Faafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Faafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16623] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 As the newest member in Parliament I must admit to having had a sense of expectation about the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday. Yes I did have a sense of expectation. As it was the first of what will be many Prime Minister’s speeches I will sit through I thought I might not agree with everything or anything of what the Prime Minister had to say but that I might finally get an idea of where this Government is taking us and what course it will take to try to improve the lives of New Zealanders. But what a disappointment. It was a huge disappointment which would have been shared around New Zealand by Kiwis in their homes because we got nothing. We got absolutely nothing. Yesterday Phil Goff got it 100 percent right—2 years on and this Government has no ideas. It has run out of ideas. It has no ideas and no plans and has created no jobs. What a disappointment it was that it took 22 pages for John Key to tell us nothing. Twenty-two pages—what a waste of 11 pages of A4 paper. 
National has reverted to the tired old policies of old. It has gone back to the vault pried it open and what do we have? We have State asset sales cuts and slashes. National has reverted to those because it has no ideas and no plan. 
The fact that this Government has no ideas and no plan just shows how out of touch it is with normal Kiwis—with the people whom I see at the Porirua markets who go down there to make sure they can get the best deal because they are struggling to make ends meet and with the parents whom I saw at the early childhood centres who are worried about their kids’ education. The Government is out of touch with the people whom I saw at the league who all came up to me and said that they are really worried about what is happening with prices rising faster than wages. This Government is out of touch. 
Those people are worried about simple things such as their power prices going up which will only get worse when this Government sells off our State-owned power companies and rising petrol prices which have gone up to nearly $2 a litre thanks to John Key’s increase in GST to 15 percent. Their grocery bills are going up because John Key broke his promise not to raise GST. Those people are also worried about early childhood centres and what the cuts mean for them. Some parents in my electorate will be forced to pay $25 more a week for each child and some of those parents have three children in early childhood centres. I wonder where the Minister will tell those families to get that money from. 
Yesterday we all sat here hoping for a bit of help and a bit of hope for the people in our electorates but what did we get? We got nothing. What did the people who were sitting around the kitchen table looking at the bills piling up and wondering how they will pay them get from John Key? Well they got no ideas no plan and for lots of them they have no jobs because this Government does not care about them. It cares about the 42 percent of tax cuts it gave to the top 10 percent of earners. The Government does not care about the people who are sitting at the kitchen table wondering how they are going to pay the bills. Those families are struggling because this Government has done nothing about jobs. It has no ideas and no plans to create them. 
Members of the Government sit over there thinking they are the great guardians of the economy. Well great; last week unemployment went up to 6.4 percent. There are 158000 Kiwis now without jobs—158000 breadwinners who cannot support themselves or their families. There were 1700 more unemployed in the last quarter just in Wellington alone and unfortunately I am sure that plenty of those people are in Mana. They have become unemployed because this Government has no ideas and no plans to create jobs. 
Government members will sit over there and say: “Hey we have done heaps.” What have we had? We have had a cycleway launched at the hastily arranged Job Summit in early 2009. 
Grant Robertson 
: The big idea. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: It was to be a huge idea with thousands of jobs. Well excuse me but I do not think I have seen thousands of tourists riding around on any cycleway and I have not seen any jobs created by that scheme which John Key was praising to the hills in early 2009. National has done nothing but window dressing. 
What does that mean in the community? It means plenty of hurt but no hope. On Monday I visited a number of community services in Porirua that are picking up the pieces of this Government’s lack of plan and lack of ideas. I travelled up to Family Budgeting Services which is flat tack. The people there told me they are seeing more single men—the kind of people that Mr Key is trying to attract when he goes on Radio Sport. He is doing nothing for them. The budgeting service told me it is seeing more breadwinners and more couples where both people are without jobs. There is no end in sight for those people because there are no jobs to go to because this Government has not created any. 
If we pop up to the citizen’s advice bureau it tells us that people are getting more desperate. When a factory closes in my electorate there are deluges of people asking for help but what can we do for people when there are no jobs to go to? Not one thing. We say: “Hey just sit around and wait for a job to come.” but this Government is not doing anything about it. It has no ideas and no plans to create jobs. 
What the Government should be doing is investing in education training and innovation and giving tax cuts to people who need them by stimulating the economy and feeding that money into the economy so that the people who need help are stimulating the economy and creating more jobs. Did we get that? No; we got 42 percent going to the top 10 percent. This Government is not helping those Kiwis who are struggling at the moment. 
This Government also does not care about giving our kids the best start in life. The Minister of Education’s example of early childhood education cuts is the perfect example of that—$400 million is being taken out of early childhood education. I tell the Minister that those kids might not have voices but their parents do. We have been visiting those early childhood centres and we know that the parents are unhappy. I am not surprised the Minister is not visiting those centres at the moment. In my electorate as I said one centre is increasing its fees by $25 a week. One family has three kids so that is 75 bucks a week. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: That’s outrageous. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: It is outrageous and that Minister is doing that. It is outrageous and the penny has finally dropped for the Minister. It is outrageous that early childhood education fees are going up and she is doing that. That family has three kids at the centre which will cost $75 more a week. I ask where they will they get that money from. What goes? Will it be the food or the clothes? I ask which bills pile up on the kitchen table at the end of the week so that those parents can give their kids the best start in life—so that those kids can go to early childhood education between the ages of 2 and 5 and have the best start in life. What is going to go? What is going to go? Those are the questions I am facing in my electorate because of the decision this Government is making. 
Some early childhood centres need to be congratulated because they will not be increasing their fees. The kindergarten association needs to be congratulated because it will not increase its fees. But the kids are indirectly affected because we must ask what else will go. Cuts in staff mean teacher to student ratios will go through the roof. We can kiss goodbye the trips for the kids because they are not happening any more. We can kiss goodbye the building maintenance for the kids because that is not happening any more. We can kiss goodbye the resources. What will we have? Will we have early childhood centres with no crayons and paint because this Government is so stingy and does not want to invest in early childhood education? That is the reality of what is going on. 
Tim Macindoe 
: What was the investment Kris—what was the investment this year? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: This is about priorities and we will make early childhood education a priority because we care about the future of our kids. Government members know the cost of everything but the value of nothing as many of my colleagues have said today. Those centres will be cutting staff cutting resources and deferring maintenance for our children in the earliest stage of their lives. 
The  
Kapi-Mana News 
 got it right this week with its headline “ECE cuts a ‘backwards step’”. What did we get from the National list member for our area? She stated that “more effective spending in the tough economic times will benefit in the long run.” What a load of rubbish. We know that for every dollar we spend on early childhood education we save $17 down the line and I think that is a great investment. 
On this side of the House we care about our kids. This Government has no ideas and no plan to create jobs. This Government has no ideas and no plan to give our kids the best start in life. This Government has no ideas and no plan to help struggling Kiwis. But we do.