Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look I rise to take a call on this Prime Minister's statement and I want to begin with a quote. The back of this quote is in response actually to the Hon Shane Jones by Walter Cronkite: Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy it is democracy." My second quote is actually by our Prime Minister: "Around the world democratic values and institutions are under threat in a way that many of us … expected to see in our lifetimes." I think it is appalling and it is one of the first times in my parliamentary career that I am ashamed of this Parliament—we are aware of covert photos being taken of journalists and it is appalling that the Prime Minister will not actually call her Deputy Prime Minister into line. I would acknowledge that we are about to celebrate 150 years of our press gallery and my point to the Parliament would be: if we do not stand up for some of those press at a time like this where at the highest level that can be considered intimidation then who will? On this side of the House we do stand for freedom of the press. My plea to the Prime Minister is to say something do something on this issue do it for a country that is proud of our democratic record that gave women the right to vote—first in the world. And actually freedom of the press does matter Shane Jones and we will stand up for freedom of the press on this side of the House.We heard from the Prime Minister a lot of hype and in fact I want to respond to the Hon Grant Robertson's comments around overhype and mirages. Well if we look at every single area of this Government there is hype and mirages. If we take our economy again we saw the Prime Minister trying to rewrite history. We were a Government that left the country in surplus. We dealt with the global financial recession we dealt with the Canterbury earthquakes and we left the country in surplus.And then we look at our economic indicators. And you know what Grant Robertson? They do matter. They matter in the stories that we hear across this side of the House in the stories of those people in South Auckland who are paying more for their fuel as a result of the Government's fuel tax. They matter in the stories of other people across New Zealand whose median rents have gone up some commentators estimate by an average of $55. They matter when we hear from the chair of ACC today who has said that we have major increases in levies coming. Again under a National Government cost of living was lower because we managed to keep those accounts in order.They matter when we talk about the area of infrastructure. This is a Government that manages to put up a whole lot of mirages. The reality is under our Government we saw Waterview we saw Victoria Park Tunnel we saw the City Rail Link (CRL) announced. This is a Government where we've got CRL 15 months delayed we've had roads cancelled and then they have the nerve—they have the nerve—two years later to try and announce a $12 billion infrastructure package of which a range of things and a range of communities have been basically postponed for two years.This is a Government in the area of housing that again put up a mirage of 100000 houses to be built via KiwiBuild. How many were delivered? About 300. So again it's a Government that talks massive but breaks a whole lot of promises.Let's go to the area of education. We were a Government that increased our education budget every single year that we were in office. This is a Government that now talks about the fact that under the last Government there were overcrowded schools. That is correct. But what we saw on the front page of the New Zealand Herald the other day was 700 schools over capacity. So for a Government gifted the best opportunities of a generation we have seen overcrowding in classrooms. And again what are we seeing? We're seeing shifts and we're seeing drops in educational achievement. We're also seeing huge promises not delivered in education. There are over 50 promises not delivered in education. Where are the free devices Chris Hipkins? Where is the 100 percent qualified ratio in early childhood? Where is career advice for every child? Again the litany of broken promises continues despite all of the gifts of a generation that were left this Government by the last National Government?In the area of health in the area of public services one of the reasons why it is hard to get a picture to cut through those mirages on this side of the House is because this Government scrapped the Better Public Service targets. But here are some figures in health that I'm sure every New Zealander would want to know. What do we know? In the last eight months we've got $230 million more in deficits. What do we know? We know that there's 6000 less elective surgeries happening in New Zealand compared to the last year. What do we know in the infrastructure and transport area? Well again the Hon Simon Bridges listed a litany of projects that were promised but that are now not being delivered as a result of this Government. We haven't even got on to the Prime Minister's audacious promise in Auckland around light rail because we know that that project hasn't actually even started. Again it's another flagship promise that has completely been broken.What do we know in other areas? Well what we know is that this is a Government with very low standards around its Ministers. And I do want to acknowledge that if you look under Prime Minister Ardern's leadership not only have we seen ministerial resignations but we saw a major resignation around the area of open Government. We've also seen the Labour Party sex scandal. And now we have seen as I mentioned before at the outset of my speech a new low an absolutely new low in our Parliament that the Prime Minister—and I'm looking at Chlöe Swarbrick right now: where are the Greens on the issue of freedom of the press? Where are the Greens? The reality is the Deputy Prime Minister has admitted to being involved in covert photographs of the press. If it had happened on this side of the House the level of anxiety the level of speaking up would have been completely different.So this is a Government that was handed the best conditions of a generation. We were the comeback country. We had taken a country that was staring down a decade of deficits into surplus. We've seen huge improvements in a number of areas such as Māori and Pasifika education achievement. Now in every major area we have business confidence tanking. We've slipped in terms of our economic performance to being I think the seventh worst in terms of the OECD. We've seen our health and education indicators going backwards. We've seen a litany of broken promises. We've seen some extraordinary flagship programmes fall from KiwiBuild: from 100000 houses to 300 houses; from light rail: not even started. We've seen incompetence at the infrastructure level like never before and the fact that the journalists are somehow clapping when Labour are turning up announcing projects that have been delayed for two years is pretty extraordinary.We've seen in the area of law and order gang activity like never before. And what do we get from the Prime Minister? A complete lack of leadership around Ministers. What I get from a number of New Zealanders who come up to me is that they say just like Grant Robertson said at the outset of his speech: they expected there would be additional investments in people they expected to see less children in poverty but we know that there's more. They expected to see less people necessarily in welfare and in hardship. But we know that there's tens of thousands more. We know on a number of the major social indicators around our most vulnerable life is worse under Labour and we know that as well because our economy is getting worse so we have less opportunities to be able to pay for the kinds of public services that New Zealand needs. We needed a Government that was going to show leadership but in every single area—in the economy in health in education in infrastructure on the basic issue of freedom of press that you would expect the Labour Government to step up and stand up for our democracy—they were missing in action. And I'll tell you what Grant Robertson that's what I call a mirage. This is the most overhyped Government in a generation and National looks forward to taking office in September to lead a Government that will not only improve our economy improve our public services will reduce crime but will ensure that New Zealanders have a better life and we will also stand up for the freedom of press in our democracy."