Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

As the Prime Minister indicated in her speech, this Government has been extraordinarily active in conservation, and will continue to be so. We have seen some flagship achievements in recent months. One of the most beautiful high-country stations in the South Island—Birchwood Station—has been purchased by the Government and established as a permanent conservation and recreation area for all New Zealanders. Molesworth Station, New Zealand’s largest single farm—the size of Stewart Island—has also been permanently protected as a vast and unique reserve that National and ACT will never be able to sell.

However, there have also been many other achievements in conservation recently that have not attracted as much attention. Take the success of the Department of Conservation in wiping rats off Campbell Island in the southern ocean as an example. The Campbell Island operation was the largest rat eradication effort ever attempted in the world. It will allow some severely threatened bird species to thrive in that natural home for the first time in over 100 years. This success places the Department of Conservation at the forefront of international conservation, and it was only made possible by the Government’s commitment to funding the restoration of our native biodiversity.

It has been estimated that we have lost 32 percent of our indigenous land and freshwater bird species, and 18 percent of our seabirds in the 800 years or so that humans have lived in this country. Gone too are vast tracks of native forest and most of our wetlands. This Government said: “Enough!”. Unlike the National Party and ACT, which want to sell, dig up, or flood New Zealand’s natural environment, the Labour-Progressive Government has committed significant resources to the conservation of our landscapes and the ability of New Zealanders to enjoy them. We have placed $187 million behind a new New Zealand biodiversity strategy, which has dramatically boosted the resourcing of species and habitat preservation. The Department of Conservation’s budget has grown by a whopping 40 percent.

More than any over Government, we have recognised that the conservation lands of our country are a massive economic and recreational resource. That was a key reason why we invested $349 million in the Department of Conservation’s visitor facilities. This funding, announced in 2002, has enabled the Department of Conservation to begin to revamp and to reorganise its network of huts, tracks, and campsites in our conservation areas into something that more effectively meets the modern demands of New Zealanders and of our growing tourism industry. This was unprecedented funding, and it will bear fruit. It will have social and economic reverberations right around our country. Expect more from this Government this year in conservation. We are unswerving and unapologetic about our commitment to saving our native species. We are not prepared to see all of our important iconic landscapes lost to New Zealanders. We are keen to see the careful integration of tourism into conservation areas to continue.

It may interest members to learn that in a recent UMR survey of public support of Government departments, the Department of Conservation was top of the list. It was the most popular Government department. Over 70 percent of respondents had a very positive view of the Department of Conservation, compared with just 16 percent who had an unfavourable view. There are some who cling to silly old myths about the Department of Conservation that are now long-since disproved, but the clear majority do not. The majority of those see the Labour-Progressive Government and its support of the Department of Conservation as a very important step forward. Most New Zealanders do not share National or ACT’s view that the Department of Conservation is a bad neighbour. They recognise that the Department of Conservation spent huge sums of money, time, and effort this summer fighting fires right across Canterbury. They recognise that in doing so the Department of Conservation saved surrounding farmlands and rural communities from devastation. Does the House remember the predictions of doom and gloom from National when it was announced that Molesworth Station was to be managed by the Department of Conservation? Apparently, the Department of Conservation had an appalling relationship with farmers, and farming on Molesworth Station was finished as a result. Landcorp continues to farm Molesworth Station. Its general manager, Bernard Card had this to say in Countrywide magazine recently: “The increasing emphasis on conservation on Molesworth is not a problem and does not threaten the farming business. It is just a case of sorting out the new lease and working out how the new arrangements will be put together. I am comfortable because we have a good past working relationship with the Department of Conservation.” It makes one wonder where the Opposition gets its information from, does it not? Consider this: National and ACT claimed in relation to Molesworth Station that the Department of Conservation had an appalling record on weed control. Actually, the Department of Conservation’s record on weed control is very good. On Molesworth Station it has been doing weed and pest control for a number of years, despite the fact that it had no legal obligation to do so.

The Department of Conservation has good relationships with landowners, communities, and iwi the length and breadth of this country. Members of the public know that, because they have experienced it first hand. Members should ask those involved, for example, in the Kaharoa Kkako Trust, a community-based organisation that, with the help of the Department of Conservation, is managing the recovery of kkako in the forest near Rotorua. Members should ask those involved in Project Kiwi north-west of Whitianga in the Coromandel. This is a project that in consultation with the Department of Conservation has been running stoat control over 4,100 hectares of rugged terrain covering 20 different properties, including the Department of Conservation - administered land. Members should ask those involved in the Otago rail trail—a 150 kilometre - long cycle ride through central Otago that attracts up to 15,000 visitors a year. After the railway line between Middlemarch and Alexandra closed in 1990, the community created a very attractive and accessible recreational opportunity that has promoted the economic regeneration of small towns in central Otago. All that was done with the Department of Conservation’s help and cooperation. There are numerous examples of Department of Conservation community work and of it being an outstanding neighbour.

Conservation lies at the heart of New Zealand. It is what defines us as New Zealanders—our landscapes and our unique species. Communities will continue to support the Department of Conservation. This Government has funded the Department of Conservation more than any other. We see the value in conservation for future generations of New Zealanders.

A really remarkable thing is happening at Parliament this evening—that is, a reconciliation process is taking place with the Chinese community. Many hundreds of descendents of original Chinese gold miners and settlers came to our country—people who were forced to pay a poll tax. First it was £10, and then in 1891 it was £100. That is the only example of overt racism that ever happened in our country, where a racial group was penalised because of the group that it belonged to. This evening the Prime Minister will announce a reconciliation package for the Chinese community that will be greeted with applause all over the world. It will attract international attention. It makes me very proud to be a member of Government that is committed to valuing diversity, and that sees that all New Zealanders are not the same. We are all equal before the law, but we need to celebrate and affirm our diversity. Tonight Parliament will take on a Chinese flavour. It will be a different flavour to the usual flavour we have here, but it is part of the many faces that now make up our country.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in reply to the Prime Minister’s statement, and I have to say her speech lacked considerably any real regard for one of the greatest crises that face our nation today—that is, law and order. Our law enforcement officers, our courts, and our justice system are facing a crisis.

Indeed, it is with sadness that I tell the House that while I have been sitting here I have received a text message telling me that my nephew, whose 21st birthday party I helped celebrate over Christmas, is now lying in hospital—the victim of a senseless bashing in Christchurch City. It is only when a member of one’s family is lying in a hospital with a fractured skull—a young man with so much promise, hoping to try out for the Canterbury colts team this year—that one realises that this country is being governed by a party that does not, on the face of the Prime Minister’s statement, seem to share the concerns of New Zealand First about our young people, about law and order, and about lawlessness. We have heard a lot of rhetoric and political claptrap from this Government over the last 5 years, and with the bumbling incompetence of the Minister of Police, the naivety of the Minister of Corrections, and the political correctness of the entire Cabinet of this Government, we have seen no progress on law and order, as demanded by 92 percent of New Zealanders in the last referendum on the issue. The sad facts are, one, violent crime is up, and, unfortunately, today my family has become one of thousands of families that are faced with this issue. The rate of violent crime is up, clearance rates are down, and public confidence in the New Zealand Police is falling rapidly. That worries me because I, like four other members of the New Zealand First caucus, have family who are in blue, who are in uniform and walking the beat.

I ask myself the same questions that every other New Zealanders asks: why are we in this situation; why are we facing this crisis? The first answer, I guess, is that the Prime Minister does not seem to care, and that is why her speech had only one paragraph on the issue. The second answer is that the police seem to be lacking any strong direction, or determined resolve, to stamp out crime effectively and to nail those individuals who choose a life of crime as their career path and lifestyle. I easily justify that statement by pointing out that, despite all the promises of members opposite over 9 years in Opposition and 5 years in Government, they have failed to nail the gangs. We read that in Wairoa, Taneatua, Palmerston North, and all over this country, the gangs still thumb their nose, with impunity, at the law and get away with it. Even worse, we are bending over backwards to deal with their “sensitivities” and their “cultural needs”. What a lot of humbug and claptrap!

This Government is failing to deal with those issues. Look at the policing priorities. We saw that over the Christmas period. The Government says that officers are out there on the roads trying to save lives, but statistics show that fatalities increased—right alongside revenue collecting. The Government has police officers out there hiding behind bushes with radar cameras, nabbing normally law-abiding citizens, because this Government wants to increase its $6 billion surplus.

If this Government wants an indication of where we are going in the future, it should take note of what the Manchester bobbies are saying. Everyone says that New Zealand is 5 years behind the rest of the world; well, we should take note of what the Manchester Chief Constable, Michael Todd, is telling his officers. He is telling them to stop targeting speeding drivers and to start catching hardened criminals. He has warned staff that continuing to pressure motorists, through the use of speed cameras, will see many law-abiding people develop an anti-police feeling. Guess what! That is precisely what I warned against months and months ago, and it is precisely what is happening here in this country. Should we be surprised that, when a police officer called for help to apprehend a violent offender, people refused to go to his aid? Should we be surprised, in the light of recent revelations and allegations, that there is growing scepticism towards explanations by the police as to why they are out there ticketing motorists?

No one believes the Government. No one believes the police. No one accepts that the Government’s priorities on law and order are the right ones. People want to see hardened crims caught and locked up. That is a Government responsibility. That is George Hawkins’ responsibility. That is Helen Clark’s responsibility. They need to sort out their priorities and help the police get on with the real business of catching real crooks.

But when we do catch them we put them on home detention. The Minister tells us that the system is tight and controlled, and that the Government has a good grip on those on home detention. Well, I warned the Minister that these guys are gambling, on dope, and living the life of Riley. Then I told the Minister that a man on home detention had died of a P overdose, but he knew nothing about it. He accused me of making it up, and we found out it was true. Home detention is a rort; so is parole. Now we have another example of another man who was paroled out into the community—supposedly rehabilitated. We get all “touchy-feely” and cosy, but he has offended again and been charged and arrested. So the story goes on.

But that is not new. We had a case the week before of a man who had been convicted not only of murder but of two counts of attempted murder, and within months of his being accepted as having been rehabilitated and put out on parole, he was recalled to jail because of a sexual offence. What is wrong with this Government? Do those MPs and Cabinet Ministers not have children, not have families? Do they not understand the trauma they are wreaking upon victims and their families? How many times does the Sensible Sentencing Trust have to come to Parliament to plea for parole to be tightened up? The sad fact is we have politically correct puppets appointed to the Parole Board, including members of the Labour Party, who share the Government’s own “touch-feely” philosophies. So they approve the parole of these people and let them out into the community.

Well, enough is enough! This country is sick of it and has had a gutsful. Over this year New Zealand First will hold this Government to account on its failure in law and order, its failure to address lawlessness, its failure to deal with the gangs, and its failed priorities. We are going to make sure of that. I will continue to deal with the Minister of Corrections, who is, at best, very, very naive. I told him what was going on in Canterbury prisons. He refused to accept it. Now we have a “goon squad” inquiry. He can stand up and make all the allegations he likes about my putting out inaccurate information; nothing I have put to this House has been inaccurate. Denying me a personal statement in the House will come back on the Government, because I will not allow one Labour MP to make a personal statement, so long as I sit in this chair. Those members have denied me my right of reply. And I am not going to use this debate to do that. We have told this House.

What of youth crime? Well, now we have the police coming out today expressing their frustrations about youth crime, and I am saying here today that I will be putting in the ballot a member’s bill to lower the age of criminal responsibility, to make these young people realise they do know the difference between right and wrong, and they will be held accountable for adult crimes, as adults. That bill is drafted. It will be in the House.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: What age? Should it be 10 or 9?

I am offering 10 as the age; that is what I am going to ask the select committee to consider. We will talk that through, and we will lower the age. I want to see these young, recidivist offenders locked up, as they should be. We have had enough of the family group counselling sessions. The police are at their wits’ end. I have heard this time and time again. Today’s article tells me that this Government will not act to help the police, and will not deal with the nonsense of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act and the Crimes Act, which allow these young offenders to do as has happened to my nephew—to bash him over the back of the head and drop him on the ground, with the result that he is in hospital with a fractured skull. Well, I am sorry but that is it—endgame! My member’s bill is in the ballot, and my challenge to the Government is to take it out and itself introduce it into the House as a Government bill, and help these families deal with these wayward youth offenders. It should help the New Zealand Police by giving them the tools to do the job; either do that or sit there and rattle on like Clayton Cosgrove, do nothing for anybody, and be held accountable for it on election day, which is coming sooner than those members think.

The sign of a good Government is that it has a heart; that it can hear cries of distress. In some areas, as in employment relations, the Government does have a heart. It is trying to make things fairer for working people. But in the Zaoui case, Labour is heartless. It has no empathy whatsoever for a fellow elected-MP and his family, who have been suffering terribly since a military coup in Algeria 12 years ago. Instead of showing compassion for Mr Zaoui, Labour has imprisoned him for over 14 months.

For all that time, Mr Zaoui has not been told of the accusations against him. At last he may get a summary of the accusations, but to achieve that he has had to win a case in the High Court. Now the Government is appealing the other half of the High Court ruling in favour of Mr Zaoui—that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should take human rights into account in his determination of the security risk certificate applying to Mr Zaoui. That is shocking.

The Minister of Immigration, Lianne Dalziel, has said that it is the inspector-general’s task to determine whether Mr Zaoui is really a threat to “national security”. First, it should be noted that the Government chose to use the “national security” clause, not the “terrorist” clause, when applying the security risk certificate. That is convenient for the Government, because national security is capable of any number of definitions. Around the world many political dissidents are imprisoned for “national security” reasons, often without access to an adequate legal process. Algeria is a case in point.

Endangering good relations with other Governments is often seen as a threat to national security. In fact, according to our legislation the Security Intelligence Service is supposed to pursue those who “impact adversely on New Zealand’s international well-being”. Given that the Algerian regime is unhappy that Mr Zaoui continues to criticise the lack of democracy in his homeland, it could be argued that letting him stay here would undermine New Zealand’s diplomatic relations with Algeria, and thereby affect our national security. SIS director, Richard Woods, could be putting diplomatic interests ahead of Mr Zaoui’s human rights, and, by extension, the human rights of all of us.

Auckland academic Paul Buchanan has been lambasted by Lianne Dalziel and Helen Clark for arguing that Mr Woods’ previous posting as our ambassador to France and Algeria could have a bearing on the case. But it could. France has collaborated in the suppression of democracy in Algeria and may also be upset that the Refugee Status Appeals Authority has given refugee status to such a prominent opponent of a regime that is so friendly to France.

Keeping Mr Zaoui here may affect our diplomatic relations with France, as well as Algeria, and that could concern Richard Woods. He could also be giving greater credibility to French intelligence than it deserves. French intelligence operations are shaped by political objectives, as we found out when they sank the Rainbow Warrior. The French intelligence services have a history of helping the Algerian regime portray its democratic opponents, like Mr Zaoui, as terrorists. Of course, the comments about Mr Woods are in the realm of educated conjecture. Unfortunately, that is all we are able to do, given the secrecy and lack of accountability that surrounds the SIS, including in the Zaoui case.

Because there could be a bias in favour of the Government’s perceived diplomatic interests, it is critical that the inspector-general take into account Mr Zaoui’s human rights, particularly his right to criticise publicly the Algerian Government without suffering any penalty in the determination of his case. Other obvious human rights for the inspector-general to take into account are the rights of Mr Zaoui to a fair hearing, not to be unreasonably detained, and not to be sent back to torture or death in Algeria.

Taking into account these human rights is integral to the inspector-general’s determination of the case, which is why it is so wrong for the Government to appeal the High Court decision in favour of Mr Zaoui. Lianne Dalziel’s argument that she can take into account Mr Zaoui’s human rights in her final determination of the case, is patently absurd. By law the immigration Minister has only 3 days to make a decision after an adverse report by the inspector-general. That is simply not enough time to get to grips with the fine points of the case and the law. Unlike the inspector-general, the Minister would not have heard all the witnesses, been part of all the cross-examination in the hearings, or heard all about the situation in Algeria today. In any case, as the Minister who originally applied the security risk certificate to Mr Zaoui, she would also have a vested interest in not being proved wrong, and thereby in not being blamed for Mr Zaoui being unnecessarily detained for many extra months. There is also a problem in a Government Minister making the final decision. Mr Zaoui has been a political embarrassment for the Government and it would like to get rid of him.

This is where the Zaoui case ties into the international debate on how Governments are conducting the so-called war on terrorism. Led by the Bush administration, Western Governments are asserting their right to deal with alleged terrorists by secret administrative measures, and not through open judicial processes. However, there is a legal fightback taking place, such as in the current court challenges to the US Government’s ongoing detention of alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The Clark Government seems very fearful of such matters being pursued here in relation to the operation of the security risk certificate procedure in the Zaoui case. That is one of the reasons why it has been so hostile to Dr Michael Kidd’s draft report for the International Commission of Jurists. Without getting into a debate on whether Dr Kidd is right or wrong in all his legal argumentation, he does raise two very important points. Is it right that the Refugee Status Appeals Authority’s judicial decision in favour of Mr Zaoui could be overridden by a Government-administered security risk certificate procedure? He thinks that Mr Zaoui could be successful in a habeas corpus suit that he was being illegally detained.

Section 114O(3) of the Immigration Act does provide for a person subject to the certificate to be released, even before the inspector-general reports. It also allows him or her to be moved from a prison to other forms of detention, such as the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre or home detention. The section specifically contrasts a “prison” and “other premises” of detention. Ms Dalziel is quite wrong, on both legal and humanitarian grounds, to refuse to move him out of the Auckland Central Remand Prison.

Most thinking people believe it is just not acceptable for Mr Zaoui to be detained for so long. It is now over 14 months, and for Mr Zaoui it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mr Zaoui’s detention has been, and is being, prolonged by several months by the Government’s forcing Mr Zaoui to go to the High Court to get a summary of evidence against him provided, and then forcing him to wait around while the Government appeals the High Court decision that the inspector-general should take into account Mr Zaoui’s human rights.

I visit Mr Zaoui regularly and he is suffering terribly as this test case goes on—the test case of this abominable and anti-democratic security risk certificate procedure.

The Zaoui case has tested many Government departments, and they have been found wanting. It is good that the Ombudsman is now investigating the conduct of the Immigration Service, the Customs Service, and the Department of Corrections in this whole affair. We also need to look at the role of the police, which got it wrong from day one, accepting at face value the warrant the Algerian regime had out for Mr Zaoui and the fact that he had been sentenced to death in Algeria.

