Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

I move, That this House has no confidence in the Labour-led Government because that Government has no policies to raise New Zealand’s living standards back to the mid part of the OECD; it complacently accepts more than 300,000 working-age adults being dependent on benefits, and it continues down the dangerous road of promoting policies that treat New Zealanders differently on the basis of their race.

When I entered politics, I made it clear that I was not interested in trading insults with the Prime Minister. I was not interested in trading sarcasm with either the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister, and I intend to stick with that. Let me say that the Prime Minister’s speech was strong on how the bounty of a buoyant economy could be distributed as bribes to voters who might be inclined to vote for the Government. It was strong on slogans. It was strong on social policies that diminish the distinction between work and welfare. It was strong on entrenching racial divisions within the institutions of our society. This is a Government that taxes New Zealanders rapaciously, and then, rather belatedly, gives them a little back. If this is all the Prime Minister is offering New Zealand, then our future is surely bleak indeed.

There was no sign in the speech of any awareness that New Zealand’s future is threatened by the gap between our living standards and those in Australia and other developed countries. Thirty years back, New Zealand and Australia had similar standards of living. Today, Australia’s living standard is about 30 percent higher than that of New Zealand. The consequence is that in each of the last 5 years, on average, 30,000 more New Zealanders have left these shores than have come back. That is a net loss of 30,000 New Zealanders a year in each of the last 5 years.

Just last month we saw a front-page headline that pointed out that New Zealand was losing, on average, 400 doctors a year overseas. That compares with about 250 doctors a year trained in New Zealand. We are getting an exodus, amounting to a flood, of competent New Zealanders going abroad because of that gap in living standards.

There was no recognition in the speech either that the good growth the Prime Minister spoke about had nothing whatsoever to do with the policies of her Government. The good growth we have seen in the last 10 years—which was, in per capita terms, about three times faster than the growth we had in the 1970s and 1980s—was a consequence partly, as the OECD pointed out just a month or two back, of the policies put in place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was partly a consequence of the fall in the exchange rate, which began I think in early 1997—Mr Peters is not here, but he was Treasurer—and continued through 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. It had nothing to do with the present Government at all, but hugely benefited provincial New Zealand. That growth had quite a bit to do with the fact that people from countries poorer than New Zealand thought it worthwhile moving here, so we have had a domestic housing boom.

Modesty prevents me from commenting on monetary policy 18 months back, but the growth we have had bears no relationship to anything that this Government has done. Indeed, there is no awareness that almost every policy relevant to the economy that this Government has put in place has slowed the economy’s growth. We look at compliance costs. Business New Zealand held a survey about August last year, which showed that of the 760 firms surveyed, 746 firms, or 98 percent, felt that compliance costs had gone up during the previous 12-month period, 11 thought they had remained about the same, and four felt they had gone down.

We had an amendment to the Resource Management Act last year. It totally failed to deal with the problems in that legislation. The Government made a big song and dance about roading in its package in December. It was said that there would be an extra $162 million a year for Auckland, but of course that money does not start going to Auckland until next year. Even added to the money that is already committed for Auckland, the Automobile Association estimates that at the moment only about half the funds required to fix the Auckland transport problem have been spoken for. Half the funds required are at this point allocated, and none of it starts going there until next year.

The Government has left the company tax rate at one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, and, in particular, higher than the Australian rate. The Government has sat quietly by as our closest trading partners—the United States and Australia—signed the heads of agreement on a free-trade agreement. It is hugely serious for New Zealand’s future that we are outside that deal. There is no apparent concern on the part of the Government.

We had to feel virtuous, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, in ratifying the Kyoto agreement, and we see the consequences. This morning’s Dominion Post points out that we have enough coal in New Zealand to keep our energy costs amongst the lowest in the world for the next 300 or 400 years—if we are willing to use coal. But of course the Government says no, we cannot do that.

We know that the Holidays Act will hugely increase costs for many businesses. I was talking to one business person just the other day, who told me that because his workers have to work on statutory holidays, the cost per worker has risen from $408 a day to $658 a day. It is a cost to that business of $600,000 a year. The Government cries crocodile tears about the effect of the exchange rate on export businesses, and dumps additional costs all over them. Now, of course, we have the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill, which will add substantially to the risks that small businesses face in running their businesses. We propose to oppose that with everything we have.

The Government used to profess a concern to raise our living standards to the average of developed countries. The speech from the Prime Minister was remarkably silent about that. She mentions that objective only once, and a bit more Government-funded childcare is the way in which she proposes to raise our living standards to the mid-point of the OECD. Apart from that, there is no reference to anything constructive that might help.

The Government also shows no signs at all of backing off its racially divisive policies. There are no signs at all of it being willing to deal with New Zealanders on the basis of need and not on the basis of race. There is no sign at all of ending the patronising and condescending attitude to Māori New Zealanders that has the Government treating them differently from the rest of the community, and the Local Government Act is the best example of that that I have seen. Members will recall that that Act requires local governments to deal with their communities, consult with their communities, and with Māori—as if somehow Māori were not part of the community.

There is no sign, either, of an end to the Government’s duplicity in saying one thing to Māori New Zealanders and a different thing to non-Māori New Zealanders. Members will recall that we first saw that last year, when the Government put out a pamphlet in Māori dealing with the Local Government Act and a rather different pamphlet in English dealing with that Act, and had every intention of distributing those pamphlets until we pointed out that they were different.

Of course, the Solicitor-General has now revealed that the Government has been telling less than the full truth to non-Māori New Zealanders about the veto power it is proposing to give to Māori New Zealanders over the use of the seabed and the foreshore. It is interesting that the Prime Minister’s speech has only two short sentences dealing with that very important issue.

So what would I have wanted to see in the Prime Minister’s statement? First, I would have liked to see a commitment to policies that would accelerate our growth rate, and not allow a deceleration of our growth rate—as Treasury is now projecting for the next 10 years. I would have liked to see a serious commitment to reduce compliance costs, and to getting our corporate tax rate down to at least on a par with the Australian company tax rate. I would have liked to see the scrapping of the proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act that will certainly be a major nightmare for the business sector. I would have liked to see measures to fix the roading problems, so that the whole country, from Auckland, down south, and, indeed, up north—having been to Whangarei last week—can get moving again. I would have liked to see some serious commitment made to fixing the Resource Management Act. I would have liked to see some serious attempt to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Secondly, I would have liked to see a commitment to fixing the education system, so that we do not have children coming out of school unable to read, write, or do basic arithmetic. Every child deserves the right to get the best education of which he or she is capable. I would certainly not be wanting to see the promotion of the highly centralised education system where schools are closed at the whim of the Minister. Within the last 2 weeks, the Minister of Education has marked 68 schools for closure.

Thirdly, I would have liked to see a commitment to fix the welfare system, so that it becomes impossible for able-bodied people to sit at home idle indefinitely. Today, despite the fact that apple orchardists cannot get people to pick their crops and foresters cannot get people to prune their trees, more than 300,000 adults of working age sit at home on a benefit, costing the taxpayer $20 million a day, or nearly $1 million an hour.

Fourthly, I would have liked to see a commitment to take vigorous steps to make New Zealanders safe in their homes, and a serious attempt to deal with drugs. I want to see the Proceeds of Crime Act changed so that convicted drug dealers will have to prove where they got their assets from, and if they cannot prove that those assets were obtained legally, they should lose them. They should forfeit them, with the proceeds used to educate young people about the dangers of drugs.

Fifthly, I would like to see a commitment to ensure that all New Zealanders are equal under the law and are treated by the Government on the basis of need, not race. I want every person to have equal civil and political rights, and I will be undertaking a series of speeches around provincial New Zealand over the next few weeks to make that point strongly.

After 5 years in office, the Prime Minister herself must accept responsibility for the failings of her Government. She cannot blame individual Ministers; she has to accept responsibility herself for the continued welfare dependency, despite the buoyancy of the economy she alluded to in her speech; for the continued failure of our school system to get to grips with illiteracy and innumeracy; for the rapid escalation of drug-related crime, and for the increase in racial tension that we see in New Zealand. Māori New Zealanders are being led to believe that they have different rights from other New Zealanders. Non-Māori New Zealanders are beginning to resent that, and that is a hugely dangerous situation.

The Prime Minister should also take responsibility, after 5 year’s office, for the fact that we have failed to see any lift in our growth-rate trend, with Treasury, as I indicated a moment ago, predicting a slow-down in that growth. The lift we got in the 1990s was a result of policies put in place by the last National Government. We are not seeing any advances made to improve growth for the future.

I want a New Zealand where every child grows up loved in a two-parent family, where every child has the best possible education, and where everybody who wants to work can get a job. I want a New Zealand where everybody can get access to the health care they need; where everybody in need gets support from his or her fellow citizens; where everybody can feel safe in his or her home; where the standard of living is equal to that of Australians, and where all New Zealanders, regardless of race, are treated equally under the law. With National, New Zealand can be the best country in the world.

There are times in this Parliament when one is truly moved by the eloquence of impassioned and sincere speeches given by inspired orators who lift the standard of this place and give it purpose and meaning for which the public is truly grateful. Thus far, this has not been such an occasion. First of all, the Prime Minister’s speech reeked of smugness and complacency, while the response on my right was a B-grade speech, read out by a B-grade leader of a B-grade team, and drafted by a B-grade research team.

It was devoid of feeling, devoid of fact, and devoid of memory. A lot of what the National Party leader just said was both true and new. Unfortunately, what was true was not new, and what was new was, sadly, not true. It was the verbal equivalent of the Prime Minister being mobbed and mauled by a chihuahua.

We all know there is an arsenal of ammunition for a political assault on the Prime Minister’s statement. The Prime Minister once again failed to deal with the issues that worry the majority of the New Zealand people. Hers was an appeal to apathy and offers no hope. Our inexorable slide to the Third World continues, and every economist knows it. Issues like the soaring cost of electricity, and a Minister who promises to add 15 percent on top of that; the simple fact that the cost of running a car has gone up. Up goes the value of our dollar, and, strangely, up goes the price of petrol. What does the Government do? It does nothing, whatsoever.

Then we have the closing of the schools—just like the scores of hospitals the Prime Minister closed when she was a former Minister of Health. We have a health system that is sick. The testimony is that women who are suffering cancer are being exported abroad for treatment. The Government has eroded the great policy that New Zealand First brought in to give free medical care to young New Zealanders.

We have a skyrocketing dollar that is on the verge of causing exporter meltdown—yet the Government is paralysed and does nothing. Don Brash challenges the Minister of Finance to intervene and then in the next breath he says: “But, of course, he can’t.” [Interruption] It is confusing, anyway. I remember when he was head of the Reserve Bank and Bill Birch was the Minister of Finance, and between 1994 and 1996 our dollar rose by 26 percent, and the Government did nothing. It is happening all over again. The Government will do nothing.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: What would you do?

I would do what I did last time—drive the dollar down. All the evidence is there. The recovery of provincial New Zealand is owed to that fact, and members opposite know it. So one wonders from whence comes the conceit to suggest that the Prime Minister is the victim of her own success as a popular and competent Prime Minister. History, of course—when the press gallery have stopped being so effervescent about it all—will take a different view. Already the signs of failure are growing behind the feel-good facade, the spin, and the propaganda carefully cultivated by the Ministers and their minders. It is a facade of prosperity, but it is born on the back of the politics of consumption, and it will not last. We see a property boom that has as its key driver wholesale, open-door immigration. That will not last. But, try as it might, nothing can obscure the fact that this Government is failing on the most fundamental issues.

Our standard of living against the OECD countries is in decline. Nothing that Labour has done or what the Prime Minister said today can stop that. Our quality of life as New Zealanders is deteriorating every day, and nothing that the Prime Minister has said today or Labour has done can stop that. More and more New Zealanders, as we all know, are today time poor—no time for their families or even their friends. Some of them are out working two and three jobs. They live now to work. They no longer work to live. Nothing that Labour has said today or done in the last 5 years can change that.

Three years ago the esteemed British publication The Economist warned as follows. It said: “New Zealand looks to be the first country in 50 years to go from the First World to the Third World”, and nothing Labour has done can stop that. It is all very well for Don Brash to refer to Australia in 1984, and the comparative growth rates between that country and ours—up one-third from New Zealand, in comparative terms, in Australia. Let me ask this question of my colleagues, those who have a memory. Who was on the other side who started the right-wing experiment of 1984, and who over here supported them? It is all very well now to say: “I’ve had some sort of economic Damascus experience.”, but it is a bit late when one is 62 years of age. Usually one has to be a young prophet before one can become an old one. Let me say that as a country we are treading water economically, and in foreign policy we have become a lonely group of islands at the bottom of the world. The former friends we once had are now purely acquaintances.

One of the issues most fundamental to any society is law and order, and if there is one area where the Government’s smugness is totally unjustified, it is there. We New Zealanders have a right to be safe in our homes and safe on our streets. It does not get much more basic than that. But Helen Clark and Labour are not much bothered about what actually happens to ordinary New Zealanders, because, in her long speech, only one paragraph was devoted to crime—one paragraph out of 97 was devoted to the most severe problem in our country.

We are being hit by a crime wave that mars the lives of tens of thousands of New Zealanders, and Helen Clark and Labour dismiss it with one paragraph of clichés. This Government’s response to crime is characterised by resignation and defeat. Its crime strategy reminds me of the song that Dusty Springfield used to sing: “… wishin’ and hopin’, and thinkin, and prayin, ” that somehow it might get better.

Well, we have had enough of the rhetoric, enough of the navel-gazing, enough of the rationalising, enough of the excuse-making, and enough of the wishing, the hoping, the thinking, and the praying. New Zealanders want action. They want the police to be out there fighting crime, not hiding in the bushes on the side of the road and taking photographs of cars going by.

Why was there nothing new about tackling crime in the Prime Minister’s speech? Unless the Government takes drastic action, crime will go on increasing, crime will be a paying proposition, and crime will take on new and ever-increasing dangerous dimensions, such as the infiltration and growth of Māori gangs and Asian gangs. Let us face an unpleasant fact: the biggest growth industry under this Government is prostitution—and child prostitution. Girls as young as 14 are working in the brothels established under this Government.

I turn now to the Treaty of Waitangi. For Labour and its acolytes, the treaty is the measure of all things—the Holy Grail, the touchstone, the alpha and omega. It is everything. But for National after Orewa the treaty is to be air-brushed out of history, like one of Stalin’s henchmen who has been denounced. I want to ask these questions, after Orewa, of every journalist who has half a memory: who was it—own up, please—who gave Doug Graham a knighthood, and what was the justification for it?

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Her Majesty.

Oh, now they are blaming the Queen! They have the Prime Minister’s habit. Now they are blaming Her Majesty. It is amazing, is it not? I want New Zealanders to remember, on this issue, that a leopard never changes its spots. Both Labour and National in different ways are seeking to perpetrate a massive fraud on the rest of us, on the treaty issue.

💬 John Carter: This is a bit rich.

No, I will tell members what is rich: it is having warned National for 16 long years, to have them at last take up this cause after they have done so much damage—so much carnage in respect of our social life. This year’s National leader—for the time being—rose at Orewa, in his co-called state of the nation address, seemingly oblivious to history and fact, and claimed that he and his MPs have been asking questions in Parliament about what the principles of the treaty mean. Let me ask the press gallery: is that so? Is that true; can that be a fact? I am holding here the record of questions lodged by New Zealand First—that my colleagues and I have asked—and I ask someone to pray tell me when National has asked one—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I said there were to be no interjections. I allow the odd one, because the member scores off them very well, but interjecting from behind him is not allowed.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, but I think we have had a late conversion and he is on my side now. Is that a fact? What questions are on National’s list? When has Don Brash ever asked a question, since he has been here, about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi? Members know that that leader’s record on this issue is not a syllable, not a sound, not a mutter, not a murmur. That is the record.

We are not criticising his attempt to plagiarise New Zealand First’s position on this issue. After all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. It really is. But how about an acknowledgment; how about a bit of honesty? We in New Zealand First say to National, and make it very clear: “Steal our policies if you will; we don’t mind. Steal our phrases, steal our language, steal our speeches; we don’t mind. But to be sincere on this issue one has to have courage, one has to have conviction, one has to have commitment and staying power, and one has to have an alternative vision.” What is theirs? Ours has always been Ka Awatea—a vision that National jettisoned but one we will revive. National’s record on those four things is that of a moral vacuum.

The treaty should bind us but for a long time it has become a source of division, and real leadership is needed to overcome that. We are losing sight of the fact that those who signed and supported the treaty had something back then that is in short supply today—vision. Their vision was of a united country, and a people at peace with each other, respecting and acknowledging each other.

When we look back at the world of 1840 and the record of human affairs since then, New Zealand got a far better start than anywhere else in the world. That is a fact. To Labour we say: “Stop treating the treaty like some sort of all-purpose gap filler that has to appear in all legislation, all policy, and every document.” To National we say that owning up to its own past conduct in promoting the burgeoning treaty industry is well overdue.

As for the Orewa doctrine, let us all ask ourselves this question: what doctrine disowns the daughter of New Zealand’s pre-eminent, longest-established Māori family—who gave the massive territory of Tongariro National Park to this country without any payment whatsoever as a gift for every New Zealander—and whose political record has always been one of moderation and respect? [Interruption] If Georgina te Heuheu is a radical, I would hate to see a conservative.

We say again to National, they may plagiarise our speeches, plagiarise our phrases, and plagiarise our questions in Parliament, but they will never plagiarise our principles, our courage, and our vision for this country, and our preparation to put our career as subservient to the things we believe in. For the past 16 years, we have warned about separatism and the treaty industry. National ignored those warnings and helped set it up. I know; I was there—and it is a bit rich to play Pontius Pilate today and hope that people have forgotten.

Our position in New Zealand First on the treaty industry is that it is unravelling the social fabric and cohesion of this country. We said it a long time before this “Donny come lately” came along and borrowed our speeches. In short, we in New Zealand First represent New Zealanders of all backgrounds. It is a bit rich to argue that there is no need for the Māori seats—as we argue—when they have not proven once that they intend to do anything about a fair representation of people in Parliament. Our proud record is to not just say we are for a single franchise; we have set out to prove it. I am pleased for my colleagues and this party’s supporters and its members that we have done something about it, when others merely talk.

In January this year, a Herald-DigiPoll said that far too many people were coming to this country, according to New Zealanders. The “head in the sand” Minister of Immigration should have regard to that. We know that the rate of immigration has been and continues to be excessive. We know that the Government is running a settler policy aimed at swamping our own population. When I heard the Orewa speech, I thought to myself: “What does National think about this policy?”. They want 10 million New Zealanders. They have said so—10 million. Forget about our background, heritage, ecology, and environment. Apparently it is the Business Roundtable policy and they are supporting it—simple stuff. Change a whole nation—because, one can holiday where one likes if one has money—but for ordinary New Zealander who are working, this is all they have, and we have a duty to protect it.

The Prime Minister and her colleagues prefer to live in their own, politically correct never-never land—a never-never land that throws a Sri Lankan rape victim back to the abuse from whence she came, yet spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on a suspected terrorist in New Zealand. How is that for priorities? Send home a sick teenager to the same misery from whence she sought to escape; yet keep here, at possibly now $300,000, a terrorist. How come every leader who has been briefed on this man has come to the same opinion? I cannot divulge what we were told, but right across the spectrum, we are all of the same view.

The Prime Minister has confirmed that she has lost sight, so have her colleagues, of what is important to New Zealanders. We in New Zealand First are the only party in this Parliament to commit ourselves to addressing the concerns and priorities of all New Zealanders, because we do not share this Government’s view that New Zealand is nothing more than a collection of sub-tribes—European, Māori, Pacific people, the Indian community, the Chinese community, and so on. We do not share that view. We have a vision that these people will contribute to something unique in the world called a New Zealand culture—something unique that is New Zealand. We say to the Government, therefore, give political correctness a rest and work on the basics. We say to the B team—stick to banking.

Aotearoa New Zealand begins the year 2004 with the tragic feeling that the barricades are going up between Māori and other New Zealanders. Trust is at its lowest ebb for many years. The silent sadness I witnessed at Waitangi is far more tragic than the open anger, and it will take longer to heal than the effects of a mud pie. Shortly we will be presented with legislation to override the legal process that Māori have won access to, and to declare a new title for the Crown, dressed up as public domain, over the foreshore and seabed. It offends the sense of fair play of most New Zealanders to legislate away a legal right that has been won in the courts after 8 years of due process—and let us remember this is only a legal right to have a day in court. The massive overreaction was unnecessary and unfair. It would have been simple to legislate to remove the power of the court to issue a fee simple, saleable title to foreshore and seabed but to confirm the power of the court to determine whether it could be shown to be ancestral land, which confers kaitiakitanga.

It is interesting, is it not, that when one discusses customary title on a marae, Māori talk of their responsibility to care for the land generation after generation, and to extend hospitality to visitors. When one discusses title with Europeans, they so often talk of the right to exploit and to exclude. It would still be possible to resolve the issue in a way that recognises both the mana whenua of ancestral title and the customary right of others to go to the beach. It is still possible to rebuild the trust, to heal the damaged relationship, and to create reconciliation with justice—but only by taking time, sitting down together and listening as well as talking, and being prepared to design a solution by cooperation, rather than by imposition. The outcome may even have a lot in common with what is proposed now. The important thing is the process that develops it. Without that relationship and without that trust, there can be no just resolution. Sadly, I sense that that option is not on the table.

Against that, the speech at the Orewa Rotary Club by the man in the white hat was just a diversion and a distraction. The errors of fact are hardly worth a mention. Does the National Party no longer have any researchers who can get the figures and do the simple calculation that Māori are only half as likely to be in the top income quartile as other New Zealanders? Much more worrying was the underlying ignorance of our history, our treaty, and our cultural diversity. Dr Brash undermined the treaty with a monocultural argument based on equality—an easy hit with many New Zealanders who are feeling economically marginalised, or who are unaware of the treaty agreements. That argument assumes that all people are the same, and that that sameness means having the attributes of a white, middle-class male.

The argument that people should be supported on the basis of need, and not race, denies the reality in New Zealand that need—in terms of education, health, and economic resources—is particularly real for Māori. Let us take health spending. Less than 3 percent of the health budget goes to Māori providers of services, or services provided by mainstream providers targeted at Māori. Yet their results are particularly good, because they deliver the service in a way that respects cultural differences. Is it not equality to have services delivered in a way that is culturally appropriate to people? The rest of us do have that. Overall, roughly 14.7 percent of the health budget is spent on Māori—about the same as the proportion of Māori in the population. Given the relatively poor health statistics of Māori, they ought to get a higher proportion than that on the basis of need. Despite a higher death rate than Pākehā from cardiovascular disease, there is evidence that Māori receive fewer cardiac interventions than would be expected, and those differences remain even after controlling for gender, age, and deprivation.

Only 4 percent of the population older than 65 is Māori, who tend to live 10 years less, on average, than Pākehā. So Māori also get far less than their share of superannuation, to which they contribute. I guess Dr Brash would argue that in a needs-based system, Māori do not need superannuation when they are dead. But we will not have equality until Pākehā and Māori lead equally long and fulfilling lives, and addressing that means addressing complex questions of targeted health, education, and welfare spending. All Māori over 60 were born into families that received a lower rate of family benefit, pension, and invalids and widows benefits than Pākehā families, just because they were Māori. That changed only in 1945. We have had race-based laws throughout our history, always to the detriment of Māori, and now some would still deny them the chance to catch up. Then Dr Brash argued that Māori can still practise their language and culture, just like the Chinese—positioning them as immigrants in their own land. It seems to be the role of each generation to rebel against its parents. I had the great privilege of knowing the Rev. Alan Brash well when I lived and worked in Geneva some 30 years ago. He was a fine, compassionate, visionary man, dedicated to social justice. Perhaps Don Brash’s present stance is just youthful rebellion.

Another matter that takes me back 30 years is the crossroads we have reached in energy policy. Not since the so-called oil crises of the 1970s have we been faced with such stark choices. The issues have not changed since then, but failure to act then has left us with fewer options now. There has been surprisingly little discussion of the fact that Maui gas, which used to provide a quarter of our primary energy, has run out, as it was always planned to do around now. That has coincided with three other events that limit our options for electricity: firstly, the onset of a period of lower than usual rainfall in the catchments of the main hydro lakes, which is predicted to become the norm for the next 20 years; secondly, rapid growth in demand for electricity, which has caught up with the surplus of generating capacity that we used to have; and thirdly, our signing—and not before time—of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which rules out turning to coal because we must limit our greenhouse gas emissions.

The response from our State-owned electricity generating system has been the same as ever: if we want more power, we can just wreck a bit more of our environment in order to provide it. I had thought that the days of “think big” were over. Governments now talk of sustainable development, but only the language has changed. As though we had learned nothing from the Clyde Dam, the Synfuel plant, and the Aramoana smelter, the response to rising power consumption is to wreck another river—to divert 73 percent of our largest braided river into a canal, drying up the habitat of threatened birds and native fish, ruining trout and salmon fishing, and dominating the landscape of the Waitaki valley with a structure as high as the Beehive and as wide as Parliament Buildings. Even Project Aqua will not save us, of course. By the time it is built, if present trends continue, demand will have risen by the same amount of electricity as the scheme will produce, and we will be looking for more. One point two billion dollars is a lot of money to spend just in order to stand still. Worse still, in a very dry winter Project Aqua will provide nothing, as there will be no spare water for the canal. The temptingly low cost of Project Aqua is a mirage. When we add on the cost of the new thermal stations that will have to be built to provide for the dry winters, it will not be cheap power.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy is too timid and is aimed too low. It is seriously underfunded. Less than 1 percent of the capital cost of Project Aqua goes into energy efficiency each year, yet we know it is capable of producing far more in power savings eventually than Project Aqua will generate. Last year this House heard many futile debates about whether we should build more hydro or more coal generating capacity. The real point is that unless we get energy efficiency investments happening fast it will not be a matter of hydro or coal generation, or this river or that. It will be a case of having all our rivers ruined, coal stations on every corner, some token wind farms, imported liquefied natural gas at huge cost, and eventually nuclear power—and still we will be having power cuts.

