General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I want to talk to the House today in the wake of the report of the Health Committee last week regarding the legal status of cannabis. Firstly, I want to say how pleased I am at the assurances that have been given as recently as this afternoon’s question time by the Minister of Justice that there will be no change in the legal status of cannabis arising from that report. That is consistent with the agreement between United Future and the Government, but further, I venture to suggest, it is consistent with the view of a large number of New Zealanders who are concerned at the current state of drug use in New Zealand, at the fact that a P epidemic is under way, and at the fact that drugs like marijuana are seen in many cases as a gateway to that type of more serious issue.

I want to make the point, too, that since the committee has reported, or completed its investigation, a number of other studies have come to light that reveal the very severe risks that prolonged and excessive cannabis use poses to young people in particular. I draw the attention of the House to a 3-year study conducted in the Netherlands between 1997 and 1999 of over 4,000 persons that has shown that 50 percent of psychoses diagnosis is attributable to cannabis use. That study is consistent with a Swedish study that reported earlier this year that cannabis use before the age of 18 raises the incidence rate of schizophrenia by some 600 percent. A study at Maastricht University shows that people who smoke cannabis are three times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder such as hallucinations, paranoia, manic depression, and/or schizophrenia. There is also a recent United States 15-year follow-up study showing that cannabis use has increased the risk of major depression amongst users by over 400 percent, and that mirrors a finding in Australian studies, as well.

All of this information, which is constantly coming to light, makes it absolutely critical that there be no moves by this Parliament to change either the legal status of cannabis or the regard in which it is held by the wider community. I draw attention to the comments made by the Professor of Pharmacology at Otago University on the medicinal cannabis issue, because there have been some who have argued that this is the path we ought to consider. He made a point on Checkpoint last Friday night that of some 400 elements in the cannabis plant, approximately 40 were beneficial to health, and that for there to be an effective medicinal-use strategy, those 40 elements would have to be extracted, turned into tablet form, and then ingested under the most severe strict prescriptive arrangement.

The point he made that those who claimed that the mere inhaling of a cannabis joint as a pain relief or other health benefit is simply wrong. The only risk they impose upon themselves is a greater risk of lung cancer. I make the point—and we have acknowledged this—that any move to medicinal cannabis needs to be on the basis of that professor’s advice—isolating the particular elements and turning them into a medication that can be supplied under prescription, subject to the relevant clinical trials having been undertaken and proved successful.

I want to draw the attention of the House to what is perhaps the best piece of information of the lot. Okayama University in Japan is now reporting evidence that cannabis is capable of causing genetic abnormalities. There is a delicious irony in that statement, because right here in this House we have the Green Party fighting furiously against any genetic modification or adjustment to plant and animal tissue, yet at the same time advocating the decriminalisation of a drug that Okayama University is now saying is capable of causing genetic modification in human beings. In other words, Green Party members are quite happy to protect plants and animals but are far less happy to protect human beings.

I am appalled by the attitude of Mr Tanczos and his colleagues since the release of the report, which does not give them the carte blanche they were seeking for purely selfish, recreational reasons. Let us be absolutely honest about that. This is public policy to satisfy private prejudice. Here we have consistent, thorough international evidence coming forward all the time demonstrating the folly of that cause, yet those people over there still continue on that path and still try to dress up their support for cannabis decriminalisation as being in the public interest, when we all know it is in their private interest.

I want to talk about a time frame and a time line of deception that this Government has indulged in over the last few months. I will start with the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday, 22 June, when, in the wake of a report from the court, she was very strong that the ownership of our foreshore and seabed had long been considered to lie with the Crown. The following day she said: “Legislation would clarify this issue.” On Monday, 23 June the Prime Minister announced that legislation would be the Government’s answer to the debate that had begun to rage in this nation on the ownership of our seabed and foreshore.

For 7 weeks the Prime Minister has spun on this issue. She has waxed and waned and moved every way possible as she has tried to wriggle herself off the legislative hook she promised she would deliver to the House to guarantee New Zealanders ownership. In fact, on the Monday the Prime Minister promised legislation; by the Wednesday she said that the legislation would not extinguish customary title. I say to her that no one ever thought it would. Everyone thought it would clarify ownership, not customary title. By the end of the week the Prime Minister had the Labour Māori caucus up in arms, totally opposing any legislation. She put Michael Cullen in to run the show, and, 9 days after the Prime Minister’s promise to this nation that there would be legislation, Tariana Turia announced there would not be legislation on the issue. Who is right? The Prime Minister or Tariana Turia? We do not know.

Three weeks ago the Prime Minister said that she would solve the issue and make the announcements the following week. That week came and went with no announcements. Last week she promised us an announcement this week, and, surprise, surprise, no announcement has been made this week. We have now been told that it will be next week when Parliament is not sitting. Next week when the matter will not be able to be debated, next week when the Prime Minister will not have to answer any questions, next week when she is being taken on a helicopter to some ski field there will be an announcement, and we will find out who is right. Will it be Tariana Turia or the Prime Minister? Most members of our caucus are backing Tariana Turia. [Interruption]

Jill Pettis the Labour whip is backing Tariana Turia. She is saying that Tariana Turia is right and that there will not be legislation on this. That is what Jill Pettis is saying in Wanganui. She is not defending the Prime Minister back in Wanganui, but she is very careful to defend Tariana Turia and the ownership rights around the Wanganui harbour and the Whanganui River. We know what Jill Pettis is saying. She is a lion in the Wanganui Chronicle—she is absolutely fierce in the Chronicle—and she delivers some very fierce one-line speeches when she moves motions in this House, as well.