In particular, we need a serious review of the SIS, how it collects its foreign intelligence and whose interests it is serving. We know from the inquiries now begun into the British and US intelligence services that such services cannot be automatically trusted to get things right, behind their walls of secrecy.

Mr Zaoui is the sacrificial lamb of crazy, undemocratic procedures, and a stubborn, unfeeling Government. He and his family are hurting. We must release him now. In the Prime Minister’s address she said that New Zealand will be engaged internationally with human rights issues, but the Zaoui case is putting a severe blot on New Zealand’s good name as an advocate of human rights. We cannot go openly and honestly out into the international community promoting human rights in countries like Zimbabwe, Tonga, or anywhere else, if we keep someone like Mr Zaoui in prison for so long—unjustly. As a Parliament we should have sympathy for a fellow MP.

Can I start by saying how pleased I was that my colleague Mr Gerry Brownlee apologised to the House for the language that was used here yesterday. That kind of language is no part of the tradition of my party, nor should it be any part of the tradition of debate in this House, and I hope never to hear it again. But I think it does reflect a profound disappointment in the speech we heard yesterday, which is, after all, what this debate is about, and that is the speech made by the Prime Minister.

New Zealand’s recent history in respect of the Treaty of Waitangi can be viewed very simply. National sought and obtained a mandate from the public for treaty settlements. When the Government changed, Labour continued very slowly with those treaty settlements, but moved into a post-settlement phase. It has never sought a mandate for what it is doing, and Helen Clark has never explained to the people of New Zealand what the Labour Government’s policy is in respect of the treaty and its role in New Zealand, and certainly she has never explained to the public what she believes New Zealand will look like in the future, if we go down the path she is going down.

I therefore offer her a challenge. I challenge her to do what Don Brash is going to do. He will be going around the country, talking to the public, as I did myself when I was in that role, explaining to them the implications of what is happening now and the choices that New Zealand faces. I believe that Helen Clark should do the same. I believe she should run a public meeting in Invercargill and get up and explain what she means by “partnership” and “principles”, and the various policies that her Government is following. I find that she is much keener to turn up to the openings of art exhibitions, using Air Force One to fly to out-of-the-way airports like Gore, than she is to explain to the public this matter that lies at the heart of our nation.

The issues are complicated, but they are vital. In the end, it is not so much about the amount of Government expenditure involved but the fact they are constitutional issues. What does it mean when we say there is a partnership in the Government of New Zealand? What is the role of iwi— who are now assuming a semi-constitutional status? What will be the role of the courts, particularly the new Supreme Court? I warned this House about this last year, because the judges are full of international indigenous law precedents, many of which, I believe, have no place in New Zealand. What does it mean to have a big proportion of our citizens having their rights determined by their genetic ancestry? So Helen Clark has more than enough to do in providing the answers to those questions, let alone the foreshore and seabed issue.

It has been somewhat satisfying to see that Helen Clark’s tactic of name-calling—a tactic that is several years old now—has been overwhelmed by the tide of public opinion on this issue. The same has happened with the media. They have generally dealt with these issues in a glib and ill-informed way, but the tide of public opinion, which has been apparent even to the media—even to them!—is forcing them to take the issue seriously. Frustration is at the base of that public feeling. Frustration is felt by 80 to 90 percent of New Zealanders who have never felt part of the treaty debate—and technically they never have been, because it has been between the Crown and Māori.

But today as we speak—in the ivory towers of Wellington—the politicians, civil servants, and judges are nattering away to each other about “treatyology”. It has its own secret little language that no one else understands, but it will never stand the light of day. That is what I want to say to the Labour Party. I have always believed that if Labour members were to go out there and try to explain what they are doing, the public would reject it. I believe that no matter what credibility Helen Clark has, and no matter what economic conditions apply, the public would reject it. I suspect that is why Labour members will stay behind closed doors, heads down, whispering to each other about how terrible it all is.

That is why we end up with the kind of Waitangi Day we had this year. I have probably attended at Waitangi more often than most politicians. I have been there 13 times.

💬 Jill Pettis: Unlucky for some.

Yes, unlucky for some—including me sometimes. What I see there is a basic problem of respect. It is a group of people who show no respect for their own customs and their own culture. It is a family who think they can hold a whole nation’s celebration to ransom. That is ridiculous. If Ngā Puhi thinks that that earns them the respect of the public, they have to be joking. It is a rabble; it is a shambles. Even the best-intentioned people, like myself, who have persevered year after year, have given up, because there is no respect shown for the nation of New Zealand.

If Ngā Puhi cannot deal with the Harawiras, then we should not have to be paraded in front of Ngā Puhi and its shambles and its disrespect, every year. In fact, the marae could be a useful metaphor for this debate. People greet each other, form a bond of respect, then dispute as vigorously as possible. But at Waitangi there is no respect.

I now hold the job of Opposition spokesperson on education, and just as the whole public sector is soaked in “treatyology”, so is education. Steve Maharey has written a letter saying the treaty is at the heart of tertiary sector reforms. Did anyone know that the treaty is at the heart of what the Government is trying to do to tertiary education? Those tens of thousands of students who are borrowing money to get an education, have now found out that what the Minister believes he is doing to reshape tertiary education is all about the treaty. I intend to find out what he means. I suspect I will get a whole lot of sociological hogwash from someone who could not even cut it as a sociologist.

I have came across another little beauty, which shows how we sometimes get ourselves wound into knots over this stuff, when it is actually quite simple. Listen to this. I have here a piece of research about the education of Māori in our schools. I must say it is an excellent example, and I am referring to Te Kotahitanga project led by Russell Bishop at Waikato University. This is an extract: “The research process used in this exercise is based on a kaupapa Māori theoretical and methodological approach, in that it seeks to operationalise the tino rangatiratanga of the research participants by using a sequence of semi-structured, in-depth interviews as conversations in order to produce narratives of experience.”

Do members know that that simply means: “We asked the kids”! How clever is that! That is what parents do every day to find out any problems with the teacher and with education. They ask the kids, because the kids know. Well, at Waikato University—the alma mater of the Attorney-General—this bit of the research stretches out to about 40 words, and it is all about rangatiratanga and treaty relationships. Why not just say: “Let’s ask the kids.”? It works. The kids told Mr Bishop the problem with the teachers, and that too has a great name to describe it—“deficit theorisation”. It simply means: “Teachers do not expect Māori kids to learn, and if we can change those expectations it makes a big difference.” My 10-year-old told me that is the case with some of the kids in his classroom, and he did not need to go to university to find that out. So education is going to be a battleground, just as many other portfolios are, over this issue of what direction the Government is going to take.

I want to finish by talking about school closures. Today the Minister of Education lost his closest ally. He had done a dirty little deal with the New Zealand Educational Institute to the effect that it would not oppose any change. As of yesterday, the president of the educational institute said that he wants the network reviews to stop, and I agree. They are savage. They are unnecessary. They are taking away from families something they treasure—that is, an education in a community they know, from a teacher they know. [Interruption] Jill Pettis, who is trying to interject, is going to lose her seat over this. The member for Invercargill has already lost his seat. So will the member for Aoraki. Destroying good schools makes parents angry, and they are going to stop it. And I am going to help them.

This afternoon we are debating the Prime Minister’s statement to the House, and the purpose of that statement is to foreshadow the work programme of the Government for the coming year. The statement is also an opportunity to illustrate the policy framework within which the Government is advancing its programme, and the means through which it is achieving its primary goals of economic growth through innovation and social cohesion, which can be implemented through an involvement of all the people in the decisions that affect them. So it is an opportunity for us to debate, to reflect upon, the programme that the Government has been advancing over the past 5 years, and will continue to advance in the forthcoming year because of the success it has had so far.

As the Prime Minister stated, the Labour-led coalition has taken a longer-term strategic view on the reconstruction of New Zealand’s economic and social well-being. New Zealanders were sick and tired of the self-serving political decision-making of the late 1990s that placed self-interest of political parties ahead of the well-being of the country as a whole. This Government has provided not only purpose but also a firm direction on its core mission to build a confident and dynamic nation. We know that rhetoric and political stunts are no substitute for the serious business of Government. We also know that we cannot build an innovative, growing, smart economy that will deliver jobs and opportunity for all, and higher standards of living, unless we involve all the people who will be affected by those policies.

That is why this Government is so different from those that preceded it—because it has engaged all sections of the community in that debate and discussion. We have done this through a variety of means. One example is partnerships with local government and local community organisations—consultation processes that not only see officials going out to talk to groups but involve Ministers meeting face to face, in dialogue, with all sections of the community. This does not mean that everyone agrees with the decisions that are made, but, at least, it means that everyone knows why the decisions are made and the reasons for them. As the previous speaker said, that has been a distinguishing feature of the Minister of Education—his willingness to engage face to face with the communities to explain why, in the current review, the well-being of all pupils in New Zealand is important. This is the reality of an open government policy. This is fundamental to the way in which this Government thinks that democratic government can be implemented in practice, and not only in rhetoric. This Government respects and values people and recognises they must be part of those decisions that affect them.

Our approach to responsible Government has produced results, as can be seen by the fact that the Government is on track with its economic programme to meet the goal of lifting New Zealand into the first half of the OECD ranking. Last year our growth rate topped the OECD. The New Zealand economy has expanded for 13 consecutive quarters, with gross domestic production up 3.9 percent in the last 12 months. Every region in New Zealand is experiencing growth. We see that as we travel around New Zealand. The villages and small communities that once looked depressed are now thriving, with new enterprises starting, and we can feel the sense of confidence in the future that people have. My own region of the Bay of Plenty has experienced a 3.6 percent increase in economic activity in the past 12 months.

For me, however, the most important indicator that the Government’s policies are working has been the dramatic decline in unemployment. Not being in paid employment has left many people without hope in the future, or any ability to improve their economic and social well-being. That decline has been, I believe, the distinguishing feature of the success of the Government’s policies.

And we have achieved that success in reducing unemployment at a time when we are also experiencing amongst the lowest number of work stoppages on record. Normally, in periods of high employment and low unemployment we get an increase in strike activity. That has not been the case in this country, simply because we have put in place an employment relations framework that is based on good-faith bargaining and negotiations, and that has a much more rational approach to the well-being of not only employees but employers, so that we can all benefit from the economic growth that we are now experiencing.

We also see the success of that policy, which has been much derided by the Opposition and its political lobbyists, in the fact that average weekly earnings are up from $668 in 1999 to $752 today. Although we have experienced that deriding, and continue to do so, we cannot ignore the fact—neither can the Opposition—that these policies have been succeeding.

We hear much about compliance costs, which members opposite have heard are being experienced, yet that does not equate with the facts. The facts are that, in the period since the Employment Relations Act has been in force, there have been over 25,000 applications for mediation, and 80 percent of those have been resolved in 8 weeks. But what is more significant, on the compliance cost issue, is that we have seen a halving in the number of cases that have gone to the Employment Court. This not only has saved time and expense for employers and employees but also has introduced a level of certainty into the relationship. All of this has been against a background, also, where we have seen the birth of small to medium enterprises exceed the death rate of those enterprises, and that shows that there is, certainly, a confidence amongst people within New Zealand to be able to start small businesses and to have a go in ensuring that they also can benefit from the economic success that the Government is providing.

What Government policies are doing, in effect, is provide an environment where the value of labour is at long last being recognised. This is not only because it is the humane and decent approach to take but also because it recognises that New Zealand is facing, as is the rest of the world, a labour shortage, particularly a skilled-labour shortage. We, as a Government, have been preparing for that future. We have been doing that by increasing the skill base, through both our education policies and the apprenticeship programmes, and also through the practical steps we have been taking to encourage people into those sectors of the economy where skills are needed, and we have been doing it through a sensible, innovative immigration policy, as well. We are also doing it by facing reality, and through hard work, to ensure that we can face the future with confidence. It is the economic base that then enables us to go on and provide the social cohesion that must accompany any economic programme. That social cohesion is based upon the valuing of people, no matter what their position is—no matter what their gender, their ethnicity, or the region they come from. No matter where they are and what they are doing, everyone in this country is valued and important.

That has been the basis of how we are building the nation that the Prime Minister foreshadowed in her statement to Parliament. They are the programmes we will continue to do, despite the distractions that are created by Opposition parties in order to get attention. That is not what New Zealanders want; they want the sort of economy and social cohesion that this Government is producing through the policies it is pursuing, and it will steadfastly do that, because we have a vision for the long term, not the short term.

Speeches are frequently more telling not in what they say but in what they do not. The address by the Prime Minister yesterday illustrates that very point. She spoke smugly of her perceived achievements, but she arrogantly avoided the subject that all of New Zealand is talking about—showing how out of touch the Labour Government has become. The Prime Minister does not want to debate “one law for all”. She does not want to talk about colour-blind laws. She does not want to discuss equity for all New Zealanders before the law. She is avoiding the subject.

When we on this side of the House talk about one law for all, we are accused by the Deputy Prime Minister of being racist. We are accused by the Prime Minister of encouraging separatism and of being divisive, and her MPs and Ministers join in the chorus. What we have in this country are race-based policies. Today, Richard Prebble asked the Prime Minister to concede that one law for all is a policy that unites the country. She avoided the question—not once, not twice, but repeatedly. The Holmes poll last night showed that 90 percent of the 35,000 people who called in to give their opinion agreed with Don Brash’s “one standard of citizenship” message, but the Prime Minister wants to avoid the topic completely.

Of course, the most talked-about speech recently has been Don Brash’s speech in Orewa. In that, he asked what sort of nation we want to build: “Is it to be a modern democratic society, embodying the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state? Or is it the racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship, that the present Labour Government is moving us steadily towards?” The responses in this House over the last 2 days show exactly where people stand.

If we look back on what people have said over the last 6 months or so with regard to the “one law for all” policy, we see that it is very revealing. I refer to my own area—that of health. We are seeing not one law for all, at all, but two streams of funding, two standards of care for New Zealanders, and two standards of accountability. Tariana Turia wrote an article entitled “Tribal health policy in New Zealand”, which was published in the British Medical Journal last August. In it she explains that conventional Western medicine has been unable to close the disparities in mortality and health revealed in official statistics. She goes on to justify the Labour Government’s “for Māori, by Māori” health policy, based on Dr Papaarangi Reid’s type of analysis. I will come to Dr Reid’s comments in a moment.

What we are seeing here is two streams of funding and two standards of care—one for Māori; one for other New Zealanders. But the killers contributing to today’s mortality figures are cancers, heart disease, and obesity, and those are problems for all New Zealanders, not just Māori or Pacific peoples. The rates may be down for Pākehā, but those conditions are still the most common causes of death. The answer to closing the gaps—the words we are not supposed to utter anymore—is not separating the races, but targeting those big killers and tackling them disease by disease, for the benefit of all. New Zealanders must have health services based on need, not on race or location. Isolating Māori from the scientific Western tradition of medicine puts their health gravely at risk.

Dr Papaarangi Reid made some comments last year, of which I will remind members. She was complaining on National Radio that life expectancy in New Zealand had increased 6, 7, or maybe even 8 years. In essence, what she was saying was that Pākehā life expectancy had increased, but Māori life expectancy had not. She said that Pākehā had stolen the life expectancy of Māori. Quite how one steals anybody else’s life expectancy is beyond me, but she is head of the Māori unit of the University of Otago Wellington School of Medicine, so I suppose she must know.

💬 Gerrard Eckhoff: Paid for by the taxpayer.

That is right. Dr Reid’s implication was that the gap between Māori and Pākehā life expectancy has increased, but, in fact, if one takes a careful look at the statistics, one sees it has reduced over the last 50 years from 16 years’ difference to 8 years’ difference. That was quoted in a 1999 Ministry of Health report as being a spectacular improvement.

I come back to health and two streams of funding. If we look at the Government’s new, population-based funding formula, we can see that it is based, again, on race. Some district health boards get only $585 for a 40-year-old white male, while other boards get $1,536 for a 40-year-old Māori or Pacific Island male on the same income but living in a poorer area. If we look at the funding for primary health organisations, we see that a sole-parent beneficiary living in a middle-class area will get 20 percent less assistance than a sole-parent beneficiary on exactly the same income in a poor area, unless that person is Māori or a Pacific Islander. There is a 20 percent discrepancy. Where is the fairness in that?

I come to two standards of accountability. Last year I brought to the attention of the House the Te Whare Whakapikiora o te Rangimarie Trust. It was found that Mr Apera Clark, the man in charge of the trust, who had received $800,000 over a period of 6 years, had decided that half of the money was actually his: “Half for me,” he stated in a newspaper report, “and half for the trust.” He spent his half on rates, rent, a gardener, and cases of muttonbirds. Who missed out? Some people would say it was the taxpayer, but the people who really missed out, in that case, were the Māori people who were supposed to be getting health care as a result of that funding.

I would also like to draw to the attention of the House today my concern about a misappropriation of health moneys through the Tihi Ora Māori health provider. That is a central Auckland organisation that is supposed to contract local Māori providers to provide services for their local communities. It receives about $1 million per year from the Ministry of Health. The Ngāti Whātua have recently contracted a private investigator, Mr Michael Crawford of Advanced Investigations, to investigate Tihi Ora’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Kere Cookson-Ua, who is currently on sick leave and has been for many months. In fact, he is still on the payroll, but no one can find him. He is not on the phone. It seems that $250,000 of taxpayer money has gone missing. The problem for the private investigator, Mr Crawford, is that he is receiving absolutely no cooperation from the people in a position to help him. For some time now, Mr Kere Cookson-Ua—who cannot be contacted—has refused to release two laptop computers that are owned by Tihi Ora. Mr Crawford believes that there is compelling and incriminating evidence on those laptops.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: What did the Minister of Health do?

Nothing. She has known about this since October last year, and the ministry is conducting “internal investigations”. Ngāti Whātua’s concerns are about the money. There is sufficient concern to contract a private investigator, who believes that there has been serious misappropriation of funds. Most important, the police have not been called in. No search warrant has been executed to secure the incriminating evidence. Why have the police not been called in? We do not know. Why can they not be called in now?

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Two laws.

That is right. There are two streams of funding in health, and two streams of accountability.

I ask the Government why Māori should miss out—because they are the losers in this story. It is Māori who are missing out, and I challenge any member of the Government—one member on the other side of the House—to stand up and tell me what is acceptable about that situation. In health, there are two types of funding, two types of care for New Zealanders, and two types of accountability. What we need in this country, in order to give Māori and New Zealanders top-quality health-care, is one law for all.

