General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGeneral Debate[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9299. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]General DebateRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. You always know when a Government is in trouble and when its polling statistics and its polling trends are giving it cause for worry. That is happening right now. This Government is looking at a flag referendum which was going to be the legacy of John Key going—well turning upside down.Tracey Martin: Down the gurgler.RON MARK: That phrase was in my mouth; I stopped it in time—going down the gurgler.We know for a fact that there is a bit of shock behind the National Party scenes because for the first time it is seeing reports that the Prime Minister is hated—hated. He has never had to deal with that. Not only is it hurting him personally but it is hurting those who sit behind him and further back on the backbenches because they are worried about their chances of re-election.The other thing that is concerning National is the rise and rise of Winston Peters and New Zealand First and the trend that National’s pollsters have already noted which the wider media has not yet seen. It is concerning National. It is not worried that the Labour Party is going nowhere but it is worried about New Zealand First. So what happened?New Zealand First in the last week before the adjournment started asking questions about gangs about the number of gang people in houses and raised questions about police resourcing and about gangs moving into areas where the police resources have dropped where police stations have closed. What did the Government answer? “It’s not happening it’s not a concern it is not a worry.” despite the fact that the police ran an escort for 180 Hell’s Angels members who drove through Rodney and stopped all the traffic—not an issue not a concern.Suddenly after the adjournment gangs are a concern. Suddenly after the adjournment the Government is going to get tough. Something tells me that the Hon Judith Collins is seeing her chance here and just like Jenny Shipley did she is stamping out her turf. I take my hat off to her.But the history—and this is where I have got to slap the media. How stupid that the media should buy into this and have it all over. Gangs are a problem? Well hello if we go back the number of reports on gangs goes back—what? Let us start at the 1979 select committee report on violent offending. Let us talk about the Roper report of 1981. Let us talk about the Justice and Law Reform Committee report back in what 1985 championed by Labour’s Mike Moore at that time. Let us talk about all the reports from Judge Mick Brown that everybody loves to quote.And where are we? Still with the same problem 40 years. What is the real history? Well in 1996 the good people of New Zealand saw fit to send New Zealand First to this House in good numbers and we did some things like bump up the police numbers—record numbers—got some laws changed with the National coalition and we did the same in 2008. But in 2006 we tried desperately to get anti-gang legislation passed to ban gangs—to ban them. Who stopped it? Actually Labour did under Annette King—would not allow us to introduce the legislation.That was based on very good legislation drafted using the South Australian example—South Australia’s Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act which went through Parliament on 21 November 2007. We used the Terrorism Suppression Act as a model and we incorporated that and we used the US Congress’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. We put it all in. Who stopped us at every turn? National and Labour. Who is now trumpeting that it is going to be the salvation and the saviour of the New Zealand public from organised crime? Well National.I will say this: back in 2009 Simon Power did do something—he passed some legislation through this House. And we saw a member’s bill go through from another National Party member on gang insignia and the bandying of it around. But back in 2008 the National Party was chastising the Labour Government for having gangs in Housing New Zealand houses and today—2016—the same thing is happening again. This would be ludicrous if it were not so tragic. This would be a comedy if it were not so sad.The fact is that both these parties are the same. They will do nothing—nothing at all—Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections): Do you know I actually quite like Ron Mark. I am very sorry to see him and my other good friend Annette King having a bit of an argument because frankly I do not know why people do not understand that Ron Mark is actually one of the nicer people in New Zealand First. He is such a good guy. He does not even want to talk about the Search and Surveillance Act that this Government got through when I was the Minister of Justice. He forgot to mention that one. Unfortunately New Zealand First and Ron Mark did not vote for it so they cannot take any credit at all for the excellent work that is now going on to help keep New Zealanders safer.But I am so pleased he has raised an issue that I want to talk about today and that is the issue of gangs in this country. My colleague Anne Tolley and I announced some measures yesterday. There is a lot of work going on with our agencies around gangs. I am going to say something that has not often been said in this Parliament and that is that gangs are bad. Gangs and their behaviours are bad and the people who suffer the most from them are not you and me Mr Speaker but actually their own families.Gang members are in fact the big perpetrators of family violence. To all these people who want to bang on about us having too many people in prison I say: “OK so stop killing kids. Stop beating up your spouse and you will not go to prison.” So it is really pretty clear and I think Ron is with me on this one: “Stop killing people and you will be fine. We will leave you alone.” So that is my message to the gangs. My message is: “We know what you are doing.” Police are working with other agencies. We have got far better powers now because of the privacy changes that have been made but also because of the Search and Surveillance Act—did I remind you that New Zealand First did not vote for that law—which is helping police in their work.Is it not great to be part of a sensible Government doing what we said we would do which is focus on social investment? Today after 7 years of a John Key - led Government New Zealand is a stronger and more prosperous country. Never before in the last 40 years have we seen more people coming from Australia to live here than leaving New Zealand to go there. And it is not just Kiwis returning back home; it is Australians coming here too.All around the world we are looking at Governments that are not stable. This is a stable Government—not like say the poor old Labour Party although it is stable in its instability if that could ever be possible. So what is it really that Labour stands for? Is Labour for free trade? Well that depends. It is for free trade with China but it does not like people with Chinese names. It is for free trade with Korea but it is not sure about them because they have got Asian names too. What else is Labour against? Oh I know what. It wants to sign up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); no it does not want to sign up to the TPP. Good on Dr David Clark because today Dr Clark actually asked a supplementary question on the TPP—the first one that we have had from the Labour Party that anyone can remember.Hon Members: No. Wrong.