Williams Andrew: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15642. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in reply to the Prime Minister’s statement to this House. The Prime Minister has not been frank with the New Zealand public. He has not told New Zealanders the truth: what is actually happening to this economy. Let us put aside all the spin and let us look at the reality. Right now the sun is shining on the New Zealand economy but these are good times for the dairy and agricultural industry. However this has nothing to do with John Key’s Government. It is just the beneficiary of record prices for dairy products. It was not of its doing. Yet despite this massive advantage what is the reality?The reality is that we have 150000 unemployed in this country. On top of those 150000 unemployed we have a further 60000 underemployed women and we have a further 30000 underemployed men. That is another 90000 people in New Zealand who currently are not getting sufficient work to justify their daily existence. Under our unemployment statistics if you work for more than 1 hour you are deemed to have employment. Many people are struggling because they cannot get full employment and therefore as a result their children and their families suffer. Particularly in this category women are sufferingMāori are suffering and Pasifika people are suffering.We heard during the manufacturing inquiry for instance that at Summit Wool Spinners in the South Island many of the women who were working in that factory were laid off but many of their husbands had work in the district. As a result those women could not find alternative work and they were not deemed to be unemployed. They simply had to go home with their family incomes virtually halved. As a result many of those people from Summit Wool Spinners now are in hard times and looking for alternative work. They do not appear on the statistics.One million New Zealanders live overseas. Further to the Government’s statistics there are many many of those—particularly young graduates. I know so many young graduates from the Auckland universities and from the North Shore universities who simply have not been able to get work in this country and have had to go abroad to find work because it is not here. So the spin that this Government puts on that everything is rosy—it is not. Ask young New Zealanders particularly those under the age of about 28or 30 who are really struggling to find jobs. There are graduates who have spent 3 4 or 5 years earning a degree and are now struggling to get good gainful employment to cover the ever-spiralling cost of housing particularly in the likes of Auckland Christchurch and Wellington.Ordinary Kiwis are still dealing daily with the pain of zero or minimal wage increases. The chief executives and top people are getting significant gains but good ordinary New Zealanders are not necessarily seeing that. So many of them are on minimum wage or very low wages and they are not going up by any great steps at all. Meanwhile New Zealand has ended up with $150 billion in total overseas debt. Some $60 billion of that is Government debt. When the National Government took over in 2008 Government debt was at $6 billion. It is now at over $60 billion. That is not a record of success. That is adding to this country’s debt and now New Zealand has one of the highest debt-per-capita ratios in the world.Auckland at the same time is in the grip of a speculative housing bubble because this National Government will not address the situation that foreigners are coming in and buying houses buying property and buying land and are speculating on that growth in the Auckland demand for housing. As a result good average Kiwis are finding it increasingly difficult to find housing that they can afford in the Auckland area. And it is happening. It is happening all over Auckland. Any member should ask young Aucklanders—and I have got three in their 20s—how they are going to get into housing in the Auckland market. They will get into housing only because their parents assist them or their families assist them. How can they put a deposit of 20 percent down on a $700000 property? It is impossible. It is impossible for young graduates coming out of university and you know it Dr Coleman. New Zealand First will fix this because when we are in Government we will ensure that speculative purchasing of houses and property in New Zealand by foreigners is stopped. It will be stopped under New Zealand First.On top of this we are seeing speculative trading of New Zealand’s currency. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act is some 26 years old and this Government will not review it. This Government will not review an Act that was brought in before computers were even here before cellphones were here and before fax machines were here. It will not review an Act that at the present time constrains the Governor of the Reserve Bank to working within tight inflation rate criteria ignoring all the other factors that are driving the value of the Kiwi dollar up. We are now at nearly 95c to the Australian dollar one of our second major export markets and New Zealand exporters to Australia are really really finding it tough because this Government will not step in and review the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act. Well New Zealand First will. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has had a member’s bill twice in this House in the last year which the Government has knocked back but we will review the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and we will give the Reserve Bank more means to address the situation and run the economy in a better way that does not drive the New Zealand dollar even higher.The Prime Minister also did not mention the State asset sales programme—the programme that instead of getting some $7 billion or thereabouts which the Government sold to the public when it first put forward that programme ended up at much less than $5 billion. On an annual basis now New Zealanders are losing close to $1 billion in dividends each year. This year next year and every year thereafter there will be a loss of nearly $1 billion in dividends from those State assets as a result of the National Government selling our beautiful dams on the Waikato River selling our beautiful dams in the South Island selling our geothermal power stations and selling our iconic airline Air New Zealand down the river. Well New Zealand First will also address that. We will buy back those power stations and those power companies and wewill merge them into one State entity for the generating of power in this country. We will ensure that power is put under one State-owned enterprise. We will get on top of that situation.We are also seeing through this power prices escalating. Residential consumers are now paying in excess of 27c a unit while commercial users are paying 15c a unit and industrial users are paying only 10c per unit. Meanwhile the Government gives $30 million to RioTinto and it will be paying less than 10c per unit. Again New Zealand First will sort that out by bringing those entities together so it will bring down the wholesale price of electricity. We will ensure that the likes of grandma in her cold house in the middle of winter will receive discounts from those State-owned enterprises and ensure that there is cheaper power for our seniors in the winter months.New Zealand First will give support to the export sector which this Government is not doing. We will ensure there is far greater diversity in terms of going away from agricultural products and into a far stronger base for manufacturing. We will also support—and give meaningful support to—our veterans. We will give meaningful support as we have always done to those who have served this country. We will also give meaningful support to the health system and social services. For instance New Zealand First brought in medical checks for children under 6 and again we will ensure that those sorts of areas are extended and added to. We will also bring in a community wage. New Zealanders who are underemployed or unemployed will work for their local communities will work for their local councils. They will be encouraged to work in areas in their communities to receive money back from the Government and in turn will be providing assistance to their communities but being paid to do so. New Zealand First will be doing a lot more as well. Thank you.