This is the year to face our energy future seriously, and to take a stand by saying that we will not expect our environment to keep paying for our waste, our carelessness, and our greed. We can think smarter. But the issue is not just about electricity. The war in Iraq and recent fluctuations in oil prices are signs of the inescapable reality that we are close to the time when oil flows from known wells will not be enough to supply world demand. What does it matter whether that will be 5 years or 10 years away, or whether we have already passed the peak of oil production? The world is already using four barrels of oil for every one that is discovered. The oil companies know that; the Government, like all previous Governments, is in denial. Its advisers are still publishing predictions that the price of oil will stay constant for the next 20 years.

There is a lot we could do to prepare for the future by making ourselves less reliant on oil. The New Zealand Transport Strategy and the new transport legislation, on which the Greens have worked very closely with the Government, are a start, with their emphasis on energy-efficient modes like rail and public transport. We must make sure that the opportunities they open up are grasped this year. This Government could be the one that wakes from the sleep of denial and leads the nation into a future where, with good planning, we can have prosperity and quality of life, despite the constraints of both oil supply and carbon emissions. We are waiting.

Meanwhile, despite distancing ourselves somewhat from the US invasion of Iraq, we are still being led into that country’s agenda. To justify the US’s invasion of Iraq and whatever countries come next, the US is scaring the world into sacrificing democracy and civil liberties in the name of a war on terror that is, in fact, a war of terror. We continue to see the growing power of the security services, combined with a dramatic deficit of accountability. Ahmed Zaoui personifies that—a man in prison, without being charged, for crimes unknown, based on evidence the Security Service has refused to reveal. How does locking up a democratically elected politician on the run from a military Government that is determined to execute him make New Zealand a safer place? If this Government is serious about dealing to the causes of terrorism it would do well to separate New Zealand from US foreign policy in the Middle East and to increase the overseas aid budget to 0.7 percent of gross national income, as requested by the Council for International Development on the steps of Parliament today. Nothing better illustrates the foolishness of buying into the US agenda than this Government’s determination to follow it into the dead-end of genetic engineering, especially when its agricultural exports are the very low-value commodities decried by the Prime Minister in her speech. Ours need to be high-value products—products where the buyers are discerning buyers, who have repeatedly demonstrated their rejection of GE food.

It is time we were brave enough to make our own decisions and control our own economy. The long darkness of free trade trampling unchecked over communities and ecosystems may be passing. In the last few days the European Union’s Trade Commissioner has suggested that countries ought to be allowed to ban imports from countries that do not share their national values and standards. Pascal Lamy says the World Trade Organization rules give too much weight to science—he could have said pseudo-science—and too little to local social and political sensitivities. It is time for us to side with the European Union and the public on this issue, and in doing so to stand up for sustainability over corporate greed. When we abandon control of our own economy the first places that suffer are small communities, especially rural communities, and they are hurting now. Cutting tariffs will put people out of work in places like Levin, Lower Hutt, and Te Kuiti. Other communities that are still reeling from the closure of their post offices and banks are now facing no-go zones, a total lack of effective rural public transport, and the closure of their schools—schools that are often the only community centre, meeting place, or focus for the people who live there.

Regional development policy is not helping those people. Big industrial wood-processing plants do not support local communities; they make them more reliant on overseas owners, cheap energy, and a favourable exchange rate. We need to have strong local economies that set global standards for social and environmental responsibility. We need to be much more self-reliant, and we need to produce much more that lasts. Quality, durability, and flexibility need to become the new bywords of industry. The Greens support local initiatives that keep finance and production localised: “green dollar” schemes, community banks, credit unions, cooperatives, and regional business support schemes. Opportunities abound for local eco-development and ecologically innovative business in areas as diverse as waste reduction, energy efficiency retrofits, ecological restoration, and organic production.

The Greens have lobbied the Government since it took office to release some of the surplus that Dr Cullen is squirreling away, in order to improve the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. We hope that the Government will deliver generously on its promises in the Budget Policy Statement. The Greens want to see an end to the discrimination against parents on a benefit, and eligibility for the child tax credit extended to all children of low-income families. We applaud the Government’s continuing investment in early childhood education, but it is not enough if children are going hungry and parents are unable to cope financially at home. One step towards addressing that is the introduction of a universal child benefit, and we are asking the Government and New Zealanders to support Sue Bradford’s member’s bill.

National’s new leader has done us a service by reminding us that there are political choices in New Zealand, most obviously between reconciliation and blinkered denial. But the choices are more than that. The agenda for the right represents an unparalleled denial of the ecological crisis facing our planet—it is a call for more cars, more coal, and more consumption. One could almost think that the right has given up and simply wants to party while the ship sinks. The Greens also get extremely frustrated with Labour, as I am sure it does with us. Labour, in our view, has a lot to learn about ecological wisdom, peace, and justice. But we can, and do, work together. There is a common interest in a better future, and a common belief that we are more than rational economic maximisers. We look forward to principled cooperation with Labour in the future on the issues we share. We will continue to work with it this year to progress the issues where we agree.

In particular, we want to see the new transport legislation start to work, freight moved off our congested roads on to rail, and communities have the option of excellent public transport systems, and the ability to walk and cycle in safety. We are pleased to see that the Government will allow more students to qualify for allowances from next year. Of course, we would like to see the allowances made universally available, and to see a real programme to phase out fees altogether. That would be an investment in our future, and not a cost. We are also pleased that the Government is looking at improvements to the paid parental leave scheme. That scheme must be made available to more parents, including those with less than 1 year’s tenure and self-employed women, and the leave should meet the international minimum standard of 14 weeks. We will continue to cooperate with Labour on bills such as the Care of Children Bill, the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill, the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill, and the promised Civil Union Bill—most of which rely on our support.

However, we cannot vote confidence in this Government. Two-thirds of New Zealanders asked for the protection of the GE moratorium to be extended for a few years while more is learned about this unpredictable technology. They wrote letters, emailed, marched, wrote submissions, reasoned, brought the best scientific evidence, pleaded, and argued the overwhelming economic case, but were ignored and often insulted. Only the Environmental Risk Management Authority and a resolute public now stand between us and the release of those crops. My money is on the public. We said we could not support a Government that allowed the release of GE organisms, but we do not share National’s reasons for voting no confidence. So, as I have done since the last election, I move, That all the words after “This House has no confidence” be omitted, and substituted with the following words: “in the Labour-led minority Government because, despite there being some positive elements in its programme, its decision to allow the release of genetically engineered organisms exposes our health, our environment, and our economy to significant and quite unnecessary risks.”

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak to the Prime Minister’s statement. Having received more votes than the Green Party, I have not had to follow it before. Following the Green Party is a strange and unusual, inhumane punishment, and I sincerely hope that the High Court will correct this situation on Thursday and that the ACT party can again have nine MPs as the electorate voted.

I listened to the Green leader move an amendment to Dr Brash’s motion and I am not sure—and perhaps the next Green speaker can explain to us—whether the Green members are really voting no-confidence, or whether this is, yet again, just a little device so that they can vote for their motion knowing that no one else shares their view.

I would actually like to debate the Prime Minister’s statement. I know that is unusual, but I think we ought to. If one read that document one would not know that 24 hours ago the foreign policy and trade nightmare of our ANZUS allies Australia and the United States signing a free-trade agreement that excluded New Zealand had just occurred. What does the Prime Minister say? “In the near term we will be analysing the details of the proposed free-trade agreement between Australia and the US and its likely impact on New Zealand.” It is a bit late for the Prime Minister to decide in the near term to have a look to see how much damage has been done by the Government’s foreign policy. This country has never been more isolated—and it is a fact. We are a small trading nation in a global economy, and in the 5 years that Labour has been in office it has had no trade successes at all—not one. It has failed on the free-trade agreement with Australia; it could not persuade the Chileans, the Thais, or the Chinese to have a free-trade agreement; and, of course, the Doha round also failed. This Government has left us more isolated than we have ever been.

This document is a visionless document. It is arrogant, it is smug, and the programme put in front of us reads like a local body. When we actually look at the list of legislation that the Government is going to give us, what are we going to have? We will have a local government bill—again. We will have another transport bill. We will have, yet again, another bill on the Resource Management Act. That must make it the fifth bill on the Resource Management Act that this Government has given us. The Government is also going to bring in yet another bill on electricity. One would think that after 5 years the Prime Minister would start to get it right.

When one looks through the list it is interesting to see that some bills have been missed off. I ask the Prime Minister where the Civil Union Bill is. This morning at our caucus we were told that the Associate Minister of Justice, Lianne Dalziel, would be willing to come and give our caucus a briefing. So clearly the bill is a priority, but it is not on the list. Why could that be? Could it be because the Government is going to need the help of its doormat, and its doormat—as easygoing as the United Future party is—would find it difficult to vote for a statement that included the Civil Union Bill? Maybe that is the explanation.

Then, of course, there is what the Prime Minister said about United Future. Members should listen to this: “The new Families Commission will be up and running, making sure that the needs of our families—our most important social institution—are met.” Is there anyone in the country, apart from United Future members, who thinks that a commission that defines the Mongrel Mob as a family—the only thing that cannot be defined as a family is mum, dad, and the kids—will meet the needs of the family? What a smug, arrogant statement—

💬 Stephen Franks: Unbelievable!

It is an unbelievable statement—humbug—just to get the United Future party to vote for it. How the United Future party can vote for this godless, anti-family Labour Government is one of the mysteries that the electorate and United Future supporters have great difficulty dealing with.

But, of course, the Government has some legislation that is serious. It will have a new Employment Relations Law Reform Bill that is a giant step backwards, back to the days of union power. I serve notice that the ACT party will fight that bill. I am going to put myself on the select committee. That bill is bad news not just for small business, but also for all New Zealanders. It is bad news for ordinary New Zealanders who do not want to be forced into a trade union. Of course, also on the list of legislation that the Government is putting in front of us is another nasty bill. I cannot find it right now on the list—oh, it is the foreshore and seabed legislation. How could I forget the beach? I ask the Government where the bill is.

💬 Hon Annette King: You’re losing it.

The Minister says that we’re losing it. We were told that the Government had it drafted and we would get it before Christmas. We do not have it, and I hear that we will now not get it until June.

💬 Hon Bill English: No, next Christmas.

Next Christmas? Where is that bill? I indicate to the Government that the ACT party will be opposing that bill, as well. When I look at the statement I ask this question: where is the Prime Minister’s response to the challenge that the Leader of the Opposition has laid down to her in the Orewa speech? It is interesting that Mr Peters and the Green MP have both discussed it. The one person who is not willing to discuss the issues put down by Mr Brash is the Prime Minister. In fact, she is arrogant enough to say to the media that she was not prepared to debate that issue. I ask the Prime Minister: “Why not?”. Why is this House not allowed to be told where Labour is taking us on treaty issues? Where is the Government’s goal on race relations? When we read this statement we see that it is quite extraordinary in the brevity of the statements put forward by the Prime Minister.

First she said: “it—and, presumably, “it” is the Government—“takes its responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi seriously”. What is that supposed to mean? The question to me is: “What are the responsibilities?”. Everyone expects the Government to be serious, but what are the responsibilities that it thinks it has under the treaty? When we ask that question—and it has been asked repeatedly of this Government—we get no reply, at all. Instead, we get this sort of nonsense: “Our Government is about taking New Zealanders into the future together, not back to the past divided.” That is patronising rubbish. What on earth does the Prime Minister mean by “future together”? On television we saw a Prime Minister at Waitangi having to be shielded by her Ministers, a Prime Minister being abused, and Ministers actually being struck. We saw the Leader of the Opposition having mud thrown over him. We saw the police being punched as we watched the television images. We saw young thugs walking up and throwing punches. Is that the united future that a Labour Government is presenting us? That is where we are after 5 years, but what has our Prime Minister tried to suggest? She has suggested that somehow Don Brash is responsible for that.

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: Yes!

“Yes!”, somebody calls out. Indeed, the Prime Minister has repeatedly said in her press statements that the Leader of the Opposition is dividing the nation—as if the Labour Party were uniting it. What a load of rubbish!

We then look at her further statements. She said that what happened at Waitangi is not going to “dissuade me and my Government from doing what is right for all of us”. What is it that the Government is doing for all of us? Where is it set out here what this Government is actually trying to do? What is the Government’s agenda on race relations? What is the goal? Where is the Government saying where it is actually taking us, and why are we not entitled to have that statement made here?

I have gone back and looked at our Prime Minister’s statements on race relations. She has not made one in this House for 4 years. Four years ago she made that famous “closing the gaps” speech, and then discovered that Dr Simon Chapple, one of her own researchers, said that the facts she had presented were wrong. She has not given that speech again, but the policies have continued. The Government is spending millions of dollars on things like Māori capacity building, with no outcome testing. We have race-based policies, and the question being asked is “Where is the Government taking us?”.

The Prime Minister said that “with goodwill and mutual respect” she would resolve the foreshore and seabed issue. This Parliament is entitled to know what those proposals are. As has been pointed out by the Leader of the Opposition, as informed New Zealanders have read what the Solicitor-General is saying in front of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Government has one statement in one forum, and a completely different statement in other forums.

The Prime Minister then tells us: “I will rejoice this year when Māori television goes to air”. That seems to be the Government’s Māori policy. The Government promised that Māori television would go to air, I think, 2 years ago, then last year, and then this year. Who actually thinks that Māori television will resolve the issues facing this nation?

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Parekura does.

I do not think he does.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: He put his hand up.

I think Mr Parekura Horomia will be rather pleased when Māori television is going and he would rather like someone else to be responsible. That is his true position on that issue. As I have said to this House before, television is to brains what maggots are to meat. Who on earth thinks that telling people to watch television is the way to resolve the problems that face Māoridom? What a load of nonsense!

There has been some interesting debate, and let me just deal with a bit of it. The Green Party member repeated some propaganda that the Labour Party has put out. She tried to suggest that we should have race-based policies because somehow Māori are getting less than their fair share. That is the sum of her comments. I invite her to read the research that the ACT parliamentary unit has done with the help of the Parliamentary Library and using Government statistics that show that Māori pay $2.3 billion in tax and receive back $7.3 billion in benefits. The only reason I raise that argument is because the Green Party and the Government keep trying to put forward that sort of nonsense argument. It is rubbish and complete nonsense.

💬 Hon Annette King: The member’s research is rubbish.

That is interesting, because it came from documents from the Parliamentary Library. Is the Minister saying that that institution is rubbish, as well?

💬 Hon Annette King: I suggest the member read some real reports.

She is saying that she is not. It also comes from documents that have been certified by the Auditor-General as being correct facts in front of this House. What made the rubbish was the Government putting out a statement last year trying to suggest that it was the other way round. Why are we being dragged down that course? I believe that the statement made by Mr Don Brash is absolutely correct. We should be looking at people on the basis of need, not race—but not this Government! In this Government the Prime Minister talks about these new primary health organisations—that is, what we used to call our general practitioner.

We hear people saying: “The American health system is terrible. The first question they ask you is not what is wrong with you, but whether you have health insurance.” I say to the Prime Minister that if she actually bothered to enrol at one of those new primary health organisations she would discover that the first question that people are asked is not what is wrong with them, but what race they are. People have a piece of paper put in front of them—and members will have seen one of these—that states: “Tick one of the following: are you a New Zealand Māori, a Cook Island Māori, a New Zealand European, a European, Samoan?”. There is then a great list. When we get to the end we see: “Other …”. That is what is wrong with this country.

The other day a woman in Karori told me that she enrolled and was given one of those pieces of paper and she asked “Why is my race relevant to my health?”. The receptionist said: “Because if you decide that you and your family are Māori, the health treatment is free.” So she then said to the receptionist: “I’m a European. My husband’s a European. My children, who are all our natural children, are Māori.” The receptionist wrote down this rubbish. She has been getting free treatment ever since. This process is corrupting this country. I object to living in a nation where that happens. [Interruption] The member calls out. One of the reasons I object, and Don Brash—and Winston Peters, if he were frank about it; he has raised it as well—is that none of my children is white. I say to the Minister of Health that they have to fill out her form. When they fill it out, which category are they supposed to come into?

I will say what they do. They go to “other” and write “New Zealander”. I know what Ken Shirley does. He writes “Pacific Islander”. I say to the House that a Government that can collect race statistics is a Government that can discriminate. I also say that there is no such thing as positive discrimination. For every New Zealander whom the Prime Minister positively discriminates in favour of, there is another New Zealander who has been discriminated against.

I also say to the House that the life chances of the child of a skinhead from Christchurch are just as challenging as the life chances of a Māori from East Cape. I had a worker in my office whose mother was—and I am putting it politely—the partner of a motorbike gang. His father was in jail and his older brother was in jail. When he managed to get to Waikato University—an extraordinary achievement, given the way he was dragged up—he then found that Margaret Wilson was dean of the Waikato University law school and he was discriminated against for something he could do nothing about, because he was white.

I want to live in a New Zealand, so do most New Zealanders, where we are not discriminated against. I can prove that to members. They can have a look at our website. Yesterday I put up a poll, asking “Did you agree with Dr Brash’s speech?”. In the last 24 hours, 1680 people said “Yes” and 20 said “No”. What sort of nation we have is going to be the issue, not just for this year but for the next election. That is why the centre-right is going to win, and the left will go.

When this House resumed a few hours ago, it was perhaps appropriate that the first action we took was to pass a resolution congratulating both the New Zealand softball team and the New Zealand rugby sevens team on their successes at the weekend. Anyone who watched both those encounters would have observed that as the triumph was unfolding for both the softballers and the rugby sevens team, the reaction of the crowd was one of joy and excitement because this was a New Zealand triumph—all of us were in it together. In the same way, when Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Oscar, we all took pride in that achievement—as we do in the nomination of Peter Jackson and the 14 others associated with The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

When we contrast that sense of general uplift, satisfaction, and pride in achievement with what happened at Waitangi last week, one has to wonder about the continued relevance of that celebration. It may well be that it was hijacked by extremists. It may well be that the agenda being promoted by those extremists was not of the mainstream. But whatever the circumstances, it is intolerable that both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, whoever they might be, are subject to such discourtesy, such downright rudeness, and such violence. I do not believe it is appropriate for either to return to Waitangi while no guarantee can be given for their safety or security on that occasion.

I further believe that the Waitangi celebrations we saw this year, almost exceeding the efforts of previous years to be boorish and narrow, cannot continue in the same way as they have previously. This is supposed to be the day on which we celebrate our nationhood as New Zealanders. Year on year we are subject to a spectacle of argument about exclusion, about division, about bitterness, and about who can and cannot be there. Year after year many, many more New Zealanders simply turn away and decide that Waitangi Day is a good day to dig the garden, have a lie-in, or just go to the beach. We cannot profess to have any sense of nationhood while our national day is demeaned in this way.

I believe very strongly in the words of Norman Kirk at Waitangi in 1974. On that occasion, I am sure we all remember when, hand in hand with the little boy, he strode across the marae. Waitangi Day is a day for all New Zealanders to celebrate the unique gift we possess, by virtue of the fact that we are New Zealanders. I think it is time to rekindle that spirit he spoke of. For that reason, I am resuscitating the New Zealand Day Bill that I moved unsuccessfully in this House a couple of years ago. I believe it is time for New Zealanders to celebrate being New Zealanders, and not forever to parade the divisions and bitterness we see around us.

Moving on from that, the real issue that lies at the core of some of the comments made in debate this afternoon about the issues surrounding the foreshore and seabed, and other matters, is that there is no clear sense in this country of what being a New Zealander is all about. We are many strands from many different cultures. The intermixing of those strands makes the modern New Zealander, and that is our uniqueness. For a long time this country was a starkly bicultural society, but the change in our population mix over the last 20 years has us on the verge of becoming the world’s first truly great multicultural nation. The challenge we face, and must be prepared to address, is whether we are prepared to embrace that possibility and work towards making it a reality—or shrink from it and with that ensure we remain, whether it be through positive discrimination policies or their abrupt termination, divided one against the other.

While we are divided, for whatever reason or purpose, we have no prospect of building a nation. While we are a country where there are winners and losers, and they are identified as such, our nationhood takes second place. The lessons of history are many and profound about the failure of States to be able to build coherently on division amongst their peoples. So I think the challenge that faces this Parliament, this Government, and other political parties, is to start to address fundamentally the issue of our identity.

That has other consequences that we have to be prepared to face up to, as well. We are seeing constitutional change occurring in New Zealand—not by any deliberate strategy but at the moment by stealth. Whatever the reasons for the abolition of the right of appeal to the Privy Council, whatever the reasons for the various other mini constitutional changes that have occurred over recent years, they have not been made clear. New Zealanders have been left with a very clear sense that an agenda is being run that is systematically seeing profound change occur, of which they have no real part. If we are going to build the foundation of a cohesive, inclusive nation, then we need to start by saying that those things that are the pillars upon which this nation is built—our constitutional and legal provisions—are changed only by the consent of, and with the understanding of, the people of this country.

In my view, we need to come back to having, as a starting point, a wide-ranging constitutional review, so that all the issues that get picked at and tossed into the argument from time to time can be placed on the table at once—to be discussed, argued about, and have positions formed around. While we do not do that, the suspicion, animosity, division, and bitterness we see portrayed from time to time on a range of issues will continue, and we will continue to be not one nation, and not even many strands of one nation. We will continue to be a group of people, living on these islands far from anyone else, that is soulless, and lacks identity and purpose. All of our economic objectives, and all the pious hopes that can ring around the walls of this House about what we might aim to achieve, will fail if we as a nation lack a sense of our national purpose.

So as this House resumes its sittings for 2004, the real issue we need to confront is how we restore that sense of national purpose and identity. At the moment we are in the fortunate position where the proceeds of a very strong economy are obvious, and the Government is indicating a willingness to seek to return the benefit of some of those proceeds to the people of New Zealand. One might argue, as some have, that that is a cynical political move. Others might say that this is, after all, what the process of Government is about—that is, to create the opportunities that it can then return to the public. Either view is limited. The reality is that if we are to start to see more inclusion generated by Government action in terms of better health and education outcomes, and better opportunities in other areas, then they too need to be advanced in a context of what it is our society is about.

The United Future party has a very clear view of that process. We start from the position that the family is the building block of a society. A society is communities, towns, cities, and suburbs within cities, but the family is the starting building block. If we are in a position to get that first building block right, then so many others will follow. If one thinks about it in abstraction, there is absolutely no point in any Government anywhere following good, sound economic policies or promoting free and open international trade, or doing any other range of things, just for itself. The only point is that Governments deliver benefit back to the group that is at the core of society—that is, the families upon which our nation is built.

I heard some sneering comments earlier on about the Families Commission that were inaccurate as well as ill considered. One of the reasons we have been so strong and determined in promoting that commission is because it is going to the core of what it is to construct the type of society about which I am speaking. One cannot talk about a commitment to family, or a recognition of the role of parents, or the desirability of children being brought up in a stable, loving, two-parent environment if one does not then do what can be done to put in place not so much the building blocks but the reassurances to enable that process to occur.

I find it extraordinary that up and down New Zealand one can go into any retail outlet in the country to buy any item of hardware and one is loaded down with warranties, instruction books, and every other explanatory tool about how to make the confounded thing work. But when one becomes a parent in New Zealand, one is absolutely on one’s own. One is assumed to have inherited the knowledge—and thankfully many have—and know how to apply it. But if parents run into difficulty, the way our society works at the moment is that it is their problem; they have obviously failed. So parents do not put up their hands when they need help, and children suffer, and dysfunction occurs. We have to start to change that climate. That is one of the things that we as a party are very strongly and unashamedly in favour of.

That is why we think, for instance, that the current structure of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is beyond repair. It cannot be rebuilt yet again. We need to take a zero-up approach and start to put in place a structure that not only will meet the need in terms of being able to deal with the caseload, but also the needs of the children and the parents.

While I think that parenting is a virtue and a skill that does not receive the recognition that it ought to, I also think it is an awesome responsibility. We should not be ashamed to say to parents that they are responsible and accountable for the actions of their children, and we will hold them so. We have had appalling circumstances in this country in the not too distant past of gross family dysfunction, where Government agency after Government agency fell over itself trying to determine which one of them was responsible, and where the one element that was somehow relieved of any responsibility were the parents of the child or children concerned. In a responsible society we cannot continue that situation—so well captured by a Tom Scott cartoon of a young thug coming from a vandalised house and saying: “Boy, wait till I find the Government department responsible for this.” We have to make parents in this country fundamentally responsible as part of their accountability.

One of the things we also need to do—and it is a priority that this party will be focusing on during the course of this year—is to look at how we deal with the concerns of the next generation—specifically the mounting student loan debt burden. It is time to start to move away from the current arrangements where we have this 25-year determination that somehow a child is the responsibility of its parents until that age. That is absurd. I had been married many years at the age of 25, and I think my parents would have been horrified to think that they were still responsible for me at that time. We need to look at how we move away from that towards a more universalised system. We also need to look at bringing in bonding as a way to pay off some of the debt incurred through years of service. Otherwise, all we are doing is setting up the most elaborate and expensive training operation here for our young people to go overseas, often never to return.