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Jacinda Ardern says no they have done that. Oh no they do not like that. The questions were all in the Labour caucus. “What are we going to do—what are we going to do? Phil Goff’s voting with the Government.” Well actually that is a party that is all over the place.Let us look at the flag referendum. Everyone knows my views on the flag. I am pretty wedded to the current one but do you know what? I would go with the public. I would go with whatever the result of the referendum is. The Labour Party’s own policy is to change the flag and have a flag referendum. That is its policy. What is it doing? I do not know; not supporting the Government on it. So that tells me that it is flip-flopping all over the place. Labour members are not sure. They are looking for a poll and trying to have a view. That is what we have got for our major Opposition party. No wonder New Zealand First is looking so good compared with Labour and no wonder the Greens look so good compared with it.Let us just talk about some more national security issues. Are Labour members for or against terrorism? Are they for or against the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)? Are they for or against the SIS? Are they for or against what is going on in the world at the moment?Tim Macindoe: How would you know?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: How would you know? How would we know? Would those members be the people you would want to trust with your national security? The answer is no you could not. For a start we have Andrew Little against New Zealand trainers going to Iraq—absolutely against it. He did not want to have that. He would not have a bar of it. The next thing a few minutes later “No no we want those trainers in Iraq.” Thank goodness we did not hold the plane waiting for Mr Little to agree because we would be here all day waiting for it. He also says we should now send more troops in. Well I do not know. Where is he? Has he got approval from anyone else? Has he got support from his party? Probably not.Then we have the age of entitlement for superannuation. He was musing the other day about how we would like to raise the age of entitlement to superannuation and then he saw the poll and he backtracked down. He backed away from that. So what we have in the Labour Opposition is as I said very very diverse views. No one is agreeing with anyone.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.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister for Ethnic Communities): Thank you for the opportunity to reiterate in this House just what the National Government is doing out there after 7½ years. We are back in surplus we are building a competitive economy and we are building more effective public services which the members opposite do not care about. We are also rebuilding Christchurch which is important not just to Cantabrians but to New Zealanders right across our country. So let us just focus on how we are managing the economy.This morning over 2369000 people got up and went to work—over 2.369 million people—and that is more than at any other time in our history. The most people working in this country—and that is up 1.3 percent year on year from last year. What does it mean?Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s got it wrong. Fire the speechwriter—fire the speechwriter.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: It is 5.3 percent unemployment and that unemployment level has gone down 6.7 percent year on year. Mr Mallard knows it. Mr Mallard knows it; that is why he is about to depart.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The number of Pacific people in employment is over 130700.Hon Trevor Mallard: Telling fibs again.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Thanks for staying Mr Mallard. Over 130000 Pacific people and that is the most in any time in our history too. And these are things to be celebrated. These are achievements that this National Government has done on the back of hard work clever policy making and it is done in partnership with the people of New Zealand. It is really important.Why are jobs important? Jobs are important because they support families support kids support the elderly and they keep our community strong. And that is why this Government continues to focus on jobs the economy and growth which is in contrast to the members opposite who continue to deny this country of the trade opportunities that should be available to all New Zealanders.How do I know this? Well I was visiting a company in my own electorate of Maungakiekie Custom Technology Systems a small local company hiring a few local people. They were working on integrated security systems. They are growing they are looking to expand into the United States and they are looking to export their expert services to consumers overseas and to businesses overseas. And for companies like that they want to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership signed; they want to see them hire more people—hire more New Zealanders—so that we can grow together as part of my local community. And I daresay that that is a story that will be replicated over and over again whether you are in rural provincial or urban New Zealand. We want jobs we want to grow and we want to look after our own families independently of the State.It is not just about the economics though. This is a Government that cares about New Zealanders that is compassionate about New Zealanders and that is all about investing socially in New Zealanders early and often in order that those New Zealanders can go and grow and flourish in our communities. How do we do that? Well clearly we have programmes like the Well Child checks. What has that done? It has led to immunisation of 8-month-olds increasing from under the Labour Government 84 percent up to 93 percent for our young kids. It means early childhood education—over $1.5 billion invested in our youth in our young people.National standards are the other