Tirikatene Rino: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: General Debate[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6941. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take the penultimate call in this general debate and to remind New Zealand of the smoke and mirrors that is the hallmark of this National Government—7 years of smoke and mirrors. In fact it is akin to a magic show—it is akin to a magic show. The Government is always passing swift tactical tricks past the people of New Zealand. If Parliament were Las Vegas then John Key and Bill English would be Penn & Teller—John Keyis obviously the big guy Penn and Bill English the shorter cunning guy Teller. But the country is asking the hard questions and we are not getting answers. We are not getting answers from this Government; all we do is get smoke and mirrors.When the country is talking about daily announcements of job losses at Fonterra AgResearch and numerous firms up and down the country a tanking economy and the softening of our export markets what do we get from this smoke-and-mirrors Government? It says: “Let’s talk about a flag—let’s talk about a flag.” There are millions of refugees and a crisis in Europe and what do we get? They say: “Oh I like flags with ferns.” That is what we get from this smoke-and-mirrors Government. We get Murray McCully and a flock of sheep and Serco Sam. What do we get? Wait a minute they say: “This is a photo of the Prime Minister and Richie.” This is what we get from this Government: smoke and mirrors. We are not getting substance; we are not getting answers to the hard questions and the hard issues that this country should be tackling—it is smoke and mirrors. This could not have been evidenced more than by the line-up that we have had today.First of all we had Koro Tim Groser—Mr SPEAKER: Order!RINO TIRIKATENE: Pompous Mr Groser. That was a respectful remark—that was a respectful remark. Mr Groser—pompous and pontificating about numerology and theology and not addressing the real issues around being transparent with the country about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.Next we have Nikki Kaye. She rattles off the same speech in every general debate. Those members always try to run the decoy—try to run the decoy—Nikki Kaye and Jami-Lee Ross. “Oh let’s run the reverse. Let’s run this decoy.” It has no effect. The country is seeing through the smoke and mirrors.The classic one from today though is obviously the panda and we have a name for the panda. It is “Cha-Ching”—that is right. This Government is more concerned about “cha-ching” for its mates than spreading that “cha-ching” round the whole of the motu. And what will it do next? Government members will say: “Oh look here’s a picture of Cha-Ching the panda with a Richie McCaw T-shirt waving a silver fern flag.” That is what we get from this Government: smoke and mirrors.Who did we have next? Oh yes we had the Minister of Conservation. And what was she talking about? She said: “Oh we want targeted increases for our kiwis.” Well tell that to the poor takahē from Motutapu that were slaughtered—30 percent of the most endangered species the takahē was absolutely slaughtered under her watch. Absolutely shameful. Then she says that they are going to attack the weeds—they are going to attack the weeds. Well here is an idea maybe she could take her department and grow some bamboo for “Cha-ching”. It can go out and grow more bamboo. That is an idea for economic development. We are not getting anything of substance; we are just getting smoke and mirrors.Then we get the rooster from the ACT Party.Mr SPEAKER: Order!RINO TIRIKATENE: It was just a descriptive remark.Mr SPEAKER: The member has been warned.RINO TIRIKATENE: A descriptive remark about the member from Epsom—the golden boy from Epsom. I do not care to dignify those remarks but what we are seeing is smoke and mirrors from this Government but the people of New Zealand have had enough of the smoke. It is too much—they are coughing. They are choking from the smoke and they want to blow it away. They want to blow it away and that is what we will be doing. We want to hear hard answers to the questions. We have the answers and we will be powering on through. Kia ora tātou.