O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Madam Speaker thank you very much. Just following on from that previous speaker Stuart Smith firstly congratulations for your position. Yes we do appreciate the farmers—50 percent increase in export revenue in the primary sector when we were in office through COVID and many other challenges. Thank you very much.Can I just say we were supposed to have a Speech from the Throne that was back on track. Well there's one excess word there. It should be backtrack". If anyone rides a motorbike or maybe just a push bike you'll find that actually it's all about balance: rights and responsibilities—a bit like us in the community or as a family or as a Government—the balance between rights and responsibilities. If you're going forward it all works. If you stop only the very skilled or the very lucky can stay upright and survive. If you want to go backwards it's virtually impossible to maintain things. So I put to you let's get moving forward and we might make some progress. This is a backtrack Speech from the Throne from a backtrack Government.Let's go through and look at some of the things that they're talking about because most of it's taking stuff back not putting stuff in or moving us forward at all. There is quite an extensive list of things. We've had reference there of course to the Onslow project. The concern there about Onslow from the electricity companies that were half privatised by the previous National Government is that actually this is a lever to keep electricity prices down in the long term. Yes it's expensive. Yes a lot of work is still to be done but just tossing it out is handing to the existing electricity generators and gen-tailers monopoly monopsony rights to make super-profits—and we'll wait and see."We're going to cut public sector expenditure including consultants and contractors." Very interesting. In fact the ACT Party and the Taxpayers' Union brought out someone saying that the 29 percent—or might be about 30 percent now—is way below that in the UK under a Conservative Government of 49 percent. Forty nine percent of GDP is spent through the public sector. We're actually in a pretty good position as he said."We're going to take away funding from the maintenance of roads and put it into 12 new roads of National Party significance." We saw that before. What happened when we came into Government? We had suffered underfunding in road maintenance because the previous National Government had increased the weight of trucks and had a sweat-the-assets campaign that resulted in underfunding and a degradation of our roading network that continues today in spite of the huge amount of increasing money that we in Government put on.There's going to be a removal—again this is the backtrack Government—of the Clean Car Discount at a time when we're seeing rapid growth of hybrids. In fact you know what? The Ford Ranger now is coming out as a hybrid.Tangi Utikere: Really?Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Yes. And the farmers will be taking that up I am sure. In fact what we're doing—and I spoke to a Ford executive in the US that said "Please be consistent with your policies when it comes to this area." They will be alarmed at what this incoming Government is going to backtrack on and indeed may stop producing cars for our right-hand drive market. That's the backtracking that we're seeing.Repeal of the Water Services Entities Act 2022—already we have councils around the country saying "Well these are the rate rises you're going to face." That's because Government will step back. The National - ACT - New Zealand First coalition has offered no support and no idea how they're going to support councils to put in place vital water infrastructure that each and every New Zealander needs. Nothing.Significant natural areas—"Oh yeah we'll get rid of those. What do we need those for? Biodiversity. What's biodiversity?" Actually if it comes to our biological systems it's about pollination. It's about biodiversity in a natural environment that more and more people around the world are demanding because they want to see their food production systems and they want to see the environment in which they live in a better and healthier system.But there's one of course—you know there'll be a ban on gang patches. Really interesting. How will you tell who are gangs? What will you say to the Ulysses Club? A bunch of guys get together have a patch on—are you going to ban them? Are we going to ban people in rugby clubs who might have a patch on the back of their jersey? I'll wait and see what happens in that area.We are in an unfortunate situation: having been through a number of challenges having invested in infrastructure having some amazing progress in all areas of society we now have a backtrack Government. There's a couple of things moving forward. Let's look at one of the things that are moving forward: it's a memorandum of understanding with the Waikato University to think about and investigate a medical school. Hon Members: Yeah that's right.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Oh really? A very good investment by Waikato University in Steven Joyce—$1 million paid to him over three years. Well isn't that a great investment of taxpayers' money to Steven Joyce to lobby for a medical school that has been investigated and in fact is just not viable because of the scale. But anyway we'll wait and see what happens there.But can I come back to the one that our spokesperson on health gave a great speech on—one of the things—and that is the amendments to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Outrageous. Do you know what the landlords have got? It's a new saying: "Puff away and pay our way."—puff away and pay our way because that misery from emphysema and cancer that as an Associate Minister of Health in the past I was helping to reduce has now been reversed by tobacco lobbyists and by money people who want to pay less tax and pay for it through the misery of people who take up smoking. That is outrageous unethical and it's a measure of the backtrack Government that we now have in place.We've got the disestablishing Te Pūkenga. When we came in actually Tai Poutini Polytech on the West Coast was broke. We had to step up. We wrote out a cheque for $35 million just to keep them afloat and in fact there were other polytechs up and down this country—up and down this country—that were going broke. The model had failed and so what we attempted to do was bring some alignment and some economies of scale. Te Pūkenga's only just starting. It's not perfect and indeed it's going to be gone. Let's see us go back to the failed dysfunctional disjointed polytech model that we have. That's what this Government will do.They're going to set five major targets for the health system including for wait times and cancer treatment. Amazing. Well all I say is: let's see you be honest because last time those waiting lists were manipulated so the figures looked great but the patients didn't.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Careful—careful.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: We have put a considerable amount of money into the health system and it's not perfect—no one would claim that; health is a bottomless pit. But can I tell you that I'm sure that this incoming backtrack Government will not make the progress that we've tried to make particularly in the difficult areas of healthcare. I'll wait and see. I'm happy to be in this House in 2½ years' time making judgment on the performance of this incoming Government.I'm proud to have been part of a Labour and Labour coalition Government over a six-year period. We had to address major issues of infrastructure. They're going to set up an infrastructure agency now—well I wonder if it's funded. Oh they'll start to set it up. Let's see what happens on the ground because the big ideological approach that people should pay less tax is the one that leaves this country a huge hole and deficit in infrastructure as we're seeing as we've seen in transport as we've seen in water care. We don't even have any idea from this Government as to how they're going to work through with local councils with local government to relieve them of the burden of the ongoing infrastructural development this country needs. We will keep this backtrack Government honest if we can. It's going to be almost impossible and all I say to the media who might be watching is "follow the money." Just do an analysis in a few months' time of where the donations came from who donated and what resultant policies have come into this House."