slipped further down to being the 10th in the OECD for the lowest unemployment rate. This is simply just not good enough. Labour’s goal is to ensure that New Zealand has the lowest unemployment rate amongst OECD countriesonce again where we used to be just over 10 years ago. It is harder for Kiwis to find a secure good job that pays a decent wage nowadays. This shows that the current Government cannot make the rock star economic recovery work in a way that delivers fairly for all New Zealanders.Kiwi families have gone without and done it tough for far too long. The economic recovery that we constantly hear about from the National Government is a jobless recovery. Why is it a jobless recovery? Because it is an economy that is apparently growing but at the same time unemployment is also increasing. Currently there are 38000 more unemployed people than when National got into Government in 2008. There is something wrong with this picture and with how our economy is being managed. Labour is focused on jobs and we have put creating jobs at the top of our priorities. The long-term economic plan to create jobs and to assist businesses to grow is at the top of our agenda through the Future of Work Commission. The Future of Work Commission has five work streams for technology and security of work.Labour has always been and will continue to be the party of work and for workers. Contrary to what the Prime Minister stated earlier on today the work of the commission is not to define what a job is—no not at all. Labour knows what a job is. We are all about jobs. The more relevant question is when if at all this current Government is actually going to deliver on an unemployment rate that is as low as it used to be when Labour was last in Government and why it is taking ever so long to get there. By the way Labour got the unemployment rate down to 3.5 percent in 2007. The question is: can you do it? Is it possible for you to deliver an unemployment rate that is lower than that? Thank you very much.