I have a question for the House. Why will Don Brash not debate with Michael Cullen on the economy? Why the sideshows? Even a cursory glance will give the answer to that question. Even a quick look shows the success that keeps Dr Brash well and truly away from the economy. The Government is on track to meet its goal of lifting New Zealand into the top half of the OECD. Last year, our growth rate topped the OECD. We had 13 consecutive quarters of positive growth, and that is why Don Brash does not want to debate the economy. The member was supposed to come here with some expertise and some credibility, but he does not want to debate the economy with anyone.

Gross domestic product (GDP) has increased 3.9 percent in 12 months. We have seen the lowest level of unemployment in a generation, in the last 4 years. There are 176,000 New Zealanders in jobs that did not exist before—the highest participation rates ever in the New Zealand workforce. That is why Don Brash does not want to debate the economy with Michael Cullen. Every region in New Zealand is sharing in that growth. We have seen the sort of economic activity and excitement in the regions of New Zealand that has not been there for a generation. It has happened because we are a Government that is determined and committed to working in creative and innovative ways with creative and innovative New Zealanders, because we know that in doing that together, we are a world-beating country.

I say to members opposite that in the end, New Zealanders understand that sort of progress. They understand that we cannot be dragged backwards as a nation by divisive and destructive policies or politicians. New Zealanders will simply reject that, because they are just too sensible to buy into it.

The Government has built the foundations for change and improvement. We can see the results emerging and, as Minister of Tourism, nowhere can we see that more than in the tourism sector. We see growth for potential economic return in this sector as huge. As a Government, we have got alongside the industry and worked with it.

Despite everything that was happening in the world, and everything that one would think would undermine the opportunity for positive tourism growth, 2003 was the best year ever for New Zealand. We topped 2,100,000 visitors. That was a 3 percent growth in actual numbers—an all-time high—in a year that saw the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus, and the war in Iraq. That performance is virtually unparalleled anywhere in the world.

Most important, visitor expenditure increased at twice the rate of the numbers coming in, and that growth is projected to continue for the next 5 to 7 years. That is the projection that Tourism Research Council New Zealand offers. So, most important, we have the numbers and steady growth, but the growth in yield means that the commitment to high quality and high yield—the sort of tourism that gives New Zealand not only economic benefit, but the opportunity to manage tourism growth in a way that is good for New Zealand’s economy, good for jobs, and good for growth—is also managed in such a way that we can protect, preserve, and even enhance the environments. It is the physical, natural environments and the cultural qualities that we value and should want to protect; and, indeed, that is what the very sorts of visitors whom we are increasingly targeting want to come and share in, and experience with us.

This does not happen by accident or pure chance. It happens because we have a Government that is working constructively and collaboratively with an industry. A little over 4 years ago, I had the privilege of being appointed as Minister of Tourism. I walked into a portfolio characterised by a legacy of disunity and distrust left by the outgoing National Government. That is the only polite way of describing the relationship between the Government and the industry. That was the McCully legacy in tourism. It is not surprising that a relationship in that condition was not nurturing the sort of growth nor the quality that can now be seen.

So my first job as Minister of Tourism was to get alongside, as so many of my colleagues have done with their respective portfolios and sectors, to build the relationships and trust, and to work collaboratively with the tourism industry. From that, in the first year, we saw the creation of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010. We did that together—the Government and the industry—and together we are, as a result, attracting the high-yield, high-value visitors I talked about before.

I meet regularly with the stakeholders in this industry. I work closely with agencies like Tourism New Zealand on trade missions both here and overseas. I have attended the Trenz conference and the tourism conference here. I have worked alongside really innovative Kiwi business people who go to places like Kiwi Link, a trade fair in Los Angeles last year, working with 50 or so key business people alongside key players in the US market. The outcome of that, as we have done it all over the world, is that our trading partners see a Government and an industry that have a collaboration that they can trust, rely on, and can have confidence in.

We are seeing the benefit of that as a country. We are seeing the contribution that tourism makes. It is now almost equal to the dairy industry. I do not think many members in this House understand yet just how significant this industry is. It is second only to dairy, and I predict that within 2 years it will be the single biggest contributor of export income to New Zealand. Over $15 billion is generated for the New Zealand economy by domestic and international tourism. It is a colossal contribution. Nine percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one in 11 jobs in the New Zealand economy—directly and indirectly—are generated by this industry. Yet, the outgoing Government, the supposedly business-friendly National Party, had trashed that relationship.

That seems to be those members’ style and their way—whether it is with business, tourism, or any other sector of New Zealand society, they are divisive and they are destructive. That is not how to build good business relationships, any more than it would build any other sort of relationship. This Government is committed to building a constructive New Zealand. It is committed to working with New Zealanders of every walk of life so that the benefits of economic growth and developments are shared equally among our people, and shared fairly so that the benefits of growth and development go to all parts of our country. That is the sort of nation that the Labour-Progressive Government is committed to achieving, not division, or destruction of social relationships.

Members opposite will be able to raise these nasty little issues with monotonous regularity, because they are the issues that desperate Opposition politicians raise. They are the nasty little issues and sores that get picked at by Opposition members. Let me tell those members, they will be doing that for a long time to come, because the Opposition is where they will remain.

Tourism is committed as an industry and a sector to playing its part. This Government will work with that industry, because we know that out of that sort of working relationship and partnership, we can contribute to the growth of our nation for the benefit of all New Zealanders—of all creeds and colours, and of all walks of life. That is why I am proud to be part of the Helen Clark Labour-Progressive Government.

The last speaker said that there is excitement in the provinces. Well, I can tell members, the only excitement in the provinces is that Don Brash has had the courage to stand up and say what 90 percent of New Zealanders are thinking; that the political correctness on Māori issues has gone too far. That is the only excitement in the provinces. That Minister said the Holmes poll last night—35,000 people responded to it—is a little, nit-picking thing. No, it is not. It is an issue that touches the hearts of New Zealanders, because it is about where this country is going. Those members can sit over there on those Government benches, but New Zealanders are extremely concerned about the issues.

The issues are defined by the seabed and foreshore claim. This Government, rather than choosing to legislate and make it clear right from the beginning, has chosen to try to find a way through the middle of that claim that will please nobody. That seabed and foreshore legislation it is developing is only going to create massive bureaucracy and dissension in this country. It will achieve nothing to solve the problems. National has made it very clear what we would do. We would legislate straight away.

So there is no excitement in the provinces, only an absolute sense of being fed up with a politically correct Government that is destroying democracy. You cannot disagree with this Government—that is what people thought. We are. We are standing up to it. We have put a line in the sand, and I tell you, watch the opinion polls, because 90 percent of New Zealanders agree with our leader, Don Brash.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Please don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

We have got rather used to the Prime Minister’s speech being boring, but this year really topped it off. Even her own people were having such a hard time trying to feign some sort of attention. But where was the vision? There was none. It was tired and staid. Nothing new was said. The Prime Minister should take a look at some of the issues affecting the electorate of Kaikoura, which I represent. It is a beautiful electorate—stunningly beautiful. Of course the tourists will come. They will come no matter what Government is in power, because we have the best and most beautiful country in the world. When I go on holiday, I go to the Sounds, because I think that is the best place in the world. It is a wonderful spot.

But let us take a look at the aquaculture industry. What has happened to the aquaculture industry under this Government? It was growing at 20 percent—that was phenomenal growth. It was growing because we kept out of its way and let it get on with things. But no, this Government has absolutely shackled it. It is being affected now by the high dollar. Lower returns are coming in. It is being affected by the increased bureaucracy. When the Government came in, it said that it would get the Aquaculture Management Bill through. Now it has delayed it because of the seabed and foreshore claim. The moratorium has been extended.

Then we have the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. What will that do to the ability to produce? It will be a disaster. The bureaucracy, the increased legislation, the high dollar—all of that is affecting the electorate that I represent, and that brings uncertainty. In the latest aquaculture magazine there is a line where a writer says: “See you later, I’m off to Chile.” That is right. That is where they are going—somewhere they can actually work and earn for their country and themselves.

But the line in the sand with the foreshore and seabed is the Marlborough Sounds. Members should not forget that. That is the claim where this line has been drawn.

Dr Brash talked about having one law and one standard of citizenship for all. How can anyone disagree with that? New Zealanders do not. Most New Zealanders are extremely fair-minded people. When one travels around the world, that is one thing one really notices—New Zealanders are very fair-minded. They looked at past grievances and wanted to settle those claims. There was quite a level of acceptance of the Waitangi Tribunal and having past grievances brought out into the open and documented, and then having those claims settled. But it is the contemporary claims that send a shiver down the spine of New Zealanders, because they do not know where this is going to end. There is a level of fear that a country they may have been in for five and six generations is no longer going to welcome them.

I will never forget coming into this House the angriest I have ever been, when Tariana Turia said to me that I was a visitor in her house. I am a fifth generation New Zealander and I consider myself a New Zealander. I think I have every right to be treated as a New Zealander. I am not a visitor in her house. That sort of extreme attitude is what has put fear into the minds of New Zealanders, and it is why contemporary claims send a shiver down their spine.

But I want to talk about health, actually. I am National’s health spokesperson. The Prime Minister talked about some things in her speech to do with health. As a doctor and a nurse, I am very privileged to be in this position, and I think I can bring some expertise to this House. The Minister of Health was quoting the Commonwealth Fund’s “mirror, mirror, on the wall”, looking at the quality of American health-care and comparing it with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. In that, one has to say that we rank No. 1 for patient centredness, and the reporting of that was all about doctors.

Do doctors make the goals clear? How do they interact with patients? Are they accessible? We rank No. 1, and I have to say “Congratulations” to New Zealand doctors, because they are doing an extremely good job. This Minister of Health does not like them. She does not value them. We see general practitioners demoralised all over the country, but I say “Congratulations” to them, because this report shows that, compared with all those other countries, they are doing a very good job in the eyes of their patients.

But doctors have been extremely concerned about primary health organisations. Nobody disagrees with the primary health strategy that is putting more money into primary care. But the implementation has been appalling. The Minister has completely messed it up. She sticks her head in the sand. She will not listen to the problems. The Audit Office is going to do a review this year, the ministry did a review and showed massive problems, but this Minister does nothing to try to sort out those problems.

One of the cruxes of the problems is that the funding is based on race and location, not on individual patient need. All over the world, the indicators for poor health and high mortality are poverty and previous poor health. It does not matter what race one is, those are the indicators. Whether one is a poor white, a poor Chinese, a poor Māori, or a poor Pacific Islands person, poverty and previous ill health are what affect mortality statistics.

Primary health organisation funding has meant that in Auckland, we see what we call pepper-potting. They take a location, they say that because it has 50 percent Māori and Pacific Islands people, in that area people will pay only $10 to go to the doctor. I know somebody in this House who pays only $10 to go to the doctor. Yet a poor person—whether it is a white person, a Māori person, or a Chinese person—in the Wairarapa or the South Island, still pays $35.

That cannot be right. We have to base the funding on individual patient need, not on location and not on race. Also, we must base our health decisions on evidence-based medicine, not on political correctness, as we have been seeing in Manukau. Sure, we might all like a massage, but should the State pay for it? Is it effective? And should only one group of people have access to that? No, of course not. We should support evidence-based medicine.

We heard there were going to be some improvements in the breast-screening programme. The evidence has been there for the last 3 years that we should expand that programme and that women of 45 to 70 years should also get access to that. New Zealand statistics, when compared with Australia’s, show that 28 percent more women die in this country. They cannot get access to radiotherapy in a timely manner. It just demonstrates the rhetoric of this Government, which has continually harped on about doing something—doing something about Auckland roads, and that has not been achieved; doing something about business compliance costs, and that has not been achieved; doing something about breast cancer and mental health and other areas of high need like the workforce, and none of that has been achieved. It is all talk, with no achievements.

This Government must do better. The Government’s own report on waiting times for elective surgery shows quite clearly that, in a comparison between 1999 and 2003, less cataract surgery is being done, fewer hip replacements are being done, and fewer knee replacements are being done. The access to elective surgery is poor under this Government, and it is elderly people who are affected by that.

I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. Four years ago the Labour-led Government came into power against the backdrop of what was then called, quite rightly, a social deficit. People had said that after the 9 long years of the previous National Government—9 long years of creating social breakdown, personal isolation, and a range of social issues that we had not seen before in this country since at least the last Depression—they did not want more of that. They said they did not want to see more of that deficit. They said they wanted to see a Government that would put social policy at the centre of its programme. So that is what we have done.

The question we have to ask ourselves as a Government, made up now of Labour and the Progressives, and given support for supply and confidence by United Future, is how we are doing. Let me tell members this: no other Government in the history of this country has held itself as accountable as we do. We have begun to produce a social report that tells us how we are doing. We have produced reducing inequalities monitoring reports that tell us how we are doing with regard to Māori and Pacific Island people. We report on ourselves; we do not need an Opposition for that. The group of people on the Government side of the House holds itself more accountable than that on the Opposition side does, because we did not come here to sit around saying that we were not making progress, and that we had not cracked the social deficit. We came here to get up every single day that we are in Government and say we will make a difference. And we do. We make a difference, and we measure it. We can say, after 4 short years of Government under Labour, that we are now healthier, that we are better educated and better housed, that the regions are blooming again, and that we are more creative, more optimistic, and socially better off than we were 4 years ago—and we can prove it.

The previous speaker reminded me of an old joke about the National Party: how do we tell the National Party’s plane has just stopped? The whining continues. That person, during her 10-minute harangue, did not give one single policy about how she would make a difference. She talked about evidence. We are concerned about evidence on the Government side of the House. We settle for nothing less than the evidence of progress.

I want to say too, in the light of the debate about Māori and Pacific Island peoples, that the indicators show we are improving there, as well. There are more jobs, more education, and more health care for Māori and Pacific Island peoples. We are seeing ourselves improve in those areas. I tell the House that this Government will carry on investing in Māori and Pacific Island peoples, because that is what we must do. Why is that? Because when we ask questions about education, health, and housing, we find that Māori and people from the Pacific Island nations are in those groups that are not doing as well as other New Zealanders. The social deficit was bigger for them than for other New Zealanders. We are going to spend money on addressing that deficit, because we are on about equality. We are on about making sure everybody is going forward together, so we will make those investments.

I tell this House another thing: we will tailor those investments to those groups of people, and we make absolutely no apology for doing that. We do that for women, for regions, for young people, for old people, for new migrant groups, and for men. We differentiate between people in every way, because we know that one size does not fit all. I am stunned that the National Party wants to run one policy for every single person in the country. One can have whatever one wants, as long as one fits the one size, and if National does not mean that, what on earth are its members talking about? Will they close kura kaupapa Māori? Well, I guess so, because there are no Māori, according to the National Party. Unless one is full to the brim of what National members decide is 100 percent Māori blood, one does not exist. I remember somebody who lived a long time ago in Europe. He used to say the same things about Aryans. The same kind of stupid thinking about ethnicity was in Europe, just as it is on the Opposition side of this House at the present time. We will fund those programmes and we will make them different from other programmes, because then they will fit the needs of Māori and of the Pacific Islands peoples, and they will therefore improve circumstances like employment and health faster than other programmes would. I tell Dr Smith that we make no apology for doing that. We will do it, and we will keep on fighting for that. The notion is that a future National Government would come back into this House and start saying it would have no kura kaupapa Māori, would have nothing to do with Pacific Island peoples, and would no longer deliver health in a place like Manawatu in a way that matches Māori needs. That is the vision from the National members—one size fits all. People must fit the model that Don Brash wants, or they will get nothing. That is the model.

On the Government side of the House we say that we do not intend to rest on our laurels, and that we know we have a lot of progress to make yet. Four short years is not enough to turn around the social deficit that National created. We know that we have a lot more to do in education. We know that the deficit we had in education was one of not having access, not having high standards, and not having people in skills.

The deficit we had, for example, is symbolised by the 1992 repeal of the apprenticeship legislation. What has been one of the most popular, successful policies of this Government? The Modern Apprenticeships scheme, which has now reached 6,000-plus young people. We have just put some more money into it, and we will put more money into it. We will ensure that it is tailored to the needs of Pacific Island and Māori people, as well as to the needs of other New Zealanders. We will carry on investing in that scheme and overcome the deficit that was created by the previous Government, where for nearly 10 years industry training—skills training—did not go anywhere. That is why Dr Smith can walk into businesses in his area and find that the average age of tradespeople is about 45-plus, and that it then starts to go down again to those in their 20s. Where did those people go? I will tell members where they went. The industry training programme of the National-led Government added up to nothing. National collapsed industry training, and we have had to rebuild it. We have invented the Gateway programme—the most popular programme for brokering young people into industry training—and the Modern Apprenticeships programme. We have increased the number of people in industry training from 48,000 to 108,000, and we will make it 250,000. We will have the most skilled nation in the world. That is the goal of this Government. That party over there on the Opposition benches—National—and the people who support it were involved in a race to the bottom. They wanted nothing more than for us to be the cheapest, lowest-skilled nation in the world. That is what its policies are about.

Let us turn to paid work. We are on about successfully getting more people into paid work than at any time in the history of this country. We have 4.6 percent unemployment, which ranks us 6th in the OECD. We have Māori and Pacific Island unemployment coming down, and we will not stop there. Unemployment will get better. This Government is committed to having New Zealanders in paid employment, and not on work for the dole. That was the symbolic policy of the National Government—people working for the dole. It is no wonder National members invented the policy; they put so many people on the dole that they had to get something for them to do. That is why they had the policy. Well, I am not interested in having people on the dole working for it. I want them to be off the dole, working for a real wage and getting on with their lives. That is what this Government stands for.

Let us look at what we are doing with welfare policies. We have revolutionised those policies. If we look at the domestic purpose benefit under National, we see that nothing ever happened to anybody on the domestic purposes benefit. Now every single year those people will at least have one interview. They will plan their future, get educated, get trained, and go to paid work. Under that Government nothing happened. Those beneficiaries just sat there until their youngest child was 6 or 14, when there was a little flurry of activity—there was no help; just lots of flurries of activity—and then they went back to sleep again. I tell Dr Smith that we are on about that. We are on about making sure that we make a difference.

Communities and families will get stronger under this Government, and we will work with United Future on that. We will do some good business on that this year, to make this country better for families. That is our commitment. We will make sure that we have less family violence. We will do something about the housing deficit. National sold 13,000 houses. It created a $5 billion deficit in housing. We will fix the deficit.

I am pleased to join in this debate in response to the Prime Minister’s statement, and I particularly want to focus in on some of the family issues that that member parrots on about and bring him into the reality of some of the things that are going on in New Zealand society.

