Robertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 12 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7709. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Is it not a pity that Alfred Ngaro was not in the last National Party term in Government when he might have actually been able to influence it on doing something about apprenticeships because we had 3 years when nothing happened with apprenticeships. In fact they went down by 20 percent. So Mr Ngaro can stand up and say to us how important apprenticeships are but the reality is that this National Government has dropped the ball and let New Zealanders down when it comes to apprenticeship numbers. We have seen a 20 percent drop in Modern Apprenticeships at the very time we should have been seeing a Government invest in the skills and the future of this country. 
Just before Christmas  
Campbell Live  
did a programme where a dog took control of a car and it was quite a big deal. I think it was a promotion for the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. A dog was put in control of a car and it was able to manoeuvre the car around. I noticed that when the dog was doing this it actually managed to have its paws on the wheel of the car. It had worked out that the way that you drive the car forward and give it direction is to have your paws or your hands on the wheel of the car. So a dog was able to do that on  
Campbell Live 
 but this National Government cannot work out that if it is actually going to give New Zealand direction if it is actually going to take New Zealand forward it has to have its hands on the wheel. That is what we have seen from this Government. It cannot even keep up with the  
Campbell Live  
dog when it comes to actually giving this country direction because it does not understand that leaving it to the market—saying that the market will resolve everything—actually is a flawed failed set of policies from another century. 
Times have changed and this National Government has simply not kept up with those changes. It is never better exemplified than by the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment Steven Joyce—“Mr Fix-it” or “Mr Fudge-it” as we call him over here because he has been fudging the figures on unemployment right from the time he took over. He is meant to be this genius who can come in and solve the Novopay debacle but the reality of his record in unemployment is appalling. For him to stand up in the House today and briefly trumpet his excitement at the drop in the unemployment rate to 6.9 percent and to ignore the fact that the only reason it has dropped is that people have left the labour force and that friends and families whom we all know have gone to Australia when the reality is that if we put those people back into the equation and if we put back into the equation the people who have given up hope of even getting a job then the unemployment rate would be 8.3 percent—8.3 percent—the worst unemployment rate we have had since the mid-1990s. That would be the situation if all of those people were in there. So that is no record for Mr Joyce to be proud of. He cannot stand up in this House and claim that he is any kind of “Mr Fix-it” when unemployment is soaring like that. 
Every single MP in this House knows about people in their communities who are desperately seeking jobs. The people who line up for those supermarket jobs—in Auckland the other day 2500 people were applying for 150 jobs. These are people who want to work people who want the opportunity to get ahead and to provide for their families and the complacent Government sits on its hands on the other side takes its hands off the wheel of Government and says: “The market will solve it.” Well it is not and it is time for Government action. 
It is time to invest in people not condemn people who want to work. It is time to invest in businesses in new technology in a new economy. That is what the Labour Party is calling for. That is the plan that we are putting in front of New Zealanders. But this Government has— 
Hon Nikki Kaye 
: What plan? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Nikki Kaye asks: “What plan?”. That is the question she should ask John Key—“What plan?”. The Labour Party has been prepared to stand up and say that we are going to change the settings of this economy. We have recognised that there needs to be a new economy. We have recognised that we need to invest in clean green technology that we need to upskill people and that we cannot afford to leave monetary policy as it is. But this Government sits there with no plan for New Zealand and no plan for the future of New Zealanders. 
That was never more starkly put into focus than in those unemployment statistics where 30 percent of 15 to 19-year-olds are unemployed—30 percent. That is our future. That is New Zealand’s future. And even if the National Government does not want to look at that in economic terms it needs to look at that in social terms. It needs to think about what it means to have a 30 percent unemployment rate for our future generations. What does that mean for our society? What does that mean for people feeling included and feeling part of New Zealand and our society? This Government is leaving that generation behind. They are part of the forgotten New Zealanders whom this Government does not want to talk about—the people whom it is leaving in the unemployment queue whom they are not there backing—and the initiatives that could be being undertaken that it ignores. 
This Government’s record in employment—Mr Steven Joyce’s or “Mr Fudge-it’s” record—is unacceptable and to put him in charge of Novopay just means that that debacle will go on and on. Just briefly on that point this National Government’s shame is in Novopay. It is wrong for people in my electorate to have to come to me and say: “I have worked as a teacher aide and I have not been paid since November.” How does that feel? How do people look after their families in that situation? This is a debacle that Hekia Parata Craig Foss and Bill English all signed off on when they knew it would not work. It is a shame on this Government and Mr Joyce does not have the record in employment to indicate that he will be able to solve this. 
I want to speak briefly about a couple of areas in my portfolio and in particular in tertiary education. Steven Joyce has tried to sell to New Zealanders his brand new flash employment and apprenticeships scheme. Well it is all very well to rehash it and rename it and put in place a $1000 subsidy but the lack of commitment to actually working with businesses to saying: “We’ll help you employ people as apprentices.” is what is missing from this. It is the Labour Party’s policy to say to businesses that we will subsidise 18 and 19-year olds using the money that this Government seems happy to pay out in dole payments to actually get people into apprenticeships. Yesterday at the manufacturing inquiry in Christchurch a company came forward and said: “That is exactly what we want. We want a Government that is hands-on that is prepared to get in and help us make sure that we have the skilled workforce that we need.” So to hear about it now to hear about it 4 years after this Government had the opportunity to do something about apprenticeships is a hollow promise from Mr Joyce. 
The other thing I want to talk about is what do we do to ensure that the best and brightest stay in New Zealand? What do we do to ensure we have the people who are going to start the companies that will help create jobs? Well in the case of this Government it is to say to postgraduate students: “We’re not going to give you allowances any more.” 
Over the summer break I met two people whom I want to mention: Anthony Davidson who is a student in Dunedin and Tracy Merson who wants to be a student here in Wellington. They are two people who bravely put their stories into the public arena to show New Zealanders what we are losing because of the short-sighted policy of this Government to cut away their allowances. Mr Davidson wants to complete his master’s degree in zoology. He is a person with a huge contribution to make and he has been told by this Government that it does not care about that. He is part-way through his master’s degree he has 1 year to go and the Government has cut that allowance away. What did he tell the  
Otago Daily Times 
? He is off to Australia. He is gone. He will not be part of the future of New Zealand because this Government is not prepared to invest in his future and in our future with his education. 
We have got Tracy Merson who wants to become a clinical psychologist. Clinical psychology is on the skills shortage list for New Zealand. We import people into New Zealand to do that job. Here is someone who wants to finish who has been looking after children and who has been working and studying part time but wants to finish her master’s degree which she has to have to practise as a clinical psychologist and this Government comes along and cuts away her allowance leaving her at the moment unable to finish that master’s degree—unable to practise as a clinical psychologist. 
What New Zealand needs is a Government that is prepared to invest in people a Government that is prepared to give New Zealanders hope. New Zealanders want to be proud of their country. They want to know that they can have a future in their country. At the moment what New Zealanders see is a future in Australia. They see a future away from here. A Government that can come into office as Labour will and say: “We’re going to back New Zealanders. We’re going to fight for the future of New Zealand. We’re going to give New Zealanders hope. We’re going to do it in a compassionate way. We’re going to do it by accepting that the economy must change. It must evolve but at the same time we must ensure a fairer society.”—that is the Government New Zealanders deserve. 
That is the Government Labour will offer in contrast to this National Government which has no plan and offers no hope and no vision for New Zealand. This Prime Minister’s statement was nothing like a statement. This was the Prime Minister’s whimper.