thing. Members opposite railed against that. I know Kelvin Davis did not because he understood how important national standards are to getting performance and to getting the achievement levels of our kids raised. Kelvin Davis gets it but the rest of the Labour Party does not.It is also about front-line police. You invest in front-line police and you will see crime go down right across this country; 20 percent crime has dropped. Of course we have still got work to do and Judith Collins is doing that in the police portfolio but that is what an investment in front-line police does. Of course we know about the investment in working prisons and the drug and alcohol programmes that we put in place there in order for offenders not to reoffend or to become recidivist offenders.We know those programmes work. We know that it is about putting money up front into insulation and putting $116 million into social housing to the houses of those families that need warm and dry homes. What did the last Labour Government do? It did not put $116 million into the insulation of Housing New Zealand homes nor did it put $450 million into Warm Up New Zealand. That is a subsidy that has made warm dry homes. We are about the economy and we are about growing our jobs but we are also about caring for New Zealanders right across this country.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The speech from Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga the member who just sat down—he was throwing around figures here and numbers here and amounts there—reminds me of the old saying: “It is a truism that 62.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.” He just proved that right there and then. This Government—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I hope it is a point of order.Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: I am happy to table the figures that relate to my remarks in this House.Mr SPEAKER: So the member is seeking leave to table—Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Well I am seeking leave—I am happy to table those figures that are—Mr SPEAKER: The source of the figures and the date of the figures?Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Well they are research figures—Mr SPEAKER: No I am not putting the leave. Sorry to interrupt the speaker.KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you Mr Speaker. Obviously the nuances of that one-liner were lost on the Minister there.Look this Government is arrogant. It is out of touch. It is ignoring the big issues that face New Zealanders. When we say “arrogant” and “out of touch” we just need to present exhibit A who was sitting in the blue dress over there earlier on. Judith Collins exudes the arrogance and the out-of-touch state of this Government like nobody else we have ever seen.Look New Zealanders do not ask for much but we have a dream. And the dream is that we have a good house—a decent house; a warm safe dry house—we are able to provide for our families and we have a decent job. But this Government has made it almost impossible for that dream to be realised by anybody. Let us take a look at the warm dry home. How many people these days who are just leaving school or leaving university and are trying to get into the home market—how many of our young people really have that chance today? With the skyrocketing price of houses how many young people these days are really going to see that that dream is reachable or attainable?On the Labour side of the House we talk about providing free education—3 years’ free university education—for our people. On the other side of the House there all those members want to do is criticise and condemn that. What we are trying to do is give young New Zealanders a leg-up. I was talking to my colleague Megan Woods who said that she had a $100000 student debt and she has only just managed to pay it off—$100000. That means she has had to pay off that debt really before she can actually start saving for a house—saving for a place for herself to live in—and yet Megan is in a well-paid job and has done very well.But there are other people in New Zealand we know who do not have such great jobs because jobs in themselves are hard to find. So we want to have a place to call home. We want to be able to provide for our families. We want to be able to provide food shelter and clothing for our families. That dream is becoming harder and harder to come by. In particular we see that the minimum wage has been raised to $15.25—well something is better than nothing I must admit—but Labour was calling for a minimum wage of $15 two elections ago and only now is the Government saying that it can afford it. It said that if it was raised by another 50c 2000 jobs would be lost. Oh really? Again I say that 62.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.Then we have the zero-hour contracts campaign. You know what sort of Government does this to people? A zero-hour contract means that somebody basically has to sit at home. They cannot really go anywhere. If a family wanted to go to the beach on a Saturday afternoon for example they would plan for it but they cannot do that because they have to sit at home and hope that the phone is going to ring for work or because they think that the phone might ring but then again it might not. How can a family actually plan for quality time? How can a family actually do things together when they know that if they are on a zero-hour contract they have to sit around and wait and hope that the phone is going to ring? What sort of Government does that to its people?Zero-hour contracts—we say we are committed on these three matters. We want to remove the ability of employers to put people on contracts where they are on call but with no permanent hours. Employers should not be able to cancel shifts. Imagine somebody who is wanting to work and expecting to work and the next thing you know the shift has been cancelled. How fair is that? What sort of Government agrees to those sorts of things? And where practical hours of work should be included in the employment agreement so that people can actually plan and have some security in their lives.This Government is actually trampling on the Kiwi Dream.