This issue around the seabed and foreshore is a watershed issue for this Government, and it does not know what to do about it. It is caught between doing what is right for all New Zealanders and being politically correct. I bet that the Government will go down the politically correct line. All New Zealanders will be the losers, because they will no longer have exclusive ownership. I think there will be some cooked-up deals.

What a laugh! We have a Leader of the Opposition in trouble. He was squawking away during question time like his underwear was too tight, but can he stay here and lead his party in a general debate? No, he gets his shoeshine boy to do it. Why does he do that? Because he is in enormous trouble. It became clear last night that, compared to a year ago, the National Party has absolutely lost faith in Bill English as leader. In July last year 62 percent of National Party supporters—and, I must say, that that is not particularly high—thought that he was performing well. What is the story 12 months later? That level of support is down to 31 percent. He has lost his support amongst rank and file National Party members. What does that mean? It means, in the end, that his time is coming. National members do not have a date yet. They are desperate.

💬 Darren Hughes: Desperate and dateless!

Yes, that is exactly the line. The National Party is desperate and dateless. I predict that pretty soon National Party members will get a date.

💬 Jill Pettis: When?

I do not know when; it depends on how desperate they get. I know that there are people who only just won their seats in 1996. In 1999 there were people like Simon Power, who is getting the wobbles now. He was the man who was groomed to be the National Party leader, but now he is in danger of losing his own seat. He knows that—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: When did this member lose his seat?

This member knows about losing his seat, and he knows about the wobbles that occur when there is a danger of it happening. He has seen it with a number of his colleagues, as well. So I speak with some experience in this area. I know the sense of desperation a little personally. In 2002, 27 percent of people thought that Bill English was out of touch with ordinary people. That has gone up to 39 percent. That is a very, very serious figure. The common touch was the thing that Bill English had, and, clearly, more and more people know that he is out of touch. Twenty-seven percent of people used to think he was narrow-minded. That has now gone up to 41 percent.

💬 Dianne Yates: How many?

Forty-one percent. If I were Phil Heatley, I would be getting exceptionally worried. It is all very well being Roger Sowry and having a high place on the list. In that particular case, one can get whipped by Darren Hughes, whipped by Judy Keall, but saved by the list. But the list will not help Phil Heatley, who, I am told, is the member for Whangarei. What people used to think about Bill English—rather, what half the people in the country used to think; 49 percent—was that he had sound judgment. But that number has dropped away now. It is down to 37 percent. So only just over a third of the people think Bill English has sound judgment. How long can National hold on to someone who is performing so badly? I think that, to a certain extent, Roger Sowry is right—in the last month the National Party has had an enormous opportunity to make mincemeat of this Government. If I had been over on that side, and the Government had had an issue, the way that this Government has had an issue, they would have been floundering all over the place. We would have been attacking and we would have been scoring. Well, Bill English is giving signs of not scoring, at all. He is giving signs of a leader who is getting to the point of being terminal. They cannot have that. Maybe the National Party has decided that really it does not have anyone better; so it accepts yet another loss. We know it has made the approach to Mr Peters. We know National has been asking him to come back to National and to merge the parties. Well, what are they doing sending Gerry Brownlee down to spend time with the member at half past three in the morning in Courtenay Place? They are hopeless, they are going, and Bill English is finished.

The Minister of Education said he wanted a laugh. I have a laugh for him right here, because if we do not laugh about what I have to say, then we would weep. Last week, the New Zealand taxpayer wined and dined up to 25 health bureaucrats and anti-tobacco activists, not in New Zealand but in Helsinki, Finland. This could best be described as “25 go smoking in Finland: thanks very much, taxpayer”. While ex-servicemen on pensions are being told they will not be able to enjoy a beer and a smoke in their local Returned Services Association, up to 25 anti-smoking bureaucrats and activists were having a great time in historic Helsinki, on a taxpayer-funded anti-smoking junket. Information on the Web—[Interruption]; if Ms Pettis ever took the time to look at it, she might find these things out—about the 12th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in Helsinki from 3 to 8 August, names 25 New Zealanders attending, and almost all are either Ministry of Health officials or from organisations funded by the ministry. The registration fee alone for these 25 people was $1,180 each. I challenge the Minister of Health to say how precious Vote Health dollars are being spent. Did that money fund all those 25 people to go to this conference and represent New Zealand while everybody back here endures a bleak winter? Included among the people back here, of course, are people on hospital waiting lists, which are growing. People are being bumped off hospital waiting lists, and there are staff shortages in virtually all specialties. Small health providers are whittling away taxpayer-funded health dollars, with little, if any, accountability. We know who these people are; there was also a list of them on the Web, and it is very interesting to see where they all come from. We know that Chris Laurenson, Nicola Holden, and Louise Delaney are Ministry of Health officials, and were, presumably, funded by the taxpayer to get to Helsinki—not to mention their accommodation. Shirley Ann Brown, and Adela Hamilton of Northland Health—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Where has Deborah Coddington been for the last 6 months?

