Ardern Jacinda: General Debate 
Ardern Jacinda: General Debate 
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JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I join with the other speakers who have shared their condolences and expressed their concern for the people of Christchurch at this time. Otherwise I have heard nothing consistent coming from the Government during this debate. In fact from the last speaker Jonathan Coleman the overwhelming message I just heard was that the Government does not have a plan so “Can we hear the Opposition’s please?”. Perhaps he is willing to poach some of our ideas. We have shared plenty of them I tell Mr Groser. In particular I want to highlight the absolute denial of reality that has come from the Government during the debate today not only from Minister Coleman who stated that Labour was listening too much to the people of the beltway and not talking to real New Zealanders but also right through to Mr Groser who tried to claim that we were talking in anecdotes. 
What is anecdotal or beltway about 10 percent unemployment in Northland? What is beltway about that I ask the Government? What about the individual cases we have heard that are simply a representative cut of huge swathes of unemployed people in particular regions? We heard the story of two young men in Northland who have been desperately seeking work and have sought to upskill themselves but they are still in the dole queue. Those are the people who will not be helped by welfare reforms as the Government claimed. Those are the people who are sitting and waiting desperately for the Government’s plan which is represented by interest rates—classic trickle-down. Can the Government tell me how long it will take for those people to benefit from its trickle-down economics? How long will that take? At the moment it is not just 10 percent in Northland; 27 percent of young people are currently looking for work—27 percent. What is anecdotal about that? What is beltway about those figures? That Government is completely out of touch. 
I listened carefully to Bill English in question time today when the Opposition asked him about the cost of living. He continued to use the Government’s classic rhetoric: the success of the tax switch the sharp edges of the recession and that somehow the Government has protected the most vulnerable with its economic plan. I ask how that matches with the reality of this situation. Let us cut through the rhetoric. Let us cut through the supposed anecdote and look at the cold hard facts. Some of the people who are most vulnerable in New Zealand are those without secure housing. It is something that our spokesperson on housing talks about at great length. A large number of people in New Zealand and increasingly young people in New Zealand are dependent on rentals in order to put a roof over their heads. There has been a 32 percent increase in rentals since this Government has been in charge. That averages out to about $20 per week for the average person in Auckland where a large number of families are reliant on rental properties for their housing. That is not an anecdote; that is a cold hard fact. 
What about the impact on those other vulnerable people who are on fixed incomes? I include in that not only the elderly but also those people who for instance are trying to better themselves particularly in a recession by going back to university or into skills and trade training. Those individuals in tertiary education have experienced a 16.5 percent increase in the cost of study and that is before we even look at the increase in costs for those in our compulsory sector of education. The Government’s response to that problem has been to make it more difficult to access loans in order to survive and if someone is 55 years or older they can kiss goodbye to their opportunity to even study at all. 
What about those older people who are trying to retrain? They might have been in vulnerable job areas such as manufacturing in particular which is experiencing significant job losses because the Government will do nothing about the high dollar and as a result we are losing jobs. What about the older people in the manufacturing sector who may wish to retrain? What are the opportunities for those older people? Labour has already said—we have laid out the challenge—that the consensus on monetary policy is over. It is time to acknowledge that the high dollar is causing Kiwis to suffer. We are losing jobs because of the Government’s inaction on this question. What about other fixed costs? Power prices have increased by 10 percent over the past year.