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): It was interesting looking at the first general debate for 2016 and watching the faces of the Labour Opposition members as their leader was speaking. I understand that Labour is going through a process of getting rid of some of its old policies that are unpopular and getting rid of some of the things that lost it the election. Well if those members are looking at things that were not working they probably need to look at the leader who cannot even get one in 10 New Zealanders to support him in the opinion polls. If they are looking for something to scrap I think they saw during that speech the first place they should look.This Government is getting on with the business. This Government is growing the economy. This Government is growing jobs for New Zealanders. We are delivering better public services for New Zealanders. We are delivering better education outcomes. We are delivering better health outcomes. We are delivering increases in the Working for Families increases in child benefits. There is a lot that this Government is doing. When New Zealanders go to the polls in 2017 they are going to ask themselves: “Can we rely on the Government that is delivering a huge amount of benefits for New Zealanders or can we rely on an Opposition party that does not even know what its position is on many issues and does not even know the policies that it thinks it wants to implement if it is in Government—an Opposition party that does not even support free trade for New Zealanders any more?”. Those are the questions that New Zealanders will be asking themselves.If we look at some of the things that the Labour Party has been presenting to New Zealanders in the past few months New Zealanders will really be questioning whether or not Labour is actually fit to govern. I think the first one we can look at is the flag referendum because New Zealanders will be getting their voting papers in the mail fairly soon. Of course not that long ago the Labour Party was all in favour of having a flag referendum and changing the flag. It was not until John Key proposed it that those members then had a flip-flop and changed their minds. It was not so long ago that the Labour Party was opposed to anything that New Zealanders should be doing in Iraq but all of a sudden Andrew Little popped up a few months ago and said that all of a sudden he wants to send SAS troops to Iraq—another flip-flop.In the past week or so we have heard the Labour Party talking about funding Keytruda and yes the Government will be looking at the health budget very carefully in the coming few months. But it was not so long ago that those members were going up and down the country with the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party saying: “Oh this is terrible. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may undermine the Pharmac model.” Well the worst thing that could happen to Pharmac is having politicians decide all of the drugs that it should be funding—Hon Annette King: Like Herceptin.JAMI-LEE ROSS: —because that is what those members are asking us to do. That is what they are asking us to do.Whilst we are on the topic of health let us just say to Annette King that nobody believes her when she says that we have underfunded health. I want to give her some numbers. The health budget that Labour left was $12.2 billion. The health budget right now is $15.9 billion. I do not know how good she is at maths but the way I look at it that is actually an increase in the budget. Nobody believes the Labour Party when it says that health has been cut when actually there are billions of dollars more going into the health budget.I also want to talk about those members’ position on free trade because it was not that long ago—actually only weeks ago—that they were saying to New Zealanders: “We are the party of free trade. We are the party that believes in getting more free trade for New Zealanders.” Well if those members really believe that they should be fronting up and supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).When they talk about the TPP they claim they have these bottom lines they wish the TPP to meet. Well the TPP actually meets every single one of their bottom lines. If they really want to be consistent they should be coming over to this side of the House into the Ayes lobby and supporting the TPP agreement. Does it include protections for Pharmac? Yes it does. Does it include the ability to restrict foreign ownership of land? Yes it does. Does it protect the Treaty of Waitangi? Yes it does. Does it result in meaningful gains for farmers? Yes it does. Most of the Trans-Pacific Partnership tariff benefits actually go to farmers and it also ensures that New Zealanders get access to 800 million customers. It ensures that we are part of a big trade agreement that gets out to 40 percent of the world’s GDP. Labour members should be supporting that. The investor-State dispute settlement provisions which they are opposed to as well are exactly what they put in the China free-trade agreement and also supported in the Korea free-trade agreement.New Zealanders want a Government that they can rely on. They are getting that under the John Key - led Government. There is absolutely no way they would ever get that with the Labour Party.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. We all know that National loves outsourcing: outsourcing public servants; outsourcing how we pay teachers; outsourcing mental health services prisons conservation State houses schooling and Child Youth and Family services; and of course outsourcing its dirty politics. Is it also now outsourcing its political attacks on the Green Party’s environmental credentials? This past weekend National’s man in Epsom David Seymour said he cared more about the environment than the Green Party did. The credibility of this argument has as much substance to it as ACT’s denialist climate policy which disappeared from the website 4 hours before the speech.National members know they cannot attack the Greens on the environment because they would get laughed out of the room. National is the party that gives grand speeches on climate change at the same time as subsidising fossil fuels and promoting coal mining. National is the party that promotes glossy 100% Pure New Zealand posters while at the same time its aspiration for our polluted rivers is wade-ability not even swimmability. What is really at stake here? It is the ancient kauri forests of Northland the rugged beaches in Raglan the golden tussocks of the Mackenzie Country and the primeval wetlands of the West Coast. New Zealanders have an emotional historical and a deep spiritual relationship with our natural environment—or what the Government calls a brand. We are seeing these places that define us in the world being flogged off degraded carved up. It is happening in front of us in broad daylight through conscious decisions Government policies and laws passed in this House.Our Māui’sdolphins are going extinct for fish and chips. Volunteers have had to don hazardous-material suits to pick up oil blobs from Bay of Plenty beaches. Our kids risk getting sick when they swim in our rivers. It is a tragedy and it is a disgrace. Our Māui’sdolphins our beaches and our rivers cannot speak for themselves lobby or donate political funds. If they could maybe they would get a hearing from this Government. It is easy for David Seymour to