King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19598] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Yesterday in Parliament the Prime Minister in reply to a question reluctantly admitted there was “a degree of inequality in New Zealand”—a degree of inequality. But he does not believe we are a deeply unequal country and he does not think we are as bad as others. Well I have to say to the Prime Minister and the National Government that they are badly out of touch with what is going on in this country today. They have become blinkered. The Prime Minister is basking in the adoration he receives from people around New Zealand Government members are believing their own propaganda and together they are blinded by their own “brilliance”. But I have to tell them that inequality is growing in New Zealand at an alarming rate. 
Paul Quinn 
: Brilliance. That’s it—brilliance! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I suggest that Mr Quinn takes off the blinkers stops looking at his own “brilliance” and has a look at what is happening around New Zealand. There is an alarming rate of growth in inequality in this country. But do we think this Government will listen? Does it care? Will it do anything about it? The answer to those questions has to be “No”. Over the last 6 months I have taken time to go out and visit a few regions around New Zealand and I come back to this House to report on what is happening. There are four regions I will talk about today. What is really happening on the ground to New Zealanders in this country that is only a little bit unequal?  
I will first go to Invercargill. In Invercargill I visited the Salvation Army food bank and the budgeting services there. What did people tell me? The message I heard up and down New Zealand was that there has been a huge growth in people having to go to food banks. Are they our usual customers—the customers we would expect to see at food banks? No they are not. Food banks are now facing a huge increase in the number of people we would call the working poor—those who are in jobs but who cannot afford to pay their bills. They cannot afford to pay a bill that comes out of the ordinary at the time they have to pay it. They have jobs; they have jobs that are low-income jobs and many of them have two jobs but they are amazed they have a Government that thinks giving $15 an hour to those on the lowest income would be a bad thing for this country. The Government talks about a loss of 6000 jobs if we were to do that but I have seen no evidence that that would be the case. It is a made-up figure; it is made up because it suits the Government to make it up and say it. But of course if the Government is going to create 170000 new jobs over the next 4 years then I suspect that if there were a loss of 6000 jobs the Government would be able to find jobs somewhere else would it not? Of course no one believes that 170000 jobs will be created.  
Then I went to Timaru and visited the food bank and the social service providers there. The story they told me was very alarming. In February this year 157 people received food parcels. By May the number had risen to 756—756. They have not seen the like of the increase in working families receiving assistance. We are not talking just of beneficiary families but working families. This morning I went to the Newlands Community Centre with Charles Chauvel. They told us they have seen a 300 to 400 percent increase in people going to their food bank every year for the last 2 years. Does that show us we have a country that is equal? Does that show us we have a country where people have an adequate income? No it does not. The story these good people told me this morning—they are not Labour people; they are just good community people—was of a woman who came in last week. She has a job and so does her husband but they are both on low incomes. She came in for a food parcel for the first time in her life. Why? Because she had an abscessed tooth and she needed an extraction. It cost $300 and she could not afford it. Finally I went to Whangarei and there I heard of the most appalling cases of health issues and of a lack of food. There is growing inequality in this country.