She paid for herself to go there, thank you. People from the University of Otago went, as did employees of Northland Health. They all work for publicly funded organisations. Some Māori health groups also sent people. There were people from the Quit Group, the Smokefree Coalition, and the Health Sponsorship Council. They are all representatives of organisations receiving taxpayer funding. It is very easy to spend somebody else’s money, is it not? I had a quick ring around Air New Zealand offices to find out what the cheapest possible flights from New Zealand to Helsinki would have been last week. The cheapest possible flight was $3,000 per person. So for 25 people that is $75,000.

💬 Barbara Stewart: Was that business class?

No, it was the economy fare. We do not know what class they flew. The registration fee for 25 people was $21,840. In terms of accommodation—I do not know where they stayed—let us assume they stayed somewhere middle of the road. I suspect that is not the case, but if we gave them US$100 per person per night, that comes to NZ$25,729, making a grand total of $122,569.

💬 Phil Heatley: How many hip operations is that?

That is an awful lot of hip operations. Each person spent almost $5,000, and that is with very conservative estimates for their flights and their accommodation. Why, we ask—and I would like the Minister of Health to stand and answer this question at some stage—are we sending 25 people from New Zealand to find out that smoking is bad for people? Do we not already know that? It is interesting to note that China sent 20 delegates to this conference. China has 300 million smokers, and it sent 20 people to find out how to combat smoking. New Zealand has about 750,000 smokers. How many people did we send to find out that this is not a good idea? We sent 25 delegates, at a cost of $122,569. ACT says it would have been much better for this Labour Government, this “tax and grab” authoritarian Government, to have paid for only a couple of people to attend—although, judging by the programme, it is doubtful that anybody would have got anything out of it—and for those people to have reported back to their colleagues in New Zealand. Unless, of course, the Government thinks they are not capable of doing that.

I suppose the country is wondering a little—perhaps not a lot—why it is that the National Party and the ACT party want to get into bed with one another. Why was it that Murray McCully decided to get along to the ACT party conference and start to talk up the idea of some sort of a coalition, beginning with some sort of non-hostility pact? Why might that have occurred? Well, it is not too difficult to work out that Mr McCully, who loves to be on the winning side, can see that Bill English is not cutting it. He sees that Dr Brash—God help us all!—is the one who has to move into the position of leading the National Party in the future, perhaps not for long into the future, and that Dr Brash and the ACT party have got a compatibility that is not as existent between Mr English and the ACT party. So that is probably why Murray McCully went along, and that is probably why, before he went, he did not ask Bill English whether he could go. He just told him he was going.

What happened then was that when Mr McCully started to be interviewed on some of his thinking at the second-tier level, we realised that actually it is a candidate-renegotiation deal that they are thinking about, and all of a sudden the light goes on and says that even now Mr McCully cannot tell the difference between first past the post and MMP. A candidate-negotiation deal, for example, might say: “Let’s have no ACT candidate standing in Murray McCully’s seat. After all, his majority is not that flash. After all, the demography of his seat is changing on him. After all, the Labour Party is more popular now than it was even in the election. After all, Mr McCully probably thinks that the cool wind of change is blowing up his majority.”

When we get down to the second tier we find that this non-hostility pact has got a little bit to do with the “Save Murray McCully” view of life, but actually it is irrelevant. Last night’s TV3 poll, amongst all the things it showed us, showed that the preferred Prime Minister ranking gained by the National Party is now half that gained by New Zealand First, although a National-ACT alliance, of course, would mean there would be a National leader of that alliance, not an ACT leader. The reason for that is very straightforward. It is that no matter how unpopular Bill English is these days—and he is really unpopular—no one in this House is as unpopular as Mr Prebble, so Mr English or Dr Brash must win that particular campaign. But it is irrelevant anyway, because it is New Zealand First that is starting to show through. It is New Zealand First that is making the biggest noise in the House, and getting the biggest gains.

So we have an impossible split on the far side of the House. It is sufficiently impossible that Nick Smith will be in Opposition for a long time to come—9 long years. Do not even think about it; go to double figures and beyond! Roger Sowry will be standing against Darren Hughes’ daughter before he wins office again, and Tony Ryall will be talking about 15 or 18 long years in Opposition if, indeed, he learns how not to dribble into his whisky. The long and short of it is that the splits and divisions on the far side of the House are irreconcilable and deep.