We also need to be doing a lot more to recognise the work in our community of the people who keep it going—that is, our volunteers. Up and down New Zealand, many social agencies operate solely because of the goodwill of volunteers. We rely on them. Indeed, we take them for granted. If they were not there, Meals on Wheels, Citizens Advice Bureaux, and many of the voluntary agencies that people go to when they need help, simply would cease to operate. As part of the dividend we are talking about restoring to people this year, I think we ought to look at a modest community volunteers rebate to recognise the contribution of our community volunteers. Many people donate to charity, and I see that a charities bill is in the programme this year. However, many others who are not in a financial position to do so donate their time, and we ought to recognise that in the same way that we recognise their financial contribution.

We ought to get tough on the gangs again. We know the scourge of methamphetamine up and down the country. I suspect that as a nation we are almost sick and tired of hearing that, yet again, a crime was P-induced. We need to be bold about reversing the onus of proof where the manufacturers of P are concerned, so that we can deprive them of their assets and help to shut down their operations. We ought to follow the steps taken by Labour Governments in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and Great Britain in that regard, and I do not think that we should be bashful.

Finally, given the property boom and the sort of crisis we saw on the North Shore of Auckland last year—which we will see repeated elsewhere as property prices continue to rise—one of the priority areas for action is to lift the burden of the “tax on the tax”, which is GST, on rates. Effectively, that would be a 12.5 percent cut in the mounting rates burden of many people and many households. For people on fixed incomes, it would have a huge advantage. For people struggling to raise a family it might be the equivalent of another couple of pairs of shoes for the kids. However, it is an important signal in terms of priorities. It is about saying that the building block of our society is our families. In addition to recognising that, we need to start to take some practical steps to give effect to that commitment.

Then moving on from there, we need to be much more focused on the wider environment of our nation in terms of how we bring the diverse strands together, how we recognise the equality of all before the law, and how we ensure that our national day—the apogee of our celebration of nationhood—is one we become proud of and not one that we start to hide our head in shame at the prospect of.

This year, Waitangi Day was a wake-up call in that respect, and I believe that this Parliament, as it deals with all the issues outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement, and in the other speeches we have heard so far, ought to be mindful of this: the ultimate test in the eyes of our people and the wider world, and of our purpose and unity as a nation, is how we portray ourselves. If the image of how we portray ourselves is what we saw at Waitangi last week, then it is a pretty sad story. I think we can do better, and I am confident that with goodwill and determination this Parliament and the people of New Zealand can work to achieve that better outcome.

The kindest thing I can say about the speech made by the leader of the National Party is that it could have been given by Simon Carlaw of Business New Zealand, but if it had been given by him, it would have been more animated.

As for credibility, we heard all the doom and gloom about the performance of the New Zealand economy. Well, here are two simple facts that shoot to pieces any credibility of the attitude that was displayed this afternoon by the leader of the National Party. Firstly, New Zealand was one of the best-performing and fastest-growing economies in the OECD last year—the fourth year of this coalition Government. Is that something that can be sheeted home to this Government, or does the National Party want to take credit for that? I hear Dr Brash say that we had to accept responsibility for everything that happened now, because this is our fifth year in Government. So if in the fourth year we have the fastest-growing economy in the OECD, then it must be credit to us somewhere. He cannot have it both ways.

The second fact is this—and this should be noted by a party that claims, or used to claim, some constituency in rural, provincial New Zealand—the annual economic growth rate measured each quarter, for every region in New Zealand, has shown 18 successive quarters of growth. That started late in 1999, so the National Party might be able to claim a little bit of credit for the first ones, but 16 of the others occurred in the 4 years of this coalition. That is a remarkable performance, and for anyone to get up and start deriding the performance of the New Zealand economy beggars the mind in terms of any credibility he or she might want to have. One cannot fly in the face of hard-nosed economic results like that.

I want to say that for my colleague Matt Robson and myself, this is part of the fifth year we have been a junior partner in a progressive coalition administration. The tangible gains we are proud to have promoted include revitalised regions—the facts I have just given give heed to that—the lowest unemployment rate in a generation; practical steps to promote the transformation of the range and depth of industry sectors in this country; a nationwide retail bank, owned by all New Zealanders, that offers services that are competitive with those of overseas-owned banks; a strengthening of programmes designed to combat the problems of drug and alcohol abuse; 4 weeks’ annual leave on the way; and paid parental leave here and being strengthened as we speak.

Above all else, the party that I lead is positive about people, and understands the value of securing well-paid jobs for all New Zealanders. The more high-skilled jobs there are, the less welfare dependency there will be; the more high-skilled people in employment, the less crime, and the higher the quality of publicly funded education and health, and the services that go with them, will be. The more young people we have in satisfying jobs, the fewer problems we will have with legal and illegal drug abuse.

It is interesting how the National Party, in my view, has failed to get traction on its economic and social platform over the past 5 years. We know that National would unwind the Superannuation Fund. National members say they would throw away the savings to help pay for unaffordable tax cuts for those who are already on high incomes. What is their record on securing national superannuation? Their record is that they used the Asian crisis and financial markets to reduce the level of all superannuitants’ income and living standards. That is what happened the last time National was in Government.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: That’s not true.

Well, the facts will show otherwise. The superannuation level linked to after-tax, ordinary-time wages when this Government came in was below 60 percent. It is now fixed at 65 percent—and that was a drop from 80 percent under the National Government. So is that what they would do again if given the chance? What is the answer to that?

In Government, National reduced the nation’s reservoir of skills. During the National Party’s term in Government, apprenticeships collapsed. Whole regions of the country went into serious decline, and unemployment and dole dependency skyrocketed. Joblessness was used as an economic and social weapon. Why is it that when I became Minister for Industry and Regional Development, everywhere I went people were desperate for jobs, and now when I go back to those same regions 4 years later, they are desperate for skills? It is because there are plenty of jobs but we do not have the skill base, and this Government has had to deal with that.

Would the National Party abandon the regional development programmes this Government has introduced? National voted against them when it came into office. Would it abandon them now? We have not heard anything about that. Would National abandon the highly successful Modern Apprenticeships scheme? We do not hear anything about that. Would National address Government efforts to establish skill bases in New Zealand, and would it throw away the investment that the country is making in those by giving tax cuts to the richest people in New Zealand? One cannot have it both ways. If we are going to invest in a new and expanding skill base in New Zealand, we have to have the wherewithal to do it.

I looked carefully through Dr Brash’s comments at the opening of Parliament, and through the speeches he has been making in recent days and weeks. I want to quote what he said this morning on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report: “I want only to see the Government treat all New Zealanders on the basis of need, not on the basis of race.” All right; sounds great. Let us look at the track record. When National was last in Government, how did it treat the people in need in New Zealand? It froze minimum wages for 2 years in a row, so that the gap between those on benefits and those on low wages was frozen in time—it never expanded upwards. This Government has increased the minimum wage every single year it has been in Government, so that there is merit in getting a job, and a way of not only getting off the benefit but improving one’s position. When one freezes the minimum wage, one actually lowers, in real terms, the gap between those on benefits and those on low wages. It is an extraordinary way to treat people in need. Are people on the lowest wages in need? If they are, why would one freeze their wages? It is just ridiculous.

When National was last in Government, those in need must have been those who were in the high unemployment groups. The highest unemployment groups were Māori and Pacific Island peoples. Their rates were up near 30 percent when we had a National Government. Amongst the most needy in terms of housing would have been State house tenants. State house tenancies were put on to market rentals, so the neediest people were forced to pay market rentals, which, of course, lifted the rents for those in the private sector who were in the low-income groups, as well. Yet Don Brash says we should help New Zealanders on the basis of need, not on the basis of race. Yet the neediest people in New Zealand got smashed to pieces in their housing, in their benefit levels, and in their minimum wages. Even those on benefits did not escape, because their benefits were cut by up to 24 percent. So, on the one hand, the most needy people got slaughtered and, on the other hand, those trying to help themselves got no chance.

So what do we get from National? We get promises of more division and confrontation. This Government is trying to take New Zealanders forward together on the basis of cooperation, partnership, and success. Against that, we get confrontation, division, and failure, and that is not a recipe New Zealanders want to revisit. There might be some short-term gain in trumpeting those rhetorical phrases about treating everyone equally, and all the rest of it—if that had happened 3 months out from the next election, National might have got some cheap possibilities; 2 years out, forget it. In reality, this speech and this position will come home to haunt the National Party, because when New Zealanders get time to reflect—as they will—they will look back and think about what happened the last time we had confrontation. They will think: “What happened last time we had this negative division, setting one group of New Zealand against the other?”. We wasted years of negative energy on that, and New Zealand went down the gurgler.

It is true that New Zealand’s per capita income has been falling over the last 30 years, but in the last year or two, we have reversed it for the first time. New Zealand is now climbing back. I just said to Dr Brash that his view of the New Zealand economy is absolutely negated by the facts. New Zealand was one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD last year, and we have had 18 consecutive quarters of annualised growth in every single region—yet we heard this doom-and-gloom message.

In truth, New Zealand is succeeding. There is an extraordinary level of optimism in this country. Extraordinary levels of entrepreneurship and globalisation in terms of linking ourselves to international markets are taking place. This is a Government that is giving leadership; this is a country that is on the move. The last thing it wants is to be dragged back to the future by a leader who does not know that the 21st century has come.

The Prime Minister’s statement, today delivered by a Prime Minister who, I think, is almost in mourning, should be an occasion where there is a little bit of excitement injected into the House—a little bit of optimism about where the country is going. But what we got was a very, very damp squib of a speech. Why did we get that? Because this year’s and next year’s political agenda has been set by Dr Don Brash, and Helen Clark has failed to respond to that. Not only has she failed to respond to the issues that he has raised but she has failed to respond to the tens, the hundreds, of thousands of New Zealanders who are offering their support to Dr Brash on the issues that he is raising. It should be of huge concern to everybody in this House that so many New Zealanders, who by and large probably have not read the full text of Dr Brash’s speech, have picked up on it and decided to support it, because they believe, finally, there is someone out there who is speaking for them. I am becoming sick and tired of hearing from apologists from the Government that somehow that is divisive and confrontational. I say to them they should drop that talk, because when 80 percent of the country says it is putting its hand up because it is worried about those issues, then that is the sort of confrontation that the Government cannot win. It is the sort of confrontation that will divide this nation in a most damaging way.

The challenge that Helen Clark has failed to pick up is the challenge to debate reasonably the issues that Dr Brash has raised. Instead, all we have heard from Labour politicians, and from the lapdog, Jim Anderton, are all sorts of pious speeches about how this nation needs to unite behind a Government that is apparently leading us to some sort of nirvana just over the hill. Well, no one believes that. Mr Anderton can talk all that he likes about the growth record that this country has, how wonderful last year was, and how we were the best country in the OECD last year, but the people who are doing their 40, 45, 49, 50, and 55-hour-a-week jobs know that the money in their pocket does not go as far as it used to. They know that, and we can see it. I challenge people like Mr Tamihere—the great champion of the working man—just to walk once or twice around a supermarket, and to see how many products are dumped out of place as people biff them out of their supermarket trolleys because they work out that they cannot afford them. Those are the sorts of people who are listening to what Dr Brash is saying. They are the sorts of people who are looking at Helen Clark and saying the Government is not giving them their fair dues. They are the sorts of people who will be changing their vote and putting, as Richard Prebble said, a right-wing coalition Government back in place in this country.

I want to comment a little about some of the things the Prime Minister did say. The starkest thing for me was that she said that the Government was now making some progress on the Porter plan, which is actually 15 years old. Here we have a Government that is claiming some success, on the basis of starting a plan that should have been in place 15 years ago. That tells us that the Government is slowly waking up and realising that it will never be able to deliver on some of the misleading nonsense it put in front of New Zealanders just a few short years ago. We have heard the Prime Minister say today that the House will see the introduction of the bill that will phase out asset testing for elderly people who are in care. I will guarantee anything members like that the bill projects the horizon for the phase-out 10, 20, or even 30 years out into the future, because the Government cannot phase out asset testing. Despite all that Jim Anderton wants to say, the Government cannot do it.

When I look at the rest of the legislative programme for this year, I see the most controversial thing, of course, is the seabed and foreshore issue. If anybody wonders why there was such an emotional connection to what Don Brash had to say at Orewa, he or she needs only to look at what the Government is proposing for the seabed and foreshore around this nation. Over the Christmas holidays I saw the Hon John Tamihere on the news one night. Interestingly, he was at the beach with the family, dressed in a shirt and tie. He was dressed in a shirt and tie on that particular day at the beach—paddling along the beach in his traditional shellfish-gathering gear—and he was telling the nation that his family, his whānau, his hapū, and his iwi, had a greater claim to that part of the beach than any other New Zealander. [Interruption] I want to know on what basis they have that, and so do all New Zealanders.

💬 Hon Taito Phillip Field: Common law.

The poor fellow there, the much-maligned Phillip Field, suggests that it is based on common law. When he says that in such a confident way, he tends to indicate that like most of the trained seals in the caucus, he is prepared to believe anything Helen Clark tells him. The reality is, I tell Mr Field, that common law, under British common law, is established after 30 years. So why cannot non-Māori New Zealanders make the same claims to bits of beach that they have spent 30 years fishing on, camping on, and swimming and having fun at? Why not?

💬 Hon John Tamihere: They can, too.

Oh no, we are being told by this Government to face up to the fact that those of us who are not Māori have to tell our children that they will not be as special in this country as their Māori cousins. Let me tell members on the Government side of the House that that simply will not go down.

I support the motion moved by Don Brash that this Parliament should vote “no confidence” in the current Government. I challenge all those nervous, twittering Labour Party members who are worried about their political futures to have the courage to vote for that as well, and to go to the polls over that single issue. The outcome would be certain: the end of the Labour Government. I say that the size of that defeat will just get bigger as the months go by. I suggest that Helen Clark’s speech today smacked somewhat of coming from a Government that is contemplating an election will take place in November of this year. We got all the platitudes about what wonderful things there will be in the 2004 Budget, apparently, for middle New Zealand. Is it not interesting that the Government considers middle New Zealand to be made up of people who, unfortunately, keep so little of their own incomes that they have to be topped up by the State in order to pay their rent and mortgages? [Interruption] I do not normally ask people to desist from making interjections. At the moment the biggest interjector is the member for Waimakariri, a man who should be most worried about holding his seat.

I want to make a couple of comments to Peter Dunne. I was struck by his statement that he thought serious constitutional issues in this country should be dealt with by an overwhelming majority in Parliament. We have, I think, an issue that is as serious as any constitutional issue, in the seabed and foreshore issue. It is Mr Dunne who has to provide the votes needed for the Government to put in place the dreadful legislation it proposes. The question to Mr Dunne and his United Future members is this: why would they do that to New Zealanders if they believe that serious issues should have the support of an overwhelming majority of Parliament? In this case, this issue does not have such support.

I want to make a final comment to Mr Winston Peters, a man who spent most of his speech today explaining why he was a completely incompatible member of the National Party. I say, for the benefit of anyone who is listening, that we should remember that Mr Peters’ greatest gift to the nation was a full set of Cabinet papers—his own full set of Cabinet papers, collected during his time as Treasurer and presented to the archives of this country unopened and unread by his eyes. That is the member for Tauranga—and whatever he has to say on this matter should be taken with a very small grain of salt, indeed.

I have some final comments for the Government, again. How is it that Jim Anderton, Helen Clark, and Michael Cullen can make such grand claims about what they are doing for this country when they are shutting down provincial New Zealand? While Mr Clayton Cosgrove might laugh about that, because he is in the inner sanctum and the schools in his electorate are not being shut, Mr Sutton should be very worried. Not only will the schools be shut in his electorate but his term in this House will come to an end, as a result of that. I support the motion moved by Dr Don Brash.

It is a privilege to rise in the House today to support the Prime Minister’s statement. It is one of the great speeches that the Opposition will hear in this Parliament, in regard to setting out a clear vision and a range of policies backed up by legislation.

It is always a treat to follow Gerry Brownlee in a debate. He casts an awfully big shadow. The truth is that he is the newly promoted spokesperson, for the very powerful and much-vaunted National Party, on Māori-related matters, but we just heard a 10-minute speech and he did not even talk about them. He did not raise even one positive issue. We know that he can count to 10 in Māori, but that is about it.

I want to concentrate on a number of marvellous outcomes for New Zealanders under this Government, in terms of its stewardship—particularly in the economic, commercial, and business life of the nation. Is it not interesting that the Leader of the Opposition—the great “money-man”, the ex-Governor of the Reserve Bank extraordinaire—did not raise debate on the matter of the stewardship of Treasury or the nation’s chequebook, on the welfare of business or commerce in this nation, or on its economy, but he picked—what? He picked Māori, race-based policies. That is what he picked to trade on.

We have one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD. From 1992 to 2002 it grew at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent, defying global downturns. Last year our growth was the highest rate—at the top of the OECD ratings. At 4.4 percent, unemployment is at its lowest level since the mid-1980s—in fact, for 16 years. Sixteen years ago the Leader of the Opposition was 50, and that is what we have today—a very short memory. At the same time, my colleague the member for Waimakariri was 15. That shows the chasm between the views being expressed in this country. We have a bloke over on the Opposition benches who was 50 back then, and now we have reached a great outcome of a 4.4 percent unemployment rate, the greatest outcome in 16 years.

Government debt at 27 percent of gross domestic product is the lowest it has been since the mid-1970s. The greatly vaunted, powerful ex-Governor of the Reserve Bank does not want to discuss these issues. He does not want to discuss the beauty and marvel of Kiwi businesses going forward; he wants to raise a race-based policy debate. Why does National do that? The insidious nature of the issue is to move people into areas of comfort with the National Party. I could go out into my communities and set them on to immigrants. I could tell them why they could hate and despise others, but that is not leadership. That is not stewardship; that is insidious.

When Māori policy was debated in the National Party, and treaty clauses were fashioned by Doug Graham, treaty clauses were voted on by those people over there on the National benches, and they voted for need-based Māori delivery mechanisms. The policy is now race-based, and they have very selective memories. It is disgraceful conduct—disgraceful. The National Bank’s Small Business Monitor indicated that the small-business sector grew 4.9 percent last year. That compares with the growth in the economy as a whole of 3.1 percent. These are all great stories—stories to rejoice in and celebrate. But what does the other side of the House tell us? It tells us why we should despise, divide, hate, and degrade one another.

On this side of the House at least, I am proud enough to say, there is moderate leadership. We will not have extremists. I never thought that I would be able to stand up in this House and compare Don Brash as an extremist with Hone Harawira down the other end of the spectrum—and neither of them should win, because they are off on their own tangents and off on their own tracks, for ugly reasons. Here is the trick of it: they are both on the taxpayer’s teat. They are both getting paid for expressing absolutely divergent opinions.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a wide-ranging debate. It is a debate in which there is a degree of robust contribution, but I think the member in his most recent comments has gone well beyond what might be considered reasonable debating material. It is not appropriate for any member to stand in this House and lay out personal insult to another member. It has never been accepted. I would ask you to reflect very carefully on the words that Mr Tamihere is choosing to use, and the way in which he is implying that those titles belong to another member in this House, and then ask yourself whether that is truly in the spirit of the Standing Orders. I know that we stray from the Standing Orders quite frequently and wander all over the place, but when it comes down to how members in this House treat each other, and the level of respect we show—and there has been a little bit of disappointment and outrage expressed in the House today about some matters at Waitangi—surely in this House there should be a much higher example shown than there is anywhere outside. So I ask again that you consider the words that Mr Tamihere is using, and ask yourself whether it is acceptable for him to go further than imply—in fact, to confer the words, and meanings of his words, upon another member of this House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution and refer him to Speaker’s ruling 38/4. The member himself made the point that words or phrases that are used robustly in debate but do not impugn the honour of a member will not be ruled out of order, unless, of course, they are “… offensive on the face of it.”, which is contained in Speaker’s ruling 41/1. Mr Tamihere was coming close, but I now ask him to come to the point in the debate.

He does not like it. The big fella does not like it when people are talking straight. And the member for Rangitikei sits over there on the Opposition benches. He has a large Māori population in his electorate. The member for Helensville sits over there, and accepts this nonsense and accepts this type of policy.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Things could go right off the rails here, so I am asking you to be very careful about this. Although I can take any barb at all that anyone wants to throw across this House, I am going to ask you to rule right now. In future contributions to this House, would it be all right for me to refer to Mr Tamihere as the “black fella”?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That sort of thing can lead to disorder, and I take it that the member is referring to Standing Order 116, which deals with personal reflections. If the member is concerned about the reflection in the terminology the honourable member used, then I would ask that member to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: No, no. Let us be clear. I do not want him to withdraw—

Speaking to the point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Speaking to the point of order, the honourable—

💬 Gerry Brownlee: No, no. You asked me a question. How can he speak to a point of order when you have not got it straight in your head—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): When I am on my feet, both members will be seated. Mr Brownlee, you had spoken, I had responded to you, Mr Tamihere called a point of order in between, and I may have missed the point of order being called, but he did call a point of order to respond.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: How can you ask him to reflect on a point of order when you have got it wrong? You said: “I assume the member is referring to a Standing Order.” Let me assure you, when I take a point of order and want to refer to a Standing Order, I will give you the name of it. I do not want to be second-guessed by the Chair. I asked for a ruling—a simple ruling—not some dive off into the Standing Orders that exist, telling me what is what and what is not. I want to know, if that is acceptable from him, and the Chair does not pull him up, in the future can I refer to him and his colleagues as the black men?

Can I just say that again, Mr Brownlee, I am taking it that you are taking an offence—

💬 Gerry Brownlee: No, I am not.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): You are not taking an offence to anything?

💬 Gerry Brownlee: No, I would have said so. No offence taken; I am asking for a ruling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): In that case, I think it inappropriate if you were to refer to the member in that way, but the member himself can of course take offence under Standing Order 116 if he wants to.

💬 Hon JOHN TAMIHERE: Speaking to the point of order, I think the reality is the member asked a very clear question, and he came clean. He asked whether it would be appropriate for him to call me a black fella—that is what he said. He asked you a question, he came clean, and, for the first time, showed quite clearly what the National Party is all about. He called me a black fella—that is what it is about.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am not going to have this lead to an unruly session. I have ruled for Mr Brownlee. Out of courtesy I called the honourable Minister. I ask the Minister to continue with his speech.

💬 Hon JOHN TAMIHERE: The insidious form of politics being practised at the moment in terms of dividing this nation has to be challenged, and challenged robustly. I cannot sit in my communities and ask them to compromise and to sit down while people purposely play the race policy systems that have been played. We cannot tolerate that and will not tolerate that. Those are the types of policies being propagated by the people over there, and this House is the right place for us to bring them out in the open. That member Gerry Brownlee just came out in the open—that is a fact. He has just come out in the open and stated what the member for Ilam is all about. He is the new Māori affairs spokesperson, and that is what he thinks of us. That is what he thinks of the people he is now the spokesperson for—that is disgraceful. That is the conduct that we have finally got them to come out of the gutter on.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have to grab hold of this, because it will go terribly awry and there are quite a number of hours ahead of us. I did not take any offence at the intended insult sent in my direction by John Tamihere, but I did ask whether it would be within the Standing Orders if I were to use a term—but I did not use that term; I asked if I were to use that term—to describe him. You told me “No” and, interestingly, the member has shown offence. Not only has he shown offence, but he is now attempting to totally misrepresent the point that I was making. I want to say to the member, in the context of the point of order, and the response that you allowed him to the point of order, if in fact his concern is about having to go to his communities to try to explain himself—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): A point of order should be terse and to the point.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I know, but when dealing with someone who has probably taken the point of order some steps further, I think I have a right to respond to everything he has said. What he said was that he could not go to his communities and indicate that the Parliament was allowing him to be spoken to in that way. Well, why should I do that? Why should I have to sit here and tolerate a personal insult because John Tamihere makes it? He says: “It is OK for me, but you cannot do it back to me because I have this special community that I have to go to.”

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is going too far now, and is making a speech. The member has made his point.

💬 Stephen Franks: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was not sure whether you did rule that it was acceptable or unacceptable. If you were minded to rule that it was unacceptable, I would urge that you be cautious, because there are circumstances in which it is quite appropriate in a debate to have a reference such as the big fellow, the white fellow, the Pākehā, the Māori, or other reference, because it may be germane to the point in issue. Therefore, if you were ruling, I would like to know the basis of the ruling. I may have misunderstood and it may be that you have not ruled, but I certainly would not take offence in many contexts if I were referred to as the little fellow, the big fellow, the white, the Pākehā, or a designation that related to the topic of the debate. Therefore, I do seek clarification as to whether you ruled or did not rule. If you did not, then my point does not need to be taken any further.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have ruled, and I am always guided by the circumstances of what is happening in the House. Also, I am guided by Standing Order 116, “Personal reflections”, as to whether members take offence. Given the circumstances in the House and whether it could lead to disorder is also something that is taken into account by myself as a Speaker. Rulings are not on hypothetical situations, but actual circumstances. People must not allege racist policies, as stated in Speaker’s ruling 38/6.

💬 Hon JOHN TAMIHERE: We have not heard one jot of policy from the National Party today—not one jot. Here is the actual policy, hidden under a smokescreen of the Orewa speech. It is about increasing the age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation—beware and be afraid, elderly Kiwis! This speech was by the Leader of the Opposition to the funds source conference in Auckland on 7 March 2003. The privatisation desires of the present Leader of the Opposition are no secret to this House. Those members will flog off New Zealand Post, they will flog off Air New Zealand again, they will do Landcorp, they will do TVNZ, they will sell Kiwibank, they will sell the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, and they will sell Radio New Zealand, because the National Party is about the big end of town. It is about the big end of town, peopled by the few, who always do well in the name of the many, and when the many fail, the many get the blame. This party works for the many and is proud to do that. We will not flog off things, privatise things, or attack the elderly.

