Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:675;Page:20716] 
1. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by the statement made on his behalf in answer to Oral Question No 4 yesterday that “there is room for celebration in some of this” regarding youth unemployment rates? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I stand by the full statement made on my behalf: “There is room for celebration in some of this. For example Maori youth unemployment rates have gone from 30.3 percent in June 2010 to 24.8 percent now. That is still too high … but we are tracking down. There is a long way to go but 43000 new jobs last year—15000 of them for young people—is a good start.” 
Hon Phil Goff 
: What is there to celebrate in the June quarter household labour force survey which shows that nearly 33 percent of teenage Maori are unemployed and that nearly 42 percent of 15 to 19-year-old Pasifika are unemployed? Are these figures not evidence of the total failure of his youth unemployment policies? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: There were a number of things to celebrate in the household labour force survey that was just recently released. We had an unemployment rate that was steady but we were creating new jobs. There was also a considerable amount of cash put into Budget 2011 for the creation of jobs; around $55.2 million went into a number of programmes. As the Minister for Social Development and Employment noted yesterday there actually has been a reduction in the Maori and Pacific youth unemployment rates. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will recall that my question specifically asked what there was to celebrate about 33 percent of Maori teenagers being unemployed and 42 percent of 15 to 19-year-old Pasifika. The Prime Minister ignored commenting on either of those figures. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member had cut his question at that point then he would be absolutely right but he went on to talk about those things being indicative of a failed Government youth policy. The Prime Minister pointed out in his answer why he did not see Government youth policy as having failed. So the remedy is in the hands of the questioner. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Is he celebrating the fact that under his watch as Prime Minister the unemployment rate for 15 to 19-year-old people in New Zealand is at the highest proportion ever since the Great Depression? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: That is a very interesting statement by the Leader of the Opposition. Statistics New Zealand has actually been recording the data since 1986 so not quite back to the Great Depression I say as a starting point. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That’s not true. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is true actually. The member can go and check it out if she wants. The second thing is that yes the household labour force survey shows that the unemployment of people it considers in the 15 to 19-year-old age group is from New Zealand’s perspective high at 24.9 percent. But yesterday the Leader of the Opposition came to the House and told us that was the highest rate in the OECD. Let us just for the purposes of clarification run through a few countries that have a higher rate of unemployment than the household labour force survey shows for 15 to 19-year-olds: Belgium 35 percent; the Czech Republic 39 percent; Estonia 59 percent; Finland 28 percent; France 29 percent; Greece 39 percent; Hungary 45 percent; Ireland 46 percent; Italy 45 percent; Poland 30 percent; Portugal 34 percent; the Slovak Republic 61 percent— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the answer has been long enough. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek— 
Hon Member 
: Apologise! 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I certainly do not apologise for telling the truth. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me just refresh the memories of members. If I have to evict someone today they will be out for the rest of this week so we will have a little order. I do not blame the Leader of the Opposition totally then although he should not have done that. There was obviously an interjection during a point of order which caused that reaction. But we will not have interjections or any other comments. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek the leave of the House to table some statistics from the Parliamentary Library that go back to 1986 and show that the 27.6 percent unemployment rate for those 15 to 19-year-olds is by far the highest rate we have had since that date and is even much higher than it was in the dark days of the early 1990s. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does the Prime Minister stand by his claim that 60 percent of the 58000 New Zealand young people under 24 who are described as not in employment education or training are actually at school or at university? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave to table a document which is an email from Andrew McLaren of the servicing and analysis team at Statistics New Zealand saying explicitly that those people are not in employment education or training. They cannot be at school or university. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does the Prime Minister still say that 60 percent of those classified by Statistics New Zealand as not being in employment education and training are at school or university? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. The reason for that is that the member will be wrong like he was wrong yesterday when he came to the House and said the New Zealand teenage unemployment rate had trebled under National’s watch. Actually it went from 18 percent to 28 percent so not even by Phil Goff’s maths is that a trebling. It is like when he came to the House yesterday and said the unemployment rate for 15 to 19-year-olds had increased from less than 10 percent when National took office to 28 percent. In fact it went from 18 percent to 28 percent. It is like he said— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well he— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon Phil Goff 