It was so rich yesterday to read on the front page of the Dominion-Post the Prime Minister of New Zealand asking how dare the National Party bring the Solicitor-General into politics. If there is any member for whom that is rich it is myself, because in 2 weeks’ time I will be dragged across the road into the High Court because the Solicitor-General—this Government’s top law enforcement officer—is making me front up. What was the crime that I committed? I said a boy should be with his mum and dad. That is what I said, and members of this Government want me to front up in the High Court. They are saying to me that somehow I have committed an offence, and that they stick up for families.

What is even worse is that it is a Māori family, and I have not had one iota of support from any member on the Government benches for that Māori family, which has been deprived of one of the most basic things: the right to raise their son in this country. I say to members opposite that I will be vigorously defending families, and the rights of members of Parliament to stand up for their constituents—as their officer drags me before the High Court of this land.

But let us come to the issue of what the Prime Minister was objecting to about the Solicitor-General. The Solicitor-General told the Waitangi Tribunal that the Government’s policy on the foreshore and seabed gave real power to Māori. That was interesting, because the Prime Minister has told the people of New Zealand the opposite. I can understand why the Prime Minister would not want the National Party to publicise what the Solicitor-General was saying, but we will, and we will continue to do so because the people of New Zealand deserve to know the truth of the separatist policies that this Government is using to divide New Zealand. I stand by those 90 percent of New Zealanders who, in a survey last night, backed the comments and the leadership provided by Don Brash on those very issues.

This afternoon I want to give some practical examples in this Parliament of those separatist policies and the way in which they are dividing New Zealand. Firstly, I come to the issue of primary health organisations mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech. These are the great flagships of this Government in terms of that basic service—and let us call it what it is: this is about general practitioner services in communities like mine in Nelson. The primary health organisation that took effect on 1 January in my community of Nelson is run by a board. The board—would members believe it—has to have half its consumer representatives appointed by iwi. Let me share with the House the population figures for the area the primary health organisation will service. We have 84,000 people who will be serviced by that organisation. Would members know what portion of the population to be served is affiliated to the iwi that will appoint half the representation? Nine hundred and thirty people—

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: Where did you get that?

That is right. I challenge the Minister of Māori Affairs. I am happy to table these figures from the last census. Yes, in the Nelson region there are 6,000 people of Māori descent, but fewer than a thousand local iwi. I have more Ngāi Tahu people in the Nelson region than there are from the eight iwi that are to appoint 50 percent of the representation—[Interruption] I say to the smart-arse from Waimakariri who has just chipped in, does he support—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please be seated. The member knows he must refer to members by their correct names.

Point of order—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a minute please, I am ruling on this. The member will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. When the Prime Minister gave her address, the Speaker of the House said there would be no interjections. Why is it that you have allowed repeated interjections from members opposite all the way through this debate?

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: That was not the ruling given. The ruling was that there would be no interjections during the leaders’ debate. I point out to the member that a reasonable amount of interjection has been tolerated, including fairly constant interjections from him in the course of the debate.

I challenge the member for Waimakariri to debate the issue and to tell me why the primary health organisation set up by his Government will have 50 percent of the consumer representation automatically appointed by iwi. If that is not separatism, I do not know what is. I say that a primary health care organisation should be appointed on the basis of merit and skills, not on the basis of race.

It is really interesting that when I raised this issue at the beginning of the year, Damien O’Connor, the Associate Minister of Health, said it was because of a Government directive that there be representation. He defended it. But then the heat got a bit strong, and when Dr Brash raised the issue in his speech, the Minister of Health, Annette King, said: “Oh, it was nothing to do with the Government. It was the doctors who provided for this.’’

At the end of my speech, I will seek to table a document I received when I asked the district health board why 50 percent of the representation for the organisation controlling general practitioners in my area was granted to iwi. I was told that it was because of a memorandum of agreement between the district health board and the iwi health board. The document was faxed to me from the district health board—and I will include the date on which it was faxed. I say to members opposite that they cannot tell one story and have their little bureaucrats beavering away engineering the separatism they want for New Zealand, then, when the issue is made public, disown it and blame the doctors. Government members should not blame the doctors, they should take responsibility.

There is another example of Government separatism. [Interruption] I say to Mr Benson-Pope that right now the Canterbury Regional Council is considering submissions in respect of Lake Ellesmere. Lake Ellesmere, as those from Canterbury will know, is a large lake. Do members know what the regional council has said? It has said that under this Government’s Local Government Act, it has to discuss the consent with Ngāi Tahu.

💬 Mahara Okeroa: Absolutely!

Righto! But will it consult the Fish and Game Council? No. Will it consult the adjacent farmers? No. Will it consult the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society? No. I ask members opposite why is it that when the Canterbury Regional Council is considering an important resource consent in respect of Lake Ellesmere, and the potential for pollution from a large new dairy farm, that iwi are to be consulted but nobody else? Is that fair? Is that right?

💬 Mahara Okeroa: Absolutely!

It is interesting that the member for Te Tai Tonga says yes. Does Clayton Cosgrove agree with the Government? He is silent. That is because the Government is singing two different tunes. I will be interested to find out whether Labour will stick to its policy of saying that Forest and Bird, Fish and Game, or the neighbouring landowner will not be consulted, but one would be consulted if one were Māori. That is wrong. Members on this side of the House say that we should consult all or none.

💬 Hon John Tamihere: That’s not true.

I challenge Mr Tamihere to contact the Canterbury Regional Council and find out why Ngāi Tahu is being consulted but nobody else.

I want to turn to a further issue to show just how nutty the Government’s treaty policy has become. Many members will be aware of the large traffic jams that occur around the Kopu Bridge on the main road through to Coromandel. Do members know that Transit, the authority responsible for that State highway, wanted to get consent to drill two 2-inch diameter holes to be able to design a bridge to replace it? Do members know how long it took, and how much cost there was, to get consent for two 2-inch diameter holes for that bridge? There was a 2-year delay and it cost $200,000.

Members opposite somehow think that is sensible because the local iwi said that drilling investigation holes for the bridge was like drilling holes into the heart of their iwi. That spiritual argument was allowed to result in delays of 2 years. That sort of nonsense is holding back this country. That sort of cost means that thousands and thousands of New Zealanders put up with long delays every Christmas holidays, and not just on that bridge. I could give 100 examples just like it. Members on this side of the House say enough is enough. People have had a gutsful of that sort of political correctness that is holding back this nation and dividing us.

I want to compliment my colleague Lynda Scott who rightly highlighted the nonsense of Counties Manukau Health paying for massage and Māori spiritual treatment rather than getting on and providing quality health services. Ladies and gentlemen, we want to have quality health service for all New Zealanders and to end this treaty nonsense.

In the course of my speech I referred to the memorandum of understanding between the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board and the local eight iwi that was the forerunner to the equal representation.

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

Furthermore, I seek the leave of the House to table the 2001 census data that was questioned by Mr John Tamihere.

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

E mihi kau ana ki a tātou katoa mai i te motu, i a koutou e rongo ake anō i rō Whare, e mihi kau ana i a koutou. Ngā kanohi Māori o tērā tino rā i puta, e mihi kau ana, tēnā koutou.

[Greetings to all of us New Zealanders, including those listening in to the House, greetings indeed to you. To those of Māori descent who celebrated that great day just past, greetings to you.]

Greetings to members of the House and to all the other New Zealanders listening to this fine speech. I am pleased to be able to stand in this House and support the Prime Minister, who is leading a Government that is passionate about the future of New Zealand. I congratulate the Prime Minister on the leadership she has shown in determining this Government’s key priorities for this year.

The priorities for me as the Minister of Māori Affairs, and for my Māori caucus colleagues, are quite simple—to continue to strengthen communities, to provide opportunities, and to build partnerships in the true Kiwi fashion. In the current climate it would be easy to be deflected from our priorities for Māori, but that will not happen. We are now getting the returns from our endeavours. We will continue to seek new and innovative solutions that work for our people.

Making progress for Māori is never easy, but we are determined to consolidate the work achieved so far and into the future. What is good for Māori, surely, is good for New Zealand. If we have not grown up as a nation by now, then some people—especially those who are still stirring the sort of nonsense that is going on at the moment—should grow up. Māori as a people, and Māori culture, exist. There is a tangata whenua in this country, and that is us. That is recognised by both Māori and other people. It would be a tragedy for New Zealand—not just Māori—if that unique part of our national life, not found anywhere else in the world, was undermined, damaged, or lost.

This Government is about evening the odds and accelerating progress. Historically, the situation of Māori has dramatically transformed. Let me remind people that in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, most Māori over the age of 16 were working. They paid a lot of tax—more tax than the other people who are now kicking up a ruckus about us being benefit-dependent and wasting tax. Māori were loyal to this country. They were loyal to the capital engineers of this country. They were loyal to the employers, and they are still loyal to this nation, and especially to themselves. They moved for jobs and were an integral part of the workforce.

A major proportion of Māori live in urban areas, but our people are increasingly looking to their roots through a range of mediums such as sports or tā moko. Even that joker who sings over in England has got one on his arm. Māori did that.

💬 John Key: Robbie Williams.

Yes, that is his name. Rapata Wiremu. A great man! Look at how great Māori have been. They have travelled to the international stage. Millions of people have seen that tā moko on his arm. That is great marketing. The Opposition should get its act together. We are on the international platform.

This Government is committed to meeting the needs of all New Zealanders while recognising their diversity. This puffery about racial policies is a lot of nonsense. This Government bases its policies on needs. If it is so correct that the needs of Māori are no different to those of other people, then we are up the pole. If that leader over there is saying that women, Pacific Island people, or disabled people should not have needs, then God forgive the leadership that might try to lead this country. Our policies are based on need, and Māori have a lot of specific needs that need to be accelerated.

The economy—dare I mention it—is stronger and more balanced than at any time in the last 30 years. New Zealand has one of the best performing economies in the OECD. We posted the fastest growth rate at 4.4 percent, and that has created an environment of opportunity for everybody. My colleague the Minister John Tamihere is doing great things with small business around the country. They are rushing to him to be better informed. They want partnerships with this Government. Commerciality and enterprise are well ahead, as Mr Tisch knows from being an accountant for a few years.

In 2003 over 40,000 more Māori had jobs than in 1999. The number of Māori receiving the unemployment benefit has dropped by 30 percent. We have knocked a third off the number of unemployed. That is positive. Businesses are thriving and providing employment opportunities, and the increased income is adding to the richness of life for all New Zealanders. The Māori business facilitations service has successfully assisted 654 clients, and there is a turn-around strategy.

💬 John Key: Unemployment is up today.

May I remind that member that unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. That is the best for a long, long time.

The passage of the Māori Fisheries Bill heralds a new era of Māori participation in the fishing industry. It will enable the beneficiaries of the 1992 fisheries settlement to receive the assets and use them for the economic and social benefit of all Māori—and, dare I say, Māori ownership is providing a lot of jobs for a lot of New Zealanders. The settlement is worth more than $700 million. It has taken more than 10 years for this dynamic Government to come along and to sort it out with the great fisheries commission that we have.

Through our economic prowess, New Zealand is certainly a nation on the move, and Māori are playing a key navigational role in determining that direction. Yes, we are overrepresented in the negative statistics—therefore highlighting the need for policies. As a society we must all be proactive in finding solutions. Our achievements are based around investing in our future. What is good for Māori is good for the nation.

I am a 53-year-old, fine-looking Māori. I am the last child of manual-labouring parents. Māori aged from 70 to 80 made up a lot of our leadership. They were neither close to academia nor involved in management, nor did they have the capacity to ensure that they had entry into enterprise. This 53-year-old Māori can tell the House that we will make sure that the huge demographic of young people accelerating in academia and gaining qualifications are coming along. So watch out—join up with them. They certainly want to run the businesses and own them.

Māori are a young, dynamic population. Members opposite are ageing. We are on the move. Māori have shown that they are eager to take up the opportunities to increase their skill base and education. In 2002 almost one in six Māori over the age of 15 participated in tertiary education. Last year 27 Māori graduated with doctorates, compared with four in 1984. These things do not happen by accident. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. There are 800 more young Māori in apprenticeships. Almost one-third of the schoolchildren taking part in the Gateway programme are Māori. The activities and education in that programme will certainly be proof of greater advancement.

On 28 March Māori television will start. It is a great medium to ensure that our language is consolidated. In the 1970s—the same time that Ngā Tamatoa was pushing for constitutional change—the Welsh Language Society began to campaign for a Welsh language radio and television service. But it did not happen until 1982, when the fourth channel for Wales was launched. Many people in Wales—which some members opposite can trace their heritage to—now believe that had it not been for that initiative the days of the Welsh language would have been numbered.

Te reo Māori is important, and there are a whole lot of other things that are going great in Māoridom—for example, the arts. Whale Rider is putting us on the national scene again. We have Temuera Morrison, Cliff Curtis, Lee Tamahori, and Keisha Castle-Hughes. We all own them as New Zealanders, but they are great Māori who have really achieved.

💬 Pita Paraone: Kura kaupapa Māori.

That is right, and they all come from up Waitangi way—where we had a headache the other day. Māori have a place in this society, and mad leadership is not a thing that should prevail. I am reminded of when I was a kid. I watched “Tom and Jerry”—the cat and the rat show. They were chasing round and round, because they were after that bit of cheese in the middle. There are incredible similarities with that and the lineage of members opposite. They have the “Don and Gerry Show”, but they are not too sure who the cat is, or who the rat is. But we also know what they are, because they fill themselves up with unnecessary power that does not help the people of this country. I say to them: “Watch our leadership, watch what the Prime Minister did, and watch these Ministers over here—especially the Māori faces.”

Ā, tēnā koe Madam Speaker, ā, tēnā anō koe, arā, tātou katoa mō te tau hōu nei. Tēnei te tau e ki nei wā tātou whanaunga hōu mai i Haina, te tau mō ngā makimaki.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Thank you Madam Speaker. Greetings again to you and indeed to all of us in this new year which our new friends from China refer to as the year of the monkey.]

Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister outline a blueprint of the Government’s plan for this country over the next 12 months. She also alluded to the Government’s achievement to date, particularly when she said: “We built the foundations for change and improvement, and now we can see the results emerging from the seeds sown much earlier in our first term.” Can I say that the seeds that have been sown are the seeds of discontent. If that is not enough, they have been added to by comments made by the National Party and, may I say, with some passion.

I want to refer to an example of these seeds of discontent. In today’s New Zealand Herald coverage is given to the review of schools in an area of the mid-north that I am quite familiar with. It is an area occupied by a sub-tribe that I belong to—Ngāti Hine. We have been led to believe by the Minister of Education that all of this is being done to improve the quality of education for our children. I point out to the Government that the education that has been provided through these schools—from the past to the present—has seen many of their former pupils gain academic success to a level that has far exceeded that of their parents. Today we see many occupying senior positions of responsibility in our society, and even overseas. Politicians, dare I say it, are also included. One school even produced a knight of the realm.

As an aside, members of this House might recognise some of the names that appear in the photograph of the honours board of one of the schools affected by the Government’s review. If those former pupils are able to achieve in the way they have, on the basis of the education they received, then I have to ask how are we going to improve on that education. I am therefore suggesting that the quality-of-education argument for these school closures is rather weak. I suggest that the underlying reason is pure economics, but with no assurance whatsoever that the so-called fiscal savings from these closures will be utilised to provide the quality education spoken about.

I also want to pose this question to the Government: how will this quality education that the Minister talks about help those students who will now have to spend an extra hour getting to school and another extra hour returning home? In no way will they be able to learn, due to fatigue. With regard to that matter, I want to quote the Prime Minister’s answer to a question during question time. She said the Government would get on in terms of meeting the needs of the needy. It is true that my fellow tribesmen of Ngāti Hine are in need, but the closure of the three schools in their area is not one of those needs.

I want to comment briefly on Waitangi Day. First, I want to take the opportunity, on behalf of my elders, to apologise to those members of this House who were treated in a way that was outside the protocols of our tribe in the north. I want to apologise for that treatment, because it is not typical of the way we treat our visitors. But can I also say that the difficulties that we have at Waitangi have their genesis in this House, and I remind members that I made that very point in my maiden speech. If we want to do something about it, then we have to look at ourselves.

Tamati Waka Nene, one of the 500 signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi, said, and I will translate it myself: “Kāre e tarea e mātou te whakamutu te taenga mai o te iwi Pākehā ki waenganui i ō mātou whenua engari me wāhia e tātou, i ētahi o ō mātou taonga ki a rātou. We cannot stem the flow of the British coming to our shores, so we need to share what we have with them, as long as those things which we hold dear to us are respected.” In fact, it was he who persuaded Hone Heke to sign the treaty, but before he did so he said: “The moment we do and agree to this, we will lose our land.” History has proven, through legislation since 1840, that he was correct. In 1863 there was the Suppression of Rebellion Act; in 1865 the Native Land Act; in 1865 the Native Land Court Act; and in 1865 the Oyster Fisheries Act. In 1871 there was a Government stipulation that instruction in native schools had to be in English, and there were many other Acts designed to alienate land. In 1880 there was the Maori Prisoners Act.

I wonder what people over this nation think about Mr te Heuheu of Tūwharetoa, of the central North Island, who gave to the people of this nation the first national park, at no cost to us, the citizens. Where there is no dialogue, what do we have? We have antagonism towards each other. Words such as “racism” have been kicked around in this House like a rugby ball, and it has been said that a certain group of people are being held in special favour. Is that not the result of the policies put into place by present and past National and Labour parties? Previous speakers have used such words as “divisive” when referring to the identification of one’s nationality in filling out forms. Well, hello! Who put the policies in place? If there is a pathway to self-destruction, this is it.

Most New Zealanders grew up in a country that was steadily improving—always and measurably. New and better roads, bridges, motorways, and railways were being built continually. Smart new air terminals were opened to serve mass air travel. New manufacturing industries flourished, transforming an economy whose prosperity was formerly based on sheep and cows. We had never been healthier and wealthier.

I say to Labour and National to look to their past and to what they created, because their policies have instigated division between the citizens of this nation. New Zealand First will put the people of this nation first, protect their democratic rights to live as a nation, and recognise their cultural differences. I say to the National Party that New Zealand First has always promoted equality in all things—through education, health, employment, housing, and non-divisive policies that put all New Zealanders first. We will not allow the race card to be used; it will be trumped. Under Crown ownership there was equality and legal title to the foreshore. The concept of public domain, as announced, creates legal uncertainty.

