The BFD | A Crisis of Confidence

Video Transcript:

General Debate

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to acknowledge all the people in business who have kept paying the wages, who have kept paying their rent, who have kept their employees employed, and who are not sacking their staff or making them redundant when it is no fault of the business and no fault of the employee that they are in this situation. I think about the fact that we now have over a thousand new applicants a day for the jobseeker benefit—and recall that not all people who are made redundant or unemployed can receive that benefit or even apply if they have a partner who is earning and they’re over the limits for it. It is tough out there.

I don’t believe for a moment that this country went hard and fast. It is a typical communications phrase that is being seeded into just about every speech, every conversation from a Government MP.

Hon Member: Prove it.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: We did not. And I can prove it, prove it easily—prove it easily. On 13 March this year, we were still going ahead with the commemoration of the 15 March massacre from last year—13 March, it was still on. Pasifika was still on; international media were no doubt expected. What we ended up with is a day before, suddenly, it’s all over, Rover, and we’re going to go hard and fast. We went so hard and fast as a country, did we, that we let in all these cases of COVID-19? We are a marvellous little country, because we have borders, which are not just borders, but we’re surrounded by sea. So this is not a home-grown issue; it was allowed into the country. We closed the borders as a country weeks after Samoa closed its borders and stopped all COVID-19. They tested people coming into Samoa. They did not let them in if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19. How come little Samoa with 200,000 people could react far better around border security than New Zealand with five million people—how come? We didn’t go hard and fast, we went slow. And then we went hard as soon as it became apparent that the borders had been well and truly breached and that the Government had allowed this to happen.

I am going to say that this is a crisis, because it’s now a crisis of confidence. It’s not a crisis of health in this country any more, it’s a crisis of confidence—a crisis of confidence in the business community and in people who are employed, not in the Public Service.

Hon Member:—put Simon out of his misery.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: When we have screeching from the other side like some sort of banshee, I have to say, that shows that I have bit them in a point where they are very, very upset.

I think it’s really important to think about what the Government’s proposing around Resource Management Act reform. The Government has, with its usual arrogance, decided it now wants to fast-track consent a whole lot of projects it says are apparently shovel-ready. That is a term that seems to mean nothing much other than would like to have done. Whatever happened to Transmission Gully? That wasn’t just shovel-ready; that was actually being shovelled. And look what happened to them. All of a sudden, it’s delayed. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Come on, that’s enough fun.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: This is a Government that sat by and let measles get into countries like Samoa, where they lost over 80 children. This Government let that happen. This Government did not have the vaccinations in place that it promised. This Government can’t be trusted to be able to put any of the infrastructure projects that it believes it’s going to rush through with consents because it can’t even tell us what they are, it doesn’t say what the criteria is, it hasn’t produced a draft bill for the Opposition, it isn’t going to have a proper select committee process. The Government needs to understand that this country expects better when we’re listening to how we’re going to spend billions and billions of dollars and to indebt those who come after us just because they want to be out to say they’ve done something.

There is no hard and fast; what there was was slow and required. And we need to get out of the situation we are now in where businesses are today having to fire staff who have worked hard and loyally for them because there’s no money.