: When the Prime Minister just now denied that the number of people aged 18 to 24 on the unemployment benefit had trebled was the Minister for Social Development and Employment wrong in her answer to written question No. 6058 which shows a 733 percent increase in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds on the unemployment benefit? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not have that written question and answer but I can tell the member that at December 2008 the unemployment rate for teenage people was recorded by the household labour force survey as 18 percent. In June 2011 it was 28 percent and that is not a trebling. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave of the House to table the written question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We do not do that. Does the member want to ask a supplementary question? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: When is the Prime Minister going to front up and admit that his unemployment figures are wrong that he is conning the public and that the situation has got worse than it has ever been regarding the proportion of young people who are unemployed? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly I do not come to the House like Phil Goff did yesterday and make four or five different errors. I get my numbers right. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has been asked a question. He has to answer the question and not simply relitigate— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not believe I need any assistance on this. When a Minister is accused in the question asked of conning the public the questioner can expect to get fair measure back. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I said the member came to the House yesterday and said the New Zealand Institute reports that the youth unemployment rates in New Zealand are the highest of any developed country. I did not even get through the list; actually you cut me off Mr Speaker because of the amount of time I had spent. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: You are just conning the public John and you know it. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well let us just for the purpose of economics run through a few options. There are three measures of looking at unemployment in New Zealand. The household labour force survey indicates whether a person is looking for 1 hour’s work and 60 percent of the 15 to 19-year-olds they rang up in that survey were in training work school or basically university. 
Hon Annette King 
: That’s not what Stats said. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is absolutely correct. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That is not the figures— 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well it is a matter for clarification. The second way of looking at it is basically to look at those who are on an unemployment benefit and what we know is that in the last 18 months for young people aged 18 to 24 that number has fallen from 23000 to 16500. For the record that was the way that the previous Government used to look at people who were unemployed in New Zealand. 
Hon Members 
: Get your facts right. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That interjection was characteristic of the problem I am having as a member of this House. I am being told to get my facts right but I have in my hand all of the documents from which my comments have been made. I seek leave of the House to table those documents now. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am on my feet if that has escaped the member. The member chose to use certain language in his question and the Prime Minister was somewhat measured in responding. He explained why in his view he was not conning the public: he went back to the basic statistics. I do not believe that the member has anything to complain about in that answer given the question he asked. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave of the House to table a document which is the New Zealand Institute discussion paper 2011/1 which says that actually our youth population has the highest share of unemployment of any youth population in the OECD which the Prime Minister denied. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is this the New Zealand Institute of— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: The New Zealand Institute. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave of the House to table this email from Andrew McLaren of the servicing and analysis team Statistics New Zealand which says the 58000 people were not in employment education or training and had no apparent home duties that required them to stay out of the labour force. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Can I just check that that is not the same document that the member sought to table a while ago? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: No I asked before I think to table a different document which was the Parliamentary Library statistics. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No there was an email— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Oh did I? OK that is the same document. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I understand that leave has already been granted for that document to be tabled. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How is the $20 million— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Stop confusing the “neets” with the unemployment rate. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Are you finished? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to hear the question from the Leader of the Opposition. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How will the $20 million estimated expenditure on youth unemployment that he announced on Sunday be adequate when Budget 2011 shows that this Government has cut $145.8 million from industry skills training and when the Minister for Social Development and Employment said most of that money will not go into skills training but go into early childhood services for teenage mums? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Let me take the first point which is about the $145 million. That was over multiple years— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: 5 years actually. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: That is right; 5 years. Thank you for clarifying it because yesterday the Leader of the Opposition came to the House and said that was an annual number. That is what he said yesterday; $145 million this year he said yesterday. It all kind of changes depending on which day of the week it is but that is OK—no big drama. Then No. 2— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: You can’t keep conning the whole of New Zealand. You’re wrong on everything you’ve said. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Actually let us go through the conning bit. Let us understand why a National Government actually reduced that number by $145 million over those 5 years and what actually happened to that money. That was a scheme run by Labour in 2008 whereby 96831 people on it did not get one single credit. If they on that side of the House want to spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the Prime Minister has made his point perfectly clearly. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. On that particular occasion the Prime Minister had been accused of conning the— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We are not going to go down that track. I assessed that the Prime Minister had made his point reasonably in response to the question and that sufficient time had been taken on it. I accept the basis of the point the member was making. 
Question No. 1 to Minister interrupted. 
Question to  
Leader 
 of the Opposition 
Youth Unemployment— 
Rates