Mitchell Clayton: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: General Debate[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7220. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I am the lucky last. It is a great honour to stand up here as the last speaker in today’s general debate. I have to say that we have heard a lot of comments today about the puffery of the surplus. The Government is giving itself a big pat on the back. But the reality is that if this were a mortgage that we were paying on a house we would have made only one mortgage payment for the whole year—once in 12 months we would have managed to create enough money to pay our mortgage. And you think that that is good enough for this Government this country to be congratulating itself on? Is there something wrong Mr Bishop? You have got a face like a twisted sandshoe. Did you not quite get those numbers? A $414 million surplus and yet it costs us nearly $500 million a month just in interest payments.The policies of this Government are going down like a cup of cold sick with New Zealanders and they have had it to the back teeth with what is going on around this country. Just yesterday in question time it was quite interesting to see the body language of Steven Joyce when he was being asked questions about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He was almost like a small child hovering with his head down because he was so guilty caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. He wanted to pull his trousers over his head and vanish down his trouser leg because he did not want to get the questions asked to him by the honourable member Fletcher Tabuteau. His response though was that everything is good in the provinces and in regional New Zealand and I think he said to one of our members that if you just had a chance to go out there and speak to them you would find that they are very happy with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Well “delusional” sort of rings a bell in my head. He is either in denial or suffering from serious delusion.We did go out and ask the provinces of New Zealand and they spoke strongly against what was going on with the Trans-Pacific Partnership and many of the other policies that this Government is ramming down our throats with regard to the wholesale sell-off of our nation’s State enterprises which we have been building up over generations. Just to go through that New Zealanders came out and they voted this Government out of an electorate that it had held for over 70 years. That is the provinces and the people speaking about how disgusted they are with the direction of this Government.The big sell-off started back in 1992 when the Government sold off the BNZ bank—a bank that we are proud of that we grew as a country and that 60 percent of New Zealanders were using putting their money in feeling safe and being looked after. It sold off energy back in 1988—floated it out there on the stock exchange market for anybody to have a little bit of a fill in there. It sold off the Auckland Airport and it has handed over corrections—things that it should be looking after itself. The Government has been selling off to Serco. Now it is talking about social welfare and selling off our State houses for the most vulnerable people in our society who are living in substandard conditions. If this Government which can hardly get itself a surplus is congratulating itself for paying one mortgage payment in a year looking after the best interests of this country then the question has really got to be had.I have to say that Keith Holyoake would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what this Government was actually doing now—the National Party that stood so strong for nationalistic pride and for looking after the best interests of all New Zealanders. There is a quote by Keith Holyoake that he wanted to make a country that cherishes the opportunity and ability of homeownership and a place—a New Zealand and a nation—where everybody can have the ability and the affordability to own their own home. Well we are far from that. We cannot even get our people who are living in State houses to be looked after because we are selling the State houses off for foreign-national corporates to get their greedy mitts into.I have to say though as far as the National Party goes that what it is delivering on is corporate support. I mean it is hardly a party. Actually it could be considered to be a foreign controlled corporation. The “National Foreign Controlled Corporation” may be a more apt name for this so-called party that sits opposite us. That rings true particularly when a few months ago we had the displeasure of seeing the Cheshire grin on the Prime Minister’s face when he was high-fiving his Cabinet Ministers because—wait for it—we got dollar parity with Australia. What an absolute sublime outcome that is if for one thing you are a foreign-currency trader. But for provincial New Zealanders—the ones who are selling our primary exports around the world—that is the worst thing that we would want to see happen and here we have our Cabinet from this Government across the side here high-fiving each other and saying that this a good thing. Of course we know what happened quickly afterwards. The price of our dollar got shafted back down to where it should be and of course a lot of money was made by those people trading in currency which I can tell you right now the rank and file New Zealanders were not the receivers of.New Zealand First is a party that looks after the best interests of this country and these people and it is about time this Government the “National Corporate Controlled Organisation” put New Zealanders first. Thank you.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.