Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): There's one good thing about the Government opposite and that is that the member who's just resumed his seat has not taken on the role of Minister of Finance because we've discovered in the last week or so that he can't tell the difference between the number one and the number 35. Chris Bishop seems to think that the outcome of the previous Government's smoke-free changes was that there would be one outlet in all of Northland selling cigarettes when in actual fact the publicly available number was 35. That tells you all you need to know about Mr Bishop's mathematical ability and sadly also about this Government.But I do want to pick up on our Mr Bishop's comments about the unique MMP three-way that we now have in front of us because I do want to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to what Mr Bishop just said about how proud he was to be part of this Government how much he shared how he was part of one entity made up of these three very very different people. Christopher Luxon hasn't seemed to quite pick that up because he's been saying with reference to utterances from the Deputy Prime Minister Well that's not me; I wouldn't say it that way necessarily." When Winston Peters calls the Public Interest Journalism Fund bribery accuses the media of accepting bribes goes on weird rants about conspiracy theories about the World Health Organization and how they're going to run New Zealand apparently Mr Luxon says "No that is not me." unlike Chris Bishop. Or when Brooke van Velden decides to incorrectly and misleadingly represent the views of Simon Upton that apparently also is not part of it.Well I've got news for Christopher Luxon: your circus your clowns. He is responsible from this day forward for every single one of the people on that side of the House and I can tell you from experience that ain't easy. To start with I don't even know what Shane Jones is saying most of the time and I don't think the National Government will be able to tell either—Hon Members: Details!Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Details! Details! But this is a three-way Government that will be the most extreme the most right-wing Government I think since at least the early 1990s in New Zealand. I've heard a lot about the country being back on track or taking back our country from parties on the other side of the House and I can say with absolute certainty they're going backwards. That's where they're going.Now they're going backwards to different places. I think Nicola Willis wants to go backwards to 1993—she wants to go back 30 years—to the last years of Ruth Richardson where the cuts to public services were deep where New Zealand communities right around the country felt the effect of a Government who didn't care a Government who cut the services that they need. That's where Nicola Willis wants to go back to. But I think probably Winston Peters wants to go back to 1983—he wants to go back 40 years—to the years of Muldoon and a monochromatic New Zealand where we didn't celebrate our diversity where we didn't actually reach out to the world and be proud of who we were where we kowtowed to those from other countries. That's where Winston Peters wants to go. I suspect David Seymour—and this might surprise him—wants to go back to 1963 which was when Milton Friedman wrote his great treatise for the right wing of the economy. So it might be 1993 it might be 1983 or it might be 1963 but what we have in front of us is a Government that wants to take New Zealanders backwards.Now I want to mention two or three areas where this happens and one of those I want to start with because I don't want to miss out on doing it and because I do want to make it a very serious point. One of the great privileges of my life has been the fact that I was fortunate to marry well—Minister Jackson knows about this one of his whanaunga—into the iwi of Ngāti Porou and one of the great joys of my life is being welcomed in to te ao Māori welcomed in to a whanaungatanga that is an exceptionally enriching experience for me and for I think a lot of the people who are around me as well. One of the things that has given me great heartache over the last week or two has been to see the way that this coalition Government have somehow managed to turn something that is unique and positive and life affirming in New Zealand into somehow being a negative. How is it that we have found ourselves as a country where we're discussing te reo Māori as if it's a bad thing? Put yourself in the shoes of a young Māori person who's hearing on the news that it's a bad thing that a Government department has a Māori name. What do you think that young person—Hon Member: What about the Pākehā kid?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —takes away from that? See I hear from the ACT members at the back "Oh what about the Pākehā kids?" They've got both names. It's a Māori name and an English name and guess what! They're both languages that are spoken in New Zealand and te reo Māori is an official language and we should be proud of it. I am deeply distressed that we are seeing a Government come forward who will make those young Māori the tamariki the rangatahi in this country feel somehow that they are second best. That is the message they are getting. Kieran McAnulty said it very well in this House last night: the problem that lot have with the Māori Health Authority isn't the last two words; it's the first word. Finally we had a Government in the last Government that's doing something about the health inequalities for Māori and this lot want to come in and take that away.I'll have more to say about these issues in the future in this Parliament but what I want to do is mihi to all of the Māori colleagues in the Labour Party and across the House and say that the Labour Party will stand up to make sure that all New Zealanders do get access to the services that they deserve do get access to being able to learn te reo Māori and are supported in their journey within te ao Māori. I think it is a great shame that something that New Zealanders have pride in—when we see the All Blacks do the haka when we sing the national anthem in both te reo Māori and English—is being undermined for political reasons by this Government.The other area which I want to mention where the Government is taking us backwards is in climate change. Climate change remains the single most important issue for New Zealand not only from an environmental perspective but also from an economic perspective. If it doesn't matter to the members opposite that we are degrading the planet and that we are leaving to our mokopuna a planet that will be less healthy for them and more dangerous for them they can just take the economic argument. If New Zealand wants to sell its goods into the world we have to be doing the right thing by our planet. Every single exporter in New Zealand knows that. That's why companies in New Zealand have been responding to when this Government has stood up and said "We want to help you reduce your emissions. We want to make sure that the products we're selling into the world genuinely are clean and green." and that reputation is at risk under this Government. The future of our exporters is at risk under this Government because they are not taking climate change seriously.The other area that I want to mention as a way in which this Government wants to take us backwards is the way in which these agreements give comment towards our gender diverse community here in New Zealand. We should be proud as a country of our diversity. We should celebrate our diversity. Now I've had problems in this House where I've heard people talk about the notion of tolerance of diversity. I don't believe in tolerating diversity; it sounds like you're putting up with it. Actually we embrace it and we celebrate it and we're a much much better country for doing that. But what is worse here is that in these agreements we're not tolerating; we're saying to those gender diverse people "We don't want you to know—and we definitely don't want your classmates to know and understand and respect—who you are." I hear a lot from the Government about things like respect and responsibilities. Well my challenge to this Government is: show some respect to the diverse people in our community. Support young people in their journey to be able to be exactly who they are because I tell you what: we'll all be the better for it. If people grow up being confident in who they are be they Māori or be they someone from our gender diverse community the rest of us benefit from that. We benefit from moving forward together not dividing ourselves up and that's what this coalition Government seems to be hell bent on doing.I am proud to be part of a Labour Party that achieved a lot over the last six years that we were in Government. There are many many issues that more work needs to be done on and we will be preparing ourselves to come back into Government and be able to do that but in the meantime we will hold this Government to account. We will make sure that they do not divide New Zealanders up and they do not drag New Zealanders backwards. So much has been achieved; we cannot afford to go backwards."