Roche Denise: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: General Debate[Sitting date: 04 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7705. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): Under this National Government we have a tale of two sectors. On the one hand there is one sector that is the Government’s sweetheart—it includes companies like Serco Warner Bros Skycity and individuals like the Saudi businessman Al Ali Khalaf. Of course they are given the sweetheart deals and the sweetheart five-star treatment. On the other hand we have the Public Service and the people who provide those services such as the people who work for the Department of Conservation. About 1500 of those people are taking industrial action this week—minimal industrial action. They are working to rule simply for a pay increase and what have they been offered—0.4 percent. These are the people who are charged with protecting our precious flora and fauna who fight for our endangered species and who are working harder than ever before because of constant redundancies restructuring and funding cuts. Actually they are almost becoming an endangered species themselves.What happens when we underfund the Department of Conservation? Well we risk our “clean green” 100 percent pure reputation. The destruction of our Northland conservation estate is one example which my colleague Kevin Hague touched on yesterday during question time. He never got a straight answer from the Minister of Conservation about whether the department is using a multi-pest approach to try to conserve our wild places. That is just one example of underfunding. Another area is the use of volunteers whoare really cheap of course and it is good to have communities involved but when you have the slaying of four endangered takahē during a cull on Motutapu Island because they were mistaken for pukeko you have to question whether it actually makes financial sense.The people who work for the Public Service do so because they care about the country and they care about the people of New Zealand but that commitment is hardly recognised—and certainly not for Department of Conservation staff. Tomorrow 1000 Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment staff will also be taking industrial action. They will be going on strike. These are the people who deal with immigration and with passport control. They are the people who give advice to businesses who ring up asking for advice on minimum employment standards. They are the labour inspectors who actually enforce minimum labour standards. These are the people who are at the front of our industrial relations advice; yet these people are having to take industrial action because they too are not getting a pay increase.It is not just the lousy pay they are striking about; it is also the culture of mistrust that is so prevalent at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. I guess that is not surprising given that there has been constant restructuring in the superministry since it was formed only a few years ago. At the same time that that has been happening there has been crazy spending on things like TV screens signs hair straighteners and goodness knows what else.The chronic under-investment of public resources under the National Government is a false economy and it has done it simply for a meaningless surplus in the Budget. And that underfunding includes $1 billion missing from the health sector. It has underfunded the labour inspectorate so that we have only one labour inspector for nearly 54000 New Zealanders which is less than half of what you would get if you were in Australia. And it means that there is more exploitation of workers like the group of workers at Masala who were paid $2 an hour—and it took years to process by labour inspectors. You also get bridge collapses and maintenance short cuts at Department of Conservation sites because of that underfunding.The people who work in these places are struggling. There has been a 14 percent increase in house prices and a 4 percent increase in power pricesover the past year and wages are not keeping up. Certainly there is competition for jobs now which also forces wages down with 151000 people currently unemployed. So how would the Greens fix it? We would fix it by redirecting money from those sweetheart deals to the people who deserve it and those are the people who provide our public services.