Key John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Key John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7505. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2013 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament 
. What a good strong start it has been for the National-led Government has it not? What a cracker of a start—full of energy and full of new ideas ready here to continue the 4 years of solid work and progress we have seen in the past. It is not even February and we have had a Cabinet reshuffle 14000 new apprentices to be hired over the next 5 years under the new programme of New Zealand Apprenticeships warrant of fitness changes that will support every New Zealander around the country and positive movement in the Crown accounts and business confidence is up. No wonder—no wonder—the first political poll of the year has seen National on the rise. 
Then there is Labour—some things just stay the same do they not? Let us be honest. David Cunliffe remains about as popular in the Labour caucus as a pussycat at Gareth Morgan’s house. So here is a bit of fresh thinking and new ideas for Mr Shearer: get Mr Cunliffe a bell. At least next time you will see him coming when the cue comes. As for Mr Shearer—well he had 6 weeks on the beach did he not? For 6 weeks we did not hear a peep out of him and I am tempted to say that when he came back there was not one single idea—not one. But actually wait there was an idea. The idea was that the harebrained idea Labour had announced 3 months ago that it was going to build New Zealanders a four-bedroom home in Auckland for under $300000 was a con. That is what it was. He worked it out. 
So anyway rest assured there is nothing to worry about for Labour though because I read in the paper this week that now Mr Shearer is a man of style. It is style over substance apparently. Mind you when you have no policies you have no ideas and after 6 weeks of thinking on the beach you cannot come up with anything then reading an autocue to the party faithful in Wainuiomata on Sunday afternoon is style and no wonder you get points for it. I am a little surprised though that they did not have a theme song or these days actually David Shearer’s theme song—they should have piped him in to Talking Heads’ favourite little number “Burning Down the House” because that is exactly what happened to the $300000 house that was never going to be built. “Talking heads” is right when it comes to Labour and the Greens. That is what they do. They do that well—they talk. But when it comes to solutions when it comes to action and when it comes to results it is the National-led Government that delivers those for New Zealanders. 
Let us start with the international environment. Let us put a bit of context into what we face in 2013. Those situations that the world faces continue to be difficult. So yes the fiscal cliff has not yet been resolved for the United States. That has been pushed another 7 weeks into the future or another couple of months into the future. But that issue has not been resolved. When it comes to European growth that remains weak and will in all probability remain weak. When it comes to global growth that remains weak. We saw the IMF downgrading global growth in the papers just a few days ago. But New Zealand remains strong and New Zealand looks to grow at about 2.5 percent according to Treasury and the Reserve Bank—stronger than the entire euro area stronger than the United Kingdom stronger than Japan and stronger than Canada. Out of adversity comes opportunity. As we look to Christchurch that is an area where $30 billion will be spent over the course of the next few years. It is likely to add about 0.7 percent of GDP. 
 On this side of the House where we have ideas and where we have plans and where big success is not just stumbling over the autocue we have four key priorities. No. 1 is responsibly managing the Government’s finances. That means living within your means. That means New Zealand earning a living. That means being sensible with taxpayers’ money. The second is building a more competitive and productive economy so that New Zealand businesses can flourish and grow and hire people from one end of the country to the other. It is about delivering better public services so that those services that New Zealanders rely on can be in better shape for them. Finally it is about supporting the rebuild of Christchurch. 
This Government has done what no other Government before it has done and that is set firm measurable results. That means actually measuring up for the things that are important to New Zealand and being accountable for them and we have ten challenges we have identified. They are serious challenges that previous Governments including the 9-year Labour Government hopelessly failed on. They include reducing the number of long-term beneficiaries in New Zealand. It is about increasing support for and caring about kids in New Zealand to make sure that they are in early childhood education that they have rheumatic fever programmes available to them or that they are immunised. It is about making sure that more youngsters get National Certificate in Educational Achievement level 2. It is about reducing crime—even though this Government has delivered a 30-year low in the crime rate in this country. It is about embracing the digital world. 
