Martin Tracey: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is subject to correctionMartin Tracey: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8878. Text is subject to correction.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I welcome you and everybody else back to the House. I wish you all a happy New Year as for many of us this has been the first opportunity to gather together again. Many of us are not just returning to work; we are returning to Parliament. It has been an interesting start to the year. For myself I came back to work on 6 January to my office at Warkworth where case after case after case walked into my office because there seems to be some difficulty with members of the public actually gaining some action from many of the Government MPs. It seems to be that if your problem does not quite fit the policy direction of the National Government then your local representative is not necessarily going to stand up for you. I think that is a problem we have got happening.Paul Foster-Bell: That’s not true.TRACEY MARTIN: That is a problem we have got happening in our democracy Mr Foster-Bell.Paul Foster-Bell: It’s not true here in Wellington.TRACEY MARTIN: It is true where I am Mr Foster-Bell and many of the other electorate offices of New Zealand First are finding the same thing. Members of the public in our areas are going to see their sitting MPs and are being declined assistance. It shocks and horrifies us. I am assuming that it is not the case with all MPs who sit on the Government benches but I am telling you that it is becoming more and more common—people coming into my office tell me—and it is something that we need to address in this country. We are all paid no matter what party we are with to help the people of New Zealand when they have an issue with a Government department and I would hope that no matter what the politics are of any person who walks into any MP’s office they will not be declined assistance merely because the assistance they need may not fit a certain box that is the policy of the current Government.One of the other reasons why I am looking forward to 2016 is that as deputy leader Ron Mark outlined in his contribution New Zealand First has a particularly strong caucus currently—a particularly strong and cohesive caucus. Unlike the members of the National Party backbench the New Zealand First caucus members have several portfolios each and every single portfolio they have they work hard to make sure that they are up to date upskilled and ready to take every opportunity to make sure that they hold this Government to account. In every portfolio area the New Zealand First caucus members hold this Government to account.I do not know where the quote came from but there is a quote and I am sure it is by some very famous politician and it says that when the opposition in a debate starts shouting personal insults it is because they have lost all political argument. I think that what we can see in contribution after contribution—and you will probably see it in the National members’ contributions after I sit down—is that it becomes a personal attack. That is because they know that this Government is losing its grip.We saw it at Waitangi. We saw it in a Prime Minister who decided to celebrate our national day by going to a sports game instead of attending a service anywhere—anywhere—in this country. He could have gone to a commemorative service on 6 February but he chose not to. He chose to go nowhere but to a football match. This is the gentleman who leads our country and supposedly represents the whole of the nation. Although I totally accept that mixed messages and confusion were given to him up at Waitangi and he chose not to goon 5 February why on earth on the 6th did he choose not to take part in any service anywhere to acknowledge the Treaty in the history of this country? It exists. It was signed. It is his place to acknowledge it but he chose to go nowhere.I think that is an indication New Zealand that this Government is losing its grip. Northland was a beautiful indication last year that this Government is losing its grip. This Government misread Northland so much that it thought it could dazzle Northlanders. After 70 years of National Party MPs being their representatives and getting absolutely jack—nothing—they drove up there in Crown car after Crown car after Crown car thinking they could bedazzle Northland. Northland was not bedazzled—and it is spreading. I think that is really interesting—it is spreading. In region after region starting in the north and moving down this Government is losing its grip.We had Mr Joyce go up there after 70 years as I said of a National Party MP representing the north and within months of the Rt Hon Winston Peters becoming the representative for Northland Mr Joyce is up there with a 58-point plan. There is no funding behind it but there is a 58-point plan to deliver for Northland. Is it not odd that none of the other National Party MPs who represented them for so long for decades was able to get that? But the Rt Hon Winston Peters within months managed to make sure that this Government got the message that Northland has been so neglected that it needs to be looked at.The Rt Hon John Key likes to make jokes. I think it is a sort of urban type of a joke really an inner - city slicker joke that the Rt Hon Winston Peters does not spend much time in his electorate. Mr Key opens himself up to criticism because of course he never goes anywhere near Helensville. He does one public meeting closed to people during an election year and the rest of the time they never see him. However Mr Peters and New Zealand First has offices in Warkworth in Dargaville in Kerikeri in Kaitāia and in Whangarei—[Interruption] and Government members hate it. They hate it. Here we go New Zealand. The move is coming down. Northland is the flagship for the country and next will be Whangarei. [Interruption] Next will be Whangarei Mr Reti and then down into Rodney. Then down into Rodney Mr Mitchell and on we go down the country—on we go down the country.There have been some other things that have been very interesting and I am going to look forward to them. Whangaruru school—I am looking forward to seeing how this Minister the Minister of Education creates commercial negotiations to get back a farm that cost millions upon millions of dollars of New Zealand taxpayers’ money after she signed a contract that had no clause in it stating that if it failed taxpayers would get their assets back. Commercial negotiations are now being entered into by lawyers and the Ministry of Education to try to recoup what anybody reading a contract that they were paying for with other people’s money might have made sure there was a clause about. This smacks of Novopay—it smacks of Novopay and the same Minister signed off on Novopay.What is it about this Minister and contracts? What is it about this Government and contracts that it does not seem to realise that if the contract fails it should have an out clause? Figure out how to get out just as well as figuring out how to jump in. It is not the Government’s money. It is the New Zealand public’s money. There must be a way back.I was pleased at the select committee this morning that the Ministry of Education was able to outline quite clearly that the statements that the Minister has made that the Whangaruru school assets would go through the disposal process just as those of State schools would is a farcical erroneous statement—absolutely erroneous and it is misleading. It misleads all parties. So I am pleased that the Ministry of Education was able to clarify that today. I will be looking forward to the Budget the 2016-17 Budget—Rt Hon John Key: It’s going to be a cracker. It’s going to be an absolute cracker.TRACEY MARTIN: —because Mr Key there was a member’s bill supported by the National Government that promised a budget to come in in 2017-18 for grandparents raising grandchildren. Mr Key looks a bit confused; perhaps we will talk to Paula about it later. But it is about clothing allowances for orphans and unsupported children. This Budget 2016-17 should show the 4-year projections going on—going on—and that will show whether this Government will keep its word for those grandchildren.Rt Hon John Key: We will.TRACEY MARTIN: I hope so Mr Key because it is worthy and I hope so but I will be watching for that in this Budget.There are so many other things that are very interesting. I am looking forward to the flag referendum because I am looking forward to Mr Key realising that the country never asked for it the country does not want it it will lose and $26 million of taxpayers’ money will be gone on a flag referendum. I am looking forward to that and I am looking forward to seeing how affordable education will become in New Zealand if this Minister finally gets something right around education.