Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): What a load of absolute greenwash from Nick Smith there. I can remember in my very first week in this Parliament my normally extremely cheerful colleague the Hon David Parker leaving the Chamber one night after we had been here in urgency dealing with a National Government that did not want the 90 percent target for renewables that was going to mine national parks and that had got rid of the thermal energy generation ban that we had put in place. All of the things—Dr Megan Woods: And was excluding agriculture.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right—and was excluding agriculture from the emissions trading scheme (ETS). All of these things that David Parker had built up—Chris Bishop: Yes. That's right—dumb policies.GRANT ROBERTSON: —to put New Zealand in a position to stand up proudly on the world stage on climate change were dismissed by this Government. The pathetic pitiful targets that Chris Bishop is so proud of when it comes to what National is planning on climate change are an embarrassment on the world stage. This Government is clearly in trouble in the polls. It has done the polling and it has said: Whatever you do Ministers don't come to the House and talk about housing. Don't talk about housing. If you are the Minister for Building and Housing and you've got a slot in the general debate don't mention housing." Hon David Parker: No luggage.GRANT ROBERTSON: No no you do not want to bring your housing baggage to the House. So Nick Smith stands up to give us a lecture on climate change. Well on this side of the House we will not take those lectures from this Government until we see real action until we see an ETS operating properly and until we see New Zealand actually standing up proud on the world stage. I want to devote most of my time today to talking about the importance in New Zealand of the idea of every New Zealander having a share in prosperity. As Andrew Little said at the start of his speech today New Zealand is a great country—a beautiful country blessed with fantastic natural resources great people and fantastic opportunities. The reality of New Zealand today is that not every New Zealander and not every New Zealand child is getting a share in that prosperity—a fair go. The idea that most of us had in our families was that our parents had a desire for us to achieve more than they did. I grew up in a family where neither of my parents finished high school but they wanted their children to go on and go to university to be upwardly mobile to be moving forward in the world and to be building a better life than what they had. What we are at risk of at the moment in New Zealand is that a whole cohort of New Zealanders are being shut out of that idea that they have got a share in prosperity. It is exactly that approach that has driven all of the social dislocation in Europe and what we see lying behind the Trump phenomenon in America—the idea that people do not have a place in the economy that there is not a place for them to achieve their goals to get that social mobility or to build up their future for their family that comes. That is what we see from this Government. So when we look today at things like statistics on wages if working New Zealanders are getting less of a share in the prosperity of New Zealand year on year from this Government then we build up that gap in our society. Bill English finally comes to the House today and says: "Actually I admit it: Statistics New Zealand was right. Asset and income inequality in New Zealand has grown." The top 10 percent of New Zealanders hold 60 percent of the wealth. They hold 60 percent of the wealth because we have got a Government with no idea of how to give New Zealanders a chance to get that social mobility to buy their own homes. We have a Government that does not care that we have the lowest wage growth in 6 years this year or that 44 percent of New Zealanders did not get a pay rise at all. It is all very well for those at the top to get it—chief executives got their 12 percent pay rise in the last year. The average across the economy was about 2 percent. Two-thirds of New Zealanders got less than 2 percent in terms of wage rise. They are not getting their fair share of prosperity under this Government and this Government refuses to acknowledge the reasons that lie behind that even though there is now a chorus of people telling the Government that growth in our economy is being driven by increasing population. It is not being driven by the actions of the Government to create more productivity; it is being driven by the fact that more people have shown up. Per person it is flat—it is not going anywhere. There is no stability in an economy that is built on immigration speculation and debt. We need a Government that will support our regions invest in our education and training sector and build our economy up so that we grow wealth from the ground up not rely on the failed trickle-down policies of this Government that exclude people from our economy instead of saying that every New Zealander deserves a share of prosperity."