General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. The question we are asking today is: what has happened to the Government’s economic goal of getting New Zealand into the top half of the OECD? We suspect that it has gone the same way as John Tamihere—pushed aside because it is too difficult to deal with. Let us see what the Government said about what it wanted to do with the economy. In the 2001 Budget speech the Minister of Finance said: “We need to set ourselves—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Keep your shirt on, Billy Boy.

So flattering!

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I ask the member to please be seated. I am going to allow the member to start his speech again. That member knows that is a personal reflection. He will withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I am starting the member’s speech again. [Interruption] No, I will now ask the member to leave the Chamber. I am tired of that.

Hon Trevor Mallard withdrew from the Chamber.

The question today is: what has happened to the Government’s economic-growth goal? I suspect that it has gone the same way as John Tamihere—pushed aside because it is too difficult to deal with. Let us see what the Minister of Finance had to say in the 2001 Budget speech. He said: “We need to set ourselves a goal of being back in the top half of the developed world in terms of per capita GDP.”—the developed world being the OECD. So that was the goal. It was taken as having serious intent. When he stated that goal it was taken that the Government was going to make priorities, make choices, that were in pursuit of a goal that it took seriously. We found out today that the Prime Minister does not take that goal seriously at all. She raised the issue in the House of being correctly quoted, and I will quote her. She said, when talking about the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Boring.

The member might find this boring, but this is just quoting the Prime Minister. She said that the recommendation they are looking at putting up is to reach the first half of the OECD per capita GDP rankings by 2010: “I have to say that is totally unrealistic.” She was asked today to say when she thought it was realistic, and she would not say. So what we have learnt is that the Prime Minister does not take that economic goal seriously.

I say that she never has. I say that it was always an attempt to brush over the “third wayism” and an attempt to look serious to the business community. However, as soon as it looks like it might get difficult, she has said that it is totally unrealistic by 2010. I ask when they believe it will be realistic. Will it be 2015? On current calculations it will be somewhere in the 2020s, even if we could grow at 1 percent faster than the OECD average for that period.

I ask when. Why should we take the Minister of Finance seriously when he talks about this, if he has no idea when he will reach that goal? Today I say that the Prime Minister has effectively abandoned that goal, and I am not surprised. It has occurred against the background of an increasingly strident, left-wing tone from the Prime Minister in her speeches and an increasing impatience with any kind of criticism. That came through from the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference. The Prime Minister gave such a long and boring speech that she looked bored with it herself. It left particularly our young leaders—the 101 emerging leaders from all around the country—totally disillusioned. They had a different impression of the Prime Minister, until they heard her talk about what was meant to matter most to her and her Government, and that was a growth goal in which she has no belief, no conviction, and no confidence.

💬 Simon Power: No interest.

And I suspect that the member is right: no interest. A great deal more effort is going into the fine calculation of the position on Iraq. As we found out today, and it was confirmed by the Speaker, the Government has not said that it will oppose the second resolution. It has just worked very hard to give everyone that impression without actually saying it. That is where the Government’s focus and interest is. It has vacated the field of economic growth. It will continue to ride on the back of high commodity prices, loose monetary policy, and strong net inward migration.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Loose monetary policy?

That is an argument. That will run the economy for the next 12 months or so, as the farmers get hit by the Auckland property boom that the Government has encouraged. The Government has lost sight of its interest in the economy. Today the Prime Minister has confirmed that as far as she is concerned the goal of reaching the top half of the OECD within 10 years is totally unrealistic.

I know that the member is terrified that Dr Brash will challenge him for the leadership, but attacking the monetary policy settings that Dr Brash left as loose seems to me to be going a little bit far in trying to pre-empt that strike upon his leadership. The present interest rate level was set by Dr Brash. Since then, monetary policy conditions have tightened as the exchange rate has gone up, and the Government is running a surplus of probably more than $3 billion a year. We have now learnt that National Party policy is higher interest rates, a higher exchange rate, and an even higher surplus presumably in that for the future. But then, interestingly, this afternoon Mr English sought a debate on Iraq, and then got up in the general debate and did not talk about Iraq, but droned on, proving that he actually knew what the Prime Minister said after all, as opposed to pretending in his question this afternoon that he did not know what the Prime Minister had said.

I want to know why he has suddenly gone off the Treaty of Waitangi. That was supposed to be his big issue. That was the way to climb back to the top. Do members remember the 1990s? About the only good thing National did was carry on with the treaty settlement process. It can claim a good record on that. But as soon as it got into Opposition it reverted to type. As National’s polls went down and down, it started saying: “Our core vote is middle-aged, middle-class, and very, very white, and we’re going to appeal to that vote by mentioning, every possible day: Māori, Treaty of Waitangi, and on and on.” Mr Williamson nods his head in approval, because he approves of that strategy.

This was the man who said: “We’ve got to attract brown, young voters to the National Party.” When he was trying to unseat Mrs Shipley, when he had the dagger in his hand, it was young, brown voters he wanted behind him. Now he is sitting there quivering with 26 pretenders to the leadership, the middle-aged, middle-class Pākehā are the only people he is interested in. For a start his whole campaign depends upon misrepresenting the treaty. First, he only ever seems to know that there is an English version of the treaty. There is a Māori version that is very, very different in articles 1 and 2. But all his interpretation is based on the English version. He should read the Privy Council decisions—

💬 Hon Bill English: What’s yours based on?