United Future firmly believes in high moral virtues, so I ask why it did not include in its supply and confidence agreement with the Labour Party a condition that the Prostitution Reform Bill would not be part of its coalition agreement. Members will see on pages A3, A17, and B1 of today’s Dominion Post the results of the law that United Future supported and could have stopped. United Future members should look at it. They have supported the things that are causing degeneration in our families. I tell the people of this nation that at the next election they should look at the things that were never said, and that have now been fulfilled. With regard to prostitution, we should look at our people: 10-year-olds are on the streets and into drugs. The Government says that it is building the economy of our nation. it is not, because our people are suffering.

💬 Georgina Beyer: Rubbish! Explain yourself!

That member should look at the situation. She has been there before, so she should not talk to me. The time will come when the Government will be accountable for the deprivation of the people of this nation. Yes, I still believe in what I am saying, and I will support it to the hilt.

It has truly been a pleasure to serve as part of this Government. I reflect on the times we have had over the last 4 or 5 years and contrast them with the times, basically through the 1990s, when I was a member of Parliament in Opposition and before I came here, and I have to say that the way in which this Government interacts with the people of New Zealand is completely different. Through the miserable 1990s the Government of the day seemed to have a cold, celluloid soul. It had a miserable view of human existence. It seemed to believe that the only way it could get people in this country to do anything was by threats, sanctions, and coercion.

It also perpetrated deceptions upon the people of New Zealand. I give as an example none better than the Employment Contracts Act. Prior to the election the National Party told the public of New Zealand that the Employment Contracts Act, or its legislation, would not cut penalty rates or overtime. The sad fact of the matter was that it did—and it created misery. It meant that it slashed and hacked into workers’ conditions, and, as a consequence, many fine New Zealanders went overseas to Australia to find better jobs and conditions. It is ironic that today the National Party, including Mr Don Brash, is complaining that New Zealanders are going overseas, when it was the National Party and the then Governor of the Reserve Bank who helped to create the conditions that saw those people go away.

New Zealanders are working overseas as builders, for example, because they get 4 or 5 weeks’ annual leave. They get guaranteed contributor superannuation schemes, better health and safety protection, and a whole range of other things. That is why we do not have tradespeople in New Zealand. The Government recognises we have to do something about that, and that is why we are helping to improve labour market conditions in New Zealand and giving workers 4 weeks’ annual leave.

The other area of great concern to me through the 1990s was the rising level of unemployment. Unemployment seemed to rise and rise without stop, and nothing could be done. The National Party had a traditional, right-wing, extreme response to that. It was the work-for-the-dole scheme, straight from the Wisconsin Works project in the United States. National said to people on the domestic purposes benefit that once their children got to a certain age it expected those people to participate in work, regardless of their circumstances. It set punitive sanctions if that were not done. National believed that people would behave in a particular manner only if sanctions were imposed upon them; it did not believe in a positive approach to people who were on the domestic purposes benefit.

That situation was in stark contrast to that of this Government. This Government has changed the system completely. We engage with people on the domestic purposes benefit, asking them what they intend to do so that they can build a better life for themselves. We let them develop their plans about where they want to go. We are getting towards the end of interviewing nearly everybody on the domestic purposes benefit, and the results will astound the Opposition. I am sure that Opposition members will cast a Nelsonian eye on the results, just as they did today in the House when the announcement was made that New Zealand rated No. 1 in an overseas survey on health systems. The National Party could see only wrong; it could not celebrate our success. [Interruption]

Mr Tisch bleats on. I tell him that when this Government came into power the National Party had left us a legacy of 158,227 people on the unemployment benefit. That was the Tory legacy, and that callous Tory party did not care. It said that it cared, but it did not. I am proud to be able to say that the number of people on the unemployment benefit today is 94,000. That is a reduction of 60,000 people. [Interruption] Mr Wayne Mapp can diss that, but that figure of 158,000 registered unemployed was quite a low figure for the National Party through the 1990s.

However, the figures get better. The level of unemployment for Māori in 1999 was 14.6 percent, which was grossly disproportionate to the number of Māori in our community. The reforms of the 1990s had affected Māori much worse, and the National Party did not care. Why did it not care? That lack of care is reflected in the comments of the leader of the National Party at the time, the Prime Minister, who talked about islanders coming in through the window. There has been a tinge of this underneath all that National has stood for. That Prime Minister did not care about unemployment levels amongst Māori; this Government does.

The level of unemployment for Pacific Island people was also another disgraceful story. Of the unemployed, 12.3 percent were Pacific Islanders. This Government has done a very good job in reducing the level of Pacific Island unemployment to 8.8 percent. That is a 30 percent improvement from what the situation was. The story gets even better: only 2 percent of Pacific Islanders were in training; now the percentage is up to 5 percent. We have a fabulous story to tell.

Why are we doing this? We believe that we should have equality of opportunity in New Zealand and that disadvantage should not be visited upon a single group. It was very clear from all the statistics that Māori were overly represented in the lowest quintile of earnings in this country, and that poverty could be described by one’s race. Pacific Island people were overly represented in the lowest quintile of income in this country. Again, poverty could be described by one’s race. That is the legacy of a Tory National Party. It does not care about Pacific Island or Māori people as long as its own members are well off. The National Party is about cementing opportunity for its members and for people like themselves, but not about building a quality society.

If those figures had continued, then the legacy of this Parliament would have been to institutionalise disadvantage and poverty. Members can look all around the world for many examples of that, and there are numerous countries where poverty is described by race. What is the gift to those nations? It is division, bitterness, riots, theft, and violence. Their societies fall apart, because the simple fact is that democracy and society only ever hang together because people want to hang together. If they do not want to, and see no advantage in being together, then riots and all sorts of other bad violence will occur.

We do not have any sign of that this day. [Interruption] I tell Mr Mapp the only sign we have of it is because of the divisive politics preached by his party—the politics of rage, the politics of fury, and the politics of envy. I say to Mr Mapp that when he gets to the end of his political career he will reflect upon these heady months. He thinks he is heading for glory, but he will come to see that this is most probably the worst policy option National ever promoted. I guarantee that Mr Mapp will regret those speeches. I promise him that.

What we want in this society is a sense of hope and opportunity. I have never seen such a sense of hope and opportunity in this country as I have on this day. When I grew up as a young man in the early 1970s there were lots of job opportunities for me, and I was really impressed. I left several jobs because the morning tea was not up to my standard—a person could have standards in those days. Through the 1990s people had no option but to accept a job, because there was no other. Young people today have options about what they want to do. They have the option of going to university or polytechnic, or of getting an apprenticeship—a system the National Party abolished. People are falling over themselves to get into apprenticeships. There are over 7,000 young apprentices, and—boy—every one of them loves his or her job. They want to get on, learn, and make a future for themselves.

Young people are in vocational training, and they are taking up jobs. I personally know several young people who have more hours than they can work. One of them turned up and showed me that the soles of his shoes had fallen off because he had done too many hours’ work. That is fantastic. That is not the life we had in the 1990s, when we had deprivation and misery and when every parent in this country wondered about and despaired over their children’s future. They despaired because youth unemployment was at stratospheric levels. It was an extraordinary event when a young person got a job. To leave school and go to a job was an extraordinary event; the usual thing was for the young person to leave school and go on the dole. This Government has turned that round.

This next generation has hope and opportunity. It has realistic options about going to tertiary institutions, realistic options about getting an apprenticeship, realistic options about getting into vocational training, and realistic options about getting a job. New Zealand is an entirely different place. It is remarkable how much it has changed in 5 years, and the good thing about it is that we are going to have even more change for the better.

Equality—that is the word Labour members fear. That is what has them rattled. We have seen it in the House today—the first real time they have had to answer questions—and we see they fear the notion of equality. That is the reality. They fear the obligation of dealing with people on the basis of need, not ethnicity. They cannot confront that reality, so what do they do? Basically, they do not tell the truth. I have been listening to a number of speeches, and, frankly, they are distortions. It is quite clear, based on what they have to say, that virtually none of them read the speech made by Dr Brash. If they had, they would not be misrepresenting it in the way they are. There is a word for that. I would like to be able to use it, but I cannot. It starts with “l” and we know what it means. They need to tell the truth.

Equality is the absolute heart of our democracy: the right of all people to be treated equally. The Māori members on the other side of the House know that their forefathers went to war 60 years ago, and one of the things they were fighting for was the right to be treated equally to every other New Zealander. That is what the great challenge is today: the right to be treated equally under the law.

So there is a dramatic contrast, and that is why the country has been seized of this matter. At the depth of this issue, people know there is a matter of fairness involved: the right of people to be treated equally under the law, and the right for Government services to be based on need and not on preferences, distorted figures, or the respect to be given to people. Members on the other side would demean people—they would look first at the colour of their skin rather than at their need.

So we say this, and they are undertakings we give to the people of New Zealand. We will abolish the separate Māori seats under the Local Government Act. We will abolish the separate Māori seats in this House. We do that because their time has passed. The Government is living in the past. That is why it has these ideas dragged up from last century and from two centuries ago. That is why Government members think that the best response to equality, to representation, is to look back to 1867 and think: “There’s the answer!”. Well, it is not. They should know that under MMP, under modern theories of equality, the time for those kinds of measures is past.

Surely Māori do not really believe they should have special rights to be consulted on everything. Surely they would prefer to be treated as ordinary New Zealanders—the same as everyone else—on the issue of consultation. We acknowledge that people have a right to be consulted on specific issues around Māori land, language and culture, and those sorts of things. But beyond that, there is the cardinal principle that underpins our democracy—and it is equality.

That is so clearly revealed in Labour’s foreshore and seabed policy. Labour launched that policy on 17 December last year, precisely because it did not want to be challenged at the time. Labour members knew it was explosive. They knew they had gone far beyond anything contemplated by the Court of Appeal, and they did not want to account for their actions. Today is the very first time in this Parliament, nearly 2 months after the launch of that policy, that they have had to come to account. And they have had to come clean.

So what are they saying? There are rights of veto. Yes, that is true, and those rights of veto will compromise the issue of access. That is what the Attorney-General had to admit in question time today. One cannot have commercial developments, like sandmining, like jetties—and who knows how far that will extend; perhaps there will be hotels over the waterfront in the Bay of Islands, and marinas of all kinds—because those developments must compromise access, and those members know the truth of that. Dr Cullen admitted it on radio when he said: “If you have a property right, then you have a right of veto.” To my mind—my untutored legal mind—I would have to say that property rights mean exclusivity. That is the essence of a property right: it is the right to say “No” to other people. [Interruption] That, I say to Mr Cosgrove, is what the word “veto” means. He should look it up in the dictionary.

That is why this policy of the Government is dividing the country. The Government knew that back in July, because the very first response of the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General was to say: “Oh, no. We are going to confirm this as Crown title.” That was their instantaneous response. That was their gut reaction. But what did other members do? They rolled them, and now they are in a domain of division and divisiveness. For 130 years since 1870, we had the settled law on this issue. We had the settled law of Crown title, with access to all New Zealanders on the basis of equality. Let us think what generated the Court of Appeal decision, in any event. It was actually the issue of aquaculture licences. Well, if that was the serious intent behind those cases in Marlborough, the issue could have been dealt with at that level. But no, this Government has gone out to divide New Zealanders.

Māori members may not like to hear that, but it is the result of their policies. Their single-minded focus on their separate rights has had the effect of dividing this country. They are responsible for that. They have whipped up a fervour around the country. I have been to some of those meetings on the marae and I saw what happened there.

There was the correct response, and that response was the one the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General articulated in July last year. The issue of aquacultural licences could have been dealt with separately, and there would have been the opportunity of producing a harmonious outcome. This Government will rue the day it did not react on that common-sense instinct.

I turn to the issue of distortion by the Government. We have talked a great deal about needs. I was listening to Mr Maharey, who claims to be a well-researched academic. Do members know what he said? He said that National would abolish kōhanga reo, National would abolish kura kaupapa schools, and National would abolish funding for language and culture. He is wrong on each and every detail, and that was specific and clear in the speech repeated by Dr Brash on nationwide television. The Minister’s claims are fundamentally false, and this Government is despicable in the way it is spreading mistruths.

The issue is whether this House has a responsibility for uniting people. Does this Government have that responsibility for uniting people? The answer, surely, is yes. If that is the case, then this Government needs to do a U-turn and build its policies on the basis of equality for all citizens of this nation.

That was a very disappointing speech made by a so-called front-bencher of the National Party. I start by wishing New Zealanders who are listening to the debate the very best for 2004. They have a year—and a future—of hope to look forward to under a Labour Government.

We are debating the Prime Minister’s statement, which not only referred to a very successful 4 years of administration and to policies that have seen significant and outstanding economic and social results but also revealed to the New Zealand public what this Labour-led Government’s programme is for the next 12 months and beyond. I am proud of the fact that we have a very competent number of men and women on this side of the House who are committed to doing the right thing for all New Zealanders.

💬 Judith Collins: Name one.

We have an outstanding Prime Minister in Helen Clark. That is more than I can say about those very desperate members opposite. They are desperate, and they have a desperate leader to match. I note that a recent press report by a political analyst states that the National Party has what it deserves. It has a man who has been elected through the party list and who has been rejected by the electorate twice, in two elections. The National Party looks to an old man to lead it. I say to the House that no political stunt like the one adopted by the leaders of Germany in the late 1930s and 1940s, which misled the German people and played on people’s prejudice, will succeed in this country, because eventually it will be seen for what it is—nothing more than a political stunt, and a dishonest one at that.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sure you know what I am drawing attention to. It is well known that in this House members cannot compare policies of parties in this Parliament with those of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: He didn’t say Nazi Germany.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Yes, he did—Germany in the 1930s.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: I was listening to the member very carefully. The first mention of Nazi Germany came from Mr Mapp in his point of order. There was no such reference in the speech being made by the member on his feet; he simply referred to a period of European history and to policies at that time, which has never been ruled out. I think that if we get to the point of ruling out such a broad reference, then it will be impossible to say anything in this House.

💬 John Carter: We will get into serious difficulty if we do not abide by the convention that has been set in this House, that, whether by direct reference or imputation, there is no way we compare parties in this Parliament and in this country with those of Nazi Germany, or with the history around that party, or to communist Pol Pot, or to any other authoritarian structure that we find abhorrent in this country. Although the member may have been clever enough not to refer specifically to Nazi Germany, anyone listening would have known he was referring to the regime run by Hitler, and we take objection to the fact that there was any reference at all in so comparing us, or any other party in this country, with that regime. Madam Speaker, we ask that you ask the member to cease, and to not continue in that vein.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: If a member from any party had made an accusation as specific as Mr Mapp suggested, I would have objected, even if it had been one of my own members, because I think it would have been grossly inappropriate. The member referred to a broad period of history, a tumultuous time in the history of Europe. He did not refer even to a specific country, as I recollect.

💬 John Key: Yes, he did.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: In any event, that was a period of social upheaval in that part of the world, and in that country. Mr Field made no reference to a political party and no reference to a particular political leader.

💬 Dail Jones: I was listening to the speech. It was very clear to me that the Labour member referred to a period of German history—he said “German history in the 1930s and 1940s”. One would have to be a complete idiot not to know what he was referring to, and no one in this House is such an idiot. We are absolutely sure about what he was referring to, and he should be asked to withdraw and apologise. A member has taken objection to it, as well.

Speaking to the point of order, I withdraw that part of the statement. The reference was really in terms of political stunts based on prejudice, and that was in reference to a period of German history. That was an example. The emphasis of the statement made referred to political stunts based on people’s prejudice.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the members who have spoken to this matter have spoken very clearly, and I rule that such reference could lead to disorder. I think that the inference was fairly clear, so I ask the member to withdraw.

I withdraw. It is clear that New Zealanders will not fall for these sorts of political stunts. The real issues that people are concerned about are the economy, health care, education, and the employment of our people. Anybody in this country can work out the fact that Māori have been disadvantaged and disproportionately represented in terms of the poorest statistics. They have the poorest health, the poorest educational results and achievements, and the poorest employment figures. We can be proud of this Government’s track record in the past 4 years in doing something about it. As the Prime Minister said in her speech, as a result of 9 years of disastrous administration by the previous National Government, we ended up not only with an economic deficit but with a social deficit that affected certain sections of our community, including Māori and Pacific Island people.

I said before that this Labour Government, at the commencement of its administration, did not look at the easy-fix solutions we were used to under a National Government; it looked at the long-term solutions and at what had to be established as a foundation to strengthen the New Zealand economy. We can be proud that at 3.9 percent growth, we cannot do better than to top the list of OECD countries. The reality is that New Zealand’s economic performance under this Government is the best in the Western world, in terms of those countries surveyed on economic performance. We can be proud of that record. I am particularly proud of the social policy that this Government has put in place in the last 4 years.

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

Before the dinner break the focus was on the Prime Minister’s statement. I say that this Government can take pride in its achievements. We have a very positive story to tell about how much has currently been achieved in New Zealand, and about how much more can be achieved with New Zealanders working together to reach, and to realise, our full potential. I am proud to be part of this Government, which in the last 4 years has led this country and built the foundations for change and improvement. We are now seeing the results of that emerge.

After many years of seeing sluggish growth and social decay, New Zealand has picked up momentum and is moving forward on many fronts. This year’s Budget will bring important changes for families, and I acknowledge the role that United Future has played in developing families policy. The new Families Commission will be set up and start to run. It will make major improvements to the level of family income support and assistance, and will introduce new initiatives for early childhood education. That is very important, particularly in relation to women who need to be encouraged to participate in the workforce, when they can. It is also important that we have quality childcare so that we can remove obstacles to employment for women. We have a new mortgage insurance pilot scheme between Housing New Zealand Corporation and Kiwibank, which is helping a lot of low-income families. That will benefit Māori, Pacific Island, Asian, and European low-income people. It is certainly based on need, not on the race nonsense that members of the Opposition are talking about.

I want to talk about the consultation that has begun in terms of a new housing strategy for Housing New Zealand Corporation. Again, that is particularly important in the huge area of Pacific Island and Māori people. In my electorate in south Auckland, 800 people are on the waiting list, and we are hoping to begin to deal with those issues. We are also seeing an increasing need for recognising and promoting the skills and creativity of our people. We have a lot of talent amongst our young people, which, if used properly, can generate a lot of employment. One hundred and seventy-six thousand jobs have been created since this Government came into power. We can be proud of that record. There are other initiatives that are working, because they are focused, proactive, and relevant to the communities we are trying to help.

