General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. The state of the Government’s approach to energy policy can be summed up by the simple statements that have been made today. Pete Hodgson told us that his much-improved scenario modelling says the Government has known since before Christmas that this energy crisis was coming. Dr Cullen told us yesterday that the Government did not expect a dry year in 2003. Falling business confidence, a severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) cover-up, an electricity crisis, and the revelation of the Government’s deeply ideological—

💬 Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is not acceptable for that member to accuse anybody of a Sars cover-up. It is not acceptable.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I have stopped the member’s time at this stage. That is a debatable point.

💬 Hon Annette King: No, it is not.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member will stand and apologise for disagreeing with me in that way.

💬 Hon Annette King: I withdraw and apologise.

We having falling business confidence, a Sars cover-up, an electricity crisis, and a revelation of the Government’s—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: As far as I am concerned, I do not want to have to stop all interjection during general debate, because we can have an interchange. However, I think there have been too many interjections—a lot in the second person, which is totally out of order. There will be a lot fewer interjections. I have not penalised the member any time. He may start again.

We have falling business confidence, a Sars cover-up, an electricity crisis, and the revelation of a deeply ideological treaty policy—and it is only Wednesday! It is only Wednesday, and that is just this week. The Prime Minister is out of the country, leaving Dr Cullen to drive this Government into a policy quagmire.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier on today we took a point of order with you, because three times the Hon Trevor Mallard had defied your ruling from the Chair. You have now ruled twice about interjections. The Labour Party has taken no notice of the rulings and I am asking you this question: what are you going to do about it?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I will tell the member what I am going to do about it. There were further interjections from members of his own party, who shouted with an enormous amount of noise when he proceeded with his speech, but I ignored that. As far as the member is concerned, a couple of members did make interjections, and I tell the Hon Trevor Mallard that he is not to interject again in this speech.

The Prime Minister is out of the country, leaving Dr Cullen to drive the Government into a policy quagmire. Its transport legislation is an unworkable political compromise, and people who set out supporting it are now all opposing it. It will be interesting to see where United Future goes in that respect. The electricity policy of this Government is in a total shambles. No one knows what the rules are. No one knows whether it will be safe to invest in electricity in New Zealand as long as the Prime Minister says that she will intervene any time, any place. There is a Resource Management Amendment Bill coming to this House that is one step forward and 10 steps backwards. We have the sense of an old-style Labour Party starting to flex its muscles—regulate, control, and politicise.

And what is going on with Helen Clark overseas? Every New Zealand Prime Minister has the job of going to the European Union to defend our trade access; we expect her to do that. But members should listen to this statement: “What everyone’s looking at is whether there is going to be a Franco/German/Russia linkup with good links through to the Chinese against what we have which looks like a small Anglo/American group—it shifts the whole dynamic,”.

What is our very good friend John Howard to think of that? He came here just a couple of months ago, and was smooched all up by the Prime Minister. When he left she effectively accused him of trading soldiers’ dead bodies for a trade agreement, and then when she went to France she cuddled up to Jacques Chirac. Do members know who Jacques Chirac is? He is the man who said that he made the decision to repatriate Dominique Prieur. Members know who she was. She was the terrorist who carried out the bombing of the Greenpeace boat in Auckland Harbour.

Did Helen Clark raise that with Jacques Chirac? Did she raise with him the billions of dollars he has made out of the oil-for-food trade in Iraq? Did she ask him about the allegations that France has leaked details of the coalition’s operational planning for the Iraqi war, to the Iraqis? Did our principled Prime Minister do that? What does she mean when she says that we are part of a “small Anglo/American group—it shifts the whole dynamic,”? Is she being a commentator, or is she making policy?

Yesterday in this House I asked the Minister of Conservation, the Hon Chris Carter, whether he would be prepared to look at changing the provisions of the Conservation Act to permit the Dobson hydroelectricity scheme on the West Coast to proceed. To my great disappointment, his reply was in the negative. New Zealand is now in a critical situation with regard to the supply of electricity. I regret to inform the House that the supply shortage could continue beyond 2003, and possibly reach 2005. I have seen the graphs and they clearly indicate a gap between electricity supply and demand over that period of time. It takes a long time to bring new generating capacity on stream.

If I am right about that, then this is a matter of the utmost gravity for the people and economy of New Zealand. All facets of our life, from processing and manufacturing, right across to telecommunications, information technology, and the ability—particularly in the South Island—simply to keep warm during the winter, are heavily dependent on the reliability of electricity supply. I believe that time and research will show that a major part of the blame for this situation lies with the Conservation Act.