Both. He should read the Privy Council decisions, and when there is a doubt, according to the legal opinions from here, the UK, the US, and elsewhere, the Māori version takes precedence in terms of interpretation.

💬 Hon Bill English: Oh no.

Oh yes, it does. That is what the Privy Council has said. Why? Because it was Māori who were giving away rights, and therefore their understanding of what was being given away must take precedence over Governor Hobson’s understanding of what he was demanding. He cannot say on the basis of that, therefore, that Māori totally surrendered sovereignty. That is not what the treaty says in article 1. Sovereignty depends on the Crown assuming it some months later, and unchallenged exercise to that sovereignty since does not depend upon Māori surrendering that sovereignty in article 1 of the treaty.

But equally, in article 2, it is simply not true, as that member claims, that Māori simply had protected their lands, fisheries, forests, etc. That is the English text. If he reads further and understands the Māori text, a great deal more than that is protected by the Treaty of Waitangi, and that protection duty is owned by the Crown as signatory to the treaty. Thirdly, yes, we all are the common citizens, but not one people. We are many peoples in this country, not one people; many peoples in one nation, with one citizenship under the treaty. There is no article 4. He made it up himself. Oh yes, one health discussion document, not even seen by the director-general or the Minister, mentions an article 4, and he believes it. He invents a claim to the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal, says it is Government policy, tries to frighten people—and he nods his head in agreement. He could not avoid the body language then. He nodded his head in agreement.

The purpose of that is to frighten people—and frighten people with what? Freedom of religion that may be guaranteed is what we are to be frightened about. Here is a man whose co-religionists in 1840 did not have freedom of religion in England. Does he know that? [Interruption] He does know that. Does he know the National Party was an Orange Party when it was first founded? If he knows that, then he ought to be interested in freedom of religion.

Some serious questions need to be asked of this Labour Government that came to this House and championed workers’ rights. It came to this House and launched its flagship policy, the Employment Relations Act, and told the whole nation that things would be different. There would be new standards of accountability, and workers’ rights would be protected. We also recall with great vividness the attacks on New Zealand First launched by Labour MPs and the Labour Government during the election campaign. They thought that any question that New Zealand First raised on immigration was based on racism or xenophobia. But I have to say that the performance in Canterbury, and what is starting to unravel down there in terms of how immigrant workers are being exploited, begs a lot of questions of this Government. It begs questions of the Minister of Immigration, who is party to allowing a scheme to go ahead that brings in labourers—workers, people who work at the bottom end of the dairy industry milking cows. It begs questions of that Minister, because her immigration department gave work permits to people on the basis that they were not coming in as labourers.

I have a letter that is an offer of employment that was forwarded through, and upon which work permits were granted, that describes the prospective employee as follows: “The person will be employed as an assistant herd manager.” Indeed, when I go to the immigration website, I find listed as a short-listed occupation in the Christchurch-Canterbury region, appointments for “Dairy farmers—experienced senior positions only.” Now let us think about the “experienced; senior positions only; assistant herd manager; herd manager” appointment. What sort of appointment is it? It is an appointment put together by farmers involved with a rather interesting recruitment agency. They wanted to recruit people with 3 years’ university schooling. They were not wanting people straight out of high school, or from Te Teko or Opotiki. They did not want just ordinary labourers, but people with 3 years’ university schooling. They are people who have been around Margaret Wilson for a long time.

They also wanted applicants to have no less than 6 months’ dairy-farming experience, because that was critical. They were also required to be fluent in English. What do I find down on the farms? What is the industry paying an experienced dairy farmer in a senior position, such as herd manager? The industry is paying between $35,000 and $40,000 as a base rate. On top of that comes housing and any other privileges that may be negotiated into the contract.

So what does that say? It says that through Steve Maharey the Minister of Social Services and Employment, Lianne Dalziel the Minister of Immigration, and the Prime Minister, ably supervised by the Hon Margaret Wilson the Minister of Labour, this Government is allowing people to be employed as labourers—thereby taking jobs that I would have thought any person on the dole could have done—under the guise of their being senior management.

That is a crock. It is fraudulent. At the very kindest, it shows that the Minister of Immigration and her department are simply rubber-stamping applications. We were told by the Minister that there were negotiations under way between the Ministry of Social Development and the employment service agent in order to identify the needs of those people. At what stage did immigration officials go and check to see what those people were doing? At what stage were their linguistic skills tested? At what stage were the farmers’ contracts checked?

We have heard all sorts of utterances in the Christchurch Press, and I am pleased to see that David Carter thinks it is all OK, because he read the Press. I remember him moaning during the coalition that the Press never reported anything accurately; yet, here he is, telling us today that all is wonderful in Canterbury. I tell Minister Wilson that the contract those young people were required to sign says that they will work from 4.15 in the morning till 5.30 at night. Maybe a Minister who went to university for 3 years can work this out for me, but, by my reckoning, that is about a 13-hour day. Those people have claimed that they were working up to 11-day shifts with 3 days off. If the Minister works that out, she will see that $20,000—which was the salary offered here—does not cut it. The Minister is responsible and she should sort it out.

