Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Well that was a bold speech from a Minister who will not be the Minister for Local Government come 12 months' time.Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Scuttlebutt.CHRIS BISHOP: Oh Scuttlebutt" she says. She's heard the rumours too. We've all heard the rumours about what's going to happen. We've heard the rumours that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta is going to be moved on from local government and three waters is dead. I'll tell you why: because that Minister has done more to fracture the relationship between central government and local government than any local government Minister in the last 30 years since local government reforms led by Michael Bassett in 1989. They are in open revolt at that Minister's poor handling of the three waters situation. So she's heard the rumours. We've all heard the rumours. But we've got her on the record: "Three waters is still happening." Let's wait and see whether or not that happens or not.I want to start by acknowledging a couple of groups of people. Firstly I want to acknowledge the Grounded Kiwis because in a couple of weeks' time there's a court case coming before the High Court led by Alexandra Birt and Kiwis abroad. One of the most regrettable things about the last two years of this pandemic has been the insularity that New Zealand has adopted as an approach to the world. The Prime Minister talks about a team of 5 million but there's 6 million New Zealanders—a million abroad. The Grounded Kiwis have taken a court case to the High Court in order to challenge the legality of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). That court case is going to be very interesting. We now have finally seen some movements from the Government—they've been dragged kicking and screaming to it—to end the lottery of human misery that is MIQ. And frankly that can't come soon enough. So I just want to give a shout-out to all the Kiwis abroad who have had to suffer through the MIQ system. Some members of the House will have seen the Kiwis in London at the Waitangi Day pub crawl which is frankly not something that I necessarily approve of but many of them dressed up in the old MIQ lottery T-shirts and jerseys poking fun in a very Kiwi way—very irreverent Kiwi way—at the lottery of human misery.Secondly can I acknowledge the split migrant families because forgotten in all of the announcements last week by the Prime Minister was the shameful fact that yet again migrant families here in New Zealand working in our hospitals working in our rest homes working around the country keeping us going through COVID have been left out in the cold again—again. The Government can wipe their hands of them and say "Oh well we'll sort them out later." But these are a group of people who have moved here to New Zealand to work in our sometimes critical industries and the Government has consciously deliberately split them apart from their families abroad. Can't say that it's inadvertent anymore. There have been petitions and protests on the forecourt of Parliament. There have been exhortations made to Ministers. There have been meetings. So let it be recorded in the House that this Government that preaches the mantra of kindness and compassion this Government has made a deliberate malevolent and malicious policy choice to make sure that families who have moved here in good faith can be split apart from their families. Even though we're doing the immigration reset and even though we're ending MIQ there's no solution in sight for the split migrant families.One of the interesting things about the Prime Minister's speech was the downgrade in ambition from just four years ago because this Government was elected with huge ambitions—transformational policy agenda. You go back and read that Speech from the Throne. It's inspirational almost if you believe in Labour Party policies—"We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We've going to transform the country." It's interesting how the level of ambition has diminished over time. Now it's just "We'll make progress." "We're setting ourselves to work on—" and "The direction of travel is this—".Nowhere is that more apparent than in housing because very interesting stats released last night by Statistics New Zealand: average rents—median rents—up 50 bucks a week in the last year—$50. In Lower Hutt my area average rents in Lower Hutt are up $200 a week in four years—200 bucks a week. That is $10000 a year for the average family: $375 a week in October 2017 now $575 a week in December 2021. The average house in Lower Hutt is a million bucks—$1 million. When I became an MP you could buy a house in Wainuiōmata—good solid suburb—for $280000 $300000. Houses in Wainuiōmata now go for over $850000. I see the MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti there who represents that area; she knows what I'm talking about. In Wainuiōmata 850000 900000 bucks. There are in Lower Hutt 588 families on the social housing register. That is up from 200. It's 200 more than there should be but it has trebled in four years. There are children growing up in motels in the Hutt Valley—children growing up in motels. The Government will say "Yep. We inherited a bad situation." That's true. But things are not better; they are demonstrably worse. They are going backwards not forwards.Interesting piece of rebuttal to the Prime Minister. In her speech she said that Kāinga Ora built 2432 houses last year. That's true. Guess what though! Two thousand four hundred and thirty-seven were demolished. So what's the net increase? Negative five—negative five. So yep the Government built 2500 homes give or take last year. They also demolished 2500 homes. So there's no net increase in social housing. So let's put aside this myth driven by the Government that they're going on this massive building spree; that is not correct. So we're going to have to grapple with this housing crisis not only in the Hutt Valley but the wider country and the Government has no answers to it. MPs on the Government benches know it because they represent areas where they see it. They see average houses at a million bucks. They see that the average house price-to-income ratio is now over eight 8½ nine—the worst in the developed world.There are three things that are clear about this Government. The first is that they think good intentions are enough. As long as you care the most that that results in better policy outcomes. We know from the last four years that's not true. Good intentions don't drive good outcomes; they just drive empathy basically. That's about it. I've got good intentions but it's the policies that matter and the delivery that matters.Second thing is: they think press releases are enough because there's 57 people who have been housed through the progressive home ownership scheme and I reckon there'd be 57 press releases issued on it—57 people in a thing that was announced in a the Speech from the Throne in 2017. This is four years ago we got that in the Speech from the Throne and we've had endless press releases about it. Press releases about petrol prices press releases about welfare working groups. Remember when the Prime Minister used to stand up and say "Kiwis are being fleeced at the pump and I'm going to sort it out." We got endless studies and a Commerce Commission market inquiry and things like that. Now when you go down to the petrol station the petrol prices are three bucks. Now that's not wholly the Prime Minister's fault but the critical point is this: don't make promises you can't deliver and wave around good intentions.The third thing about this Government is they think money is always the answer. They think spending money—more money—is always the answer taxing and spending. We know that that's not true because if it was true KiwiBuild would have worked. It didn't. If it was true light rail would have happened by now. It hasn't; it's gone backwards. If it was true there'd be fewer kids growing up in poverty than there were four years ago and the number's gone up not down. So we've had a 68 percent increase in Government spending in just five years and we've ended up with 90000 more people on a main benefit. Go figure.Finally I want to comment on rapid antigen tests. The Government spent most of last year banning rapid antigen tests. They didn't allow people to import them into the country. They were rightly castigated for that in the Government's own expert review not only by Sir Brian Roche but by Professor Murdoch as well. And then they got around to ordering them late. We've had the unedifying spectacle in the last two weeks or so of the Government basically nicking rapid tests ordered by the—Hon Member: Not true.CHRIS BISHOP: Well the Minister says that's not true. It's totally correct. The Government admits this—Dr Bloomfield said that. They said "We've consolidated them."—in other words: "We've seized them." "We've consolidated them all together and we've collated the forward orders." Here's the point: there are private companies out there that did the right thing and got ahead of the game and ordered rapid tests who don't have rapid tests anymore because the Government's got them. That is the critical take-home point. So the Government was late to the party on rapid tests—[Time expired]"