grandstand at Alan Gibbs’ sculpture farm and say how much he loves the environment but where was he when it really mattered? We were there with hundreds of thousands of Kiwis making history saving Lake Manapōuri. We were there on the West Coast stopping the destruction of our ancient forests. We were there marching on the front lines to protect our conservation estate from mining. Where was National? It was there but on the losing side of each of those arguments. On every step forward National has had to be dragged kicking and screaming. Then when it thinks no one is looking it tries to take us two steps backwards.The Green Party has always been a champion for the environment because it is right; not just because it polls well. We always have. We always will. For 40 years alongside countless individuals and community groups we have championed protecting the environment and we will not be lectured by those with dismal track records on the environment. We however will work with them constructively to try to improve things. From working with Labour we established the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. Working with National we insulated 235000 homes. We have successfully achieved the construction of a national cycleway and now after years of Green campaigning we are finally seeing the missing critical link of Auckland’s rail infrastructure—the central business district rail loop—started. We have saved wetlands. We have cleaned up toxic mine sites. We have achieved a ban on shark finning and we saw our campaign to create the world’s largest marine reserve around the Kermadecs come to fruition. The fact is though the work is not over and the issues are more pressing than ever.In Government we will work with farmers to protect our lakes and rivers. We will scrap the dysfunctional emissions trading scheme and drive a cleaner economy and give Kiwi businesses and Kiwi families a tax cut through our climate tax cut. We will cut the subsidies for oil drilling and we will drive a cleaner economy moving towards 100 percent renewables and making sure Kiwis get a fair deal from producing their own solar power. We know a great responsibility has been entrusted to us by the people of New Zealand: to stand up and be a champion and protector of the environment. While other parties go off and play politics and outsource responsibility we will continue to earn the trust of New Zealanders and focus on what is important: protecting the places that we all love.ALFRED NGARO (National): I can remember a time when I was at a conference and the speaker after the dinner was Gary McCormick and he was telling a story about he and Sam Hunt going on a road trip. As young boys they did this road trip. They surfed from the top of the North Island down to the bottom of the South Island. He was telling the story that when they did this road trip as older men they found a conspiracy. What it was he said was that in every town they went down to that they went through there was a roundabout. They could not believe it. They had substituted traffic lights for roundabouts. Halfway as they got down to Wellington they said: “There’s a conspiracy. The Government of the day is trying to create a conspiracy. It is creating these roundabouts so that rather than getting through a town as quickly as you can to the place you want to be you create a roundabout and people just go round and round and round.”That was the time when he said to us there at that conference that it was about time the Government of that day renamed itself the “Pull Yourself Together Party”. He said: “These guys have got to pull themselves together. They have got to stop going round and round. They have to make some decisions take away the roundabouts and get into the traffic lights.”I hasten to say that that conference was in 2006. The Government of the day that they were speaking about was the Labour Government. And here we are today—the Labour Party should actually be calling itself the “Pull Yourself Together Party”. Guy Williams has written an article about it. Why? Because at the moment Labour just keeps going round and round. It has an inability to be able to make decisions that are really important.I will take an example of one of those decisions. I am actually live on the Labour website and the big thing that it is talking about is the big Kiwi Dream. Here is what it is talking about. It is live and here it is: “We call it the Kiwi dream. It’s a home to call our own. Opportunities for everyone’s kids to succeed no matter where they live. Security and freedom to make our own choices. Pride in our independence …”.I also want to challenge those words to the Labour Party when the partnership the coalition with the ACT Party around partnership schools happened. In South Auckland—let us take Rise UP for instance. What they talked about was this: they wanted the best for their children. That is what your Kiwi Dream label says. They wanted the best opportunities for their children no matter where they lived. They lived in South Auckland but they said: “It doesn’t matter whether our kids live in Remuera or South Auckland they should have the same opportunities.” And here is the punchline. They said: “We want to be independent.”What did the Labour Party say in its press release from Mr Chris Hipkins? He said this: “If the Labour Party comes into power it will do away with partnership schools.” You can go on to your website you can talk about the Kiwi Dream but to the very people who supposedly are your heartland the people from whom you would seek support you are saying no to their kids no to their independence no to the fact that they can achieve what they want by themselves.Is it not interesting that most of those partnership school partnerships are both Māori and Pasifika providers? Why? Because they are turning round and saying this: “You want to talk about the dream?”. They want this dream. And this dream is coming as a reality not under a Labour Government but under a National Government and I have to say that under the coalition with the ACT Party that is what we are doing. We are making a difference.Let us talk about some of those results for some of those Pasifika kids. Labour members can talk about it but in 2008 the number of Pasifika students enrolled in qualifications at Bachelor’s level or higher was 8940. In 2014 it was 13300. Tertiary qualifications are up 75 percent with 7400 in 2000. These are not made up; these are statistics that you can actually get as well. You can seek them if you do the work. There were 12900 Pasifika students in tertiary qualifications. Not only that—as a tradesperson I believe that the investment that we have made in trades is also making a difference.Mr Speaker two more—I know you are asking me to wind up. Course completion rate—74 percent. This is one I am proud of—the fact that we start and we finish. We have raised it up to 74 percent. The completion for Bachelor’s degrees in 2008 was 975; in 2014 it was 1640 a 68 percent increase. I am proud of the fact that we are not a Government that just talks about change; we actually do make changes. We are pragmatic. We actually get on with the business of doing the things that our communities want. You can talk about a dream all you like but guess what? We are the people who make the dream come true. Thank you.