The previous speaker, Ron Mark, exhibited what a short memory he has. His party was part of a Government that brought in the Employment Contracts Act, which enabled those sorts of practices by removing all restrictions on hours of work. I do not think his comments sit too well, if one wants to give his party any credibility in terms of consistency. Again, it just shows a cynical use of people’s situations by someone who is not at all concerned about their well-being.

However, I wish to refer to what we have seen in this past week. It is another example of the Leader of the Opposition—or, I suppose, the “Leader of Opportunity”—making an attempt to assert his leadership. He has done that yet again through an attack on the Treaty of Waitangi. He has done it in such a way as to try to characterise the treaty as something we as a people should fear. He has also done it in a way that says that he, as the Leader of the Opposition, does not accept that New Zealand is a place in which all peoples can live together in mutual cooperation and harmony. Through his attacks on the treaty, he is trying to discredit the document that gave us the legitimacy for colonisation in this country.

From reading his comments, particularly those around the fourth article—which he is probably one of the last people in New Zealand to discover—I have seen him exhibit an abysmal lack of understanding of the history of the country that he presumes to think he should be able to lead. If one goes through his comments, one sees that he has no understanding of the circumstances that surrounded the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. It was a treaty that ensured that two peoples would come together in mutual agreement, not through the conquest of one by the other. It enabled us to develop a society in which all peoples are respected. Hobson was sent here by the English Colonial Office to ensure that the people who inhabited New Zealand at that time gave their consent to those Europeans who wished to settle in this country. We were not settled as a country by conquest. It seems to me that that is a major, major achievement, for it provided for the foundation of a country that was based on mutual recognition that this is a place where we can all live in peace and harmony, without one people having to dominate another people.

It is cause for great concern that a person who puts himself up for leadership of this country should start to run his campaign on the basis of splits and divisions between the people, and, in particular, the exclusion of the indigenous people of this country. Instead of celebrating the fact that we as a country were founded on respect for the rights of others, we now find that a person who holds himself up to be a leader in this country is denying the very legitimacy of the basis upon which this country was founded. One has to ask oneself why he is trying to rewrite history at this stage. I am sure he does know something about the history of his own country, so the only answer can be that he is doing it solely for cynical, political benefit.

He called the fourth article the phantom article, but he is the only one who seems to think it is a phantom article. Anyone who has any understanding of the whole history and development of the treaty knows that it is an issue that has been constantly raised and referred to. It is a matter of record that the whole question of religious freedom was raised at the time that the treaty was signed. Why on earth can we not see that as a cause for celebration? Right from the founding of our country, we have been prepared to accept freedom of religion, whereas we now have the Leader of the Opposition casting doubt on whether there should be freedom of religion for the indigenous people of this country. He may not think that, but by raising this issue in the way he has, he has cast serious doubt upon whether he has the capability to lead a country in which he has to represent the interests of all people, not just those whom he finds convenient.

I seek leave to table a series of documents. One is a letter containing a job description for assistant herd managers that was supplied to two Ukrainian people.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is not.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

The second document is a contractual agreement between an employer, an employee, and a company called LV—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection?

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We do not know what the company is called.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the member had said enough.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I don’t know what it is called. Perhaps you can tell us? [Interruption]

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The House is entitled to know what documents are being tabled by leave, whereupon members can give their consent, knowing what the documents are. Just a few letters from a company’s name is not a description. I have seen the documents, but the rest of my colleagues in this House have not. They still want to know what the document is that Mr Mark seeks to table. I know what you are trying to do; you think it might be political, so you are getting in first to stop him. But we will have the Standing Orders abided by, even by you as the person in the Chair. I want to know what those documents are, in a way fit for the House to understand what they are, with an adequate description of what they are. The member is entitled to read that out. [Interruption]

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am on a point of order; please be seated. Leave was sought to table, succinctly. The member had given an indication. I ask Mr Mark to carry on, please.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There is no way that the senior Government whip is allowed to sit there and throw out the insult he did. He knows what he said. He should be asked to withdraw and apologise, wash his mouth out, and retire from the House.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear what the member said. Did the member say something?

💬 Opposition Member: He did.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member withdraw, then.

💬 David Benson-Pope: I referred to the previous speaker—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, no.

💬 David Benson-Pope: Madam Speaker, you have not asked me to withdraw and apologise. I am commenting on what I said.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is that the Rt Hon Winston Peters interjected on a point of order himself.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I might have interjected on a point of order, but I did not make an unparliamentary statement in the way that he did. That is the difference, and I am asking that he withdraw and apologise for it.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have dealt with the matter.

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We have a difficulty inasmuch as the member Winston Peters took offence at a statement that was made by the senior Government whip—one that I heard and I myself thought was unparliamentary. We cannot have insults flung across the House, from members to other members. I think it would be appropriate in these circumstances for the member to be asked to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have ruled on the matter. It has been dealt with. I ask Mr Ron Mark to continue.

The document is authorisation for $120-plus to be extracted from employees’ wages every week, from their base $20,000 salary. There are two documents of that sort.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

The third one is an individual employment agreement for a “farm employee—general”, not a herd manager, for a Ukrainian national employed by a farm in South Canterbury.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

There is one further document.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member asked to table three.