Let us go back to getting back to surplus. On this side of the House we know that when it comes to spending Labour and the Greens are the Usain Bolt of spending. They are the world champions when it comes to spending. Nothing has changed and they will continue given half a chance to do it again. They cannot help themselves. Every time they open their mouths they either get it wrong or they spend money they do not have. Those are the only answers they have got. This is a Government that actually has New Zealand on track to get back to surplus and that is something to be proud of. It takes responsible management it takes trade-offs it takes sticking to modest spending allowances and it takes making tough decisions. But all of those things are important for the future growth of our country and all of those things about responsible spending programmes are absolutely necessary if we are not going to laden up a future generation of New Zealanders with more and more debt. We look around the world and we can see plenty of examples of countries that want to follow the Labour-Green prescription for their economy. There are plenty of them and now they cannot afford the things they want. Now they are up to their eyeballs in debt. Make no mistake. It would be no different. If Russel Norman thinks that printing money is the answer to New Zealand’s problems then that just shows you how out of touch they are with everyday New Zealanders who have been saving like this Government. 
Secondly we are committed to building new assets in this country without debt and subject to the Supreme Court ruling of course in a few days’ time the mixed-ownership model programme is on track for 2013. That will see New Zealanders with an opportunity to invest in important assets. That will see a deepening of the capital markets and it will see an improvement in oversight for those companies. 
We are committed to continuing to improve the productivity and efficiency of the economy and again I go back to the plan that was rolled out last year the six pillars of business growth which are working. So let us just have a look at how they are working because yesterday in the charade that was organised by the Labour Party the Greens and New Zealand First HamiltonJet turned up and said that high exchange rates are hurting its business. Well that is true. High exchange rates in countries from Australia to Brazil and right around the world do get affected when the exchange rates go up and that is an issue that New Zealand businesses have had to contend with as well. But this is the interesting bit. This is what HamiltonJet told them but they did not want to tell the public. They said they could survive with a New Zealand - US exchange rate of 75c. Why is that? Because this is a Government that has undertaken tax reform in the last 4 years labour market reform in the last 4 years and Resource Management Act reform. This is a Government that has tackled local government it has tackled the size of spending in central government it has got on top of red tape it has signed more trade deals and it has listened to business. Yes the exchange rate is high but what would happen under a Labour Government? This is the answer: more debt more spending interest rates up more bureaucracy and more red tape. You never find the words “less bureaucracy less red tape and reform of the important parts of the economy” coming from Labour and the Greens. What you hear of is more spending and more pressure on those businesses. 
Innovation is critically important to our economy. This Government does something about it. The Callaghan Innovation centre is being rolled out in three centres across the country in 2013—in Auckland obviously in the Hutt and in Christchurch. The National Science Challenges will demand answers and give answers to the critical issues that our businesses face. More university funding a Government that has been putting money into the Primary Growth Partnership and the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases—that is what happens under innovation and science when it is appropriately funded and properly looked after. 
When it comes to training this is a Government that actually trains people as opposed to spending money and getting absolutely no results and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. That is why on Friday I announced along with Steven Joyce 14000 additional— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How many? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I announced 14000 additional apprenticeships over the next 4 or 5 years and money and incentives for those who sign up—$1000 or $2000 if they are going into the construction sector—and for their employer to take them on along with the 4000 places that are in the trades academies and services academies this year or the 8200 fees-free places in Youth Guarantee or the 700 additional Government-funded engineering places around the country. 
 This is a Government that wants to build infrastructure. That is not something that you will be hearing from Labour and the Greens. So yes we have got a public-private partnership starting in terms of my electorate in the Hobsonville Primary School this year we are going to have a prison built in Wiri in the years ahead and we are going to have $12 billion worth of roads built over the course of the next decade under a National-led Government. If you are in a car and there is a rush of blood to the head and Labour and the Greens do get there you had better like your radio station because you will spend a long time in a traffic jam because the first thing that will be gone with those people are the roads. You will be on a road to nowhere with a car not moving. You need to build infrastructure. Ultra-fast broadband—we support it they are opposed. This year 300000 businesses and homes will be connected to ultra-fast broadband. There will be 1300 schools and 30 hospitals with fibre right to the gate. Labour says no; the National Party says yes. There are 100000 rural homes—they do not care about them on the Labour side—that are going to be connected up with access to faster broadband. In 2013 we will complete the digital switch-over. When it comes to infrastructure $18 million was announced last week to go into irrigation. Labour and the Greens say that they do not care. They do not want irrigation. Tell that to the farmers who were on TV in the Hawke’s Bay last night and see what they think of that. While we are at it—the Skycity convention centre let us get that thing off the ground and going as well. 
