Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I'm very pleased to speak to this debate on the Prime Minister's statement. I think that due to the National Government's capable and experienced leadership of Prime Ministers John Key and Bill English and due to the stable Government during those nine years this Labour coalition Government inherited a strong and resilient country. It had a rapidly growing economy. It had strong trading relationships and a stable Government with clear Better Public Services targets and strong and successful social investment programmes. During the National years I think the people of New Zealand grew to expect that level of commitment and competence from their Government and I think that in their minds they banked what National delivered as business as usual and expected it just to continue automatically with a change of the Government.So how disappointed they must be—how deeply disappointed they must be. I do accept that the Labour coalition Government is full of good intentions and is keen to do things right but New Zealanders know that economic stability underpins the resourcing of every Government service every social programme and every opportunity for the future.This Government only pays lip service to disciplined economic management and during this time in office has been diverted from the things that really matter most to New Zealanders. They've forgotten to focus on the really tough all-important stuff that delivers efficient and effective Government and quality services for New Zealanders and what we're seeing as a result is the lack of their financial experience and expertise.Right now our economy is slowing our growth rate is dropping the creation of jobs is stagnating and our essential relationships with our important trading partners are suffering. So there's no wonder that the Prime Minister in her statement is proclaiming that 2019 is the year of delivery but I can't help think that that too is just well-intentioned wishful thinking. We all want to deliver.I think about it and I really wouldn't want to be a courier in her delivery van because what would I be delivering? How many new houses will KiwiBuild really build? Are we sure that they're not going to be just rebranded cannibalised from the private sector? How many of them will sell? How much will rents go up—another $50 $60 $70 a week? How many more strikes will we have to put up with? How much more inconvenience? How much more loss of productivity because of them? How many more advisory committees working groups and expert panels are we going to be paying for? But far more importantly with lower growth and the slowing of job creation—and we're already down from 10000 a month to less than 1000—how many more New Zealanders are going to be unemployed or underemployed?Now I've been around long enough to see several economic downturns and my heart really goes out to those who may be laid off or made redundant but worse still are those who go to work every day in a small business without making any money worrying about how they're going to pay the wages on Thursday and that they might actually end up losing everything. And what's the spin-off of all of this? The spin-off is devastating for our young people. How will they get jobs to underpin their futures when we already have the highest number of young people that are not in education not in employment or not in training already? So Prime Minister you have to get the basics right. New Zealanders are desperately awaiting any form of delivery.Now I listened with interest to the new Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration and how she talked about Christchurch. I agree with her that after eight years and all the work that was done by the National Government and the people of Christchurch everything that we've done since 2010 and 2011 is now paying off. If you haven't visited Christchurch recently I invite you to come there. We have a modern people-friendly and vibrant city and it's beautiful.Over the last fabulous summer we've had thousands of local people Greater Christchurch people New Zealand visitors and international tourists coming to enjoy our city. We are the gateway to the South Island and more and more people are coming through that door. They're coming to admire and to use our new and restored facilities: our heritage buildings our arts centre and our new modern structures. They're fabulous. They're coming to walk along the Avon-Ōtākaro promenade and we're going to have the lantern festival there this weekend. They come to admire and pay respects to our earthquake memorial and to enjoy our new latest exciting additions to the city such as a world-class library—Tūranga—and also our new state-of-the-art technology Hoyts EntX theatre.Our city is becoming more and more diverse and alive and we've had fabulous events over the summer. We've had the old buskers' festival in January and we've just had the Indian Holi festival. Of course the lantern festival is coming around in the next few days and thousands of people over the last weekend or so have enjoyed the noodle markets in Hagley Park. Christchurch is the vibrant modern city that we envisaged when the blueprint for the rebuild was developed back in 2012 and I can only encourage the new Minister to get on with making the last decisions about the last anchor projects. We still have the metro sports and the new multi-use arena and stadium to be completed. Sadly I have to say that we've had very little progress since the change of Government but I know that the Minister does want to change that.I also agree with my colleague the Hon Tim Macindoe who spoke just a few minutes ago that everyone in this House has aspiration and good intention for New Zealand and New Zealanders. But as I've said before intentions are not good enough. To deliver the aspiration for New Zealanders this Labour coalition Government needs to be absolutely committed this Labour coalition Government needs to be competent and this Labour coalition Government needs to take action. Finally we want some of those aspirations delivered and we hope this Government will get on with it. Thank you Mr Speaker.