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa. As the proud member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti holder of one of the largest electorates in this House I get a great deal of satisfaction from travelling up and down my electorate. It is a 9½ hour drive from one point to the other. When I travel around my electorate I do not see the returns that I believe the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti should be experiencing under this Government.The Kiwi Dream is definitely slipping away from the people in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti under this National-led Government. This economy is stacked in favour of a privileged few while everyday Kiwis and particularly my constituents of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti find it harder to get ahead. We have a housing market that has become a plaything for speculators locking a generation out of the dream of homeownership. But do not take my word for it; let us take the word of the Salvation Army and the Presbyterian Church which did not want a bar of what this Government was offering when trying to sell off our State housing. We have a health care system stretched to breaking point. We are slashing services to the tune of $1.7 billion over 6 years denying Kiwis the care they deserve and need. We have an education system drowning our young people in debt and we heard today that that current debt is at $15 billion.Hon Annette King: $15 billion?MEKA WHAITIRI: $15 billion. I am a mother of two teenaged sons—and I can say they are both teenagers 19 and 18 years old. They have started their first week at Victoria University and their future is already going to start with a heavy burden upon them. We have rates of child poverty that are a national disgrace with too many kids going without food living in cold damp houses or relying on charity for basics like a raincoat or a decent pair of shoes.At the beginning of this year our leader Andrew Little set out his vision for the future with the Working Futures Plan providing 3 years of post - compulsory education free. This policy tackles the problems we are facing with the rapidly changing nature of work. Labour is also going to back an economy that works for all of us and not just for the privileged few; a country where our kids can hope to one day own their own home have a job that pays well and have the security to live a fulfilling life with the people we care about; and a world-class health system that is there for us all when we need it. For the first time in our history the next generation could be worse off than the last and National will not offer any solutions of its own just criticism and cheap slogans—we only have to reference the Prime Minister’s speech on his statement for justification of that statement.Labour will turn this round. We will back the Kiwi Dream and restore security and opportunities for all New Zealanders.We mentioned zero-hour contracts: Labour will not support the Employment Standards Legislation Bill unless it eliminates zero-hour contracts. I have workers in Wairoa—AFFCO workers freezing workers—who had to take Talley’s AFFCO to the Employment Court not once not twice but successively won their case in the Employment Court. Labour stands by and campaigns for its success to ensure that we are protecting all our workers at the bargaining tables with employers.I want to make it really clear and go on record that Labour remains committed in terms of the zero-hour contracts in the Employment Standards Legislation Bill on three matters: one we want to remove the ability of employers to put people on contracts where they are on call with no permanent hours. Being on call can be fine in some contexts but being on call at all times with no security of regular hours is not particularly useful for many of our people.Again I had like I said two teenaged sons working over the Christmas holidays. One would religiously go to work and get told that he was not needed. As he was a 17-year-old who needed to work to ensure that some of his tertiary bills were covered I can tell you it was heartbreaking to even get him up to go to work knowing that when he got there he often got turned down. So I am glad that we are standing on the principle that no others will have to suffer that. The second point is that employers should not be able to cancel shifts at the last minute. The idea that employers can cancel shifts when they should not is normalised in law.I am proud to stand on this side of the House with Labour to say that we will stand up for the Kiwi Dream and that we will stand by our commitment of eliminating zero-hour contracts. Kia ora tātou.MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I have noticed in the House over the last two or three weeks that the deputy leader of New Zealand First has got very excitable about Rodney and Helensville. I do not blame him because they are two great electorates obviously. He was talking about gangs and I am going to come back to gangs very shortly but the other comment he made and he said it a couple of times was about the rise and rise of Winston Peters—the rise and rise of Winston Peters! So I wondered where this—[Interruption] Well exactly. I wondered where this came from and so of course I used that fantastic tool Wikipedia to have a look. I realised that he was putting together his own story for his leader. If you have a look on Wikipedia—Fletcher Tabuteau: Don’t read Wikipedia to us again.MARK MITCHELL: Yeah here it comes. Yes it is coming. The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer: this is the title of a satirical film about the influence of public relations spin and opinion polls in politics. That was the first one. That is the first reference. The second one—[Interruption]—oh it is going to get better trust me. The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket—this one is a light-hearted entry in American Playhouse. It is about a man who really believes he can fly without the aid of machines. I could see where this was going right? I could see where this was going. The deputy leader of New Zealand First has taken these two great stories and he has combined them. He has brought them together with a new title: “The Rise and Rise of Winston Peters”. What is this about? It is the title for a