Sepuloni Carmel: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 10 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8867. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): The previous speaker Barbara Kuriger might be proud of the Government’s accomplishments but there are a lot of people in this House who are far from proud of the Government’s accomplishments—if you can call them accomplishments at all.On Saturday night I was in Auckland City—I am seldom in Auckland City—walking down Victoria Street from the TVNZ side down to Queen Street. I have not been in the city for a long time but I was saddened by the number of homeless people who were out on that street. The last time I was in the city walking down that same street I cannot recall seeing a number close to what I saw on Saturday night. I think perhaps that I might have seen one or two homeless people on the street but not one after another along the side of the road. Walking along that road I just thought: “Where have we come to as a country?”.It is not just Auckland City that has this problem; it is so many other areas including even my own electorate. Often we show up to our electorate office in Glen Eden and there is a homeless person sleeping outside of the office.Peeni Henare: In the provinces.CARMEL SEPULONI: Even in the provinces my colleague Peeni Henare is saying that same thing is evident.Even 5 years ago when I was a member of Parliament and I had an office across the other side of the road from where my current office is we did not have the level of homelessness that we are seeing every day. Even 5 years ago when I was a member of Parliament we did not have the number of constituents walking through our electorate office every day with the housing issues that we are seeing New Zealanders faced with now. So for the National Government to say that it is proud of what it has accomplished over the last 7 years—I find that shocking and I think that in fact it should be ashamed.New Zealanders are not used to this level of homelessness. We did not grow up seeing homeless people begging on the street every day. This is not the Kiwi Dream that we were all raised to believe in. In fact this is a nightmare. It was a nightmare walking up Victoria Street and seeing homeless person after homeless person lining that street. And all I could think of was: “Actually National Government you can take responsibility for this.” We have moved so far away from the Kiwi Dream that it concerns me as a politician and it concerns me as a New Zealander. I am sure there are many New Zealanders out there who are thinking: “How are we ever going to be able to find our way back to that Kiwi Dream that we all had envisaged?”.My father was a migrant to this country and his dream as a new migrant was not that different from the stereotypical Kiwi Dream that many of us share. All it was was a family a home a job and a better life actually for his children as well so that his children would not have to work the factory floors like he did and like many of his generation who came over did.I have to point out that it has been very interesting in the House today watching the reaction of John Key Steven Joyce and Bill English to Labour’s announcement about 3 years’ free tertiary education. The fact that they are outraged by it; the fact that they have said it is unaffordable despite the fact that they are considering offering tax cuts; the fact that they say that it is unfair to the waitress who would have to pay for that tertiary education despite the fact that that waitress quite possibly could be studying herself; and the fact that they say that they are aspirational for New Zealand and yet Steven Joyce talks about the need to curb the demand for tertiary education—I find it really interesting that they would make statements like that. Actually they got their tertiary education free off the backs of people like my working-class freezing worker father who paid with his taxpayer dollars for them to get their tertiary educations for free.The thing that really is unfair is that those taxpaying working class New Zealanders paid for people like Steven Joyce Bill English John Key and others over there to get their tertiary educations but when their children got to that age when they were able to realise their parents’ aspirations for them to get tertiary educations—like I was able to for my own father—actually we were not afforded the same opportunity and we had to fork out thousands of dollars to pay for our tertiary education after our parents had paid for their tertiary educations. So I think it is a little bit unfair of people like Steven Joyce John Key and Bill English to say that this is completely unaffordable that this is unnecessary and that this is unfair to New Zealanders—like John Key pointed out in regard to the waitress.I think back to the 2008 election when we had to constantly listen to the key lines being run by the National Government—and it continues to run them now—about wanting a brighter future for New Zealand being aspirational for New Zealanders. I look at those two phrases and I think: “Well how much brighter is our future when all we see are homeless people lining the street up Victoria Street in the city and how much brighter is our future when we see constituents coming into our office every day because of the fact that they are homeless and homeless in the nastiest of ways?”. There are pregnant women living in cars who are not sure where they are going to be when they go into labour with their children whole families living in garages and whole families having to couch surf from home to home. That is not the Kiwi Dream; that is the Kiwi nightmare that we have been introduced to by that National Government over there.I have had the privilege for the last year and a bit of holding the social development portfolio for the Labour Opposition and when I look at people here who are in the position where they need to seek assistance from our welfare system all I can see is the fact that National is actually anti-aspirational for these people. So many things have been cut. You would think—or we would think—that during times of unemployment that is an opportunity for any Government to make an investment in people so that not only can these people go on to more secure employment but they can increase their earning capacities so that they can better take care of themselves and their families.But that has not been the case. Instead what we have seen is a National Government that sets a Better Public Services target that is all about benefit reductions but not about employment outcomes and we see it doing anything it can to cut people off from the benefit system with no care whatsoever about whether or not they are going on to something else.I think some of the things that the National Government has done in this area are dangerous and the treatment of people who have had to access welfare has been disgusting. I want to talk about some of those and then I want to look at the National members over there and see how proud they are of their track record. Let us start with cancer patients on the benefit. No longer do we have an invalids or sickness benefit; the Government has decided that actually people with cancer or potentially terminal illnesses can go on jobseeker support. And regardless of whether or not they are well enough to there is an expectation that they go and regularly check in and that for some of them—despite the fact they are getting radiation and chemotherapy—they have to constantly go in and prove that they are still unwell and also show that they are actively seeking work.I want to talk about grandparents raising grandchildren and how they have been treated by that Government. We have had a number of cases reported to us by the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust where they have been told by Work and Income New Zealand under that Government that they are not entitled to anything to support their grandchildren. And what we have been left with are grandparents who actually have ended up being owed in the thousands of dollars by that Government because they were not given what they were entitled to.Labour is about giving back the Kiwi Dream. That is what we are here to do. I am disappointed every day by the things that I see out and about and by the way in which that Government has turned everyday reality for so many New Zealanders into a nightmare. If I have to listen to another National MP say that they are proud of the National Government’s track record then I think I am going to have to exit this House today because I have simply heard enough of that rubbish. Thank you very much.