The Department of Conservation controls 33 percent of all New Zealand land. That includes all New Zealand rivers, lakes, and streams. The department has 13 conservatories, and each one of those has its own separate conservation advisory board. People on those boards have been appointed by successive Ministers of Conservation, and, for the most part, they can be described as people who are committed to preserving our rivers and lakes, plus their surrounding catchments, in pristine condition. They appear in practice to have, virtually, veto powers. There is no overall national policy concerning how to handle requests for hydro schemes on Department of Conservation - controlled land. There is no standard manual. I am advised that for years now companies and individuals have approached their local conservatories and advisory boards, and have been given a flat “No”. I believe that relates to hydro schemes set on the Rotorua lakes and the Mohaka, Motu, and Raukokore Rivers in the North Island, and in the South Island the same thing has happened concerning schemes at Karamea, Ngakawau, and Dobson, which are all on the West Coast. However, this may simply be the tip of the iceberg. We really do not know how many schemes have so far been declined.

All of that amounts to a major systemic problem. It is unbalanced, and it is unacceptable. Water constitutes cost-free energy for generating electricity that is perpetually renewable and sustainable. Many hydro schemes easily meet the criteria of conservation, which are the protection, preservation, and careful management of natural resources, having regard to environmental outcomes. Against those criteria, hydro schemes must rank well ahead of the generation of electricity by importing oil or burning coal. Yet, that is exactly what we are doing to get ourselves through this winter, and through the next couple of years.

Today I want to appeal to the Government, and to all members of this House on a non-partisan basis, to make the solution of this a No. 1 priority. If we have to change the Conservation Act, so be it. The people of New Zealand will be angry when they realise that the present electricity crisis could well have been avoided if we had had in place—as they have in Western Australia—proper policies and procedures to enable hydro schemes to be advanced, and to be advanced quickly. I have asked myself how this scandalous and serious situation could have been allowed to develop under successive Governments. It is because we have been burning Maui gas as if there were no tomorrow. Well, tomorrow has arrived, and we have foolishly failed to provide an alternative. If we do not sort this issue out, I predict come election day that the anger of New Zealanders will be expressed dramatically through the ballot box.

In the last week or so several chickens hatched by the Parliaments of the last 30 years have come home to roost. To those with very short memories it might appear that those chickens flew in from nowhere, so I want to place on record, today, some of the facts of their very long gestation. This week we have the lowest inflows to the hydro lakes in the 71 years that records have been kept. That is entirely consistent with advice given several years ago by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd that climate change was likely to reduce inflows to the hydro lakes and that we would start to see the effects of global climate change in the early years of this century. The Greens have been calling for some 15 years for policy change to protect the climate; only in the last 3 years has any real action been taken, and it is still too little.

Along with the low levels of the hydro lakes we are currently facing the loss of Maui gas, which has provided a quarter of our electricity and much of our industrial fuel for the last 30 years. Everyone acts surprised about that, but the 1973 gas contracts made the decisions to use the gas fast, to use it wastefully, to pay for it whether we used it or not, and to use it all up in 30 years. The Greens have been warning for 30 years that using most of that gas for electricity generation, rather than as a direct fuel, was wasteful. Two-thirds of all the energy value of the gas burned at Huntly goes up the stack or into the Waikato River; one-third ends up in the electricity grid.

We have been warning that that would lead to inefficient use because of the artificially low price of the contract, that it would lock in inefficient technologies and high demand, and that it would lock in an attitude that resources are boundless and that we have a right—even a duty—to waste as much of them as we like and as we feel we can pay for.

We have been warning that that would leave a gap at the end of 30 years that would be very, very hard to fill when Maui gas ran out. Now it is running out a mere 2 years earlier than was always planned, and there is no plan to fill the gap. We have heard efforts to blame the current Minister. We have heard efforts to blame recent and previous Ministers. We have not heard many efforts to blame the 1973 contract. We have heard efforts to blame the Resource Management Act and weather forecasting models, and we have heard demands of every possible kind for new generation. But the fact is that only by managing demand for energy will we be able to keep the lights on, either in the short term or the long term.

For 30 years the Greens have been promoting the direct use of gas for heat rather than gas-fired electricity, insulation of homes and water heaters, refrigeration in industry, compact fluorescent lights, direct solar heating of homes and water, wind generation of electricity, industrial motors properly sized to their load, wood waste - fired boilers in the forestry industry, and a host of other measures. If the Governments of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s had done those things, we would not be talking about an energy crisis today, and old people would not be worrying about freezing in the dark this winter.

All of those measures are now starting to happen, and given time they can replace Maui. Thanks to the Greens we have an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, a strategy, and renewable targets, but they cannot happen fast enough now to save us from shortages this winter or even next. Neither can any of the power schemes that people have been ranting on about in the House today—not Dobson, not Project Aqua, not coal, and not even wind. It is outrageous that the conservation estate, our precious biodiversity, and our wild places should become the scapegoat and have to bear the brunt of our neglect and our ignorance over the last 30 years.

