Coleman Jonathan: General Debate 
Coleman Jonathan: General Debate 
[Volume:676;Page:21511] 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 The previous speech just shows where Labour is going wrong because we have had 5 minutes of Trevor Mallard speaking incomprehensibly and focusing on issues that frankly have no cut-through with the New Zealand public. The problem overall is that Labour’s campaign is fronted by Trevor Mallard who is probably New Zealand’s most unpopular politician. 
I want to know why Phil Goff is not on those billboards. In my electorate Labour will not let him front anything. Phil Goff is absent from the billboards throughout New Zealand. Why is that? Well there are two theories. The first theory is that when Labour printed the billboards it did not actually know who would be the leader at the time of the election. Would it be the “Camp David” crowd would it be the “Branch Davidians” or would it be someone else? 
The second theory and I think this is the true one is that quite frankly Phil Goff’s brand is toxic. The problem Labour members have is that if they will not back their own leader how can they reasonably expect New Zealanders to back their leader? Labour members know they are in a hole because they know that to win under MMP they have to run a party vote campaign. So what are they doing? They are running an electorate vote campaign—it is: “Remove all insignia disband last man for themselves.” 
The other thing I want to know is why the Labour Party is so nasty towards anyone who supports anything that it does not agree with. Why is Darien Fenton attacking New Zealand icon Sir Peter Leitch? It is because Sir Peter thinks that the Prime Minister is a good guy and the person to lead New Zealand. Do members know what Darien Fenton is calling for? She is calling for Labour supporters to boycott The Mad Butcher shops. That just shows how out of touch this lot are. They are completely down the stream. 
I want to know another thing. Why in the last 3 years has Labour asked only four oral questions on immigration in this House? Unbelievable! Why has Ruth Dyson not asked a single question on immigration in this House since she has been the Opposition spokesman on immigration since February 2011? The answer is that Labour left such a horrible mess for us to clear up in immigration and we have been doing a damn good job of getting it right. We have turned round the performance of the Immigration Service. Members opposite will know that they are no longer getting complaints about Immigration New Zealand because we have been doing the work measuring the metrics. Customer satisfaction has gone from 60 to 80 percent employer satisfaction has gone from 70 to 90 percent and the quality of decision making has gone up massively. When we came in only 71 percent of decisions were up to scratch. We have moved that to 87 percent. When we came in there were huge backlogs in the student queue. We have halved those backlogs. We are putting Immigration New Zealand’s resources around the world where New Zealand has its strategic future mapped out. There is a clear plan there. 
We are getting in much more business migration capital—$700 million compared with $70 million in the last 2 years under those guys opposite. We are getting people with the skills to come here. 
We are having a wonderful Rugby World Cup here in New Zealand. The people are loving it things are going well. It is a great time for New Zealand. It is a terrible time for Labour. Let us keep it that way. Go the mighty All Blacks! Go the Warriors on Sunday night! It is looking good. Roll on 26 November.