Tirikatene Rino: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9262. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to respond to the Prime Minister’s statement and naturally I am standing to oppose the statement. But before I launch into that I would like to just join with my colleague Mr Shearer there in responding to Ms Barry’s waxing lyrical on the big goals of biodiversity in her portfolio. I always pause—because Mr Shearer said that he could not hear the birds in Tai Tokerau and that is a sad fact—and I think of the slaughter by the Deerstalkers Association of the four takahē on Motutapu Island under this Minister’s watch. That is another reason. It is not only about underfunding but we had an incompetent Minister bring in amateur deerstalkers who wiped out 30 percent of one of the most endangered species there in one fell swoop. So that is the great achievement from that Minister right there.But I would like to switch to the Prime Minister’s statement. If people sitting at home are confused as to what was in that statement they have got a very good point because we have got a chorus line here waxing on with their pre-scripted lines but what I would say is that the Prime Minister gave two speeches. There is a very thin document that is the actual statement but what he actually delivered in the House was just his normal court jester routine. So no wonder the public at large are confused by this Government.I think there is so much spin going on that we need to really break through. We need to break through the spin from this National Government. We hear things like “a better Public Service” and “a sharper leaner more competitive Public Service” and what that really means is—and I want to give an example from my own portfolio area. In customs what that really means is understaffing under-resourcing and a front line in disarray at our border. That is what that really means and I can give examples. We are seeing front-line customs officers taken off duty. They are actually there to screen passengers but what we are seeing is hundreds of passengers coming through Auckland Airport and only seven customs officers are there to process 2000 passengers an hour. That is an example of mismanagement not only from the department but also from the Minister.But it gets even worse than that because what is happening—and we had Mrs Collins talking earlier on about the great achievements in the law and order arena now that she is back on deck. But what that actually means is that not only are we under-resourced at the border but we are seeing a flood—a flood—of illicit drugs coming into our country. Mrs Collins herself said that 330 kilos of methamphetamine was intercepted last year. What is actually happening is that that is what was caught but actually only one in 10 is actually caught at the border.So we could extrapolate that number out and say that there were 3 tonnes of methamphetamine that came into the country and we can actually back that up—true. So that is an actual failure of this National Government. National came in after campaigning in 2007 about how it wanted to crack down on P—crack down on the scourge. Well that is an actual failure there and the Government itself has admitted it. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has admitted that the availability and the usage and the purity of P is on the rise so there is a complete failure there and the Ministry of Health is also saying that the usage among average Kiwis has not changed. It is right up there and it is above the international average. So there is a failure right there from the Government and we are seeing that.What that does though is it cuts across and it is damaging to our communities. It is prolific and that is one more thing that is hurting our communities at large. People want to feel safe and people expect to have the Kiwi Dream of being safe in their communities and safe in their households but what we are seeing is actually the opposite from this Government. It does not care about the communities at large. It does not care about the people who are struggling to buy a house. People are being turned away by our health system which is overstretched. The thousands of children who are in poverty—that is really a sad indictment on this Government and that is what our country is subjected to today. I oppose the Prime Minister’s statement.