For this winter the only solution is to engage every business, every Government department, every family, every school, and every New Zealander in making sensible savings to the extent that we can. It gives me no pleasure to say: “We told you so for the last 30 years.” It is an unproductive sort of approach to take. What we can pledge is that now that the Greens are here in the House, things are changing and it will not happen again.

Today Bill English proved, once again, why he should not lead a party of any sort anywhere, and certainly not in New Zealand. He will never be Prime Minister, and members opposite know that. All members opposite know that in their hearts. The only ones who are shaking their heads are Nick Smith and Wayne Mapp. They are the two people who know that when there is a change they will go to the back. They know that. They are the ones who are shaking their heads.

Today Bill English accused an independent committee of New Zealand’s top clinicians of covering up severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). He accused an independent committee of experts of covering up Sars. One of the things we rely on, especially from a former Minister of Health, is respect for people who put their reputation on the line. He said that they covered it up. Every one of those people will hear that, and I challenge Bill English to put something into his spine and say that outside.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That phrase—I want the member to move on now.

What a sad party we have over there. Two weeks ago Bill English promised to talk to Maurice Williamson; they would have a discussion and Maurice would get a real job, a full-time job that would be right for his talents. But nothing has happened. He has dropped the ball again. He promised that he would do it. He promised that he would use the talent. Why? Because he would have to shift Nick Smith or Wayne Mapp back, and if he was doing it absolutely correctly, he would have to shift Gerry Brownlee back. Everyone knows that Maurice Williamson has more talent than every one of those people put together.

Despite promising to sort out the situation during the adjournment, Bill English has yet again dropped—[Interruption] Maurice was so embarrassed at being praised! He is such a modest character and someone who is so supportive of the National Party and its future. He could not stand to listen, because he knew that it was absolutely right. Bill English has failed to deliver.

Earlier today I talked about State sector leadership and the need for some of that from the National Party. I indicated that one does need to look beyond the current people who are clamouring, beyond the Gerry Brownlees and Don Brashes who are looking for the job. I have heard that there are people opposite who are about to approach Jim Bolger and that they are trying to find someone who will resign his or her seat to let him back into Parliament.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Absolute rubbish!

Our leader is not coming fourth in the preferred Prime Minister poll in the way that the leader of members opposite is. I hear that they are looking around and thinking about sacrificing one of their members for Jim Bolger to come back into this House. To get the experience, knowledge, and leadership that they are so desperate for—and frankly, Jim Bolger looks even fitter than he did when he was here; he looks like he is ready for it, and it would not be a bad idea. To be a good Government an effective major Opposition party is needed, and we just do not have one at the moment. I encourage members opposite to think about that.

My other point is that they do need to look at where they can get some coaching. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has just come into the House. Could he just share 1 percent of his charisma with Don Brash? If he did that, Don Brash might have a chance. If Don Brash had 1 percent of the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ charisma, he might have an appeal to slightly beyond the group that supports him at the moment. What a sad lot of contenders there are in the National Party!

The Labour Government is in denial. There is a crisis in policing in New Zealand, and it is trying to pretend that nothing is wrong. Well, it just does not wash. Just this week it has been revealed that the police are too busy for car-crash inquiries. They are telling victims to deal with offenders themselves, even though criminal activities such as dangerous driving could be involved. We learn today that the police are now too busy to prosecute serious fraud. Instead, they are sending letters to notorious criminals stating: “We’re on to you. Clean up your act, or we’ll lock you up.” The police are too busy to investigate car theft or burglary, yet those entry-level crimes are often the breeding ground of hard-core criminals who are the perpetrators of serious violent crime in this country.

I would like to remind the Labour Government that when it came into power 92 percent of New Zealanders wanted the Government to get tough on law and order. What did we get? We got a Government that is soft on crime, and a Government that cut police-set prison sentences in half, and a Government that we now know lets prisoners stay free for months while they apply for home detention.

We have a Government that builds prisons that are more like holiday camps. We have a Minister who cancelled the police recruitment intake after he was elected, and that is the cause of the serious police shortage we have now. We have a Government that does not treat policing as a priority. It has slashed core spending on police by 5 percent since coming into power.

By cancelling the police recruit intakes and slashing core police funding, the Government is putting enormous pressure on the police force. Sworn officers are now owed 267,000 days of leave—that is more than 700 years. The stress is causing families to split up, it is driving officers out of the force, and the Labour Government does not care. Further, Labour’s failure to sort out the problems associated with “perfing” is causing experienced senior officers to leave the force.

