Little Andrew: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9301. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): If Paula Bennett was ever worried that her interests in the leadership of the party were under threat from that member then those worries were put to bed very firmly this afternoon. She has got good chances. It is very rich for Judith Collins to be talking about the surnames of Chinese people. There is a Chinese surname we want to know very urgently and that is the name of the Chinese border official whom she had dinner with when she was acting in the best interests of her husband’s company when she travelled—Mr SPEAKER: Order!ANDREW LITTLE: —to China just 2 years ago. The woman who has the most studied career in conflicts of interest and how to breach them—well that is Judith Collins. That is the returning Minister of Police.It is of course absolutely fitting that Judith Collins should be given the job of sorting out the gangs because she has destroyed the Family Court in one fell swoop. Why should she not be given the job of sorting out the gangs? If she could do to gangs what she has done to the Family Court life would be a lot better for a lot more people. New Zealanders do not ask a great deal in life. We are people with simple ambitions and aspirations.One of those aspirations is a decent job—a decently paid job. Frittering around on a minimum wage of $15.25 is not enough. Having a regime where you can have an employment agreement that requires you to turn up to work with no specification of hours is not good enough which is why Labour’s position is very clear. We do not support zero-hour contracts and we will not support the Employment Standards Legislation Bill when it comes back to the House if it does not remove any provision for zero-hour contracts. That is our position.The promise for New Zealand and New Zealanders is pretty simple: if you work hard you should be able to get ahead and that includes owning your own home. Far too many New Zealanders are now being shut out of that pretty basic opportunity which was once an ordinary expectation of every New Zealander. Those hopes those dreams that basic dream of owning your own home is slipping away from far too many New Zealanders. We have the lowest level of homeownership since 1951 and we now have those people aged between 20 and 40 years of age at the lowest level of homeownership having slipped from 50 percent just 20 years ago to now just 20 percent.Young people because of student debts and the burden of student debt simply cannot get ahead. That is why dealing with the student-debt burden issue is so important and Labour’s 3 years of free tertiary or post-school education is so vital to address that issue along with many others. We must give young New Zealanders a chance to get ahead. We see in the news today that student debt is now at $15 billion—$15 billion—and that far too many young New Zealanders are labouring under that burden. That has an effect on homeownership; it has an effect on the ability to start a family and get ahead in life. Well it has got to come to an end.The right including the National Party and its consiglieres and the commentariat has a new device it is trotting out now—that when it is on the back foot when it is on the ropes it accuses us of politicising things. So when we reasonably raise the issues that two-thirds of New Zealanders are concerned about like the flag referendum being a waste of money and going nowhere we get accused of politicising the issue. It completely forgets that it was Cabinet—John Key and his Cabinet—that overturned the cross-party agreement on how to conduct the referendum including that basic question: “Do you want to change the flag?”. That is politicisation—that is politicisation.And then when it comes to our drug-buying agency which refuses to entertain the idea of buying a new drug that will address one of the most common forms of cancer in New Zealand melanoma which sees New Zealanders dying at the rate of one a day it says that we are just politicising the issue. It is a political issue. It is a political issue when our drug-buying agency is unresponsive to the needs of New Zealanders. And it is a political issue when our Minister of Health fails to see that issue as well. The Labour Party stands on the side of New Zealanders and we will fight for New Zealanders and their right to pursue the basic Kiwi Dream which is so important.