Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Madam Assistant Speaker thank you so much and I'd like to begin my contribution speaking against the Prime Minister's statement by wishing everyone a happy New Year. As has almost become a bit of a tradition I say that in my native tongue: se hae bok mani baduseyo which actually means In the New Year may you receive lots and lots of luck." So I hope you have a wonderful new year of the golden pig and I hope that everyone is well rested from our summer break and ready for a challenging year for our Government because apparently it's a year of delivery for the Government. I say "challenging" because I mean oh my goodness what a failure this Government has actually been in the last 15 months that they've been in Government. In the contribution by the Minister who just sat down Dr David Clark he tried to actually say that their focus was on the inequality the growth in poverty in terms of primary healthcare. You know apparently they're so focused and yet this Government has been an utter failure in the last 15 months of their Government in their leadership of this nation and yet they try and blame the former National Government. Do they not realise that they are in fact the Government? Fifteen months is a long time.Hon Maggie Barry: Halfway through.MELISSA LEE: It's halfway through until the next election and to actually say that this Government is so focused—let me start with what the Minister said. In terms of primary healthcare does the Minister actually know—I guess he does because he is the Minister of Health. Apparently I heard from someone who works in the Ministry of Health we are short of 1000 doctors in this country and one of the reasons why we are short of 1000 doctors in this country is because of another policy of this particular Government and that is in relation to foreigners being prevented from buying a home. "How is that in any way relevant?" you might ask. It is that foreign doctors are being recruited to come to this country to work and the reason—Kieran McAnulty: What's wrong with foreigners?MELISSA LEE: And we would love to have them Mr McAnulty but the issue is that these people are refusing to come to this country because when foreign doctors want to come to New Zealand they want to be able to buy a property for their family and actually settle in this new country of theirs but they are not allowed because they are foreigners.And let's actually get to the targets for this particular Minister who just spoke. Whatever happened to the health targets this Government is supposed to be meeting or delivering for New Zealand? They've decided that they're going to can the targets because they realise that they cannot meet the targets. Shall we actually talk about some of the other targets? I mean did anybody else actually read the Prime Minister's statement? I tried to go through some of the statements that the Prime Minister actually made. You know she talks about the intentions to make good policy and a good country. Intentions don't actually make good policy. Nor do they equate to good outcomes for New Zealanders. Intentions don't actually deliver for New Zealanders and the people that they apparently care most about—the vulnerable New Zealanders. If anybody was there at this morning's breakfast release of the State of the Nation Report by the Salvation Army—I mean this Government hasn't actually addressed the poverty issue or the social or economic inequality because apparently we are at record levels of household debt. And this is talking not about the last nine years; this is actually talking about the last year. This is a report about this Labour-led Government's performance. Offender recidivism has gone up. Alcohol drugs and gambling have gone up. The number of children in benefit-dependent homes has gone up. Child abuse and neglect have gone up. Family violence referrals have gone up. The number of NEETs—those not in education employment or training—has gone up. The number of jobseeker benefits has actually gone up. Rents have gone up by $40 for average New Zealanders who are actually renting. That makes a huge impact on their budgets. The PM talked about the well-being - focused Government. It looks like they're not so focused on the well-being of the most vulnerable people that apparently the PM and this Government care about. Unemployment increased by 10000 in the last three months—unemployment. That is ridiculous—and they're talking about a growing economy. If it's actually a growing economy and the economy is doing so much better than what they say they are then people should be getting into jobs. People should be getting into jobs so that they can actually pay for things but it seems like this Government is not telling the whole truth. They talk about wastage. Let's talk about the wastage that this Government has actually produced: the $3 billion dollar slush fund of Shane Jones. How many jobs did that actually create?Dan Bidois: 54.MELISSA LEE: Fifty-four. Dan Bidois thank you so much for reminding me of that. What about the wastage of $2 billion for free education for first-year university students? I'm sure that students who are going to university for the first time would appreciate it but the focus was supposed to have increased the number of people attending university. Did it in fact deliver that? No it didn't—no wonder. It actually delivered zero increase. Talking specifically about my own portfolio area of broadcasting and communications and digital media the Prime Minister didn't even say anything about that. I guess she's rather embarrassed about what that particular portfolio did not actually deliver. And we've had the shameful promise by the Labour Government to deliver RNZ+ actually a stand-alone TV channel for Radio New Zealand. That was going to be funded to the tune of $38 million a year. But what did we actually end up with last year? We ended up with a Minister having to resign as a result. Actually it wasn't even Radio New Zealand who got the $15 million funding; it was actually the public media. I guess Radio New Zealand plus New Zealand On Air have to split the $15 million funding that they actually got. But what's going to happen to the public media a thing that Labour was so apparently focused on? They haven't delivered. They got rid of a Minister. She didn't perform. Now we have a Minister who is seen to be a little bit confused as to where the targets are. I think we were supposed to have a spectrum auction in October or sometime around October. We don't know when that 5G spectrum auction is going to actually happen. Let's talk about the ethnic communities as well—another one in my portfolio. The director of the Office of Ethnic Communities was actually gone for—it was a job that was missing for almost a year. Nobody actually replaced the former director. It took them nearly a year and this morning at select committee I was told that they appointed someone in November—but they had a month off and actually literally just started—but that job is not a permanent appointment as a director. I mean it was a job that was left vacant for one whole year and they decide to find someone for only six months. This person's job is only for six months. They talk about the skilled migrant shortage. My goodness! It seems they are able to pay former MPs and former race relations conciliators by the Office of Ethnic Communities to go to a Safer Communities forum that the Minister for Ethnic Communities held and paid someone $5000 to facilitate. I would have done it for free but the National Party wasn't invited; only the Labour Party was actually invited it looks like. According to the minutes on one of the things that I received on our Official Information Act request the attendance list for the forum includes two persons listed as "Labour Hunua". I'm sure "National Hunua" would have wanted to attend as well. If it was specific to Hunua I'm sure every party would have wanted to go. There was also a minute from one of the meetings on the Safer Communities forum session and I quote "This table then had a staff member from the Labour ethnic communities office plug their office and that they were there to contact and could help." I think this person works for an MP's office wasn't actually from the Minister's office and claimed that this is—Kieran McAnulty: What's this got to do with the Prime Minister's statement?MELISSA LEE: What I'm actually getting to Mr McAnulty is the lack of performance. The Office of Ethnic Affairs had no director for one year and decided to appoint someone but it's not even permanent. This is the lack of performance of this Government."