Cosgrove Clayton: Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12405. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Third ReadingHon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour):Mr Peters touched on a very important point. He identified a salient point in respect of the far north. We now know why John Carter is coming back after a very very swift tenure as an ambassador to the Cook Islands. It is because he is shocked and outraged at the lack of representation by that member over there Mike Sabin. Every member who has got up in this House including that one has been challenged by the Opposition to provide some simple numbers. Those simple numbers are the numbers of jobs created.Mike Sabin: Who got elected in 2011?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He can barrack at me and have a go but it does not cover up the fact that he was asked and I challenge him now. I say to that member now that I will yield to him if he gets up and gives us the number of jobs that his Government has created in Northland. We know that Northland has the highest unemployment of any area in the country. We know and I will give that member some numbers: a 30 percent increase inMāori unemployment under his Government. He talked about pathways and strategies and task forces and priorities. All that the average Kiwi wants to know whether they be in Northland or Southland or Otago or the central North Island Mr Sabin is where the jobs are. They were promised in this Budget and others a brighter future. They were told that things would get better.Māori were told that there would be job opportunities for them. They have been let down and a 30 percent increase in Northland unemployment forMāori is an indictment on that member. No wonder John Carter is coming home I say. No wonder he is coming home.In Northland Sanford Ltd closed the oyster factory under this regime. I say this: if you ask any Kiwi around the country what they want from their Government they simply want something simple. They want a fair go—they want a fair go. They want a job. Why do they want a job? Because it provides some income and some dignity and some pride on the table. That pride leads to what this crowd talks about but does not create. That job that income leads to something called economic and social opportunity—a chance for mum and dad to get up on the ladder a chance for the first-home buyer who is in a job to try to get a house. That is what a job is about. That is what an income is about—opportunity. This crew over here crow about that. They say they have a legacy of creating economic opportunity but that legacy is not matched byany fact whether it be in that member’s electorate in the far north or anywhere else around the country.People want a fair go in respect of asset sales. They do not want them sold. People want a fair go in terms of housing. Young people cannot get up on the ladder. What do we say? We say we are going to build 100000 affordable homes over 10 years. What is National’s plan? No one knows. We say that we are going to put Kiwis—to quote Mr English but we will deliver on it—in terms of housing ahead of the queue and we will stop the foreign speculators coming.We say that we will train young people. We have a policy for the unemployment benefit to train young people and apprentices. Nicky Wagner talks about Christchurch. Well the great man Gerry Brownlee came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee today. What did he tell us? That 25 foreign workers are being imported into Christchurch every day. That is 9125 per year and it is 1/16th of the unemployment rate of 142000. We said to Gerry Brownlee this morning in public session: “Hang on a minute. Shouldn’t you consider the overall costs of things not just the price of a product or getting it the cheapest? Shouldn’t you also consider the transfer costs? When you are doing it cheap and you are importing it the people who are not being employed because you are not training them are on the dole and that is a cost.” But oh no; this crowd do not look at things holistically.People deserve a fair go and they want a fair go in respect of their power bills. John Key says: “Kiwis are not paying too much for power.” That is what he says. Simon Bridges as Minister of Energy and Resources said it as well. Well no one believes these guys.Mike Sabin: 72 percent.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Is Mr Sabin prepared to go up to his peopleMāori and others in Northland and stand on the stump and say to them: “You lucky individuals—you should be grateful because you are not paying too much for your power.”?Mike Sabin: Under Labour it was 72 percent.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh no—he has plenty of guts in the House here but he will not go out to Kaikohe and other places and make that claim on the stump. We say we have a power plan. We will bring those power prices down.We have talked about wages. We have talked about training. We say we will give people a fair go with housing. We will introduce incentives to move investment across from the obsession we have about housing speculation and into proper business investment. So we have a plan. Over there we have strategies task forces—all sorts of things. Remember the financial centre of excellence? That was going to be the big hit. It did not happen. Remember the “road to nowhere” the cycleway? That did not create any jobs. So we have a concrete and practical plan over here.I just come back to every member as they crawl their way into the Chamber and to the Minister for Social Development and ask them this: show me the jobs in the regions that this Government has created. Mr Sabin could not tell us. Ms Wagner could not tell us. They bring into Christchurch 25 brothers and sisters from overseas—good souls none the less—as we have 70000 to 80000 young people on the dole and they refuse to train them. They think if you throw a few coins at the polytechs—which are doing an admirable job—that that is training.These geniuses were so stupid. They had an earthquake in Christchurch—a tragedy—that is a massive economic opportunity an opportunity to train the 30000 to 40000 young people in trade training that we so desperately need instead of bringing in 25 of our brothers and sisters per day from overseas. I ask them whether that is a goodstrategy. Who is selling out whom? Where are the job creation opportunities for young people?I come back to this. Kiwis at their essence are not greedy people. They just want a fair go. A job gives an income. An income gives dignity and pride. An income allows you to go home as parents and look your kids in the eye as you paid for the bread you put on their table. It also gives an economic opportunity. You might—might—be able to put a little bit aside. You might be able to become a little bit entrepreneurial. You might be able to say to the wife or the husband or the partner: “We are going to plan and we are going to try to save for a first home.” But it does not help when the Government that was voted in undercuts those Kiwis and those basic Kiwi values and aspirations every time they try to have a crack every time they want to get a job every time they are looking for a training opportunity. Because yes there are some people who slip and slide around the economy; we understand that. But I say this because I believe in this country: 99 percent of Kiwis who are in that lost and lonely category would do anything to get out of it and are—to quote the National Party pamphlets—“ambitious for New Zealand.”Well if this is all National has got—a 30 percent increase inMāori unemployment in Northland—and if that is ambitious I am speechless. If that is the ambition that these people have—[Interruption ] Oh no; you do not get that lucky with me mate. You do not get that lucky. I challenge any of these speakers—the member for Taranaki Mr Young and others—to stand up and tell us just simply what Kiwis want to know. That is how many jobs have these people created? How many practical training opportunities have these people created? Not slogans not task forces not pathways not action plans—those are meaningless to people absolutely meaningless.They talk about fiscal restraint—they talk about fiscal restraint. Well I remind the Minister of Finance as he is on the phone to upstairs trying to work out who is leaking the next set of figures that 9 years of surplus is the legacy of the Labour Government. Nine years of surplus—not waste; surplus. I recall being attacked by that man because the National Party accused the then Labour Government of being too mean because we would not spend it. I say this: zero Crown debt zero Crown debt zero Crown debt.I invite these members to go back to the regions with the two-speed economy we have. Regional New Zealand is withering on the vine thanks to them i.e. Northland—withering on the vine. They will not tell us their unemployment plans. They will not come up and have anything practical but they are good with words and they are good with spin. I say they are out of touch. This Budget is out of touch. The 142000 people who languish on the dole queue every day thanks to this crew are the legacy of this Budget and the legacy of 5 long years—5 long years—of this country being in the wilderness and rudderless with an inward-looking Government that is more concerned with its own scandalous behaviour propped up by two rotten piles Mr Dunne and Mr Banks. This Government needs to get real. It needs to provide some real opportunities for Kiwis.