Yes, I have just decided to table this. I seek leave to table lists from the Immigration Service’s website that show there are no authorised jobs for farm labourers in Canterbury.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Having listened to the Hon Margaret Wilson speak for the last 5 minutes, I have to say that I am still no clearer as to what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are and what the Government’s view is on the alleged fourth article. We continue to move along in the mist of illusions that this Minister throws around willy-nilly when she feels like it. She stood up and gave us what appeared to be a shortened sociology lecture on the movements of Governor Hobson. I am still unclear as to what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are. Perhaps she could take another call in order that we can have that issue clarified once and for all.

Was it not interesting that last week we did not see Margaret Wilson at the Knowledge Wave 2003 conference? There was no sign of her. There was no sign of the Minister at all. She saw none of those people who are innovative risk-takers, and who like to get out there and have challenges in the business world. She did not show. She was not interested one way or another. She is the arch-enemy of the knowledge wave, in fact—like the lack of wind for the America’s Cup. Her mission since she came to Parliament, in terms of her legislative agenda, has been to stop innovation, to stop risk, and to stop investment. Every single anti-business piece of legislation that has come through this House since 1999 has come from that Minister’s office.

My colleague Katherine Rich so often refers to the knowledge wave as the “knowledge ripple”, and what a ripple it was on the Government’s agenda! The Government packed a sad this time. This time the Government packed a sad at the Knowledge Wave Conference. We saw only the Prime Minister and Ministers Mallard and Hodgson there. Whatever happened to that band of ministerial followers who used to troop around the Prime Minister wherever she went? Whatever happened to all those MPs who used to stand behind her wherever she walked? There was not a sign of any of them at the Knowledge Wave Conference.

But I have to say that the high point for me at the conference—somewhat surprisingly, actually—was the Prime Minister’s speech. I would like to explain to the House why that was so. Halfway through the Prime Minister’s speech, she actually stopped. She physically stopped speaking and let out a loud, audible sigh. She was bored with having to give the speech. She was bored with the content of the speech. She is bored with domestic politics in New Zealand. As one of the people sitting at my table said during that speech: “You think you’re bored giving it; you want to listen to it.” It was an absolute shocker. This Prime Minister is now more concerned about her role at the UN, when she leaves this Parliament, than she is about domestic politics in New Zealand. The Government simply did not get its agenda across at all at the Knowledge Wave Conference, where those who are going to be the backbone and the future of this country were disagreeing with what the Government said.

At the last knowledge wave conference, Professor Michael Porter said that the Government, in order to create an innovation-driven economy, should not create policies that increase labour-market rigidity. Well, that is what the Government has done. That is what the Employment Relations Act does. It increases labour-market rigidity. Professor Porter said that the Government should not weaken national education standards. Well, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement has probably done that. He said that the Government should not create a Government-owned bank. Well, too late. He said that the Government should not eliminate a private pension system, and that there should not be any question at all about research and development incentives being made available.

One thing that struck me was how annoyed the Government was at the Knowledge Wave Conference, and how quickly it got annoyed. It was annoyed to the point where only Pete Hodgson bothered to turn up to the dinner. He was there on his own—no date, no troupe of ministerial or parliamentary colleagues behind him. I say that it is great to see academics and business people in this country actually fronting up to this Government and telling it what it has to do to catch the knowledge wave. I say that it is great to see academics and business realising that all the soothing noises they have heard from the Prime Minister over the last 4 years are nothing more than an extension of the bored sigh she gave halfway through her own speech to the Knowledge Wave Conference.

Mr Tamihere has swiped at Minister Maharey on welfare, making his third way look decidedly impractical and ineffective. What a pleasure it was to hear some of the young leaders during the break telling me how bad the Prime Minister’s speech was! They told me how disappointed they were with her, how uninterested she was in proceedings, and how disempowered they felt.

I remind Simon Power of the very salient points that the Minister of Finance made about the $3 billion surplus, and the increase. I wish to add some addenda to it—like the best rural upturn that has happened in this country in the last 17 years, and the projection out for 4 or 5 years. It does come back to land usage and so on and so forth. I remind the member of that.

It is quite fascinating that there is continued scratching by the Leader of the Opposition to upset people and incite differences between the peoples of this nation. He need not worry about the leader on this side of the House. We are very clear as to who the leader is. He needs to worry about who the leader is on his side of the House. I want to tell that member about the Treaty of Waitangi, the document that gave those members the right to come here. I do not necessarily have to worry about the treaty, because my ancestors were already living here as the tangata whenua. It is outrageous that we have these phantom work-ups by the Leader of the Opposition, suggesting that there was a clear fourth article in the treaty. It shows how much he knows. I am really encouraged that some people have learnt “Ka Mate! Ka Mate!”, they know that haka, and it inspires them. Certainly, the leader of those members has done that.

But I want to tell members quite clearly that the Treaty of Waitangi is a joint licence to progress this country and the partnership between the two peoples. Why is the Opposition so determined to bog it down in phantom clauses? The reason is quite clear. It is, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, to incite middle-class Pākehā in this country. If we determine the point of ceding, it is important to focus on that. Who ceded what, why did they cede it, and what was the general agreement between those people from England and the tangata whenua, who already belonged here? The problem is that we have a Leader of the Opposition who tries to incite racism, and turn the ceding into seeding of racist connotations and beliefs that Māori do not have a place in this country.

