Faafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15778. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I take just a few moments of my first speech in the House this year to deliver some pleasantries. I hope everyone had a good break and I wish everyone the best for election year.There are two things on which I do agree with the previous speaker Maurice Williamson. The first is that people will make their decisions on how they vote around things they talk about at the breakfast table or the dinner table if they are lucky enough to have dinner that night and they will decide whether the formula for a party is a mood for change or not. So let us talk about what people do talk about at the breakfast table. The power bill comes in. I want to talk specifically in terms of the community I represent and that is the Pacific community.Hon Maurice Williamson: It went up dramatically more under Labour than us.KRIS FAAFOI: The power bill comes in Mr Williamson and a Pacific family will be wondering how they can pay that power bill. If you look at the Salvation Army report last year it shows that in the period between 2007 and 2012 although the average weekly income for every household in this country went up by $54 during that period for the same period a Pacific household’s income went up by $2 a week. So when that family looks at how they are going to pay the power bills they will make a decision about whether or not they feel better under this Government and the track record when someone else’s average household weekly income goes up by $54 a week and a Pacific Island family’s average weekly income goes up by $2 a week. Twenty-seven times more is the national average than for a Pacific Island family. That is from the Salvation Army report released last year.They will also sit around the breakfast table wondering whether Johnny is going to have a job. They will talk about that so let us look at the Pacific unemployment rate at the moment. It is 13.7 percent which is twice the national average at the moment. They will do that maths in their head Mr Williamson as to whether they think they are getting a fair deal and whether it is time for a change. You will see the Pacific community mobilise this year because they have felt the rough edges of the recession. This Government has done nothing for them. Their average weekly income has pretty much stayed the same for the last 6 years under this National Government and the Pacific unemployment rate means their families are twice as worse off than any other family in this country. So they will do that maths sitting around the breakfast table and they will make a very wise decision to turf this Government.We are speaking to the Prime Minister’s statement. John Key the Prime Minister the Rt Hon John Key the National leader call him what you like but over the course of this year you will find that he will have another title and that will be Nigel-no-mates. Over the rest of the year he will realise—and he is already starting to realise—that his friends around this House will soon disappear and he will not have enough when it comes election time to cross the threshold and have a majority in this House. He has already started making signals around that to other parties that he would not accommodate in the past because it goes against everything in his political judgment—he would not go into coalition with these parties. But now all of a sudden Mr Key is Nigel-no-mates and has to start thinking about who his mates might be post election.Look at his mates who are propping up the Government at the moment. We have got John Banks who will spend most of this parliamentary year in the dock facing electoral fraud charges. That is a really good look. That is a really really good look for this Government. And who else have we got? Oh the United Future leader Peter Dunne who was asked in this House today whether or not he has the integrity as a Minister who is responsible for the security of documentation and security of information in thiscountry whether he is the person who should be in charge whether or not he leaked sensitive documents and he will not give a straight answer. Well I think the people of New Zealand will read behind the lines of that and realise that this Government is being propped up by two MPs who are I guess you could say tricky or dodgy in that respect and as this year progresses old Nigel-no-mates over there will realise that his parliamentary term will come to an end whenever he calls an election. This Government is being propped up by two MPs whose time will soon come to an end.Also we are seeing this Government trying to gerrymander its way back into Government but not necessarily making the decisions around MMP that it should and trying to make sure it has got its mates back in this Government by making sure that the coat-tail rule in MMP stays in. It is a piece of law that 70 percent of New Zealanders say sucks. But no this Government is so out of touch that it will keep it there just to make sure that in the faint hope that one of those two get back in National can still be the Government.Who are the other options? Colin Craig. Even Maurice Williamson cannot have a straight face. I did not even say anything about Colin Craig. I just mentioned his name and Maurice Williamson cannot even keep a straight face. This is the man whom this National Party wants to do a deal with in order to stay in power. This Government will do almost anything—almost anything—to stay in power. That is not a Government that we should be keeping.We are looking forward to this election year actually. As Mr Williamson said there is a mood for change out there. We are looking forward to going out there and telling our story about how this Labour Party will bring in policies that will help Kiwi families. We have already announced one piece of policy and that is our Best Start policy which will look at investing in Kiwi children to make sure that we give them the best start in life. We will as Sue Moroney’s member’s bill is proposing extend paid parental leave for 26 weeks. I think you will find that most families out there in New Zealand who are looking to start families or to have another child really support making sure that there is a good period of time when they do have young kids when mums or dads can spend time with them in that first 6 months. We will also look at making sure that those families are getting $60 a week for the first year of the baby’s life to make sure they can meet the needs of those kids and that those kids can get the best start in life.In terms of early childhood education there is something that Trevor Mallard introduced with 20 free hours early childhood education. That will be extended from 20 hours to 25 hours. When I visited the Discovery kindergarten in Whitby about a week ago those parents to whom I spoke about that part of our Best Start policy were more than happy to make sure that they could have some more hours available to them so they could either get more work or look for more part-time work as parents of young children. The Best Start policy is about investing in our children and I am proud of it. I am really proud that we have laid the platform of what this campaign will be about for the Labour Party. It is about investing in our children.We have heard too many extreme stories about children in New Zealand—horror stories—to sit here in this Parliament and not take action. I think my colleague Poto Williams spoke of one extreme case in her maiden speech James Whakaruru who was beaten to death by one of his caregivers. We hear too many horror stories of children living in poverty. I understand that the statistic is that roughly about one in four children in New Zealand lives in poverty. In this House that is not good enough. So the Best Start policy which David Cunliffe introduced a fortnight ago is one way that this Labour Party is going to go out there and tell its story in an election year to garner support.That Best Start policy will help a lot of families locally in my community. Around 1500 new babies are born in the Mana electorate every year—roughly 1000 in Porirua and 500 in the Kāpiti area. So that investment will be a good investment for children locally. Every one dollar spent in those early years of a child’s life results in $11 of taxpayers’ money saved later on in their lives in terms of education health and keeping them out of the justice sector. That is a good investment. If you told anyone on the street that you would give them $110 if they handed over $10 they would certainly take those odds. What have we had from the Government on this policy? Well it has just been scaremongering and more out of touch rhetoric from the National Party. It is so out of touch that even in what you would call a relatively strong National Party area of my electorate in Whitby they quite like that policy.So as you can see this Government is full of rhetoric and is out of touch and the people of Mana know that especially when you ask them their opinions on policies like that one and on policies like stopping asset sales. The Government tried to hide the last referendum result but it was a resounding victory for those New Zealanders who did not want this Government to sell assets. Around 70 percent of people in the Mana electorate said no to asset sales. But what did this Government do? Did it listen? No it did not. This is a Government that is out of touch. We are looking forward to this election campaign when people will make their decisions around what they discuss at the breakfast table as Mr Williamson said. This Government has a poor track record on incomes and jobs.