Brownlee Gerry: AdjournmentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Adjournment[Sitting date: 31 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19815. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery):Every one of those members applauding there was simply slapping his or her face to try to wake up. I want to begin my contribution this afternoon by acknowledging you Mr Speaker for your work over the last 2½ years in the Chair. I think it has been a very very good time for Parliament in no small way due to the way in which you have allowed the proceedings here to be conducted. I want to add to that thanks to the Clerk’s Office: Mary Harris Debbie Angus and the rest of the team who do that work. For the sake of time can I simply say that I agree with the long list that has previously been mentioned by all speakers here today and thank those in this complex who try their very best to make our lives a little easier including my own ministerial staff who work very long hours—as do they all—to make sure we are in a good space all the time.I was very alarmed when I heard that comment from the Rt Hon Winston Peters when he said he had personal knowledge that people were going to vote away from National. Well I need to inform him that we have not counted on his vote for quite some years. His personal knowledge may be useful for him but comes as no news to us. Further on the suggestion that there is anybody out there putting rumours about that there are discussions between parties about future coalition arrangements that engage New Zealand First I want to confirm that I have heard no such rumour I have started no such rumour and I want no such result.I think that the point I would like to make as we go into this election and what this afternoon has shown very clearly so far is that the message our opponents are taking out to voters is incredibly negative—incredibly negative. When you think about what it is like for people to go about their daily lives and to do all the things they have to do to make their own lives good for them their families and everybody they are associated with there are things that create struggle every now and then. There are things that get on top of people occasionally. But most people know that that is part of run-of-the-mill life. What they want to see is a Government that actually pictures a horizon for them that has a positive effect on their lives.You have only got to look at the way in which wages in this country have risen over the last 6 years the way in which bureaucracy in this country has refocused itself on doing things that make life easier for people and so many other areas of Government activity. Health care is now more accessible to many New Zealanders than it has been in the past. Education is seeing more young people in training than we have ever seen in this country before. These are positive things that voters look to and know about.The great Norman Kirk once said there are four things people look to. One of them is personal security. In this country crime statistics being down and the presence of our police in our communities in such a positive way are also part of that positive message that people get about the way they can live their lives under a Government that wants to support them to do that.When you get the sort of message we got from the Green Party today—that sad dismal horrible sort of view of life that says that only a Green influence in Government can be used to change it—people are not going to listen to that. I want to say this to the Green Party: I have been in this House for quite a time. The attitude of New Zealanders towards all things environmental towards all things related to conservation has changed immensely—it has changed immensely. All of the initiatives around recycling the way in which we deal with the atmosphere our air quality our water quality—you keep naming it and I will keep telling you that the Greens have never been part of any of that because they always sit on the outside criticising and telling everyone how bad it all is.We got that again today. Every river apparently is so damn filthy you cannot get near them and all farmers are huge polluters. They talk about the pollution economy. They forget that it will be the income that comes out of this economy that will allow some of the changes that need to be made to make the environmental improvements they seek.Voters do not really connect to that negative message. They have no interest in that negative message. I cannot imagine what it would be like to go down to one of the hall meetings that will be held over the next 7 weeks and to see the Green members the Mana members and the Labour members all sitting there saying “We’re it—the great triumvirate the trinity of Government in New Zealand in the next 3 years. How bad is it and how bad does it have to get for our message to finally sink in?”. People are just going to say they are not interested.Sue Moroney: Do you reckon?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: They are over there and they are laughing—they are laughing. Sue Moroney is laughing because frankly she has never had a meeting of more than 20 people and even then they had been asking to come along and deselect her. I think that the clear and stark difference in the campaign that is coming is that the National Party has a positive message about the future of New Zealand and the Labour Party and all of its cohorts have a very very negative message about what is wrong with the country. In the end people know that if there is a criticism of this country it is a criticism that is levelled at its people. That is a political message that people will not listen or connect to.Then of course there is the fact that you can back it up with some of the great statistics that are out there at the present time. We keep on hearing “Let’s raise the minimum wage.” Well this Government has raised the minimum wage consistently regularly and frequently to get it to the level it is now $14.25. None of us over here would say that that is as good as it can get but our record shows that it is continually increasing. Labour goes out and says “Right we’re going to make it $16.80 and then we’re going to take it up over time to $18.”—or whatever figure it likes.We have a very low level of unemployment in this country. We have that low level of unemployment because there are jobs people are able to get into the job market and they are able to make a start. When they become valuable workers in their workplaces they do get wage rises. They do get moved up the ladder. It does not matter how much the Labour Party the Green Party and Mana want to say that that is not true; it is. “Jobs first” has to be the call. I want to suggest to those New Zealand First members over there that that is just common sense. A quick look at the number of new jobs that have come into our economy starts to tell the story—172000 new jobs inside the last 6 years.The projections for an economy that is growing the way this is at the moment give a huge amount of hope that all people in this country will be doing better as we move forward. That is the essence of what a Government is supposed to do. It is telling that our emigration statistics now are starting to look in a positive direction. Every criticism that was out there around that at the time of the last election has been dissipated by the reality of what has actually happened.As many will know I have a great deal to do with the Government’s involvement in Christchurch. It has been extensive it has been unstinting and it has been generous not because we want to get any result for the Government but because we know that it is what New Zealanders expect us to do as a Government. I think that the situation in Christchurch is turning for the better. It has been tough on people. It has not been easy and there is still a long way to go but there are a couple of things I would point to.Firstly we had this week the Labour Party spokesman going out and saying we were way behind the housing target for New Zealand. I explained to him that if he looked fully at the statistics that were in the Land Use Recovery Plan he would realise that he was talking about a figure out to 2021. Well he did not seem to want to take that on board so I put information out to him saying we had a target for the current 3 years and are running well ahead of that. He did not want to take that on board. He said it was just me making it up. Then today we had Statistics New Zealand coming out and saying that since 2010 there have been over 6000 new houses built in the Christchurch area. That is running massively ahead of what could be expected at this point. Then there is all of the central business district where we are seeing a lot of activity.What is interesting in Christchurch are the high levels of employment and the fantastic engagement of people. We are living in a stressed environment—no question about that—but people are doing it they are doing it for themselves and they are following the lead from the Government. All we have got from our opponents is the idea that we create some sort of super-committee that might be able to do things in their view a little better. It will not because people make better choices for themselves. This Government is about choice. We have delivered on everything we said we would do and we are very confident in going to tell that story to the people of New Zealand over the next 7 weeks.