The performance of the Government has been outstanding in the area of unemployment in the Pacific Island community. Unemployment in that community was higher than for Māori over a decade ago, at 32 percent. It is now down to 8.8 percent—recently back up from 6.6 percent—which is something we can all be proud of. We are not too far off seeing unemployment in the Pacific Island community being on a par with the rest of the country, and that will be a real achievement to celebrate next year, when we achieve that. Those are all positive things. It is a positive message for the nation. We should be proud of the achievements of this Government in the last 4 years. Extremism is a luxury for the Opposition, and long may it enjoy that.

This Government’s core mission is to build a confident and dynamic nation, based on an innovative, growing, smart economy that 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 its diversity and tolerance towards all its communities; it takes its responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi seriously; and it is a good international citizen. Those goals are very much something that all of us as Kiwis can be proud of. That is building unity through removing disparities, because poverty was determined along racial lines under a National Government for 9 long years. We are fixing the problems so that we can achieve genuine equality, from which there can be the genuine unity of a nation. That equality we need to build is based on effective policies that remove those disparities.

The reality is, as I said, that poverty was being determined along racial lines. It is a question of effective policies that will work, and there have been particularly positive developments for Pacific Island communities. Unemployment levels are coming down, and I congratulate the Minister of Education on lifting early childhood education participation amongst Pacific Island children. We have to build a foundation on which our children can succeed in schools. The educational failure of Pacific Island children in tertiary and secondary schools is appalling, and until we begin to recognise that—until we lift early childhood development and education amongst our Pacific communities—we will continue to have educational failure and high unemployment as a result, and we will continue to see poverty develop amongst those communities.

Those are the positive initiatives and programmes this Government has put in place in the last 4 years. They are working, contrary to the statements made by members on the opposite side of the House. We believe that those positive moves will bring positive results—positive for the whole of New Zealand. It will be to the benefit of every person in New Zealand when we have good race relations, because we will have real equality and our people will achieve equally in all facets of New Zealand life.

It is always a privilege and a pleasure to rise and speak in this House, particularly in response to the Prime Minister’s statement. I would like to carry on from what my honourable colleague Taito Phillip Field was saying. It is worth repeating that particular passage from the Prime Minister’s statement: “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.”

I would like Opposition members, particularly in the National Party, to reflect on their so-called glory days in the 1990s. When I shifted to the Wairarapa in 1990, I happened to be unemployed. I entered a Government-funded training scheme and was on a benefit. Lo and behold, along came Mrs Shipley, the Minister of Social Welfare at the time, and savagely slashed the benefits. As a victim at the sharp end of that particular policy development—which led on, of course, from the “Ruthanasia” days—I can tell members opposite that it was a very uncomfortable time. In the small rural town I lived in, and in which I still reside, those benefit cuts had a profound effect.

What did I discover when the good people of the Wairarapa had the good grace to privilege me with representing them here in this House? The Minister of Social Development, the Hon Steve Maharey, mentioned previously the social deficit that was left, particularly in rural and provincial areas of New Zealand. I can certainly cite the Wairarapa as being among those areas. Some of that deficit consisted of—and was born out of—those benefit cuts. What I also saw happening within the social service arena was the depletion of capacity within the very Government agencies in those regions that deserved support and uplifting by their betters, for whom they worked. I am talking about the offices of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, particularly in Masterton.

What have we most recently and publicly experienced in the Wairarapa? We have experienced some of the worst domestic violence – related crime—heinous crimes against our children. In some instances, officers of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in Masterton were involved with that. They have been stressed. They never recovered from the gutting that happened during the 1990s. When we came into Government in 1999, we made a pledge to start to rebuild—certainly out in the provincial areas of New Zealand—all that was ripped away.

Another instance I can cite from my own electorate is the Wairarapa Community Polytechnic, which we managed to save when this Government came into power. It was one of the first polytechnics up for the axe. There were a number of those under the National administration, but this Government managed to save our one and only tertiary institution in the Wairarapa. It still exists there today, under the banner of the Universal College of Learning Wairarapa, and I am very, very pleased about that.

In more recent times we have had some wonderful input into helping to build capacity in our area. It irks me that Dr Lynda Scott can sit over there and scoff at the efforts that the Minister of Health, under this Labour-led Government, has made in providing confidence that we will continue to have a hospital in Masterton, when even the former Deputy Prime Minister of the National Government and Minister of Health, the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech, was unable to provide that certainty. A $27.2 million injection provides certainty that that hospital will develop into the future, meeting the needs of the area. Two primary health organisations have opened in my area—in Dannevirke and, in January of this year, in the southern part of my electorate from Masterton south. That is great news for the health status of people in the Wairarapa.

As we talk about so-called racially-based policies coming out on the other side of the House, might I add that I have never known a Māori health organisation providing services that appeal to Māori to provide them exclusively to Māori. They have been there for all and sundry to access, and the only issue might be whether those who want to access them are quite happy to work within the wairua and the context of delivering to Māori. Those organisations never excluded non-Māori from accessing those services, and I assume it remains the same today.

This leads me towards highlighting, as some of our national newspapers have done, the kinds of policy—in fact, the one and only policy the National Party has been able to put out at the moment, which is hugely divisive to race relations in this country. Even the Sunday Star-Times said: “The voice of ignorance, narrow political advantage, and selfishness: the voice of Don Brash.” Another quote—from the New Zealand Herald—was: “Nothing would be more divisive now than an attempt to enforce a one-nation charter … responsible leaders must acknowledge the aspirations of all elements of our society. Dr Brash will need to do better.”

Dr Brash wants to take us back 4 years to the unfairness of the Employment Contracts Act, 14 years to the failed economic policies of the 1990s, 20 years to before we had a nuclear-free policy, and 164 years to when we did not have a treaty. Treating people fairly does not necessarily mean treating them exactly the same. “If you gave all plants in your garden the same amount of water, some of them would not survive” is a very quotable quote that should be remembered by members opposite.

What are some of Dr Brash’s other comments on these matters? “Primary health organisations are racially funded,” he says. A primary health organisation’s funding is based on the needs of the community it is serving. On average, Māori life expectancy is 10 years less than that of Pākehā. They will need more health care services, and therefore attract more funding. Primary health organisations treating more elderly people get more funding than those with predominantly middle-aged communities, and no one seems to be objecting to that.

I quote Dr Brash again: “Scholarships for Māori are wrong.” Māori have historically been underrepresented in higher education, especially in areas like medicine and dentistry. Scholarships have been used for many years as a positive way of getting greater access for Māori to those professions—just as they have been used in the past to encourage other groups, such as women. Māori students still have to meet the same standards as everybody else to graduate and practise. There is no exclusivity there.

Another quote from Dr Brash: “Māori get preferential local government consultation.” Councils have to consult with all major groups in their communities on decisions that will affect them. The fact that councils have to consult with Māori does not mean that they have to consult with the rest of the community any less. No one is disadvantaged by the fact that councils have to consult with Māori.

The Labour Party is the party of the mainstream, the National Party is a party of the extreme, and I know which I would prefer. This party respects the name Georgina, but I would question very much what that party thinks of the member known as Georgina. From anything we have seen to date, they treat her with a total lack of respect.

Today in the court in Auckland, a judge sentenced Mark Lyon to 280 hours of community work with the warning that this would be his final chance. It will not be his final chance, because anybody sentenced to community work is given every excuse by this Government’s “soft on crims” justice system not to turn up. A judge said in Gisborne last week he was astounded that repeat community work absconders there are being given second and third chances to reoffend. Judge Tony Adeane said that in Hawke’s Bay offenders with a history of two or more breaches would be imprisoned, but in Gisborne there was ongoing tolerance. That is because community work under this Government is being run on a Mickey Mouse basis, where there is no accountability or responsibility whatsoever.

Mark Lyon will not do 100 percent of his community service, because, under this Government’s rort of the system, if an offender does 90 percent of his or her community work, he or she is given the other 10 percent free. The situation is even worse, because if an offender is prosecuted for not turning up for community work, and is excused from attending, he or she is taken out of the figures, to make the percentages look even better. It is an absolute joke. The Government says 69 percent of people complete their community work sentences. I would say that not one person completes a community work sentence, and that is another example of the wheels falling off this Government’s justice system.

There are record delays in the nation’s courts. Today some defendants are waiting more than a year to come before a judge. Over the summer break the National Party released official statistics that show that, under Labour, the delays in the justice system are getting worse. In the Nelson High Court, for example, it took 11 days from trial committal to case completion 3 years ago, but this year it took 300 days. In the New Plymouth High Court, defendants will wait over a year to have their cases heard and settled. It is this Government’s mismanagement of the justice system that is denying justice to thousands of New Zealanders every day. These sorts of delays cause no end of anguish. They put the victims at danger of further violence, and prevent the defendants from beginning their sentences or clearing their good names. As we stand here today in Parliament, there are more than 32,000 cases waiting to be heard before our nation’s courts—up 32 percent during the term of this Labour Government. Providing swift and fair justice should be one of the first priorities of any Government, and, simply, we are failing to see it with this Labour Government.

The National Party revealed tonight that even more wheels are falling off the justice system, with the news that the people who provide judgments in our small claims courts are taking the unprecedented action of taking industrial action from next Monday. The country’s disputes tribunal referees are outraged at the way that this Government has treated them—incompetently and with no respect for judicial independence. I do not blame the disputes tribunal referees for taking this action. This Government has misled them at every turn. We have revealed papers that show they have been given undertaking after undertaking, but Ministers were secretly slipping the timetable back further and further, and providing empty promises without any substantiation whatsoever. We say that running a decent justice system is pivotal to any democracy. The Prime Minister, with her one sentence about law and order in her statement, is letting our system fall into disrepair. She was warned that the disputes tribunal referees would be taking action, but she has chosen to ignore it.

What is more, I want to alert the House to three examples of the justice system in this country failing people in my region. Eighteen months ago, in the Rotorua court, a man was sentenced to 3 years for severely bashing his wife. Because of an administrative error in the Rotorua District Court, that man was released only 5 months into that 3-year term. Within weeks he bashed his wife again, incredibly seriously—because of an administrative error in this Government’s court system. Only late last year, a patched Mongrel Mob member who had been involved in a serious assault was given leave to apply for home detention, and the court forgot to advise the prison service that he had been given leave to apply for home detention. He was uncovered as being on the run only when he was picked up by the police in December and released again. Desmond Ngaheu is still on the run. He is a dangerous man, a patched Mongrel Mob member, and he still has not been caught, because of an administrative error in the nation’s court system. Only last week, the Ministry of Justice implemented yet another review of the way that the courts are being run in this country, after another Rotorua man was accidentally let out of jail 6 days into a 3-month prison term, because something in the system had failed to advise of the full length of the prison term he should be serving.

Yet again, the wheels are falling off the justice system. The Government cannot even provide the basic bureaucratic machinery to ensure that these sentences are enforced. I have to say the Mongrel Mob runs its businesses better than this Government runs the court system. When we live in a country where we can stand up and say that, this Government should be ashamed. The Prime Minister must realise that the country’s justice system is fast falling into disrepair. When violent criminals can be released from jail early because the administration of the courts is failing, when they can be released to their homes, where they bash their wives again, someone in this Government has to take responsibility for the failing state of the justice system. When 32,000 New Zealanders are waiting for their cases to be heard before the courts, and some judicial officers have to take industrial action to get this Government to deal legitimately with their concerns, there is something wrong in this country.

We are in the grip of a drug-induced crime wave in this country. Not a day goes by when south Auckland police do not go to a P-related domestic violence incident in their area.

💬 Jim Peters: And elsewhere.

And elsewhere. This Government must realise that we need to support the New Zealand police with stronger powers to deal with these drug-dealing gangs. We need to change the Proceeds of Crimes Act in order to get the money, the lifeblood, of these gangs. We need stricter criminal non-association laws. But, first and foremost, we need a justice system that will actually provide the sentences that the judges give. What is the point of sentencing anyone, if the system breaks down and the prisons do not know that person is coming? What is the sense of a system that sentences people, releases them back on the street again, and loses the paperwork? If these issues are happening in Rotorua, they are happening elsewhere around this country. It is time the Government launched a major inquiry into the state of the nation’s court system. The administration is appalling and the wheels are falling off.

It gives me a huge amount of pleasure to be able to contribute in the debate this evening on the Prime Minister’s statement, and to welcome everyone back to Parliament for another good year of government—a year of good government under Helen Clark’s leadership.

When the Prime Minister spoke yesterday about the achievements we have been able to progress over the last 4½ years, and the plans for the year ahead, I felt very comfortable knowing that her vision, her integrity, and her confidence in leadership are secure, and that New Zealanders themselves can feel secure under that leadership. That security has not been around in the past, under National-led Governments, regardless of whether they were in coalition. People have felt threatened, people have felt abused, and people have not felt confident and valued as members of New Zealand society. That has been a very important change for us to make, so that all New Zealanders feel valued, feel welcomed, and feel part of a country that is going forward and continuing to make its mark in the international arena.

For the particular citizens of our country for whom I have the privilege of being an advocacy Minister, that change has been tremendous. For New Zealanders with disabilities particularly, the change in their opportunities, the fact that New Zealanders now value people with disabilities for their contribution, and provide the support and opportunities necessary for them to be able to make a contribution to the best of their ability, has been a huge change. I want to mention just a couple of areas, and one in particular that will be progressed further this year. It relates to one of the two most important areas for me, and that is the opportunity to have a job.

Far too many New Zealanders with disabilities are denied the opportunity to get a decent job in our country. That is for a variety of reasons. Some of it, sadly, is because of attitude. We do not have as good an attitude as we might have, and I hope everyone in the House will be able to work together to improve the attitude that some employers have to employing someone with a disability. Some of that negative attitude is just based on ignorance, so the more we can do to educate employers about the opportunity for them to employ a disabled person, the better.

That expansion of opportunity has been solidly backed up by the work we have done in, particularly, the vocational services area, where we have made a major contribution to social development by ensuring that we put money and resources into, and strengthen the infrastructure of, the vocational services providers around the country, and focus our increased money on supported employment. I have been really, really encouraged by the strengthening of the vocational services sector, and the increased opportunities that it has been able to offer people with disabilities. We have built the foundations for change in that area, and I am determined to see that change progress more this year, the year after, and in many more years to come. When we were elected to Government just 4½ years ago, we came in on a commitment to increase the vocational services support for people with disabilities, and it was the first increase in funding for their providers for over 6 years. So the National Government, in the past, denied many people the opportunity just to get a job; that has changed, and the situation for people with disabilities will continue to improve.

There are 176,000 more New Zealanders in work since the election of a Labour-led Government, and I would like to see us getting really, really short of people who are unemployed and people who are on a benefit. Part of that is ensuring that the transition from unemployment to work is supported, and that the job is of a quality such that the person thrives and wakes up in the morning wanting to go to work—although probably not feeling ecstatic every day, like we do—is provided with genuine satisfaction and a good challenge to himself or herself, and is properly reimbursed for that work. So sustainable employment in satisfying work is where this Government is determined to put its effort.

We have changed our focus from the social deficit model that was run under the previous National Government to a social development model, where individuals, where all New Zealanders, are valued for the contribution they can make. We see it as a Government responsibility to support them to make that contribution. The support will come in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is through financial assistance for an employer. Sometimes it is through workplace modifications. Sometimes it is in other areas that members of this House may not directly relate to an opportunity for employment—things like ensuring that transport is available. We need to do a lot more work on public transport to bridge that gap for many people, particularly those in provincial areas, between their home and a job, because many people do not have a car.

Another area where we have made great strides, and will make a lot more this year, which is particularly pleasing to women around the country, is childcare. In the early childhood education sector, we can offer accessible, affordable, quality early childcare. That not only is good for the children and good for the families but offers both parents the opportunity to contribute in the paid workforce in a way that, without that early childhood education, without that childcare, they would not be able to afford. For me, the opportunity for more people to have a sustainable job is one of the most important responsibilities that this Government has delivered on.

One of the other responsibilities is home support. Other than a job, people want a secure home, but they need not necessarily own it, although a lot of New Zealanders still prefer to own their own homes. But security of tenure is vital for that person’s individual security and the security of his or her family. The increased number of people who now are able to afford to stay in their own home—renting it or owning it—for longer, and are not constantly having to move, means that the stress on the family is reduced, community links are maintained, those people are able to contribute more to a community they feel part of, and their children are far less likely to be disrupted and frustrated when they change schools. A change from one home to another is apparently one of the most stressful things that an individual can go through. By introducing income-related rents, by making State housing more affordable, by improving access to the accommodation supplement, and by ensuring that we are increasing the State housing stock throughout New Zealand, we have greatly improved people’s access to an affordable home, and have added to their security.

The opportunities that we have created through employment, and the enhanced security that we have given people through improved housing opportunities, are major contributions to the social development of our small but very proud nation.

The final point that I want to mention is in the health area. I have been very proud to be an Associate Minister of Health. I have responsibility for what we call age care—health and disability services for people over the age of 65—as well as disability services for all others. One of the big pieces of legislation that the House will be progressing this year was tabled just prior to Christmas. It introduces the phase-out of asset testing for older people in care. I am very keen to have that legislation not just progressed but passed, because it is due to take effect from 1 July next year. At the moment, our citizens over 65 can keep only a very small amount of their assets when they go into care. They tend to use up the whole lot, so they are no longer able to leave their life-savings to their families as the majority of New Zealanders have intended. They end up having to spend it on their own care. That has been a sore point for a long time, and we have decided to take a huge step forward in removing that inequity between the way that health support services are provided for people under 65 compared with those over 65. So that legislation to remove asset testing will be a good day of celebration not just for over-65-year-olds but for all of us who are getting closer every day to that age, and are looking forward to the opportunity to perhaps live in a rest home at some time in the future.

The final point I want to mention in the area of health is the strengthening of the primary health organisations. From 1 July all New Zealanders over 65 will have access to low-cost primary health-care and pay only $3 in prescription charges. That is a huge help for many older New Zealanders who feel there is a financial barrier between them and the doctor, or between them and the medication they are prescribed. That is a major contribution to social development, and I am really excited about the progress we will be able to make again this year.

There really was a good deal to be commended in the Prime Minister’s statement to the House yesterday afternoon, and I am acutely conscious that had we been listening to the equivalent peroration from Dr Brash, the future facing us today would be very different indeed. Not only would we be looking at a rolling back of those gains that have been made in relation to Crown honouring of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, we would also be confronting a brave new world of welfare reform that would make the 1990s look like a walk in the park.

There is a real danger that, in trying to capture the ultra-right vote from ACT, National will attempt to outflank Muriel Newman, and if Don Brash had his way we would be looking at the possibility of things like widespread work for the dole and work testing, not only for all unemployed, of course, but also for single parents and sickness and invalids beneficiaries; time-limited benefits, whereby after a period of, say, 2 or 5 years, someone would not be allowed any further income support in their lifetime; and penalties for beneficiaries who have babies while on the benefit.

