Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Deputy Leader—Labour): He pō he pō he ao he ao ka tākiri mai te ata ka korihi te manu ka pō ka ao ka awatea. Kei te whiti mai te rā ki runga i te tau hou o te Paremata. Mr Speaker tēnā rā koe. Hei tīmatatanga kōrero māku hia ahau te mihi atu ki a tātou katoa ngā mema Paremata i eke ai ki runga i te marae o Waitangi i te wiki kua pahure ake rā. Nā reira huri rauna i te Whare tēnā koutou tēnā koutou. [It is night it is night it is day it is day; the dawn breaks and the birds sing. Night becomes day becomes daylight. The sun is shining on the new year of Parliament. Mr Speaker greetings. As my commencing speech I wish to acknowledge all those members of Parliament who arrived on to the marae of Waitangi in the week which has just passed. Therefore all around the House greetings to you all.] I just want to begin by acknowledging all the members of Parliament across the House who participated in the celebrations at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds a week ago today. You know to show that we're a united country we parliamentarians needed to actually set an example and lead the way and we need to do things differently. Guess what? When we did do things differently and when we went on together as a group and when we backed each other up with our waiata when we had equal numbers of speakers—when we did things differently everybody else did things differently too. So they followed suit and everybody—everybody—who calls themselves a New Zealander regardless of where we're born was able to celebrate a day that we could all be part of. So dignity decorum and respect were what we hoped for at Waitangi 2019. We hoped that was what it would be about and it was. I couldn't have been prouder both as a Ngāpuhi and as a parliamentarian. Again I just want to say thank you to all the members who contributed to the day. As the Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti we wanted to do things differently and we wanted to address the difficult issues and I guess one of the first difficult issues that we needed to address was in fact the way that Waitangi was run and the way things went that day. In fact it had got so hard that people decided not to turn up. There were discussions about moving the Waitangi celebrations around the country. The reality is that we just needed to actually look at the issue and address it and then make changes and it certainly worked. The Prime Minister gave a speech today setting out a great plan of action built around three core themes—that is the economy well-being and leadership. Her speech was a reminder of the scale of change that we needed to bring to Government and that we brought to Government 15 months ago in order to place better outcomes for people back at the forefront of our policy. As the Prime Minister has said there's no point in having great GDP if people are living homeless. There's no point in having a really strong economy if people don't have jobs. So we came in after nine years of a Government that took a hands-off approach. This meant our coalition Government was left with an unbalanced economy that was overly reliant on property speculation and immigration and it simply wasn't working for far too many Kiwis. There's no doubt that we inherited a housing crisis we inherited a health system under huge strain we inherited an education system that was going backwards and we inherited inadequate transport jobless regions and a rapidly escalating prison population. Now as the Minister of Corrections I want to acknowledge the work that's being done under our Government for us to finally see a reduction in the prison population. We're now hovering around about 10000. In March of last year the prison population peaked at 10860. To think that two years ago we could have reduced the prison population by as much as we have done safely and without changing any legislation it would have been thought impossible. But again we're doing things differently and we're addressing the hard issues. If things had gone on in the way they were right now the prison population would be around about 11500. Quite frankly we just didn't have that number of beds in our system. Now the first goal of corrections is to make sure that the public is kept safe. I fail to see how we could have kept New Zealanders safe if we didn't have enough beds for prisoners in the system. So we've done things differently and we're making a change. Despite the falling crime rate and despite the reduction in victimisations that we've seen over a number of years that prison population continued to climb. This is just one example of how taking a new approach to a problem has avoided the mistakes of the past. We know that it costs around about $100000 per prisoner per year to stay in prison. In contrast the bold and comprehensive work programme outlined by the Prime Minister today is focused on delivering for New Zealanders. We know there's plenty of work to do but our Government has a clear plan and we are just getting on with the job. Whether that means delivering improvements now like increasing the minimum wage—and we've heard criticism from the leader of the ACT Party who was saying that there's going to be increased unemployment and job losses if we increase the minimum wage. Well we've heard that argument every time the minimum wage has gone up and we haven't seen the job losses. It's just that what they say and what actually is the reality just doesn't occur as these guys describe it. We're addressing pay equity and investing in health and education and we're taking on long-term issues of climate change investing in public transport and addressing our chronic skills deficit in infrastructure. We are a Government committed to advancing our long-term blueprint for a better New Zealand. As the Prime Minister said we're beginning 2019 with an economy that's performing well with the second-lowest level of unemployment in a decade with wages going up and with support for those who need it through the Families Package. We've got solid growth we've got low inflation and we're running strong surpluses. There are international headwinds but our Government's economic plan and responsible management of the books means we're in a good position to face them and I just have to give credit to the Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson who's done such a great job in actually leading us into the strong financial position we are in. I'm proud of what we've achieved so far. We've begun raising the living standards protecting our environment and upgrading critical transport. We're rebuilding the hospitals schools and public services that all New Zealanders rely on. But the most important measure of our country's success and our economy's success is whether it's delivering real gains for our people. That's why our coalition Government's long-term blueprint for a better New Zealand as outlined in our plan released last September is built around three key themes: to build a productive sustainable economy that works for everyone and that is fit for the 21st century to improve the well-being of all New Zealanders and their families and to take a new approach to leadership focusing on long-term issues. Within those themes our 12 priorities will drive the Government's ongoing work programme. These priorities go beyond just having a strong economy to include ensuring that our children don't live in poverty our houses are warm and dry our regions are supported and our climate is protected and ensuring that our relationship between the Crown and Māori grows even stronger. As the Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti I want to touch on that last priority of building closer relationships with Māori. Under this Government we've established a new agency to oversee the Government's work with Māori in a post-settlement era and to support the Government to try to be a better Treaty partner. The Office for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti will support this Government in addressing the difficult issues—and I've already outlined just one which is Waitangi—and in measuring the health of the Māori-Crown relationship. If Waitangi is anything to go by this relationship is improving. We won't make the mistakes—and some of them have already been outlined such as the Kermadec situation. I don't think there are many people in this House who wouldn't want that big area protected but there is a way of doing it. Trampling over rights of Māoridom is not the way to establish something like that.It is not in the best interests of Māori or New Zealanders to fall under the influence of an overseas NGO and make poor decisions that impact on Māori rights. As Michael Joseph Savage said and as the Prime Minister has alluded to we don't claim perfection in what we do but what we do claim is a substantial improvement on what has gone on in the past. That's what our plan is about as outlined by the Prime Minister. Our plan is to ensure the well-being of New Zealanders. Our plan is to make sure that we improve the way we engage with Māori. Our plan is to make sure that New Zealanders and their living standards are going to be better not just now and not just over the next three years but well into the future—over the next 20 the next 30 years. That's going to be the legacy of this the sixth Labour Government. Kia ora Mr Speaker.