The problems do not stop there. Police paperwork is now out of control—for some offences, police have to write the name of the offender 17 times. Each day on the beat means the police have to spend a day in the office doing paperwork instead of being out there fighting crime. It is simply crazy, and this Minister is doing nothing about it.

In New Zealand, gangs outnumber the police by three to one. Yet in Auckland no one is dedicated to looking at the affairs of the ethnic gangs, even though the ethnic gangs are driving drugs and organised crime. There are no full-time, dedicated officers on the clan laboratory teams investigating methamphetamine manufacture, even though the number of those laboratories has increased by 300 percent in the last 12 months—and we understand they are now growing like mushrooms.

That this Government has allowed that to happen to policing in this country is a disgraceful state of affairs. The police have already admitted that “meth” crime is out of control. As a result of the increasing use of methamphetamine, the police are now struggling with an escalation in violent crime. Yet, Labour is ignoring the problem. It is trying to pretend that everything is okay. Labour members are intimidating the Commissioner of Police, demanding that he echo their claims. I suggest to the Commissioner of Police that he stand up for his police force, stand up against the bullies of the Labour Government, and tell them the truth—tell them that the police are short-staffed, under-resourced, and under stress. With this Labour Government, resourcing has now become the key determinant of justice in this country.

New Zealand is one of the most under-policed countries in the developed world. We would need 1,700 more police to match the numbers in Australia, 2,500 to match those of the UK, and 4,000 to match those of the United States. It is clear now that New Zealand needs more police, and that the police need more funding. Crime violates our lives, our homes, and our public places. People rightly need and deserve a safer community. New Zealanders should not have to fear crime, and that is why the core role of government is the maintenance of law and order. The Labour Government is failing.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister): If the ACT member, Deborah Coddington were not swanning off to England for 3 months to get some kind of qualification at the taxpayers’ expense, we might be able to do a bit more for the police.

I would like to turn to the National Party. I notice that Simon Power has already made it to the deputy leadership of the National Party—the coup must have occurred. They are now locked into the most extraordinary ongoing drama, day by day, week by week—especially Tuesday morning by Tuesday morning.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Who knocked that?

💬 Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Dr Smith, of course, whinges away on radio—whinge, whinge, whinge. But that will not cover up the incompetence of the National Party that we see at present. They have a dead man walking, as leader. Increasingly he is walking alone. He is on to his fourth chief of staff since 2002. When somebody leaves the National Party to go and join Tranz Rail, as their publicity officer did, we know that the National Party must be in deep trouble.

The latest episode of this ongoing saga is that Roger Sowry’s head was offered on a platter to Don Brash. Don Brash made it clear that he was not interested in being No. 2; he only wants to be No. 1. Meanwhile, Mr English staggers on, treated as irrelevant by almost everybody in politics in New Zealand.

But the basic issues about Mr English remain: his indecision, his lack of self-confidence, and his inability to communicate. Who saw him on Pam Corkery’s programme, sitting there like a rabbit? Who was desperate to find a searchlight and rifle to put him out of his misery? That is what he was like on Pam Corkery’s show.

Then we have had Iraq. What a fiasco Iraq turned out to be for the National Party. First of all they did not have a position at all; they said they would think about their position. Then their position was to support the Americans. When asked whether they would send troops, they said they would think about sending troops. When the war was over, Dr Mapp said, “We’ll send some troops.” Then Dr Mapp started saying: “Whatever the Americans do, we will follow to the point.” But if they had been there, they would have marched on Syria before the Americans, once they were given a signal from the White House that Syria was next on the list. That is the way the National Party seems to have gone.

But now we have this peculiar position of the ongoing leadership struggle. By now Mr English should be starring in Six Feet Under as one of the corpses. Most of his colleagues want him there, but they are like a bunch of mice. They can see a bit of cheese, but there is a big, fat old tabby sitting by the piece of cheese. None of the mice actually wants to get out there and try to grab hold of it. The hungriest mice are either older than the present incumbent, or they look far too well-fed to need a piece of cheese in any case.

If Dr Brash is the answer, what on earth was the question that the National Party was asking itself? Every time Dr Brash asked me a question, I wondered why the tabby cat had turned into the mouse. I feel quite sad about the way in which we have questions from Dr Brash in the Chamber. He is the new decisive potential leader! What was his position on Iraq? When he was asked his position, he was “deeply troubled”—that was the potential National Party leader’s position on Iraq.

He does not know whether he wants corporate tax cuts. He does not know whether he wants a common currency with Australia, and he certainly cannot be there to make a move for the centre, given his views on super, the dole, selling education, selling schools, and all the rest of it.