These are only a few of the draconian measures mooted in National’s Saving the Next Generation from Welfare Dependency paper released last year. Although we have yet to hear of the outcomes of National’s own internal discussions on this document, I have grave fears that the turn to the right, epitomised by Dr Brash’s recent promotion, will mean that ultimately National and ACT will be duking it out as to who can get the most votes from that part of the population who think that anyone on a benefit is merely a bludger, and that if they are sick, unemployed, or a single parent, it is all their fault, and they should be punished for it.

This threat now lurking to our right makes me more reluctant than usual to critique the Prime Minister’s plans in areas like welfare, employment, and housing. Labour is on the right track, and the Green Party continues to be pleased to support the Government when it is doing things like, for example, carrying out very necessary improvements to the Employment Relations Act and doing more to support beneficiaries in a positive way into real jobs—even people who are currently trapped in the backwaters of the social security system on invalids and sickness benefits.

I am also, for example, pleased that the Prime Minister has said that Labour is committed to improving the paid parental leave scheme this year. The Greens strongly supported this policy when it was first implemented, and we look forward to backing its extension. We hope the scheme will be broadened to include more women, in particular self-employed women and women who have worked for an employer for less than a year. We would also, of course, expect the Government to look at extending the leave period to the minimum international standard of 14 weeks.

However, while some women in New Zealand are doing comparatively well these days, there is still structural and systemic discrimination against women. Just ask a nurse whether she thinks she is getting a fair deal in New Zealand right now. With a starting salary at just over $30,000 and a top of the scale at $45,000, nurses’ salaries do not fairly reflect their skills and qualifications. We want Labour to back up the fine statements made by Ministers when the nurses demonstrated outside Parliament late last year and in 2004 commit to increasing funding in the health system to address this long-term pay inequity.

Beyond the health system, we are looking to the Government to seriously look at how it can reduce the gender pay gap by introducing equal pay for work of equal value. For many years women have been told that once they are better educated they will get the same pay as men. But statistics show that education only widens the gap further. For example, in 2001 women graduates with a Bachelor’s degree in commerce earned $5,000 less than their male counterparts, while those with a Master’s degree earned $7,000 less.

The task force on employment and pay equity has not yet reported back, but we certainly hope that this group will provide a path ahead to urgently make progress on this critical issue. We hope that the Government will have the courage to take up recommendations made, and where necessary legislate to ensure women are treated fairly in the workforce. Labour did it in 1990 with the Employment Equity Act, and it can do it again.

Although the gender gap widens with income, the Government could also take a big step to reduce the gap and assist many low-income earners by increasing the minimum wage. Like the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, the Green Party makes the very moderate demand that the minimum wage be raised to $10 an hour immediately. It continues to amaze me that any employer, politician, or public servant can expect a parent to raise a family on a wage of around $8.50 or $9.50 an hour, as is still the going rate for so many jobs. The Government should not be having to prop up low-income families through the benefit, tax, and accommodation supplement systems to the extent that it is. We would all be a lot better off if workers were paid a decent amount in the first place, with the income tax generated helping boost our economy’s capacity to generate yet more jobs in businesses.

However, while wages and benefits remain so low, it is imperative that the Government reforms family assistance and family support as soon as possible. Labour has been promising such a reform for the last couple of years, at least, and I hope the fact that the Prime Minister made a commitment to this in her speech yesterday means that we will not see yet another Budget, in the wake of which Dr Cullen and Steve Maharey say: “Sorry, we couldn’t afford it this time.” Likewise, if family assistance has finally hit the top of Dr Cullen’s list this time round, I hope any changes will be substantial and meaningful, not just a few dollars scattered here and there. I hope that we will see family assistance payments adjusted in line with the cost of living and inflation, now and in the future. I hope that abatement rates are changed to remove poverty traps, and that discriminatory policies that ensure families who are in and out of work are treated differently are removed.

Some time in the next few months I expect my member’s bill—designed to introduce a universal child benefit, in effect the same as the old family benefit—will come before the House for its first reading. The Green Party sincerely hopes that the Government will see its way clear to at least support my bill to select committee for consideration, alongside any legislation dealing with family assistance and any other reforms to the benefit and related tax system that Labour sees fit to put forward this year. If Labour is serious about doing more to end child poverty, and to undo some of the damage both it and National wreaked on this country in the 1980s and 1990s, it must also get serious about at least beginning to redress some of the ongoing gaping inequities between rich and poor that are now consolidated in so many of our communities.

The fact that unemployment has gone up as of today’s household labour force survey, even ever so slightly, is a signal that Labour cannot afford any complacency about the fate of families still relying on benefits for a living. With 166,000 people officially jobless as of December 2003—up from 151,000 in September; quite a significant jump—it is critical that the Government not only does more to help through higher family support and childcare subsidies but also has the courage finally to carry out the kinds of major reforms to the benefit system that are so badly needed amidst the administrative and ethical nightmare that is the Social Security Act 1964 and all its myriad amendments.

On a related front I note the Prime Minister’s glowing reference to the Jobs Jolt, proclaimed by Minister Maharey in August last year. While, indeed, many of the measures contained in the Jobs Jolt were positive, it also reintroduced the concept of what we used to call remote areas, and are now called no-go zones; it initiated the work testing of 55 to 59-year-old job seekers; and it also established a new regime whereby people can be taken off the benefit if they fail or refuse employer drug tests. This is despite the fact that this measure is of highly dubious legality, and despite the fact that existing drug and alcohol services already cannot cope with demand in many parts of the country.

It is highly ironic that we have a Government lauding regional economic development and talking seriously about working alongside communities while at the same time closing many rural and provincial schools, and it will shortly be announcing the no-go zones—a measure that will be basically writing off designated areas as economically hopeless. The Green Party would far rather see as many local schools as possible kept alive and nurtured, as they are often the last remaining beating heart of districts that have lost just about everything else in the last two decades. We would prefer to see a Government committed to maintaining and fostering local job creation rather than telling communities that there is no hope for unemployed people to find work in their district anymore. We would like to see a lot more resources go to community enterprise initiatives and small-business support, than to corporates like EDS, Ericsson, and shonky shipbuilders.

There are a host of contradictions in Labour’s current approach to poverty, unemployment, and regional development. I just hope that by the time Labour members begin making election promises for 2005 they have thought a little more deeply about what they are really trying to achieve in these areas—a New Zealand where disadvantage is solved by everyone living in a few big cities and the top of the South Island, or a country where everyone gets a chance at an education, a job, and a living wage without the continued destruction of our rural and provincial communities in the process.

I rise to carry on United Future’s contribution. I thought that the Prime Minister’s statement touched on a lot of interesting points, some of which I certainly agree with and could not fault. The support for the Families Commission was certainly welcome, but I think that Labour has congratulated itself enough on that and I do not need to do so here. What I would like to touch on are three different areas that are close to my heart and matter most to me: crime, the foreshore and seabed debate, and the economy.

The first thing that strikes me is that we did not hear much about crime prevention, at all. We did not hear much about pushing for more victim support. We did not hear much about the police force being given sufficient numbers or resources to do the job that New Zealanders expect of it. We did not hear much about what the Government will do to combat the scourge of drugs like P. We have come out with initiatives to try to combat P by advocating for a Western Australian – type model to seize the assets of gangs. Labour has not taken that up. I hope that the Labour members will think about it and come to the table and start pushing for it, as we are. Labour has not talked very much about community policing, either. That issue is of great importance to Christchurch, where community policing is actually being cut back because of the lack of resources. Community policing has done a great job in Christchurch, and to cut it back simply diminishes the ability to prevent crime before it even begins. That is a failed policy, and I would like to see Labour put some effort into maintaining and extending community policing.

I would now like to talk about the seabed and foreshore issue, not so much from Labour’s point of view, but in relation to the debate that has been brought about by the Leader of the Opposition. I think it is high time we had the debate and brought the issue into the open. It is something that has been simmering for a number of years. I am not altogether comfortable with the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has brought up the issue, but that it is to the forefront of our consciousness is a good step, because unless we debate the issue and bring it to the forefront, we will not settle anything. Otherwise, it will be one of those things that is under the skin of New Zealanders, without there being an outlet to debate it reasonably. However, the problem is that a couple of things have become confused. The main issue, I believe, is that most New Zealanders are sick and tired of the Waitangi gravy train. That is not a slight against Māori. It is a slight against the individuals—an elite group—who are making a helluva lot of money out of the process. I believe that that is what most New Zealanders are angry about. It has nothing at all to do with the rights of Māori and the customary obligations we have to them.

The Leader of the Opposition has certainly outlined the destination, but he has not given us one word about the journey to get there. He has not given us anything constructive about how we can get there in the vision he is trying to espouse. Oddly, the National members have raised the debate to a level that they probably did not expect. One of the interesting things is that they now find themselves scrambling as to what to do for an encore. National seems bereft of ideas. It is like a balloon that has been extended and has now been popped, and the National members are all standing around thinking about what to do now. It seems incredibly destructive to have raised the debate and then to have no follow-through. National members have to realise that while we should never be held hostage by history—and I think everybody must agree with that—we should at the same time never trample on our history, either, as though it is of no consequence, at all. We hope to be able to support the Government’s measures regarding the seabed and foreshore, but that will depend on the detail of the legislation we have yet to see. If we do not support the Government, the sad fact is that the only party that will then support it will be the Greens, and I do not think any New Zealander would be comfortable with that.

If we look at the economy, we see that most Governments like to take credit for the good news in a buoyant economy. I suppose that is understandable, but the credit actually belongs to private enterprise. It belongs to those New Zealanders who get out there, start businesses, employ people, and provide services. Instead of passing the advantage of the Government surplus that has accrued from that process back to the public—which created that wealth in the first place—through lower taxes, we have an increasing tax burden through increasing compliance costs. That makes no sense whatsoever.

I want to begin my comments in this debate by echoing the statement made by Peter Dunne yesterday and our spokesperson on finance, Gordon Copeland, that United Future is making it a priority this year to call for the Government to remove the GST on rates, which is rightly called a tax on tax. This is a tax cut that makes sense, and we often hear calls from members on this side of the House for a tax cut. This is a sensible reduction in the tax burden on New Zealanders. We frequently hear that local government is being constantly given more responsibilities by central government without the funding to assist it in carrying out its obligations. We know that this is often true. Councils have no option but to pass on the costs through increased rates and user-pays means. Removal of GST will give real tax breaks to ratepayers. It will reduce the tax burden on many families struggling to pay their mortgages when interest rates rise, and on those living on fixed incomes, like the retired, who face heavy increases in their rate bills. It is good sense, it is common sense, and it is a tax cut that makes sense.

Secondly, I would like to talk about something that does not make sense in this country, and that was not mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech—that is, what we are doing with our valuable fisheries resource, which could be harvested for the benefit of our nation’s economy. Currently, too many of our quota are being leased by overseas fishing companies through joint ventures in this country. The fish are harvested at sea by fishermen being paid almost slave-labour rates, processed off shore in countries with cheap labour and processing costs, then exported around the world, with no benefit to the New Zealand economy apart from the price paid to the quota holders. Part of the mantra of the Government’s economic development initiatives has been that we should add value to our raw materials before we export. If we are to allow overseas companies to lease our quota, we should at least require that their vessels land their fish here on our shores, so that they are processed here, create jobs here, are exported as part of our export quota, and play a part in remedying our balance of payments problems. Let us understand that these countries that come here to fish do not allow our fishermen to go to their waters to fish there, so we are not talking about prejudice against these nations; it is simply a case of having a level playing field. The product of New Zealand seas is being sold overseas as a product of New Zealand, yet it has never seen the shores of this country. That should not be happening. Every fisherman I have talked to so far, and every New Zealander in the street, considers it madness that we allow our resources to be flogged off in this way.

Finally, I want to talk about our environment and our conservation policy. New Zealanders love the outdoors—the beach, the bush, and the lakes. We are proud of what we have, and we want to preserve it for future generations, but we do not want to preserve it by locking it away and prohibiting access because of fear-based, scaremongering ideas about what could happen if humans were allowed to enter the pristine environment we have been blessed with. United Future believes, as do most New Zealanders, that humans are part of the natural environment; that, in fact, we are at the top of the order, and have a right to be in the environment to extract energy, food, and pleasure from it. Of course, we want to be sensitive and to treat it sustainably, but we have something to add to the whole picture with our technology and our science. In fact, we suggest that sustainability is not possible without our technological innovation. The comments made after the recent diesel spill in Milford Sound that we may now have to look at restricting access and keeping the environment locked away are pretty scary stuff, when the only response that may be required is to have lockable fuel caps on boats that enter the fiords.

Together with our friends in Outdoor Recreation NZ, over the next few months United Future will develop common-sense, family-friendly, people-friendly environmental policy, and I look forward to presenting that to the people of New Zealand and to this House and advocating for its implementation throughout this year.

On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to participate in this debate. I listened particularly carefully to the Prime Minister’s address when she covered the health areas that her Government will progress over the coming year. I want to touch on some of those areas that are in my portfolio.

I know that elderly New Zealanders in particular would have been really pleased to hear the promise of more major hip and knee-joint surgery. We hope they are not disappointed. New Zealand First has been very aware that many of these people have resorted to going to health-food shops to purchase natural herb products to assist them with their joint problems while they wait to see a hospital specialist, or are being referred back to their general practitioners, or are monitoring their ever-changing position on the hospital waiting list. We hear of people who are ranked 36th getting a letter and finding that, lo and behold, they are 38th, and, finally, after getting another letter, finding they are 64th on the waiting list to see a specialist. These clerical cuts, or adjustments as we call them, to the waiting lists belie the health problems that are suffered by many New Zealanders. This situation does not give any New Zealander much confidence in the health system, at all. People start out with knee problems, they quickly turn into hip problems, and that is another expensive treatment. The bottom line is that we need to see some action in this area, and New Zealand First will be monitoring it very closely.

Some of the many areas that concern and worry New Zealanders were not even mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech. The exporting of New Zealand women to Australia for cancer treatment is far from a glowing advertisement for this Government. Those women would prefer to have their treatment in New Zealand, but for many that is not even an option.

The exporting of our competent and capable health professionals to greener pastures overseas is continuing. This was also reflected in a report tabled by the Minister of Health in Parliament today. Our health professionals are highly valued, and this was mentioned in the report, but, here in New Zealand, what are we doing but exporting doctors, nurses, and pharmacists in higher numbers than ever before? What is that doing to progress the health system here in New Zealand? Absolutely nothing! This export affects everyone, and it particularly affects the rural and small-town dwellers the hardest as they already have great trouble retaining their health professionals. The Government needs to be more proactive in keeping track of the number of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who are leaving, or we will wake up and find that we are in crisis mode in this vitally important area. This is a fundamental issue, and action is required.

We often hear, too, that the state of the nation can be determined by the state of the health of its children. The health of our children is declining. We have a higher need for dental treatment than we have had for many years, and that, in part, can be related to the diet that many of our children have. Poverty means that the parents in many of these cases are looking for a diet that best suits their economic situation, and that does not always mean that a healthy diet of fruit, vegetables, and meat is an option. We have many overweight children, and they will create their own problems for the health system to deal with. Prevention is far better than cure. We are all aware here in this House that the children in New Zealand deserve the very best that we can give them, and there is no argument on that.

The extension of the breast-screening programme mentioned by the Prime Minister in her speech is a good start, but, again, the age criterion needs to be reviewed. American researchers found that the age-limits need to be reviewed downwards. Australia already carries out breast-screening from the age of 40 years. This wider age range could definitely save lives by making earlier discovery of this disease, and earlier treatment, possible. We need to learn from the experience of these countries and take steps to save New Zealand women and their families from unnecessary tragedy. We remind the Government of the old saying: “Good is not good where better is expected.” All New Zealanders expect more from health care. It is really essential to work on the basics in the health system, as the health system is absolutely fundamental.

As the New Zealand First spokesperson on youth affairs, I want to talk about something that is of real concern to the young people of this nation. A lot of them might not be concerned about this particular issue, as we speak; a lot of them might not even understand what it all means and what significance it plays, and will play, in their future. The issue that will affect them the most, just purely because of their age, is this country’s continuing slide into Third World status.

We face issues such as the soaring cost of electricity, and the Minister of Energy is promising a further increase of 15 percent; the escalating cost of running the family car, as the dollar goes up and, likewise, the price of petrol; and the closing down of schools, which affects young people. The sick health system, as just mentioned by my colleague Barbara Stewart, and as evidenced in the exporting of women for treatment abroad, is also a major issue. All of that highlights an economy that is slipping slowly into Third World status. There are other issues, such as the skyrocketing value of the New Zealand dollar. That is putting a lot of pressure on exporters and massive pressure on farmers. We all know that, and the Minister of Finance himself admitted it. One of the biggest worries is that our standard of living compared with that of other OECD countries is in decline. My leader, yesterday, rightly said that more and more New Zealanders are time poor. They now live to work, not work to live. Three years ago The Economist warned that New Zealand looked to be the first country in 50 years to go from the First World to the Third World. That is the point I am highlighting. It is the issue of major concern to our future generation, and that is why I am raising it this evening.

Another issue that the Government needs to look at in the foreseeable future is reprioritising its operating expense capacity in order to fix such things as health waiting-lists, to invest in character training for youth, and to put more money into programmes such as youth suicide prevention—not just, among other things, the $1.7 million allocated in the Budget for policy advice in the youth affairs portfolio. I believe we need to look at issues like that.

From looking at the experiences of successful economies around the world, I believe we need to place higher concentration on the needs of the export sector than we are doing at the moment. Both National and Labour Governments—

💬 Hon Member: What’s wrong with it?

The value of exports is declining. That is what is wrong, and the statistics show it. Both National and Labour Governments of the past 20 years have had a stronger focus on inflation than on the export sector. We are now paying for that in a big, big way. New Zealand First proposes to create tax incentives for exporters. We believe that is a major way to expand the export sector and its markets. We are very strong on that.

💬 Hon John Tamihere: Who and how much?

We would create a tax abatement scheme—20c in the dollar for new export net profit.

I want to finish by stating my personal opinion that, in the last year, certain policies have been pushed on to New Zealanders—for example, the Prostitution Reform Act, the promotion of Internet gaming, and the current promotion of the civil unions bill. It is very sad for the people of New Zealand to have these anti-family policies forced on them without a mandate from the people. Last, but not least, I believe that New Zealand First will continue to support good policy, and continue to oppose bad policy.

