Ardern Jacinda: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8934. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): The Minister of Transport who just resumed his seat spent the majority of his address to this House listing a range of land transport projects. You may not have noticed that in between his excited listing of roading projects he let out a little squeak about something called the City Rail Link and I would describe that as the political equivalent of swallowing a dead rat. He did not expand on the $2.5 billion investment in that project—that “game-changer” for New Zealand that “game-changer” for Auckland—because he is so reluctant to be spending money on that project. So in 10 minutes we had one tiny little mention of the City Rail Link. He can barely even talk about it with a straight face. And I can tell you Mr Bridges at least Labour will let you off the hook in one regard. You will not have to cut the ribbon on that project you do not believe in because by then Labour will be in Government and we have stood by that project from day one. So we will spare you that misery.It is easy in the House sometimes to feel like you are in a strange parallel universe. On the one hand the Minister of Finance cannot tell the House what net Crown debt was when he took office—he cannot tell us. This sudden amnesia overcomes him. But ask Government members for any Taylor Swift lyrics and they will be able to recite them off the hip because that is what we had from the Minister for Social Housing today. I am very disappointed to see that Bill English is still unwilling after all these years to acknowledge that he inherited close to zero net Crown debt from the Labour Government. That is the truth of it—that is the truth of it—and Labour will consistently remind the Government of what it inherited instead of allowing it to rewrite history as it is wont to do.I want to reflect on the Prime Minister’s statement because of course that is what this debate is meant to be about. For some reason even though I have been in this House for 7 years and I have got experience listening to these speeches a part of me still expects that when he stands up to deliver those speeches the Prime Minister will act like a Prime Minister. I expect him to be a statesman. Perhaps I am naive to still expect that after 7 years of prime ministerial statements. I wanted the Prime Minister to stand up and acknowledge the reality that New Zealanders are experiencing—the Kiwi reality.In Labour we talk about the Kiwi Dream because we are so stunned by the reality of what people are currently experiencing. And what is that? It is unemployment at 5.3 percent—and yet actually I question whether that is accurate when we know that there is significant under-employment amongst New Zealanders now. What does that mean? They have got a job but it is not enough—they need more. And we already know—in fact any National MP worth their salt will have spoken to constituents people in their area who will tell them that they are working multiple part-time jobs just to make ends meet. That is a growing reality for New Zealanders.What does that mean? It means that parents are making a trade-off—families are making a trade-off—between getting by and being there for their kids. It is a choice that no one wants a family to have to make but it is the reality. That is why even though we use the shorthand of child poverty we actually mean family poverty and a quarter of our families in New Zealand or more are experiencing that now—the fact that they do not have enough to get by to have a decent way of life and to have that Kiwi Dream that Labour at least has not given up on.But what does that Kiwi reality also mean? It means that the next generation is experiencing a pretty significant amount of hardship too. Students who decide to take on post - secondary education are leaving with debt of $20000 on average and are on average taking 9 years to pay it back. That has a massive flow-on effect. That means that it takes longer to own that unaffordable house if at all. And it is utterly depressing to me that people in Auckland of my generation do not believe that they will own a home in their lifetime. When you have an average house price of over $900000 and you have $20000 of debt because you had to go and extend your education just so you could get a decent job and it is going to take you 9 years to pay that back the house goes on the back-burner and having kids goes on the back-burner too. This is the reality for that next generation. It is no wonder that we have the lowest homeownership rate since the 1950s.All of that reality presents a pretty grim outlook for New Zealanders. That is what I wanted the Prime Minister to address in his statement at the beginning of this year but that would have needed leadership. In my view the only leadership I have seen on those big issues is coming from the statements I have heard in a state of the nation speech from Andrew Little. We know on this side of the House—in fact the World Economic Forum is now saying—that unless nations start tackling some of those bigger longer-term issues like the changing nature of work like lack of job security and like automation in New Zealand wiping out 46 percent of jobs within two decades we will be in a much more dire state than having the 5.3 percent unemployment rate we see now.We need to plan—and that means acknowledging just as we did when we went to free education back in the day—that in the current environment. Secondary school education is not enough. It is not enough. Now leaving secondary school is only the beginning of your preparatory work for going into the market place to find a job—it is only the beginning—and yet what statistics are telling us is that we are not preparing. We have had a 22 percent decrease in the number of apprenticeships under this Government. We know that we have demand in the trades—just look at the lack of housing supply in Auckland—and yet not enough young people are training to ready themselves for those jobs.There has been a 20 percent decrease overall in people taking up post - secondary education under this Government and yet if you ask anybody they will believe that that is more important now than ever. The Kiwi Dream is based on the idea of having a decent job and a decent income and that means having a decent education and consistent access to retraining as well.That is why when Labour sat down and said “What message do we want to send at the beginning of the year?” it was a message of hope that all of the principles we have ever based ourselves on going right back to Savage and to Kirk—who always used to articulate that all people really need is a place to live something to do someone to love and something to hope for. We definitely know on this side of the House that unless we have Government-endorsed Tinder we cannot help with all of that stuff. Maybe Simon Bridges thinks he can with his family-based dating service but not on this side of the House. We know that the stuff we can help with is housing jobs and hope.Hon Paul Goldsmith: That was weak.JACINDA ARDERN: The Government has a role in all of that—Paul Goldsmith just called a joke from me weak. I want to see you stand up and try having a sense of humour in this House for a change Mr Goldsmith. I issue that as a challenge. I will put my weak Tinder jokes against anything you say in this House.Three years of post - secondary school education for free—that is the kind of policy that captures our belief that we need to meet current challenges that we need to prepare not just our school-leavers but people currently in the workforce and that we need to give people hope. Those are all things that Labour believes are fundamental to the Kiwi Dream and that is what we as a party are focused on. Although I was hugely disappointed by the Prime Minister’s speech and although I was upset not to hear him make grand statements on big issues like child poverty at least I am satisfied that I know those are the issues that one side of the House at least will be addressing in the coming year.I would like to finish on one particular area of passion for me. On this side of the House there has been only one person who has committed to taking a zero-tolerance approach to child poverty in New Zealand and that is Andrew Little. For all of the rhetoric about what the Government believes it is doing in that area we have an increasing number of children and families living in the kinds of circumstances that we would consider intolerable and inexcusable in this country. We in this House should all have a zero-tolerance approach to child poverty but at the moment the kind of leader whom I want to back and whom I believe in is standing up and saying thatnow. That is Andrew Little. That is why I absolutely believe that the only way we will see the restoration of the Kiwi Dream in New Zealand will be via a Labour Government.