So, the National Party has a leader in place who has alienated the Auckland business community—he is regarded as a joke in Auckland by the business community. He is regarded as a ‘hick from the sticks’, who should stay down in Southland and never get further than the Clutha River, let alone going up to Auckland. Those in the business community are holding back their chequebooks in Auckland, unwilling to give their money to the National Party. We have a challenger who has already blown it. He turned up for the challenge and found that it was not actually going on.

So what is the drama that they are playing out here? It is not the Young and the Restless any more—it cannot be, with Don Brash challenging for the leadership. I think it is clear where they are heading. I found the programme on Prime Television: it is called Party of Five. That is where they are going.

Today I want to again draw Parliament’s attention to the prostitution of education and training in New Zealand—sanctioned, encouraged and condoned by this Government. Earlier this month I raised the issue of the Fernridge Institute of Training in the Wairarapa. The Minister of Immigration proudly told Parliament back then that her officials were investigating immigration issues related to that institute. In other words, this incompetent seat-warmer has shovelled the issue into the big, black hole of scams with the word “immigration” written on the door. The minister was told about these problems 5 months ago, and there is still no sign of any action.

Today I am asking the Auditor-General to investigate the use of taxpayers’ money by, or for, overseas students attending Fernridge. Fernridge is one of a number of companies that we have included in our request. The others are Pineneedle Forestry Ltd, Pineneedle Property Ltd, Woodridge Investments, Greenridge Management, Fernridge Investments, Fernridge Forestry, and the Fernridge Institute of Training. They are all in these documents. Why would any legitimate organisation need all those companies to operate? It is strongly suggested that the Fernridge Institute of Training is a front for importing cheap overseas forestry workers into this country, infringing our industrial relations and payment laws.

💬 Dail Jones: What is the member for Wairarapa doing about it?

Nothing. Doughnuts!

💬 Dail Jones: Does she know about it?

Well, apparently no complaints had been made to the office when we made a complaint 5 months ago. We have been informed that at least 72 people have been brought to New Zealand from Nepal—from Nepal of all places—and Samoa as “students” to attend a 3-year training course at this institute. The students have complained that they have been used as cheap labour on forestry contracts, and that they have received little or no training at all. Fernridge charges $13,500 for this training course. About $6,000 of that is advanced to the students by way of a loan, which they have to work off at slave labour rates. It is hard to find out where the rest of the money comes from, but we have documents that show that payments have been made from Work and Income’s StudyLink for both living and course-related costs. In a country with Māoris in the thousands out of work, we can nevertheless afford all this money for foreigners. That appears most unusual, because overseas students are not eligible for those entitlements. There has been a high turnover of students since that organisation started in 2001. Many have just disappeared, vanished—they say because of exploitation—and replacements are then brought in. A lot of public money has been expended in this case. We question whether it has been used for its intended purposes, and for the benefit of New Zealand taxpayers and this economy.

The circumstances and the operation of Fernridge appear highly irregular, and that is reflected in increasing public concern—both locally in the Wairarapa, and at Porirua, where some former students have sought assistance, and, of all things, refuge! This Government and its Ministers sit on their hands, while organisations like Fernridge, and the one up there in Auckland, and wherever else one goes—they are all over the place now—operate at the expense of the New Zealand taxpayer and at the cost of our fading reputation in education.

The Minister of Education said today that there had been an audit of Fernridge by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. What sort of Mickey Mouse audit was that? The Immigration Service has let desperate groups of people enter this country to be exploited by unscrupulous operators. The Minister of Immigration received complaints and documents months ago. The people who laid the complaints have never received their documentation back. Those documents have also disappeared down a black hole marked “Immigration scams”.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I’ve got a copy here.

Well, give them their own documentation back, and give them an answer, Minister! He should not sit there like the buffoon he so clearly is. Another black hole has appeared and is marked “Education scams”. How many more of them are operating the length and breadth of this country? Between 1984 and 1990, that Labour Party earned New Zealand the title of the most corrupt country on earth in which to do business. This Government is again following that very unhappy tradition. We have Ministers who daily in the House—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am not, of course, going to defend inaccurate comments made about a previous Government, but what was absolutely inappropriate was the final comment.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: If the member was suggesting that this present Government is corrupt, he will have to withdraw and apologise for that comment.

I did not.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Carry on then.

What we have in this House daily is a Government led by a Prime Minister who believes in spindoctoring and flim-flam, but where we have had more incompetent Ministers exposed over more days than at any time in my time in Parliament. Day after day, people like Lianne Dalziel, Chris Carter, and Parekura Horomia—

It does not matter how much is written about the tragic performance of the National Party, the most revealing thing is the body language exhibited in this House. A picture says as much as a thousand words, and when we sit on this side of the House and observe what is happening—particularly on the front bench of the National Party—it speaks volumes. Today in response to question No. 4 to the Minister of Education, the only ones laughing were Mr Brash, Mr Brownlee, Mr Power, and Mr Williamson. The rest of the National Party looked ashen. They were crestfallen.