Let me put people’s minds at rest about this supposed article 4 of the treaty. Let me be quite clear about the jumble happening at that time. It was about religious incitement. It was about differences. [Interruption] I say to the member opposite, who is ranting, that at that time there was difference between the religious fraternity. What Bishop Pompallier did, what he wanted, was to straighten out the tensions that were happening between those great people who are Catholics, and other people. He was fearful because, at the time of the design and development of the treaty, the French were hovering. They wanted part of the action, too. So there was a clear determination between the British Government and the Māori people here. They reached a clear agreement that religious practice was to be a free choice of the tangata whenua and the people from England. It was nothing to do with a fourth article in the treaty. It was a jumble of bureaucrats of the time who wanted to make sure they stabilised their religious beliefs.

In the sense of the translation differentiation between the English version and the Māori version of the treaty, we talk about Himiona Hiko Hiko. Who was Himiona Hiko Hiko? You are quite clear on determining the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi. The gentleman opposite Simon Power—

💬 Dr Muriel Newman: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. This Minister has been in Parliament for some time. He keeps bringing the Chair into the debate, by saying “you”. I think you should ask him to change the way he is speaking.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will not bring the Chair into the speech.

I apologise, Madam Chair. I come from a tribe that recognises our female ancestors, who generally talk for generations on the paepae, and we are led by them. We have no shame, in this party, in understanding that.

Whose treaty is it? “Wiremu Pākehā” determined that he would do the haka. He determined that he would invent this phantom suggestion. Phantom had a horse called Hero. He had a short indigenous character, who used to run around with him. They had an agreement about being fair to the nation, and the apes, the lions, and the people in the forest.

R Doug Woolerton: This Minister has been reading too many comics.

That is what the Phantom is about. Māoridom have moved on from comics to CDs.

Yesterday I asked Dr Cullen a serious question: “Should New Zealanders be furiously saving for their own retirement, given that he wants the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to adopt the same investment strategy that caused the Government Superannuation Fund to lose $380 million in the last 14 months?” Dr Cullen gave a typically evasive and facetious answer. He had his usual swipe at the Green Futures Superannuation Fund, which I put down to jealousy, and he dismissed the losses as on par with other countries, which, I guess, is his way of getting over embarrassment. He will be even more embarrassed by today’s Tremain cartoon, which makes the obvious reference about Dr Cullen and Gamblers Anonymous.

What he said yesterday was not good enough. There is no excuse for the Government Superannuation Fund Authority to lose 22.5 percent of its international investments in 14 months. Why did the authority take over $3.5 billion of funds in October 2001, when it did not have a single cent on the sharemarket, and throw $1.6 billion at the sharemarket? Despite the fragility and volatility of the global economy, the authority started throwing money at the casino economy. Today the fund is worth less than $3.1 billion—$400 million less than when it was administered by a Government department. In the first half of this year, the fund has made a loss of $126 million—a long way from the profit projection of $272 million for the full year.

The Government Superannuation Fund’s performance is nothing short of disastrous, but it pales into insignificance when compared with its soon-to-be big brother—the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. This is Dr Cullen’s “think big” scheme, with a projected value of $58 billion at its peak. But I predict it will never get there, because if the New Zealand Superannuation Fund had invested the same proportion as the Government Superannuation Fund on the sharemarket, it would have lost not $63 million, not $630 million, but $6.3 billion in the last year. That is why New Zealanders should be saving furiously for their own retirement.

But at least we know the extent of the Government Superannuation Fund losses, because in answers to written questions in the last week, the Minister has come clean, which is more than I can say for the guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. They were extraordinarily evasive at the Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting this morning. The guardians are sitting on $2 billion and they do not have a clue what their asset allocation will be, what their forecast return on investment will be, or even whether they will make more than the cost of Government borrowing.

They have about as much clue as Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey has about the impact of the current General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) round on his portfolio. Dr Cullen’s written answers were appalling because of their content; Mr Maharey’s answers on the GATS have been appalling because of their lack of content. Given his answers to oral questions today, the Minister’s lack of concern about the impact of GATS on audio-visual services is extraordinary. He confirmed that in the 1994 GATS round the then National Government traded away New Zealand’s ability to legislate a local content quota, and that that would now be illegal under GATS. Incidentally, that makes a nonsense of Labour’s 1999 election promise to do just that.

Mr Maharey then admitted that he did not know what was on the block this time. Let me tell him. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website is blunt: at least one country wants New Zealand to remove national treatment limitations for broadcasting services. If the Government agrees to that, we can kiss goodbye to funding for Māori broadcasting and Government assistance to the New Zealand film industry through the Film Production Fund. Wake up, Mr Maharey! Wake up, Māori television and radio broadcasters! Wake up, film makers! Wake up, New Zealand! This Labour Government is negotiating GATS in secret. It has to be stopped. The process has to be dragged into the public arena, and I do not just mean via a Canadian website. There needs to be an open, transparent, and democratic process that involves binding future Governments to rules set today. If Labour does not like what National did with broadcasting, then it should not do it to the rest of us.

