Robertson GrantADDRESS IN REPLYDebate resumed from 14 November.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): What a pleasure it is to rise for the first time in this Parliament to give a speech and to acknowledge this side of the House which has developed a Government that is based on true MMP principles. One of the great lessons of this election campaign is that parties who campaign in the modern political environment need to understand that it is a majority of seats in this House that decides who a Government is not a party with a born-to-rule mentality who think no matter what they should be in Government. On this side of the House we are committed to an MMP-based Parliament one that recognises the skills and talents of all the people in the three parties that make up this Government.Before I go on in this contribution I want to make reference to what I think was a situation where this Parliament in the last term—actually in the term before—upheld the true principles of MMP and that was when we passed the marriage equality legislation which had support from right across the House. Members may or may not be aware that Australia in its plebiscite has voted 61 percent in favour of marriage equality. I look forward to our friends across the Ditch catching up with us.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Another whack on Australia.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: When we look at the words that appear—there's Gerry Brownlee Gerry Brownlee who was sent across to Canberra to send a message to Julie Bishop and he lost it in his lunchbox. He couldn't find it when he got Canberra to say anything. This Government this Parliament and our leader Jacinda Ardern are prepared to stand up on the world stage for the values and principles that we believe in. We will do that Mr Brownlee and we'll do it with Australia but we'll never back down from our principles for political expediency.When you look at the coalition agreement with New Zealand First and the confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party that the Labour Party has signed up to there is a common piece of language that I want to read out. I'm sure you'll indulge me to read this because I think it's important because it shows what this Government will be about—and this appears in both agreements: Together we will work to provide New Zealand with a transformational government committed to resolving the greatest long-term challenges for the country including sustainable economic development increased exports and decent jobs paying higher wages a healthy environment a fair society and good government. We will reduce inequality and poverty and improve the well-being of all New Zealanders and the environment [that] we live in." That is—Mr SPEAKER: "Fewer" not "less" I hope.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed it's all signed up now Mr Speaker so grammatical problems will have to be part of what we deal with. But that shared commitment between these three parties is what will guide this Government. If there was one lesson I took from the election campaign regardless of who New Zealanders voted for it was that they had come to see that the gap between those who have the most in our society and those who have the least has grown too large. Everywhere I went in New Zealand and my colleagues around the country went we heard that this was not the New Zealand that people wanted to live in. New Zealanders want to see their neighbours flourish they want to see their communities grow and work together and under the last Government we saw nine years of selfishness and individualism being promoted. We saw nine years of the worst excesses of global capitalism being visited on the most vulnerable people in New Zealand and the time for that has ended.This will be a Government that defines itself on how we include New Zealanders not how we exclude them and that means to start with the most vulnerable New Zealanders who the previous Government saw as collateral damage on the way to numbers on their spreadsheet. So no New Zealander will have to put up with knowing that we have the worst homelessness in the OECD under this Government because we want to include every New Zealander in the basic right to shelter—the basic right to a warm dry home. I'm incredibly proud that one of the first pieces of legislation that will come forward from this Government and be passed in this House will actually be modern standards for rental properties because whether you own a house or you are renting a house you deserve to live in a warm dry home. And we will eliminate homelessness over the terms that this Government will have.We will also include the people of our regions and on this I do want to pay tribute to the New Zealand First Party for bringing to the table their advocacy for the regions of New Zealand. No matter where you live in this country you should know that there's the opportunity for a decent job. If we just leave it to the market that will not happen but if we support the innovative people in our regions if we plant the trees and if we build the rail lines then there will be the opportunity for decent work throughout our regions. Unfortunately the previous Government believed that it would just happen—that if Steven Joyce produced a glossy brochure this would suddenly grow jobs in our regions. On this side of the House we know that the route to growing those jobs is investment and partnership between central government local government business and iwi and we are committed to that partnership.Not only will this be a Government of inclusion; it will be a Government of aspiration. Once upon a time we were told by the National Party that there was a brighter future ahead that they believed in New Zealanders. But over nine years they gave up and Bill English said the Government had reached the limit of what it could do. Well on this side of the House we do not believe that. We believe that the Government can be a partner in those regions of New Zealand and can be a partner in growing a sustainable economy. We will do this and we will manage the books carefully.I want to say today that one of the things that we are rapidly discovering in Government is that Mr Joyce was trying to make out that there was some kind of problem emerging with the amount of money that was available for capital expenditure. Well I can say this to members in the House: we have set aside in our Budget the investment that is needed to build our rail network to ensure that we have a new hospital in Dunedin and to ensure that we make sure that we rebuild the schools that the previous Government has neglected. What they did not tell New Zealanders—what they did not tell New Zealanders—was that in trying to look like they were going to pay down debt they took that money away from the schools and the hospitals and the infrastructure that we need. When it comes time to put out the Budget figures in this House we will see that this Government is committed to investing in infrastructure where that Government was not in the past.It is time for New Zealand to measure our success in different ways. We need to grow a strong economy. We need there to be activity that we measure through GDP. But much more than that we need to measure ourselves on the things that we will improve and change in New Zealand and that will be a reduction in child poverty that will be an improvement in the quality of our rivers and that will be an increase in the number of people who live in warm dry homes. We are not content to measure ourselves by how the wealthiest New Zealanders do; we will measure ourselves by how we lift the well-being and living standards of every single New Zealander. I will be proud to be a Minister of Finance who stands up at Budget time and delivers on our Budget responsibility rules and delivers on our fiscal plan but also stands up—Hon Dr Nick Smith: You're sticking to your numbers.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —and says that we will lift living standards and—we will measure ourselves on how the most vulnerable are lifted up. Nick Smith starts talking about numbers. This is the man who couldn't even add up the number of houses that he wanted to build. He couldn't even get there. On this side of the House we know that what matters most to New Zealanders is the quality of life for them and their families. That can be measured in a number of different ways and we will commit to making sure that those measures are public and that we are transparent about them.Mr Speaker this will be a Government of inclusion. This will be a Government of aspiration. This will be a Government of sustainable development. It will be a Government built on the best of New Zealanders' efforts and it will be built on the three parties that make up this coalition. We understand on this side of the House that MMP and the voters who voted for MMP wanted to see New Zealanders work together. We will do that and we will deliver a country that is better and fairer."