Wednesday, 6 December 2023 - Volume 772 WEDNESDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2023 ADDRESS IN REPLY JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): I move, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency's Speech. E ngā mate, koutou e iri nei i ngā pātū o tēnei Whare, koutou i whawhai mō te here-kore o te manapori, e mihi ana. To the fallen heroes, whose final resting places adorn these walls, and who fought for our freedoms and our precious democracy, I acknowledge you. E mihi ana ki a koutou o Aotearoa, koutou i whakapono mai hei whakakanohi i a koe, e mihi ana. To the people of New Zealand, who put their faith in us to represent them in this great House, I acknowledge you. E mihi ana ki te Pirimia hou, ki a Christopher Luxon. Tēnā koe i eke panuku hei ūpoko mō te Kāwanatanga, e mihi ana. To the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, congratulations on your victory. I acknowledge you. Prime Minister, with great power comes great responsibility, and I know that you will discharge that responsibility as a man with great courage, conviction, conscientiousness, and compassion. Kei ōku hoa mahi, tatou e pīkau i te taumahatanga o ā tatou kaupapa nui, e whakamānawa ana, e mihi ana. To my colleagues across the House, who now carry the burden of great purpose, I acknowledge and congratulate you all. This is a special place, one which bestows upon us the power to make the laws of our land and exert great control over the people. Please use that power lightly and infrequently. E mihi ana ki a koe e te Māngai, tēnā koe i tohua hei kaikōrero mō tātou, e mihi ana. To you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge and congratulate you on your election as our Speaker. Mr Speaker, I have known you for almost a decade now—not as long as others here, but longer than some—and in that time I have known nothing but generosity, wisdom, and fortitude from you as a leader in this House of Representatives. You are selfless, you are generous, and, in my view, you will go down as one of the most important politicians the South Island will have ever seen. SPEAKER: You're going to go a long way in politics! JAMES MEAGER: Do I get to reclaim that time back, Mr Speaker, to the end my speech? SPEAKER: Most certainly. JAMES MEAGER: E mihi ana ki tōku whānau, otirā, ki ōku hoa tata. Mei kore ake ko koutou, kua kore ahau. To my family and my friends, I acknowledge you. Without you, I could not be here. Ka mutu, ki ōku taniwha ake, ki ōku nawe, ki ōku nawe-rau, e mihi ana. Ki te kore ōku nawe, kua kore ahau. And to my flaws, of which there are many, I acknowledge you. Because without my flaws, I would not be me. I am flawed, perhaps a little more than some, perhaps a little less than others, but flawed still the same, much like we all are. It's our flaws that make us who we are, and it's the flaws in our society that I think bring us here to this House. For some, it's the urge to right the wrongs of our predecessors. For others, it's the drive to seek out and eradicate injustice. For some, it's to simply and gradually move society in the right rather than in the wrong direction. It is the flaws that we see in everything that I think brings us to this House. Our purpose is to fix what we see is wrong in the world. Our purpose is to seek a brighter, more prosperous future for all New Zealanders. And so I stand here, flaws and all, in the most powerful room in the land—humbled, completely humbled. My family has never sought the limelight. This entrance into public life won't come easy for us. We are simple, straightforward people from a simple, straightforward part of the world. My dad is Ngāi Tahu, a freezing worker most of his life, a little Māori kid who was kicked out of school at 14 and who never told his parents, hiding in bedroom closets and spending afternoons down the river until he was old enough to convince his folks to let him go to work at 15. Until yesterday, he had never stepped foot in the North Island. His father, my grandfather, was a truck driver and a freezing worker, and my nana was a seamstress and a wool carder in Ashburton. Dad's a hard worker. He's a bloody hard worker. You can't stand on your feet for hours on end on the chain and in the boning room for 40 years without knowing what hard work looks like. Dad wasn't around much growing up and that's put a strain on our relationship, which has never healed and which may never heal, but I don't blame him for that. We are products of our upbringing. We navigate through the world with the tools that we are given, and sometimes those tools just aren't fit for purpose. Forgiveness and redemption are words that are often overused, but they are words that are fit for this moment. We should never judge people based on who they once were. We can only judge someone on who they are today compared to who they were yesterday. And I know my dad is making up for lost time. I'm so glad he's here today and I love him dearly. On my mum's side, our family come from Devon and Cornwall in the South of England. Grandma was a cleaner; Granddad fixed fridges. Their parents were farmers, mechanics, inventors, and also freezing workers. To be fair, it's hard to find someone from mid-south Canterbury whose family doesn't have some connection to the meat and wool industry in one way or another. And Mum's done a few jobs in her life—cleaning, teacher aiding, and now very proudly works at Countdown in Timaru. I'm glad she is here today and I love her dearly. My mum and dad split up when I was in kindergarten, so Mum brought me, my younger brother, and sister up on her own—a single mum in a State house on the benefit with three kids. So I know what it's like to be poor. I know what it's like to grow up sharing a bedroom with my brother until I was 18. I know what it's like to have to walk everywhere because we didn't have a car until I was nine. I know what it's like to see a father struggle to pay his bills and borrow money from his kid's school savings account. I know what it's like to see a solo mother juggle three kids, part-time work, correspondence school, and all the other worries that a single parent living in South Timaru has. I know what it's like to have your very first memory be of the police trying to coax you to come out from under the bed, telling you that everything would be OK. But make no mistake, we had a great life. We never went without. My mum has steel in her bones and grit in her soul. My recollection is that, yes, we were poor but we were never in poverty. My mum always made sure there was food on the table, clothes on our backs, and books in our school bags. Mum made sure schooling was everything. We always went to school, every single day. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be here today if it weren't for my education. I would not have practised law. I would not have gone to Otago University. I would not have had the privilege of being head boy and dux at Timaru Boys' High School. And that's what brings me here. It's why I'm in politics. It's why I'm in this place. Because I know that in New Zealand today, not every child will have the same opportunity that I had 30 years ago. Not every child has a mum like I had, someone who drove home the importance of education, of working hard, of being a decent person and living a decent life. Too many children in our country will grow up without that opportunity. Some won't grow up at all. So that's why I'm here. That's the injustice; that's the flaw in the system that I want to change. Perhaps to some I am a walking contradiction—you know, a part-Māori boy, raised in a State house by a single parent on the benefit, now a proud National Party MP in a deeply rural farming electorate in the middle of the South Island—but there is no contradiction there. Members opposite do not own Māori. Members opposite do not own the poor. Members opposite do not own the workers. No party and no ideology has a right to claim ownership over anything or anyone. We, on this side of the House, are a broad church: town and country, liberal and conservative, old and young, and professionals and workers. What unites us is our fundamental belief that it's the individual family unit that knows what's best for their family—not the State, not the Government, and not us. It's not the State that saved my family; it was my mum. She took responsibility for our situation. When we fall on hard times, as we all will at some stage, it's our neighbours and our community that should rally around in support. Only after that does the State become our safety net, as the neighbour of last resort. Our system should be one which helps pick us up when we fall but which then gets out of the way when we're back on our feet and lets us lives our lives. The job of Government must be to create a system which makes it as easy as possible for good people to make the right decisions. But, instead, we have a system which creates broken families and turns good people into lost souls. It's not right, and it must change. I truly believe that social investment is that change. When we see people as having agency and dignity in their own right, rather than just as numbers on a spreadsheet, we will have a just society. When we look at spending as an investment rather than a cost, we can focus on outcomes that benefit not only the health and wellbeing of the individual but also the back pocket of the taxpayer. That's what social investment does. If we invest thousands in supporting the first thousand days of a child's life, we can save millions in long-term costs that stem from poor health and poor education. If we can give more people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to accident compensation, if we can get them the treatment they need as quickly as possible, not only will we improve their health and their wellbeing and change their lives, we can get them back working, earning, and paying their way. If we are sensible with the rules and the regulations that we put in place about who can work in our education and health systems, for example, by allowing those who train in CANZUK countries—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—to work here as a right, we will save millions in costs associated with burnout and the constant under-resourcing of those sectors. But this approach only succeeds if we are willing to follow the evidence so we can prove what works. Good programmes should be enriched, and bad ones should be cast aside. We don't need complicated audits and reporting mechanisms for community organisations to administer taxpayer-funded programmes. The Government has this information. It can do the work to measure those programmes against long-term individual outcomes in health and education, in reduced welfare-dependency and better housing, in lower crime and in lower drug and alcohol use. All we need is to be more reasonable, be more sensible, and be more savvy with the use of this data. The Privacy Act, with all of its good intentions, is a major barrier to getting New Zealanders the help that they need, and our approach to how we share information deserves a serious rethink. This is why we are all here: to debate freely; to have an open, robust contest of ideas; to challenge one another in an environment where disputes are resolved by the showing of hands and not by the throwing of fists. We are here to represent the people who put us here. And some of us are here to disrupt and to challenge the status quo, and I get that—I really do. But in doing so, we must respect this institution, we must respect its traditions, and, importantly, we must respect those who have come before us and who have cleared the way for our many voices to be heard. We are here to fight for what we believe in, each and every one of us, without fear or favour, laying aside all personal interests. We are a Parliament of the people, by the people, and for the people. Much faith has been placed in me by many people. I intend to work hard to repay that faith—flaws and all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. [Applause] KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I second the motion that a respectful address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency's speech. Mr Speaker, may I first congratulate you on your successful election as Speaker. I know you will bring respect, fairness, care, and honesty to the House and to the role, particularly given the number of new MPs that enter Parliament alongside me. I'd like to congratulate the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, and say how proud I am to be a member of his Government. The Prime Minister's leadership from the day he became the leader of the National Party has been nothing but motivational: integrity and intelligence, and relentless dedication to delivering better outcomes for every New Zealander. I look forward to giving everything I have to help get New Zealand back on track. It is important that I start by thanking the people of the Napier electorate for putting their confidence in me as their representative in the 54th Parliament. I want to acknowledge my intention when I say "Napier electorate" rather than simply "Napier". I am the representative of Napier City, yes, but also the Wairoa District and parts of the Hastings and Gisborne districts. Every township and settlement is equally important to me and I commit to staying connected to all 9,482.6 square kilometres of it. I started the way I wished to continue, being positive, approachable, connected, and always taking the high road. I am now privileged to officially represent you in that way. I want to thank my opponents—plural—for a competitive campaign that constantly kept me on my toes. I also want to acknowledge Cushla Tangaere-Manuel for her successful campaign in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. T I look forward to working with you for the communities that we share. I want to acknowledge Catherine Wedd, the new MP for Tukituki—while we have multiple neighbours, the partnership between Napier and Tukituki needs to be strong and united. I look forward to working with you for our twin cities and region. While the people of Napier elected me, I am here today because the National Party believed I was the right person to contest the Napier seat in 2023, after first contesting it in 2020—but we won't talk about that. What is most humbling is having people believe in you so deeply that they sacrifice their time and join the fray. To call these people volunteers is an understatement. They've become family. Some of them are here today while some of them are watching from home. While I'm now part of a team of National Party members of Parliament, you are the team that got me here, and I thank you for everything. While I'm saying thank you, I want to acknowledge the Young Nats. I was a Young Nat and so were my parents, so I know why you do what you do, but your tireless dedication to the party and its candidates is astonishing and I will continue to learn from you and absorb your energy, so thank you. Finally, to my family who are here today, thank you for your unwavering support in ways too many to list. My parents, Bill and Sue Nimon, never stood in the way of me becoming myself, no matter where it took me. I am strong-minded, often outspoken, and always questioning. I was never going to be a housewife. Despite that, my husband, Jeremy, still married me a year ago, and has been my constant reprieve. I am a Nimon before I am Katie. My surname has always defined me. My family's history is their legacy and my responsibility. My father's maternal great-grandfather, William John Geddis, his namesake, came to New Zealand on the British Trident, and during his career in journalism, bought or established several newspapers including Napier's Daily Telegraph. In 1917, during World War I, William was chosen as one of six delegates to represent New Zealand at an Empire Press Conference followed by a tour of the British and French fronts. I have a copy of a treasured photo of him with his two sons, Clifton Geddis, and my great-grandfather Trevor, where they were fighting in the war when he visited. Having a visit from family during the war is a privilege denied to most soldiers. In 1918, William was appointed by the Massey-led Reform Government to the Legislative Council, and he was the representative for Napier until his death in 1926. The Napier Daily Telegraph was survived by my great-grandfather, his son, and grandsons, and merged with The Herald-Tribune in 1999 to form the Hawke's Bay Today. My great-grandfather Trevor, chief Rotarian and chair of the Napier Harbour Board after the 1931 earthquake, was responsible for setting up the Napier Reconstruction Committee and launching the village settlement scheme. Trevor received an OBE in 1952 for his service to local government and journalism. John Giles Nimon, known as Jack, is dad's paternal great-grandfather, and started the bus company that has shaped who I am today. He came to New Zealand in the 1880s via Dunedin, settled in Hawke's Bay, and through work as a stable hand, bought a bus service in 1905 and started Nimon and Sons. From horse-drawn carriages, to Studebakers, Seddons, and Bedfords, the business evolved with the community, as did the family. Jack's son, John Joseph—known as Joe—carried on the business, also serving as the Mayor of Havelock borough, receiving the coronation medal in 1952 and an MBE in 1972 for services to the community. My grandfather, also John, an engineer, went to England to join the air force, returned for a surgery, met my grandmother, and appropriately stayed in Hawke's Bay. At the time, he decided there were too many family members in the business for it to sustain his family as well, so he started a new business, Roadair, a nationwide refrigerated trucking company. He went on to run the bus company as well and was heavily involved in the Bus and Coach Association, being awarded an MBE for services to business management and to the community. My mother's maternal great-great-grandfather, Thomas Wilmor McKenzie, was known as "The Father of Wellington". He came to New Zealand with his mother in 1839 on the Adelaide. Shortly after his arrival, Thomas and a friend inadvertently strayed on to a tapu site in Thorndon. To prevent them from being killed by Te Rīrā Pōrutu, the paramount chief of Ngāti Awa, Ruhia—his daughter-in-law—threw a cloak over them to make them tapu. That cloak, alongside the story, is now in Te Papa. As an apprentice, he helped produce the first papers of the New Zealand Gazette and started the Wellington Independent newspaper. I do appreciate the coincidence that McKenzie and Geddis both started newspapers, and often wonder if during their time in Wellington they knew each other well. I imagine the furthest thing from their minds would be that they'd share a descendant that would become a member of Parliament, and even less so a great-great-granddaughter. My mother's paternal ancestry is largely unknown, due to her grandfather dying before her father was born. However, we have found out since that they were storekeepers. One thing my ancestors all had in common was service to community; something I have inherited, along with my interest in transport, business, and writing. Mr Speaker, I share with you this history, because who I am, my values, my experience, and my passion, was set in motion by their actions. My personal history is somewhat dichotomous. During high school, I was simultaneously racing ministocks at Meeanee Speedway, and tracking through the grades in speech and drama. My favourite subjects were classics, art history, and history, but on the weekends I watched rugby. I worked in the weekends at an information centre, and in the school holidays for my parents at the bus depot. When the time came for university, my interest and persuasion led me to study towards the advertising industry, and I spent two years there as part of the Clemenger Group Graduate Programme. In Auckland, I became known as the ambassador for Hawke's Bay. When I got the chance to come back and work in the family business, the decision was simple—Auckland wasn't my place, and I wanted to work on my own legacy, not Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn's. Tourism was turning a corner in Hawke's Bay, and I wanted to be part of it, smoothing out the peaks and troughs of the seasons. Being part of the passenger transport industry, the regional tourism industry, and the local school network showed me that provincial communities are powerful and that service is my calling. I went from business development to general management, and I managed to jam an executive MBA in there somewhere as well. After a rocky two years, including an election and another career change, I continued to serve my community by becoming the transport manager at Hawke's Bay Regional Council. My time in local government was insightful, impactful, and enhancing. It aged me, but in a good way. Although it sounds like it, work isn't my entire life. I am passionate about mentoring young women. I have been on a journey of self-awareness and understanding my whole life. My brain is my favourite feature, and I feel strongly that knowledge is power. The world benefits from more powerful women, and the rising tide lifts all boats. There was no one day where I thought, "Ah ha! I'm going to be a politician."; rather, it was a natural progression based on the life I was leading. There is only so long you can serve a business, an industry, or a community before you reach the limitations of your own influence. While I didn't know I was going to be a politician, my parents would argue that I did. What I do recall was secretly wanting to be an All Black and be part of a high-performance team. Sadly, I'm not an athlete, but I am part of a high-performance team—not in black, but in blue. I would never call myself a political junkie; politics just happens to be neatly—or not so neatly—intertwined with life. Unfortunately, the more involved a Government becomes in people's business, and businesses, for that matter, the worse things seem to get. In life, I have seen how different Governments have impacted communities through business. I have seen years where small businesses have become untenable, mum and pop owners sell to corporates, corporates grow, employment relations break down, unions grow, and service diminishes, and at some point along the way, the wind changes and the sun comes out. Instead of playing political whack-a-mole, I strongly believe in Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand. The argument for limited Government is a strong one, which is one of the many reasons why I stand here on this side of the House. I don't claim to have all the answers, but you can't spend your way out of every problem, nor can you regulate your way out of it. All you get is debt and dependency. My political values have come from growing up in a family where work was life, not just a job, and seeing the real-life impact of theoretical experiments. When you grow up in a house where your landline is the after-hours phone number for a transport company and your holidays are bus conferences, you see the importance of competitive enterprise and reward for achievement. Business owners, landlords, and farmers take risks to provide goods and services. When there's no reward, why would they take that risk? Sadly, in the last six years, a growing number of these people no longer see the risk worth taking. Economics 101 will teach you that when suppliers leave the market, supply doesn't match demand, and you lose market equilibrium, and it doesn't take much to learn who loses in that scenario. You might consider me a liberal conservative. I've been told I'm fiscally conservative but socially progressive. What I hope is to help more people see that you can deliver improved outcomes for those that need it most, with more localised delivery and in partnership with the private sector. There is a book I used to frequently check out of the Wellington Library called The Secret Language of Birthdays. Whether you believe in astrology or not, my birthday is the day of the bridge. Whether it's written in the stars or because I was the middle daughter in a family with parents less like Venus and Mars and more like Mercury and Pluto, I'm known to help people see eye to eye. Whether it's helping the Government understand the needs of Napier or helping Napier appreciate the intention of Government, my job is to be the bridge between them. It hasn't been an easy road since 14 February, but regardless of the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle, the provinces have been left behind. It is unjust to prioritise the niceties of urban Wellington and Auckland when the locals of Tiniroto and Ruakituri are still taking a two-hour detour because the roads have been closed for nearly 10 months. The top half of the Napier electorate is cut off on a weekly basis, and without access to healthcare and education, it is hit and miss. Napier City was an island once again after the cyclone crumbled or closed every surrounding bridge, cutting off power, supplies and medical care. The Napier electorate has all the ingredients to be the place to move for opportunities. It is the place that people could stay for their dream career. From Onekawa to Māhia, the industries are there—energy, space, tourism, film, ag-hort, construction—and we just need to get out of their way. I want this for the whole region, but I want to make a special mention of Wairoa, the heart of the Napier electorate. Wairoa has endless potential and its people are strong, but what I want for Wairoa is for its rangatahi to not have to leave to find opportunities. Wairoa will achieve this for Wairoa, but we can meet them halfway with health, infrastructure, and services that make life there not only possible but enviable. I am here today as the representative of the Napier electorate. For Napier City and Matawai, for rural and urban, for employer and employee, for landlord and tenant—for every person, no matter how they cast their vote. I want the region to flourish for the sake of the rest of New Zealand. I intend to start the way I wish to continue. While I have spent the last 15 minutes talking, I will spend the rest of my career listening, advocating, and delivering, because the Nimon family motto states "I show, not boast". Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the following words be added to the address "and expects, over the next three years, to see action on the cost of living pressure Kiwi families are facing, with inflation falling faster than Treasury's pre-election projections, interest rates falling, real incomes continuing to grow, near record-low unemployment being sustained, the Government's books being returned to surplus at least as quickly as previously forecast, the number of affordable homes built increased, all those on State house waiting lists being accommodated, significant reductions in crime, climate emissions continuing to decline, school attendance materially improving, rates of literacy and numeracy amongst 15-year-olds improving, and material improvements in the overall living standards of all New Zealanders." Anything less than those things will mean that this Government has failed to deliver on the promises that it made to New Zealanders. Sitting and listening to the Speech from the Throne, I listened very carefully, hoping to see some shred of vision, some shred of hope for the future for New Zealanders, but what we heard was a plan to take New Zealand backwards—repeated use of words like "stop", "repeal", "replace", "reverse", and "disestablish"—a plan to go backwards, not a plan to take New Zealand forward. What we also saw was a confused set of priorities: a Government that has chosen to prioritise mega landlords over renters and first-home buyers; a Government that has chosen to prioritise the tobacco lobby over the health and wellbeing of young New Zealanders; a Government that has chosen to prioritise oil and gas companies over our environment; a Government that has chosen to prioritise millionaires instead of salary and wage workers; a Government that has chosen to accept conspiracy theories instead of policy-based facts, evidence, and science. Not only does the Government have its priorities wrong, this could well be the most shambolic beginning of any Government in New Zealand's history. First, we had the coalition negotiations, with, as predicted, Winston Peters and David Seymour running circles around Christopher Luxon. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite as pathetic as the incoming Prime Minister literally sprinting out the door of Parliament to fly back to Auckland because he had been summoned by Winston Peters, because Winston Peters decided that he didn't want to come to Wellington; he wanted instead to summon the others to come to Auckland—not exactly a strong and stable start to coalition negotiations. But then, of course, when the Government finally took office and we thought things might settle down a bit, it actually got worse, because in those signature moments in the formation of the new Government Winston Peters once again stole the show, upstaging the Prime Minister throughout the entire process. On a serious note, though, I respect the fact that New Zealanders at this last election voted for change. I don't think the change that they're getting is the change they thought they were voting for, though. I don't think that this was the change that they had in mind, because, when we look through the coalition documents that form the basis for this incoming Government, we see a mishmash of confused priorities and broken promises literally weeks out from the election. First, let's start with the fundamentals. Let's start with the economic fundamentals that underpin this Government: tax cuts that are simply unaffordable. Bigger tax cuts for mega landlords than what was promised before the election and smaller tax cuts for working New Zealanders than what was promised before the election—that has been the upshot of the coalition negotiations. Mega landlords, around 300 of whom stand to get over a million dollars in tax cuts each under this incoming Government, actually get their tax cuts brought forward so they are going to get more while working New Zealanders see the tax cuts they were promised by National starting to erode away through the wheeling and dealing of the incoming Government. New Zealanders discovered late in the election campaign that the tax cuts that were being promised by National were actually a hoax to begin with: $250 a fortnight is what National promised the average working family—$250 a fortnight—and not "up to". In fact, we can go back and we can watch the video. It was $250 a fortnight. But then we discovered late in the campaign that actually there were only about 3,000 families that were going to benefit from that, and for the rest of the country it was going to be significantly less than that. And now we know it is going to be even less than what they were promised before the election. I do want to welcome one change, and I want to congratulate New Zealand First for the change, and that is the reversal of National's policy to allow foreign homebuyers back into the New Zealand housing market. It was the wrong way to fund tax cuts. It made a mockery of National's claim for the last six years that tax cuts were affordable, because they had to raise a new revenue source in order to pay for them, but also it was a complete fiction that never would have raised the revenue that was promised. If anything, I think Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon were relieved that New Zealand First drew a line through that one, because they were soon to be found out that it was simply a fiction. There was a reason why they never released their costings during the election campaign—because I don't think they actually had any. I don't think they actually had anything more than a few back-of-the-envelope calculations that simply did not stack up. But what I think New Zealanders will be shocked by is what they have replaced it with: the idea that more young New Zealanders should take up smoking in order to pay for tax cuts is morally reprehensible. I don't think New Zealanders thought that was what they were going to get. I don't think that's the change they were voting for when they voted at the last election. National's decision to wind back the smoke-free Aotearoa agenda is a disgrace to New Zealand as a country. It is an international embarrassment, and it is making headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons. Members opposite should think carefully about where they are positioning themselves when even the Conservatives in the UK think that they have made the wrong decision. When the Conservative Party in the UK are progressing an agenda which this Government are now choosing to abandon, it should surely have them questioning their priorities. But that is not the only reason that the incoming Government are embarrassing New Zealand internationally already, trashing New Zealand's international reputation. Live animal exports is another area. It is cruel and it is wrong, and it was banned for a reason. This is a Government that proposed to reverse all action on climate change, and that is an embarrassment to New Zealand, a country that trades on its "clean, green" reputation. What we are seeing is a Government that says that you can have all the emissions reductions and yet do nothing that has actually contributed to achieving those things. It is an embarrassment to New Zealand internationally. Let's then turn to the core of their promises during the campaign. There is no doubt that this was a cost of living election. The increase in inflation that we have seen post pandemic has hurt Kiwi households, and hurt Kiwi household budgets in particular, but what are we seeing from this incoming Government? Will their policies that they have signed up to actually reduce inflation? Tax cuts that aren't properly funded and the catalogue of spending commitments that we've seen in the coalition agreement are more likely to stoke inflation than see inflation coming backwards. There is a reason that the Government are now so desperately thrashing around trying to blame the outgoing Government for everything they possibly can—because their numbers didn't add up before the election and they certainly don't add up after the coalition negotiations. Rt Hon Christopher Luxon: Smoke and mirrors. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: So let's talk about smoke and mirrors, and let's talk about some of the smoke and mirrors that we've seen in the last few days. The idea that Pharmac's funding and that the funding for school lunches was somehow a new surprise to the incoming Government despite the fact that it was in their own fiscal plan before the last election. Suddenly, somehow, this is all news to them now, and somehow the outgoing Government was wrong in not grouping up all of the time-limited commitments into a nice easy summary that was easy to read, because apparently nobody on the other side of the House bothered to read the last Budget as they put together their alternative fiscal plan. It's not that long, and I'm sure that someone on the other side has an attention span that can make it from the start to the finish, even if the incoming finance Minister doesn't. As for cost overruns, I don't know whether it's escaped the incoming Government that there has been an increase in inflation and that as they were talking about the cost of living facing New Zealanders, it's somewhat surprising that they didn't factor that into their fiscal plans—because Government costs have gone up during that time as well. We factored that in to our fiscal plans, and during the campaign made it very clear to the National Party that they'd underprovided for that—"Oh no, no", we were told, "We've got it all right." Now they know their numbers don't add up, they're trying to blame everybody but themselves when their numbers did not add up. So let me begin with my first pledge for this Parliament: we will not let this incoming Government rewrite history. They have inherited a set of Government books that are on track to getting back into surplus. They have inherited an inflationary track that will mean by this time next year, inflation will be back to the 1 to 3 percent target range. They have inherited near-record low unemployment that has been sustained for a prolonged period of time. They have inherited strong wage growth that means working Kiwis are able to work hard and get ahead. They have inherited an economy that is growing faster than many economists had predicted it would grow—and it was never in recession, despite the fact that the new Prime Minister went up and down the country preaching doom and gloom. In fact, he went around the world preaching doom and gloom, saying that New Zealand was "wet, whiny, and miserable", and that "Kiwi businesses have gone soft" and we were "in recession" when we never were. Not only did we do all of those things but whilst we were doing those things, we ensured that we were investing record amounts in fixing up New Zealand's run-down infrastructure. We also made sure that health and education was being properly funded, something that we could not say when we became the Government in 2017. But I also want to make the second of the pledges that I want to make in this House today: that as an Opposition and as a future Government, we will seek to bring New Zealanders together, not drive a wedge between Kiwis. The three most egregious examples of that that we see from the incoming Government are this: first, the adoption of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as apparent Government policy. I say to the members opposite who have pledged to end all COVID-19 mandates: can they name one that's still in place? Can they name one? I hear crickets on the Treasury benches, because there aren't any—but they want to buy into the conspiracy theorists' view; they are now questioning the efficacy of vaccine science. I think this House should be proud of the fact that we, as a whole Parliament, said to New Zealanders that vaccines were safe and effective and Kiwis should do that, and I think it is a massive step backwards that this Government are now officially questioning that. I also think that it's a stain on New Zealand's international reputation that we are one of only two or three countries in the world saying that we don't want to be part of the system that the World Health Organization are setting up to stop future pandemics—a system set up to stop future pandemics—and this Government are saying they don't want New Zealand to be part of it, making us an embarrassing international outlier. We see outright attacks from the incoming Government on our gender diverse community that are frankly a massive step backwards. I want our schools to be a safe place for all young New Zealanders, including our gender diverse young people. I want all of our young people in New Zealand to be free to be who they are; to not feel like they have to be someone who they are not when they walk through the school gate. And I want New Zealand to be a country where young people learn to be respectful of diversity and difference, not one where they are encouraged to judge and persecute others who are not like them. But perhaps the most egregious and divisive policies that we are seeing from this Government are when it comes to issues around Māori. During my lifetime, I'm very proud of the fact that New Zealand, under successive governments—blue and red—has made enormous progress towards righting some of the wrongs of the past, towards bringing New Zealand together, towards celebrating Māori culture and identity in ways that we haven't in the past. And I am very disappointed that, based on what we're seeing in the coalition documents of this Government, this could be the first Government in a generation to go backwards on those issues. New Zealanders have nothing to fear from Māori thriving in New Zealand. When Māori thrive, all New Zealanders will thrive. I believe that te reo Māori is a taonga for New Zealand; we should be proud of it, we should celebrate it, we should foster it, and we should encourage New Zealanders to take it up in greater numbers. The rhetoric that we've seen in the last 24 hours—of suggesting that those who speak fluent te reo Māori in public service roles should have their pay docked—is simply disgraceful. We pay extra allowances to teachers who are fluent in te reo Māori because there is so much demand for it, because so many young New Zealanders want to learn it. And I am proud as a Minister of Education to have seen an expansion of te reo Māori provision in our schools, so that future generations of New Zealanders—including Pākehā New Zealanders—can learn te reo Māori, something I didn't get the opportunity to do when I was at school and I wish that I had; and I want to make sure that future New Zealanders get to have that. I say to members opposite that non-Māori New Zealanders have nothing to fear from a Māori Health Authority focused on improving the health outcomes for Māori New Zealanders, and we have nothing to fear from a by Māori, for Māori approach. This Government, in the Speech from the Throne and in their coalition agreement, set out all of the areas where they want to take New Zealand backwards; very few where they want to take New Zealand forwards. Repealing the Resource Management Act (RMA), which the last National Government said was flawed and needed to be changed, and putting it back to what it was before—so repealing the repeal and going back to the RMA—isn't going to take New Zealand forward, particularly when they don't know what they're going to eventually replace it with. Dialling back workers' rights isn't going to take New Zealand forward. Removing fair pay agreements that had the potential to lift salary and wages for some of the lowest-paid New Zealand workers isn't going to take New Zealand forward. Reinstating 90-day fire-at-will trials isn't going to improve the lot of working New Zealanders, and watering down contractors' rights will simply return us to the race to the bottom. I think one of the big challenges our economy faces in recent decades is that we've seen a decoupling of effort and reward. We actually have to make sure work pays, and this Government wants to turn back the clock on all of the things that have seen rising incomes for working New Zealanders. Another area where the Government want to take us backwards—tragically for New Zealand today, but even more tragically for New Zealand tomorrow—is the area of climate change. This Government inherit a climate emissions reductions profile that is trending down for the first time in New Zealand's history, and has been for the last three years. And yet what they want to do is remove the three things that have actually contributed to that reduction. They want to abolish the Climate Emergency Response Fund, they want to abolish the Government investment in decarbonising industry, they want to abolish the clean car rebate—all examples of things that will take New Zealand backwards, that will turn back the clock on our effort to combat climate change. And they have nothing to replace those things with. It's all hollow rhetoric—greenwashing, if you wanted to call it that—which is actually going to see New Zealand's climate profile getting worse again. Given that it was the cost of living election, I looked closely in the Speech from the Throne and the coalition deals to see what they were actually going to do about it. And there's very little in there that is actually going to help New Zealanders to tackle the rising cost of living, particularly given the things that are in there are likely to keep inflation and interest rates higher for longer. They're off to a shambolic start, but sadly there is a lot more to come. I am looking forward, for example, to seeing New Zealand First's response when the ACT Party brings the legislation to the House—that they have promised and that New Zealand First have pledged to support—to repeal changes to the Overseas Investment Act that the last coalition Government introduced, at the behest of New Zealand First, to introduce the national interest test into the Overseas Investment Act. I'm not sure they were fully awake at that part of the discussions, where they literally signed up to that and said that they were going to vote in favour of repealing the provisions in the Overseas Investment Act— Hon Shane Jones: Mere detail! Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —that they wanted to put in place in the first place. "Mere detail", Shane Jones says. I think we'll hear a bit of that in the next little while. I look forward to hearing what New Zealand First has to say about rail investment, given that the incoming National Government have made very little provision for any increased investment in rail—and I know that that's something that matters a lot to them. Although I did notice Nicola Willis railing against the increase in the cost of replacing the inter-island ferries. Fortunately for her, she could speak to the Minister who initiated the replacement of the inter-island ferries: he's sitting two seats down, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who kicked off the procurement process for the replacement of the inter-island rail ferries. Of course, we know that the New Zealand First Party say they want to increase the minimum wage while the ACT Party say they want to have it frozen. So I'm sure that's going to be an interesting debate around the Cabinet table. It will be very interesting to see where they land on forestry conversions, given New Zealand First seem to want more of it for forestry, and ACT and National seem to want less of it. I'm looking forward to seeing them progressing their legislation on the Kermadecs after six years of complaining about the lack of progress on that under the last Government. Hon Shane Jones: Haere ra! Haere ra! Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Don't give in so early, Shane. Although there'll be a few people saying "haere ra" when New Zealand First vote in favour of bringing back 90-day trials, something they voted in favour of removing in the first place; and actually some tenants saying "haere ra" when they bring back no-cause evictions for tenants something, again, New Zealand First previously voted to abolish. New Zealand First, of course, have also signed up to reintroduce charter schools, something they spent nine years in Opposition being vehemently opposed to. Ultimately, it is a Government that wants to take New Zealand back, but I do want to—given this is my first contribution in this House—take a moment to say thank you. Because whilst this marks the beginning of the new Government, it does also mark the end of the last Government and I want to take a moment to thank New Zealanders for their support over the last six years through some extraordinarily challenging circumstances; to thank all of those staff who worked for us in the Beehive who now find themselves seeking other employment—one of the perhaps more brutal parts of this democratic process. I do want to take a moment to say thank you to all of them for their contributions, and I do want to take a moment to reflect on what they helped us to achieve in that six years that we were in Government, because it does very much set the context for what this Government is inheriting. There are more New Zealanders in work than ever before. We have the highest rate of Kiwis in jobs, with a 69.8 percent employment rate, having created 281,000 new jobs during our time in Government. I'm proud of the work that we did to close the gender pay gap, and I hope—all politics aside—that that is work that will continue under the incoming Government, because it is simply wrong that for generations women have been paid less than men for doing work of the same value. We have made significant progress in closing the gender pay gap; in resolving historic pay equity claims. I hope that work will continue, because I believe that it must. We extended free doctors visits to 14-year-olds. We extended paid parental leave to 26 weeks. We significantly increased health funding, including to Pharmac, and we abolished prescription charges, which resulted in 3 million free prescriptions for New Zealanders, something that I believe stopped New Zealanders ending up in our emergency departments with avoidable illnesses because they weren't getting the medication that they needed. We significantly increased the pay for our public sector workers like nurses, like doctors, like teachers, like police, like firefighters. We introduced new options for mental health support, including 1 million free Access and Choice mental health sessions, and I hope that the momentum on those things will continue. I hope that the momentum that we had in rebuilding our apprenticeship scheme continues: 274,000 New Zealanders benefiting from free apprenticeships and targeted trades training. I hope the work that we started to rebuild our schools and hospitals will continue: 2,200 more classrooms, 3,800 more teachers, Mana in Mahi and programmes like that helping to get young New Zealanders into work and into education and training. One million free and healthy school lunches, 77,000 fewer children living in poverty, emissions in New Zealand falling for three years in a row, record levels of renewable electricity generation, 110,000 low-income Kiwi households getting cheaper power bills because of the Warmer Kiwi Homes scheme. There's been a 70 percent increase in the number of electric vehicles on our roads. When we became the Government in 2017, just 2 percent of the cars coming into the market were electric or hybrid vehicles. As we leave office, that is 37 percent—a huge improvement. We've been replacing coal boilers across the country with renewable energy sources. I want to highlight the key work of David Parker and Damien O'Connor, our trade Ministers—two of the most successful trade Ministers in New Zealand's history. When we became the Government, less than half our exports were covered by free-trade agreements. Now, nearly three-quarters are. The work that we have done in public housing deserves particular mention: 13,000 new public homes under our Government since 2017. The work that we did to put extra police on the beat: 1,800 extra police on the beat under our Government— Rt Hon Winston Peters: It was never your policy. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —1,800 extra police on the beat under our Government. Firearms reform, including the introduction of the firearms registry: something that the New Zealand Police have asked for for a long time. There have been record investments in transport, including fixing a record number of potholes over the last year; completing legacy infrastructure projects like Transmission Gully that were left in a heck of a mess by the outgoing National Government. I want to say that I'm very proud of our track record in delivering for Māori and delivering for Pacific New Zealanders. On that last note, I want to say that Pacific New Zealanders are a growing and significant part of the New Zealand economy, a growing and significant part of New Zealand society, and I think it's telling that the incoming Government didn't mention them once in the Speech from the Throne today—not one single time. That does not bode well for Pacific New Zealanders in the future. So we leave Government proud of our track record, committed to holding the incoming Government to account, concerned about the direction that they are taking New Zealand in—which is backwards on all of the important measures that should be important to New Zealand's future—and absolutely resolved that for the first time in New Zealand's history, this will be a one-term National Government. SPEAKER: The question is that the amendment be agreed to. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Well, it is great to be back. Not just back, but back with a bigger team, more talent, fresh ideas, committed coalition partners, and a big programme to deliver, and a big mandate from voters to get New Zealand back on track. Speaking of more talent in National, before I go further, can I say thank you to both James Meager and Katie Nimon for those outstanding and inspiring maiden speeches. James, I am moved to know that both your parents were watching here in this space today. Having met both of them, I can only imagine their pride. You are the embodiment of the belief on this side of the House that education can change lives. I want to acknowledge your mother's foresight, as you do too, because in instilling the value of education in you she gave you a gift. You stepped up and you made the most of it and you worked hard as a result. You are here today because of it, and I know you are going to make great contributions to this place. So congratulations, James. Well done. Katie, you were also instrumental in helping National win back the Hawke's Bay, and we can all see why. Like James, you too have been strongly shaped by your family's circumstances, and, in your case, through business, service, and a love of the place that you call home. I also want to acknowledge your family on what is a proud day for them too, and for you, and for National. So congratulations, Katie, as well. James and Katie's paths to this House have been very different, but their values, I believe, are very similar. They are National Party values that cherish independence, that cherish aspiration and effort, and that call to public service. It is for all 123 of us MPs an honour and a privilege to serve the public from this very place which is the beating heart of New Zealand's democracy. We represent different parties and we come from different backgrounds and experiences with unique life stories, but in this House each of us is heard, our voices count. Across the House, I genuinely want to congratulate every new MP on your election to Parliament and I urge you to use your time here well. Congratulations again to you, Mr Speaker. Your guidance, experience, and sense of fairness will serve all of us in this House and New Zealand very well. Now, I have to say: New Zealand is under new management. We are here because people believe that we are the parties that can get things done; that's why you elect parties on this side of the House. Just like there are laws of nature and there are laws of physics, there are laws of politics. Because if you want lower tax, you vote for us. If you want the Government books managed well, you vote for us. If you want to create more opportunities for everyone, you vote for us. New Zealanders get it, and New Zealanders want it, and that's why they elected the parties in this coalition Government. They know that we will get things done, and that those things will be the things that matter to them. New Zealanders want National, ACT, and New Zealand First to be the strong Government that New Zealand needs. They want us to deliver, and I am telling you—we will. So let me take a moment just to acknowledge the National team in this House, and you've already met two of our class of 2023. But from Grant McCallum in Northland to Miles Anderson down South in Waitaki, from Dana Kirkpatrick in the East Coast to Maureen Pugh on the West Coast, National MPs reclaimed from Labour so much of New Zealand in this year's election. I welcome two National MPs who are here for a second term: Northcote MP Dan Bidois, and Paulo Garcia. Didn't Paulo Garcia do well turning New Lynn blue for the first time in 60 years? It is great to have you both back. We also welcome Nancy Lu off the list after a happy by-product of Andrew Bayly smashing the Port Waikato by-election. Now, in the North Island our new MPs are Carl Bates in Whanganui, Cameron Brewer in Upper Harbour, Mike Butterick in Wairarapa, Carlos Cheung for Mt Roskill—Mt Roskill, what a win that was as well. We've got Tim Costley in Ōtaki. We've got Greg Fleming from Maungakiekie. We've got Ryan Hamilton—aptly—in Hamilton East. We've got David MacLeod in New Plymouth, Rima Nakhle from Takanini, Suze Redmayne from Rangitīkei, Tom Rutherford from the Bay of Plenty, and Catherine Wedd from Tukituki, who you heard Katie talk to in her remarks. In the South Island, where we already have a strong showing of MPs, we're adding Hamish Campbell in Ilam, and we're adding Vanessa Weenink in Banks Peninsula—what a great win that was, too. And on top, there are all the returning MPs, some now with seats that they've won back. I want to say congratulations to you all. It was an excellent election for National, but the pledge of the coalition Government is that whether you voted for us or not, we will govern for you. I do also want to take this opportunity to welcome back to Parliament the expanded ACT and also New Zealand First teams. Thank you for sharing National's commitment to doing the practical, the important things that will make this a better country for all New Zealanders, to growing the economy, to governing with common sense, and to making people's lives easier. We are the parties with different priorities and different concerns. But there is a strong alignment on our core values, like believing in the dignity of independence, and that if you work hard in the best country on planet Earth, you should be able to get ahead. I have to say I am looking forward to working together with our three teams, putting New Zealand's interests first as we deliver our shared policy programme. Now, on this side of the House, we all came to politics to make a positive change for the country that we love, that we are proud of, and that we see so much potential in. We are going to manage the economy well. Now that we've rescued it from Labour, we'll nurse it back to health. We will ease the cost of living—in fact, we've already started. We will restore law and order. The coalition parties separately and together as a Government are absolutely committed to offenders facing real consequences for their crimes, and are committed to New Zealanders feeling safe in their homes and their businesses and in their communities. We are going to get public services working better, because when you care about people—and we care deeply about people—you don't just wring your hands and look anguished and spout rhetoric. Looking anguished doesn't take an hour off an emergency wait-list in an emergency department. You need to actually get stuck in, sort it out, and actually get things done to make the difference. We are about attitudes on this side of the House, not platitudes. Our attitude to public money is to respect the people who actually earn it. We're going to do that by letting the people who earn it keep more of it. That part of it that they hand over in tax, we will spend on helping New Zealanders get ahead, and on making this great country even better, with better education, more support for the stretched health workforce, better and faster roads, less red tape, more renewable energy, and more initiatives to increase New Zealand's prosperity so that we can all get ahead. We're about increasing incomes and outcomes. I have to say that I've had many impressive briefings already with very good senior public servants in the past few days. When they come in with their good ideas for actually achieving what the Government wants, I say to them, "That's great, but how do we do it faster?" Because good execution matters, and that's measured by results and it is measured by outcomes. The first result I actually want to talk about is the election result, and specifically Labour's. Because the swearing-in yesterday was my very first day in the House on the Government's benches. The view from here is still of Labour, but now there's just a lot fewer of them. I have to say what we just now heard from Chris Hipkins was not righteous indignation. It was not righteous indignation; it was ritual humiliation. Because I've got to say, Chris Hipkins started the last term with 65 MPs, and he's starting this one with 34. Think about it: Chris Hipkins started the last term with the biggest majority in MMP history in New Zealand, and is starting this one with one of the most humiliating defeats for the Labour Party. I have to say, Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson, they started this last term with everything that they needed to actually set up a political dynasty for a decade, and they squandered it. They squandered it. No reason they shouldn't have been in power for 10 or 12 years, they didn't make it. They squandered the opportunity that they'd got. And I recall when he lost Meka Whaitiri and he said he didn't know where she'd gone. Well, he's lost around 30 MPs—he's lost 30 MPs. But he knows where they are—he knows where those 30 MPs are: they're out looking for jobs. And I have to say, they're not bad people, but they served in a very bad Government. New Zealanders saw it, and New Zealanders paid for it, and New Zealanders kicked them out. And make no mistake, Labour earned its loss. It worked hard for it. Labour wasted time, they squandered public money, and they made this great country and its people miss out on opportunities. MPs on that side of the House put Labour ideology and dogma ahead of New Zealand's interests and New Zealand punished them for it. Let it be a reminder to all of us in this House that we are actually here to represent the people and their needs—that's what we're here to do. So I have to say, Labour is sitting over there wondering who to blame for them going from 65 MPs—the most ever in the history of MMP in this country—to the 32 uncomfortable people over there with survivors' guilt that I see opposite me. You got two new MPs and I say congratulations, but we heard from a bitter and a twisted and a negative Chris Hipkins, the one we saw during the campaign over there. But you can see he's sitting over there asking the question, "How has he survived when nearly half of his caucus lost their jobs under his leadership?" Why is he still here when so little was achieved and so little was delivered? Why is he still here? Why is he still here after squandering and decimating an absolute majority in just three years—squandering an absolute majority in three years, and so many Kiwis said, "I'll vote for anyone but Labour", and they did. I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about Chris Hipkins a little bit. I just have to say, he is like—he is actually like an arsonist who, having thrown an accelerant all over the joint and lit the place up, he doesn't just slink off, actually leaving the scene, realising he's caused a huge amount of damage, he doesn't actually fess up, put his hand up, apologise to the New Zealand people and actually say he got it wrong, he just simply loiters and hangs around at the scene of the crime, actually just waiting and watching everything. Meanwhile, the good news, I've got to tell you, is the fire brigade is showing up and we're going to deal with it. That's what's going to happen. But you have to ask the question, "Why is he here?" Then Grant Robertson, he's also got survivors' guilt, and he's sitting there saying, "Why me? Why did I survive when I was the Minister of Finance who delivered food price inflation of 28 percent?"—28 percent, faster than at any time since the 1980s—"Why did I survive when weekly rents went up $180 per week?" Why? Why is he still here? When the official cash rate hit its highest point since 2008? You tripled mortgage interest rates, you crippled family budgets, and the question Grant Robertson has got to ask is "Why am I still here?" Why? Why is he still here after spending more, borrowing more, taxing more, and delivering worse outcomes? He's got nothing to show for it. So we're asking the same question. Why, having done a terrible job, is he still here? Ginny Andersen probably isn't asking herself why she survived because self-reflection may not actually be her thing. But she should be asking why she is still here, because crime got a lot worse on her watch and Kiwis feel a lot less safe on the street and in their own neighbourhoods. Ayesha Verrall, she should also have survivors' guilt because we know so many health outcomes went backwards under Labour: immunisation rates, wait-list times in emergency departments, first specialist appointments, surgeries—all went backwards over that time. So let me, just in the spirit of being supportive, help Labour with where they went wrong, because we heard a diatribe from Chris Hipkins and some revisionist history going on, but let me just get you some help. While Labour was wasting billions of dollars and achieving nothing, while they were distracted building a big new health bureaucracy as health outcomes went backwards, while they were alienating the public by progressing co-governance without ever explaining it, and while they were talking gibberish in the draft science curriculum—which didn't even mention the words physics, chemistry, or biology—New Zealanders were actually struggling—actually struggling. Families were facing rising bills, they were going backwards, and Labour was busy, busy, busy on new taxes and hate speech. I point this out merely to help Labour work out what went wrong, and also to say that on this side of the House we understand what matters to New Zealanders. The things that impact their daily lives are the things that matter the most to all of them. Those are the things that we need to be talking about in this place, those are the things that the public elected us to talk about here, those are the things that matter the most to them. And along with the billions of dollars of wasted public money, there was the Cabinet chaos, the underperformance everywhere, and New Zealanders' fear, genuine fear, that they could lose their homes. Don't tell me it wasn't so because I spoke to those people on the election campaign, and I listened to them, and I literally held the hands of some of them—like that small-business owner who was trying so hard, but her business was going under and she hadn't told her team yet because those families depended on those incomes. She cried telling me how hard it was, and that's how it was to be a small-business owner after six years of Labour. I met people who owned dairies where terrible thigs had happened to them, and I truly hope that the children in those families recover from those experiences. I met farmers who used to spend a couple of hours a week on paperwork and they were dedicated to running their properties in the most environmentally sustainable way they could, and now they spend a day a week complying with the Government bureaucracy and the rules telling them how to do their jobs. This Government's going to show a lot more respect than the last Government did to those people. So, I have to say, there is hope. There is a Government that appreciates that businesses provide jobs and opportunities for other New Zealanders. Business owners and managers understand that their greatest resource is their team. It is by working together that the team grows the business, and it creates better wages and more opportunities and more jobs. That's the National way of looking at it—it's the aspirational way. We say it takes a lot of courage to start a small business and to employ people, and those who do it well should be extremely proud of what they do. It's similar with private rentals. Over here, we know that landlords are mostly New Zealanders who are trying hard to get ahead by investing their savings and providing homes for other families. Here's what Labour has never understood: many of the tenants that they see as the perpetual victims of the so-called "evil capitalist" landlords have aspirations too. They have aspirations too. Not only to own their own homes but perhaps one day maybe to become landlords themselves. So they voted for us as a Government of aspiration. We are a Government that says this will once again be a country where you can realistically go about achieving your dream. Your path might be trades training, it might be tertiary education, a business you started at the dining room table, or on a fishing boat, or just a really good idea to solve something that bugs you, but whatever the motivation, and whoever and wherever you are, we want to encourage people to have a go in this country. We will not be a Government that slams people with rules and costs that makes even the most hopeful entrepreneur lose hope, as they have been doing. National campaigned on three key areas that concerned us before the election, and I'm telling you we're going to continue to drive improvement in Government, and I want to thank ACT and New Zealand First for their support in doing that. The first thing is we're going to rebuild the economy to make it work for all New Zealanders, because we know on this side of the House that the living standards of every single one of us depends on a strong and growing economy. A strong and growing economy provides individuals and families with the opportunity to get ahead, and it generates the value and the wealth that lets us invest in this country, in the infrastructure, and the public services that we so well deserve. On the other hand, when the economy stagnates, as it has for the last six years, things become harder for more of us. That's what we've been left with by Labour. An economy in a mess where high inflation has wreaked havoc on people's budgets, where the price of food, housing, and groceries has risen faster than wages, meaning so many Kiwis have been going backwards, where interest rates have had to climb to eye-watering levels to try and put the lid back on inflation. But inflation has become so entrenched and embedded from six years of reckless, wasteful Government spending that the Reserve Bank is already foreshadowing rates will have to stay higher for months to come. That is Labour's legacy, and it's felt most keenly by anyone with a large mortgage, which they had to take on after the record increase in house prices under Labour. It's a legacy felt by families and workers who are struggling to make their paycheck stretch for another two weeks. It's for those people that we promise to work. It's for those people that we will be better than our predecessors. We will stop the wasteful Government spending and get the books back in order, because we know that every dollar the Government spends had to actually be earned by someone going to work and working hard. That's why Simeon Brown has already instructed officials to stop work on the ridiculous $16 billion Lake Onslow pump hydro scheme. When we've said we're going to stop doing things that are stupid and wasteful, we mean it. There's more of that coming because people who are working out there in the rain, or people who are cleaning our offices here late at night and paying their taxes expect us to treat that money carefully, just like they would themselves—and you didn't do it. We're going to let them keep more of their own money to encourage and reward hard work and to help ease the cost of living so that life gets a little bit easier for workers and families. Let's be clear: Labour should have adjusted tax rates a long time ago. That would have actually been the fair thing to do, but they had such an insatiable appetite and an addiction to spending. They wanted more and more of the public's money, and they took it off people who deserved to be paying less tax, not more. We're going to cut red tape, because we actually want to make life easier, especially for small businesses and especially for farmers, but also we're going to cut that red tape so that cost stops getting passed on to consumers with higher prices. In some sectors, getting things done is more expensive in New Zealand than it is anywhere else in the world, and, yes, we want to be world leading, but not for the cost of doing business. We're not a wealthy country, so we need to stop making things even more expensive by loading up unnecessary costs. That means we're going to simplify planning rules so people who want to build stuff and get things done, from a new deck to an offshore wind farm, can actually get on and get it done. We're going to get going on infrastructure, including 13 new roads of national significance and public transport projects that actually get progressed, not just talked and talked and talked about by consultants. We're going to unleash significant investment in new renewable energy generation so we can meet our climate targets without shutting down our most important economic sectors. Given the scale of the infrastructure deficit New Zealand faces after six years of a Labour Government, we're going to be unapologetic about getting the private sector involved where that makes sense too. We know there's a lot of money sitting around with institutional investors both here in New Zealand and overseas—investors who are looking for safe, stable, long-term projects to invest in. So one of the first jobs of our new National Infrastructure Agency is going to be to set up a better matching of investors with projects to get things done faster. Now, let me turn to law and order, because ensuring people are actually safe in their own homes, businesses, and communities is a pretty basic responsibility of any Government. But the Labour Government didn't live up to that responsibility, and over the past six years violent crime went up 33 percent; serious assaults went up—I think it doubled; gang membership went up over 70 percent. I've got to tell you, gangs wreck lives and they are responsible for enormous social and community harm. Under Labour, they were allowed to overrun entire towns, take over motorways, and actually beat people up in public daylight. That growth in gangs is troubling, especially for communities with a large gang presence, but also troubling for anyone who truly cares about our country. As I've said before, if you care, you do something about it to help. So this Government is going to focus on law and order and restoring personal responsibility as part of our commitment of making our communities safer. Of course, we'll focus on the causes of crime too, but also on law and order, because here's another stat for you: 60 percent more gang members are on home detention under Labour, and they're responsible for one-third of the breaches. Here's another one: retail crime has been impacted by an incredible 92 percent. It's cost us actually $2.6 billion extra, and we're all now paying for that crime with higher, higher prices and more inflation. We are going to combat youth offending. We're going to make sure we get our young offender military academies in place. We're going to make sure we actually put young people's lives on a better and a much more productive path going forward. I tell you our parties here on this side of the House are all aligned in amending the Sentencing Act so that we make sure you get appropriate consequences and you actually get serious time when you actually cause pain and suffering for people across New Zealand. We're going to restore the three strikes and we're committed to training no fewer than 500 new front-line police officers in our first two years. Now, Labour said the 2017 election was going to be a new beginning for our education system. Remember that? Remember that one? That was what they said—transformational Government, going to be fantastic, going to deliver outstanding outcomes for education. They were right, but not in a good way, because essentially it was a new beginning for our education system, and a sad one. What we've seen is a rapid slide in academic achievement and the beginning of an enormous problem with absenteeism. Around 40 percent of our kids are not attending school regularly. That is startling and shameful—absolutely shameful. Just last night we had the shocking and more sad news—not surprising—that actually in the Programme for International Student Assessment test, which is how countries are benchmarked against each other, in reading, maths, and science New Zealand has slid even further, and in all three of those subject areas, our results are the worst that they've ever been. That is Labour's legacy in education, and that is Chris Hipkins' legacy as education Minister for 5½ years. All talk, all rhetoric, lots of hiring of bureaucrats—no delivery, no outcomes. I am determined we are going to turn it around, because every pupil—every pupil—whether they're Māori, non-Māori, urban, rural—whoever they are, whatever they hope for—needs for the education system to do better by them. Our results in health have also declined. There is just so much for us to do, and we're up for it. We are going to boost the health workforce, encourage nurses and midwives to stay, train more doctors. We're going to focus on results, because results matter; they save lives. We are delighted to be back with a big team. We are delighted to be back with a big programme and big ambitions for New Zealand at home and overseas. New Zealand has everything it needs to be successful, and now with a Government committed to making it happen. New Zealanders can be positive about the future. Change won't be easy and it won't be quick, because Labour has left us a lot to repair and to rebuild, and the books are not in good shape. But I tell you there's nothing that can't be done by a Government that actually knows what it's doing. There's nothing that can't be done when we put New Zealanders first. That's what all this is about, and what this Government's going to do. That's what we're going to do. It's what we came here to do. Our team is in place, our partners are ready, the people have given us the mandate, and we are ready to go to work. Thank you very much. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Ko te oranga o te reo te take. Ko te mana o Te Tiriti te take. Ko te pai o Aotearoa te kaupapa. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai tātou katoa. [The health of the language is the purpose. The power of the Treaty is the purpose. The good of New Zealand is the issue. So greetings, acknowledgments, and thanks to us all.] Mr Speaker, let me begin by congratulating you personally on taking the Chair. Like all of us here, you have been elected as a member of a political party but as Speaker you have made a promise that you will set that aside and you will be neutral. To be strong, a democracy relies on fair and honest debate. Mr Speaker, you job is to make sure those debates move us forward as a country. People at home look to us to uphold the highest possible standards, and whether we like it or not this House is at the heart of our democratic process. Our words and actions in this House travel through the media and social media into our communities. We owe it to everyone to create a safe space for public debate. I trust, Mr Speaker, that you will preside over the debates that happen here with good grace, humour, and a fair and even hand. It is the single-greatest honour of my life to be standing here as part of the largest Green Party caucus ever. This is important because smaller parties traditionally lose support after being linked up to a larger party in Government. This has happened every time. But the Greens have now not once but twice grown our support after being in a Government arrangement—unheard of. This is an achievement that is unheard of anywhere in the world, and we did it with heart, with values, and with a vision that uplifted people instead of berating them, in a way that appealed to the best of our humanity rather than to the worst of it. The leaders of our two biggest parties spent more time telling you who not to vote for, trying to scare people with how things will be under the other lot than they spent time talking about how we build the beautiful future our mokopuna deserve. But not us—not us. The Green Party ran one of the most hopeful campaigns we have ever seen in Aotearoa—a campaign that inspired hope rather than fear, Uncle Winston—a campaign that focused on well-thought-out long-term policy, not just soundbites, a campaign we fought— Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I rush to defend myself. That relationship is not true, and it's obvious from the speech it's not true. I'm not her uncle. DEPUTY SPEAKER: We will call people by their formal names please. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Certainly, Madam Speaker. We ran a campaign that inspired hope rather than fear, Mr Winston Peters. We set out clear solutions to the challenges people face and for a climate-friendly future that will make our tamariki and mokopuna proud, and people voted for it in record numbers. I want to acknowledge every single one of the nearly 8,000 volunteers around the country who got us here today. Door by door, conversation by conversation, community by community, to all of you: thank you. You turned up for the kaupapa. Thank you for showing up, thank you for making your voice heard. These 15 seats are your seats too. You are the reason we take our seats here as the third-largest party in Parliament with the biggest caucus we have ever had. It is a team that includes, for the first time ever, three Green Party electorate MPs. The first Green Government may have drawn to a close, but I promise you this. From these seats and in our work we will fight for an Aotearoa where everyone can get by, where our native wildlife and oceans thrive, where we take bold climate action, and where we honour Te Tiriti, a record—record—330,000 people voted Green. Your voices will be heard and they will be loud. The journey that brought me here actually began on the steps just outside this building where my parents met for the first time. They came to protest the loss of land and language that our people had endured. It fills my heart to continue their fight for the tino rangatiratanga our tupuna maintained as part of the largest Māori and Pasifika caucus that the Green Party has ever had. Our mātāwaka caucus of Māori and Pasifika members of Parliament has grown from three members to seven. Every one of us, along with our wider caucus, will emphasise and prioritise tino rangatiratanga, mana motuhake, and kaitiaki responsibilities by pushing this Government to have equitable relationships, devolve power to Māori, and hear the calls from our people and communities. A commitment to Tiriti justice is absolutely integral to everything I and the Greens do, but it needs to be integral to the work that all politicians do. We must strive for a world that keeps the pā harakeke nourished and bursting with health. We must insist Tiriti justice is upheld across all our work, and we must be clear that tino rangatiratanga is key to healing relationships across communities and our reconnecting all of us with our seas, our rivers, our bush, our mountains, and our whenua. These fiercely proud tangata whenua and tangata moana MPs take their place alongside me as part of a wider team of 15 tireless, experienced, staunch community leaders who will stand strong on the issues that matter most to our people. Look, I know that many of you have had to travel long distances to get here, often spending weeks away from whānau. It never gets easier; I know because I do it too. I love my job and it breaks my heart to say goodbye to my mokopuna and tamariki every week. To all of you in a similar position, but especially to Mr Luxon, Mr Seymour, and Mr Winston Peters, I do hope you will take some comfort in knowing that every time you arrive in Wellington for work, you are arriving in the Green electorate of Rongotai and you travel through another Green electorate, Wellington Central, to get to Parliament. There is not a street, not a single street from here to the airport that is not represented by a proud Green MP fighting to make life better for everyone and for future generations—won convincingly, might I add. I hope Ministers remember these electorates when their Crown limos get stuck in the inevitable traffic jams resulting from his decision to defund the Let's Get Wellington Moving programme. When I look across our new, super-charged caucus, I am struck not just by the breadth of skills and experience they bring to Parliament but also by their personal stories. Lan Pham, who proudly takes her place as the first MP of Vietnamese heritage that Aotearoa has ever had and brings with her a deep knowledge of Tiriti justice and ecological justice. Steve Abel, a grassroots activist of grit and unbreakable determination. Darleen Tana and Hūhana Lyndon, proud Ngāpuhi mates for me, wāhine Māori and daughters of the north whose roots, life, and career are firmly grounded in the whenua and protecting Te Taiao, including Tai Tokerau. Kahurangi Carter, another wahine toa and powerful voice for our Ōtautahi whānau and the health of Papatūānuku herself. Efeso Collins, a proud descendant of Samoa whose longstanding commitment to strengthening the family, community, and cultural connections between Pasifika families and peoples living in Aotearoa and the islands, found his rightful home here with the Greens. Our man from the deep South, Scott Willis, who knows as well as anyone how to bring together a community for positive, local-led change. And, finally, Tamatha Paul, MP for Wellington Central and a new generation of wāhine Māori political leaders who make Auntie Marama's heart burst with pride. James Shaw and I are truly honoured to be leading these eight new MPs and the seven who return for another three years. They have each made it their life's work to challenge the status quo and change Aotearoa for the better, and I am pumped to see what they will do in the House. Whatever they do and however they use their power, I can assure this House of one thing: the members opposite are not going to get away with their political violence lightly. If they think they have a problem with their own team leaking confidential papers to the media in the very first week, they best buckle up. It is over here on this side of the House where they will find their real challenge. One of the things that makes the Green Party unique is that we do not make a choice between action outside of Parliament and inside of Parliament—we need both. We have to engage in protests and rallies and raise the voice of our communities, but we do also translate our passion and our causes into laws, policy, and practice. That is why the 15 of us ran for Parliament, and I promise you this, to the country and to this House: we are going to give it everything that we have got, absolutely everything, because everything a Government does is a matter of political choice. These choices reflect the underlying values of the people in charge, the people who are making decisions that affect our lives and the lives of people we love. Unburdened by what is to come, the Speech from the Throne was the best chance this Government will ever have to make clear to people why it is actually in power, to set out its vision for Aotearoa that it wants for our mokopuna to grow up in, to explain how it plans to allocate resources where they are needed the most so we can build the kind of communities and society that are good for all people to live in, to create the conditions we need to support each other, to care for our native wildlife, and to cut climate pollution. Instead—instead—what we got is a random, visionless, and harmful grab bag of laws that are more about politicians' pet projects and petty grievances than they are about addressing the challenges we face right now. Watching this Government take shape over the past few months has been hard and dispiriting for thousands of people up and down Aotearoa, myself included, but now more than ever we need to be willing to overcome cynicism and disappointment and take the hard work of change forward. The fear and uncertainty of what lies ahead is made so much worse by the all too frequent reminders that prejudice and inequality still shapes so much of our politics. What matters most in politics isn't the headlines, the meetings, or the speeches; it is people, and I have to say, watching as people and whānau have come together across the motu in recent weeks, including yesterday, to call for peace and speak up for Te Tiriti makes me hopeful. It reminds me that all our actions, no matter how small or large, are powerful, worthwhile, and capable of delivering lasting change. Thousands and thousands of you have shown up in your communities to demand this Government uphold our shared values and an end to the atrocious and enduring killing of children and innocents happening in Gaza that requires lasting, just peace for the mokopuna of Palestine and Israel to be able to cherish their whenua together. And if you ever doubt you can make a difference, just look at what you did when this Government dared to say it would reopen our moana and our oceans to oil and gas companies. Nearly 30,000 of you, so far, took an immediate stand and signed a petition telling the Prime Minister and his co-deputies that they had no mandate to tear up climate action. Days after promising it, lifting the ban was nowhere to be seen on the Government's 100-day plan. People power won the oil and gas ban, and it is people power that is going to save it. These are the reasons why I am optimistic, and as I stand here today I am absolutely clear about one thing: this Government and its programme of performative cruelty does not represent our future. That is up to us. Yes, the path ahead will have some ups and downs, but we remain focused on our journey towards an Aotearoa that upholds Te Tiriti, heals te taiao, and ensures everyone has what they need to live a good life, though this Government is wanting to put obstacles in our way, like unwinding the freshwater standards that are finally restoring the mauri to our awa; like tearing up fair pay agreements (FPAs), a move that will disproportionately harm young people, women, Māori, and Pasifika. FPAs would have put more money in the pockets of people who work tirelessly to teach our mokopuna, keep our workplaces clean and safe, stock the supermarket shelves, and get us around on the bus. Ending FPAs is a big political middle finger to all of those workers. Like raising the price of electric cars by ending the Clean Car Discount—but only after the PM himself had benefited from it. Like winding back protections for people who rent and giving tax cuts to landlords. Like raiding the money raised from our biggest polluters through the emissions trading scheme to pay for their tax cuts for wealthy people, a decision that is about as far away from a climate dividend as you can possibly get. A dividend would give the same amount to everyone, not higher tax cuts for the wealthy while people who need support the most completely miss out. This is a cynical, dishonest policy that speaks to National's gross incompetence in both climate policy and financial policy. Though we face these obstacles, we are absolutely clear about where we are heading as a country. We have overcome obstacles and changed this country before. We stood up as a small nation and made a promise to future generations that the Aotearoa they grow up in will be safe and free from nuclear power. We stood up to the harms of the past and through the Treaty of Waitangi Act enabled some redress for land wrongly taken from tangata whenua and Māori. We have won marriage equality, stopped the harms of conversion therapy, ended the logging of native timber, revitalised te reo through kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa, decriminalised abortion, and built thousands of warm, dry homes. These changes only happened when people got involved and came together to demand them. Now is not the time to stand by and let the future just happen to us. The time is now to take charge of it and to do everything we possibly can to pass on to our tamariki a planet that is stable, cleaner, and based on equity and Tiriti justice. Those of us in this House have a choice to make. We can reject a politics that breeds division and hatred and whips up fear and disinformation. We refuse to spend all our time talking about the next outrageous thing Mr Seymour or Mr Peters said instead of focusing on what matters to people's daily lives. We do not allow spectacle to take the place of robust, good faith, public debate. We say kāore to all of that that. Instead, we can work for change—change that means that every child always has enough to eat, a safe bed, warm clothes, and decent shoes. To support the whānau all over the country who are being forced to cut back on kai just to pay the bills. To address the homes that are cold and damp all of the time and making children sick. We can debate how we restore our native wildlife so every generation, and the seven generations that come after them, can enjoy the astonishing beauty of our natural world. Native birdsong in our backyards, streets lined with trees our playful tamariki can climb, and an ocean once again full of fish, dolphins, whales, and healthy underwater forests. How we make sure tamariki can ride their bikes or scooters to school without worrying about noisy, fast moving, polluting traffic. How we protect our communities from a climate crisis that is turbocharging flooding and extreme weather in places like Auckland, Northland, Tairāwhiti, and Hawke's Bay. How we honour the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, celebrate te reo Māori, and support tangata whenua to live long, healthy, and happy lives. How we affirm the tino rangatiratanga of whānau, hapū, and iwi over their whenua and their taonga. So we all have a shared responsibility for the whenua we live and rely on, and to care for each other and make decisions to benefit the many and not just the few. As a Parliament, we should be debating how to achieve these things, not whether to even try. We can be that beautiful, inspiring country. I believe with all my heart that the vast majority of people want Aotearoa to be that country too. Our success depends on how we use our power at this moment, how we use our voices, and how we organise and mobilise collectively to channel our justifiable anger into sustained and effective action. Our job of caring for Papatūānuku, so she is thriving in her own right, can only move forward if we move forward together. Change will never come from turning on each other, but by turning towards each other. It will never come from sowing hatred, division, and lies, but by staying true to our values and sharing the truth. It will never come from abdicating our responsibilities to whakamana Te Tititi o Waitangi, but by embracing those responsibilities so our tamariki and mokopuna can grow up in an Aotearoa where their language and whakapapa is celebrated, their health is prioritised, and their whenua is protected. Democracy is about more than just gimmicky announcements—things politicians say for attention—and it's even about more than just Parliament. It is about coming together to bring about real and lasting change. And that is what the Green Party is here to do. So, to anyone listening at home today, I want you to know you have to stay encouraged—we have to stay encouraged together. Whāia te tika [Pursue truth]—we can always make a difference. Fighting for what is right is always, always worth it. Now, no one doubts that it will be tough. This Government is actually saying the truly nasty things out loud, like they care more for the ability for unhealthy programmes and rolling back Auahi Kore numbers and targets and aims. They care more for allowing that than they do for solid public-health policy that also acknowledged inequities. They're saying that out loud—that and so many more things. This Government is showing and telling us who they are actually here for. And I can tell you, not for the people I see in my community in South Auckland. They are not here for students, for single parents, or for people with disabilities. They're here for people who make money from exploiting workers, renters, and our taiao. For more than 30 years, we have known better than anyone that there is only one way to change Aotearoa for the better, and that is together. Aotearoa needs us. All those people who need support to pay the bills and live a good life need us to fight for them. The children who go to bed hungry tonight and every other night need us to fight for them. The whanau who cannot pay the rent and are sending their tamariki out to work instead, need us to fight for them. The young people growing up worrying about what their future holds on a planet where extreme weather becomes a new normal, need us to fight for them. We will be stronger, we will be tougher, and we will be more compassionate. We will be more staunch than we have ever been before—and we have already been staunch. These Green MPs, here, will carry with them the voices of our communities and ensure they are heard loud and clear in the halls of Parliament and power and beyond. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We have everything we need to create the Aotearoa we all want to live in—an Aotearoa where everyone has what they need to put kai on the table, and a safe place to call home and live a good life. We can reduce the outrageous and immoral level of income- and wealth-inequality we have in this country. We can confront climate change with the urgency and the scale that it demands, and invest in action to protect our rivers, land, forests, beaches, and oceans. We can uphold Tiriti justice and return resources directly back to iwi and hapū so tangata whenua can finally have the autonomy and authority over our whenua and wellbeing that our tūpuna always maintained. This is the Aotearoa we must continue our journey towards. Our actions, no matter how small or large, are powerful, worthwhile, and capable of delivering lasting change. E te iwi, don't sit this one out. Don't sit this one out. Let's get out there and fight for the future we all deserve. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai tātou katoa. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I've got to say, if you've ever wondered why the Green Party needs to have two leaders, that speech by Marama Davidson was all the evidence you would ever need! It felt like it was written by an ad agency but, at the end of it, no one had a clue what they were actually selling—platitude after platitude—and that's why they're over there. I hope that they stay over there, for the sake of New Zealand, for a very, very long time. Turning to you, Mr Speaker, I want to congratulate you again for your election, after a long and winding road to today, where you are our Speaker, and we think you're going to do a very good job. To the other leaders of political parties who have been elected again—the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins; to Chris Luxon, Prime Minister, along with Nicola Willis; and to the Rt Hon Winston Peters and Shane Jones—congratulations on the results. To Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, congratulations on leading your party back to this place in Parliament. To all of those people who are new to Parliament, it is a wonderful institution, and it is whatever you make of it. You are given enormous privileges to speak freely and debate, but you are given those privileges by the people of New Zealand to do your best for them. I look forward to hearing the maiden statements, as we've heard two excellent statements this afternoon. I look forward to hearing as many as I can of what new members are bringing to this House, to use those privileges for the betterment of those who have given them to them. I particularly want to acknowledge ACT's MPs—the six of us returning. Nicole McKee, now a Minister, the Associate Minister of Justice, and for Courts, is going to fix so much of what has been done wrong in firearms law in particular but is also going to be a formidable opponent of crime in her role, making the courts work better and faster for all those people who seek justice in our country. To Karen Chhour, who completes an extraordinary journey from being a victim of mistreatment at the hands of the Children and Young Persons Service, then the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, then Oranga Tamariki, to being the Minister for Children, in charge, with the capacity to do something about it. To Mark Cameron, our farmer MP; to Simon Court, the only person I know who has applied for complex Resource Management Act consents in this Parliament and who is now in a position to make them a little bit less complex for the people trying to build this country. And to our new MPs: to Todd Stephenson, the pocket rocket, straight from corporate Australia and fitting in just perfectly in the parliamentary environment, we welcome him—and a strong presence for ACT in the lower South Island. To Andrew Hoggard—they say, "If he walks like a farmer, if he talks like a farmer, guess what!" He's going to be a fantastic Minister for Biosecurity, and for Food Safety, and Associate Minister of Agriculture. It's fantastic that those people in rural New Zealand, across the three parties of Government, have such strong and experienced advocates, where they have been neglected for so long. Parmjeet Parmar is coming back to Parliament with a new playing strip! I'm really pleased to have her as an experienced member—and one of the most qualified people to be in this Parliament, perhaps in decades, with her deep knowledge of science, along with her business and broadcasting and political background. Laura Trask, someone who runs a business, something we haven't heard on the Government side of this House for quite some time. Laura Trask is someone who runs a business, as does Cameron Luxton, a builder. Cameron Luxton, I think it's probably true, has built more houses personally than the Government built in the six years that it had! This is the ACT team that I want to congratulate. But, in case you think I've forgotten, last but most certainly not least is Brooke van Velden, my good friend, my deputy, now the MP from Tāmaki, who has just had a whole electorate of people see what we have seen in Brooke for such a long time. I might add that I think Richard Wagstaff has seen a new side of her in the last 48 hours, too. I'll just say that, if you're going to go on camera and lie about your interactions with Brooke, you probably won't be doing it again. Brooke is a formidable politician, a formidable intellect, and someone with an enormous future that is going to bring about tremendous change in her ministerial portfolios. I believe—and I haven't researched this, but from memory—I saw Simon Upton over there before. I believe that Brooke may be the youngest Cabinet Minister in the history of our country, certainly in any memory that I have— Hon Paul Goldsmith: Phil Goff. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Paul Goldsmith—this is why you don't have a historian next door! He says it's Phil Goff. But there you go; she's going to be the best and youngest. I also want to thank those many people outside Parliament who have made possible what just happened: another peaceful transition of power, a contest of ideas, a battle of words rather than of weapons. There are so many countries where so many people are literally fighting to have the things that we in New Zealand so easily take for granted. And it's often the people who take the practical steps to make it happen. ACT's volunteers—and we seem to have appealed to practical people—put up so many pink signs in some parts of the country that we actually got safety complaints from the local authorities because there was more pink than road signs on large parts of New Zealand's highway network. It's those people who came to streetcorner meetings, who came to townhall meetings— Rawiri Waititi: That's what money will do. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And I've just heard Rawiri Waititi say, "Oh, that's what money will do." Well, let me tell Rawiri Waititi that a skin for a billboard or a hoarding costs about 30 bucks. It's the volunteer labour of the people who got out and did that. But you wouldn't ask Rawiri Waititi if you wanted to know about hard work, would you? We also saw people who attended townhall meetings, who came to streetcorner meetings. We had people who argued with their colleagues and their family and persuaded, eventually, a quarter of a million New Zealanders to trust ACT with their party vote, beyond those in the Epsom electorate, who I am incredibly grateful to and thank for sending me to this place for a fourth time. It is humbling to be elected by your neighbours to speak on their behalf, and what wonderful neighbourhoods they are in the electorate of Epsom. I also want to thank the ACT Party board. They are the head of a great membership of volunteers, activists, donors—all of those people who give up their time for nothing but the feeling that they have made our democracy possible. Nobody forces any of them to do it. Almost none of them is paid a cent and yet they show up every three years and make our democracy possible. There are also many candidates from all parties who gave it their all and were not returned to Parliament. That is the reality of any contest, but I want to say to them that, if you've missed out this time, it may be that next time is your time, or the time after that. Some people stand many times and go on to have tremendous parliamentary careers, but your efforts have been noticed and they will contribute to whatever you want to do in a future election. I think the reason that so many people came out and were prepared to work so hard towards ensuring the Government changed is that, well, frankly, they were motivated by the Labour Government and its allies, and its potentially allies, who made such a hash of New Zealand. If you look at just the raw numbers, Grant Robertson, as finance Minister, was reduced to trying to explain why perhaps a boondoggle might actually be a good thing! I mean, it was hard to believe today, but that actually happened. You had a Minister of Finance saying, "Oh, no; boondoggles could be good. Here's the dictionary definition and if I can contort myself enough I might even convince myself." That is Grant Robertson's legacy. but it's also by the plain numbers list. Grant Robertson, as Minister of Finance, had the job of ensuring that the taxpayers dollar went as far as possible to deliver the services and alleviate the suffering of New Zealanders in a range of areas. And the bottom line is that from 2017 to this year, he increased the amount Government spends above inflation, above population growth—you know, there's no jiggery-pokery here. Per person, after inflation, he increased expenditure by 30 percent. New Zealand taxpayers need to ask themselves: am I getting 30 percent better real service from Government? In which area might they look for it? They might look in education. Chris Hipkins—it was kind of interesting today. It's almost like he has the most wonderful form of selective amnesia. I listened to him and I thought this can't be the same guy who is predominantly responsible for the state of education today. But he was the Minister of Education for five years. He was responsible for Te Pūkenga. The challenge for this Government laid down today could not be starker. The Programme for International Student Assessment examinations of 15-year-olds in science, literacy, and mathematics have been tested every three years since the turn of the century and we have just had the worst results ever for New Zealand. The damage that has been done over the past two decades will take another generation to fully turn around. And yet we had not 2,500 bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education but 4,400. That's the growth under Labour and our results got worse. Our school attendance got worse. So Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins—thick as thieves; in fact, taxpayers might say that's exactly what they were—were conniving together to get fewer kids going to school, learning less for more money. That's the big problem. Productivity right across the economy was in the tank. You might have thought that all these schemes they had to invest in this and invest in that would somehow make New Zealand more productive. The truth is that if Labour MPs knew how to invest capital, they wouldn't be Labour MPs. They'd be rich. The reality is they had no idea how to transform an economy, but they inadvertently transformed it to have some of the highest inflation in living memory. I think Grant Robertson and a possible exception—no offence—Adrian Rurawhe were probably the only people in that Labour Government old enough to remember the last time inflation had been as bad as they left it. But that is one of the outcomes of Grant Robertson's unproductive spending spree. But perhaps more than anything, the previous Government was elected to solve the problem of housing. It's one of the biggest drivers of the cost of living crisis, one of the biggest drivers of poverty, and one of the biggest drivers in crime and educational under-attainment—people getting moved as students from uncle to aunty, from one term to the next, and never settling in one school. The Labour Government was elected more than anything to solve the shortage of housing and build more homes. And how did it go? Well, KiwiBuild was so politically and policy-wise disastrous that it almost became unfair to raise it in politics. I mean, it was so bad, you sort of thought: oh come on, go easy on them. You know, their Resource Management Act reforms managed to make the resource management law more complicated, but with novel terms such as te Oranga o te Taiao, which would need to be interpreted in new jurisprudence by the Environment Court, by which time we would probably be economically overtaken by Indonesia. Yet that was the Labour Party's idea of how to get more houses built. In just about every area we found a Labour Party that spent more money and made more rules and got worse results. I have to tell you that they returned today so rundown and clapped out that if this Labour Party was a used car it would be illegal to import them to New Zealand. They just don't go any more— Hon Simeon Brown: They hate cars anyway. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And they also hate cars anyway, the Minister of Transport tells us; it's an excellent point. I raise all of this because we heard from Chris Hipkins a couple of things in his speech. He said that the Government doesn't have a vision; it just wants to delete so much of what the previous Government has done. That second part is true. Three waters—we do want to cancel. Te Pūkenga was a disaster under Chris Hipkins' watch that does need to be unravelled. Fair pay agreements, so-called, will be gone by Brooke van Velden, no matter how eager and quickly the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions are to find out about it. The reason that we want to get rid of these damaging policies like the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act is that Labour's vision was one of central control: centralised politics, centralised healthcare, centralised three waters—give the Minister for the Environment more power over what is built in your street. That is certainly a vision in Labour and perhaps the Greens and Te Pāti Māori's eyes, because their vision is about politicians doing things. It's not that we don't have a vision; it's just that we have a different vision from the point of view of the New Zealanders who have to live in this country and are trying to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of those that they care about. That's why this Government will be strongly committed—more committed than any Government in history—to dealing to the red tape and regulation that wastes people's time going through compliance activities that add nothing to the public welfare but dramatically impoverish people and, eventually, all of us in their private welfare. If we want to raise productivity, we must spend more time producing and less time complying with rules that don't make sense. And I'm proud to be the first Minister for Regulation, with a Ministry for Regulation and a Regulatory Standards Bill setting out the principles of how you make laws that do make sense and then go through the enormous stock of out-of-date rules and regulations that waste our time and money. That is what I call a vision. But it's a vision of empowerment for ordinary people, not a vision of meddling for the few politicians and the not so few bureaucrats that Labour hired. Our vision is that people get to spend more of their own money. You see, as I mentioned, the Labour Party spent like drunken sailors and were about as effective at getting useful things done. The previous Labour Government has given us a massive fiscal headache and, sadly, that is pain that in different ways will be shared by all New Zealanders. But I have great confidence in Nicola Willis along with Chris Bishop and Shane Jones and myself as Associate Finance Ministers to get this ship back on course. I'm pleased to see that 2017 baselines for the number of public servants will be a starting point for getting costs under control. Because you don't just have to pay these people; they then get bored and make you jump through extra hoops which further damages our productivity. And just as that could be a lose-lose, removing unnecessary expenditure and activity is a win-win, and that's a vision for everyday New Zealanders. When it comes to crime, it is time to call time on the experiment of Labour. That is, if only we are kind to criminals, they'll be kind back. Now, I can understand—I like to be kind too, but it's a little bit harder when you meet the victims, when you go to liquor stores, when you go to dairies, when you go to retailers, when you talk to storeowners who keep a boutique fashion place that they're afraid to lock up at six o'clock in winter, because it's dark then and they don't know who's going to be around and they heard what happened to one of their colleagues in the alley just a few weeks back—something the police are still investigating. I'm sorry, but these stories are real and they're not from some place where people think there's a lot of crime. They're from places where people would otherwise think there wasn't a lot of crime in central Auckland. This Government is going to increase prison capacity. This Government is going to give the courts and the police options for young offenders. This Government is going to make sure that if you attack someone in a sole-charge workplace or a workplace attached to their dwelling house, then that's an aggravating factor, or if you're a member of a gang, you're going away for longer, because being kind to crims hasn't worked. It's time to put them back in their place, and that is behind bars. We talked about education, and I think we have an excellent education Minister and an excellent commitment to shift the way that education policy is done. You see, for far too long, we have had an education policy that is driven by a burgeoning ministry that meddles endlessly in the inputs. They'll tell you how to teach. They'll tell you what shape the classrooms should be—hint: it's three classrooms joined together with lots of beanbags. They'll tell you what to teach—hint: it's usually politically motivated. But they don't actually ask the hard questions like: how many kids showed up to school yesterday, how many of them are passing, and how many of them are prepared for the modern workplace, to be citizens in the most knowledge-rich century that humans will ever exist in? Well, this Government is going to flip that switch. We're going to empower educators to actually be in charge of their schools, with their cellphones safely away, and then demand that the kids show up and the results are achieved. The Labour Party has said that there isn't a lot of vision. Well, I can tell the Labour Party that I know a few parents and I know a few kids, and, actually, the vision of being enabled to navigate the 21st century with the basic skills that these guys neglected—that's a vision. If only we had had that vision six years ago and had started earlier, there'd be far fewer kids who have been sent out into the world, cruelly, without the basic skills to navigate that world. The purist version of demanding results and giving flexibility and empowerment to educators is partnership schools kura hourua, colloquially known as charter schools, which will be back and better and bigger than ever—teacher unions, you can hear that. We have an excellent Minister of Health, not only because he's a doctor but he's also a seriously passionate and good guy. We are going to see a healthcare system that is not focused on the vision of reorganising the wiring diagram in Wellington, but, instead, on a Ministry of Health and a health system that treats all New Zealanders equally, based on need, using good data—not lazy and bigoted discrimination based on race—and that focuses on ensuring that the patients are getting the results, not that administrators are happy or that the health system is doing right by identity politics. We're also going to see Pharmac dragged into the modern age, with an attitude that is friendly to those people going through difficult times and in need of pharmaceuticals so that they can get by, and we're going to see their funding model reflect the impacts of funding on the rest of the Government's books. Immigration: we're a nation of immigrants. We're going to lift the cap on recognised seasonal employers so we don't have the constant interjurisdictional fights over who has quota to have people to get the work done. We're going to redeem a promissory note made to thousands, or in fact hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders that this is a country that wants you, and, if you come here and if you cover their costs, you can bring your parents. I was speaking to a woman not so long ago who was a prominent person at a major university—in fact, it probably doesn't harm to say that she was running her department. She said, "I'm an only child. My mother is in the United Kingdom. If I can't get her here, I'm going home, and I know that'll have an impact on my career, it will have an impact on the university, and it will have an impact on my students." Well, this Government says that if she's prepared to pay the costs of the healthcare and if she's prepared to guarantee there'll be no costs on the State, her mum can have a five-year visitor visa to come in and out of New Zealand as much as she likes and be in this country. Doesn't that restore the faith that new New Zealanders who have come from all over the world have put in this country? That is our objective. There's another group of people who have been a bit marginalised. They're people who own a house and let another New Zealander live in it in return for money. Now, I would have said that that was a beautiful example of human cooperation, but the Labour Party and allies have been so myopic that they thought that the way to help the people living in the house was to attack the people that owned the house. I think their philosophy is that beatings would continue until morale improves. Well, plot twist: morale did not improve. People pulled back from being landlords, and tenants were the ones that suffered, with record increases in rent over the six years that we've just seen with this Government. Well, we're going to say that if it's your house and you want to evict someone, you can—that's just how property works—but it has the enormous advantage in that it makes people more willing to let someone else live in a house that they own in the first place, and especially someone that they may have some questions or causes for concern about. That, to me, sounds like the civilised way to go about doing business in New Zealand, and it's actually going to help the most disadvantaged tenants when we have no-fault evictions. It's also going to help landlords enormously when the amount of mortgage interest that they can deduct from their tax bill is increased more rapidly than any other party had promised, and that is an enormous benefit, not only to landlords but also to tenants, because they go together. There's another group of New Zealanders who have been neglected for reasons I struggle to fathom: those who go out of their way to give food to other New Zealanders and to about eight times as many people who are our export customers overseas, and yet we have seen rural New Zealand—the likes of Andrew Hoggard and Mark Cameron—beaten around the ears as public enemy number one for year after year for having the temerity to use the land to produce food, to employ people, and to try and feed the world and earn export receipts. Well, they now have a Government that actually has some farmers, that actually respects farmers, and that is going to get rid of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 and replace it with something sensible that actually has regard to local conditions. We're going to stop putting significant natural areas (SNAs) where some pimply teenager out of planning school looks at your farm on Google Earth and says, "That looks like a bit of biodiversity. You can't have that any more.", because if you do that, people won't want to do conservation because the pimply teenagers at the local council will take your property rights. So no more SNAs. We're going to have a split-gas approach to methane and other greenhouse gases because we actually do follow the science, and the science says that methane has different characteristics from carbon dioxide. Now, you're not going to get that from the Green Party, who have not elected an MP who has studied science past high school in 12 years. The ACT Party has more scientists than the Green Party has elected, probably, in its history. But I will watch the maiden statements to see if any of you guys have actually studied science, because if you have, you'll be the first Green MP that's done that for a very, very long time. There's another group of people—licensed firearms owners—scapegoated, punished, and pushed beyond reason by this previous Government. They were almost blamed for our nation's tragedy in Christchurch. The Government pushed hundreds of thousands of what they deemed the most dangerous firearms into the grey and black market in what may have been one of the stupidest, most irresponsible policies that any Government has rushed through this Parliament. But Nicole McKee, for 25 years a firearms safety officer, is—it's difficult to think of a better person to be in charge of firearms law. Now, I feel much safer already, and we're going to see clubs and ranges have the most egregious regulations gone. We're going to see a new arms Act, and we're going to ask a very basic question that you should ask about any policy, which is whether this firearms registry is actually making us safer, because there's a good school of thought that it's not. In housing, we're going to see the Resource Management Act gone and replaced with a law based on property rights. Speaking of property rights, the medium-density residential standard—a folly that invaded the peaceful enjoyment of so many people's property, or it would—will become optional, with councils required to re-ratify it. We are going to see a constructive debate about what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi mean, and people will get into enormous hysterics about this, because, you know, some people aren't what you'd call intellectual. Those people who aren't so intellectual, they tend to be afraid of debate, and so they will call you racist and they'll shout you down and they'll try and block the motorway. But those of us who do enjoy the contest of ideas are looking forward to having a discussion about what those principles mean and what the lens through which we view the Treaty from 2023 actually means, and I suspect that if they do their study and if they read and they take the time—and some of those people shouting in the background might actually enjoy the discussion and find that it is mana-enhancing for Te Tiriti and Māoridom. But I'm not sure that they're up to it. The challenge—the wero—is now laid down for them. This Government has a vision of empowerment—a vision of New Zealanders as people who are treated alike in dignity, regardless of their identity, and who have the ability to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of those that they care about—and with that vision, we are all going to be wealthier and happier for it. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, right here, right now, something that the political experts said could never happen is happening. So congratulations to you— SPEAKER: Yeah, what do they know! Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —and also congratulations to Chris Luxon and David Seymour in the formation of this Government, and their political parties—something that, also, the experts said could not happen. So if we're going forward, can we just have a look in the future at these experts and start examining their record of being right? Because, so many times, they have been wrong. I say, also, that hearing Mr Hipkins today was actually an astonishing event. This is somebody that came to power and had his own bonfire—a bonfire of the stupid vanities that his party had in place. But then, today, he came along and defended it. The extraordinary thing is he didn't seem to understand that the forward forecast for GDP for next year by the IMF has us at 159 in the world—just in front of Equatorial Guinea and doing less than 1 percent in terms of GDP—and he said that that was a success story. Well, you can see why they are so troubled now and in such small numbers. Congratulations to every member of Parliament that's here, whatever the party that might be, and for the time that you are here, because it's a very privileged place to be. We're all here to do one thing: despite what some of your leaders or your manifesto might say—and what your past colleagues might say—you're here to represent everybody as one people called New Zealanders, regardless of our DNA, our gender, our background, or our creeds. This country was made being one country. Or, as Dame Whina Cooper said, we signed the Treaty so that we could become one people. I'll remind some people that were posing here yesterday—as though they're the new vision, they're the new light, now they're the epiphany of what Māori is—oh no, you don't. No, you don't. Let me tell you: if you're looking for trouble, you've come to the right place. We came back to Parliament doing the impossible. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: We got back from Parliament, too. You're not the only ones. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: True; it's true. But let me tell you two things: you're heading for 54 years, if you're on the Greens, of never having been in Cabinet if your party was formed in the first contest of 1972 under the name "Values"—54 years' never being in Cabinet is a long time to wait. Even Moses was only 40 years. For 54 years—and the Green Party is never going to make it back at all, and nor is Te Pāti Māori. I'll tell you why it is, it's because you're heading straight to the bottom pile claiming to be what you're not: the voice of Māori. Uh-uh, no you're not and never will be, and certainly not someone who is so decolonised he wears a cowboy hat—so decolonised he wears a cowboy hat. Amazing. Every pretension he's got can be found out in five seconds flat. Whilst we're at it, the $350,000 that came from a charity, why on earth did Te Pāti Māori get that money? So $303,500 charity money to Te Pāti Māori, and what is going on when that can be allowed to survive in this country's democracy? [Interruption] Oh yeah, not too happy now. Well, there'll be somebody knocking soon, believe me. The same law will apply to them as applies to every other political party. Now, can I just say this. We survived the last campaign having been marginalised, Cinderella-ised, demonised by too many who were in the Public Interest Journalism Fund—paid off in the media. But we're back. No, no, no. We want a democracy where there is a fourth estate. Hon Willie Jackson: You don't like them. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no, somebody else didn't like them either, did he? He would threaten somebody on TV, if you please. Of course, he wasn't obeying, according to the way the fund should be already according to Willie, the Minister of broadcasting. It was the most embarrassing circumstance. Hon Willie Jackson: You did the worst interview in history. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, I do like journalists. I like journalists who understand that it's a profession and that they are critical to any democracy. But I do not like fifth columnists. I don't like people, for example, who go out, who have politically motivated commentary, day in, day out. It reeks. Their questions reek of their preference. They're not professionals. Hon Willie Jackson: What are you talking about? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: They're not professionals. Well, I can see why Mr Jackson wouldn't understand. Because Mr Jackson has been the key voice in the Labour Party these last six years, and he's sent them to their demise. He's their Māori leader—he's their Māori leader—and there's one left now in the Māori seats. Oh, and by the way Te Pāti Māori: only one party has ever taken all of the Māori seats off Labour, and you're looking at it. Only one party's ever done that. You know, before the 2020 election, New Zealand First was attacked by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). It's April in 2020, we're on about 4.5, 5, almost 5.5 percent, and we were attacked by the SFO. Then the media relentlessly, as an organisation, went after New Zealand First and one outlet—and publicly owned, it was, too—no fewer than 27 times attacked us. Yet when we beat the SFO; when we beat the Serious Fraud Office—not once, but twice: before the election and after it—and put out a press statement about our rights, the rights of the victor in this case, they never printed a word. They claimed to be balanced; never printed a word. After hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal costs and expense, they expect me to forgive them and go back to treating them like the way they should be treated. Hon Willie Jackson: Go on Radio Waatea. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: When they understand—no, Radio Waatea didn't do that. You're quite right. Radio Waatea didn't do that because of the guy called Dale Husband that understands fairness. He's one of those guys that, despite his colleagues, he's professional. Despite people like Willie Jackson, he remains professional. I salute that, and that's why I go on his show every second week—like the farming show. All those that talk to us will get to talk to us after the election. But those new-found that turn up the day after—or they did the day before the election, this is true: I was on there, turned up the day before the election, and journalists, they wanted to interview me. I said, "Well is there any chance of any vote being affected by your comment?" "No." "So what the H are you doing here, then?" That's what they thought was fair. Then, all of a sudden, now, they wanted Chris Luxon to rule Winston Peters out—he's misbehaving himself. Oh no I'm not—I believe in democracy and I believe in the media, and I want to see them back to doing what they should do and not becoming an unelected political party in this country sitting up there [Points to press gallery]. That's all I want. [Interruption] Ha, ha! Ladies and gentlemen, look, can I say that we were out there packing the halls in Tauranga. We got 750 in Tauranga. Not one journalist there. Then we're on to places like Dunedin, Papamoa, Dargaville, Invercargill, Hawke's Bay, Kaikōura, Nelson. Everywhere we're packing the halls and no journalists at all. Do you think that's commentary? Do you think that's fair? Oh, they say, "We sent somebody." No, you didn't. I can show meeting after meeting after meeting where they wouldn't give us any coverage whatsoever. Cushla Tangaere-Manuel: They were there. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no. Unlike that member—she couldn't fill a telephone booth. But we packed the halls—not enough chairs or anything. My point is: why were they gaslighting us out of the campaign? This is not what a democracy looks like. Whether people agree or not, they're entitled to hear, as Phil Collins sang, they're entitled to "hear both sides of the story". Not one side—both sides of the story. Hon Willie Jackson: Democracy's changed. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And here's Willie trying to defend them now. He knows in his heart of hearts, as he goes from this job very shortly—and he will. Oh no. They're calling it—look, when you're in a game and, in the end, they look around and say, "Who's responsible?" and you think to yourself, "Maybe it's the guy I'm looking at in the mirror," then the time staying here, Willie, is not going to work for you. And the sooner you go, the better, so that somebody can step up and start to rebuild what was once a great party, but it's forgotten the workers. They wouldn't know a worker if they fell over one. Totally forgotten the working people of this country. Ladies and gentlemen, we got back because we went to the social media and we didn't use any boosters—at all—but we knew out there, at least unfiltered and unedited, we could get our story away. But had we got a decent go, we'd be sitting here with far more than the members we've got now. And that's a fact. Why, the Greens never had a meeting. They never had a meeting. They go down to the beach, get a few starfish, and they're headlining the 6 o'clock news. What was political about that? Pray tell me, if you're a media person: what was political about that? Unbelievable—deafening! And they never had any public meetings anywhere in the whole campaign, and there they are, sitting there. Fa'anānā Efeso Collins: We had plenty in Ōtara. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: But I tell you what, Mr Collins— Fa'anānā Efeso Collins: Yep? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This is the high point. It's going down now. I've been around—I've been around a long time. I know a bunch of losers when I see them. Any money you like—you're going that way, because these people want their seats back, and they're better organised, and they will be, when the time comes. So enjoy the next three years, try to do the best you can, but it won't be long. Ladies and gentlemen, can I just say to those in the media who wrote us off and relentlessly attacked us: guess what? New Zealand First is back. Now, I know Willie's charmed by this, because Willie came to a speech where he was giving a farewell speech that was put on by FOMA, the Federation of Māori Authorities—in case people think Māori authorities don't understand how much we've done for them over the years. Willie gave my farewell speech, and I said to him: "Willie, you're being premature. Anybody who even dreams New Zealand First is going to get beaten should wake up and apologise." So, Willie, wake up and apologise now. Hon Willie Jackson: Give me another example. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Another example? Well, actually, Willie, having spanned six decades, I can give you a few examples. If you know anybody else who has—right? See, I respect the people that you should respect, like, for example, Ngata and Pomare and Buck and Carroll. These are political geniuses. Their view of the Treaty of Waitangi is written in the book from 101 years ago by Ngata himself, not by these people over here making it up as they dream it up at some sociological class at university. It's balderdash. Oh, no, you can wave and do all the hongi and put the huia feather in your hair, but it doesn't belong there. Ask Ratana. Ask the man himself. What's the huia feather doing on your head? No, no, the immodesty knows no bounds. I've got to tell you: I'm pleased New Zealand First is back, and not a day too soon, because that sort of humbug is going to stop. And we're going to go back to calling our country New Zealand. We're not going to have a French Polynesian name that's an insult to everybody in the South Island. And there's a South Island member of Parliament for Te Pāti Māori and he can't even defend his people's name for their part of the country—Te Wai Pounamu is the name; it ain't Aotearoa. Oh, but he's too new and too unlearned to even make a defence of it. Did Ngata think that? Did Pomare think that? This genius called Buck, who ended up as a major anthropologist—a doctor first and an anthropologist, all the way to Hawaii. Did he think that? No. He's my authority. What's yours? What's your authority? They haven't got one. And so no more of this darn humbug, and you can put the tā moko on and dance around and carry on in a way that we find very strange because where I come from, that's conferred upon you; you don't just paint yourself like some tattoo shop. That's what they're doing. And I saw yesterday—to walk into this place and take over the traditions of a great democracy that's been going since 1854, one of the great democracies of the world. Hon Willie Jackson: I thought it was wonderful! Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, Willie thought it was wonderful. No consultation—no. Here comes "Johnny Come Lately"—or, in this case, "Rawiri Come Lately"—and he's going to design the whole thing anew. I've got news for you, sunshine, and it's all bad. We've got news for you and it's all bad. We're not putting up with it. And some of us have done far more for Māoridom than you will ever do; that's a fact. Who settled the central North Island Tribes' 14-iwi settlement? Who settled that? The Māori Wardens—who gave them their start? The Māori Women's Welfare League, Mt Hikurangi—I could be here all day on what we've done for Māori, not like these people: all talk and no action; all talk and no action. And we're not coming back here to listen to this humbug any longer. We want this country to be called New Zealand, and if we're going to change the name, then we're going to ask all New Zealanders first. We're not going to have a little bunch of the minority who say, "We're the Māori voice." Hon Members:: Woo hoo! Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: OK, so if they're the Māori voice and they got only 3 percent of the vote most of the time, and yet they say the Māori people are 18 percent of the population, it means that one-sixth of the Māori people might support them and five-sixths don't. How can they call themselves the Māori voice? And why does Willie sit by and allow them to do that? But we knew from the word go that when these people arrived, there would be a race to the bottom between Te Pāti Māori and the Māori members of the Labour Party. And that's a tragedy. It's tragic because, at the end of the day, what we get from that is not what people want out in the Māori world. You know what they want? They want an affordable house. If they feel sick—hopefully not them, their parents, or their children—they want to get medical treatment as soon as they possibly can, and they want to get on the escalators that take you, with education, as far as you'd want to go. And the fourth thing Māori want is First World wages. These people never even talk about that at all—it's all their highfalutin Auckland University sociology department claptrap—making it up as they go along. And the moment you challenge their authority, they start shouting out the easiest, most cowardly answer—racist. Oh no we're not. Hon Willie Jackson: Are you not racist? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, as the founder of the Kōhanga Reo said, "Winston is not anti-Māori; he's just anti-nonsense." Remember her name? Leni Kapa said that, didn't she? And also somebody's mother said that too. Hon Willie Jackson: My mother! Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah. Somebody's mother said that too. And I wish he was as bright as his mother, and paid more attention. Ha, ha! You know, your mother was a very bright woman, and she had high hopes for this party and New Zealand First, and, all of a sudden, her son is going his own way and thinks he's smarter than mum—oh no, he's not. I was going to make a lot of statements today, but the reality is that we're out to turn this country around. This was an inflection election—make no bones about it. If we'd not got back, these three parties, we were heading off to be Venezuela or Myanmar. [Interruption] They're there clapping at the back—that's what they want: clearly with no idea that it was once the most successful economy in South America, and look at the cot case it is today. Those sorts of policies took them there. Same with Myanmar—after being the most successful economy in Asia—and look what sort of policies took them there. We just got back in time, and we're proud to have joined this coalition to save this country. SPEAKER: This is a split call. The first 15 minutes will be taken by Rawiri Waititi, and it will be immediately followed by Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori ): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Otirā tēnā tatou e te Whare. Wow! That was entertaining. You're asking us to compare CVs with somebody who's been here 50 decades. You know, that's a long, long time, and a long, long time in a House that has done a lot of damage, and he admitted to that. He admitted to being here and damaging a whole lot of things—for tangata whenua—as we've moved on in this democracy. Anyway, you're going to see this moko and his hat for a long, long time there, Winston, and you're going to get used to it—you better get used to it. So, anyway, I stand in this House to give a speech from the throne of Kīngi Tūheitia. I stand here to speak on behalf of tangata whenua of Aotearoa. The true mana of this nation does not live in this place; it resides on marae and papa kāinga right across this country. It resides in the hearts and the minds of te Iwi Māori. To our people, thank you. Thank you for believing in yourselves. Thank you for believing in your own mana. Thank you for being magic people. Thank you for being proud to be Māori. You have elected the largest Te Pāti Māori caucus in the history of this Parliament, and may I remind Winston: you only won five seats; we won six. The largest contingent of fighters for mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga. From Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. From Tāmaki Makaurau, we have Takutai Tarsh Kemp. From Hauraki-Waikato, the youngest MP in many, many years, we have Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. In Te Tai Tonga, we have Tākuta Ferris, and in Te Tai Hauāuru, we have Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The kōhanga reo generation is here, and we will carry your dreams and aspirations in this place. We will continue to be unapologetically Māori—thank you, Chris, for using our words. We will always remember why you put us here, ahakoa te aha [no matter what]. This is our pledge to you. As our tīpuna remind us, ours is a struggle without end. Against all odds, tangata whenua have resisted colonisation and imperialism for more than 200 years. We are the descendants of navigators who traversed the largest ocean on the planet. We are the innovators who have time and time again proven to be cultural, social, and economic leaders in Aotearoa. We are rangatira who never ceded our sovereignty, never bowed down to a foreign power. The Government's agenda is a flashback to the 19th century. This Government's agenda for the first hundred days is taking us back a hundred years. The coalition documents read like a manifesto of white supremacy and cultural genocide. There are attacks on Māori and Te Tiriti right across health, education, welfare, employment, justice, the environment, and the economy. Repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act will undo all the progress that has been made to try and fix a systemically racist organisation that, over generations, has stolen our kids. Removing the prison reduction target and cultural reports in the justice system proves that this Government is intent on locking up more brown people and throwing away the key. Scrapping Aotearoa's world-leading smokefree laws will sacrifice Māori lives to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. Repealing fair pay agreements and bringing back 90-day trials will guarantee that whānau are stuck in low wages and our rangatahi are exploited in insecure work. Rolling back progress on climate change and taiao protection is co-signing our mokopuna to a future of chaos and instability. Leaving the door open to a referendum on Te Tiriti—the constitutional right for this Parliament to even exist—highlights just how extreme and dangerous this Government's policies are. But if all of that wasn't bad enough, it goes even deeper than what is written on paper. The racist signals that the election of this Government has sent are so strong that Public Service departments are pre-emptively wiping te reo Māori from official documents and rolling back years of progress overnight. This Government has opened the floodgates of hatred towards Māori. You have given all Government departments the permission to hurt our people. White supremacist radicals who sent Māori leaders death threats are celebrating. They are over the moon that their political champions now hold the levers of power. It is disgraceful. These attempts to erase our people and our culture from public life hark back to the colonial philosophy that tried to smooth the pillow of a dying race. To this Government, my message is simple: you will not succeed. Māori will not be assimilated. Māori will not be subjugated. Māori will not be silenced. Māori will not be erased. We will not cede. Your weaponising of racism and prejudice will be resisted with the full force of the Māori nation. You have been put on notice, Mr Shane Jones. Ka whawhai tonu mātou, āke, āke, āke. [We will continue to fight, for ever and ever and ever.] This coalition presents the last gasp— Rt Hon Winston Peters: This is pinko rubbish. RAWIRI WAITITI: —Mr Peters—of a generation and demographic who are terrified of no longer being the majority; terrified of being treated the way they have treated us. But what they don't realise is our tikanga informs us to rise above hate, rise above division, rise above radical supremacy, and rise above imperialism. The 21st century will be remembered for the rise of generation Tiriti—"Gen T". It will be remembered for the kotahitanga of tangata whenua, tangata moana, and tangata Tiriti, unifying to forge a nation that honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It will be remembered for the treaty revolution. It will be remembered for the rise of an Aotearoa hou. Our Aotearoa hou gives us space to realise how things should be; an Aotearoa hou that makes you feel like you would when you come on to our marae. We will welcome you. We will feed you. We will house you. We will connect you. We will educate you. We will care for you. We will hear you. We will love you. And, yes, Shane Jones, we will farewell you. Our Aotearoa hou looks like every whānau in Aotearoa having a warm, secure, and affordable home. Not just a house, but a home. An Aotearoa hou looks like future-proofing our communities, protecting our pepeha, protecting the whakapapa of Papatūānuku. An Aotearoa hou looks like whānau being able to swim and drink from their own local awa without getting sick, gather kaimoana from their local pātaka without worry, and not having to deal with flooding week after week. An Aotearoa hou looks like taking climate change seriously. It means investing in clean energy and restoring our taiao, protecting and preparing communities for climate adaptation, transitioning to regenerative and organic culture, banning seabed mining. In an Aotearoa hou, everyone will know their rights, and everyone has a right to know their whakapapa. If you don't know your whakapapa, you can rest assured that your whakapapa knows you. If you do not know your maunga, your maunga knows you. If you do not know your awa, your awa knows you. If you do not know your marae, your marae knows you. If you do not know your reo, your reo knows you. We are the solutions to be realised. In an Aotearoa hou, no one is left behind. Whether you are tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti; tangata hauā, takatāpui, wahine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna—you are whānau. You are good enough, because your tīpuna made it so. While Te Pāti Māori will resist the racist agenda of this Government at every step, our core mission remains the same, and that is to realise this vision of an Aotearoa hou. It is the manifestation of the dreams and aspirations of our tīpuna, who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi and laid the foundation for peace and prosperity in this country. Te Tiriti is not to be settled. It is not to be rewritten. It is not to be questioned by referendum. Te Tiriti is to be honoured. We are the movement that will fight for Te Tiriti - centric Aotearoa. In the words of the black American author Toni Morrison, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being." And that's what I heard in the last speech. As tangata whenua, we cannot allow the racist agenda of this Government to let us lose focus from what matters: the realisation of our tino rangatiratanga. As Moana Jackson laid out in the Matike Mai kaupapa, we must strive for self-determination, self-sufficiency to be implemented by 2040, on the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi. That must remain our steadfast goal, our guiding light, our pae tawhiti. We must make mokopuna decisions. How best can we create an Aotearoa hou that will ensure my mokopuna—whom I will never meet—are able to thrive and live in abundance? How do we maximise the opportunity for success and prosperity? Those are the questions that we must grapple with as tangata whenua. Colonial Governments come and go, but we remain. Racist policies come and go—and then come again—but we remain. We will continue to stand as the unbreakable force of mana motuhake. This will not allow Pākehā to determine our rights as tangata whenua. This Government must prepare for a Māori revolution if a referendum ever does go ahead. Every Government has the right to govern, but they do not have the right to undo 30 years of progress for Māori. Te Pāti Māori will fight on all fronts to protect our people from policies that seek to erase our whakapapa and whitewash our history—policies that privilege the wealthy and punish the poor. We will fight against the short-sightedness of a Government that would allow oil and gas exploration during a climate crisis—absolute foolishness. We will ensure this Government's reign is short. Te Pāti Māori are calling on our nation, tangata whenua, tangata moana, he tangata Tiriti, to stand as one to protect what it is that makes us Aotearoa. We need not fear what we might lose, but have the courage to stand for what we might gain. Toitū Te Tiriti. Kia ora tātou. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Koinei te wā tuatahi ka tū ahau hei [Indistinct]. Ka whakanui ahau i te taenga mai ki konei i tēnei wā ki te whakakanohi i ngā reo me ngā kanohi o tō tātau iwi nā rātou i tuku te mana kaha. E whakapono koutou katoa te Aotearoa hou. E whakatau tō tātou iwi me whawhai ki tētahi kāwanatanga e kaha ana ki te whakahoki ki whakamuri i a tātou. Nō reira kua tae mai mātou. Toitū Te Tiriti. [Thank you, Mr Speaker. My greetings to the House. This is the first time I'm standing to [Indistinct]. I acknowledge our arrival here to represent the voices and faces of our iwi, who inspire us with great mana. You all believed in the Aotearoa hou. You decided that we should battle a Government that wants to ensure our regression. So, we are here. Honour the Treaty.] It is an honour to be the largest indigenous party today. First of all, I want to mihi and thank the Government made up of parties funded and supported by the hyper-rich, the 2 percenters who own more than 50 percent of the wealth, the hyper - anti-Māori, the hyper - Hobson Pledgers, the Julian Batchelors, the anti-environmentalists, and the anti-minorities. I want to mihi to you all—hugely mihi to you all—for providing the greatest opportunity for te ao Māori. Your hatred has encouraged us to unite. Your attacks on our culture have motivated our standing in solidarity for ourselves. Your calls to take us back have been a drive to advance. Ka nui te aroha mō tō kūaretanga. [I express my regret for your ignorance.] A Government awarded Fossil of the Day award—how awesome are you guys! In 72 hours, Te Pāti Māori tested our people's capacity and capability to step up and be counted, to mobilise at the shortest of notice and show each other what we are capable of. All this was done using nothing but our social media. We too are not fans of and not covered by the press, but we did that, and do you know what? At the beat of our whanaungatanga, we didn't need the press. We didn't "wah-wah" and tangiweto about the fact we didn't have that. We didn't need billboards in pink sponsored all over the place—centrefold adverts in the New Zealand Herald. As the drum beat, all the planning was going on behind the scenes, with not a single leak—not a single leak—until we were lined and we were ready. Who said Māori can't keep a secret? Te Pāti Māori is as proud as heck of all our whānau who dropped everything and believed in themselves. We know more will jump on as we continue, and you know we will because you have given us the sole mandate to be the undisputed, unapologetic, unshackled voice in Aotearoa. Remember, whānau, just because those men over there in Government have w'akapapa, it doesn't mean they are mandated to talk on behalf of te ao Māori. They don't take pride in being Māori; they take pride in being labelled as professional politicians, but they belong to parties that don't have the best interests of Māori at heart—proposing to review, rewrite, and referend our Te Tiriti. I come from a community where our women have had to stand and hold the line. We are not victims, and despite our natural development being interfered with, we are here, thriving. We are resilient and we are beautiful, huia feathers or not, and we will not be bullied or stood over by men on that side of the House who embarrass themselves, who ridicule our culture. I wish you healing and I hope you find strength in your culture unity as we do. I hope that you don't continue to isolate yourself from the Generation T, because Generation Te Tiriti are here. Our kohanga generation has arrived and we're as excited as heck. You see, those whose hearts are full of hate and envy don't understand that the more you attack us, the stronger we will grow. This Government started with a policy platform made up of 15 policies which stand to disestablish, disband, disconnect our Tiriti, our reo; undo inequity solutions, prison their way to justice—oh, how unoriginal, how uninspiring. There is nothing else; no new solutions. Just look back in the manifesto of 1840. Then, themselves—you have attacked our reo. You have dressed up as helping those confused to find themselves through their reo. You have attacked it and dressed up as a Trojan Horse. Hon Shane Jones: Drama. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: That is so—absolutely. It's the stuff you can't pull off, because what you have done is use the typical colonisers' tools. The first thing they do—what do they do? They destroy indigenous people's culture. By what? By removing, demoting, and demonising their language. My goodness, does this Government really think we can't see your policies for what they are? I'm sad—no, truly. I am sad that for some politicians in the eve of their political profession. This is your last mark; I'm sad for you. I feel aroha that you represent voters who are not worldly, who do not embrace indigenous peoples, who are anti-Māori, and who are unable to embrace the reo anywhere, but I also get that you will now be comfortable calling yourselves flightless birds and hope that you can handle it when the Māori version comes off and the English signs are up for places like Urenui, English for Uretiti, Rahotu—but wait, Shane, I have one more—and the English sign for Kaitīeke. That is what these small parties who make up this Government, ACT and New Zealand First's combined vote is less than the 20 percent who you have offended the hell out of—the hell out of. This population who make up Māori and our amazing tangata te Tiriti have come back at you and they will fight. They will fight side by side. Tangata Tiriti will fight side by side to represent a united dignified Aotearoa hou. I am proud as heck that we showed those who paid $440,000 to get a single MP in that our little $17,000 per candidate goes a long way. See, that is the resilience of Te Ao Māori. If you really want to know how to do economic development, we can show you how to do that. Do not be hateful or angry, whānau mā. Do not be hateful or angry at this new Government's treatment and disrespect. Be inspired. Be motivated to be more ourselves. Unlike the elite, flightless birds who want to focus on protecting the rich, we care for all whānau in Aotearoa. We want to end poverty. We want to have a tax policy where we would have 2.2 million people living better. We want to look at those people who are deliberately being put in poverty because you do not see or care about them. We want to see it as absolutely a choice. We want to focus on putting more money in the pockets of those struggling. But no—no, we're being told to smoke more and get taxed to help the rich. What the hell have I arrived in? But that's OK—that's OK. We wanted to see GST off kai. We wanted to see an end to duopolies in supermarkets. We wanted to see the end to seabed mining—protect our environment; I know, for your mokopuna. But some of you are so far removed from your mokopuna, you've forgotten who they are. I look opposite me and I see tobacco lobbyists, I see gun lobbyists, I see Hobson's Pledge lobbyists, I see absolute profiteers, landlords, conspirators, and climate change deniers. Moana Jackson said that if there is proof of the ongoing presence of colonisation, it is the constant Crown interpretation of redefining of what Te Tiriti promised. That is what we are seeing. What is unfair to our new Prime Minister is that you have started your legacy as a Prime Minister by attacking Māori and attacking our environment, but, worse, attacking our mokopuna. I know some of those who are with this Prime Minister and I actually believe that he's a decent bloke. But the sad thing for him is that he is alongside people who do not have as long a career in politics as he has, and I urge this Prime Minister to take balanced counsel and immerse himself in communities who are proud of their culture, who have their own solutions, and are not embarrassed about who they are, rather than live only in the past—they respect their past and they use that to focus on their future. Finally, to ourselves, to our reo speakers, to those who carry our reo rangatira, our tōhunga: you and your commitment to promote and strengthen our reo was one way we were able to feel our whenua and our tūpuna. You are futuristic, you are the beacon for all of us, you are what we all aspire to be, and how the Government is targeting you is kino. We will stand with you; we will stand with the unions to protect your rights and all workers' rights. To our whānau standing for Palestine's freedom, to end this horrific genocide and the sights that we see going on for these babies, these children—innocent civilians. Keep active, keep sharing, keep the pressure on, because we as indigenous peoples must look after each other. We know the atrocities of colonisation. Stay strong in your unity for kotahitanga. Free Palestine. To our whānau who are out there who have had to watch the atrocity of this new Government clumsily coming through, trying to pretend that it knows what is right for Māori. Take heart, some of these politicians are on their eve. Some of these politicians are new, and we need to manaaki them, and we need to help them. We need to help them to be better politicians, we need to help them to be great Prime Ministers. I believe we have the ability and the influence to do that. Ignore the loudness, look after our whānau who are in that party. Help them to think past one term, because these buddies that they have, they don't stay around. They're like the kutu, you can spray and walk away. To our whānau, protect the whenua between you taringa. Reflect on the collective strength of your past: Tohu, Te Whiti, Tahupōtiki Rātana, the Kīngitanga. Most importantly, grab all of that, look at your mokopuna, embrace your rangatahi, and you focus on what it is that's required to protect your rights to be the best people in the world. Toitū Te Tiriti. Kia ora rā. SPEAKER: Just before I call the next speaker, can I just remind the House that—and I haven't wanted to interfere with anybody's speeches or interrupt them—the use of the word "you" in speeches does refer to the Speaker. I know it's difficult at times, and I will have continued leniency throughout the debate so that we get a free flow of things, but just bear that in mind. That would be good, thank you. I know the member down there didn't mean all those things she said about me. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi e hiahia ana ahau ki te mihi ki a koe, Gerry, kua riro te tūranga rangatira. E mihi ana ki a koe. I tēnei wā kei te pīrangi huri atu ki Te Pāti Māori. Me mihi ki a koutou mō tō koutou kaha inānahi ki te kōkiri i te kaupapa. Rawe. Tino whakahīhī ahau ki te kite i ō koutou mahi mō tātou te iwi Māori. E mihi ana ki a koutou. Koutou katoa kua tae mai i tēnei wā, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. [Greetings, Mr Speaker. First, I'd like to congratulate you, Gerry, on your new appointment. I acknowledge you. At this juncture I'd like to turn to te Pāti Māori. It is only right to commend your strength in supporting the call. Fantastic. I am very proud to watch the work you do for the Māori people. I acknowledge you. To all who arrived today, I'd like to acknowledge you all. I acknowledge each and every one of us.] It's a shame Gerry Brownlee has left the Chamber, because I came into Parliament in 1999 and never would have thought he would have got up there. But he will be, I think, a very, very good Speaker. I've really enjoyed—I think we've all enjoyed—the entertainment this afternoon. But I did want to mihi—and I'm sincere here, and I'm sure Peeni Henare and others in the Labour Māori caucus are—in all seriousness to Te Pāti Māori for what happened in the House yesterday. I know we've had different descriptions, haven't we? That it was about theatre. We hear the brother over there—Shane—saying it was Matatini. No, it's not; it's about tikanga Māori—bringing tikanga into the House. This House was set up for us as Treaty partners. Māori have never had the opportunity to exercise our tikanga, and I mihi to Te Pāti Māori, because this is an evolving of our culture. This is an evolving of the House. While I used to have old, fuddy-duddy sorts of views, like Shane Jones and Winston Peters—I can't help it, because our ages are not that far apart—I was taken by some of our young Pākehā wāhine who came into our offices, and they loved what happened yesterday in the House. Hon Shane Jones: Hippies, hippies. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: And I explained to them—shush up, Shane—that this is meaningful. This is about challenging what happens around the Oath. I too would prefer not to take the Oath, but I'm a bit older now, so I've got to leave it to the younger ones to do the performance. I just do the business. But, when I see that performance yesterday, it's a reminder to te iwi Māori. So mihi nui ki a koutou—mihi nui ki a koutou. I want to say to the two old fuddy-duddies over there that they're two of the great personalities in terms of our people. We are a bit embarrassed with some of their actions lately, but they remain great personalities for our people, and I think it's our job to get them on the right track over the next three years. Because, as you can see, Winston has gone off track somewhat and Jonesy just can't shut his mouth. So I want to say today that, when I woke up this morning and I read about Nicola Willis talking about te reo and cutting back in terms of some of our bureaucrats getting paid extra for speaking te reo Māori, I was shocked. I was shocked, because I was the Minister who was in charge of overseeing the language, and part of that strategy is getting 1 million speakers by 2040. I think it's all going to go out the door now. I'm disappointed with Nicola Willis. I know that National, in the past, have supported the reo. John Key and Bill English were good supporters of the reo when they embraced the more conservative Māori Party in past years—different from today's party of course. National was hugely supportive of the language—hugely supportive of the language—and I don't mind saying that I think there's a lot of good National people. I know I go a bit tough on the Chris Bishops and call them Tories and the "dirty rotten"—all that sort of stuff comes into campaigns, but there has been a support for the Māori language. Nicola Willis does not understand how important the language is. She does not understand. And I mihi to all our people who have made that effort to get their reo up to scratch, and they go into the workforce and they become examples for other to learn the reo—for others to learn the reo—and so to threaten the workers with reducing their wages is, I think, a shame and an embarrassment to this Government. Our people are latching on. We saw that yesterday with the most wonderful expression from our people, and that was only the beginning. That was only the start. We are talking about our people rebelling on the streets. You imagine when iwi Māori get together and work a strategy out. You think about that: when we have the North come on, and the East Coast come on, and all around the nation, you'll get a hīkoi 10, 20 times bigger than yesterday. That's the key. Our people are tired of it. What they're seeing here is an attack on our people. These attacks are around the Māori language. These attacks are around Māori health, where they're shutting down our Māori Health Authority. Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, they're not. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, that's an absolute attack on Māori. Māori health professionals have been very clear that a Māori Health Authority is important, and these attacks are around the Treaty of Waitangi. It is a shocking strategy from Seymour. Seymour knows nothing about the Treaty. He's been expelled by his own iwi. He got kicked out of the tribe the other day. You know this, Shane Jones. Mana Epiha kicked him out of the tribe. Now we have this expert on the Treaty telling us that we must revisit the principles. The principles were not even supported by my uncle Moana Jackson and all the activists that Te Pāti Māori talk about. The principles are in there for the Government. You know this, Shane Jones. You argued for the principles. You've been a supporter of the principles. The principles are there for the Crown so that they can exercise status quo. Tell that stupid Seymour this. Seymour doesn't know. He's this expert! I asked him, "What was your legal training, David Seymour?" He has none. Unlike you, Winston Peters, you know? You've got a law background, haven't you? You've got to talk to this Seymour. He knows more than Jim Bolger, he knows more than Jenny Shipley, he knows more than Bill English, he knows more than Jacinda Ardern—he knows more than every Prime Minister who has supported the Treaty principles since 1987! It is a disgrace the way he is approaching this—it's a disgrace. This lot over here are not into the principles; they're into the articles of the Treaty. They're into tino rangatiratanga. They're into article 2 of the Treaty. Rt Hon Winston Peters: They're into apartheid—they want apartheid. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Does Seymour know what he's doing? No, it's not apartheid. [Interruption] Shush, Jonesy! DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order across the House. The Hon Willie Jackson is speaking. It's OK to have debate, but just be careful at the back. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I've got to make it clear to the House about the dangers around this Treaty principles thing, because Winston tried to get a crackpot principles thing up a few years ago, and now he's trying to do it, I think, through Seymour. All that the principles talk about is partnership. They talk about good faith. They talk about participation. That's what the principles are about. They were brought in to stop the Government in terms of privatisation. You know all this, Shane. You were working at the time. They were brought in because this dirty, rotten Government—I think you were representing them at the time, Winston—were looking at privatisation. So they had to bring in something: "What shall we bring in? Oh, we'll bring in principles." Māori didn't want that. Matike Mai is very clear. They don't want that. Māori want to talk about the articles. They want to talk about article 2: tino rangatiratanga. So the funny thing here is that Seymour and this Government will be playing into Māori hands, who never supported the Treaty principles anyway. It's a dangerous, dangerous area, and I'm surprised that the Prime Minister has gone along with this and supported this, given the type of information he's been given by Anne Salmond, who has walked away from David Seymour, and by experts out there. But my point is, as was pointed out by Te Pāti Māori, that our people are ready. They're ready on the streets. There was a great representation yesterday. They will not put up with nonsense from this Government. I said very clearly about three weeks ago that Māori would revolt in the streets. I said there would be civil disobedience—not my choice. I said you'll get protests worse than the Springbok Tour. That's all going to come to fruition, all because of this Government—this Government who said they're going to get rid of division; they're going to make things equal for everyone. Now we have the most separatist Government we've seen in history, the most dangerous Government we've seen in history, and we're committed as a Māori caucus and as a Labour Party to fight it and advance the aspirations and rights of our people. Kia ora tātou. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I embark on my first contribution to this 54th Parliament of New Zealand, I'd like to offer my congratulations to the presiding officers' teams. This afternoon we saw the Leader of the Opposition, Chris Hipkins, lay out an amendment to the motion that was put that spelt out exactly what it is that we, as a Labour Opposition, will be holding this Government to account on. That is the job of an Opposition—it is to hold the Government of the day to account, and that is what we will be doing. We have seen the trilogy that has emerged through the coalition agreements, the 100-day plan, and today, the Speech from the Throne, the actions and priorities that this Government has spelt out at the beginning of its term. They laid that bare today, and I'll go into that in some more detail. That is exactly what we will be looking to hold the Government to account on. First and foremost, this is a Government that says it is going to deliver relief for New Zealanders on the cost of living. The tax cuts are a package looking for a way to be funded. This Government came in with all kinds of—on the campaign trail, the National Party had all kinds of grand plans for how they were going to fund that tax package. But that did not survive the coalition talks. It did not survive the coalition agreements. So instead, what have we seen? What we have seen from the Government that is sitting on the Treasury benches today is a decision that they are going to roll back world-leading smoke-free legislation—that would have seen smoke-free generations in New Zealand—with a Minister of Finance who thinks it is OK to baldly say that the revenue is needed to fund the tax cuts. I don't think there are many New Zealanders who voted—thinking they might like a tax cut—that thought they were voting for a tax cut that was premised on increased revenue from cigarettes and rolling back world-leading legislation. That is something that we will be holding this Government to account. But it is not only looking to increasing rates of smoking to fund tax cuts. We're also seeing flip-flops on things like the app tax. We were told—all through the election campaign—by the National Party how this was a measure that would impose costs on New Zealanders. But, already, we're seeing a backflip on that as well. We will be looking for more of these backflips. That is our job, and one that we will prosecute with precision. We will be looking for what it is that this Government is doing to fund the huge fiscal hole that has opened up over their tax package. We're no longer hearing the Minister of Finance, the Hon Nicola Willis, tell us that it is a fiscally neutral tax package. So we look forward to hearing more detail on how that is going to be funded. The other thing that we saw today in the Speech from the Throne—I thought what was also telling was what was not mentioned, what did not receive priority. One of the things that I saw that really was missing from this was a decisive plan for how it is that New Zealand will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. What we've seen in the 100-day plan and the Speech from the Throne is great lists of things that this Government will undo. But what we are waiting to see is great lists of what this Government will do. That is fair enough; that is the prerogative of the Government of the day to reverse decisions of previous Governments. It is what Governments do. But what is beholden on them is to come forward with their own positive agenda. So if I go through the 100-day action plan, we see it's stop this, it's cancel this, it's reverse that. But what is it that this Government is going to do? In the area of climate, we've heard that they're going to scrap the Climate Emergency Response Fund, which was money set aside for funding initiatives to reduce New Zealand's emissions. We know what those initiatives are doing, how many emissions they are saving. The National Party anyway agreed to carbon budgets in the previous term of Government. So what measures are being put in place to replace those emissions? That is something that we will push this Government hard on, because this is a party that signed up to multi-partisan climate legislation that puts in place carbon budgets. So we will want to see what their detailed plan is there. But what we're seeing in climate is really just indicative of the great leap backwards that is going to happen under this Government; progress that has been made that is being unwound. The other thing that I didn't hear in the Speech from the Throne, I haven't seen in the coalition agreements, and I certainly haven't seen in the 100-day plan is what the party is going to do in terms of housing. Now, they've made grand promises. They're going to get everyone out of emergency hotels in Rotorua within a year. We'll be watching that one closely. They're going to clear the public housing waiting list. We'll watch that closely. We'll also be watching to make sure that they didn't do what they did last time that National was in Government, and that is just kick people off it, and then not let people be put on the public house waiting list. What we are going to have to see is a programme of work to deliver housing. The previous Labour Government made it easy for this Government. There is funding to deliver more houses right through to June 2025. It is funded. It is in the Budgets. There are 21,000 new public housing places funded by the previous Governments between 2017 and 2023. We delivered over 13,000 of them in the six years that we were in Government; the most public housing of any Government since Walter Nash, I think it was, or did we update that? This is something we will be watching closely to ensure that this Government not only delivers through to 2025, but what are they going to do after that. What is the new commitment for more public housing places? Because on the campaign trail, the National Party certainly would not commit to any more. So we will be watching that. The other area that we will be watching is: what are we going to do to ensure that we can continue to progress as a country? Now, obviously, we have different ideas on this side of the House than the current Government in terms of what progress looks like. But I think, by anyone's definition, backsliding, and becoming an international laughing stock is not going to be the way forward for New Zealand. Already, we have seen, at the current climate talks, that New Zealand received the "Fossil of the Day" award. But the thing that marks this out: this was the very first one of the meeting. This was the very first country to be singled out, and it is because of this Government's winding back the clock to bring back oil and gas exploration. Now, banning new offshore exploration was something that I was proud that we delivered in our Government. It was very much driven by our Labour belief that we have to ensure that we are planning for a secure future for those workers who are engaged in those industries. That is something that we will be monitoring this Government to ensure—what is a sunset industry, whatever tinkering that they make with the rules, that we are seeing globally that this is a sunset industry, and we will be watching to see what provisions are being made for those workers and those communities in areas that are reliant on that for economic wealth. So it is the job of an Opposition to hold the Government to account. We've seen a shambolic start to Government from this three-headed being that is our Government. We've seen the two junior partners in the coalition running rings around the Prime Minister. Hold their Government to account—we on this side of the House will do. Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's great to be back in the House and it's great to be back on this side of the House. Firstly, Madam Speaker, can I congratulate you on the role that you have taken up. As chief whip to the National Party, it was always your wise counsel that we appreciated so much. For those of us—maybe me—who got ourselves into shtook sometimes, you were outstanding in leading us and helping us. I've always appreciated that, and I think you're going to be outstanding in this role. To our Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon: I am so excited for Christopher Luxon to be the Prime Minister of this country. His drive, his determination, his commitment to this country—I am very proud to serve under his leadership. To Chris Hipkins: can I say to you, Chris Hipkins, welcome home. Because no one has ever looked so at home than Chris Hipkins in Opposition. He slotted right back in like it was an old shoe. So welcome home, Chris Hipkins. But his speech today about this coalition was a bit rich. Because if you're looking for chaos, if you are looking for a lack of direction, look no further than the previous Labour Government. Labour were a party at the election who stood for nothing. Everything Jacinda had built—or tried to build—over 5½ years: gone. Everything she had tried to stand for: under Chris Hipkins' leadership, gone. The worst defeat of any Government in this country ever was this previous Government because they stood for nothing. They were confused, they were chaotic, and the people of this country were the ones who suffered because of it. Chris Hipkins' Prime Ministership was a legacy of backflips, of U-turns, and it's no wonder the public lost confidence. Because they didn't know what Labour stood for. We remember the ex - finance Minister and - Deputy Prime Minister's social insurance scheme. He worked on it for 2½ years. I think there were more Ministers involved in that scheme than anything else. The vision of Grant Robertson; the vision of Carmel Sepuloni: gone by lunchtime. David Parker, the most senior Minister in Government, threw his toys, gave up his revenue portfolio, because his vision for tax reform: gone by lunchtime under Chris Hipkins. Willie Jackson, the second-highest Māori Minister, worked on broadcasting reform for years. His vision: gone by lunchtime under Chris Hipkins. The bonfire was not so much of a bonfire, but a towering inferno full of Woods, Sepuloni, Parker, Robertson—all of their visions up in smoke. This was a party that stood for nothing and continues to stand for nothing. National is a party that stands for delivery; we stand for outcomes; we stand for evidence, front-line results, and improving people's lives. In education, we stand for achievement, ambition, success, and equality of opportunity. We know that education is the great enabler, and we will be relentless in our drive to improve achievement. We will be ambitious—unashamedly ambitious—in the targets that we've set for this nation's children. The most egregious thing that happened under the last Government—in fact, under Chris Hipkins' watch as Minister of Education—was the fact that our achievement went backwards. There was a reason that in Chris Hipkins' speech today, when he listed all his perceived achievements, what did he say about education? "We built some classrooms." Nothing about improving achievement outcomes for our kids. Nothing about how many kids we got to curriculum. Nothing about how we improved our NCEA results. Nothing about getting our kids to school. And there's a reason for that. It's because they failed abysmally. It's egregious because it's not just like they said they'd build a bridge and then they didn't. These are the lives of our kids; it's their futures that they have taken away. That is what is so egregious, and we will not, as a Government, stand by and allow that. It should have lit a fire under them when they saw the declining results over time. The Programme for International Student Assessment results last night just confirmed that decline. Under our Government, the trends of decline, the decline in performance, the trends of teacher retention: they stop. They stop under our Government. I have set a very ambitious target of getting 80 percent of our kids to curriculum by the time they leave intermediate. We owe it to our kids; we owe it to their families to make sure that every child has the opportunity to succeed at high school, to go on to live the life that they want, and take on the world like we know that they can. For decades, we have had a curriculum that has been very loose; that has been a paper-thin document devoid of knowledge. National will return a curriculum that is knowledge-rich; that lays out the core content knowledge, every year, in order of how it should be taught to ensure that there is consistency across the country. So no matter where you go to school, no matter which school you are in, no matter which teacher you have, you have access to the same core content knowledge as a child. We will ensure there is consistency across the country. I'll tell you what: chemistry, bio, and physics will be in the science curriculum. I can't believe that I actually have to say that. I tell you what: the Government will just say, "Oh, it was just an idea that we had." It was just a fast draft that they worked on and spent money on for months to remove those core areas out of science. That will not happen under our watch. We will ensure that the methods of teaching literacy and numeracy are based on the science of learning; about how the brain learns. We will ensure that every single child in this country at primary school will learn to read through structured literacy, and we will ensure that structured mathematics is embedded so that the basic concepts of maths are taught in a structured, and with a scope and a sequence, and that those basics are mastered. Let me just remind this House how Labour proposed to teach mathematics through a critical awareness of wider political and ideological and economic issues, addressing issues of power, social justice, and equality. That will not happen under this Government, I can tell you that. We will ensure that we assess progress of our learners along the way so that we catch our kids before they start to fail, and make sure that they can go on to be at curriculum by the end of year 8 and go on to experience success at high school. In our first 100 days, we are taking the very first steps on this journey. We are ensuring there will be consistency across the country in terms of reading and writing and maths time spent. We already know that most schools do this, but we are ensuring that it's formalised and that there is consistency across the country so that every child—no matter where they go to school—has access to an hour a day of reading, writing, and maths. We will remove the distraction of cell phones in our schools, because we know that the evidence shows that our kids improve their achievement and also their wellbeing. We will start the job of rewriting the curriculum and the Common Practice Model. Can I say to the hard-working and passionate teachers and principals and teacher aides up and down this country, this Government is here to support you; to provide you the tools, the resources, and the time that you need to do what you do best: helping our young learners to succeed and achieve at school, to grow up to live the life that they want. When Jan Tinetti said on the news, after Labour's defeat, that she felt a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders when she lost her job as education Minister, I say it is my great privilege and great honour to take on this huge responsibility: of ensuring that our children experience academic success and we bring it back to the heart of our education system. I will never describe this job as a "weight" or a "burden". Can I finish by quoting a great principal that I visited last week—the first week on the job—Iain Taylor at Manurewa Intermediate School. The thing that he says to the learners at his intermediate is, "There is no time to lose." Every minute counts. It's a school that doesn't allow cell phones; that has an hour a day of reading, writing, and maths; it is a school, under his leadership, that values academic success and has high standards for their children. When he says "There is no time to lose" to his young learners, I say that to all my colleagues. We have no time to lose because this job is too important. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your role. Given the time we've spent together on parliamentary duties, I'm sure we'll get on fine. I wish I could say the same for Gerry Brownlee. When I was standing in Christchurch Central for the first time, he called me an ambulance chaser and I called him deeply offensive. I don't chase ambulances anymore, and I'm sure he's not deeply offensive anymore either. So I'm sure we'll get on fine as well. The last speaker, Erica Stanford, said she has no time to lose. And you know what? Maybe that's why National is trying to turn the clock backwards. I have seen nothing new from the National Party in this incoming Government. I listened to the Speech from the Throne, I got back to my office, and I wanted to get the details right, so I quickly googled, you know, let's get the Speech from the Throne. And here it turned up, I've got it here, I've printed it off. And here's one of the things that this Speech from the Throne says: "for the past several years the number of people employed in the public service has grown at a rate that has not been matched by a commensurate increase in the level of services provided to the public." Does that sound like Christopher Luxon to you? No, that's the 2008 Speech from the Throne. So we've got a retread—I think he might have used ChatGPT, but he needs to be a bit more careful, because when you Google "National Party Speech from the Throne" you basically get the same speech every single time. So, sure, he's got in the new speech "spending on public services has increased in recent years,"—it's just lifted from John Key's Government. But that's not John Key that you've got over there; that's a corporate middle manager who himself said today, from that chair, that the Government's "Under new management". We don't want a managerialist approach to Government here; we want a proper, careful governing approach—and this is not what we're going to see. We've got no vision—"Vision Impossible". And what did the John Key Government say about the Resource Management Act in 2008? "The first stage of this reform will be on improving the consent process"—it will, "streamline and simplify the Act, including priority consenting for projects of national significance." Well, if this was a law school essay, it would be thrown out for plagiarism: let's have a "one-stop-shop established for consenting and promoting processes for … projects of national significance."—straight out of 2008. Not an original thought in this Speech from the Throne. This is the great leap backwards. You can't turn the clock back—New Zealand in 2023 is a different country, it's moved on. In fact, a lot of what the Key Government did was more progressive than what that Government's proposing, so you should be utterly and totally ashamed of yourself. And even better—even better; it just gets better and better—regulatory reform. I'm very excited about my spokesperson role in regulatory reform. You know, because "This Government will undertake a regulatory review programme", John Key said, in 2008. "There's superfluous regulation. Regulation should be used sparingly." So what have we got now? A new Government department. This is like Kafka, but worse. It's written worse than Kafka—a new Government department with a Minister of Regulation to cut regulatory costs, ha ha! It is laughable. You know, so you're going to have an entire machinery to cut costs. That is absolutely ridiculous. And here's a new idea, a regulatory standards standards bill will be passed—like this one from 2011 that wasn't passed, or this one from 2021 that wasn't passed. It's rubbish. It's absolutely rubbish. And what's more, it's reckless. As Richard Ekins said in the New Zealand Universities Law Review, it's "reckless lawmaking"—it's unconstitutional, it politicises the Public Service, and it threatens the rule of law. You can't take a neoliberal approach to law and enshrine it in legislation. It's utterly wrong. It's a neoliberal straight-jacket and it's been roundly criticised by anyone who knows anything about it. And as for climate change, you know, way back in 2008, the great thought of the Key Government was "investment in research and development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" because we've got a "unique agricultural emissions profile". What have we got now? Exactly the same approach. In today's Speech from the Throne, they will use the "Technological advantages to progress the reduction of emissions including methane by farm animals." It's school childish. I cannot believe it. But you know what, the one I'm going to go to that really bugs me is smoking. Here was the Key Government's approach on smoking, as agreed with Te Pāti Māori: "Further work will be done on plain package smoking and other anti-smoking initiatives." Something progressive from the Key Government that made real change in lowering smoking rates. It wasn't mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, for good reason. Because it's shameful. It's utterly shameful that a party with a number of medical doctors in its ranks will vote to increase smoking. The member for Banks Peninsula, Vanessa Weenink, GP, would have had people come into her practice with emphysema caused by smoking addiction. Will she vote for it or will she uphold her Hippocratic Oath that says "Do no harm."? This is a harmful piece of piece of legislation. It will cause death. Death by taxes is what we've got here. It is utterly shameful, embarrassing and I know that that member, the member for Ilam,— Hon Member: It's just like KiwiBuild. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —the Minister himself, will have to swallow this. It's nothing like KiwiBuild. KiwiBuild might not have built enough houses, but it didn't send people to their graves. It's utterly shameful. And as for bonding, we've got a great new idea. Let's get people into work in nursing and doctors by helping them pay off their student loans. It might not be a bad idea, because in 2008 John Key said, "We're going to introduce voluntary bonding schemes based on student loan write-offs." Wow. I really, you know, I would have thought that this Government could do something better. It's like déjà vu, but worse, you know? So why don't you have an original idea of your own to face the real problems that are facing New Zealand today: the problems of climate change, the problems of housing, the problems of the health system. Not rewarming, reheating, and retreading policies from 2008. Boot camps. I cannot believe that this is still happening. Back in 2008, John Key said we could have "A new youth court, a Fresh Start programme incorporating military style training and intensive mentoring." I heard Erica Stanford say she wants an evidence-based approach, and there is evidence on boot camps. The evidence on boot camps is that it disenfranchises and alienates the young people that go there. It makes them network with other disenfranchised young people and it makes reoffending greater and it puts those people into a cycle of crime. If you want to have boot camps, be honest and say you want to have boot camps because you don't like these people. The people, the families, the communities that they come from are not your communities, so you don't care about them and you want to shut them off and you want to cart them off and shut them away. Well, don't do it, because it doesn't work. It's not good for you, it's not good for our community, and it will be bad in the long term for everyone. It's a reheated, failed policy. So wake up and get on board. As for consumer credit, again, the Key Government took on consumer credit, started the progress on vulnerable borrowers, started the work that Kris Faafoi finished in terms of loan sharks. And here we've got an incoming Government—Andrew Bayly, who seems to be saying that he's going to loosen lending rules so more money can be given to vulnerable borrowers. Rolling back the protections that John Key started, that Kris Faafoi finished, that means that you don't have truck shops cruising around South Auckland selling essential goods on 100 percent interest rates. That is, again, a shameful approach. As for Māori, this Government is intending to do nothing other than roll back: roll back the Treaty, roll back the equity progress that's been made, roll back the functions of the Waitangi Tribunal—which has a fundamental role in pointing out the missteps of Government—and roll back the Māori Health Authority. Unlike John Key, who in the Speech from the Throne in 2008 said "Māori face—" DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired. Thank you, Dr Webb. Hon MELISSA LEE (Minister for Economic Development): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'd like to begin my contribution today by first of all acknowledging you, Madam Speaker. As my colleague the Hon Erica Stanford has actually said earlier, your history with the National caucus is tremendous in the sense that you have been a nurturing senior whip, who actually looked after the newbies coming in. Whoever was actually ever in trouble, you were always very generous with your time and your energy and wise counsel. So I'm sure that you will do tremendous work as the Deputy Speaker. I just want to comment on the very lacklustre contribution by the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. You know, I love speaking in this House, and often when I speak, I actually tag on to something that the opposite member has actually said, and we can have our, you know, tit for tat, and you feel absolutely energised. I just felt completely drained after that speech because I was like sitting there going, "Oh my goodness, can he just drone on?"—something that my mother would actually say, "Put a mirror in front of you to look at your history, and see what you have done before you criticise someone else." On that note, I'd like for him and his colleagues to, potentially, actually think about how, under the previous Labour Government, they had a 65-seat majority—it was a complete majority ever in the history of, you know, MMP, and they haven't actually achieved anything, really. They haven't delivered for New Zealanders. They couldn't even deliver something that I think Michael Wood actually calls—it's the light rail all the way to the airport down Dominion Road that was supposed to have been completed last year— Hon Simeon Brown: 2021. MELISSA LEE: 2021! Oh my goodness, two years ago. It was supposed to have happened in 2021, all the way to Auckland Airport, that they were so happy about and championed that they were going to deliver. They had 65 members, a complete majority in this House; they could not deliver a centimetre of that light rail—it's a light fail. KiwiBuild—100,000 KiwiBuild homes they said they were going to deliver. Instead, what did they deliver? 14,000 public servants and 1,400 KiwiBuild homes. It's nowhere near the 100,000 that they actually said. And I know that Duncan Webb actually talked about emissions, and I think, you know, as somebody mentioned something about a dud, you know, COP28 award that New Zealand actually got; I thought awards were actually given to the country for the performance in the previous year. So I guess it's actually—I think we need to look at the emission profile of the previous Government's performance when they have to import so much coal from Indonesia because they couldn't actually power the generators, so they had to actually import coal from overseas. So the profile for emissions in New Zealand was worse under that Labour Government. I was thinking that maybe the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee was going to be sitting on this session, and I had some funny quips about him, but I'll have to leave that for another time. I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues—well, actually, acknowledge the people of Mt Albert who came very close to electing me as their MP. They came very close, but not close enough. But I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues the MP for Mt Albert, Helen White, and I have to say the Mt Albert community actually have two list MPs and one MP of the electorate who will actually work for the benefit of the Mt Albert community. I think we are blessed to work there, but I think the people of Mt Albert will be very, very pleased to actually have three MPs who will actually work to their benefit in representing them across the House in this Parliament. It's an honour to have made the Cabinet of the coalition Government, and to join the ranks of my distinguished colleagues right across. It's an absolute privilege, and since this is the first time, I had some Labour colleagues—former Ministers, who have also given me some tips about how I should actually take on my role. I think that's very kind of them to actually do that, you know, in terms of the overwhelming amount of paperwork that you tend to get buried in, and the ability for Ministers to actually read and actually understand the responsibilities that come with the role. I thank those colleagues from across the other side who have actually been very kind to give me their counsel. So thank you. I want to acknowledge former Ministers, as I said, who held the portfolios, you know, that I currently hold. But I just want to actually say to Willie Jackson, who was the former Minister for Broadcasting, and broadcasting is no longer the word that we're using, we're using Minister for Media and Communications. I can just guarantee that I won't be wasting $20 million trying to actually dream up something called ANZPM—Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media bill—and literally pay nearly $20 million to consultants who had absolutely no clue about broadcasting. The ANZPM was literally about bringing Radio New Zealand and TVNZ together, and he couldn't actually give us a realistic answer as to why he was doing that. You know, there was no reason to bring Radio New Zealand and TVNZ together, and they weren't going to deliver for New Zealanders something that they didn't already deliver separately as Radio New Zealand and TVNZ. There is so much that we have to do, and, you know, I'm looking forward to working very closely with the Under-Secretary for Media and Communications, Jenny Marcroft. We look to address a wide host of matters during this parliamentary term. As a Minister, I have to think about the delegation, but I started off talking about her passions and where she would like to work, so I think we're going to work really, really closely, and really well to deliver better outcomes for the media and communications sector. As the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon stated, our 100-day plan is focused on rebuilding the economy, easing the cost of living, restoring law and order, and delivering better public services. These are things that New Zealanders voted for and expect us to deliver. Unlike the previous Government who couldn't actually deliver on, as I said, light rail, couldn't really deliver on ANZPM, couldn't really deliver on KiwiBuild—or anything, actually. They didn't deliver on anything when they had a majority. I think that's dire indictment on their ability to deliver. So we won't take any advice on that delivery aspect of the work that they did, but I think, on this side of the House, we know that we have a commitment that we have made to the voters of this country that we will deliver together as a coalition Government. And I know that my colleagues actually are going to be working really, really hard. I know that Ministers have actually been pulling like really, really long hours. Like, I didn't realise that I had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and sometimes it's actually going until 2 o'clock in the morning—but hey, we're on to it, right? I think we need to get on with the job of delivering for New Zealand that they expect, and they voted for, and I look forward to working hard with my colleagues to deliver that. I would like to acknowledge particularly my caucus colleagues, actually. They're all amazing, but I want to actually pick off a couple of very special ones. Dr Carlos Cheung—it's amazing that he won Mt Roskill. I want to actually welcome back Paulo Garcia—it's amazing that he managed to get New Lynn, which is a Labour seat. I'd like to acknowledge Rima Nakhle—amazing—you know, three ethnic MPs. I'm sorry, I'm the worst one, I didn't actually win Mt Albert—you guys won a Labour seat. I didn't quite make it, but what a turnaround it was. I literally, literally came very close. But having said that, the member for Mt Albert has actually said to me that we will work together for the benefit of Mt Albert, and I hope to keep her word—I hope to make her keep her word, and I promise that I will do the same. I look forward to working with everyone across the House, and I know that sometimes it has been frustrating in Opposition when you try and actually go see a Minister and they say, "Yeah we'll take good ideas" and they never do. I'm saying, if you have good ideas, come and see me. I'll listen to you. Thank you. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House will suspend for the dinner break and will resume at 7:30 p.m. to continue with the Address in Reply Debate. Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.