I invite this Government to come clean on GATS. We should not have to rely on the European Commission’s demands being posted on the Polaris website—the same site that blew open the whole iniquitous Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). GATS is the MAI of this century. GATS needs to be exposed. Labour members on the other side, and particularly the Māori members of Labour, need to look into the implications of this GATS round on services, because countries like those of the EC are making extraordinary demands to expose our public services to transnational corporations.

Before I start, I just want to comment on some of the statements made by Mr Power in terms of the list of illusions. He was unclear about the principles and, in my view, that lack of clarity may be due to the divisions concerning support of the leadership in his party. Maybe if they sorted that out, he might find his path forward.

I want to refer to various statements made by the Opposition leader, Bill English, and particularly those surrounding National’s Māori policies. We learnt of his keynote speech to Gore Rotary, where he spoke of his concerns about the Treaty of Waitangi and raised the issue of the so-called fourth article. I find it odd that he has referred to that issue as a “Trojan Horse” for Māori indigenous beliefs. I am also mindful that it was backed up by a statement from him that the Waitangi Tribunal had received such a claim. I find that odd, but not out of character for the Opposition leader, because the tribunal manager, Ian Shearer—a former National Minister, I might add—said he did not know what the heck Mr English was talking about.

It is my view, therefore, that that was just another feeble attempt to grab the limelight, knowing that every day that passes, his leadership is in question. It also shows the Opposition’s typical attempt to further undermine and attack Māori, and we all know that it is because the National Party is absent in terms of genuine policy and structured pathways forward for Māori. Is it not easier to create a diversion from the true issue here? The true issue is that National has no policy, no support, and at this stage, absolutely no leadership.

If there were a genuine commitment to Māori issues, would not the National Party best foster that commitment by elevating its Māori member from Tuwharetoa, rather than demoting her in seniority? I look to the Opposition ranks and find it absolutely disappointing that although their leader pretends to promote Māori issues, it has only one representative. I wonder how the National Party can represent Māori issues with only one Māori on its benches. I also wonder if its Māori representative has been featuring in the recent developments surrounding the question of leadership change, or is National more concerned about elevating its European representation from the past? National’s Māori member has earned the opportunity to at least be associated with the rumours that are being bandied around this House in relation to the leadership change.

I still recall the statement made by the Hon Bill English that the new voters will be young and brown, and that if his party does not get their votes, it will not get into Parliament again. I again wonder whether National members understand the true principles of partnership. The Opposition’s accountability and performance on treaty issues is very poor.

Mr Brownlee has been in Bill English’s bad books ever since he gained public exposure at Mr English’s expense by writing newspaper articles advocating changes to Government policy on subjects outside his portfolio responsibilities. His Treaty of Waitangi article overshadowed coverage of Mr English’s visit to Waitangi. Is it not odd that political commentator Barry Gustafson pointed out that the treaty article in the New Zealand Herald suggested leadership aspirations because if the Christchurch MP wanted his constituents to know what he was talking about, why would he not use his local newspaper—unless he was trying to raise his National profile? So we do see what is going on from this side of the benches. We understand that National is experiencing a problem, and it is getting very close to the numbers coming down.

I want to share with the Opposition members some commitment surrounding the principles of the treaty. There is one obvious visual example that I can share with them, and that is the fact that the Labour Party has more—and we obviously know this—Māori representation.

Welfare is a word that has received a lot of attention over the last week, and it is a word that Labour, with its “old left” style of managing things, can barely say without spitting. Well, that word needs to change its meaning to become a positive one. It should mean health. It should mean happiness. It should mean prosperity. It should mean well-being in general. It should mean financial and other assistance given to people in need. If members do not buy that definition from me, then I suggest they take it up with Mr Collins, because that is the proper definition in the Collins dictionary.

The Knowledge Wave conference raised a lot of very interesting issues. First of all, it was very interesting to hear the presentation from John Martin, who presented a summary of OECD research. It was clear from his presentation that the carrot-and-stick methods of welfare delivery worked. His presentation was a glaring demonstration of why this Labour Government has it so wrong when it comes to welfare delivery. We also heard from Peter Saunders, who questioned why New Zealand and Australian academics go to such great lengths to overlook the success of the United States reforms. The same can be said of the Government, I might add. The results from the US are astounding, and they are worth evaluating.

Then we heard from Māori leader Mr John Tamihere who my colleague described as becoming a centre-right cult figure. There are websites being set up in his honour as we speak With his fearless demonstration of how it is always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, he exposed the concerns that many other Labour members have about welfare. So let us have a look at the sorts of things he said. He said of Mr Maharey: “He’s going to have to get away from statism and “blank” under the name of third wayism, because he is not practising third wayism; no, no, he is practising old left. Welfare in New Zealand is delivered in a charitable and benevolent way, and that charity and benevolence actually crushes you, because it just teaches you to put your hand out. All I need to do in terms of my community is to beat my caseload worker at WINZ and pull my $160 unemployment benefit ... That’s a wonderful lifestyle, but what values does it teach the children in that house?”. He is absolutely correct. It teaches the children in that house absolutely nothing.