satirical film about a man who uses the influence of public relations and spin to convince people he can fly without the aid of a machine. I think that is a very accurate title and a very accurate description for the Rt Hon Winston Peters.But I did want to come back to a very serious point and that is—we are talking about gangs. Mr Mark made a comment after the Minister of Police had got up and spoken and outlined that there was going to be a very robust programme put in place—and I want to acknowledge Minister Anne Tolley as well who has had a lot to do with this as a past Minister of Police and now a Minister for Social Development. The point is that we want to keep putting pressure on gangs because gangs are blood-sucking leeches on our communities and our societies without a doubt. You might laugh but actually there is nothing—that is a very accurate description of what gangs mean to the communities that they flourish and operate in.But Mr Mark said that we had not been doing anything about gangs so I wanted to give you an email that I received from one of the gangs’ two-bit flunkey lawyers. I received this Friday 27 February so this is over a year ago. What he says—I will not use his name but what he says to me is this: “Could you please disclose all information in your power or possession about Wellsford police using a cross-governmental approach. This will include correspondence emails reports briefings diary and meeting notes and any other information and please see my comments that they are taken out of the Hansard attached. Could you also please disclose all correspondence emails or similar between you and your office and police about gangs generally and about the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill.”This email came to me maybe to try to intimidate. I mean that is a common tactic used by gangs is it not—intimidation? So I would not put it past their flunkey lawyers to try the same tactic. This letter came to me because there had been a concerted effort between central government agencies and local government to put pressure on the Headhunters in Wellsford to make sure that they were compliant with laws to make sure we got rid of unsafe structures and to make sure the correct signage was up because again they put the signage up to try to intimidate and scare people—one of the classic tactics that they use.I would just like to point out that I received this email a year ago. The nice thing about it was this: it did take me a few days to respond because my email filter was working well and it went straight to junk mail right? Yes. So it did take a little while to actually dig it out find it and respond to him. The response was that you are not going to get any of that information. My electorate agents actually do a very important role. Their role is to support the constituents in my electorate and deal with their serious matters; to make sure they get the support that they need not to act as legal executives to a flea-bitten gang lawyer. I just want to finish by highlighting that I want to congratulate the Minister of Police. I want to acknowledge—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would like to compliment the previous member Mark Mitchell on his literary prowess that was on display and ask him just how on earth he has kept it so well concealed for so long.I am feeling very very good. I am feeling good for Epsom and I am feeling good for ACT. The only thing that has been making me feel bad is the Green Party because the Green Party members are not hypocrites—that would be unparliamentary. The behaviour of the Green Party is highly hypocritical. Who would have thought that the party whose members tell all of us to do as they say would be the ones who when they do are the most expensive fliers in this House? Who would have thought? Certainly not me.Their co-leader James Shaw loves to go around and around the country telling the story of how as a management consultant he once helped clients reduce the amount of time that they spent in the air. Well the Green caucus has been getting high all right—it must be his hardest client. Those members spend so much time in the air. They spend more time than any other party. When people say “Oh but that was just the last quarter.” well yes the last quarter was the highest because they spent more and more progressively every single quarter of last year under James Shaw’s leadership.And does that not tell the story about the Green Party? Some will say: “Oh but you are being churlish. It is a political party; it does not have actual constituencies like some of us who serve electorates.” But it does have constituents around the country—it does have that—and its members have to get around to see them. I could understand if the Green members sometimes needed to fly but not more than any other party. The fact is they do not care. They do not even try. The fact of the matter is that the Green Party has delayed debates in Auckland while a Wellington-based member flew in to be part of the debate when I know that a Green MP lives one bus stage away just up the road from the University of Auckland. And if you do not want to catch a bus another one lives a 40-minute ferry ride away—you know coastal shipping transport of course being very ecologically friendly—who could not make it either. The fact is the Green Party does not even try to structure its affairs to practise what it preaches for the rest of us. So much for it.The truth is if you look around the world the Green Party has been out of sync with what is really good for environmental custodianship for a very long time. If you look at the Yale Environmental Performance Index which measures the environmental performance of different countries; if you look at the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom of the world index which measures the extent to which parties practise free-market policies they are correlated. Countries that practise free markets have better environmental records than countries that do not. Those are the facts.Fletcher Tabuteau: I think China just skews the data.DAVID SEYMOUR: Counterintuitive and irritating to some members but those are the facts and there is nothing like the facts to trip up and confuse Fletcher Tabuteau. I would describe the free-market premises of environmentalism as the four Ps. Accurate pricing is important. We heard from Gareth Hughes earlier who wanted to pervert the price system in the electricity market. This would have led either to a reduction in solar panel installation by homeowners because they would have discovered that it did not pay because the price had been set too low or to a reduction in the offerings of solar buy-back services by retailers because the price had been set too high for them to buy it back. Only the Greens through their economic illiteracy and misunderstanding of the importance of the price system as a method of resource allocation could introduce a pro-solar policy that would discourage the uptake of solar. But I digress again.Property rights are important because the pollution that we see is overwhelmingly as the Greens say in the water and in the air and in the things that nobody owns where nobody is saying: “Don’t put that there.” Under the fourth Labour Government the introduction of the quota management system—that is property rights over the fisheries—was one of the largest advances in environmental custodianship that this country has ever ever made. I see David Shearer nodding there because he agrees. Prosperous countries are better at looking after their environment. The countries that encourage private initiatives are better at looking after their environment. The ecosystem does not require authoritarian measures; it requires free societies. Thank you.