There is no point in saying that Mr Williamson has to take the rap; that has not made, and will not make, a drop of difference. He was not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is that in politics if one does not stand for something, one should not stand. That is a lesson the National Party has yet to learn. New Zealand First knows what it stands for. The ACT party knows what it stands for. The Green Party knows what it stands for. National does not know what it stands for—and that is why it is garnering no support. The great party of the 20th century is about to become the third party in this House, if it is not careful. That is a remarkable event. I tell National Party members to forget about the ACT party for the moment, forget about Mr Williamson for the moment, and forget about treaty post-outs and the whole lot of campaigns they are running on agricultural emissions tax. They should forget about all that and ask themselves what the National Party stands for, because the public, for the moment, has a great big zip alongside the answer to that question.

We know how effective the Leader of the Opposition is when every single Labour member who speaks in the general debate insists on giving a speech about him. That is a credit to him. The previous speaker asked what unites the National and ACT parties. It is wanting to get rid of stupid Ministers like Pete Hodgson, who wants to put a tax on the most silly of things: the flatulence of sheep and cows. That is unbelievable.

The member asked what National stands for. Well, we stand for one standard of citizenship. One of the key issues before the public of New Zealand right now is who owns the foreshore and the seabed. Members on the Opposition side of the House are absolutely clear that the Crown—the public of New Zealand—owns the foreshore and the seabed. I challenge Mr Hodgson to tell us where Labour stands. Can Mr Hughes tell me Labour’s position on who owns the foreshore and the seabed?

💬 Darren Hughes: Keep your diary free for Monday!

Oh, I see. Well, the problem is, Mr Hughes, that we were told 7 weeks ago by Helen Clark that legislation would be introduced to state that it is owned by the Crown. The Government does not know what to do; it is confused. In the very polls that Government members are so keen to quote, 68 percent of New Zealanders believe the Government has flunked that issue.

Then we have the disgraceful conduct of the Minister for Land Information. As Helen Clark’s little helper, he hopped out last week and made the extraordinary claim that thousands of kilometres of the foreshore are in private ownership. He repeated that on Wednesday, on Thursday, and again on Friday. Even yesterday in the House the Minister for Land Information stuck to his line that huge amounts of the foreshore are privately owned. Why was that significant? It was significant because the Government’s spin was this: if private New Zealanders own the foreshore, what is the big deal if Māori own it? That was the devious strategy of the Minister for Land Information, but we caught him out.

Finally, even the Prime Minister had to admit that her own Minister had got it all wrong. I do not think there is a member in this House who now has any doubt that for 7 days the Minister for Land Information has been telling porkies about the ownership of the foreshore. Last Tuesday he said we should wait for the land access report to come out, which would show all that foreshore was in private ownership. We have looked through all 111 pages of that report, and I ask Mr Darren Hughes where it refers to Mr John Tamihere’s claim that one-third of the beaches are in private ownership. It surely is not in those 111 pages. The Minister for Land Information, and even more extraordinarily, the Minister of Statistics, has it all wrong.

Thirty-eight claims have now been made through the Māori Land Court for exclusive titles to areas of foreshore. We now have over 6,000 kilometres claimed, and still we have no answer from this Government as to how it will prevent huge areas of New Zealand beaches from going into private ownership through the Māori Land Court. I simply challenge the next Labour member to back up what Helen Clark and Margaret Wilson said, which was that they would legislate for Crown and public ownership of those beaches and foreshore. Seven weeks ago National said that that should occur; National has been saying that over and over again. That is what 68,000 New Zealanders have said, in responding to our electronic petition. This Parliament should get on and do that.

I challenge the Government to stop fudging. I ask Helen Clark where all her strong leadership is, when it comes to standing up to the Māori caucus. How come, 7 weeks ago, we were told that we would get legislation to fix this issue—

💬 Jill Pettis: We just don’t stand up; we consult and listen.

Oh, well, if those members consult and listen, perhaps they would like to talk to Margaret Wilson and get her to explain why she said, 3 days after the Court of Appeal ruling, that the Government would legislate for Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed. The member has shut up now. I would, too, because the Prime Minister has messed things up. This Government does not know where it stands. The Prime Minister has shown an appalling lack of leadership on an issue of fundamental importance, and the member needs to explain that.

It really was very interesting to listen to the Opposition member, because the one thing the Prime Minister does is to show leadership. We know that the Leader of the Opposition, who is now third in the polls, is showing very little leadership.

I received a little postcard in my letterbox this week with a picture of Bill English on it, which I understand cost the taxpayer $15,000—

💬 Jill Pettis: How much?

It cost $15,000 to send postcards out all over New Zealand, and that did not include the postage to get them back again. Those postcards were sent out and I was quite upset at receiving one, because I believe the postcard pits New Zealander against New Zealander. I am surprised that the Leader of the Opposition has put his photograph, let alone his name, on that postcard. Given the things that I have heard him say in other contexts, I was ashamed to receive it—ashamed that a New Zealander should put out that kind of postcard containing, shall I say, such brief information as to be unfactual. I was ashamed that it should have come in my letterbox, and that the Leader of the Opposition should be pitting New Zealander against New Zealander. I found it entirely embarrassing.