I want to give the National Party some advice: for goodness’ sake, take your leader aside and teach him a few political lessons! Teach him that when he goes into the Koru lounge or Copperfields café in Parliament, he should take somebody with him, so that he is not left sitting on his own. It is very obvious when the leader of the National Party walks into the Koru lounge—there is a bunch of National Party MPs sitting here, another bunch sitting there, and he goes and sits on his own, right in the corner. When he goes into Copperfields—that most public place—the same thing happens, and none of his mates join him. So poor old Bill “No Mates”—as my kids used to say when they were teenagers—cannot even find somebody to sit with him. Just give him some advice! His performance on Pam Corkery’s show the other night reminded me of a mother whose child is on the far side of the room, and the mother is sitting there thinking: “For God’s sake, shut up you little devil. Just wait till I get you!”. There he was on television blithering on, blathering on. It was so embarrassing—one wanted to put a paper over one’s face because of embarrassment for the poor sod.

I want to give the member some more advice. I notice on page A9 of today’s Dominion Post that Bill English is speaking on Massey University student radio tonight. He is speaking on The Porritt Show, which goes on air at 8 p.m. Nobody will be listening, but the station is 88.7 and 107.4FM. I say to members opposite, for goodness’ sake, protect him! Tell him not to go on. Last week on that show the announcers got intoxicated—

💬 Government Members: Ha, ha!

—on air, it says in the paper, and it is in the Dominion Post, so it must be true. He is just walking into a minefield. We feel sorry for him; no one would treat a sick dog that badly. I do not know why they are sending him in there, because it is just like the Christians being fed to the lions. They should look after him, because he is all they have got. There is no one else; otherwise, he would have been replaced by now.

I want say to Roger Sowry: “I’m sorry Roger that you’re getting such a hard time, and you’re nowhere near as fat as you looked in that Webb cartoon in the—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I take offence at that, as everybody else does. The member will withdraw and apologise.

I will.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I well recall that when a National member made that sort of remark about a Labour member, the member was instantly kicked out. So what is the standard, whereby it is now OK for women members to make such references about National members?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member’s recollection is wrong.

Also, I am really surprised today about the untimely and inappropriate comments the leader of the National Party made this afternoon about our major trading partners. That was very unwise. I just wish the National Party would take him aside and counsel him about those kinds of matters. It was not very sensible at all.

Mr English’s comments about his own colleagues just remind us of Mark Antony, who said: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” It is very, very tragic. The irony of this situation is that here we have waiting in the wings a man who is only 5 years younger than the National Party itself—Mr Brash. He is not in his prime.

I seek leave to table a letter to the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General on the question of the Fernridge Institute of Training, asking for a full-scale investigation.

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

Is it not extraordinary that we have had three speeches from Labour that have been all about the Opposition—and why is that? It is because Labour knows it is in deep trouble. Who should we be feeling sorry for? It is Chris Carter, George Hawkins, and Marian Hobbs. They are in deep, deep trouble, and the economy will get worse and worse. I was listening to the speech from the junior Labour whip when she talked about trading partners, and it was remarkable, was it not?

Just 3 weeks ago in this Chamber we saw the excruciating situation in which the Prime Minister of this nation was not able to apologise. She apologised only for the offence that was taken, not for what had been said. Why did members on the Government side of the House not read today’s Wall Street Journal? If they had, they would know the seriousness of New Zealand’s difficulties right at the moment. Things will get worse from here, because the Wall Street Journal specifically picked out New Zealand as a country that has to watch itself. Why is that? It is because the Prime Minister insults people whom we have traditionally regarded as friends.

New Zealand has a clear choice: do we stand by the countries we have always stood with—Britain, Australia, and the United States—or do we go down a new path, and stand with France, Germany and the People’s Republic of China? To quote the Prime Minister, we have “good links through to the Chinese”. That is the path she would follow. The Prime Minister has no doubts; she is with Jacques Chirac all the way. We saw the kisses, the champagne, and the fancy lunches, and I tell the House that it will end in tears, because this is the sharpest foreign policy choice this country has had in decades.

The Prime Minister’s balancing act right through February and March broke down at the first hint of a slow-down during the war in Iraq. Her legendary discipline broke down completely. She could not resist making jibes against the coalition, and when we saw that we knew that apologies would have to take place. Yet she has not given an apology, at all. For 3 days in this House we had a Prime Minister who was unwilling to admit her error. When the Wall Street Journal—which is probably the most respected financial journal in the world—picks that up in a lead item, this country has to be worried.