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just seeking your advice Mr Assistant Speaker and referring to something—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are dealing with a point of order.CARMEL SEPULONI: —that the previous MP just mentioned. In the past we have been told that calling someone a hypocrite is out of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): It is.CARMEL SEPULONI: Is it in order to say that someone’s behaviour or actions are hypocritical?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): It is. [Interruption] Order! To call someone a hypocrite is definitely out of order and that has been ruled on constantly. The point that the member made—and I listened very carefully to what the member was saying—was in order otherwise I would have brought it to the attention of the House at that stage or if some other member had thought that it was out of order and unparliamentary they could have raised it at the time. But I ruled that it was in order and that was the end of the matter.Carmel Sepuloni: Speaking to the point—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. No I have ruled. That is the end of the matter.Carmel Sepuloni: —I just want clarity.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I have given you clarity. It was in order. The word “hypocrite” is out of order and that is what has been ruled in.Carmel Sepuloni: But “hypocritical” is in order?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): In the context in which it was said it was in order.Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in this general debate because it is a pleasure to be a Northlander. It is a pleasure because this Government is investing in Northland. It is putting its money where its mouth is. A few weeks ago the Tai Tokerau Northland Economic Action Plan was unveiled: 58 initiatives from roading to land-based projects to tourism.It is Northland tourism that I want particularly to talk about today. Tourism in Northland like the rest of New Zealand is booming: 1200 businesses employing 4000 people; 1.756 million guest nights per year which ranks us sixth behind major centres like—Denis O’Rourke: Should be more. It should be a lot more.Dr SHANE RETI:—Auckland Canterbury Queenstown—and it will be with what I am going to discuss in a moment—Wellington and Rotorua. “The best December in years” was a recent local headline as Northland also gets the benefits of new air routes a managed New Zealand dollar and tourism investment. A big announcement was confirmation of $4 million in central government funding for the Hundertwasser Art Centre and the Wairau Māori Art Gallery—four million dollars.I would like to briefly recap the Hundertwasser story and acknowledge people on the way. In 1973 Frederick Hundertwasser first travelled to Northland. He was travelling with a companion Henry Kelliher who later became Governor of the Bank of New Zealand was a founder of Dominion Breweries and patron of the arts. Hundertwasser liked the Bay of Islands so much that in 1976 he purchased the Shortridge family farm and he stayed there for most of his time in the far north as a very prolific artist. In 1986 he was granted New Zealand citizenship.Some of the unique features of the Hundertwasser style of art include art concepts of afforestation of roofs which I will describe briefly: “Hundertwasser’s architecture in harmony with nature supports his maxim that wherever territories of nature are eliminated by man for instance by building nature has to be restored on top—on the roofs.” He also had the concept of the uneven floor. “The uneven floor becomes a symphony a melody for the feet and brings back natural vibrations to men. Architecture should elevate and not subdue mankind. It is good to walk on uneven floors and regain our human balance.” That is a quote from Hundertwasser himself.You know Hundertwasser is probably the only internationally recognised artist who came to New Zealand with an international reputation lived in New Zealand and whose prolific life and works were then influenced by the New Zealand way of life and Māoridom. This makes his work unique. Show me another international artist who has that pedigree? To that end it is also very important to note the Wairau Māori Art Gallery component. Hundertwasser conceived this as being absolutely important to the whole concept and closely integrated Māori art into the final design.I would like to acknowledge Government support for the Hundertwasser project especially the officials and advisers in the portfolios held by Maggie Barry Chris Finlayson Paula Bennett Steven Joyce Wayne Eagleson and the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Northland thanks you. I would also like to acknowledge the operational Hundertwasser arm: Prosper Northland Trust Barry Trass; the Whangarei Art Museum Trust Grant Faber; the Mayor of Whangarei Sheryl Mai; the Wairau Māori Art Gallery Ben Pittman; and Northland Inc. David Wilson—not to be surpassed by the ongoing guidance from Sir Ron Carter and Sir Michael Hill.I now want to pivot from good art and good tourism to bad art and bad tourism. New Zealanders from all over the country are writing to Associate Minister of Tourism the Hon Paula Bennett and to me complaining about the filthy signage on Australian campervan firm Wicked Campers. The Minister and I have spoken and to Wicked Campers I say this: your offensive signage is unacceptable. Your disgusting degrading of women and children is unacceptable. Your signage is an affront to public decency and no parent including me should have to explain it to their children. High-quality tourism is what this Government and what New Zealanders are investing in. So Wicked Campers respect New Zealand’s advertising standards or go home—because New Zealanders deserve better than your garbage. Thank you.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.