Robertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 30 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15714. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Between massages and golf games in Hawaii John Key our Prime Minister currently watched a couple of movies. The first of those was a chance to check out his biopicThe Wolf of Wall Street. Having seen that and deciding that it was not a fair portrayal he went on to see a movie that I watched over the summer calledNow You See Me. This is a movie about a magic trick group. What the movie is about is the essence of magic which is diversion. Distract the audience with one part of your trick while with the other hand setting up the illusion. Welcome to the National Party’s election year strategy: divert divert and distract.Faced with the Labour Party’s popular Best Start policy which David Farrar has told him is polling through the roof John Key has conjured up the most pressing question of our time: should we have a new flag? My colleague David Parker calls it a flag of convenience. No need to worry about the 157000 unemployed no need to worry about the 260000 kids in poverty no need to worry about growing inequality no need to worry about the huge number of people needing elective surgery—look here we have got a new flag to show you!Well today I can exclusively reveal four of the designs that the National Party is considering for our new flag. The first of them has been proposed by John Key. However it has been rejected because there are only four John Keys and he wants six. So we move to the second flag design. This one was come up with by Tony Ryall worked hard on by the rest of the National Cabinet and agreed to by John Key himself—“New Zealand for sale”. This is a popular one among the National caucus. It has gone a long way down this path and it intends to go further. But this Government does not stop when it comes to just selling things. It wants to do deals. It wants to do entrepreneurial deals and it believes that there is money to be made in the third flag design brought to you by Skycity and complete with poker chips. But John Key will go anywhere to get back into Government and he has offered the fourth design to his likely coalition partner Colin Craig. This one will go a long way. This is Colin Craig’s design for the newNew Zealand flag—popular among many we think in the upper harbour area.That is what the National Party is offering: a distraction a diversion on flag designs. Well I say this to John Key: you cannot pay your higher mortgage with a flag. You cannot put food on the table for young kids with a flag. You cannot improve access to early childhood education with a flag. You do not create new jobs with a flag. Let us be clear. This is a Prime Minister who would not hold a referendum on asset sales alongside an election; this is a Prime Minister who would not put to the country the report of an independent group on changing our electoral system as a referendum at an election but he will put up a flag question. This is a flag of convenience and is it not ironic that the great monarchist himself John Key is the one trying to change the flag? Division spin denial—that is the National Party: out of touch arrogant and out for its mates.Well New Zealand deserves better than that and it is getting that from the Labour Party. I am proud of our Best Start policy because what it says is that investing in our children is the very best and most important thing that we can do. From day one through paid parental leave being extended to 26 weeks and through the $60 a week Best Start payment we will be making sure that children get the best start in life. We will do it before birth as well through the provision of better antenatal checks. We will do it with Plunket and others getting more involved in helping vulnerable children. We will do it by extending early childhood education. This side of the House is proud of our record on early childhood education. I want to acknowledge Trevor Mallard who was the Minister of Education when the early childhood education strategy was put in place.This National Government has let down young children. It has taken its eye off the ball in early childhood education. Labour will expand access to 25 free hours a week expanding access particularly in low-income areas and improving the quality of early childhood education through returning to having fully 100 percent qualified teachers.This has not come from nowhere. This comes from an evidence base. New Zealanders should be very grateful to all of the children born in 1972 in Dunedin who have become part of the longitudinal study—the best longitudinal study in the world—that gives us the evidence that says that making these interventions in the early years is the best thing that we can do. The Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to ChildPoverty which was set up by that Government and ignored by that Government said that we must invest in children in the early years. It quoted the OECD which said to start with a universal payment and then move to more targeting as children get older. That is what Labour has done and that is what that Government over there has ignored.You can take all of the evidence in the world or you can just look at a practical example. My granddaughter has come back from Australia to live in New Zealand and she has had the opportunity of early access to early childhood education for free in Australia. The difference it has made to her social skills to her ability to communicate—she has got that good start in life. Every New Zealand child deserves that start in life but this National Government would deny that to children in New Zealand. Here we have the criticism from National members that somehow or other a universal payment is wrong. Well are they arguing against national superannuation? No they are not. So they deny to children what they will give to our seniors in terms of universality.I must be getting a little bit old because I am starting to look back at the 1970s with some kind of nostalgic glow. In the 1970s New Zealanders said: “Let’s include people. Let’s do things that all New Zealanders benefit from. Let’s say that the community that is getting the same benefits will share those and see them as important for each other.” Part of universality is having a shared common experience. It is about saying that we are all in this together; we will all get the benefit of this. Raising kids is expensive. It puts pressure on the finances of all families. Why is this National Government so determined to exclude people? Why does it want to stop people from getting a benefit that will actually help bring up children? This Government has got principles that it wants to burn away—a sudden conversion to paid parental leave and a sudden conversion to teacher professional development having cut the funding for that in two Budgets earlier in its term. The National Government is talking about principals but they are the ones who give you detention rather than the ones that might actually come from any kind of value base.The Best Start policy is just the beginning from this Labour Party. We know that along with providing for our children we must develop a productive economy that delivers jobs not a speculators’ economy or one that works for property investors. The National Government likes to call it a “rock star” economy. Well it is a bit more Cliff Richard than it isLorde. It needs to get a modern innovative economy. Move from volume to value. Make sure those logs that sit there when I go down to the stadium do not go overseas unprocessed but actually get added value in New Zealand where we can create jobs.The Labour Party is a party built on the idea that everyone gets a fair go. We will make sure that there is opportunity for all people and give hope to all people. That starts with investing in our children. I am proud of our Best Start policy. That National Government has let children down. When Labour is elected into Government later this year we will be the party for the children of all New Zealanders.