And things could get worse, because the Prime Minister then decided to attack Australia, suggesting that it was part of the coalition only so as to get a free-trade deal. She had met Prime Minister Howard just a few weeks before, and this is what she had to say: “this Government doesn’t trade the lives of young New Zealanders for a war it doesn’t believe in, in order to secure some material advantage.” That would have to be the most gratuitous insult that our country has given to Australia in the history of this country. So it is not surprising that things will get worse for our country.

It should be clear to everyone that as long as Helen Clark is the Prime Minister of New Zealand, our foreign relations will be a disaster zone. No amount of desperate diplomacy will patch that up, because we have turned our back on the countries we have our deepest economic links with. Australia takes the highest percentage of our manufactured exports. I have heard Dr Cullen say that he anticipates that the United States will become our most important trading partner, yet we would turn our backs on that country. I tell members this: as long as Helen Clark is the Prime Minister, there is no chance of a free-trade agreement with the United States. I do not care how much work Minister Sutton, Dr Cullen, or the Prime Minister does, there will be no free-trade agreement. One cannot abuse traditional allegiances in the way that the Government has, and expect that to be—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Get on top of the facts, Wayne boy.

That is exactly the point.

Yesterday was International Workers’ Memorial Day, which is a day when we remember those who have died at work, both in New Zealand and overseas. I attended a remembrance service in my electorate, along with workers, employers, my colleagues, and Waitakere city councillors. It was a sad day for New Zealand, for employers, for workers, and for their families.

Next week this Government will introduce improved health and safety legislation. The Opposition vehemently opposes it, but it is being introduced none the less. It is legislation that recognises the rights of workers and their representatives to ensure their safety at work. It will see the Accident Compensation Corporation and the unions working together in partnership. Under this legislation, unions have committed to train 10,000 health and safety representatives—10,000 workers working with employers to ensure that our workplaces are safe.

Things are getting better for workers, and there are more of us. Unemployment is at its lowest level since 1989. There will be 6,000 young people in apprenticeships across 25 industries through this term of Government. They are developing the skills we need for the jobs that we need. We are now also better paid. The minimum wage has increased from $7 to $8.50 per hour, and that did not wreck the economy. We now have paid parental leave, and it is working very well.

What else is on the agenda? The Employment Relations Act has been a success. We are working on protecting jobs when businesses are sold, or when work is contracted out. We are looking at pay equity and equal employment opportunities. We are improving the Holidays Act to make it more family-friendly—to enable a work-life balance. We are introducing improvements to our smokefree laws to protect workers. We are supporting our employers through industry development incentives, and through skills development. Is that good? Yes, it is, and, of course, it is all rubbished by the Opposition. We have heard the same sad old “hands-off, trickle-down, wage increases wreck jobs, unions wreck workplaces” diatribe from the same sad old party. Is National proposing a journey into yesteryear? It is more like a journey into yester-century.

But now National is refocusing. After our third MMP election, National has got it: it is important to have a party vote strategy. National needs some bright new blood, bright new ideas, and new direction. Who is in the wings? Don Brash. Wow! As one MP put it, people keep telling us they do not know what National stands for, and I say that neither does National. To attempt to find a vision and to struggle within so much disunity is very sad.

I am relatively new to politics, but it is good to be in a party with a vision, in a party with my mates, and in a party that is getting it right. And we are getting it right—a 52 percent poll rating says we are getting it right, and only twenty-something percent says the Opposition is getting it right. But how will National fix it? Can it fix it? No, it cannot. The Opposition cannot change this Government, because this Government “ain’t broken”.

During the adjournment the Law Commission delivered a report on our Family Court system, which showed some of the huge delays and problems that there are for families. I do not want to talk about the trifling political games that Labour seems focused on this afternoon, but about some of the real, hard issues that do matter in this country. People rely both on the Government and on this Parliament to fix those issues, and they have been let down.

A family in my electorate—a husband and wife with three children—has been stopped from having access to its fourth child for over 3½ years. It is an absolute disgrace that, through delays in the Family Court and poor law, that family has been totally ignored. Its pleas to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Māori Affairs, the Minister for Courts, and the Minister of Justice have been totally ignored. As a parent, I have never had a case about which I have felt so emotional, or where such an awful wrong has been done.

I want to ask a number of questions. I notice that the Minister of Social Services and Employment is trying to interject. I ask him why a domestic purposes benefit is being paid to a person to care for a child, when the mother and father of that child are living together and are desperate to care for that child. The Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has never inquired into that family in respect of the care of its children.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Has the member ever raised the case with the Minister?

In fact, not only has the family written to the Minister of Social Services and Employment, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Māori Affairs but it wrote to them over 2 years ago.