We had another example of that last week, with the attack on Mr Duynhoven. I have a lot of people in and around my electorate whose surname begins with Van Der. There are an awful lot of “Van Der This”, “Van Der That”, and Van Der Heydens and so on in the Waikato. Those people came to New Zealand in the 1950s and happen to be the leading lights in our dairy industry. They were embarrassed at what some of the people in the Opposition were saying around Mr Duynhoven’s attempt to claim his Dutch citizenship. I think that should be very embarrassing for the Leader of the Opposition, as well—pitting New Zealander against New Zealander, once again.

Then we had the whole issue of the agricultural gas emissions levy. I hear that some people demonstrated outside Parliament today. I understand that the ACT party organised a demonstration, and that there were more media present than demonstrators—

💬 Jill Pettis: Not a gumboot in sight!

There was not a gumboot or a farmer in sight, as far as I could tell. One could count the number of people on both hands. They were all the people who are supposed to be terribly, terribly upset about the agricultural gas emissions levy, which, let us face it, will cost the average farmer about $300 a year.

Anybody who read Mr Oram’s article in the Sunday paper the week before last would have seen that there has been a great deal of consultation about that levy. The recommendation came from the Primary Industries Council, which represents farmers. The recommendation regarding the research money came from its consultation, whereby it hired scientists who recommended that $8.4 million could come from that levy. That is why so few people were demonstrating outside Parliament today.

Mr Smith asked what the point was in attacking Mr English. He said that we should talk about some good things, and asked what Labour stands for. There are four main things—health, education, housing, and jobs. We have talked about the primary health organisations, and we know they are making good progress in New Zealand. On the subject of education, I am glad that Mr Mallard has spoken in this debate. I have visited a number of schools, and have found the schools have never been happier. They say that Mr Mallard is doing an excellent job, and they are very pleased with their 10-year plans. I have seen some wonderful building going on, some new classrooms, and some great developments, and the schools are saying that they have never had a better Minister. So I thank Mr Mallard for the work that he is doing.

Would members believe that we have also had some criticism of the fact that Mr Maharey wants to get the long-term unemployed off the dole? We know that we have got unemployment down to 4.9 percent, and I am glad that Mr Maharey is not sitting back on his laurels. He is not satisfied with that, and he is working on getting people who have been unemployed long term off the dole, because those people are still there.

Housing is the fourth thing I want to talk about. We brought in income-related rents, and that was a great thing. The previous National Government sold off 13,000 State houses, and the people in my electorate who are on a waiting list for a State house ask me why on earth it did that. The present Government is working with local government on housing issues, and is coming up with plans. Last week Mr Maharey brought in the mortgage insurance pilot scheme, to help low-income families and families with young children into homes. That scheme will give stability in our community.

A very predictable sound is coming out of Auckland today, and it is the sound of the chickens coming home to roost. It is not a pleasant sound, but it is the day of reckoning for this Government. Someone in this duplicitous gang of political garbage collectors has to stand up to admit to the people that he or she was wrong. It is time for the Prime Minister and her Cabinet to beat their breasts, from which the milk of human kindness has long ceased to run, and to confess to their political sins.

For 10 long years New Zealand First has warned of the dangers of bringing in hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures and dumping them in New Zealand, and particularly in Auckland. Pensioners are being rack-rated to pay for the follies of this foolish Government. The Government, of course, blames the Auckland Regional Council for the skyrocketing rates rises. But the blame for that rests fairly and squarely on the Government, whereby citizen Clark and her cronies work on reconstructing Auckland in the image of Calcutta and Hong Kong. The infrastructure of Auckland is collapsing under the weight of Third World immigrants and students coming here, to be exploited by both New Zealanders and their fellow countrymen. The people of Auckland can blame this Government for their transport problems, the decline of their social services, and the explosive costs in the housing market.

Things are so bad that even the Chinese Government, of all things, is worried about the problems caused by the Asian crime wave hitting Auckland, which the Prime Minister and the Minister of Police deny has been happening. Members should look at the front page of the Dominion Post today. It is great, is it not? The Dominion Post has discovered that there is an Asian crime wave. [Interruption] But that is the Dominion Post. We read of kidnappings, killings, extortion, prostitution, drugs, and loan sharks, all of which Helen Clark and her followers have repeatedly denied. I suppose that now the Chinese Government will also be accused of being racist, for even raising the issue of Asian crime. The police cannot handle the situation.

To be fair, though, two of the Government’s policy changes are really working. Hundreds of new Asian prostitutes are coming to work in the new Asian brothels that are being set up in this country. That is Lianne Dalziel’s idea of matching immigrants to jobs—jobs created by legalising prostitution. The Minister of Immigration, the employment Minister, and this feminist Government must be really proud of themselves with regard to what is happening to Asian women in this country. The Government must be proud of its feminism and of what it claims to stand for. This is its vision of giving Asian women a chance to improve their lives in this great land of opportunity. Let us not mind about the crime syndicates—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who wrote this?

I am able to write my own speech, unlike the member over there on the Government benches. Let us not mind the drug dealers, the pimps, and the other riff-raff who hang around that sordid industry. Those enterprising business people are combing New Zealand towns and cities in search of their new brothel sites. We are on the slope towards the Third World now, and this Government is responsible for our decline. Normal New Zealanders are aghast when they look at the strange, odd people who clutter up the Government benches and make strange decisions.

