Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Leadership and impact in the 21st century—what does that look like? We have a US President acting like an Apprentice" in his own country. We have Britain withdrawing from the European Union without it appears fully understanding the impact. We have a North Korean leader playing with his arsenal of missiles. We have conflicts in Syria Sudan and Iraq to name but a few. The world needs stability. It needs understanding it needs compassion and above all it needs peace. What does leadership look like in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2017? We have a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots resulting in increasing levels of poverty and homelessness. We have more and more Kiwis becoming renters in their own country. We have elderly Kiwis getting denied operations after waiting months and months on the waiting list. Aotearoa New Zealand needs stability needs understanding and above all needs compassion.Today the Government announced its Better Public Services targets. In my years in the public service setting the benchmark from the time you are in Government to the time you are voted out is really important. It is a way of measuring your success when you are on the treasury benches. I have been in this House and I have heard Ministers on that side of the House say we cannot develop targets when showing that we are reducing child poverty. I have heard that. I have heard it said that it is too difficult and that there are too many complexities around reducing the child poverty levels that this country is bearing.So I say to the Government across the benches there that we need to have targets that comprehensively say they are reducing child poverty and poverty in the whānau. We must have targets that say we are going to build more homes to address the homelessness that we have got in this country and the renters in our own country. We should have targets that say that we are going to invest in our district health boards so we can address the many who need the operations be they old or young. Yet what we heard today is again tinkering on the sides from this Government. It continues to tinker and not address the hardships that many Kiwis in this country are dealing with.I want to turn to the comments that the Minister made around the devastation in Edgecumbe. I too want to acknowledge Ngāti Awa particularly the people of Ruaihona Marae in Te Teko. Like many of my colleagues here in the Labour Party we visited Edgecumbe and got down with the volunteers. I want to say Minister Flavell that they are passionate about remaining in this space. Ngāti Awa are really clear that they want to remain in the relief part because they have some ideas around housing. They have some ideas around better public services for the many displaced families of Edgecumbe. So I want to encourage the Minister to meet with those people in Ruaihona the marae there in Te Teko. I also want to join with the Minister's comments about acknowledging the Ngāti Awa Volunteer Army which was very instrumental.I turn back to my opening point about leadership. There is no leadership under this Government. There has been no sense of reality and no understanding—certainly no compassion—over the course of this year and under the current Prime Minister Bill English.What I want to offer is Labour's commitment to caring under Andrew Little to ensuring that we have a better stable Government in New Zealand Aotearoa and to ensuring that we have policies that meet the needs of understand and are compassionate to the many Kiwis who are suffering around this country. In September the people will make that decision: which Government is going to produce the policies that show that there is a Government that cares? That is Labour and that is what will happen in September this year."