Pugh Maureen; Mallard TrevorMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker and I stand today to reply to the 2020 Speech from the Throne. Before I get into my talk I'd just like to take up a point that was made by the member who's just resumed her seat Dr Deborah Russell. Much has been made over the last few days and especially in the media around the 4.9 percent unemployment rate and how celebratory it has been that we have achieved that—or the Government has achieved that. But what it does not take into account and it was referred to by that member is the number of women who have been made unemployed. But what we are not seeing in those statistics are the number of women who are second income earners in families who do not factor into the unemployment stats. So what that has virtually done is carved a huge amount out of the income of households and so those women—a lot who worked in the hospitality sector and have lost their jobs—don't feature in those statistics of 4.9 percent. Also what doesn't feature are those who were employed and whose hours are reduced as a consequence of the downturn in the economy. So again what we are not seeing in the statistics is the downturn in income from reduced hours. So there are families across this country very much acknowledged who are struggling at the moment because of the situation we are in. It would be wrong for the Government to rest on its laurels and celebrate a 4.9 percent unemployment rate when hidden behind that are a huge amount of other statistics that we need to be very very concerned about as a country.Now one of the opening lines in the Speech from the Throne told us that New Zealand had voted for stability and certainty at the election. I know from my own patch down in West Coast - Tasman that a lot of farmers actually did vote for certainty and the thing they wanted to be certain about was that the Greens would not have a place in the halls of power. What happened immediately following the election was that the Greens were found a ministerial place and you can be certain—the one thing that there is certainty about—is that their influence will be felt as we move forward.Now I would like to draw some attention to an event that now forms part of New Zealand's history and that event took place on 9 December 2019 and that was at White Island. At that time and over the days following and the weeks following 22 people's lives were lost and 25 further people were seriously injured and suffered extensive burns. So that's 47 families that were tragically impacted by the events of that day. Yet this Government fails to want to initiate a royal commission of inquiry into that event. I don't understand the rationale for not wanting to do that because in most other major events such as that a royal commission is called for and that helps us understand all of the events that happened in the lead-up to that all of the signals that may have been missed and the procedures that may not have been perfect and that's how we learn from the mistakes that have been made and that's how we are a lot more certain that those mistakes are not repeated. It's a deep dive into the issues surrounding the whole event. So I do challenge the Government to reconsider and undertake a royal commission of inquiry into that event. As spokesperson for emergency management it is of particular interest to me to make sure that we learn from all of those experiences. So in my role as spokesperson for emergency management one of the things that I did earlier this year was to submit some written questions to the incoming Minister. What I was trying to do was to flesh out some of the priorities that the new Minister had and so I asked What are the priorities in your role that you have written to the Prime Minister about?" I was referred to the Speech from the Throne so I went back to the Speech from the Throne to see exactly what was said about emergency management because there are some areas in this country that are very vulnerable and will require some special attention in terms of the preparedness for emergencies. For instance we know that a lot of people in this country now are concerned about flooding sea-level rise but also there are people who live in the South Island who live near to a fault line. So there is a lot of work done over time and will be in the future about preparedness for those events. So when I went back and had a look at the Speech from the Throne there was actually no mention of it so I ended up in this circular debate about what the priorities are. "Refer to the Speech from the Throne." I was told but the Speech from the Throne actually didn't mention it. So the next one that was of concern to me in my other role—the community and voluntary sector. I had the same process for the new incoming Minister there and asked for some feedback on what the priorities were and was again referred to the Speech from the Throne and again there was no mention of it in there. So I have to wonder: is there actually a plan are there priorities for the Government and does it extend beyond the two areas that I was inquiring about and roll into a whole lot of others?We've heard today—and Minister Hipkins referred to it earlier on—about the three priority areas that the Government has and over the last three years we saw it relentlessly pursuing press releases and making statements and making announcements. But there was no delivery and I just have to ask if people remember what the year of 2019 was tagged as by the Government: the year of delivery—the year of delivery. So where is that delivery? Oops nowhere to be seen. In fact all three areas that the Government prioritised in the Speech from the Throne all of those areas have actually gotten worse; not just a little bit worse but a whole lot worse.The Labour Government proclaimed in their Speech from the Throne that they'd have three overarching objectives. We heard about COVID. I mean we hear a lot about COVID and rightly so and we've heard a lot about vaccines in the last few days. But the one point of weakness that we have is in our border and our border control. Yet the Government continues to let infected people get on planes and come to New Zealand and into our managed isolation facilities. Now Judith Collins and Dr Shane Reti have been calling since August last year for pre-flight testing but that has failed to be implemented. The other issue that was raised in the Speech from the Throne was to accelerate economic recovery. And what we've seen too is again a whole lot of money being allocated—billions of dollars in fact—but promising money and making an announcement is not the same thing as planning and delivery. And again we end up in the same argument in the same debate where delivery is actually a stranger to this Government. I would like to talk about one particular project that was allocated $24 million and that was in Franz Josef an area of the West Coast one of the most stunning places on the planet I believe. Twenty-four million dollars—that money will be circulated around the community and it will invest in some really important protection work for that community. So it was announced last July and then what happens? It's decided that it needs to be reassessed; reassessed to make sure it's value for money.Barbara Kuriger: Another broken promise.MAUREEN PUGH: Another broken promise and a lack of delivery. But then it brings to mind what the other projects are that are going to be reassessed and whether they will deliver value for money and how many other projects around the country are at risk of having the same scrutiny put over them. One of the other issues that it would be remiss of me not to mention is tourism. The third objective is to lay the foundations for a better future. We have a $16 billion GDP contribution coming directly from tourism and a further $11.3 billion from indirect contribution. That industry is hugely under stress at the moment. We have had ad hoc contributions from the Government unfair processes. I welcome the Auditor-General's review of the Strategic Tourism Assets Protection Programme funding because I think it's going to highlight—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's time has expired. I call Mark Cameron for his maiden statement."