It is time for a diet of sanity in New Zealand politics, and we will force-feed it to the doctrinaire weirdoes over there on the Government benches as soon as they fly the white flag. Our message is very clear. Mr Hodgson said that the great lesson of politics is that if one does not stand for something, one should not stand—and he is right. However, the second great lesson of politics is that if what one stands for is the wrong thing, then one will most certainly go. Today we in New Zealand First say to all those people who are hurt by this Government, who are prejudiced by its policies in respect of race, who are denied by this Government, who are made poor by this Government, who are overtaxed by this Government, who are excessively rated because of this Government, who are sick and homeless because of this Government, and who are uneducated and unskilled and made second-class citizens in their own country by this Government, that they should hang on, and not give up. New Zealand First is rising in the polls, and the Government will not stop us now. Help is on its way.

The learned member who preceded me made the statement that if one stands for the wrong thing, then one will certainly go. Anyone who reads the papers in Hawke’s Bay will realise that that member must have stood for the wrong thing at some stage. He has certainly gone from the pages of the Hawke’s Bay papers, where he has been replaced by the “member for Courtenay Place”. We see the strength of our policy in Hawke’s Bay today when the papers write about the “member for Courtenay Place”.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know one of my colleagues is speaking, but I think that referring to the Hon Winston Peters in that way is not appropriate. He is the member for Tauranga or the leader of the New Zealand First Party. While that term may be common parlance amongst the police and other people who frequent the area in question, it is not appropriate for it to be used in the House.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That is a perfectly valid point of order. The member is the leader of New Zealand First. He should be referred to as Mr Peters or as the member for Tauranga.

I accept that, and I thank you. I was referring to how the papers write about certain members. What is significant is that New Zealand First has no profile in Hawke’s Bay.

When we visit the electors of Hawke’s Bay, as we do regularly, we find three issues emerge. Not one of those issues is about good leadership by the National Party, or about any policy advanced by New Zealand First. Instead, people in our district talk about health, and they do so in terms of two tangents. The first is the deceit practised by the previous National Government during the 1990s, which made promises to retain the hospital on the hill at Napier. Meanwhile, the closure process was in train. That drew headlines. People in Napier recognise that the health system run under the Minister of Health, Annette King, is working. Every person one speaks to in Hawke’s Bay who has experience of the health services in Napier speaks loudly of the service he or she is receiving from Hawke’s Bay Regional Hospital and of the services being delivered at the ground level. Every person looks forward to the formation of the primary health organisation.

The second issue that people talk about in Hawke’s Bay is education. People talk about it in glowing terms, whether one goes to primary schools or secondary schools, or to the doorstep of householders. Children are receiving education in their schools, and are bringing home work that gives the adults in Napier great hope for the future. Children are receiving a rounded education. They are learning about tolerance, about biculturalism and multiculturalism, about how to train for jobs, about how to broaden their minds, and about how make worthwhile interjections that are intelligible.

The third matter that we hear about is employment. In Hawke’s Bay, unemployment is at a record low and employment is at a record high. In Hawke’s Bay if one wants a job, one can find a job. We have portrayed the new initiative by this Government to help people into employment. But that initiative has been misportrayed by the press that is owned out of Hawke’s Bay, which has stated that people living in rural areas will have to move to the city for jobs. That is absolutely incorrect. If one lives in a rural area where there is no work that is suitable in terms of a person’s background, he or she is not required to uplift his or her family and move into a city. Someone who moves to a rural area to avoid employment is, of course, answerable for that. On the streets and in the households of Napier, people are very positive about their employment prospects.

That all adds up to a sound and stable economy. It is no wonder that in the TV3 poll of earlier this week, 44 percent—over twice the next estimate—thought that the economy of this country would improve over the next 3 months. That is despite the doomsayers in this House and in the press, who indicate that we are riding a lucky wave. When I speak to people on their doorsteps, they tell me that they know this economy is well managed. They know that this country is well managed. They identify as a good leader someone who is a capable leader, and 83 percent of the people who responded to the TV3 poll described our Prime Minister as a capable leader. They want a leader who is down-to-earth, and 74 percent of the people who responded to the TV3 poll saw our leader as being that.

What a terrible speech that was. When people from Hawke’s Bay write to me about the health system, all that they talk about is that they cannot get their hips, knees, or hernias fixed. One nurse who has worked at the hospital for years cannot get a truss. They are not made any more, because in every modern society except for New Zealand people have operations to fix their hernias—but not under this Government. One cannot get a hernia fixed any more.

That was a terrible speech. The member talked about people welcoming the primary health organisations, but people do not even have any idea as to what a primary health organisation is. People have no idea about enrolment; they do not know what the member is even talking about. But one thing that people do know is that their doctors will leave, because they absolutely hate that system. The member then went on to talk about education, but not once did he mention educational achievement, excellence, or kids doing well in New Zealand society. No, he talked about conformity, and about everybody being the same. What a hopeless member he is!

