Hague Kevin: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8858. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): New Zealanders value in their Prime Minister someone who has a sense of humour and who has a self-deprecating wit but they also value someone who applies gravitas and sensitivity when those are appropriate and who has the wisdom and the judgment to know which to use in which situation. The Prime Minister’s personal poll ratings have been increasingly lagging behind the Government’s level of support from New Zealanders so it is evident that an increasing number of New Zealanders now believe that the Prime Minister we have now does not have the wisdom and judgment to make an appropriate call about which mode he should be in. No doubt their opinion would have been bolstered by his speech in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday. It was unfortunate. It was a series of try-hard sporting references dad jokes and then a gallop through platitudes about the economy when New Zealanders are crying out for courage wisdom and leadership.I was reminded of a Fairfax piece that I read recently about words used in this Prime Minister’s state of the nation speeches. He has given eight of them so far and in those state of the nation speeches he has used the word “economy” 94 times he has used the word “growth” 63 times and he has used the word “businesses” 54 times. In those eight speeches he has never used the word “poverty”; he has never used the phrase “climate change”. The evidence is that this is a Government that does not care about poverty and does not care about climate change.In this House repeatedly day after day we have seen Government Ministers bat away challenges that they adopt a measure for child poverty. On our side we have said “We do not care which one it is you choose. Just choose one and monitor that.” and they consistently refuse to do it. When it comes to climate change just days after the ink was put on to the Paris Declaration our Prime Minister John Key was out there saying to New Zealanders: “It’s OK guys it’s still business as usual as far as we’re concerned.” They do not care.So it is tempting to think that this could be a traditional National Government—one that just muddles along and actually does not do very much—because it interprets action as being political risk. That is certainly the pattern that National Governments of the past have had. But actually this is not a Government that is bereft of ideas. It is just a Government that is smart enough to know that it needs to hide its ideas because if it exposes them it will not be popular with New Zealanders. It is a Government that fetishises economic growth. We do not know whether that is because of ideology and that Government members simply believe the old trickle-down theory that everyone will benefit—you know a rising tide lifts all boats and the rest of it—or instead whether it is because they genuinely believe that their job as Government is to advantage the wealthiest few. But actually it amounts to the same thing. The effect is the same.The effect is that they put economic growth as the entire goal of their Government and people and the environment are forced to serve that goal. What that means is extracting as much value as they can out of labour and extracting as much value as they can out of the environment which they think of as raw materials and waste disposal. New Zealanders deserve more than that. New Zealanders deserve long-term thinking from their Government. New Zealanders deserve a Government that delivers a fair society and a sustainable relationship with the natural world and understands that it is the economy’s job to serve those goals. And above all New Zealanders deserve a Government that will deliver leadership and a long-term vision. They do not have that now.