I want to ask a second question. I ask Government members whether they think it is appropriate that parents who are desperate to support their child are being asked to pay child support for someone else to care for that child. I say that is wrong, as well. I also say that I find it extraordinary—[Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. For the last 90 seconds I have had nothing but continuous interjections from Government members. I can hardly hear myself think.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The point is well made. Members will now keep a little more quiet.

I also ask why the Government is providing legal aid for someone to fight those parents for the custody of their child. There is absolutely no evidence that there is any risk to the children.

Families are one of the most important things that hold this country together. Families are even more important than this institution—Parliament. That case brings to my attention nothing less than State-sanctioned child stealing, and I use those words carefully. I am appalled by that case, and I have asked for an inquiry into the matter because I think those questions are important and need to be answered. The Family Court is in such a mess that we have examples such as that case. We have parents who are desperate to be good parents and to be involved in raising their children. Those parents have the care of their other three children, and I ask about the right of that fourth child to grow up with its siblings. For 3½ years that family has been struggling through the Family Court without being able to get a resolution of that matter.

I challenge Government members to tell us what they will do about the Law Commission’s report on the Family Court. Is it acceptable to have parents blocked from being able to care for their own children? Is it acceptable that we pay a domestic purposes benefit for a carer when the mum and dad want to care for their own child, and are quite fit to do so? Is it proper that we provide legal aid for people to fight in the Family Court against parents being able to have custody of their own child? Those matters go to the heart of the sort of nation we want to be. I say the system has let people down something awfully.

My last point is that I believe that the fuzzy notions in our law that whatever is in the best interests of the child—whoever will determine that—must prevail should not override the fact that parents should have custody of their child, unless it is shown that it is inappropriate for them to do so.

I am pleased to follow on from Dr Nick Smith, who began his short contribution to this Wednesday debate by saying he wanted to talk about the important issues. He did not want to talk about the side issues or the trivial issues. However, I say to Dr Smith that wherever I go around this country at the moment the big issue on most people’s minds is the absolute failure of the National Party to make a contribution to a functioning democracy. I go to business groups, to local government groups, and to community groups, and they all ask: “What is the National Party doing?”. We are supposed to have a functioning democracy with scrutiny of the Government by those parties, but Muriel Newman does more to scrutinise this Government on social welfare issues than does Katherine Rich, who has to fight with three other people in the National Party even to be heard on social issues. People ask: “What is the National Party doing?”. I am told that the National Party is preoccupied with leadership and its failure to get decent leadership, and that shows in editorial after editorial in this country.

Members do not even need me to tell them the name of the person I am going to talk about now. This is from a National Business Review editorial: “His comments underscore his lack of understanding of business, especially Auckland business, and explain the strong feeling in the city of sails and among Auckland members of his caucus that he should be dumped from any leadership role.” Who am I talking about? It is Bill English. Let me quote from the Evening Standard—from Manawatu, the heartland of the country. I have seldom seen that august journal get things wrong. What did it say? “He appears diffident on too many occasions. He is failing to make significant points of difference between his party and the Government.” Who am I talking about? It is Bill English. Let us go to the Business Roundtable: “It is no secret”—says the very heartland constituency of the National Party—“that the business community has been questioning what National and he stand for.” Who am I talking about? It is Bill English. Even the Southland Times—and members in this House know that when their backs are against the wall they can at least usually count on their own communities to say something decent about them—reports: “His own standing is distressingly low from the party’s perspective.” He should think about going. Who am I talking about? It is Bill English. If that man were a dog, given the dog debate we have had over the last little while, he would have been put down a long time ago. New Zealanders are compassionate people. They do not like to see wounded animals. They do not like to see the distress that goes on day after day around Mr English.

However, I bring good news to the country today in this Wednesday debate, because I have it on absolutely good information that within 2 weeks it is going to happen. That is why the National Party is not functioning. That is why National members cannot even sustain a question time. That is why they are not putting up ideas. In the next couple of weeks, finally, National members will be getting their act together so that they can remove Mr English. Finally, this compassionate, supportive, sympathetic country of ours will see a new leader emerge from the National Party—Dr Don Brash. That will solve the issues I have just talked about, but will it solve the overall issues? No, it will not. What we will see with Dr Brash is the emergence of a niche National Party of extreme right policies and politicians—and that comment comes right from the lips of the man who calls himself the assistant tea boy, Mr Maurice Williamson. We know that the man who refers to himself as the assistant tea boy has been running a very successful line that the National Party must move back to its core constituency, to be a niche party and a right-wing party. He does not care if people do not belong to it. He says that the party should be narrowed down, and Mr Brash will do that for the party. He will turn the National Party into a niche party, leaving only one big party in this Parliament, the Labour Party, leading a successful Labour-led Government.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.