Clark David: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:71. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):First can I start by congratulating the Speaker on his reappointment and the appointment of the Deputy Speaker Chester Borrows and the Assistant Speaker Mr Tisch whom I look forward to engaging with through the parliamentary term and also acknowledging Mr Mallard’s appointment as Assistant Speaker. Also like many have done before me through the course of this debate I acknowledge those who are new to this House and welcome them here. It was just 3 short years ago that I arrived here myself and I enjoyed the respect that was paid to me and the space that was given to me to find my place here before the real robust debate began. I think that as soon as one steps over the breach and offers firm views they come back firmly too from the other side but until that point new members are generally welcomed and given the space to broaden out and make their initial contributions. I look forward to hearing those from new members engaging in the debate of ideas representing the constituents I come here to represent and hearing the views that they represent also for their constituents.Had I known when I woke up this morning that I would be delivering a speech in the Address in Reply debate today I might have dressed in something a little bit more appropriate. I am afraid that today I am like most MPs here indulging the inner wallflower. It rests within each one of us as MPs—some a little more deeply than others. Yesterday I wore a jacket to the opening formalities that was described by some as lurid and by others as having panache. I took away from that a lesson about fashion: that one person’s smart best-dressed is another person’s disco tomato.I stood here in this House very proud to wear a garment designed by someone in my own constituency of Dunedin North a local Dunedin designer Tamsin Cooper. Despite the considerable attention that it drew and the odd tongue-in-cheek request for a magazine subscription I think that the fact that Dunedin has great designers is widely acknowledged and is a point of admiration across New Zealand. The truth is though that Dunedin designers like many others in our town are struggling. They are struggling because of the hollowing-out of the middle class in our country. They are doing OK but they are doing OK—where they are doing OK—against the odds. It is not the great prosperous industry that many might think goes with the glamour of the fashion brand.When I arrived here 3 years ago I was concerned about this growing inequality—the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us. It featured strongly in my maiden speech. I discussed the reason that inequalities are both socially bad from a social justice perspective when we consider the need for every human being to have what they need to survive to live with dignity and to make their best contribution to society and also economically bad—the way in which we know that in less equal countries there are gaps where people could make opportunities but are not able to. We know that children who go to school hungry do not learn as well as they might otherwise that kids who grow up in poverty are more likely to end up in the justice system and that kids who grow up in poverty are more likely to end up focusing on earning big bikkies being hedge-fund managers rather than making a wider contribution through being neurosurgeons or philosophers.We know too that investment in infrastructure is lacking in societies that grow big gaps between rich and poor because the wealthy come to own the political system and thereby dictate where money gets spent and it tends not to get spent for the greater good in the way that it does in more equal societies. Finally we also know that in less equal societies people are less inclined to put their shoulder to the wheel because they have a sense that a special interest group be it a corporate sector or another group of society is getting a deal that they are not and everyone starts to get out for themselves.Sadly in the short time I have been in Parliament I have watched those inequalities grow. I think that inequalities no matter how much you debate how fast they are growing have been too high for too long. We see housing affordability running away. In the first 6 months of loan-to-value ratios being introduced we saw homeownership drop by 3 percent in my home town of Dunedin. Now we see a housing sell-off from this Government that will see people in need unable to get into safe and secure State housing. I raised the issue of a State housing sell-off in Dunedin in May of this year. The Minister of Housing Dr Smith described my description of the proposal to sell off one-third of the State housing in Dunedin as deliberate scaremongering by the Labour Party on the basis of outdated figures. Now we learn there is a plan to sell them all off not just one-third. Then Dr Smith said there is a huge difference between a projection and a plan. Well there clearly was a plan; it just was not one that was being spoken about before the election.This Government will be held to account on these decisions it is making now. It is beyond the point where it can say that it is the fault of a previous Government for anything that is going on. This Government will now be held to account and it will wear the decisions that it is now making in the next election.I also wanted to branch out and talk a little in the realm of inequalities about a YouTube video that I have seen recently that is by a fellow called CGP Grey. I would encourage those watching on television at home or listening on the wireless to get on the YouTube channel by CGP Grey and have a look for a video called “Humans Need Not Apply”. It has had nearly 3 million views in the 2 months that it has been online. This video makes the point that work as we know it today will not be around forever. This is not a new thesis but the video itself makes a very compelling case in 15 short minutes for rapid change in the future of work in the Western World and in fact for 45 percent of the jobs in America being on the way out in the current period—that the technologies exist to replace the human workforce by up to 45 percent in the near future.This dystopian view creates a very unsettling prospect for policy makers and politicians in the years ahead. We in this House have a responsibility to address these social changes and look to create the kind of society that is fair for everybody and that provides everybody with the opportunity to make a contribution. I do not believe that we are discussing in this House yet in the depth and detail that we ought to be how we are going to handle these changes that are not too far ahead. This short YouTube clip makes the point that horses not so long ago did a huge amount of manual labour for us human beings and that when the automobile came along they were swiftly replaced. Peak horse was early in the 20th century and it has been downhill for them since then.The changes in technology that are occurring are changes in intellectual muscle. The human brain has long thought that it could create new jobs for itself to do that would occupy a new and emerging workforce but this video presents a dystopia where that is no longer the case to the same extent. Indeed in a very short space of time we can expect many many jobs to go by the by. How then do we share the fruits of a productive society—a more efficient society no doubt—fairly to create the kind of society we would all wish to live in? I want to suggest that we in this House have a responsibility to tackle these problems. We do need to be thinking about redistribution. We need to be thinking about ideas like a basic income. We need to be considering changes in our tax system. We need to consider how it is that we can make sure that people can be rewarded for the types of labours that they might want to contribute so that we are encouraging everybody to make a contribution not letting people lose hope as they see the kinds of jobs that they have trained for disappearing rapidly from the workforce.Finally I would like to just say a word about the local election result in my part of town. It was no doubt a very disappointing result across the country. In Dunedin North I want to thank the supporters who helped with my campaign and also those people who voted Labour. Dunedin North was National’s fifth-worst result. I can only think that that is thanks to the intelligence and insight of the voters of Dunedin North and I look forward to seeing a brighter result overall for the Labour Party in the next election.