Last Friday we had 300 people turn up in Blenheim, packing out the Wesley Centre, where there was standing room only. Why did they come? They came to hear the Hon Bill English, because they know that Bill English has a message for them, which is that there will be no deals on the ownership of the foreshore and seabed. The title to those areas belongs to the Crown and not to anybody else, and this Government should have done something about it. It did something about minerals; it came out straight away and said that minerals belong to the Crown. Everybody was given certainty about that, and there was no fuss or bother, so why did the Government not do the same with regard to the seabed issue? It said initially that it would, but Helen Clark and her Government have backed off that ever since. The Government has backed right off behind closed doors, shutting the public out.

The people of Marlborough want to know that the seabed and foreshore will remain in the ownership of the Crown, and that people will have access to them. I grew up in the Marlborough Sounds, and I think everybody should have the right to be able to pull up a kayak on a beach, and to go fishing. The Crown should own the title to the foreshore and the seabed.

People have had enough of this Government and its spin. I call it the “Tamihere principle”, whereby one moves the decimal point. That is now a symbol of Government spin, and it is absolutely appalling. John Tamihere tried to cloud the issue. He tried to tell us that a whole lot of the foreshore and seabed was in private hands, but he made that up. He had no facts to back that up, because the amount of foreshore and seabed that is in private hands is about less than 1 percent. That member has been backing down in this House ever since he said that, but he will not stand up like a man and say he got it wrong. He just obfuscates the issue the whole time.

People say to me that Australia looks pretty attractive. People in Australia do not say they are Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal; they say they are Australians. I am proud to be a New Zealander, and I want New Zealanders to say they are proud to be New Zealanders, no matter what their race or ethnic background may be. Kath Hemi said to us at that meeting in Blenheim: “We are one country, but two different peoples; I am black and you are white.” But there are actually more than two different peoples in this country. There are masses of different people in this country from different ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions. We are all New Zealanders, and that is what is important. We need to concentrate on that.

In order to all be New Zealanders, we have to have one standard of citizenship, and that is what National and Bill English stand for. We need to have one standard of citizenship under the law. I am proud to be a New Zealander, so I want everybody to understand we stand for that. National has gone all around New Zealand standing up for one standard of citizenship, and that is why we had 300 people in that hall—we could not fit any more in; it was packed out to the gunwales. It was a really serious debate on the issues. People came to hear us talk about who owns the seabed and the foreshore, and that has to be the Crown. People need to have the uncertainty removed.

What an extraordinary speech from somebody who offers herself as a potential Cabinet Minister in New Zealand. That was the woman who stood up in Parliament and said that the Australian treatment of the Aboriginal people over the years was the perfect match for race relations in New Zealand. She said that people had to go to Australia to see how the Aboriginal people are treated—

💬 Dr Lynda Scott: Point of order, Mr Speaker—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No, that is not a point of order.

💬 Dr Lynda Scott: Yes, it is.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: At the end of the speech the member can raise a point of misrepresentation; she cannot raise a point of order just to disagree with something.

💬 Dr Lynda Scott: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek clarification. If someone is very clearly misrepresenting another member, I believe that misrepresentation is a point of order under the Standing Orders.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Yes it is—at the end of the member’s speech.

The member has proved my point: she will never sit in Cabinet, and she will sit on the front bench of the Opposition for only a short time longer, because she gets cleaned up in the health debate every single day by the Hon Annette King. She has not suggested a single health initiative to try to improve the well-being of New Zealanders. She is silent on any alternative for how to run the health system. She comes into the House and just carps, whinges, and whines about low-income New Zealanders getting more health access. She has nothing to contribute. She started off her speech by criticising Russell Fairbrother. What an absolute joke!

Today I want to talk about leadership, not just of the National Party but across the three parties that make up the Opposition, because, in my opinion, it is a coalition of the falling. It is a coalition of the falling every single time an opinion poll comes out. Mr Prebble has suggested a three-way coalition, involving National, New Zealand First, and ACT. The problem for those three parties is that, based on last night’s opinion poll, their total support equals half that of the Labour Party. Those are the kinds of parties that offer themselves as an alternative, and they are going nowhere. Their problem is their leadership—Bill English, Winston Peters, and Richard Prebble.

Mr English is increasingly showing why he is too unstable for leadership of the National Party. Increasingly, we are seeing the quick temper and the anger come out from Mr English. We now daily watch him in the House, screaming and ranting instead of giving a speech. We are not seeing him offer any ideas; he just yells, loses his temper, and shows how he is out of touch with what New Zealanders want. We see in the opinion poll that only 5 percent of people rated him as somebody who was performing well in his job; 95 percent do not give him that rating. He is surrounded in his leadership team by his brat-pack mates, and people ought to remember that when those four brat-pack MPs arrived, the National Party spread itself around this Chamber with 47 percent of the vote. Today, now that those members are in charge of the leadership of the National Party, it sits on 21 percent of the vote, and it is back in a little corner of the House—a corner that is receding as New Zealand First comes up and bites at its heels.