Another amazing speech was made by the Leader of the Opposition. He wants to abandon State-funded kidney dialysis for those with type 2 diabetes, because he thinks that if people contract type 2 diabetes, it is their fault because they have had a poor diet.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: That’s a lie.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member on my left will now stand, withdraw, and apologise. He knows that the use of that word is not permitted in this House. It is a reflection against the House.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. The member is reckless with the truth.

💬 Hon JOHN TAMIHERE: If that is the case, hard-working Kiwis who ground down their hips did so by themselves, and therefore they should pay for their hip replacements. That is how far this goes with those members, and they have to be identified. They have to be drawn out. They have to be nailed on detail. What do they stand for? We know what we stand for, and we are proud of it. What is the hidden agenda over there? Dropping all benefits to the able-bodied, scrapping the statutory minimum wage, introducing capital gains all over the place, and so on, and so on! This is the debate we should have; this is what they stand for. This is what Kiwis really want to hear. They do not want to hear about why we should hate one another—that is the easy, base thing to do. That is the easy thing to do. The hard thing to do on this side is not to be an extremist, and we will manage our extremism. We only hope that the members over there will manage their extremism, put it away, and get back to proper politics. They should put it away and worry about the nation and the national interests, not their own selfish interests.

I listened to the Prime Minister with interest, and I have read her speech in full. This country—and I am sure I do not have to tell you, Mr Speaker, or this House—is an island nation, tucked way down at the bottom of the South Pacific. As such, we have to be a trading nation, and, as such, we rely very, very heavily on our exporters. I was disappointed to read, and to listen to, the Prime Minister’s speech, because she made little or no reference to the hardship that exporters are suffering at this point in time. The overvalued New Zealand dollar is hurting our exports and our exporters, and something must be done.

Dr Cullen told the Finance and Expenditure Committee—he was certainly well reported in the media—that he had several options at his disposal that he could use, and that he could handle this resurgence in the New Zealand dollar. He has done nothing except sit on his hands. The Prime Minister implied in her speech that we depend on logic, when she stated: “Logic would suggest that the growth in the US economy should cause its dollar to appreciate again, and that New Zealand’s growing trade and current account deficits should also act to check our dollar’s rise in time.” Exporters and exports are behind the success of this country, in every way, shape, and form. I believe that if our dollar continues to appreciate at the rate it has been appreciating, it will be an urgent, pressing issue.

At the last election New Zealand First identified three major issues. The Government, with some reluctance, has listened to some degree on one of those issues—that is, the issue of immigration. New Zealand First emphasised that, overall, the number of immigrants should be reduced, and that immigrants should speak English, and the Government has reacted positively to that request. We emphasised that immigrants should have a job, and the Government has reacted positively to that request. We advocated that there should be increased training of New Zealanders. We do not need, or do not want, immigrants to come into this country because of a lack of training of New Zealanders. Pleasingly, the Government has followed the line adopted by my colleague the Hon Brian Donnelly when New Zealand First was in coalition with the National Party, and has increased training.

I might add that under the direction of the Hon Brian Donnelly apprenticeships nearly tripled during New Zealand First’s time in office, as a result of his efforts. Although the numbers have gone up significantly, they have only just more than doubled during the Labour Government. So New Zealand First kicked the thing off in a very good measure. We made one little mistake: we did not change the name to “apprenticeship”; we just kept “training scheme”. I think we would have had a few more public relations points if we had changed the name.

In terms of immigrants, New Zealand First said that all immigrants should be subject to a health check. The Government has taken that on board at long last. It is slow in implementing it, but it has taken it on board at long last. We said a few other things, and we will be monitoring the situation.

I raise all of this because the Government has largely listened to New Zealand First’s immigration stance, and we urge it to listen to us just as genuinely on the Treaty of Waitangi problems. The Government’s actions on the Treaty of Waitangi, and all that revolves round it, are splitting this nation. That is why Don Brash’s Orewa speech made such headlines. The average New Zealander wants to bring these issues to a satisfactory, fair closure. Unfortunately—and it is unfortunate, because I think we have taken more than a step back with the National Party line—National has adopted a 1920s-type policy.

I find it inconceivable that National sacked Georgina te Heuheu because she would not subscribe to the policy, after it had announced it. I found it disappointing to hear Wira Gardiner, who was once the senior Māori vice-president of the National Party, say on Radio New Zealand that he had not even been consulted. Where does the National Party think that will take this country? It has given a platform for radical Māori, and moderate Māori have said: “Well, we cannot trust that crowd.” That is reflected in the responses coming back to New Zealand First.

I say to the National Party, in particular, that once those qualities of understanding, logic, fairness, and, dare I add, tolerance are removed from a dispute situation—or a situation where there is a significant difference of opinion—and one’s will is imposed, the door is closed on fairness and respect, and opened on tension, friction, and abuse. That is what happened on Waitangi Day, and, I regret to say, a little bit of that happened in the House a few moments ago, before I stood to take the call. I say to the National Party that some New Zealanders may react positively now to its approach, but thinking New Zealanders will say that it is not the direction they want to go. They are currently telling us that they are concerned about the way Labour is handling things. I have to be honest: they think Labour is opening the door too wide, too frequently, and too generously on Māori issues. But they are equally concerned at the way National is handling the thing. We must recognise that there are differences, and those differences must be resolved, and they must be resolved harmoniously and fairly. It will take time but, as I say, it must include understanding, fairness, and tolerance from both sides.

We are facing an energy problem in this country because of the Government’s commitment to renewable energy. We have millions of tonnes of coal in this country. We sell about 2 million tonnes of coal each year to nations that have not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, and we are about to introduce legislation on what is called Project Aqua. That is almost daft. We have energy to burn in this country, and we should be using it.

I could go on for quite some time, but I will say that the Prime Minister made a speech that was somewhat patronising, somewhat gloating—

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: Visionary.

—certainly not visionary, and certainly not reflecting the concerns of the average New Zealander. It disappoints me that National, to some considerable degree, has taken itself back to the dark ages. But people can rely on New Zealand First. We will be there to steer this country down a centre path.

What a pleasure it is to speak in support of a Government that cares about all New Zealanders—a Government that is not only growing the economy but delivering on the social services that are true to our roots. It is proof that there is more to economic growth than cutting taxes for our rich mates, as National would have us do; proof that we can pay our way, and save for retirement expenses at the same time; proof that we can deliver on the promises of opportunity for all New Zealanders. This country is on a roll. This country is focusing on growing its exports up the value chain.

This country is growing, and it wants to take every New Zealander along for the ride—not just the elite few. We are fortunate that we enjoy many of the characteristics that international experience suggests are conducive to economic growth. We have “a stable macroeconomic environment, with the government running fiscal surpluses, public sector debt at a ... low level, and inflation under control”. We have “a tax system which … is among the least-distorting in the world. And international surveys suggest that our people are among the most entrepreneurial in the world.” So says one Dr Don Brash in a paper released last year. But let me add more good news. We have a strong domestic economy, strong visitor numbers, rising global demand—

💬 Craig McNair: High immigration!

—and high immigration, which, if one is not myopic, adds to a growing economy.

New Zealand’s growth is strong. Last year we topped the OECD. Our economy has expanded for 13 consecutive quarters, and gross domestic product was up 3.9 percent in the last 12 months. That growth has spread throughout the economy. In the September quarter all our regions were growing simultaneously for the first time in 18 months. Rural New Zealand posted a 1.6 percent rise—the strongest quarterly rise in 3 years in those rural areas.

Consumers are optimistic. In the December quarter of 2003 consumer confidence was at its highest level since March 1996. Building consents are up. In 2003 nearly 30,000 consents for new dwellings were given—the highest recorded number since 1976.

Most important from a social perspective, unemployment is down—way down. It is at its lowest level in 16 years, at 4.4 percent. It is particularly pleasing that it is down in regions like Taranaki, Waikato, Northland, and Southland. For the first time in 16 years, Māori unemployment is down below 10 percent. Among others taking up opportunities are Pacific Island people, young people coming off the unemployment benefit, parents returning to the workforce, and students who have finished their studies. This country is, indeed, on a roll.

Part of the reason is that this Government has been a good steward of the economy. We are running a surplus of no less than 5 percent of gross domestic product, repaying Crown debt faster than members opposite did when they were in Government, investing in infrastructure to repay the deficit that that Government left behind, and saving for our superannuation expenses so that older New Zealanders can live in security. We are doing this as well as working towards achievable, realistic social goals, and investing in areas that help us move up the economic food chain over time as we add value with our intellectual capital.

It is this Government’s view that economic growth is about partnership between the private and the public sectors. There is more to growth than repeating the tired old “cut taxes” mantra that the Opposition continually falls back on. Indeed, the World Competitiveness Forum acknowledged last year that Government expenditure can be productive and contribute to the competitiveness of a nation. What we have really done is move from a cost-based view of value to one based on value itself. We know we cannot compete with China or Thailand based on wage rates alone, and why would we want to try? Our societies and our labour costs are very different, and will remain so no matter how low we were to try to drop wages in a “Dr Don” kind of world.

That is why we are focusing on a high-value-added economy. That is what the growth and innovation framework is about. Let me outline some of the things we are doing in that regard. Fostering innovation is crucial to our growth potential. Last year’s growth and innovation package contained measures to increase the value of publicly funded research, to increase private research, and to promote greater private sector participation in research and development through $140 million in grants through Vote Research, Science and Technology over a 4-year period, and more money is to be invested in research funds—the New Economy Research Fund and the Marsden Fund, to name just two. The growth and innovation framework also makes a significant contribution to building skills and talent—crucial variables that strengthen the interface between industry and the education sector. I refer to programmes that have been highly successful, like the Modern Apprenticeships programme and the Gateway programme that assist school leavers to enter the workforce.

As part of our growth and innovation framework, the Government established four private sector task forces to develop specific sector strategies. Within the current Budget, $110 million has been devoted to the implementation of initiatives that support those strategies. The Government is also accelerating the work of business incubators and helping the companies that emerge from those to enter the workforce.

I want to talk about a visit I did last week for my colleague Mr Tamihere to a small business called Helipod, north of Auckland. Helipod is an excellent example of the type of business that New Zealand wants to foster. It is smart and it is fast growing. It is not worried about a few cents here and there on so-called compliance costs, because the value of its products in the American market are worth so much more than its cost of production that it does not matter. It has the real problems faced by real people trying to grow a business. It needs to fund growth. It needs global connections. It needs market access. Those are exactly the things that this Government is tackling head on. The whingeing from the Business Roundtable and Business New Zealand is not only bad economics; it is out of touch with many of their own membership.

Let us contrast this positive, pro-growth approach with that of the Opposition. Wit, poet, raconteur—Dr Brash is clearly none of those things. So, in desperation, as Television One noted, he has decided that it is “better to be divided than to be ignored”. He has consciously set out not only to divide the majority against the minority but to mislead New Zealanders in the process. He says that this Government targets programmes on the basis of race, not need. That is simply untrue. The vast bulk of our Government’s programmes are already targeted on the basis of need, not race. That is why we have a $120 million development package for the West Coast of the South Island. It is based on need, not race. That is why we have a transport package for Auckland. It is based on need, not race. That is why we target education initiatives for Māori and Pacific Island pre-schoolers based on need, not race. Why? Because only two-thirds of “brown” children go to pre-school now, not 95 percent, like “white” children. In 20 years, when one-third of our workforce is Māori or Polynesian, it will be in the interests of superannuitants like one Donald Brash that those people have the education and skills that allow them to support him in his dotage.

Dr Brash is like a Dr Who character who gets in the TARDIS and travels back in time to the economics of the 1990s and the social policies of the 1950s, and misses entirely the Treaty of Waitangi of the 1840s. Like some Rip Van Winkle he wakes up and asks “What about the treaty?”. What part of the word “partnership” does he not understand? This country is founded on a deal between tangata whenua and Pākehā, and we aim to honour the treaty just as our forefathers intended.

It is a pleasure to follow the Hon David Cunliffe, the only member of the executive who selected a Skoda as his self-drive car.

I support Don Brash’s motion of no confidence in this Government. Helen Clark has now been Prime Minister for 4 very long years, and her limitations as a leader are all too visible. Her most serious weakness as a leader is the Government’s biggest problem leading into the next election. This Government has no vision. That prime ministerial statement had no vision; nor did it have any clear-sighted sense of purpose. Why? Because the Prime Minister has no vision, and because the Prime Minister is the Government.

The Government has become nothing short of rudderless. Leadership and policy that are driven solely by focus-group polling have no vision. A purpose as limited as the maintenance of power for one last term is no vision at all. New Zealanders deserve better than that, and they will get better than that when they next go to the polls. Helen Clark’s handing over of responsibility for her leadership to her deputy on issue after issue is definitely not a vision; it is merely a diversion and a distraction to shield and distance her from any and all criticism—and boy, does this Prime Minister hate criticism.

Let us look at last year’s Knowledge Wave conference featuring young New Zealand leaders. Whatever became of the recommendations of those Knowledge Wave conferences? Nothing; not a thing. Why? Because the Prime Minister does not like or understand the impatience of a new generation of Kiwi leaders, innovators, and creators—people who have moved beyond the Prime Minister’s 1960s’ prism of prejudice.

I have been asking myself whether this is as good as it gets—a Prime Minister who polls on whether we should have Annette King as the next Speaker. Members on this side of the House say just one thing to that: we do not care who is in the Speaker’s Chair, but just give us someone who is fair for a change. Has the Prime Minister ever—

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

I withdraw and apologise.

Has the Prime Minister ever attempted to frame to the people of New Zealand her Government’s policies towards Māori? There was the closing the gaps policy, but Labour’s poll reversal drove that policy underground. Has the Prime Minister ever attempted to explain to the country the direction that she sees race relations moving, here in New Zealand? No, she has left a void.

Of course, the biggest problem with that is that when a Prime Minister does not lead, opportunity arises for others to lead. She could have said, 4 long years ago upon becoming Prime Minister: “Their cause must be our cause too, because it is not just Māori but all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.” I think all reasonable New Zealanders would have agreed with the Prime Minister had she had the vision to say something like that—but no, not Helen Clark, for Helen Clark hates rhetoric. Besides, she is incapable of it, she frowns upon it, and she escapes from it. Therefore, when it comes to issues of Māori race relations in this country she has simply left a vacuum. I say to the Prime Minister that Don Brash has walked right into that vacuum. The lesson for the Prime Minister there is that National will lead on those issues, because she will not.

We will lead very public debates this year, on topics like raising our sights on educational achievement. National will argue that we must teach every child basic literacy and numeracy skills. Getting the basics right is our message, not embracing the political correctness that makes losers out of winners and robs our children of the healthy ambition they will need to succeed in a hugely competitive global market.

In regard to defence policy, the Prime Minister has no strategy whatsoever. In fact, she does not even comprehend the changed external environment after September 11. Bizarrely, the Prime Minister alone among responsible leaders thinks that New Zealand still lives in an incredibly benign strategic environment. That is despite September 11; that is despite the cowardly bombing in Bali that saw the tragic death of innocent New Zealanders; that is despite Jakarta; and that is despite every New Zealander being reminded every time he or she flies somewhere—anywhere—that security concerns are now paramount for all those countries that value prudence and security. Not since the height of the cold war has the international security environment been so unstable.

Yet, at the same time, there has never been a greater divergence in defence policy between Australia and New Zealand, between Australia and Helen Clark’s isolationist Government. We must strengthen, not weaken, security for our citizens—for those Kiwis living both here and in Australia. Helen Clark and her Government seem to have forgotten that nearly 400,000 New Zealanders live and work in Australia. How can we not share our neighbours’ concerns for their security? How can we not do our fair share? How can we not work with our mates?

Instead, we have our defence forces spread recklessly thin without any overarching principle guiding their deployments other than to smooth over the Prime Minister’s frequent gaffes on the world stage. Under Labour, what was once our combat wing is a bit like the kiwi itself—it cannot fly and it costs a fortune to maintain. It costs $300,000 a month. We are the only country in the world that has spent $6 million so we can have a combat force that does not work.

Labour’s constant polling is another facet of the Prime Minister’s lack of vision, although I must bring members’ attention to one poll’s finding that the Prime Minister, her Government, and the Green Party are very happy to ignore. It is the finding that says 76 percent of New Zealanders believe they should have the final say on whether MMP stays or goes—not Helen Clark, not Jeanette Fitzsimons, not some faceless committee, but the people of New Zealand. It is the people’s system, so their expectations must be met. The Prime Minister, whether or not she believes it, does not control democracy.

Finally, I tell members opposite that National is back and we will continue to expose the Prime Minister’s lack of vision. The people will come to see that Labour cannot lead and that this Prime Minister is letting the country down. The tide is turning and the Labour Party’s time is up.

What a pathetic contribution that was from the Opposition spokesperson on defence. I look across the House and I see Simon Power and Richard Worth, and I ask what those two people have in common. What they have in common is that they both owned up and went on the public record to say that 9 years of slashing expenditure on the New Zealand Defence Force by the previous National Government had crippled the New Zealand Defence Force. Now we have the double standard of Simon Power, as spokesperson on defence, coming into the House and saying that the New Zealand Government has not supported its defence forces.

Simon Power talked about isolationism. I will tell that member what the defence forces in East Timor told me last week. The senior officers whom I talked to said that they had never in their entire career in the armed forces been as busy and as active around the world in missions that they were proud to be part of than they have been under this Labour-led Government—the job they did in East Timor; the job they are doing in the Solomon Islands and in Bougainville; the work they are doing in Afghanistan in heading up a provincial reconstruction team, and the fact that they are working as part of the International Security Assistance Force; and the humanitarian and reconstruction work that is being done in Iraq. The National Party must represent the only individuals in New Zealand, and, indeed, in the international community, who will not acknowledge that the New Zealand Defence Force and the New Zealand Government are playing the role of exemplary international citizens in the tasks they are carrying out.

I want to come back to what the Leader of the Opposition said—or rather, what he did not say—in his speech. Don Brash has been on record as a public figure for well over a couple of decades. We know what his agenda is. His agenda is what he has spelt out. He will cut taxes on the rich—that is, $1.7 billion to go back to the wealthiest 2 percent of this country—and at the same time he will slash the minimum wage, because that is a disincentive for the disadvantaged and the poorest income earners to work. I am not making that up; Dr Brash is on the record as saying that. Dr Brash is on the record as saying that eligibility for New Zealand superannuation should be raised 10 years, so that people would be 75 before they got it. Dr Brash is on the record as proposing privatisation. He said that everything should go. He gave that speech time and time again, but we did not hear it in the House today. We did not hear it in the House today because he knew that being to the right of the ACT party will let National subsume the 4 percent that the ACT party gets, but will still leave National relegated to a minor Opposition role in this House.

So the good doctor has discovered the time-honoured populist stance of exploiting race as a way of winning popular support. Never mind the fact that for 9 years we had a National Government that honoured its obligations. Doug Graham, supported by Murray McCully who is sitting in the House, did what was necessary to bring our country together, in order to establish a degree of unity that would mean New Zealand would not follow all those other countries around the world where race and ethnic tension have ripped societies apart. But now the good doctor is subordinating what is in the long-term interests of this country—the well-being and the unity of this country—to divide the country for his own political ends, and to disguise what his real political agenda is.

But it is worse than that. I picked up a New Zealand Press Association article this morning, giving coverage of a statement made by Dr Brash yesterday. I will read it to the House, and I challenge the National Party as to whether this represents the new policy of the National Opposition. It reads: “National Party policy was that New Zealand should have joined the war in Iraq and the cost of not being there was substantial.” I had to have a double take at that, because the National Party has never had a stance on Iraq, for or against. From the safe position of retrospectivity, it now says we should have been there. But the worse thing is that Dr Brash made that comment in the context of free-trade agreements. He said that the substantial benefit we missed out on was getting into negotiation with the United States, and that was the reason we should have gone to war. I have never seen such an expedient, morally bankrupt policy as one that states that we should put at risk and sacrifice the lives of young New Zealand men and women serving in the defence forces in a vain attempt to curry favour for a trade agreement. If that is the principle that Don Brash is so keen on telling the country that he stands for as a man of principle, then I say that this country will have nothing of it—nothing of it, at all.

Two-thirds of New Zealanders rejected New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Iraq, and this Government made its stance very clear. It said that if weapons of mass destruction were the reason for going to war in Iraq, then we should let the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission weapons inspectors complete their task, so that if war was going to happen it was only as a last resort. The weapons inspectors had not finished their work, and they needed to be allowed to finish their work. That policy was accepted as wise by five out of seven parties in this House, and by two-thirds of New Zealanders. The wisdom of that policy was shown by the comments made by David Kay, the head US weapons inspector, in his testimony to the Senate armed services committee just a fortnight ago. He acknowledged that there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So the good Dr Brash would sacrifice principle with regard to whether New Zealand should go to war.

However, Dr Brash has gone beyond that. He has said he will also sacrifice New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy. Two-thirds of New Zealanders believe that we should not have nuclear-powered vessels, and 80 percent of New Zealanders say we should not have nuclear weapons in this country. Don Brash has told his caucus that he would change that policy “before breakfast”—those were words that I heard quoted—against the wishes of 80 percent of New Zealanders, again because he thinks that sacrificing this country’s right to an independent policy will somehow give us a free-trade agreement. That is simply a nonsense. I want to quote an authority—a person who should know. He is no less than Prime Minister John Howard from Australia. John Howard said a few days ago that trade agreements were not about friendship, and that friendships do not amount to a lot when it comes to trade agreements. He said “I have never said it’s the sort of thing where sentiment and political friendship will triumph over local and sectoral self-interest.” So not only is Dr Brash prepared to sacrifice principle to expediency but he is doing so in a cause that will not succeed.

This Government will continue to push for a free-trade negotiation with the United States. We are building up a constituency of support for that. Three hundred corporates and 70 members of Congress have signed a letter to President Bush, stating that such negotiations should begin. They should begin because it will be good for the economy of our country, good for the economy of the United States, and it makes sense for two countries that have stood side by side on the issues of trade liberalisation to enter into such an agreement, particularly since one of the two closer economic relations partners is now part of a free-trade agreement. But when we achieve that agreement—however long it may take—it will be on the basis of the rational benefits of such agreements. It will not be on the basis of this country and this Government sacrificing the fundamental principles that we believe in, and sacrificing our sovereign right as a nation to hold our heads high and put forward the policies that we believe in; not what it is simply expedient to believe in—as Don Brash constantly promotes.

I want to discuss two issues that were raised by the Prime Minister in her speech today. The first, of course, is Trevor Mallard’s campaign to close schools throughout the country, and the second is the very important issue of the foreshore and seabed.

The Greens entirely oppose the Government’s current school network review process—not because we do not believe that some schools may need to close, but because the process as practised by the ministry and by the Minister is an act of structural violence against our rural and provincial communities. The Prime Minister mentioned how the Government was working with the regions through the regional partnership programme, but what partnership? How can the regional sector seriously engage with the Government in a partnership to develop economic strength when the heart of these communities is being ripped out through school closures and no-go areas? A region cannot develop with any degree of certainty and sustainability when essential public services like schools are taken from them.

It is a fundamental problem at the heart of the Government’s approach that it does not see the well-being of a community in a holistic way. Social integrity and ecological wisdom, as well as economic sustainability, are all required for sustainable regional development. Keeping integrity with regional development is absolutely crucial if we want to help provincial and rural New Zealand thrive in ways that will relieve cities of the increased pressure on infrastructure from increased population growth. Dynamic, thriving communities in economic, social, and cultural terms are essential for city people, those in smaller towns and provincial areas, and those in more isolated communities alike. Labour needs to have a heart as well as taking a whole-of-Government approach to rural and provincial New Zealand. There is a clear contradiction between the Government saying that it wants to foster regional development while continuing to rip out rural infrastructure.

The Prime Minister’s own Government has found that lack of public transport is a major barrier to rural and provincial women entering the workforce. How exactly will increasing travel time to schools help rural and provincial women enter the workforce? The Minister of Education has said that falling rolls make this terrible process necessary. But many parents and educators have noted that falling rolls bring opportunities for reduced class sizes, which are educationally beneficial. Reduced class sizes would have a huge impact on relieving teacher workloads, enabling better class management, and providing some individual time for each child. Those are good things, which this Minister should be promoting, but through his network review programme he is instead fuelling existing disparities. The network review is a full-scale, determined attempt to rationalise all schools, regardless of the quality of education or the community investment in the school itself.

A board member of a school in Russell, which has recently been through a review process—and this school, in particular, will thankfully remain open—has told the Greens about the extraordinarily abusive process it was put through as part of the review. This school spent thousands of dollars so that the community could work through the complex issues and devise strategies to keep its school open. That school had to respond to the ministry within an extremely short time frame of only a few months, causing enormous expense and strain on the staff and volunteer board members. They also talked about how the process pits schools against each other in an essentially competitive and damaging process.

The Greens would applaud any review that results in better opportunities for pupils, better services for the community, and a higher standard of education. However, school closures must be based on research that takes into account both the social and financial costs involved, and is genuinely supported by the local community. A process that could deliver real community empowerment and quality education is instead becoming a central government bulldozer through the heart of small communities. The school closure debate clearly shows that good process is everything. A high-handed approach can lead to lingering grievances, and it is surprising how hard it is for Governments to learn that lesson.

This brings me very pointedly to the second issue of the foreshore and the seabed. How Labour deals with the issue will be the most important decision this Government makes this term, not just politically but as a fundamental issue of leadership and justice. I urge it to take serious care over its approach, and in the things its members say and do. At the weekend I heard Prime Minister Helen Clark continue to say that Māori wanted exclusive rights to the foreshore and seabed. That is simply and patently untrue. It is a statement that echoes the divisive approach espoused by other political parties in this House. Fundamentally, Māori want a dialogue grounded in respect and reciprocity. That is the part of the relationship that underpins Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Honouring that can be hard and is challenging, but not honouring it will be disastrous for the whole of our nation. This Government must take considerable care where it places itself on the continuum from reconciliation and te tiriti - based relationships to the divisive, hate-based politics that the right wing is now claiming for itself.

