Hayes Jo; Rurawhe AdrianJO HAYES (National): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker and as this is my first contribution in the House today I just want to wish everybody a happy New Year—to fellow members and also to staff. This is a very special week this week in Parliament. We have a visit from the Fijian members of Parliament and they all happen to be women and so I send out a very warm welcome to them. Also in Wellington we have the big kapa haka festival Te Matatini ki te Ao. That is an amazing event that will bring many many Māori to the capital. I just wanted to open my speech with a little bit of salutation around those two events that are happening here in Wellington because back to the business of the Prime Minister's statement it's been very disappointing actually the offerings from this Government so far. The Budget last year let us have a look at that. Māori got a hit there. We got absolutely—well I can't say bugger all" but hardly any money in our Vote Māori. Māori education took a hit. Our partnership schools were wiped out Aspire Scholarships and now we have the Tomorrow's Schools review which isn't going down that well with many principals and parents. It's abysmal I say.Then of course we've got Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora—it was promised in the 2017 election that there would be $20 million set aside for that of which nothing came from that. There was absolutely nothing. And what happened? There was a Whānau Ora review a Whānau Ora review that actually was completed and submitted—I know it was submitted—to the Minister in October of last year and yet it seems from my sources that the review report will most probably and it's just speculation be released tomorrow—tomorrow—when we have the opening the pōwhiri for Te Matatini. What a time to release a report that has many whānau hanging on the edge of their seats wondering what future they will have under a Whānau Ora programme. Since the Government's been in place I've been hard pushed to see any value that this Government has made towards Whānau Ora let alone hear the words "Whānau Ora" muttered by those Cabinet members that are supposed to be representing Māori. Where are you? You've gone missing. You are only there—I'm sorry Mr Assistant Speaker; I don't mean to bring you into my debate. However what's happened is that I'm getting feedback off the ground that the only time that they see Cabinet Ministers from this Labour-led coalition Government is when there is a ribbon to cut an award to give but when it is hard-hitting things like "Where is the Whānau Ora report? What is happening to Whānau Ora?" where are they? Nowhere—and I get asked where they are and I say "I'm not even in the coalition Government. Come on." But anyway—so I am disappointed so much hullabaloo around the number of Māori MPs in the coalition Government and yet nobody's doing anything. Nobody's fronting up to the hard things. I think that when it comes to treating the Māori vote as something that should be always on the left side I think that when push comes to shove Māori voters will have the last say and it may not be that good in 2020 for those that rely on that vote because to treat Māori like the way that they're currently being treated is terrible. It is absolutely terrible.Hon Willie Jackson: Ha ha!JO HAYES: You can laugh. Laugh away. Laugh away Willie but I can tell you now: the very people that the Minister sits there and laughs about are the very people that are telling me that they are disappointed in the performance of the Māori Cabinet Ministers. That's terrible.Unemployment—let's look at unemployment. Unemployment was in here—the Government was going on about how good the numbers are but hey the numbers went up. They've gone up. Unemployment is rising and it's not good for this country to have unemployment rising. Business confidence is down. We hear about it all the time: it's down. If business confidence goes down that affects employment. The very things that people depend on that feed into the welfare system—that feed into the welfare system that pays the unemployed—are benefits so they can actually find work for themselves an interim measure. So if we had business confidence going we have landlords that are getting hit with all sorts of pieces of legislation that is making it difficult for them to keep their houses available for tenants. So who wears it? It will be the tenant who will get a raised rent because someone has to pay. And I think this coalition Government does not get it. They are not listening and that is the most telling thing when it comes to Budgets and the Prime Minister's statement. Relationships with other countries—let's look at China. That's been on the front page of the newspapers. It's been in the news. It's been everywhere. So why is this Government not making better efforts to improve that relationship with China? Why? What's going on? We do rely on China. They're one of our biggest export countries. We also need to be reminded that whilst National did all the hard work around the first free-trade agreement (FTA) with China it was actually a Clark-led Labour Government that signed the FTA. We need to understand that; we need to remember that. Yet this is a Government that is turning their back on China and the impacts that will have on export. Already we've seen in the news Sanford Sanford fisheries loaded with export goods and they can't offload into China. They can't offload on to China. So you know when we start to look at tourism for instance—the number of Chinese that were predicted to come here to New Zealand that may not come here now because of the way that this Government is treating the Chinese Government—it's terrible. Will they do it to other countries? Who knows. I hope that there are no racism issues in there or other areas that would actually stop China from having us as an FTA partner. I'm looking at what a strong economy can do. The farmers aren't happy. The farmers aren't happy and we know that this country was built on the backs of the hard-working labour of the farming economy the agricultural economy.Barbara Kuriger: "Labour" in the true sense of the word.JO HAYES: That's right: 'labour" in the true sense of the word Barbara Kuriger. And so when I start to look at agriculture it is still a core economic growth for this country yet farmers are getting sidelined. They're getting pushed to the very edge of their survival and that's because this Government can't get their act together and get this relationship with China sorted as well as other relationships with other countries.What will happen is that we will also see our strong education go; we'll see our strong health system just collapse. What else will we see? We will see the respect that other countries gave to New Zealand during the financial crisis for the way that we handled the economy—the way that a National-led Government handled the economy and got New Zealand ahead of the game—go at an international global level. Unfortunately that side of the House doesn't get it. It does not get it. It does not get the damage that they are doing to our reputation as New Zealand.I want to talk about a safer and just community.Hon Willie Jackson: Just sit down!JO HAYES: No I won't sit down Mr Jackson because I'll tell Mr Jackson now that I've spoken more sense in this 10 minutes that I've given than he's ever spoken in the 18 months that he has been a Minister of this Government.So we're having the big rise of those people who came home to New Zealand when there was a National-led Government and now they're leaving. They're taking their business and they're going offshore. They're leaving because they do not see a future under this Labour-led coalition Government. They do not see a future.A failed KiwiBuild project that has seen 10000 households on a waiting list for a house? Come on! If the Government cannot do the work then get out of the Government benches and give it over to this side to people who can do it to people who are willing to step in and take over and run this country back to the economic favour that it had when we were last in Government.Lastly in 40 seconds: a year of delivery? I don't think so. It seems more like a "deliver us from evil" type of statement. It is a Government that does not know how to manage this country how to grow a strong economy how to look after the environment. There are the Greens over there. How much is this coalition Government going to listen to that partner? On this side we have a strong environmental group. We have a strong plan for climate change. This is the side that will do the things that people will see we are the better managers.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."