Ngaro Alfred: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9266. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement in the House but before I do so—I have only just returned back to the House this evening and heard the news that Mr Twyford’s mother had passed away. Though we may be in opposition in the House and candidates and contenders in our communities the fact is that we are still people and so I do want to acknowledge the passing away of Mr Phil Twyford’s mother. I give my condolences to him and his family and his whānau as well at this time.I was away from the House because I was at the orientation week at Auckland University. I was there yesterday. I know that I saw Mr Cunliffe hiding under an umbrella heading to the school. I saw Mr Clayton Mitchell—he was there as well. He was on the other side. He did not quite have his three-piece suit on but he still had the suit and tie. He was out there talking to the students at Auckland uni. One of my sons is actually there at Auckland uni. It was quite interesting yesterday in having these conversations with a lot of the students there and talking about what the Government is doing. They wanted to know what direction the Government is going in.I had one student come up to me and I could see by his body language that—he was looking like he was coming for a fight. He came there and he stood at a distance and he said: “Oh yeah National Party eh? National Government.” I said: “Yep that’s right.” Then he said: “Yeah well what are you doing? What are you doing for our people?”. He spent the next 3 minutes telling me about all the things that we are not doing—not caring for the poor not doing enough for Māori not doing enough for Pasifika—and he just went on and on and on. So I said “Oh that’s great. Well why don’t I start by just introducing myself to you?” and he said: “Oh!”. I said: “Maybe you don’t know where I come from. Look I’m a first generation—born here. My parents came from the Pacific. My mum was a cleaner my dad was a labourer. I come from a working-class family. That’s where I come from.” He looked at me and he goes: “Well and what are you doing in the National Party?”. And I said: “Well because of this: the values that my parents gave me as a working-class family were these—and my grandmother as well and others who turned around and said this to me. They said ‘You know we’ve come here for the same opportunities. We don’t want to have anything more special than anyone else but all we ask for is this: we want the same opportunities as anyone else.’”One thing I also told this young man was the fact that I am a tradesman. I think I am one of the few tradesmen who may be in the House here in Parliament of 121 MPs. I am an electrician by trade. I started off as a Māori Affairs pre-apprentice and went to Domett Avenue Hostel. I said to him: “The fact is that I too come from a trade.” He said: “I was a painter before I came here to Auckland University and now I’m doing law.” So I said to him: “So here’s the thing right? In my background”—I said—“I don’t have political science but the thing that I like about where this Government is going and when we’re talking about our Prime Minister is this: that we basically don’t talk about stuff all the time. We get on and do the job that needs to be done.” I said: “You’re a painter. You sit here. If you look at a building over days and days—you can talk about it till the cows come home right—it won’t go anywhere.” In other words you’ve got to say “Here’s a job. It needs to be done.” and fix it and make it happen. That is the pragmatism of this Government.So he said to me: “Give me some examples. Let’s talk about this.” He talked about “What are you doing for Māori? Let’s talk about this.” I asked him “In 9 years of a Labour Government OK how many Treaty claims were completed?” and he said: “Oh I don’t know.” Well you can count them on just two hands—it is called six. Right? In 6 to 7 years of a National Government—Peeni Henare will know what it is—it is 43. So what is it? We can talk all the days that we can but we just get on and do the business that needs to be done.He said to me: “What about housing? What are you doing for housing in our communities?”. He said “Labour’s doing a lot more.” and I said: “In 9 years how many houses do you know that they actually retrofitted to make warm and dry?”. He said: “I don’t know.” It was 2000 a year 18000 over 9 years. I said: “Do you want to know what we’ve done? I’ll tell you this: over 40000 Housing New Zealand homes; under the retrofitting programme Warm Up New Zealand over 300000; if we do the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill it will be over 180000 by 2019. That will come to 500000.” I said to this young man: “What I stand for—I don’t have a political science degree. I’m a tradesman at heart. I come in here to do things that make a difference for our communities for young people like you and your family. In other words we just get on with the business. But” I said “I tell you what. Don’t just take what I say for granted. How about you let the facts speak for themselves? That’s the evidence.”I commend the Prime Minister’s statement because it is pragmatic it is practical and it gets on with doing the business the things that Kiwis respect and have voted for in the last two elections. Thank you.