I understand that the Government’s primary concern is for public access to the foreshore and seabed. It is this concern that is mentioned the most when the Government defends its proposal. The Greens, too, are deeply committed to public access to our natural environment. Our conservation policy sets out a whole raft of policies to enable ecologically responsible access, use, and enjoyment of our environment that does not disturb the fundamental connections of kaitiakitanga or customary title for Māori. But the Government’s proposal does not protect public access, let alone customary rights. The proposal imposes a set of rules that, on the one hand, undermines kaitiakitanga, and on the other, fails to protect public access for all New Zealanders. Māori lose a collective customary right that has existed for centuries and does not hinder reasonable access. Other New Zealanders, with much more recent freehold title, get to keep their right to exclude people.

I hold in my hand an advertisement from the Sunday Star-Times, printed on 1 February this year. It shows a whole island in Mangonui, Northland, called Paewhenua. This island is being developed for sale. The advertisement states that there are riparian rights to this island, and swipe-card access. Swipe-card access to the beaches, foreshore, and seabed of this beautiful, amazing piece of New Zealand! Does this Government’s proposal protect the public’s access to that piece of foreshore and seabed? No, it does not. It does not because the Government has failed to address the issue that our nation’s heritage remains open for sale to those with sufficient wealth. It is access for the wealthy, not for the people. We are one of the few nations that allow the ready sale of our land to international interests.

Access to the foreshore and seabed is not actually an issue between Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders. It is an issue about the protection of our environment from sale to the highest bidder. It is about consistent policy across private and public interests that puts the environment and the people of New Zealand, Māori and Pākehā alike, at the centre.

If we are to progress to have a truly unified, cohesive, and tolerant te tiriti - based nation, this Government needs to demonstrate true leadership—not by talking the language of separation and conflict, but by working constructively and openly with Māori to build relationships, instead of seeking short-term political gain.

I rise to support the Prime Minister’s statement. I want to talk about a variety of issues, but for a few moments I will talk about the strength of the New Zealand economy. Let us look at some of the measures of the strength of the New Zealand economy. Economic growth was at 4.4 percent last year, and is projected to be 3.9 percent this year. Our economy is at the top of the OECD. There is no way on this earth that the National Party can take credit for that.

Let us look at another substantial measure. Unemployment is down to 17-year lows. There have been 176,000 jobs created since this Government came to office. There is a 4.4 percent unemployment rate. If we compare that with Australia’s unemployment rate—and the National Party is very fond of making stark comparisons between New Zealand and Australia, in an attempt to put New Zealand and New Zealanders down—we find that Australia’s rate is 5.8 percent. If we go across to the US, we learn that its unemployment rate is 6.1 percent, and ours is at 4.4 percent. Then, if we take the OECD average of 7.1 percent, we know we are well down on 4.4 percent. But of course, across the aisle, every attempt by Dr Brash and his cohorts tries to paint the economy as if it is in trouble, to treat New Zealanders as if they are thick, and to say that life is not good, when we have growth and unemployment at those figures.

Let us look at business confidence. It is as solid as a rock. If we look at industry training we see that we have a skills shortage all over the country. It is a problem. Some would say it is a nice problem to have, because most people are working. What are we doing about it? There are 7,500 people in good old apprenticeships. We brought apprenticeships back. In 2002 there were 107,000 people in industry training, and by 2007 we will bring that number up to quarter of a million. Those are substantial achievements.

If we look at building consents we see that there were 30,000 new building consents issued last year. Job advertisements went up by 18.2 percent last year. Those are all great signs, positive signs, of a robust economy. But does the National Party, in rebuttal of the Prime Minister’s statement, come up with one shred of policy? Does it have a debate on economic matters? No, it has no policy. Dr Brash’s great strength—the economic genius that he is—is the economy, he says. Those members never debate it. They cannot debate it because they know things are in order in this economy. They know we have growth, they know we have a solid labour market, and they have surrendered.

I want to turn to some comments made by Gerry Brownlee and others, concerning the race issue the National Party has been campaigning on since the Orewa speech. Today the mask fell off that campaign, in the form of Gerry Brownlee. If we were to believe the National Party, it would say that it is running a very high and mighty campaign in order to have a genuine discussion about race-based issues. That might have been believable—I never believed it—but I will tell members that no one believes it now, not after Mr Brownlee’s comments. The mask fell off. I had some respect for Mr Brownlee—

💬 Jim Peters: Did you?

A little bit.

💬 Jill Pettis: He can play the piano.

My colleague says he can play the piano, and he can make a good cutting board as a woodwork teacher. I had some respect for him, but I never thought that somebody in this House, even from the National Party, would stoop as low as to say what we heard today. I hope it gets on the television news. I hope Television One and TV3 play the comment he made in the House over and over again, because today the mask fell off.

We know the National Party agenda. It cannot win on its economic policy, because it has been blown off the map on that. It cannot bring up any issue. It cannot put forward a policy, because it has none. So what will it do? It is dirty tricks time. If we go back a couple of decades to look at National Party history, we will see that we have seen it all before. I recall that in 1990 the truth was that the then Labour Government was on the way out. We knew that; everybody around the country knew that. The National Party made exorbitant promises and said anything to win. I will not use a particular word, but the National Party said and did anything. Its character reflected that. Today we have seen the start of the same modus operandi.

I recall the Kim Hill interview with Don Brash. He was asked the simple question about what it meant to be a New Zealander. Don Brash said—and this is a cracker—“I guess I’m not sure that I can answer that in 30 seconds, but to me it clearly means being born in New Zealand. Well, I’m not even sure that that’s a definition, because there are many people who have been here for many years who were not born in New Zealand, but who are, in every respect, New Zealanders. I don’t know that I can give a quick summary of what it means to be a New Zealander.” That is the guy who aspires to lead the country. He has no vision. If he cannot answer that question on the spot, with a little vision and a little spontaneity, he should not be here. He should not have had to wait 10 days to get up and make a speech, weepy-eyed, to say he thinks it means a feeling one gets when one flies back to New Zealand—presumably in first class, unlike those poor guys down the back end in economy class. That was the best he could do—and it took him 10 days—and he wants to lead the country!

I offer a few hints to Dr Brash. There are many answers to the question of what it means to be a New Zealander. In fact, at last count, there are four million answers to that question. Here are a few hints for Papa Smurf and a few other people over there. What does it mean to be a New Zealander? I shall tell them what I think. To be a New Zealander is to know that our birthright is to live in what the rest of the world regards as close to a paradise. To be a New Zealander is to show that generosity of spirit that has seen us leading the world throughout our history, in areas like votes for women, superannuation, and looking after each other. It is to be able to see, as we have seen 2 weeks in a row, news coverage of ecstatic refugees—I know that Winston Peters will not like that and neither will Dail Jones; I think he is from Pakistan—who were reunited with their loved ones in a land called New Zealand that offered them a second chance in life and held out a hand of friendship and tolerance. To be a New Zealander is to feel a bit of pride that while others slam the door we stand up, without fear and with courage, to hold our door ajar to those who need a bit of safety and hope. To be a New Zealander is to know that we live in a nation that is historically very, very young. It is like a work in progress, not like a work where one sort of people think they have a right to hold the brush, the paint, and the canvas, and then call it quits if anyone else suggests a different look. To be a New Zealander is to know that as we shape our future we cannot ignore our past.

To be part of this nation is to know and feel that what we have here is unique, robust, but also very fragile—all at the same time. It might be bad news for the “Don and Gerry Show”, but the tourists of the world do not come here to look at them; the tourists of the world come here to look at us as a unique nation. One would expect that the high priests of the free market who are sitting opposite would know that the profound value in a global economy is to have a point of cultural difference. One would think they would know that, but maybe they are too busy holding forth about the past and cannibalising the rest of the right wing to have noticed that there is not too much tourist demand for them. In a global economy it is the cultural branding that gives a nation an edge. We have that edge. It has been established, but it is also still evolving.

I tell Dr Brash that to be a New Zealander is also to cherish our role as risk takers and pioneers in social issues. It is to acknowledge that we are welcomed everywhere around the world as peacekeepers, in part because the world knows how fierce we can be when we choose. To be a New Zealander is to have the grace to feel pride, as Peter Dunne said, when one hears Keisha Castle-Hughes tell Hollywood and the rest of the world that after the Oscar nominations she is off home for a couple of weeks to go to school and to kapa haka.

To be a New Zealander is to rejoice in our diversity. It is not to take the road of discord and division for temporary advantage or the free kick. That is the road our forebears often fled from, and I have no wish to go down it. When the Scots came to this country they were driven by loss of land. The Irish were driven by both the loss of land and their right to follow their faith. The British came here looking for better lives than those they had had at home, as did other Europeans and people of other races and cultures.

Many of us here, old and new, know the awful price of fomenting and exploiting division for political ends. To be a real New Zealander is to rise above that. It is to rejoice in our humanity, and to show a little humanity as well. It is, regardless of race, age, or wealth, to be able to feel the power, the magic, and the potential still untapped in this land. For me, that is what it means to be a New Zealander and I invite Dr Brash and his tribe to reflect on that.

I want to devote my brief contribution to this debate to a matter that is of central importance to New Zealand families—namely, their income. When one thinks about it, the level of income is of fundamental importance to all New Zealand families and individuals, since it determines so much about their standard of living and their ability to access core services, such as health, education, and the like.

United Future’s goal is nothing short of prosperity for all New Zealanders. We sometimes talk about the economy as if it had a life of its own, separate and distinct from the welfare of our families. That is a false dichotomy. Indeed, the words “economy” and “economist” originally, in their Greek form, were terms that applied to the management of the household. It continues to be true that economic goals are there to serve people and their families, and not the other way round. At the end of the day, economic growth is ultimately worthwhile pursuing only if it raises the average income of all New Zealanders. It is important that no one is left behind. For that reason we strongly support the family assistance package that has been announced in the Prime Minister’s statement today and that we understand will be the centrepiece of this year’s Budget.

It is time to put something back into the pockets of hard-working New Zealand families. In real terms, the rate of income tax paid by New Zealanders has increased by about $480 million since the present tax bands were established on 1 April 2000. I do not know yet what the total value of the family tax assistance package will be, but if it is around $500 million, then in real terms it merely returns the rate of tax paid by New Zealanders back to where it was in about 2000. We believe that the Government needs to be much more generous than that. Rather than simply rearrange the deckchairs, we will continue to badger the Government to the effect that in addition to the family assistance package it should also adjust the tax brackets to offset inflation since 2000. That would leave $60 per year in the pockets of those earning below $30,000, $540 per year for those earning under $60,000, and $840 per year for those earning $65,000 or more.

Another way of boosting family incomes would be to drop the GST on rates. In reality, it is a tax by central government on a tax by local government and cannot be justified on policy grounds. Dr Michael Cullen was against GST on rates when it was first introduced, but he told the House that he has since changed his mind. Dr Cullen got it right the first time round, and now he has the opportunity to put it right for the households of New Zealand. It would cost only in the low hundreds of millions of dollars—not much for the Government, given the size of its surplus, but a great deal for our families. It should be done without delay. The Government should also cut the company tax rate to 30c in the dollar as a key driver to generating wealth and enlarging the income take for New Zealanders and their families.

In my view, the time is right for some fiscal stimulus as our economy cools down across the board from its 2002 peak. The Prime Minister today spoke about a smart economy, and for a moment I thought she was going to say “a smarting economy”, because it is true that whole sections of our economy—and I refer in particular to the forestry sector, the farming sector, and most of the other export sectors—are actually smarting at this point in time. Times are not good for them. The reality is that they will be tightening their belts very significantly during 2004 and probably on into 2005. Also, it must surely be admitted that the fiscal stimulus effect is neutral as between high taxes and high expenditure on the one hand—the course that has been plotted by this Government—and a reduction in taxation accompanied by a reduction in expenditure on the other hand, which is the course favoured by United Future.

I believe that the Government still does not understand how we can foster real sustained economic growth in our country. For example, there was nothing in the statement specifically about an export policy to offset the problems I have just mentioned in the smarting part of the economy, where incomes are well down. The Government has admitted that it cannot control the exchange rate, but it can do some other things. It appears certain, therefore, that in 2005 the voters of this country will be given a clear choice about which mix they would prefer. For our part, we want to move in the direction of boosting after-tax income for families in New Zealand across the board.

United Future states once again today that there is a clear demand for character education in this country. Character education is really about universal values such as honesty, respect for others and the law, tolerance—as others have said—fairness, caring, and social responsibility, and about building these things into a school’s culture. We have noticed, as children go back to school, that integrated schools, for instance, are turning students away. Parents want character education for their children and do not seem to be able to get it from their local State schools. It is time the Government delivered on that need, rather than simply pay lip service to it.

The 1993 curriculum framework clearly states that attitudes and values should go hand in hand in the curriculum with knowledge and skills, but that is not happening. Integrated schools tend to have an emphasis on values, standards, and character that parents realise they cannot get for their children elsewhere. As a result, they want their children at those schools—not necessarily for religious reasons, as the New Zealand Herald rightly pointed out just recently, but for the values that underpin the schools’ philosophies. What they are really after is, as I call it, character education. They have that deep belief that we need to instil positive values in young people, who, in turn, become contributing citizens, with their own families in their own neighbourhoods. In the end, this is about ensuring that our children receive an education of substance, not just job skills and knowledge.

United Future calls also for tertiary students to be given a fair go. Student debt, we all know, negatively impacts on growing, healthy families in this country of New Zealand. The Government has to give students and their parents a financial break, I believe, and stop treating people in their mid-20s as children for student allowance purposes. I have noticed that young people can be on the dole at the age of 18, whether their parents are paupers or millionaires, but when those young people are students the Government has decided that their student allowances, up and until the age of 25, are based on their parents’ income. We see that as a gross injustice. The Government ought, surely, to be encouraging learning—with students thereby obtaining employment, because that is their goal through learning—rather than continuing today’s dole policies that encourage hopelessness for students’ futures. Let us start, I suggest, by testing students on their own income instead of their parents’ income, and we could start at age 20. It is time to end the fiction that until 25 one is dependent on one’s parents, as that is simply ridiculous in reality.

That is just another example of how those who try to achieve have had obstacles placed in their way. For those students under 20, the level of the relevant parental income should be increased to reflect increases in the cost of living, as those figures, by the way, were set way back in 1992. Apparently, the level of parental income at that stage was set at $28,000 before there was abatement, in round figures, to $50,000. Based on the consumer price index spending power of those 1992 figures, the levels should move from $28,000 to $34,000, and from $50,000 by another $12,000 right up to $62,000, and surely that increase would be a base for a great benefit for all students.

The best way, I think, to attack the debilitating level of student debt being incurred by a whole generation of young people around us is to lower their costs. Fixing up the student allowance system, I believe, is a good starting point. United Future will address the injustices of student debt and introduce character education into all our schools, as direct measures to help support families in our great country of New Zealand.

I rise to speak in support of the motion moved by the leader of the National Party, Dr Don Brash. It is important for this country that people know at the start of this year which political parties are lining up with the Government and which are lining up against it. There are too many political parties in Parliament today that are just a bob each way, with United Future being the most flip-floppy of them all. It votes for the Government on confidence motions, criticises legislation the Government is passing, goes around the lobby groups promising to oppose it, then votes for the same bills in the House. It is the most flip-floppy party in Parliament.

But United Future is not alone in having that flip-flop sort of attitude. Even the New Zealand First Party has been known to start flip-flopping around with this Government. We saw that just before Christmas, when New Zealand First voted for the Government’s Employment Relations Law Reform Bill, which business all over New Zealand is now wound up about and campaigning against. I hope it is not too late for New Zealand First. I hope its members will have time over the summer to look at the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill and realise that that piece of legislation, which the Prime Minister referred to in the Government’s speech earlier on this afternoon, will do more to destroy employment opportunities than any other single piece of legislation this Government will deal with in its 3-year term. I hope New Zealand First members will join a campaign we are leading to oppose that legislation.

💬 Jim Peters: You run your own campaign!

Well, New Zealand First says it is in that campaign. I think that is what the gentleman said.

💬 Jim Peters: You have yours; we’ve got ours.

Mr Peters says they are in the campaign. That is good, but it is not how they voted.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The National Opposition has moved a motion of no confidence in this hopeless Labour Government. The test of that motion will be what other parties in the House do to it. Naturally, Labour will vote against it, but what will United Future do? Will it, once again, go in and vote as a matter of confidence in a Government that has laid out, as a central plank for its programme over the next 12 months, new employment legislation to which every business in New Zealand is opposed? Can any member in the House name one business group or one business that supports the Government’s approach on industrial relations? Not one does, but the United Future party is happy to vote for the Government on confidence motions and is happy to support the Government as it wheels into Parliament employment legislation that will destroy jobs and restrict this nation’s growth.

As a portent, I guess, of what is to come in employment law, there is a press release today from the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union. In the press release that organisation proudly announces that momentum in this country’s most significant industrial round is growing, with hundreds of workers due to stop work in Auckland tomorrow. That is what is about to happen to this country with the new employment legislation that will put all the weight back into collective bargaining and multi-employer collective agreements.

💬 Jill Pettis: Shock, horror!

The Labour Party may say “Shock, horror!”, but this new legislation means that small or trend-setting unions will set the terms and conditions for all workers in this country. In fact, the press release states: “Workers covered by the agreement are holding stopwork meetings around the country to set claims and plan their negotiating strategy.” It goes on to say that this award, relating to the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, will be “keenly followed by thousands of workers and employers”. It is seen as setting the trend for all other wage negotiations.

Is that the sort of gridlocked economy the United Future party and the New Zealand First Party are happy to see us go back to? I ask that question for two reasons. The first is because New Zealand First voted for the introduction of that bill. Its members voted in favour of more union power. That is what they voted for. United Future, which voted against its introduction, will vote for Labour so that Labour can stay in office to implement the legislation. How will United Future members get on when they toddle around the business community saying that they oppose it? Here is their chance to stop it dead in its tracks this week. They can do that if they have the courage to do it. But when a party is 2.5 percent in the polls and falling, its members are not about to go off and vote for an early Christmas. Someone who is No. 6 on a five-party list, as Mr Baldock is, sure as heck will not be doing that. He will not be puffing his chest out and voting here, but he will be going around the businesses in Tauranga and saying to them: “Don’t worry, I’m opposed to it.”

I will be in Tauranga on Monday. I challenge Mr Baldock to come along to the chamber of commerce meeting and stand up and tell why he is supporting a Government that will be implementing that legislation. In Tauranga a survey was carried out that showed over 90 percent of the businesses in the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce were totally opposed to that legislation. He will not be doing anything about that, at all.

It is not only that. This legislation is an attack not just on large business but also on small business all over New Zealand. The changes that Labour will be implementing this year around the contracting out and sale of business provisions will mean that small businesses up and down the country will lose goodwill from their businesses. What are members opposite saying to small-business owners who have saved, who have a mortgage on their house, who employ four or five people, and who will see goodwill wiped from their businesses? What are they saying about that? I do not think they are even responding. I think the emails I am getting from people who own small businesses, telling me that they are contacting their local member—

💬 Darren Hughes: Oh, Oh!

Mr Hughes says “Oh, Oh!”. I tell him that he has not replied to the people writing to me who have a small business in Levin. I say to him that they are very worried their local member will not even reply to his emails. That tells us where those Labour members are at. They have decided that this legislation is what the unions want, so that is what the unions are going to get. This legislation is a cheque for the Labour Party; that is all it is about. It will drive union membership up, it will drive more money into the unions, and it will therefore drive more money—through the affiliation fees—into the Labour Party.

It is payback time for the Labour Party and for trade unions, and the rest of the economy will bear the cost of it. At the end of the day, it is the workers who will bear the cost, because workers will not get jobs. Jobs will not be created because of the silly, bureaucratic legislation that Parliament will pass this year—unless we defeat the Government in the vote on this confidence motion.

I say to anybody who might have—unfortunately—tuned in at that particular time that one of the reasons that member focused on Mr Hughes is that he had already been defeated by him in one election, as well as losing to Judy Keall twice. I say to people who may be listening that, when listening to the Opposition, they might think everything is doom, gloom, and despondency. I thought it would be good to remind members for a moment what the most important part of the Prime Minister’s statement was today. I will quote from her speech—

💬 Hon Roger Sowry: Talk about the schools in Invercargill.

I will do. I will tell that member something for nothing. At least Ministers on this side of the House have the guts to front up, as opposed to members on the other side of the House, not one of whom ever fronted up when there was an issue affecting their electorates.

💬 Hon Roger Sowry: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is quite out of order for a member to use that sort of language in the House, and I ask you to reflect on that. I wonder whether you will allow it, because once one member starts using it, others do. As the member knows, when he was in Invercargill recently he was told to take his little chicken act away.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Under Standing Order 84(3), points of order are terse and to the point. I had already called the member to order.

Can I say—

💬 Hon Roger Sowry: Have you taken your chicken act away?

If that particular little member opposite wishes to trade insults, there is a lot more about him that we could say. But we restrain ourselves on this side of House because, like Dr Brash, we believe in debating the issue. Poor old Dr Brash really has no particular vision.

I want to go through what Helen Clark said today: “Our Government’s core mission is to build a confident and dynamic nation, based on an innovative, growing, smart economy which can deliver more jobs, more opportunities, and higher living standards, together with the resources to fund world-class public services, especially in health and education, and world-class infrastructure. The nation we seek to build is creative; it looks after its environment; it values diversity and tolerance; it takes its responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi seriously; and it is a good international citizen.” That is a Government I am proud to be a member of, I have to tell the House.

When I look at what is happening around the nation, and particularly in my region, I see a level of confidence that was never around in the days of the previous Government. The saying that used to go around in Invercargill before the change of Government in 1999 was: “Last out please turn out the lights.” But that is not so any more. Business is booming in Southland. We have a domestic economy that is quite well diversified now, largely thanks to the very good efforts of the Southern Institute of Technology, the diversification into more horticultural products, and the growth of the dairy industry.

On the back of that, there was a time when Lockwood Smith was berating this Government for lowering the dollar. I remember when he came into the Chamber and said: “The dollar’s down to 39c; oh, woe is us.”, and farmers in my electorate were so pleased they said to me to keep the dollar there. Of course, we see the dollar rising at the moment. But the issue now, and the thing that farmers understand, is that the important particular indicator in that area is the crossover rate with Australia. We still have quite a decent competitive advantage against Australia, and our farmers—

💬 Rodney Hide: Go ask the farmers.

Well, I can say to the member interjecting on me that I went to see the farmers in Lumsden the other night. There is a drought in Lumsden. The Hon Bill English did not even bother to turn up, but I fronted up. I got out of a caucus meeting, went home, and went to that particular meeting because it was important. The prosperity of farmers in my electorate is important for the south. I say to members opposite that they can go on about doom, gloom, and despondency all they like, but this Government is determined to ensure that we have a very strong economy—an economy that delivers to our people.

I remind members in the House that after a couple of reasonably rough periods Southland recorded the strongest rise across the regions in the last quarter. That is on top of continual increases in the productive capacity of Southland over a period of time. As my friend David Parker will know, there is a multiplier effect in these things. The more we improve our economy, the better it is—the better it is for local people in Southland. The higher the wages, the more people are employed. It is lovely to go to Southland now and to be told by people from Tuatapere: “Please don’t have us on Mr Maharey’s list of places not to send people, because our area’s growing.” It is growing so fast they cannot find people for jobs.

There is a skills deficit in Southland at the moment. We cannot do all the building that needs to be done. The building consents in the north of the city were sufficient to save the two rural schools. The two rural schools were saved because the number of building consents is so high, and because there is a population growth in the city at this juncture.

Let me tell members how the south has turned round. There was a population decline in Southland—a very marked population decline. What we are now seeing, and have seen over the last 3 years, is a net population increase in the south. It has been built on some very positive work done by the local community, and supported by this Government. This Government has built a new hospital for that city, and it is due to be commissioned. This Government supported new horticultural opportunities, which had only ever been panned by the National Party. That party did not like the fact that we were prepared to enter into partnership with those who wanted to set up new opportunities in horticulture. We all know that value added in in agricultural projects is where the future is. We know that commodities will be condemned for always being price-takers, and we know that adding value is important. This Government supported that initiative.

Southland was one of the first areas to take on Project Probe, and the broadband was rolled out recently in Tuatapere. The Leader of the Opposition, as he was then, did not even turn up to celebrate Project Probe with the local people. The beauty of it is that 95 percent of Southland’s business sector is now supplied with broadband. This is exciting stuff—on top of fully funded fees.

Here is another issue for the people opposite. The fully funded fees stand on their own two feet from this year. What does that mean? It means that with the exception of foreign fee-paying students, 100 percent funding is coming from the Government. That is able to happen because the Southern Institute of Technology is a growing and vibrant institution that has been well looked after by its management and well supported by this Government.

We have 5,000 students at Southland’s polytech. That is good news, but members opposite do not like good news. They cannot stand it. We have 5,000 students—3,500 equivalent full-time students—and it is going to get even better. The polytech is projecting to have in excess of 5,000 equivalent full-time students in the next 2 years, at a time when many other polytechs have had to search their souls about whether they should form partnerships with other organisations. I say that this growth has occurred because of the Southland attitude. We will not lie down and we will not give up. Southland is a busy, vibrant, and growing place.