John Tamihere is not the first Labour member to say that there is a problem. Let us remember Michael Bassett’s comments in North and South when he said: “I do believe in the welfare State, but the current model needs substantial reforms, or large numbers of people for whom it is meant to exist will continue to become its victims.” I could not have said it better myself. The Labour members have gone quiet over there!

With his speech, John Tamihere exposed the faults of Labour’s approach to welfare, and to those who listened to John Tamihere’s maiden speech, his comments will come as no surprise. He is not a career politician. He does not expect to be here in 20 years. He came here to make a difference, and then he will get out. He will not be the Ken Barlow of the New Zealand Parliament. He has no intention of coming here just to collect his pay and eat his lunch. He has foreshadowed that he intends to make many other statements about welfare and other issues.

John Tamihere speaks plainly about welfare, which is in direct contrast to Minister Maharey. When Minister Maharey speaks about “social capacity” and “joined-up Governments”, John Tamihere speaks of jobs, education, and training. In one fell swoop he has undermined Labour’s entire welfare policy. So no matter how the Prime Minister tries to shut him down and say that this matter is at an end, this is just the first instalment. I look forward to hearing more from Mr John Tamihere. The public now knows that as far as Labour’s welfare policies are concerned, the emperor has no clothes. It is not a matter of this issue being at an end.

John Tamihere raises issues of housing, and that will be an interesting one to watch. With income-related rents we have seen the numbers on the housing waiting list skyrocket to 11,000. What is even more concerning is that the turnover rates for those Housing New Zealand homes have dropped dramatically. When we were in Government, the turnover was well over 30 percent. In some areas of south Auckland, it is now as low as 8 percent. John Tamihere said that Housing New Zealand stock should be a respite facility for people who need that sort of support. He said it should not be a lifetime entitlement. There is no way that the Government can deliver housing services for those 11,000 people on the waiting list.

On Wednesday last week Tim Barnett was talking about the Prostitution Reform Bill, and about an idea whose time has come. There is another issue that is a little more basic than that. It is an idea whose time has come and definitely gone, and that is to get politics out of our cultural violence and reach down for some solutions.

A letter has been circulated around all the parties, I presume, from the Sensible Sentencing Trust. It asks for our support and help to form a cross-party criminal justice interest group to meet with the Sensible Sentencing Trust on a regular basis “to develop ideas and policies that will lead to a safer country for all New Zealanders.” That is something that I think we could all agree with. The letter reads: “Sensible Sentencing is strictly a politically non-aligned organisation, and the intention is not to try and obtain a consensus on the best way forward on party lines, but on what is actually best for New Zealanders as a whole.” The simple fact of the matter is that crime does not affect just Labour Party supporters, National Party supporters, ACT supporters, and United Future supporters. It affects everybody in this country, and it is up to all of us to put our party political differences aside and actually start doing something about it. An understanding of how we interpret statistics, for example, can take us a long way along the road to a meaningful dialogue. On one side of the House, figures are thrown up at the expense of the other, and vice versa. We get no closer to any semblance of truth, or any semblance of an idea of the best possible way forward.

I am heartened that ACT has an open mind on this proposal and would like to see it pushed forward—assuming that there are reasonable grounds for an understanding. Looking at the statistics would be one of the ways we could do that. I am heartened that New Zealand First also has an open mind on it, and has given a cautious thumbs-up to at least seeing if the idea could be fruitful. I can ask for no more; neither can the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

To put things in perspective, let us look at some figures. Between 1991 and 2000, aggravated robbery increased by 53 percent, and there were 434 convictions in 2000 alone. Serious assault in the same time period increased by 129 percent, and there were 3,251 convictions in 2000 alone. Threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm increased 135 percent. Grievous assault increased by 91 percent for males and by 80 percent for females. Assaults on children increased by 85 percent. Wilful damage and property offences increased by 42 percent.

We have accepted a culture of violence, and we have to do something about it. Irrespective of political persuasion, every person in this country has a right to expect that the people they care about and love will come back to their homes unharmed at the end of the day, and we are doing very little about it. The 33 years non-parole period given to Bell recently is a step in the right direction, but we need to widen the scope. We need to go out and assure New Zealanders that we will put this problem at the forefront of our interests. This is not a party political thing; it is something that we should all be concerned about. We should be united to fight crime in this country. It is an all-out war. We talk about Iraq and terrorism, but we have it right here in this country. It is the violence that we are allowing to happen in our streets every single day.

I welcome any attempt by all members of this House to join together, put political differences aside, and be constructive for once. New Zealanders deserve that kind of commitment from all of us, and from each party. Alongside the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I invite every member of this House to join together to do something about the scourge that is running rampant throughout this country. We have police issues in Auckland, and as the case in Waitara has shown, we have problems with the ability to back up our police. We have to start doing something about it now.

On the face of it, the recent incident regarding John Tamihere and his speech to the Knowledge Wave conference just looks like one Minister involving himself in another Minister’s business. But I believe it goes far deeper than that, and gives us an interesting insight into the reasoning of that member. Unlike Katherine Rich, I believe that member comes from the old school of dumb debate, where one keeps on yelling and does nothing. Far from being the capitalist he pretends to be, that member is the oldest style of socialist this House has ever seen. We have not seen a socialist of that order for many years. I have just about not seen one in my lifetime.

