Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Well wasn't that a lovely contribution? I was thrilled to hear from Fletcher Tabuteau the member who has just resumed his seat that there is going to be an increase in trade of some percentage". Well! And he is one of the better members on the other side. I thought "some percentage" was pretty good really. I also heard that apparently we are growing as an economy at an enormous rate of 0.3 percent in the last quarter. That does not seem like that's an enormous rate of growth and apparently it's the highest in the developed world. I guess someone's going to have to tell the United States that they are not in the developed world because clearly they're not if we are the highest in the developed world. This man is actually one of the cleverest members of the Government and I think we've had an excellent contribution from him as opposed to the Prime Minister. Now unlike many people I have read the entire Prime Minister's statement today. I have marked it with all sorts of little weeny things in there and I was looking for something in here that would tell us how she intends to grow the New Zealand economy. I was not able to find much at all really. I saw something in there that said there was going to be an upgraded free-trade agreement with China but I've just got this feeling it's not going quite as well as she might have thought given that this was supposed to be the year of tourism between New Zealand and China and that that's all being cancelled—and by the way not by New Zealand. So I think there's possibly not much in there about it. I heard some of the interjections from the Government side of Parliament. They were shouting out today to my colleagues "Show us the money." because apparently they all watched a lot of movies during the holiday break. Well I say this to them show me the houses—show me the houses. I've heard that Prime Minister and that Government giving all sorts of excuses for KiwiBuild and Mr Phil Twyford. There are a lot of excuses I guess for Mr Phil Twyford. One of the things that has been said by that Prime Minister and that Government is that they've only had KiwiBuild for six months. What tosh. What rubbish.Hon Willie Jackson: It's true.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: We have—I can prove it. Money was being spent announced and delivered straight after the election in December 2017. They've had it operating now for 15 months. They've now got apparently 47 houses in 15 months. There was $2 billion in last year's Budget—$2 billion. All the interim targets are gone but apparently we're all supposed to believe that there are going to be 100000 houses built through KiwiBuild in 10 years as though Phil Twyford's got a hope in Hades of ever being the Minister of Housing and Urban Development in 10 years. I can tell you this: there's no hope at all of that Government being here in 10 years. But in the meantime what has happened in the private sector? The private sector has just got on. In the 15 months where Phil Twyford has been able to buy off developers 47 houses—just bear that in mind; 47 entire houses—the private sector has built a whopping 35200 houses. It has built 35200 houses versus only 47 sold houses. Which is the failure? Which is the failure? I've heard from the Government about what a failure the private sector has been in building houses. No I don't think they're the failure; I think the Government is the failure. When they look at why it takes so long and so much expense to build a house in New Zealand what have they done about the Resource Management Act and planning? Nothing—not a sausage. Nothing. Zip—nothing. And why? It's because they can't agree with each other. Well I think we on our side are going to have to deal with all this so that's why we have got work going on right now on wholesale reform of the Resource Management Act planning rules provisions policies practices and the Building Act. We are taking this time in Opposition—hopefully only a short 18 months—to make sure that we have the work done because the Government can't do it. In fact what we have heard from Phil Twyford is "Well it's too hard to get houses built so we're going to have an urban development authority. That will take out all the problems when it comes to getting consents for Government-type buildings." So my question there to the Government is: if it's so hard for a Government to get anything done then how come it's OK for the private developers to have to go through that cost—because they're the ones who are building the houses for ordinary mum and dad Kiwis to live in. Those are the people who know how to get stuff done unlike the current Government. I have also heard today from the Prime Minister all about our international obligations. I didn't hear much about our obligations to New Zealanders. I heard an awful lot about how we need to strut along the world stage and we have to sign up to things like United Nations migration treaties. Why? When we questioned this from Opposition the answer was I thought quite a cynical answer from the Government. It was that apparently "It's not binding so we'll just sign it." Well what does that say about our international obligations? What we know is this: this Government with the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern as the Prime Minister and the Rt Hon Winston Peters together—people will remember this—have signed us up to a migration pact that gives over sovereignty for so much of our immigration to the United Nations. And when we've questioned it they've said "Oh yeah but it's not binding." So why sign it if it's not binding? If it's just the vibe as Dennis Denuto from that excellent movie The Castle would say—it's just the vibe—well what it's all about is trotting off overseas showing everybody that you know you just want to be part of the in-crowd. Well in this particular case how about New Zealand? How many New Zealanders got to vote on that? None. Will this even come back to Parliament? Probably not but if it does New Zealand First are going to vote for it. They're going to vote for it. The Greens are going to vote for it. Labour are going to vote for it. We're not voting for it. You're out on your own Government when you start doing things like that. I want to talk also about rail. I want to talk about rail because apparently it's really important at the moment particularly something called light rail—which I would call a trolley—going up Dominion Road. That was talked about by the Prime Minister in her speech and you'd have to say where does it go to? Well I have made public statements asking how come we're paying all these billions of dollars of fuel taxes that the rest of us are paying. Diesel road-user charges and fuel taxes—why are we paying for this? And you might say "Well because it's good to get people from the Auckland CBD to the airport." Except it's not going to the airport; it's going to Māngere. People might tell me that the airport is in Māngere. Well it's actually right on the side of Māngere. It's not where this trolley train or whatever you want to call it is going. It's actually going to Māngere—and it's in the Prime Minister's statement. It's not going to the airport. That's why her side should read her statement and maybe she should. It's telling us that really the plan is to stick people on a bus to then go from the Māngere town centre—Hon David Bennett: Go away! Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —through to the airport. Well it is true David Bennett. It is true. That is exactly it. Hon David Bennett: That's as good as the Hamilton train. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: It will be just like the Hamilton train. Remember them campaigning on the Hamilton train? Whatever did happen to that Mr Strange? Whatever happened to that? He's a nice chap too. He's a nice very pleasant person. He's always laughing because he has to. We heard today some statements about what Labour were going to do. In housing let me tell you what they're doing. They're buying Vietnamese flat-packs to put into New Plymouth. That's how they're going to solve housing—Vietnamese flat-packs. They can't even get Chinese flat-packs—Vietnamese flat-packs. Hon Todd McClay: No. Well China won't sell them to them. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: China probably won't sell it to them. So no wonder Phil Twyford says that consenting's all a bit of a drag really—imagine trying to get that one through. This Government doesn't know what it's doing. It doesn't get stuff done. It is a Government that has spent 15 months of wasted money and time fluffing around with KiwiBuild—getting 47 houses that they've had to buy off developers because they can't build a thing themselves. Hey it's only $2 billion of other people's money! That's what this Government has done—almost nothing."