I have one of the most unique problems that any member from Invercargill has ever had. I have had to deal with immigration issues. At the time when I first became a member of Parliament nobody ever came to see me about immigration—nobody. It was not an issue. People were leaving. They were going overseas. Now, I have highly skilled individuals coming to see me about their immigration issues. I have hospital representatives coming to see me, to help them get doctors to come and work in the hospital. That is good economic news, and it has been built on the fact that this Government has managed its economy well. It has made sure that the nation’s accounts are in surplus. We have made sure that we have put away for the rainy day when those members opposite retire. We will have to look after them because, Lord knows, they will never be on the Government benches again. We have made sure that we deal with the issues in the marketplace, the small businesses and so on, with all due respect and tolerance.

It has been fascinating to be part of this Government. It is a good Government, and it is about time the message got out. This Government has delivered to the people of New Zealand, and it has only just begun. This is not as good as it gets; it gets considerably better. The announcements from the Prime Minister today in her speech are a very clear reflection of the fact that we are making good progress. It is for everybody to know that if this country were ever to change direction we would go back to the failed policies, which poor old Mr Brash remembers well—at a time when most of us were not even born.

In listening to the speech made by the member for Invercargill, who has just resumed his seat, it is clear that the Government has in its back benches a member who is holding a marginal seat—and he is feeling the cold draught up his majority. That was a speech of desperation if ever I heard one.

The ACT party supports Don Brash’s motion expressing no confidence in this Clark-Wilson Labour Government. The Prime Minister’s statement at the beginning of the 2004 parliamentary year was visionless, arrogant, and smug. It is clear that the Government has no direction and no traction, and has failed to present a vision for this country and a programme to make it happen.

This Labour Government has experienced a dream run on the economic front, inheriting the fruits of the hard-earned yards laid down by the Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson reforms. The Labour Government, while publicly rejecting those reforms and railing against them at every opportunity, has not changed one—other than the Employment Contracts Act. And what has it done there? It has introduced industrial relations legislation that represents a return to the 1970s. I have had it on good authority that Con Davitt, Blue Kennedy, and Roger Middlemass are dusting off their blue pin-striped suits and heading down to Trades Hall, knowing that their time has come again.

Labour’s new industrial relations legislation represents a return to the past, and it can only erode this country’s competitiveness. The Government’s foreshore and seabed fiasco has angered all sectors of society, and it is clear that the Prime Minister and her colleagues are panicking as their poll-driven spin doctoring tells them they are on a losing pathway. They know they are on a losing pathway, and they are lashing out in desperation. Prime Minister Helen Clark has said that the Government’s foreshore and seabed proposals are about acting in the best interests of all New Zealanders. However, the Government’s top legal adviser, the Solicitor-General, Terence Arnold QC, told New Zealanders the truth about Labour’s proposals when he told the Waitangi Tribunal that Labour plans to accord real rights to those who hold customary titles and customary rights. They are not simply in the position of any other person. Those who have a customary right do have a right to stop activities, and they will have a significant impact on the way customary rights are exercised. The Solicitor-General went on to indicate that under Labour’s policies customary rights holders take precedence and their interests become paramount. This is not one law for all.

The extraordinary thing is this Labour Government’s duplicity in the way it is attempting to give different messages to different constituencies. We saw it in the local government legislation, where the Government printed one version in Māori and another in English, and the versions were contradictory in content. The Government was caught out and exposed, but time and time again we are seeing this Government exercising duplicity in the messages it delivers to New Zealanders. Don Brash’s Orewa speech has captured the nation with a simple, clear message of one rule for all, and no race-based policies.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Sounds like the ACT party.

Indeed, it does sound like the ACT party, as my colleague Richard Prebble has just reminded me. In fact, the ACT party was formed some 10 years ago, and ever since it has been a staunch advocate for equality before the law and the curtailing of the self-perpetuating treaty grievance industry. We were disappointed in 1997 when the then National Government used its majority to vote down ACT MP Derek Quigley’s bill for full, fair, and final treaty settlements. However, we are delighted that at the last election both New Zealand First and the National Party adopted our policy word for word, with the same time frames. Truth is certainly the daughter of time.

We have had an extraordinary situation with the spin doctoring of the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen. They are trying to imply that the simple message of one law for all is somehow racist, because that was their response. They called Don Brash racist for saying there should be one law for all. That is indeed very perverse logic. Don Brash’s message has captured a resonance with New Zealanders, and for the information of members who may not be aware, the Holmes show tonight had a record number of responses to its poll—35,000 responses. The question was: “Was Don Brash’s message delivered at Orewa on the right track or not?”. Ninety percent of responses said “Yes”. Don Brash and the ACT policy is on the right track for this country. In other words, this Government has, at best, 10 percent support for its proposals on this issue. This is the circuit-breaker, the issue, and the turn-round for this Government; it is all downhill from here. It has done its polling—it is good at polling—and that is why the member for Invercargill was so desperate in his speech. He knows he is in a key marginal provincial seat, and he knows that with this trend he is dog tucker. The member for Otago is smiling. His seat is an absolute apparition. He is gone—a one-term MP. And the member for Otaki—the bright young spark—started early in his career, but I say to him: “It’s all over, sunshine!”. It is all over. He should pack his bags now and go back to school to finish his education. That is the best thing he can do. Perhaps in 35 years’ time he might have a chance of coming back, because there will be no chance before then.

I was astounded at the way the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister engaged in personality attacks on Don Brash. Surely any thinking person would conclude the logic of the situation, and that defines a racist as those who believe that the machinery of State should confer either privilege or prejudice to individuals on the basis of their race. That is what this Labour Government is putting into legislation, and has done since it came to office in 1999. Right across the statute book race-based policies have been inserted into our legislation. Many jurisdictions have engaged in various forms of what have been called positive discrimination, but such policies have always failed. It has always been found that the identified disadvantaged group or minority has always done best when such policies of discrimination have been abandoned. We have seen it with the separate Māori rolls in local government and now separate Māori seats in local government. I put it to members that the Māori seats in this House are an absolute anachronism. They were introduced as a temporary measure in 1867, but this Labour Government has foolishly now gone for separate rolls and separate seats, based on race, at the basic level of democracy on our local councils. We also know that the local government legislation has special consultation provisions, conferring special privileges on Māori.

Others in the debate have mentioned the primary health organisations, which are now clearly racially defined. There is different health provision according to one’s race, not one’s need—according to the date on which a person’s ancestor might have arrived in this country. The Resource Management Act and the Conservation Act are riddled with race-based privilege and prejudice, and that is one of the stumbling blocks of those pieces of legislation. The Resource Management Act was meant to provide for the sustainable management of natural and physical resources, but not any more. That Act contains all sorts of undefined, nebulous, metaphysical provisions that the courts cannot determine and that change through time according to the whims of Labour politicians.

We could ask ourselves why Contact Energy paid Ngāi Tahu $1.6 million to avoid an objection from them on spiritual grounds against the resource consent application to renew the water rights for the Clyde Dam. We should not be surprised that shortly after the Contact Energy payment, Ken Mair and his band of Wanganui members seized the opportunity of leverage against the State-owned monopoly company, Genesis, which was facing a renewal of its water rights in the Tongariro. That is the sort of leverage to be gained from these race-based laws. It is a licence to print money and to clip the ticket. It distorts investment in this country, and it is bad. The centre-right parties are giving a clear message to New Zealand that it is coming to an end. We firmly believe in one law for all.

Before saying what I was going to say, I will respond to one of the many inaccuracies in the speech we have just heard. There was the suggestion that in primary health organisations Māori have different entitlements to non-Māori. That is wrong. I would have exactly the same rights in any primary health organisation I belonged to, whether I was Māori or non-Māori. There are different entitlements in different primary health organisations, but people in any one primary health organisation, be they for Māori or for non-Māori, are the same.

I am pleased to rise in support of the Prime Minister’s motion. Her speech was full of fact, policy, and leadership. It showed that we are on the right path to a prosperous and happy future. I want to contrast that with Dr Brash’s web of half-truths, which was, as Winston Peters has already noted, devoid of fact, vision, and policy.

I want to reflect on why he ignores the economy and chooses to attack on race issues. Why does he—the self-appointed guru that he believes he is—not deal with the detail of our economy? Because the economy is performing well, and he knows we are prospering.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to those members who are interjecting across the floor when they do not have the call that the rules permitting interjections are predicated on the assumption that the person being interjected on has the call. Interjections are not permitted at all when they are directed at a member who does not have the call.

So why does Dr Brash not attack us on the economy?

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I assume that given you have reminded us of the Standing Orders, and you have drawn the matter to the House’s attention, your rule will apply consistently during the rest of the year.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is for interjections when people do not have the floor, Mr Carter. I have made such a ruling.

They are obviously threatened by the quality of my speech. Why does Dr Brash not attack Labour on the economy? Because he knows that it is performing well under our wise stewardship. We do face the challenges of a rising exchange rate against the US dollar—not because of a general rate of appreciation of the New Zealand currency, but because of the decline of the US currency, as evidenced by the fact that our currency is not rising significantly against either the euro or sterling. This gives us our challenges.

Dr Brash has not focused on the economy, because New Zealand has one of the strongest economies in the OECD. We run a budget surplus. The Labour Government, every year it has been here, has prudently collected more in taxes than it has spent. That is after putting aside $1.8 billion to assist the future funding of Government superannuation. That Budget surplus has enabled the Government to reduce debt. Gross Government debt was 36.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) when Labour took over in 1999. It is down to 28 percent of GDP now, and is still dropping. It is predicted to go to 20 percent in the forecast period. Did Dr Brash talk about this? No, because it is factual and it is good news. Unemployment—did Dr Brash talk about this?

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You just told us that you would apply the rule on interjections consistently. The Minister of Health was interjecting on somebody who was not speaking, and you did not rise from the Chair to apply your own ruling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): There were interjections coming backwards and forwards from both sides of the House, and I draw members’ attention to the fact that it is discourteous to interject, one to another, when they do not have the call. Interjections are generally associated with the person who has the call.

💬 John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The ruling you made a few minutes ago, although you did not name myself, was made primarily because I was interjecting across the House on a number of members on that side. You made a ruling. I wonder why it applies to me and to this side of the House, yet when someone from the other side of the House interjects, the ruling is not applied in the way you said it would.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The ruling applies to everybody, Mr Carter. It was not directed personally at you.

Did Dr Brash talk about unemployment? No. Unemployment has dropped to less than 5 percent of the workforce—the lowest in 16 years and one of the lowest rates in the OECD. It is lower than those of our trading partners—lower than the United States, and lower than Australia. But did Dr Brash talk about this? No, because it is factual and it is good news.

Did Dr Brash talk about economic growth? He complained that it was not high enough. But what are the facts here? The latest annual growth in GDP was 3.9 percent across the nation—a bit higher in the good province of Otago—and far higher overall than the OECD average. New Zealand’s growth was one of the best of the Western countries. Did Dr Brash mention this? No. Instead, he criticised the gap between New Zealand and Australia.

I have commented before on Dr Brash’s selective memory about when that gap developed. I always look at the statistics, because I notice that when Dr Brash talks about these things—as he did in the Dominion Post at the time of the last Budget—he talks about the 1970s and 1980s as being the period when the gap developed, when in reality that is wrong. In 1980, New Zealand was No. 18 in the OECD rankings, and Australia was No. 10. By the end of that decade—the decade of Labour stewardship—Australia had gone back six places, to No. 16, and New Zealand had gone back only one place.

The next decade, the 1990s, was the decade of extremists. The National Party, under Ruth Richardson, Max Bradford, and their ilk, strangled our economy. The Employment Contracts Act drove our economy towards low-value products, labour productivity stagnated, and Australia boomed. In the 1990s, while New Zealand went backwards from position No. 19 to position No. 20, Australia went forward from position No. 16 to position No. 12 on the per capita OECD rankings. That was when the gap arose between the fortunes of New Zealand and Australia, under the policies of the then National Government, when Dr Brash had his hand on the tiller at the Reserve Bank, strangling the regions.

So, once again, when we look into the facts, Dr Brash is found out to be wrong. No wonder he does not talk about facts and policy. No, instead he makes wildly general accusations about the Labour-led Government’s so-called racial policies. But his assertions on this front do not withstand scrutiny either. Let us unpick the details. He talks in dangerous generalities. His answer to all these questions is the pious platitude, “one standard of citizenship”. So let us break it down into the major parts. It seems to me that there are six main areas: the settlement of historic grievances; talk of additional property rights for Māori; foreshore and seabed; claims by a minority of Māori for separate Māori sovereignty; delivery of social services to Māori; and delivery of social services by Māori. In the time I have here I will unpick each one of them.

The settlement of historic grievances is easy. It is a big issue, but even National says it is the right thing to do. So we need not talk about that any further. It is not the cause of National’s discontent. Talk of additional property rights for Māori: what are they? The Waitangi Tribunal said that Māori should have additional rights to telecommunications frequency. Labour did not agree to that. The Waitangi Tribunal said Māori should have those rights, but we stopped it. The next one was oil and gas. There was a recommendation that Māori be given rights there. Did the Labour Government agree with that? It did not. Did it bring that into being? No, it did not. We said we would not. Foreshore and seabed: this is an interesting one, foisted on us by the Court of Appeal, which found a common law property right in favour of Māori. Who does everyone call? They call on the Government to cut across that property right by truncating it. And is it? Yes, it is. It is guaranteeing the rights of people to access the foreshore. What does Dr Brash say about it? He confuses everyone by talking about beaches. The foreshore does not extend to the beaches. The foreshore is wet when it is full tide. Foreshore and seabed, as we propose, is not a big issue.

Then we have claims by a minority of Māori for separate Māori sovereignty. That is certainly not Labour Party policy. We oppose that. It is ridiculous to suggest that Parliament should give up its sovereignty to Māori. We are not doing it. What is the problem? It is certainly not Labour’s Māori policy. Then we have delivery of social services to Māori. We have heard today from other speakers how delivery of social services to Māori is no more than proportionate to their population. Health and educational services are no more than proportionate to their population. So what is the problem? It is said to be the failure of delivery of services by Māori, and there have been instances when Māori organisations delivering services have failed. Some of those have been atrocious, and the Government has criticised them for that. Who is cleaning up the Crown Forestry Rental Trust? An inquiry was led by Labour members on the Māori Affairs Committee. Labour does not approve of poor delivery.

When we unpick Dr Brash’s assertions, they really do not stand scrutiny. What do more moderate people of his caucus, like Georgina te Heuheu, say? She wanted to find out what National meant by “one standard of citizenship for all”, and what happened? They closed her down. She is hardly a radical. She has been tossed out of the role of Opposition spokesperson on Māori affairs because she dared to question the simplicity of the rhetoric that Dr Brash employs. Building one fair and inclusive nation? That is what he says. Is that what this is all about? The kind and inclusive faces of Dr Brash and Mr Hide? Who are they trying to kid? What do they mean by “one standard of citizenship”? Let us put a few more realistic suffixes on it. “One standard of citizenship—tax cuts for the rich”. “One standard of citizenship—privatisation of publicly owned assets”. Dr Brash would flog off New Zealand Post, sell off Television New Zealand, finish off what Max Bradford started in the electricity industry, abolish or freeze the minimum wage, and abolish the pre-funding of superannuation, making it less likely that future Governments could maintain superannuation payments to the elderly. That is what Dr Brash’s agenda is, so it is no wonder he does not talk about facts or policies, because his policies would bring misery to millions. He would take New Zealand backwards, not forwards. Perhaps the best summary of his intent of “one standard of citizenship” is “one standard of citizenship—tax cuts for the rich”.

Before I begin to talk about the economy, I want to pay tribute to two people who died suddenly during the parliamentary Christmas adjournment, as I would like to have this tribute recorded in Hansard. The first person I want to mention is Maureen Wilkie, who worked as the electorate agent for Jim Bolger, and then for Shane Ardern, in Te Kuiti. I think her very well-attended funeral—and I note that Mr Carter was there—was a tribute to her contribution to the Waikato – King Country community, to her family, and to politics. Electorate agents do not often get honoured in this House, but I think it is appropriate that we pay tribute to her.

The other person is Bob Priest. He was recently nominated for New Zealand honours, and he worked tirelessly for Environment Waikato and more recently as an Environment Commissioner. He was a friend of our planet, our treasured environment, and he devoted his life to leaving a better country for our children to inherit. As I said, I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to those people and to have that tribute recorded in Hansard.

New Zealand is a place about which I have no difficulty in understanding what it means to be a New Zealander. At this particular time I am very proud of New Zealand and of the progress being made by this Government. The latest annual gross domestic product figure of 3.9 percent continues to stand up very well internationally. The unemployment rate is at a 16-year low. It is particularly good in the Waikato, and in my electorate, where it is 3.2 percent. That is below the national average of 4.5 percent. I am looking at Mr Gudgeon, who recently had an article in our local paper that said New Zealand First was going to slash the unemployment rate. What to? We have the lowest unemployment rate in my memory since coming to this House. I have no idea where Mr Gudgeon is living, but I believe it is obviously not in this country.

We have participation in tertiary education and skills training that has been rising along with funding. We have in the Waikato over 9,000 people in workforce training. In Southland, as Mr Peck has said, we have difficulty in finding people to fill its many jobs. In fact, when I went to get on the plane this morning some people at our local airport asked whether I knew someone who could work in their store—they wanted X number of people. It is now becoming a problem to find people to work in various situations, and I thank Minister Steve Maharey for the programmes he has initiated in getting people qualified for those jobs. We have built up a very strong relationship with industry, the regions, local government, and stakeholders across our community. I attended the regional development conference in Timaru and I was very impressed with the number of projects and the development happening throughout our regions.

I am particularly proud of the Waikato. We are to open our Waikato Innovation Park on 19 February. It is a most exciting development. It is exciting to go and see not only the building but people interacting and working in biotechnology and information technology, in a street-like environment where there are scientists, administrators, and a range of people sharing ideas. The place is abuzz. We have investors coming and we cannot process immigration applications fast enough to obtain these people, who are keen to be involved in New Zealand and embraced in those projects, where ideas are flowing. I am proud, as a New Zealander, to see what is happening there. It is anticipated that we will have development 17 times the size of that innovation park. We cannot put the buildings up fast enough to cope with the people who want to invest and be involved, both at the venture capital level and at the level of the sciences. It is a very, very exciting project and it is growing.

I thank all the people who have been involved, particularly the Business2Hamilton people: Derek Fairweather, John Birch, and those who have been involved in setting up the innovation park, which Jim Anderton is to open on 19 February. It is an example of a partnership between local government, local investors, and central government working together. I invite Mr Gudgeon to go along and have a look. It is absolutely tremendous. I hope he is at the opening because it really is a place where New Zealand is abuzz, and where the kind of creativity we have been talking about is happening. For those members of Parliament who have not been to the Waikato, I invite them to have a look at this project.

Although Mr Peck claims that Southland is the fastest growing regional economy, I remind members that the Waikato is the largest, at 4.1 percent. We have agriculture to thank for that, we have innovation to thank for that, and we have in some measure the rain, which we are never short of, to thank for that, as well. Gisborne and the Waikato are the fastest-growing regions, and, as I said, the Waikato Innovation Park is a tremendous link with both our food production and biotechnology.

I remind the House that New Zealand’s consumer confidence rose in December 2003 to be at the highest level since 1996. Not only that but we have a huge increase in building consents. I am very pleased at the Hon Lianne Dalziel regarding the work being done on the Building Bill, to ensure we not only have an increase in building but have our buildings up to standard. Good work is being done by the Government in this regard, so we not only have buildings up to standard but also have skilled people working on those buildings.

As I have mentioned, we have great development in skills and I will also pay tribute to the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. One less good aspect of that scheme is that I wish we had more women involved. Only 7 percent of those in the scheme are women, and they still tend to be in the traditional occupations. But that is changing. Once again in the Waikato I am very pleased to see young women involved in electronics and other industries, and becoming qualified in those areas. As I said, 9,400 people are involved in industry training in the Waikato, which is a tremendous effort on the part of Steve Maharey.

I also want to talk about small business. We know that this week the Minister for Small Business, John Tamihere, is inviting small-business people to Wellington, but we have also been looking at small businesses in our electorates. We know that they have been largely responsible for a considerable amount of growth, which, as I said, is 9 percent in the Waikato. We visited Donovans Chocolates, a chocolate factory with a great story. It started off as a tiny little shop-front chocolate factory. It grew and expanded to the other side of town. Now out at Te Rapa, which of course is on the new highway between Auckland and Wellington, it is expanding and getting contracts with the Signature range to supply throughout New Zealand. It is making a tremendous effort. It started with a little mom and pop store, but it now has two sons involved and is expanding greatly. It is a perfect example of what is happening to small business in New Zealand. We went across the road to have a look at Oxford Pies, a food industry expanding in the same way, and we know also of the wonderful good-news story that is Aria Farm. I live on Aria chips: lamb chips, chicken chips, and beef chips. They are a great invention for busy people who need to prepare food in a hurry. That firm now has a franchise in England and Europe.

Those are some of the very good-news stories of people who have been assisted by various Government projects and by research grants. It really is happening in this country and no wonder Mr Brash is quiet about it, because it has happened under a Labour Government.

I also want to mention the Pacific Business Trust. In the Government Administration Committee we had a long look at that trust some years ago. This year we looked at its financial reports, and we commend the trust on the excellent work it is doing with Pacific peoples—as we are doing with Māori economic development. If we are talking about equality, I think we are a long way from equality in this country.

I will also mention an infrastructure issue. If people have travelled between Auckland and Hamilton they will have seen the four-laning going on, on the main highway. That four-laning was absolutely drawn to a halt under the National Government, but it is now happening and will greatly improve transport between our two cities.

I rise to support Don Brash, leader of the National Party, in his motion of no confidence in this Labour Government. It would seem that most New Zealanders also support the motion of Don Brash. Tonight’s Holmes show survey had the biggest response to any issue the Holmes show has ever surveyed—34,575 responses. What percentage of those responses supported the direction of the leadership of Don Brash? Ninety percent—that is 31,025 of them. Ninety percent of respondents said they supported what Don Brash was standing up for, and just 10 percent differed. Just 10 percent supported what this Helen Clark Labour Government is doing to this country: the divisive race-based policies of her Government.

I was at Orewa when Don Brash made that great speech. It is part of my electorate, and I sat with my constituents when Don Brash spoke from the heart about his concerns about the future of New Zealand if we continue down a path whereby, under the law, we treat people differently based on their race. What Don Brash expressed was a very simple problem, but he expressed it in very plain language and it just touched the hearts of a nation. We are now seeing New Zealanders turning to Don Brash’s leadership because they can see that he is prepared to face up to the issues that confront this country—unlike Helen Clark, who wants to have a bet each way. She wants to kowtow to Māori and say “yeah, we will give you customary title”, and she then tries to pretend that that does not give Māori what it does, in fact, deliver—the ability to have major control over our foreshore and seabed. What the public of New Zealand is seeing is a new honesty in politics from Don Brash.

Tonight I want to refer to the headline in today’s Dominion Post: “NZ jobs fear in Aussie-US trade deal”. That is a major headline, and we have to ask ourselves what the basis of it is. Australia announced yesterday a trade deal with the United States whereby from the start of that agreement 97 percent of Australian-manufactured goods will have free access to the United States market. In the United States, Government procurement is big business—worth almost $300 billion, which is well over twice, heading towards three times, the size of the New Zealand economy. New Zealand does not have free access to that huge market.

From day one of this trade agreement, Australia and Australian businesses will have free access to that almost $300 billion procurement industry. From day one of this trade agreement, two-thirds of the agricultural tariffs faced by Australia in the Hunited States will be reduced to zero, and a further 9 percent reduced to zero in 4 years. That is three-quarters of agricultural tariffs for Australia to the United States eliminated within 4 years. It is little wonder the headline states: “NZ jobs fear in Aussie-US trade deal”, because that trade deal is a major breakthrough for Australia, and New Zealand has nothing.

We value our wine industry. The United States is a huge market for our wine industry. Over the next 11 years Australia will have zero tariffs for the wine going into the United States, but not New Zealand. Our wine industry will still have to pay tariffs and suffer the disadvantage of paying those tariffs.

What did Helen Clark say to Parliament today about this huge issue? Economically, it is probably the biggest issue facing New Zealand today. The one sentence about that issue in Helen Clark’s entire speech to Parliament today was this: “In the near term we will be analysing the details of the proposed free-trade agreement between Australia and the United States and its likely impact on New Zealand.” There was nothing more—no commitment to the people of New Zealand to deliver a free-trade deal for New Zealand that is at least as good as Australia’s. Where was the commitment from Helen Clark to stand up and fight for New Zealand? There was nothing. There was just a whimpering, gutless little sentence saying that they will analyse the details of the deal. That is a disgrace. Helen Clark has perpetrated on New Zealand the greatest foreign policy failure since the Labour Party’s fiasco around the USS Buchanan in 1985.

💬 Hon Annette King: What a joke you are.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: What is her name—Annette King? She says it is a joke. I say to her that if she thinks that New Zealand’s missing out on a trade deal with the United States is a joke, she should resign her position. At the moment every Australian enjoys an income level of $170 to $200 a week more than New Zealanders. If New Zealand does not achieve a similar trade deal, by how much will that gap widen? Will it be up to $300 a week? I challenge Labour members to tell New Zealand by how much the income gap will widen between the workers of New Zealand and the workers of Australia. At the moment it stands at almost $200 a week difference in income. If we do not get something similar to the trade deal that Australia has, that gap will increase significantly.

When New Zealand lost the hosting rights alongside Australia to the Rugby World Cup, there was an outcry, because it cost New Zealand millions of dollars to lose those hosting rights. That loss was piggy-bank stuff compared with the loss for New Zealand if we do not achieve a free-trade agreement. When Helen Clark met President Bush at APEC last year—members will remember the significant pull-aside she had with George Bush—she said afterwards that she had explained the seriousness of the investment diversion if Australia got a free-trade deal and New Zealand did not. I have the quote here from when she said it.