What is happening with Mr Peters? He now has double the support that Mr English has as preferred Prime Minister, and that is what is making Bill English angrier and angrier, and making him take more and more extreme positions. I think the poll result that he will be most disappointed in is that relating to the question: “Is the leader in touch with the needs of Māori?” Seventy-five percent of poll respondents said “No”. I think that when Bill English reflects on that, he will be very, very sad, because how did he get the leadership of the National Party? He got it by saying that the National Party had to become a broader church to get more votes. He said it had to reflect the new New Zealand, which was browner, younger, and more different from the National Party of old. Those were the ideals he brought to the leadership of the National Party. But now that he has got the job, he is going after the Māori people and attacking them in order to try to get some headlines. That is the part of the poll result that I think he will find most displeasing.

Then we come to the leader of the low-polling threshold party, the ACT party. That is the party that knows all about getting taxpayer funds to use for what it wants and has the audacity, as shown by Heather Roy’s speech, to criticise public servants for going on public policy exercises while its members sit in the House without expelling Donna Awatere Huata because they want her cash for running their office. Very recently, Mr Prebble was in my electorate. I say “my electorate” because I notice that the National Party debate was led off by Roger Sowry, who talks as though he is in touch with New Zealanders despite the fact that he is a three-time loser in that seat and cannot get any votes from people. National Party voters give their party vote to the National Party and vote for the Labour candidate because they know what a hopeless local MP he would be.

Mr Prebble rolled up to Levin to promote his book, Liberal Thinking. He rolled up to McLeods Paper Plus in Oxford Street only to find that nobody, despite advertising, had turned up to buy his book. Mr Prebble was a bit put out by that, but it gets worse: the bookshop owners knew his book would be so unpopular that they had not ordered any copies, at all. There were no copies of his book available to buy in the bookshop. That is how relevant the ACT party has become.

Under Standing Order 107, I believe that I was misrepresented by the last speaker. He said that I had said that the Aboriginal people had been treated well. I have never said that. What I said was that Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Australia consider themselves to be Australian, whatever their ethnic background, and we should consider ourselves to be New Zealanders.

Like the Hon Peter Dunne, I intend to speak about the Health Committee report on cannabis. Unlike him, I intend to talk about what the report actually states, because it is a very, very useful report and it gives us a clear answer to a number of questions that have been confused for some time.

First of all, the report deals with the question of how dangerous cannabis is. It states very clearly that moderate use of cannabis carries low risk of harm and that heavy, chronic, and under-age use carries significant risk of harm. It also refers to the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine in the United States, both of which state that cannabis use is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. It states that the most effective public health strategy to deal with the harms associated with cannabis is a harm-minimisation approach, and it is quite critical of the punitive approach taken by many schools in relation to suspensions for cannabis. It states clearly that the aim of cannabis legislation should be to focus on preventing under-age use. It also states that policy should avoid criminalising non-problematic cannabis users. It is very critical of prohibition. It states that prohibition does not reduce cannabis use; that it makes targeting education more difficult, facilitates the black market, and potentially exposes cannabis users to harder drugs. Given the significant problem we have in this country with the increased use of methamphetamine, Parliament should take that issue very seriously.

The report also makes recommendations about how progress can be made. Some of the issues included are the things that can happen without legislative change in the present Parliament, such as medicinal use, increased diversion, and the possibility of reclassification of cannabis. It also suggests ways of keeping the momentum for legislative change going by asking the Justice and Electoral Committee to recommend an appropriate legal status for cannabis. Of course, this is in line with an international tide of cannabis law reform. We see it happening in Canada, Britain, Australia, Switzerland, Germany—a number of places. Those in this House who oppose sensible cannabis laws are like King Canute trying to hold back the tide, because the evidence that cannabis prohibition does not reduce use but creates significant problems of its own is very, very clear.

I finish my speech with a challenge to the Hon Peter Dunne in the House today. For a so-called sensible, moderate man with family values, Mr Dunne has subjected me to an extraordinarily high level of vicious personal abuse in the media. Over the last few years, Mr Dunne has made a number of vicious personal attacks. His most amusing one was saying that I am involved in a seemingly obsessive campaign to make dope smoking retrospectively compulsory. I am wondering whether he was suggesting we go back in time and force people to smoke cannabis, because that would seem to be the implication of his statement. It is crucial that we have an honest, open debate in this country on cannabis policy. It has to be based on facts and on the evidence, and it has to be conducted in an adult fashion. I challenge Mr Dunne to front up in the House today—if he really believes what he has said—and debate the issue of cannabis law reform with me publicly. I will do that in his own electorate. I challenge him in this House to take up the challenge and put up the evidence in order to allow the people to decide. I believe it is time to stop the personal abuse on this issue. It is time to grow up and to start playing the ball, rather than the man.

Most people in this country agree that we need a sensible policy on cannabis. We all agree that we need to discourage under-age use, because there are serious, significant problems associated with it. We all agree that we need to provide better education and treatment both to prevent and delay use of cannabis and to provide help for those few people who do have significant problems. Most people agree that prohibition does not work as a policy. As I have already said, the evidence is very clear that prohibition does not reduce levels of cannabis use but causes significant problems of its own. Legislation should never create more harm than the behaviour it is trying to stop. That should be a fundamental policy.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.