Kaye Nikki: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kaye Nikki: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Sitting date: 12 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7498. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak in this adjournment debate. Can I start by acknowledging you Mr Speaker. I do believe that you have been one of the best Speakers in the history of this Parliament. I want to acknowledge you for your consistent patience your grace and your good humour. I want to wish the parliamentary precincts a merry Christmas—even the media. I also want to acknowledge some of my constituents in this House: David Cunliffe Denise Roche and Winston Peters. My office is always open if you have any issues that you want to chat about. 
We are 4 years into this National Government and what is clear today? We have heard many a speech about credibility. But what credibility is about is not rewriting history; what credibility is about is delivering for New Zealanders with costed policies that will make a difference to this country. We were handed “Mission: Impossible”. In Labour’s last year of office we were handed an economy with high inflation. We were handed unemployment that grew by 30000. Labour had committed us to badly costed policies such as hundreds of millions of dollars paid for KiwiRail and ACC blowouts in terms of liabilities. We then had the deepest recession in a generation and then we were hit by several tragedies including Pike River and the Canterbury earthquakes. Canterbury alone hit our country—$30 billion has been the cost so far. 
What have we done? We have done everything we can day in and day out to be fiscally responsible and work hard for our country. Our economy is growing at 2.6 percent. We are on track to return to surplus. We have halved our deficit from $18 billion to $9 billion. There are 65000 net new jobs and 13000 jobs created by the 90-day trial period. But what is clear is that Opposition members are living in a bubble where they are divided and they are in denial. They are still releasing uncosted policies. 
David Shearer sits there and I have a few questions for Mr Shearer. I come from Auckland. I have a lot of young people in my electorate who would like to get into a house. But what is clear is that when Labour announced its housing affordability package it was not only unaffordable but also did not even contain houses. I went looking in my electorate for tracts of land that were worth $50000. I did find some actually. They were the third and fourth floors of the Victoria Street car-park. That is where the Labour Party is in terms of housing affordability. We need to do more. We must increase the supply of land. We must do more around resource management processes. But what was absolutely incredible was that yesterday in the House at the first chance the Opposition had to support some things around housing affordability it voted them down. There were two key provisions: one around the Auckland Plan and the other around medium consents for many subdivisions in New Zealand. We saw it have an epic fail at the first hurdle. 
When it comes to looking after our most vulnerable it has been tough for so many New Zealanders but what I can tell you is that we have ensured that entitlements are kept we have increased New Zealand superannuation and we have implemented more than 30 initiatives to help some of our most vulnerable and at-risk children. We have established seven teen parent units. We have put in $15 million more to ensure vulnerable teen parents get the right support that they need. Within our welfare reforms we have established a guaranteed childcare assistance payment so that childcare costs do not stop young parents from studying. When it comes to policies being costed whether it is from an economic perspective Resource Management Act reform or infrastructure investment or when it comes to helping our most vulnerable our record is clear in the most difficult time period in a generation. Whether it has been the deepest recession the hit by Canterbury Pike River or the fact that we have had to account for all of these blowouts we have been delivering both from an economic perspective and for our most vulnerable. 
If you contrast that you have an Opposition that is focused on slogans and on each other and that is divided. What I am confident about is that not only do we have a Prime Minister who cares and who has delivered more for this country in a very difficult period but also we have a united National caucus with costed policies that is ready to continue to deliver and to do the best that we can for New Zealanders.