This member is not progressing Māori interests one jot. He is posturing. He is going around talking about his mana, about what he believes should be done, and about what John Tamihere has done. But when Helen Clark comes along, she may not be able to speak on a marae, but my God, she can certainly tell a Māori Minister what she thinks of him and shove him right back in the box from whence he came. Not only that, she demanded—and got—a full apology from John Tamihere. One can only imagine what that has done to the mana of this so-called urban warrior. This urban warrior thing with John Tamihere is a myth. Rightly or wrongly, that will not stop him, because we know that this guy does not learn too quickly. We can tell that by his list of convictions, and by the fact that his Waipareira Trust had to have accountants in there looking over the books. This guy does not learn too quickly, and Helen Clark should sack him forthwith.

I want to turn briefly to the speech that Labour said was not given at the Knowledge Wave conference. The thoughts within this speech are certainly not the thoughts of some new-age guy. As I said before, this Minister is old-time red socialist politics to his boots. I want those members who got a copy of his speech before it was wiped off the Internet by the Labour Party to look towards the bottom of page 4. Karl Marx would be really proud of the stuff in this speech. We are well and truly back into the collective. That is how it goes in John Tamihere land, and that is how it goes with old-time socialists.

I apologise for reading the recipe, but I must: “Step 1: Money from the Government.” This stuff always starts with money from the Government. “Step 2: Intervene between the Government and the recipient. On TV they call this putting yourself in the frame. The money flows through your hands, or the hands of your trust, to the recipient. It is very important to do that, because one cannot move on to Step 3. “Step 3: Arrange bulk discounts.” It is there in the speech: “Purchase things collectively, especially essentials—foods and medicines.” There is plenty of room here for a shrewd businessman, and he or she will be doing good for all those poor, impoverished, downtrodden people—especially, I suggest, the architect of such a scheme. “Step 4: Sell this to the people as new-age. This step is very important.”

I acknowledge the speech given by my New Zealand First colleague from Hamilton. I do not necessarily agree with all its contents, obviously. I think the issue in this debate is to look at the way in which Bill English, in the recent speech he gave in the South Island town of Gore—[Interruption] Indeed, people in Gore want to know who he is. Nearly 3 years ago Bill English gave a speech in Balclutha—

💬 David Benson-Pope: He has closed his office in Balclutha.

He closed his office in Balclutha, but he gave a very interesting speech there. I quote his message to the National Party at that time as reported in the Southland Times of 1 April 2000: “His address to the party faithful ... centred on winning back the punters and stopping the party decline. ‘The groups which vote for us are the ones who are shrinking fastest. We lose 1.5 seats each election just on demographics alone. The new voters will be young and brown. If we’re not getting their vote we’re not going to get into Parliament.’” The article went on to state: “Mr English said the young preferred to vote for smaller parties. Same with the old, he added. Only one in four of the over-60s had voted for National. ‘It’s a legacy of the mistrust older people now have for National.’”

I suggest to the House that the reason Mr English is focusing on New Zealand citizenship as it relates to this country’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, has nothing whatsoever to do with developing a notion of citizenship. Rather, it has to do with the incredible hysteria and fear that we know are going on in this very room and in the backrooms of the National Party. National members’ fear is not so much that they are dealing with a Government that is dominant in poll after poll, and also in terms of the Prime Minister’s ratings. Rather, their fear is about what they now find on the Opposition front bench. If Mr McCully looks along the Opposition front bench, who does he see? He sees Mr Winston Peters and his band, New Zealand First, and he well knows, as the great tactician that he was at the last election, what that means. I think that Annabel Young had some nice things to say about Mr McCully in that little Ally McBeal tacticians’ room.

But Mr McCully knows what is in store; he knows who has arrived in the nest. The cuckoo, Winston Peters, is in the nest, and he is ready to gouge out the centre-right vote. Let us make no bones about it, Winston Peters’ game plan is to replace that lot as the dominant player in the declining centre-right of politics in this country. That is the reason, and the only reason, that Bill English is focusing on the Treaty of Waitangi. He is under threat not just from Mr Brownlee and, possibly, Dr Brash, but, as a long shot, from Simon Power. We are running odds on the Opposition side of the House being about Simon Power, with Katherine Rich as his deputy. Those are the odds. Some of us are betting people, in spite of the Responsible Gambling Bill, and we are running some sweepstakes. The odds are beginning to close. National members know that they have to move into the so-called fertile area, they think for them, of the Treaty of Waitangi, because they are—and I am not allowed to use the word for the bovine thing in this Parliament; the expletive is deleted—scared of New Zealand First and what Winston Peters wants to do to them.

Let us look at the record of National members when they were in Government. In 1995 in an urgent debate on the Waitangi Day protest, the Hon John Luxton said: “We can then address the other issues of underachievement in our society, as we are required to do under article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, in relation to those in the lower socioeconomic parts of our society.” In 1999, the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Tony Ryall, said in response to an oral question: “Māori and the Crown enjoy a direct relationship under the Treaty of Waitangi.” Tony Ryall also said in 1999 that “The treaty plays an important role in all aspects of Government in New Zealand”.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.