I want Helen Clark to now tell New Zealand how serious that is. I want her to do something about the seriousness the decline in the relationship between New Zealand and Australia, and New Zealand and the United States, that has seen New Zealand do the unthinkable—or Australia do the unthinkable. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable for Australia to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States and leave New Zealand out of it. We are Anzac comrades. Australia and New Zealand share so much of their history together, and now Australia felt it could not take New Zealand with it in negotiating that trade deal. New Zealand’s relationship with the United States is so bad that Australia did not want the baggage of our appalling relationship with the United States.

I say to Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and her Labour Government, that they should fix up our relationship with the United States and Australia, or it will be on their heads that New Zealanders will go down and down compared with the income of Australians if we do not achieve a similar trade deal. They should be held accountable, and they will not deliver. There is no way they can deliver.

That was a speech full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing. In the last week the latest Commonwealth Fund international health policy survey was released. It is the annual survey that compares the health systems of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It is carried out by the Commonwealth Fund, which is an independent philanthropic organisation responsible for extensive research and is based in the United States of America. This year the survey was of the patients’ assessment of quality health-care in the five countries I have mentioned, including New Zealand. It was not an assessment by doctors, bureaucrats, or politicians, but it was the patients’ assessment of the health-care system. It was carried out in 2001 and 2002. The survey assessed six key areas: safety, patient-centredness, timeliness, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. It questioned patients about the quality of care they received from their doctor, how long they had to wait for care, the follow-up of their care, and how often the care had to be repeated, and it also measured to what extent patients’ incomes affected their ability to access care.

I am pleased to inform the House that overall New Zealand ranked No. 1 of all the health systems that were surveyed—not by the Labour Government’s assessment, not by the assessment of doctors or nurses, but by the assessment of patients in New Zealand. It was followed by Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and, lastly, the United States of America. Don Brash told us today that he wanted to close the gaps between Australia and New Zealand. I tell the member who has just spoken not only have we closed the gaps in terms of our health system but we have surpassed Australia, the country the Opposition wants to close the gap with. [Interruption] I say to the member who interjected that that is not my assessment; it is an independent assessment by patients in New Zealand. However, that member would not believe New Zealanders; he would rather believe his own cant.

One of the areas of measurement where we need to do better is in the area of equity. That is the gap that exists between low-income and high-income people when it comes to accessing health care. A lack of equity was reported, with things such as people not visiting the doctor because of the cost, people not getting follow-up care because of the cost, people who did not get prescriptions filled because of the cost, people who had trouble paying their medical bills, and people who could not get care because of where they lived. That part of the survey was carried out in 2001. This Government has committed itself to improving that access and reducing the inequities based on need—affordable health-care for all New Zealanders. We have started off by saying that people should get the care in the areas that need it most first. If we are to bring affordable primary health-care back in—and let us remember we did have subsidised primary health-care in New Zealand until the “mother of all Budgets” of 1991, when Ruth Richardson got rid of affordable primary health-care—then we should start with those who need it most.

How do we assess need? There has been a lot of debate in this House tonight about how to assess need if we are to roll out a policy and we want to get to the highest need first. First of all, we have to understand the determinants of health, and some are the measures like the lack of access to health care, socio-economic status, the environment in which people live, the type of housing that people may be in, and ethnicity. Research in New Zealand shows that the poorer people are, the worse their health is. It is interesting that 72 percent of Māori happen to live in the areas of the highest deprivation. Another measure is how long people live—their lifespan—and what their lot is in life. Over the last century we have seen significant improvement in the health of our population. New Zealanders’ life expectancy at birth has improved at a generally increasing rate since 1970. For example, life expectancy for males in 2001 was 76 years of age. Females do better; ours is 80.9 years.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: We’re discriminated against.

Yes, the member is right. However, we continue to face some very, very important public-health challenges, particularly in the widening of the gaps in terms of health inequality.

Let me give the House a statistic. Life expectancy at birth for Māori is 9 years less than it is for New Zealand Europeans. For Pacific people it is 5 years less. If Don Brash were the average Māori male, he would have 4 years left to live. He may have worked hard all his life, he may have fought alongside his comrades at war, and he may have paid his taxes, but on average he would get 2 years of national superannuation.

There is considerable evidence, both internationally and in New Zealand, of significant inequalities in health between socio-economic groups, ethnic groups, people living in different geographic regions, and males and females. There are also inequalities in disease state in New Zealand. For example, Māori happen to have the higher rates of lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. Māori and Pacific people have higher rates of cardiovascular disease. Māori have higher rates of respiratory disease, and they have higher rates of suicide. When it comes to need-based policies, all the evidence tell us that we have to do better for New Zealanders, for Māori, for Pacific people, and for low-income New Zealanders. I do not believe that New Zealanders want to see their neighbours die 9 years earlier than them because of their health status. When people are looking at need, they look at the figures and the research, and say that they have to improve the health status for those people. I suggest that those who have made speeches today and talked about race-based policies should take a little time to read the Sunday Star-Times—no friend of the Government, but it happens to sit down and do some work about where money goes, whom it should go to, and what it should do when it comes to health.

We are committed to bringing back affordable primary health-care for all New Zealanders, regardless of age, race, and the money in people's pockets. But it will take a few years to get there. Do members believe, like ACT does, that only the poorest should get some help, and the rich should have to pay? That is National’s policy, I understand, because I can see what Don Brash is saying. He has said that millionaires should not be given any help to get health care, particularly if they are Māori millionaires. If we follow that logic through, why would any person with any money get free hospital care? After all, hospital care in New Zealand is on the basis of universal access: people get it whether they are rich or poor. So the real agenda from the National Party is that it is going to charge the rich for hospital care. What is “rich” going to be? Is it going to be over the limit of the community services card: over $19,900? I predict that National’s policy will be to charge for hospital services. [Interruption] After all, I say to Ken Shirley, National did that last time it was in Government. National brought in charges for hospital services.

We believe in universal access to health care, and that is what New Zealanders will have. In the next 5 or 6 years they will have universal access to primary health-care, and universal access to hospital care. I believe that is what New Zealanders want.

Much has been said about the unsavoury events at Waitangi last week, and justifiably so. But I want to say this. New Zealand First caucus members were there, and we were there in numbers. In fact, we were there in numbers proportionally greater than any other caucus was. Members would not know that if they read the media reports; they would not know it at all. Our leader was there, and I have to say that he was there for longer than the leader of any other party. But the fact is we were not embroiled in any controversy. There was no mud thrown at Winston Peters, nor was he jostled, nor was he threatened. But nor, again, did he seek the limelight. If Winston Peters did not seek the limelight, we can be assured it was a deliberate strategy!

In fact, from my experience and from the experience of my caucus colleagues, Waitangi Day was a brilliant day. It was a really enjoyable day. In the morning we looked along the beach as the waka departed. The weather was just magnificent. The sun was beating down. The sea was azure. There were all the kayaks and the waka ama, and the Te Aurere was going along with them. It was just majestic. It really made one think how lucky we are to belong to this particular nation. I also thought how thankful I was that our tipuna, on 6 February 1840, decided to set up a rough blueprint for our nation, and decided to set it up at such a majestic spot. The words of an English poet “Earth has not anything to show more fair;” spring to mind.

The reason New Zealand First was not involved in controversy, and has not been involved in it year after year—and I ask people to think back on the years of controversy there—is that we go to Waitangi deliberately to celebrate our nationhood, not to grandstand, not to get the limelight, and not to get our pictures in the paper. Our time was spent interacting with ordinary New Zealanders who were enjoying themselves in celebration. We respected and acknowledged all participants in that occasion. It was wonderful. There were kids jumping off the bridge, music, and people just enjoying themselves and, as I say, celebrating.

Did Don Brash truly believe he could hold a press conference outside the gates of the Te Tii Marae and not provoke some outlandish and oafish behaviour? If he did believe that, he has to be ignorant. In fact, Don Brash could be charged with inciting the crime of violence. But he would probably get off the charge by pleading ignorance. It was fairly obvious, in the circumstances, that that was not the place to hold that particular press conference. It could just as easily have been held in the Copthorne Hotel. The only reason one can think of that he held it outside the marae was that he deliberately was trying to invoke or provoke bad behaviour.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: The journalists were banned.

No, they were not banned from the Copthorne Hotel or from outside Te Tii Marae. But from talking to a wide range of Māori at Waitangi over those 2 days, I can say that the resentment that was certainly being shown towards Don Brash was not because of the Orewa speech. In fact, many Māori defended his right to make that speech. It was the treatment of Georgina te Heuheu that made people absolutely livid. The fact that this person who has always presented herself with such dignity, and is a daughter of one of the most pre-eminent Māori families in New Zealand, the family that gave the Tongariro National Park to New Zealand for free, should be treated so contemptuously was what created the bubbling anger towards Don Brash at Waitangi last week. I say to Don Brash that Māori will not go away; nor will their aspirations to participate fully in the political, economic, artistic, and cultural development of New Zealand.

However, I also say to the Prime Minister and to Government members that they have created the conditions that have allowed Don Brash to have his moment in the sun. I say it is a “moment in the sun” because that is all it will be. They have created the conditions that resulted in the poll tonight on Holmes. The result is significant. Of the 34,000 polled, 90 percent said they support the direction that Don Brash has stated we should be taking. That is significant. Helen Clark and her cronies have ignored the tensions that have been building in this nation at what is seen to be favourable treatment of one group. The attitude of this Government has been that if the people do not like what it is doing in these matters, they must be ignorant; that the ones who are feeling the tensions must therefore be ignorant, and this Government will ignore them.

Let us have the ignorance removed. Let us explain the principles of the treaty. Instead of just saying we have to react to the principles of the treaty, let us have them explained so that we will not be so ignorant, so that there will not be the same sorts of tensions. Let us explain what the responsibilities are under the treaty. If we are only talking about the responsibilities, and not doing something about the ignorance, then we will continue to have the tensions, and that will play right into the hands of Don Brash.

I say to the Government that the silent majority is feeling sidelined, it is feeling excluded, and it is feeling resentful. What the people see is bullying behaviour by Māori being rewarded, and they resent it. This Prime Minister does not have a vision of a unified nation; she has a vision of remaining in power at all costs. New Zealand First will not resile from the challenges ahead. However, we accuse both Labour and National of divisiveness, of tearing the nation apart. We believe that the path the Government is taking us down is the road to Zimbabwe.

But for now I wish to focus on a critical area of policy that received scant mention in the Prime Minister’s speech today, and that is education. The issue gaining the headlines these days, in respect of education, is the school network reviews. I want to give the Minister of Education a bouquet. The reorganisation of schooling in an area is a painful process. The closure of a school is even more so. I cannot say I have agreed with all the decisions thus far, but I want to commend the Minister for at least fronting up to the local communities. He has eyeballed them, he has announced his decisions, and he has stood by them and justified them. I give him credit for that.

It is something I have had a bit of experience with. Regardless of what Bill English is telling us, even when New Zealand First was in coalition with the National Government the same sorts of network reviews—they were called education development initiatives—were taking place. They were one step better than the one-off changes that Lockwood Smith would put in place. The only difference was that the Minister would not front up; the minions had to. In one particular case Gavan Herlihy asked me to come to Oamaru and front up on behalf of the Government, which I did.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Which Minister wouldn’t front?

I am saying that the Minister at that particular time did not front. It was not the policy to front up.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Who was it?

I did not say “wouldn’t”. It just was not the policy.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Who was it?

I am not going to say who it was. If that member does not know who the Minister of Education was, there is something wrong with her.

However, this has been ongoing for decades—that schools have been reorganised. There are a number of reasons for that, but one of them is very simple. It is the responsible use of taxpayers’ money. Therefore, I find it somewhat problematic because whether or not we like it, the per unit cost of small schools is much higher than that of larger schools. That is economies of scale. The ACT member is running a campaign to allow parents to make the decisions about how taxpayers’ money should be spent, but that member knows full well that under the voucher system that ACT is talking about virtually all those small schools would be closed, apart from the ones in communities where the parents are so rich that they can pay—[Interruption] Only the rich parents can have that particular choice.

I want to finish off with what I believe is the major challenge to the Government in education this year, and that is the field of industrial relations. The situation is such a mess at the moment, and has never been so bad. There are some serious challenges to the Government to start getting the whole issues about pay parity and qualifications sorted out. In fact, the industrial model itself that is being used to settle teachers’ pay—and we saw the shambles in 2001 and 2002, the lost learning time, etc.—is wrong. I do not believe that the Minister himself has approached that particular issue proactively. Sadly, I fear that as we go into the industrial rounds again this year we will see the same sort of turmoil—in fact, I can guarantee it, and would lay money on it—not only with the Post Primary Teachers Association but also with the New Zealand Educational Institute this time, and the same amount of lost learning time. It is up to the Minister and the Government to sort out the mess it has created. There is no doubt that that mess has been created by the Minister in the inept way in which the last industrial round was handled.

I have noticed that the Opposition—that is, the National Party for those who have forgotten—is spending its time here tonight challenging United Future to vote “no confidence” in the Government. I remind United Future that the once-proud National Party conned Alamein Kopu into keeping a sinking Shipley afloat just so that she could get the pension for having served the minimum period as a former Prime Minister. That happened in this Parliament when National was in office. National members were the turkeys who would not vote for an early Christmas. I place on record the service that United Future has given to the stability of this nation by supporting this Government on confidence and supply.

I recall Shipley in those days being backed by the brat pack, because she had promoted them to their level of incompetence. I say to members of United Future that the National Party is only projecting its own sense of inadequacy, because it has no influence, no say, and is staring in the face of irrelevancy. National is lucky to be the main Opposition party. Many New Zealanders think that that role has been taken by other members of other Opposition parties.

I know that there are members of the National Party who are seriously uncomfortable with what Don Brash has been saying. It is not only the high-profile Māori members who have spoken out. Talk about rewriting history! I had the pleasure of spending Waitangi Day at Onuku Marae. There was no mud-slinging, jostling, protesting, or fighting, and consequently almost no media coverage, but there was robust debate. Gerry Brownlee gave his inaugural speech as the Opposition spokesperson on Māori affairs, and that would have to be the most extraordinary speech I have ever heard. He was asked by Ngāi Tahu to explain to the people of New Zealand why his party was the party that told New Zealand that Māori wanted to stop access to the beach. They railed at Gerry Brown that this issue has never been about the beach, and they demanded to know why the National Party had lied to the people of New Zealand. Mr Brownlee would not answer the question. The question had to be put again. He asked a question back. He said that as his bach in the Sounds had been handed down from his great-grandfather, to his grandfather to his father, to him, why did he have no customary rights in the foreshore? The National Party nods its head and says, “Exactly.”

When the Opposition spokesperson on Māori Affairs does not understand what the treaty means, in terms of the obligations it imposed on the Crown, in terms of protecting the property rights of Māori, and members opposite do not understand either, I despair of them ever having a say in this matter again. Doug Graham would be appalled at members opposite if he could hear them tonight.

I commend the Christchurch Press for taking the debate forward. All views were able to be expressed in the Christchurch Press as it developed a series of themes leading up to Waitangi Day itself, which culminated in an excellent pull-out section on Waitangi Day called “The Treaty of Waitangi: The deed that created New Zealand”. It had an excellent piece by Philip Joseph, a constitutional law expert from Canterbury University. I commend that pull-out section to all members of the House. In fact, I shall circulate a copy of it to all members.

I want to quote from one of the articles earlier in the week, and I confess that my brother wrote it. However, I have no say over what my brother writes. He is a professor of economics at Lincoln University, and he writes: “The unpalatable fact is that after 1840, the Crown in New Zealand not only failed to fulfil its promise to protect Maori property rights, it actively confiscated and stole Maori-owned land. Brash accepts this in his speech, and expresses his regret, but goes on to argue that the current generation of New Zealanders can do no more than make a gesture at recompense. Notice how Brash changes the language from ‘the Crown’ to ‘the current generation’. This slippage occurs throughout his speech. At another point Brash describes the treaty settlement process as ‘where people who weren’t alive in the 19th century pay compensation to the part-descendants of those who were’. This transforms the issue from a property rights dispute between Maori tribes and the Crown, into a race conflict between Maori and other New Zealanders. Rather than one law for all, Brash accepts a lower standard for the Crown’s dealings with Maori. It is the kind of dishonourable attitude that created the historical grievances in the first place.” I could not have put it better myself.

What makes me upset about the real agenda of the National Party is that its utilising of that trite slogan takes the focus off its real agenda—namely, its plans to increase the age for superannuation entitlement, cut benefits, slash employee rights, and privatise health and education. It will hide that agenda behind the slogan of “freedom of choice”. I have heard it all before from the National Party. It will not take New Zealanders long to realise that the Orewa speech was a smokescreen for the failed policies of the past. New Zealanders have already rejected them, and they will carry on rejecting them.

As Minister of Immigration I shall speak about immigration. I welcome the new skilled migrant category, in which over 1,000 people have lodged expressions of interest. I heard members opposite say that no interest would be expressed in the new category. Over 1,000 expressions of interest have been lodged already. The Immigration Service will soon be identifying the pass mark that will lead to an invitation to lodge an application for residence. Although the details are not ready for announcement I can give members a sneak preview. My advice is that an assessment of around a quarter of the expressions of interests identified that three-quarters of them were already either working in New Zealand in skilled jobs, or they had job offers. Over half of those who had job offers, or who were already working, were from outside Auckland. I have great confidence that the new policy will be successful in providing a route to residence for those people whom New Zealand needs, and an opportunity for those whom we know are likely to do well here.

The new skilled migrant category has been welcomed by everyone, except some members of the National Party and some members of the ACT party. The reason National members say little is that they are embarrassed at National’s decision to leave the immigration portfolio to second-rate members, almost all of whom are now immigration consultants. Even the previous Prime Minister of New Zealand is an immigration consultant. It is a disgrace to see people using their former roles to gain entry into high-level places in other countries. It is degrading and embarrassing, and she should be ashamed of herself. Those responsibilities the National Party will carry with it to its grave—and that is where it is going. National members are responsible for the “professionals driving taxis” scenario. They are the ones who put doctors behind the wheels of taxis. They are the ones who put scientists behind the wheels of taxis. They are the ones who did not care what happened to people after they arrived in New Zealand. This Government’s new skilled migrant category is turning it all round. In actual fact, members opposite are coming up to me quietly and saying congratulations. This Government has taken the hard decisions in the immigration policy, and as a result we have a great policy for the future, and I am extremely proud of it.

I believe that this country has a great future. I fully endorse the expression of the Prime Minister in her statement to this House. This is a country that will build on the strengths, the foundations that have been established, and I have every confidence that we will move forward into the future under a Labour-led Government for a very long time.

I rise to address—more moderately perhaps—a deep concern we in Government felt today as the Leader of the Opposition rose to his full height and prescribed the kiss of death. He is the “Dr Death” of the Opposition. It is death to ideas. We have had one policy position so far, which is about assimilation—one size fits all. It does not work. It did not work in the past, and there is no leverage in going back to those failed policies of the past. They are the kiss of death to inspiration for New Zealanders. It is back to the future, and it is certainly a kiss of death from “Dr Death” to leadership, to a sense of nationhood, and to an overall sense of fairness. The doctor’s prescription is one that will develop a fearful, weakened, and divided New Zealand.

What are we witnessing in the House today? This is not Orewa, with the welcoming audience that adored what the Opposition speaker was saying. We are watching the right cut each other’s throats, sucking the lifeblood of that 10 percent of anxious and ill-informed New Zealand.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Ninety percent.

Then what is the right going to do with them? Once they have rarked them up, they will just desert them. We witnessed that tonight on the Holmes push poll, Mr Shirley. It made $34,000 for the coffers, and that shows us that the Opposition has only one way to run on empty, and that is to go downhill, and it is going downhill really fast.

A great mentor of mine, and also of Georgina te Heuheu, Rev. Manu Bennett said: “Let’s build our dreams today and make our plans tomorrow.” I came to Parliament to be a bridge-builder, and I have to say that the saddest thing that happened to me personally this year was to look at the way Georgina te Heuheu, my friend and the only Māori in the Opposition, was so expediently dumped by her leader to gain leverage in the polls. It worked, but it did not appeal to the average fair-minded New Zealander. It offended womanhood, the family of te Heuheu, the tribe of Tūwharetoa, and the people of our region, and they will speak at the next election. I hope the honourable member stays in the Opposition and embarrasses it for its expedient dismissal of the only Māori voice it had.

But I want to move to the good news on health. I am a midwife, mother, and—proudly in November—a grandmother. I understand the fabric of the average family better than Dr Brash, who rabbits on about the two-parent paradigm. When is he going to come into the real world? I have delivered 5,000 babies—not all to two parents actively there at the birth, but to family members ready to support and help that child have a fair and reasonable life. That was the most old-fashioned paradigm I have ever heard.

But we in this Government know that healthy mothers make healthy families, and that is why the Opposition laughed at the Families Commission’s focus this year on positive parenting. Why would anyone laugh at putting education funding into becoming a positive parent and knowing how to look after one’s child? No one can carp at the $7 million extra that has gone into Plunket this year. I congratulate our friends in Government on their initiative in getting the Minister’s support for that help to families.

The Opposition also dismissed parental leave. I can remember Judith Collins standing up and wiping the floor with paid parental leave. But 14,000 parents in New Zealand have already accessed paid parental leave, and their children will be better for it. National was going to have none of it. This Minister will also be extending breast screening, which is very, very important to the women of New Zealand. But Opposition members would not know about women’s policy. They do not want a spokesperson on women’s affairs any more. Their leader has already shown that women are not important. He just flicks them when they are not useful to him in the polls.

That Opposition would not increase childcare subsidies. Those members believe that mums should be at home and not contributing to the economy by choice. Our leader talked about the 30 percent gap that can be filled by women when they re-enter the workforce. Well, we cannot enter the workforce without adequate access to childcare subsidies.

We also believe in healthy housing. We know what the Opposition did to affordable housing. But when will the Opposition realise that health is more than waiting lists? After an incredibly positive financial review of the Auckland District Health Board, I noticed that all that Dr Lynda Scott could talk to reporters about was waiting lists. Health is not about waiting lists alone, but let me get the record right for Hansard. This Government has delivered 158,000 operations, which is 6,000 more than were delivered by members opposite when they were in Government. Waiting lists have shrunk from 39,000 to 26,500, and there are fewer people waiting longer than 6 months.

I want to get back to Dr Brash’s stance that primary health organisations are racially funded. The Minister has pointed out already that they are based on the needs of the community, set by democratically elected members to the board. Those members decide what they want. Each board sets its needs, and in our district the board has decided that Māori health needs are its highest priority, and I am really proud of it for that.

I also think that we have the health framework for the future—we know that in this Government. The chair of Waitemata District Health Board, Kay McKelvie, told us: “We are moving away to the survival of the patient, compared to that of the financial survival of the organisation.” District health board deficits are reducing, and capital planning is being approved on a regional approach—signed off by the ministry in Wellington—to make sure that those bricks-and-mortar decisions meet the needs of the regions in the future. We are seeing huge funding going into our region.

The three Auckland district health boards came before us, and it was exciting. They talked about regionalisation and collaboration, not about mergers. But one can sense National’s policy on health, which talks about too many district health boards. Well, the chairs of those district health boards told us that they were working together on collaborative initiatives, on information technology, the numbers of managers in health, cross-boundary flows, and new initiatives based on reducing chronic disease. They are working on developing plans to face those things.

I say to the Opposition—and this is not a policy position I have heard from Dr Lynda Scott—that primary health organisations are certainly here to stay. Seventy percent of New Zealanders are enrolled now, $47 million more is going into primary health organisations this year—and Dr Brash says they are racially funded. That is absolute rubbish. Funding is based on need, compared with the nasty, grubby politicisation of struggling primary health organisations like Drury, which had only 5 percent of high – health-needs clients. Opposition MPs politicised it, rather than working with the board to find a solution—as another primary health organisation did with the Waitemata board.

I find the whole rhetoric of the Opposition very, very sad. Dr Brash needs to know that primary health organisations will continue to be funded on the basis of need. The academic Tom Rochford said: “How can a man, born and bred in privilege, whose working life is spent at the centre of the Crown’s machinery of power, accuse the poorest and the most powerless people in New Zealand of having too much privilege?” I find that simply appalling.

Our Minister for Small Business has looked at non-governmental organisations and said that we need to sharpen up accountability. We would all accept that that would be a good piece of work to be done this year.

I just want to finish by saying that, in this year alone, $1.5 billion has been spent on mainstream Māori health. That is 14.7 percent compared to the 15.4 percent of the population that is Māori. Only 2 percent of the total health budget is being spent on Māori-targeted programmes. How can they say that we are not meeting those needs? We will ignore that demographic brown bulge in the future at our peril.

I support Don Brash’s motion of no confidence in this Government. There are two issues that, above all else, are the most important issues that New Zealand is facing. The first issue is racism, and the second issue is families.

I despise racism, and I despise racists. Let me tell this House that not all racists are white. How can I tell a racist? It is quite easy, really. They are the people who believe that, based on the colour of someone’s skin, on where he or she was born, on his or her parents’ colour, and on what shape his or her eyes are, that person’s level of achievement is predetermined. There are many, many racists in this country. Some of them are brown, some of them are beige, and some of them are white. The one thing they share is a belief that the colour of someone’s skin must and will determine that person’s achievements. That view is wrong. It is wrong! It is wrong! Because we live in this politically correct country, where Alice of Alice in Wonderland would feel very much at home, those racists have worked out a way to make their racism look like kindness. To them it is kindness to tell someone that his or her school marks, because of the colour of that person’s skin, do not have to be as good as someone else’s in order to get into university. To them it is kindness to tell someone that he or she can get the job because of the colour of his or her skin, not because of that person’s achievements.