When it comes to housing that is not a new debate. I am sorry I hate to break it to David Shearer but actually people have been worrying about housing ever since men moved out of caves years ago. The thing that makes housing affordable in this country is what this Government is doing: keeping interest rates low reforming the planning system— 
Hon Member 
: It’s a lot of rubbish. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Making sure that there are greenfield and brownfield developments—and that is it. They think it is a load of rubbish to have more land have cheap interest rates have a proper planning system and train more people. No their answer is to borrow money and promise people you will sell them a house for under $300000 and by the way when they wake up boomfa! It is a one-bedroom bedsit in the central business district. Well that is Labour for you—it is all an optical illusion. We will be clearing up those issues. 
Let us move to education. This is a Government that cares about education. If Labour wants the fight on education bring it on because this Government has more kids getting National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 more kids in early childhood education and more Maori and Pacific kids achieving. This is a Government that is not afraid to take on the digital challenges in the modern 21st century. This is a Government that is not afraid to say yes to national standards—yes of course we want to measure monitor and report to parents what kids are doing. In 2013 we are committed to better results and better information and making sure our parents have the information. You see this is the interesting thing: Labour and the Greens what do they say when it comes to air quality and water quality? They want to measure monitor and report on it but when it comes to kids’ education it is see no evil hear no evil speak no evil. That is the problem is it not? That is the problem when it comes to that. 
In welfare reform this year there are three new benefit categories greater work obligations and building expectations that if you can work you should work—that is what is in the lifeblood of New Zealanders. When it comes to health talk is cheap. We saw it from Labour for years—lots of money and no delivery. This is a Government that has added 30000 additional elective surgical operations in the 4 years we have been here and there are more to come more money for rheumatic fever programmes the roll-out this year of the Youth Mental Health Project and more money for doctors and nurses. 
When it comes to delivery of the 59 Treaty of Waitangi settlements that have taken place 33 have occurred already in the last 4 years under this Government. What a busy Government this has been. 
I could go on as there is so much to talk about but let us just get to this one final point. During the course of 2013 this busy committed well-structured National Government will deliver lots of solutions to the country and every single one of them will be opposed by Labour and the Greens because this is the way it goes. Tax reform that delivered great change incentives to New Zealand to get ahead? They are opposed. Major roads in New Zealand so people can get around and our buses and cars and people can get there? They are opposed. A free-trade agreement with the United States of America worth $2 billion to our economy? Metiria Turei the Greens and Labour—they are opposed. Resource Management Act reform to make things go fast in this country? They are opposed. Giving young people a chance to get a job through 90-day trial periods? They are opposed. The starting out wage? We introduced it; they are opposed. Work obligations for beneficiaries so it is fair for both everyone and the system? They are opposed. Oil and gas exploration so that our kids do not have to go and work in Western Australia? They are opposed. The International Convention Centre? They are opposed.  
Hobbit 
 legislation? They are opposed. You see they are opposed to everything because they only know one thing: spend money. Cheque-book activism—that is it. They are out there to spend your money—well more importantly spend your money that you do not have to promise you things that will not turn up. 
Under a National Government the $550000 house will be delivered to you on time. A good economy and jobs and opportunities will be delivered. Under Labour it is all one big optical illusion. No wonder David Cunliffe is out there getting a bell. He needs to put it round his neck because when they all wake up and realise that what David Shearer said on Sunday was absolutely zippo other than that he got it wrong 3 months ago boy the knives will be out.