Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): This is a Government without standards and I mean that literally. They have no standards because they're dropping them faster than David Parker dropped his mate John Darby off his speed dial. Health targets: well they went yesterday. This Government doesn't want to measure emergency department waiting times. They don't want to measure immunisation rates. They don't want to measure smoking cancer treatments or elective surgeries. We lost Better Public Services targets almost straight after the election. Carmel Sepuloni doesn't want to set targets around reducing long-term welfare dependency. But don't worry; it's all right because she's putting water in Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ). You can have a drink. Don't worry Greens about taking your KeepCups to WINZ because Carmel Sepuloni is going to have a glass of water for you when you walk in the door.Our legacy: 30000 kids out of welfare-dependent households under our term and we know that because we measured it. Carmel Sepuloni's legacy: well you can have some water when you walk into WINZ. What a joke. And she gets her poor backbenchers to stand up here who have to back her up—Jo Luxton and Ginny Andersen and I remember your names because I have manners.We've lost national standards because this lowering and scrapping of standards has seeped its way into our education system as well. Here we are scrapping national standards and we're having a nationwide discussion about this Government's plans to dumb down NCEA. It's one thing to drop standards by which we measure this Government but when this seeps into the lives of our children when this Government tars our kids with their brush of mediocrity then we have a problem.This is a Government that when they're faced with a measure that they can't escape like let's say the latest business confidence surveys they have this knee-jerk reaction to rubbish such a measure. What was it that Grant Robertson said the other day when he was confronted with these plummeting business confidence figures? He rubbishes the usefulness of the measure. Oh well it's about reality not perception." he says. David Parker says that they're just unreliable junk. Or when Treasury delivers a report that the Government doesn't like what are their default positions? They rubbish the people who prepare the report referring to them as kids who are completely disconnected from reality. So this is a Government that drops their own standards rubbishes outside standards that they don't like and rubbishes the people who prepare reports that they don't like. This new Government knows full well if we can measure them then they will be found wanting. It's a classic Labour move and I'm never sure if it's nature or nurture with these guys. Do these Labour Ministers get into power and predict their own ineptitude by dropping standards just as an instinctive defence reaction to protect themselves from being found out? Or is it page 1 chapter 1 of the Labour Party playbook entitled Political Survival? Step one: befuddle the public with waffly rhetoric and over-the-top virtue signalling. Step two: remove all standards and measurable targets describing them as having perverse outcomes aka Dr Clark. Step three: tax and spend. I truly cannot figure out if this is political ignorance or political arrogance although I think it may actually be a combination of the two. Chris Bishop: It's both.ERICA STANFORD: It's both. This may be about political survival for the Labour Party but the reality is this is about actual survival for New Zealanders because one of the health targets that this Government is dropping is the emergency department wait times which saved 700 lives around this country last year. So while David Clark might think that this target is a perverse outcome I'd like him to take that vision to one of the 700 New Zealanders who are still alive today because of those targets and run that by them and see what they say.I almost feel sorry for Clare Curran—almost. That poor woman has to uphold the virtues of open and transparent Government in a climate of murky opaqueness because when it comes to measures and standards that hold these Ministers to account well it's all a little bit too hard.One of the measures that they cannot escape is the next election. I wonder if they'll set a target for that or if it will just be about the vibe of winning. Either way they're in trouble. But more importantly New Zealanders are in trouble if this is how they're going to continue."