The National Party leader, Don Brash, has called for an end to special rights based on race. The National Party believes that funding and special treatment must be based on need, not on race. Despite the ravings of State television’s interviewer Kim Hill—and I will not even try to do the facial expressions or the hand movements—race does not equal need. The Labour Party likes to quote figures. There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics, and that is what Labour is quoting. It likes to quote Māori health statistics. It likes to quote education statistics. It forgets to mention that a whole heap of the Māori included in those statistics happen to be more non-Māori than Māori. It happens to forget that there is a heap of non-Māori at the bottom of the statistics for education and health. But the Government does not care about them.

This week, following on from what Annette King was saying, I went to see a Māori health provider in my electorate—in Papakura. There I was met by people who unanimously supported Don Brash. They said they do not want to be treated differently from everyone else. They do not want everything they want to do have to go through the marae. The reason is that the marae is based on unelected, born-to-rule people. They do not want to be subject to the rules of people they did not elect. They want democracy. They said to me that Don Brash would do more for Māori than any other politician, and they are right. It is time that non-Māori New Zealanders stopped patronising Māori. It is time that the New Zealand Government stopped whipping the New Zealand taxpayer in order to win Māori seats. It is time for Māori and non-Māori to say “No” to the Government’s divisive funding, and it is time for Māori and non-Māori to say that the biggest determinant of child poverty in this country is not race or gender, but family breakdown.

I want all children in New Zealand to grow up knowing that they can achieve anything they want to. Yes, they will have to work hard. Yes, they will have to make sacrifices and more sacrifices after that. But no New Zealand child should ever think that he or she cannot achieve, and children should certainly not think that based on their race. No New Zealand child should ever grow up learning to rort the welfare system before he or she is old enough to read.

Yesterday I met a young woman who worried me greatly. I will mention that she happened to be a white New Zealander. She proudly told me that she had five children by five different fathers. I can tell members that she is still in her 20s. There could well be another five—or more—in the future. She also told me she was proud that she had “done it all herself”—whatever that may mean. She was not coming to complain about the woeful wait for tubal ligations in the Counties Manukau district. She was not coming to thank the people of New Zealand for indulging her behaviour and lack of responsibility. She was coming to complain because someone at the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services was doing his job. The department had removed one child and—using not her words, but my own—it had really mucked up her benefit. That had forced her to take on some part-time work, and now she thought that she might even have to get the father of her last child to move in—that she might as well. That woman seemed quite intelligent and highly articulate. She certainly knew her rights and her way around the welfare system. I thought that, one day, she could even make it as a Labour list MP. What she did not grasp is that children should not be used as a source of income.

💬 Brian Connell: She might know too much.

That is true. She did not grasp that children are entitled to be wanted by both their parents. She did not grasp that she is breeding a family that is costing, and will for ever cost, this country millions of dollars, not only in benefits but also in the time of lawyers, psychologists, social workers, the police, and the youth justice system. They are already doing that, and in time, no doubt, they will also do so in jail, one day.

What does the Government say to those children? What does Steve Maharey say to those children? They say that they will pay that mother to be irresponsible. Steve Maharey has told the House that he does not see any difference in outcomes for one-parent or two-parent households. He has clearly not been down to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services lately. I invite him to come down to the department offices in Papakura and have a look with me. It needs to be acknowledged that many people on the domestic purposes benefit get off it again as soon as they can, and many people use it just to get themselves through a tough time. But, of the others, they are not the ones to blame, are they, when there is a Minister of the Crown who is so blind that he cannot see that fathers are important. When we have a Minister who is so removed from reality that he does not know what children really need, why should we blame the recipients?

I am a conservative. By that I mean I want to conserve what is good. Unlike the wimpy white academics on the other side of the House, I know that there are some things that are just and there are some things that are unjust. I know that it is unjust to treat people differently based on their race rather than on their need. I know that there are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong. It is right to nurture children. It is right for parents to put their children first and their own wants second. It is wrong for a child to be used as an asset. It is wrong for any father to walk away from his responsibilities, and it is wrong for a mother to deny a child his or her parent. There are certain things that are universal truths. Children need parents. They need good parents. They need health and education, regardless of race. Children need to be loved, and they need to be wanted.

The Labour Party, in the 1970s, started down the track of systematically destroying the New Zealand family. Every time it has been in Government since then, it has put more and more effort into destroying that family. What disgusts me as a woman is that it is the female members of the Labour Party who are the worst offenders. The men in the Labour Party have allowed themselves to get so neutered that they cannot even stand up for men, for families, or even for women who believe that men are OK. I am proud to be a New Zealander, and I am proud of Don Brash.

If one ever wanted to hear a classic example of a prejudiced and an ignorant speech from the Tory party, then that was it. It exposed the very worst of the values that drive that Tory party and that will keep it in Opposition for years into the future. It is nice to be back in Parliament. We have had a great break over Christmas. My colleagues are enthusiastic about governing this country. I am not sure where the National Party has been—I am not sure where its leader has been—but it does remind me of an old television programme called Doctor Who. Dr Who was a nondescript person who occasionally would disappear inside a little phone box called a tardis. He would emerge from it somewhere, not quite sure where he was, not quite sure of what he had to do, and not quite sure of the area in which he was appearing. Don Brash disappeared before Christmas as Dr Who—no one knew who he was—and emerged as Dr Brash, leader of the National Party. If what we have seen since his emergence is anything to go by, I suggest he disappear back into the tardis and come back as Dr Who, because this country has been driven into a corner by the kind of ignorance and prejudice that we heard in that speech from Judith Collins just a couple of minutes ago.

New Zealand is moving ahead. The only people who want to see failure in this country are the National Party MPs, because they have nothing else to offer this country. New Zealanders are optimistic, in spite of a high exchange rate for the New Zealand dollar. In spite of some other challenges ahead of them, they are optimistic about the direction in which we are taking this country. Success for New Zealand does not just happen. Success does not rely solely on markets or ideology. We cannot rely solely on markets and ideology to deliver opportunity to all New Zealanders or to deliver fairness to this country. That experiment failed in the 1990s under the National - ACT - New Zealand First Government. People elected our Government in 1999 to govern, and that is what we intend to do for a long time. The ACT party may call that intervention; we call it active management. We consider that guiding this country into the future is worthy of more effort than the laissez-faire ideology shown by the previous National Government. We believe and know that we are prepared to work hard in order to ensure that we have success not only on the sports field, which we celebrated last weekend, and not only in commerce, which we are clearly seeing from our robust economy, but also in the areas of social need. Nowhere is that clearer than in the area of health.

The Nats had a theory for health: they wanted competition. They thought that would deliver. They wanted privatisation, and in the end they wanted to destroy the public health system in this country, in the stupid belief that all New Zealanders would be better off. Well, we have had to pick up the pieces. “One’s health is one’s wealth” may be a corny old phrase, but it is just as true now as it was last year, and as it was in the 1990s and 1800s. This Government is driven on that philosophy. In spite of growing technology and the demands in the areas of health care, we are putting in more money and delivering better services and more equitable access for every New Zealander, and we will continue to do that.

We have a theory that investing in prevention rather than treatment is far better, over time. We have a commitment through policy to primary health-care, and to access to primary health-care. That means each and every New Zealander, when he or she needs support and assistance, will get it. When people need to see a practitioner, be it a general practitioner or a nurse, they will be able to do so and get the help they need. As my colleague the Minister of Health, Annette King, said, we are committed to universal access to a world-class public-health system, and we have to remind the public in this country that if the Nats and ACT party get their hands on the tiller again, they will again attempt to privatise and commercialise our health system, and to destroy the public system that is the backbone of security in this country.

I would like to run through a few things we have done in health care, and a few commitments we have for health care into the future. We have primary health organisations. They are organisations that coordinate primary health-care in the regions to enable people, whether they be in Westport, Whangarei or Dargaville, to get access to primary health-care. Those organisations will mean better support for general practitioners, better support for nurses, and cheaper and better access for each and every New Zealander into the future. There are 2.5 million New Zealanders enrolled in primary health organisations. They are on the road, they are moving ahead, and they will be successful. We have committed $3 billion in extra funding to health care since we came into Government. That means that we can increase the spending—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Increase the operations?

—in areas such as operations. I tell Mr Mapp that that is quite right. And we can increase support for rural health initiatives. In fact, we can increase care for the elderly up and down this country. We have to invest in facilities that that National Government ran into the ground, through its ideology. [Interruption] Yes, we have to spend money on Auckland Hospital. In fact, $657 million has been committed by this Government, in a 4-year capital projects programme. In the Capital and Coast District Health Board the sum is $303 million, and it is $70 million in Invercargill.

Investment is not just in the cities but also out in the rural and provincial regions. There is a $27 million redevelopment of Masterton Hospital. That makes a real difference to the rural economies, and to the confidence of the primary industries in those areas. We are spending $7.6 million to redevelop Dunstan Hospital, a hospital that languished under the previous Government. But this Government has committed to upgrade it and improve access to it, and to provide health care to a world-class standard.

I would like to mention briefly some of the good initiatives in rural health. It is not good enough to say, as the previous Government did with regard to education, that it provided the services, and that it was up to people to get access to those services and to drive their quality. We have taken a more proactive approach as a Government, and said that we will ensure quality education and quality health-care, and we will ensure that people get access to them. The previous National Government sat back on its hands and let education in some areas drop to deplorable standards. My colleague Trevor Mallard went down to the West Coast where we had a meeting last week, and we committed to close five schools. It is a good move, because children into the future will have access to more sustainable, quality education. National did not have the courage to do that. I applaud the actions of my colleague, knowing that he is focused on delivering quality education to rural children—in fact, to children right through the provincial and urban centres of this country.

We are a Government that will be proactive in those areas. We are not prepared to sit back, like the poor fools that some National Party members have clearly shown themselves to be, and expect the market to deliver quality health-care and quality education to New Zealanders up and down this country. We are committed to assisting and intervening where we see the need, regardless of race and regardless of geographical location. This is a Government that knows that equality of opportunity is a cornerstone of this country, and that unless we can offer that, we are not doing justice to each and every New Zealander.

I have a great deal of admiration for the Hon Damien O’Connor, but when he talked about the delivery of health and all the worthy things he has just spoken about in that speech, he did not talk about where the money comes from. That is what is critical in this country, because we are living with the results of consumer-driven economic activity, which has led to higher house prices, and a lot of heartache and grief as far as the average New Zealander is concerned. We are living with a high level of immigration—with people coming into this country who are buying things at one-third of their price, as far as they are concerned if they come from England, where Stg₤1 equals NZ$3. To them the goods are cheap, but that puts up the price for all of us who have no option but to live and make our money in this country—New Zealand.

It is export-driven economic activity that we should seek in this country. When we talk about export-driven economic activity, we are talking about farming in all its guises—about horticulture, forestry, pastoral farming, fishing, wine, and all of the bits and pieces that go with that. Those are the things that this Government should be looking at and be putting money into, if it is to put money into anything. If Government members are to give tax breaks or incentives in any area, it is those areas that they should apply their minds to. What we see at the present time is that those areas of the economy that will give us valuable export wealth are being burnt off by a high exchange rate for the New Zealand dollar. Everybody seems to agree in this House that nothing can be done about that. I say to members that there are economies in the world that do do things about that, and, further, that those economies are flourishing.

As a small country, if we leave ourselves open to the vagaries of international commerce we will always be in trouble—as we are now. It is all very well for the Government to say that things have never been better, the economy is fine, and unemployment is down, but we are coming off the back of the money that was brought into this country when the exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar was at US45c. The Government will not be able to say those things in a year or two when we are coming off a period of the New Zealand dollar being worth US70c. Those things are critical in this small country of ours. At least, if the Government will not intervene in the market—which is sacred these days, so people tell me—it should be trying to talk the dollar down, and saying again and again that this is not a good thing. But that is not happening. Because the immigrants have settled mainly in Auckland, that is causing a lot of infrastructural problems, which my colleague and friend Dail Jones can give members first-hand information about. We are seeing all of those things happen in that city because this Government wants consumer-driven economic activity. It has had it and we will pay the price for it, because at the present time, with the high exchange rate for the New Zealand dollar, we will find that exporters are not nearly as competitive as they have been. That will cause a problem for us.

We can talk for ever about knowledge wave discussions and conferences. We can talk about a whole lot of industries that will start up, that we hope will start up, or that maybe will start up but have not started up yet—and they have not started up in the last hundred years. I do not suggest that we should not seek to do things that we have not done hitherto. The film industry is a wonderful example of that. It is driven by a tax break, I tell members, that I understand Dr Cullen was most reluctant to give to that industry, but it has been most successful at the end of the day. I am not suggesting we should not do those things, but we should remember that it is primary production that provides the dollars in this country.

Throughout 2003 we heard that Labour had created a surplus. If that is true, then why do we have thousands of New Zealanders and taxpayers of this country on waiting lists for urgent operations? The Defence Force is in a shambles. Education is a problem, as is housing, etc.

💬 David Benson-Pope: It’s not true.

Yes, it is true. I have a letter here from a concerned Kiwi taxpayer that I want to read out to the Labour members: “I myself will not be having a very happy Christmas. Being a young 52-year-old, I have one wish for Christmas—it’s a new knee. What I ask you, what has happened to our health system? I am sick of waiting. Having been a user of the public health system for 30-odd years, when will the Government wake up? Why do they waste so much money on refugees like Mr Zaoui? Isn’t it true that charity begins at home, and we look after the ordinary hard-working, law-abiding taxpayer of this country?”.

My most shameful day of last year would have been visiting two prisons in Auckland—the new remand prison and Paremoremo—to see the young Māori males, approximately 3,000, who currently are housed in our jails. To me it was the most shameful day of my life to see those 18 to 30-year-olds housed in a situation like that. I say to the Labour Party that it has had the Māori vote for 50-odd years and still today Māori are dragging the chain in all the statistics. I am not letting National off the hook, because it, as well, is to blame for a lot of these problems with young Māori. The statistics on Māori health and education are questionable. I ask Labour to tell me who will be going into the four new prisons it will be building. I know who will be going into them: again, it will be young Māori, who are disadvantaged by the economic restructuring that both Labour and National were involved in, selling off the assets—[Interruption]—yes, kia ora, giving them more work. They were involved in selling off strategic assets in the 1980s. Those jobs may not have been certificated situations, but they provided life skills for the future of our young people. The upgrading of getting into the Defence Force or the Army has created problems with young Māori today. It is detrimental not only to young Māori but to all New Zealanders.

I want to touch on the high dollar. The high dollar has affected the Wairarapa and some of its businesses. The tractor sales and equipment sales have slowed down. Forestry operators also are now cautious. Exporters are concerned about how much longer the dollar will climb. When will somebody do something about it?

Another challenge to the National spokesperson and to Dr Brash is this: why did he not attack the issues of the economy of this country? Why attack Māori? Why attack the situation that National created? National put the kōhanga reo programme in place. It initiated Māori health programmes and also Māori television. I ask the National Party whether it will reverse the funding to kōhanga reo. I challenge it on that one. The National Party is quiet now, because it is one thing to say it, and another thing to do it, and to be in power to do it. That is the challenge to the National Party.

Can I touch on Waitangi Day? What a lovely day it was, but 30-odd minutes by a few radicals spoiled the whole weekend. New Zealand First was quite proud; we walked around Waitangi, quite happy to be there. We were not like Mr Brash, who was trying to change the kawa of a marae by taking the media on to the marae instead of taking himself there, getting on to the paepae, and debating the issues. No, he wanted the media to go on. I say to National members that they cannot change the kawa of any marae.

All I want to say is that we do not know how lucky we are in this country.

There have been two contrasting speeches today—that given by the Prime Minister and that given by the Leader of the Opposition. I presume that the speech by the Leader of the Opposition is to set the tone for all the conservative parties on the other side of the House—barring, of course, the Green Party. The speech of the Prime Minister was positive, and focused on what is being done in New Zealand. In particular, it focused on progress that the Government is making in its partnership approach. The public sector is working, in every region, alongside the private sector and community groups. That is positive. The record of investment in education, so that skills are developed to meet the needs of industry, was outlined, and we were given a clear steer on the type of social policies that will progressively see less discrimination and more involvement by all our communities in New Zealand.

In foreign policy, it was good to see a commitment to the continued development of New Zealand having a sovereign foreign policy. When we look at what is happening in Iraq now, we can be pleased that the Government set a strong line and refused to take part in the lies of the Bush administration and the Blair administration of Great Britain, which undermined international law. On the other side of the House, when the illegal invasion of Iraq was mooted, the National Party and ACT were at the forefront, baying for New Zealand to have its decisions made in Washington and London. We have kept a sovereign foreign policy.

So, the speech of the Prime Minister was positive, was focused on the real problems of New Zealand, and did not fail to point out that we have inequalities and discrimination in New Zealand, which a progressive Government will aim to amend.

Turning to the speech of Dr Brash, I can only say that he was a living example of the historical truism that history, when it repeats itself, is farce. He is a reinvented Muldoon, and the policies of division that he is strategically putting forward—and I accept that others in the National Party claim credit for this strategy—are nothing else but farce. The one thing he does not have, that Muldoon had, is the ability to frighten his caucus, to frighten half of the press gallery, and to frighten the country. The country sees Dr Brash as a farcical figure, and it knows that his policies are recycled, conservative policies.

The policy is: “Let us have sectors to blame.” Let us blame Māoridom, let us move on to unions, let us blame a whole range of people in New Zealand society, and that will be a recipe for success. It is true, it could be, because at different times in history, populations have been frightened. But the legacy that Dr Brash would leave, if he were successful, would be one that would leave a future generation to pick up the pieces and rebuild. I am confident that the public will not fall for such crass divisiveness. It is a tactic that New Zealand First has used to attack sectors of the population—immigrants and Māori, for example. But National is raising that tactic to what it sees as a more sophisticated level. It is interesting to hear the rhetoric: “Let us focus on need, let us not pay attention to race.” That ignores the fact that New Zealand has deep divisions of inequality, and that there is a need to focus on eliminating that inequality.

The groups that National gravitates toward have never wanted New Zealand to be a country of equality. The types of economic policies that Dr Brash favours and that he wants to go back to, to privatise and sell off New Zealand’s assets, are aimed to allow an elite group of New Zealanders to profit. They are not loyal New Zealanders. Most of the people in the Brash camp have sold out New Zealand, live outside of New Zealand, and have taken their profits out of New Zealand. That is not the policy of this Labour-Progressive Government.

There is certainly nothing progressive about that diatribe of denial we heard from Matt Robson. Several hours ago we heard the queen of spin addressing the people of New Zealand and making her annual statement. It was quite fascinating. Unlike the previous years, there was no mention of the upper half of the OECD, not one, and no mention of the knowledge wave. She has gone silent. Certainly she was talking about them in previous years.

Why does she not mention the upper half of the OECD? Because, under this Labour Government, New Zealand will never get there. There is just no prediction possible of how this Labour Government’s policy setting will get New Zealand into the upper half of the OECD. What we have seen over the last few years has been some growth—growth despite the Government, not because of it. In many respects this Government is almost like an alcoholic. We have seen Labour members absolutely overdosed on serendipity, and it has gone to their heads. Instead of really disciplining themselves on the policy of growth, what do they do? They do the very opposite of what world economists are telling us to do. What did they do? They brought in the Employment Relations Bill. Compliance costs have absolutely gone out of the window. There is the taxation policy, and finally there is lack of choice in education. Let us just look—[Interruption]

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker—

I thank the member, I was about to address the matter myself. Could the member please withdraw that remark.

💬 David Benson-Pope: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Let us just look at the Employment Relations Bill. The question is whether there is one business organisation in New Zealand that supports it. The answer is a loud, clear no. I was told by one of my friends in Auckland—

💬 David Benson-Pope: That was Simon Carlaw telling lies.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The senior Government whip is saying that people are telling lies. He just made mention—

💬 Hon Chris Carter: No, just the National Party!

💬 Lindsay Tisch: This is a point of order, and the member interrupts. Is he going to be dealt with?

Who is he?

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Mr Carter, who interrupted during my point of order.

Yes, the member will be dealt with. Has the member finished his point of order?

💬 Lindsay Tisch: My point of order is this. The senior Government whip has, on two occasions, said that people are lying. He mentioned that a very prominent business person was, in fact, lying. That is unparliamentary, and he should withdraw and apologise.

I thank the member—

💬 David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

I need no assistance. I think I heard the member quite clearly. The member was quite entitled to say that Mr Carlaw was lying. In my view that is allowable, but the member compounded that by bringing it back to the National Party. Would Chris Carter please withdraw and apologise for what he said.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: I do indeed withdraw and apologise.

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: I am glad you have put this disorderly rabble in its place, because the question that I was asking was: is there one business organisation in the country that supports this Labour Government’s Employment Relations Act? No, there is not. There is not one respectable one, anyway. I heard from an industrial relations lawyer in Auckland the other day that this is going to be a boom year for them, and “Thank you Margaret Wilson.” is what they are saying. People from every small and medium-sized business in New Zealand are saying that this is one of the worst pieces of legislation that New Zealand businesses have been subjected to in decades.

I will speak for a moment about compliance costs, because undoubtedly they are one of the things that affect growth. I particularly want to talk about biotechnology because this Government talks a lot about biotechnology. And what did the Biotechnology Taskforce recommend for regulations? It said it wanted to have predictability, transparency, and world-best regulatory practice. Yet this Government in the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation has created one of the most complicated spiders’ webs of bureaucracy that I have ever seen. All one has to do is look at page 41 of the Biotechnology Taskforce recommendations and one becomes boggle-eyed. In fact, it would make a tarantula boggle-eyed because of the complexity of it.

The current regulatory framework for approving new biotechnology products has become so difficult, not only because of its complexity, but also because of the additions of the principles of the treaty in the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation that have taken away those basic elements of predictability, transparency, and world-best regulatory practice—all those things that this Government is insinuating through so much of the legislation of New Zealand are totally contrary to the possibility of growth in New Zealand.

Government members used to talk about the knowledge wave several years ago, but suddenly they have gone silent. Why have they gone silent? It has been as they have capped the fees in universities. They have gone silent as they have made up inflexible profiles and charters throughout the universities. They have gone silent as the Prime Minister has presided over the loss of choice in our schools.

The other day I spoke to a variety of children who were coming home from a prominent Auckland school after their first day. They were almost in tears because of the lack of quality of their teachers. The reason is that the Labour Government does not reward good teachers. It is this Labour Government that chooses mediocrity in its education policies.

💬 Martin Gallagher: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member opposite made a very serious charge against members of the teaching profession at a specific school. Through you, I challenge him to name the particular school concerned.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): That is not a point of order.

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: That was not a point of order. I repeat that I have spoken to several children who came home in tears about the lack of quality of teachers in New Zealand schools. They realised that it was because there was a Labour Government that does not recognise excellence or choice.

One of the things this Labour Government promised 4 years ago was to reduce hospital waiting lists. The Health and Independence Report of late last year is an absolute indictment on the Labour Government. In 1999-2000, the number of publicly funded surgical inpatient discharges was 160,574. By 2002-03 it has gone down to 157,000. Despite everything this Government has said about cutting down the waiting lists, operations have gone down in the last few years. Moreover, its active waiting lists have lost tens of thousands of people from the waiting lists themselves.

The other day a constituent came to me who had been waiting for 2½ years for a hip operation. She is 79 years of age and was in considerable pain. She said that she has also been waiting 4 years for a cataract operation. The hospital clerk rang her up and said: “Can you get across the road?”. She answered that she could just manage to get across the road, but that her eyes were fuzzy. The hospital clerk told her that she was sorry but that she would have to remove her completely from the waiting list.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: That’s outrageous.

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: It is outrageous the claims that this Labour Government made about the waiting lists in New Zealand. In actual fact the service that ordinary New Zealanders get with regard to elective surgery—according to its own documents—has actually deteriorated.

💬 David Benson-Pope: That’s not true!

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: The other day I asked the chief executive officer and the chairman of the Waitemata—

💬 David Benson-Pope: That’s not true!

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: It is he that protesteth a lot who actually has little substance. We see that over there in the form of Benson-Pope and his colleague. The other day I heard—

💬 Hon Chris Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member has been in this House long enough to know that he should not refer to members of this House just by their surnames.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): He did not do that.

💬 David Benson-Pope: He didn’t get it right either.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, he stumbled a little, but he did manage to get out something that resembled Benson-Pope.

💬 Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Mr Benson-Pope is a man of little substance. I asked the chief executive officer and chairman of the Waitemata hospital board and the Auckland hospital board whether they had achieved anything tangible with regard to their first objective. Their first objective was to raise the health performance of Aucklanders. They both said: “No, we have not been able to do anything tangible in raising the health of Aucklanders, because we’ve been so busy trying to deal with our deficits. We’ve been so busy trying to deal with the deficits that have been made for us under this Labour Government that has created the most entangled bureaucracy of any health system that I know of anywhere in the world.”

Given that we are probably 30 seconds away from the House rising, I seek leave that the House adjourns early in view of the very good progress we have made today.

Leave has been sought. Is there any objection? There appears to be objection.

In her speech to the House today, the Prime Minister made mention of the fantastic progress we have made in the high country of the South Island—transferring Molesworth Station. An area of 183,798 hectares of a piece of land the size of Stewart Island has now been protected for the people of New Zealand for ever. There was a real possibility that this icon of the high country of the South Island would be privatised by a future ACT-National Government. We in the Labour Government have protected it for the people of New Zealand for ever.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.