Ā, te wāhanga tuatahi kua hōmaingia ki ahau mō tēnei wā o te Whare Pāremata nā te mea koia nei tēnei te wāhanga tuatahi hei tūtanga hei kōrero māku, ā, kei te mihi atu ki a koe kei te Kaikōrero o te Whare, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kei te mihi whānui hoki katoa ki ngā mema katoa o te Whare Pāremata. Ko te tumanako kia pai te tau hōu kei te haere mai. Nō reira huri ana, tēnā koutou, ā, kia ora mai anō tātou koutou.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I was acknowledging you in the new year, and the aspirations of members of Parliament for the coming year.

💬 Dr Muriel Newman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member but the translator is in the House, and I wonder whether he would mind translating what Mr Samuels was saying.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, I think members are well aware that members can translate for themselves, and this member is well capable of that.

If the member wants to ask the translator to translate what I have said, kei te pai as far as I am concerned. Perhaps she will listen very carefully if it is repeated a second time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, it has been translated. I do not think the honourable member should have been interrupted. He translated it into English. I am satisfied with that.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is always a privilege to stand in this House and to speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement to the Parliament outlining the Government’s legislative policy programmes for the coming year. However, I just want to share with members of this House an interesting observation I made during the dinner break, because I think all members recognise and acknowledge that tonight there is a celebration of the Year of the Monkey for the Chinese community. I made an interesting observation, because when the Prime Minister made the announcement that the Government was putting together a package of reconciliation, with the Chinese community, of $5 million, it was not an apparition that I saw clapping and in fact supporting the reconciliation package for the Chinese people of New Zealand.

On my right was standing the deputy leader of the National Party and he was giving a pakipaki—applause. I had to look twice, because I had to convince myself that it was not an apparition. I had to convince myself that this was the member on the other side of the House who was saying something different earlier on today. I could be mistaken, but at this time I am sure it was Gerry Brownlee.

The Prime Minister concluded her address to Parliament yesterday by telling this nation that the Government’s mission is clear. I want to quote the last paragraph of her speech so that our people who are listening will be quite clear on the intention in the programme of this Labour-led Government. She said: “Our mission is clear: we want to build a New Zealand that offers equal opportunity, a fair go, and security for all our people. We want to unite, not divide. We want New Zealanders to take pride in all our country’s achievements—economic, social, and be creative. We want our country to be well respected internationally. In short, we want to make a difference for the better. We know that being in Government is a privilege, not a right, and that we must earn that privilege every day. We look forward to another year of engaging with New Zealanders across our communities, industries, and regions, and of working in partnership with them to make a difference for the better.”

Then I listened to the National Party Opposition and the ACT Opposition. I listened to their mission statement. It is all so very clear to the people of this country and to the Māori nation. Their mission is to divide our people. Therein lies the fundamental difference between this Labour-led Government and a National-ACT coalition. This Government’s programme for 2004 is to build and progress policies that provide a better way of life and a better future for all New Zealanders in Aotearoa. I want to give an example to the members of this House and I also want to give an example to my colleagues in Te Tai Tokerau in Northland. The Northland Advocate, a paper that is not generally known to support the Labour Party, at the end of last year—

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Why are you closing those schools?

I am going to ring my cousin Denese and tell her to turn the radio on. At the end of last year an editorial in the Northern Advocate stated: “Grabbing fair share of prosperity for Northland. Good news for Māori, good news for New Zealand.” I shall quote from the Northern Advocate. It is virtually a Tory paper. Even my colleague Brian Donnelly agrees with it. “Grabbing our fair share of prosperity. At least 800 more Northlanders are now in full-time employment than they were 12 months ago. Finally this region is enjoying the sort of robust economic growth that has too often bypassed Northland. Today we show what this economic growth means at a human level. Many who have spent years on the unemployment benefit are now finding sustainable full-time jobs.” Those statements are from the Northern Advocate, the Tory paper in Whangarei. “Rarely in the last three decades has the country as a whole enjoyed such a period of sustained steady growth. There has been an extraordinary period when a whole range of economic factors have fallen into place to such an extent that the economy has withstood shell shocks such as the aftermath of September 11 and the second Iraq war relatively well.”

That is not Labour Party propaganda. It is the Northern Advocate in Whangarei. The only thing I am concerned about is that it did not write it in Māori so I could present it to the Hon Don Brash. The good news goes on and on: “This summer at least, Northland businesses catering to the tourist trade have every reason to be optimistic. Already we have had the first of several cruise ships visiting the Bay of Islands, and strong growth in tourism numbers are predicted. Jobs in this region have been created in the building and constructing industries. Large numbers of people are reportedly being placed in the retail sector. All this is good news for people like Steven Cameron and others, who for too long have been unable to find sustainable employment. At last Northland stands to enjoy its fair share of economic growth and prosperity that flows from that.”

One hundred and twenty thousand new jobs—cop that good news—have been created since Labour became the Government, and 2,300 more Māori have been employed. How is that? Do I hear anything from the Opposition? I ask Simon “Horsepower” to give us a little bit of encouragement here. Māori employment is down, and that is good news.

Much has been said about Waitangi Day, and the Te Tii Marae. Along with the Prime Minister and other parliamentary colleagues I, too, attended. The behaviour, abuse, and intimidation of manuhiri and visitors by a minority of extremists was regrettable. On behalf of Ngāpuhi and Te Tai Tokerau, I apologise to members of this House and the manuhiri who attended at Te Tii Marae.

That behaviour is contrary to Ngāpuhi kawa. It is contrary to Māori kawa. However, I also experienced a good and positive side. We were proud to go on the waka with Hector Busby to look at all our kaihoe doing the haka and performing on the beach. Hundreds and hundreds of New Zealanders were swelling with pride and applauding those young people.

I want members of this House to look at the plaques around this Chamber and to remember and reflect on the New Zealanders who went to war and died for us, both Māori and Pākehā, standing side by side. They spilt their blood on foreign lands for us so that we can be free of oppression and divisiveness and so that this nation can be united. Members should hold on to those memories, when they look around the plaques for Gallipoli, Egypt, and Palestine, of the love our forebears had for our country when they went over there willing to make the greatest sacrifice in the world, and that is their lives.

When people want to introduce some policies that will divide this nation, then I humbly ask them to think again. Māoridom will not go away. Our roots are in this land. We are here to stay. All the Māori nation is asking for is consideration and equality. If one looks at what happened, some of our New Zealanders won the Victoria Cross. When one went down, the other picked him up and carried him wounded. That is the spirit of New Zealand, and I hope that as this debate continues, that spirit will overwhelm us. I ask all members of this House to look around and reflect upon the bravery of our soldiers, men and women, Māori and Pākehā, who went overseas and sacrificed their lives for us and for people in this Chamber.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate, and it is especially a pleasure to follow my colleague the Hon Dover Samuels, a master of the whai kōrero, as we have just found out. I am proud to speak in this debate to support the Prime Minister and her statement to this House. I am proud to stand here as a member of a Government that has kept its word. I am proud to stand here as a member of a Government that has resolved not to leave a single New Zealander behind. As the Prime Minister put it, it is a Government that will ensure that the rising tide will raise every boat.

I am proud to be a member of a Government that knows where it comes from. With an appreciation and respect for its past, it knows where it is headed. I am proud to be a member of a Government that has principles, and is not afraid to stand up for them and to defend them; a Government that believes that inciting fear is no way to lead a country to prosperity and happiness, and stands up to those who, in the absence of real leadership and principles, are shameless and gutless enough to pit New Zealander against New Zealander in a farcical debate based on sweeping generalisations and absolutely no facts whatsoever; a Government that thinks that the real issues facing this nation are those that put food on the table, a roof over people’s heads, and provide New Zealanders with sustainable and long-term employment; a Government that provides services and assistance where it is needed and will continue to do so, designing and targeting programmes for Māori, Pacific peoples, women, men, youth, superannuitants, regional New Zealand, urban New Zealand, and the list goes on. In short, it is a Government that is not so lazy that it has to come up with a one-size-fits-all policy to avoid doing any detailed work.

While that Opposition whines, this Government has been working. Nowhere is the fruit of this Government’s efforts more evident than in the area of job skills, employment, and industry training. That is the powerhouse of this Labour-led Government, and those are the issues I want to talk about—real issues that affect real people every day in every part of New Zealand. We are busy running this country while the Opposition is interested only in running it down.

This Government has been committed to assisting all New Zealanders into long-term employment and training. I am sure that all political parties lay claim to such a lofty goal, but only the proactive approach the Hon Steve Maharey has taken in this area has actually delivered results—results that have impacted on the lives of the 176,000 extra people in work since Labour formed a Government in 1999. Our unemployment rate now stands at 4.6 percent. That is lower than in Australia, the United States, lower than the OECD average, and in fact, lower than all our major trading partners. Māori unemployment now stands at around 10 percent. That is a significant drop from when we took office.

I doubt whether anyone would argue that that result is not great for the entire country. More New Zealanders working is good for the economic and social well-being of our country. That is what happens when one is not afraid to target need. Would National and ACT remove the initiatives that have produced that result? Would they rather have Māori unemployment back up kicking around 15 percent, or higher? I do not really think they care. They have painted themselves once again as parties that rule for the few and not for all Kiwis—in fact, not even for most Kiwis. As our time goes on and our demographics continue to change, they will represent even fewer. That is fine by us. The Labour Party says “Bring it on.” We will continue to shoulder the privilege and the responsibility of governing for all and of acting in everyone’s best interests.

New Zealanders of all persuasions should take considerable comfort that they have a Government that will listen to all people on all issues, regardless of whether they are the majority interest, and make decisions based on the merits of the case, and the need of the individuals and the communities involved. After all, at some point any one of us could find himself or herself in a minority. Those of us from regional New Zealand who endured the 1990s know that only too well. They can rest assured that under this Government their interests will be looked after just as carefully as everyone else’s, even if it does not deliver the most votes.

Speaking from personal experience, nowhere has the huge positive impact of this Government’s skills and industry training initiatives been more evident than in my hometown of Gisborne. Gisborne has always been a great place to live and visit. It has good weather, great beaches, and friendly locals, but it always carried a yoke around its neck born of a public perception of failure based on high unemployment and low regional growth. Thanks to this Government’s policies to assist regional New Zealand and its commitment to industry training and the upskilling of our workforce, Gisborne is thriving. The change is tangible. The city is humming. It is vibrant and excited, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, it is optimistic and hopeful. Tourism is booming and unemployment figures for the Gisborne - Hawke’s Bay region stood at 5.5 percent at the end of last year. In the year ended September 2003 unemployment on the East Coast alone dropped by 19 percent.

For the first time in a long while, the East Coast is approaching equality with the rest of New Zealand. Why? Because we let communities deliver services in ways that suit their different needs and deliver results. It is not one rule for all, and I make no apologies for that, because what the Opposition is alluding to would not work on the East Coast—not that we would ever know for sure, of course, because there is no detail behind the rhetoric. Goodness, no! That might involve actually thinking about it and working through what it has suggested, and I suspect that Opposition members know that they might not like what they find.

This Government was elected in 1999 with a social deficit. We did not even get to start from zero. As per usual, following a Tory Government, we were deeply, deeply in social negative, and nowhere was this felt more acutely than on the East Coast. For this Government to have done so much in such a short time is testament to its commitment to regional New Zealand and its ability to think outside of the one-size-fits-all square. We are healthier. We have better housing and secure jobs. That is what matters. That is what this Government will continue to focus on. I thank the Hon Steve Maharey and the Hon Jim Anderton for their efforts and initiatives and for the difference it has made in my home town.

The Leader of the Opposition says he gets a lump in his throat when he flies back to New Zealand, and that that is what makes him a New Zealander. Please! Four days, and that is the best the National Party’s research unit could come up with? Well I get a lump in my throat when I see the communities I grew up in, finally able to hold their heads up because they are contributing to the social well-being of their families, their community, and their country. I get a lump in my throat when I see our stories, the stories of the East Coast, and, ultimately, the stories of all New Zealanders, told in print and film, and bringing the world to its knees with the power of the pride and culture of tiny settlements like Whangara. It is knowing that wherever I go in the world, nothing says “New Zealand” more than a bunch of Kiwis throwing their shirts down and performing an impromptu haka with such passion that it gives me comfort to know that, no matter what, our shared heritage and our cultural ties run too deep for Don Brash to ever take that away from us. That is what it means to be a New Zealander—not a particularly nice Merlot in business class.

It is because this Government understands what makes Kiwis tick that we have had so much success, and it is because members of this Government are prepared to measure ourselves on the outcomes and effects of our policies and hold ourselves accountable to the electorate that we continue to have the trust of New Zealanders. This Government is not afraid to set goals and be judged on our achievements. The most significant of these for me is the ambitious goal of ensuring that by 2007 all 15 to 19-year-olds are engaged in appropriate education, training, work, or other options that will lead to long-term economic independence.

Make no mistake—this will not be easy. The last census indicated that anywhere between 10 and 17 percent of our 15 to 19-year-olds may not be in any form of full-time education or training. There can be complex reasons why these young people need a range of support to get themselves on the right track. There are two programmes already playing a significant role. Modern Apprenticeships is well under way, and will continue into 2004 with 6,000 placements nationwide to be extended to 7,500 by 2006. The Gateway programme is currently being offered to senior secondary students through 63 schools nationwide. The programme allows students to embark on a national qualification in their career of choice and apply general skills in that work context. The programme is being progressively expanded to all decile 1 to 5 secondary schools, with opportunities being offered at an additional 63 schools this year alone. By 2007 the Gateway programme will be available in just over 200 schools nationwide.

Across all industry training there is record participation. At September 2003 there were 88,777 industry trainees. We have worked to keep tertiary education affordable. The Prime Minister’s speech highlighted the intention to increase eligibility to student allowances, giving more students from low-income families the opportunity to participate in tertiary-level education. This is where the need exists, and we have responded accordingly. For those in paid work we have increased the minimum wage four times in 4 years, and strengthened minimum standards to provide security, opportunity, and certainty in employment. It is not just more work, but quality of work.

We have made huge gains for women in paid work. We introduced paid parental leave. More than 14,000 people have already used the scheme, and we are looking at further improvements to it. Benefits to families are obvious, as well as the opportunity it provides for parents, especially women, to continue their commitment to the workforce.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I thank you for the privilege of participating in this debate. I think it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of what Dover Samuels said a few speeches back. It is good, as we stand or sit in this debating chamber, to reflect on those marks around the wall that honour the Māori and non-Māori who served in war and might well have given their lives. But I do not want to talk about that. I want to talk instead about matters affecting our relations with Australia, and about the significance of that relationship.

I felt sorry for the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade when he saw it as necessary to issue a media release on 9 February, congratulating the Australian Government on concluding a free-trade deal with the United States. New Zealand had again been left out in the cold, and our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade signalled in that media release a threat of investment and trade diversion from New Zealand. That was no surprise, because our relationship with the United States is a damaged, limp-along relationship, and our relationship with Australia is close to being at an historic low. Why is that? New Zealand has had a traditional reputation of boxing above its weight, and we do that in a range of activities, including the arts, sport, culture, and business. But we are perceived as not pulling our weight in our traditional arrangements. We are not pulling our weight in our relationship with the United States and in our relationship with Australia.

New Zealand, of course, has wanted to conclude a free-trade agreement with the United States for some time, and the United States has robustly, I would say, rejected those overtures. Charles Swindells, the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, in a speech that was disrupted by student protests on 8 October last year—his speech was actually published after that event—made it clear that the United States Government was simply not prepared to schedule bilateral trade negotiations at present. He then spoke about issues touching our antinuclear legislation, concluding that aspects of the relationship with the United States are simply not cost free. Bilateral and regional trade agreements are, of course, very much the rage at the moment. A count by the OECD’s trade directorate identified 142 bilateral and regional agreements, a third of them concluded just in the past 3 years, together with another seven awaiting ratification. The OECD said that another 50 were planned, of which more than 30 involve countries in Asia, including Japan, China, India, and South Korea—all countries that had previously eschewed regionalism.

The predicted benefits of the United States - Australia bilateral agreement are undoubted. There are undoubted benefits for Australia. United States officials say duties will be eliminated on more than 99 percent of American manufactured exports to Australia, and the agreement could boost trade in that area by US$2 billion. Whilst it is true that the gains for Australia on the agricultural front have been limited, the significance of the free-trade agreement is far wider than that. The United States is the world’s pre-eminent country, and is a leader in productivity, technology, and innovation. The historic importance of the agreement is that it will strengthen Australia’s business and investment ties, and its political and security relationships, with the United States. It will help to make Australia a more competitive and dynamic economy. The agreement extends well beyond agriculture, and it covers the important sectors of manufacturing and services. Australia will also gain from the stimulation of greater competition in its domestic markets, and the impetus to ongoing economic reform.

I believe that it is time to reassess our relationship with Australia. It is a critically important relationship. Here are some of the points that underscore that relationship. Australia is New Zealand’s largest trading partner, and New Zealand is Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner, behind Japan, the USA, Korea, and China. New Zealand is Australia’s third-largest market for manufacturers. New Zealand has $16.2 billion invested in Australia, and, in turn, Australia has over $41.5 billion invested in New Zealand. There are approximately 356,000 New Zealanders living in Australia, and there are 53,000 Australians living in New Zealand. Despite the rhetoric that accompanied the recent meeting between Peter Costello and Dr Cullen, and despite the decision to advance three specific initiatives relating to business integration, the relationship between Australia and New Zealand has soured. I believe that the relationship can be immeasurably improved if we are prepared to contribute in a more meaningful way on just one parameter. That parameter, I would identify, is the defence of the region.

The Pacific Ocean is the medium by which the area’s vital trade is conducted. The exploitation of the commercial value of the sea, whether as a means of transportation or as a source of marine resources, depends on cooperation. Gross Pacific trade of something like 10 billion tonnes of shipping a year represents 37 percent of the world total, so it is a very sizable number. In the New Zealand context, international trade is inevitably the key engine that powers the New Zealand economy. The maritime nature of our region, the products we export and import, and our remoteness mean that that trade is almost entirely seaborne—our seaborne trade is 99 percent by volume, and about 90 percent by value. More fundamentally, there is a particularly maritime geographic dimension to security and defence in the Asia-Pacific region. It is true—and Mr Goff was at pains to make this point the other night—that National reduced defence spending in the early 1990s, as New Zealand faced a fiscal crisis. It took a peace dividend after the Berlin Wall came down, along with most other countries, including the US and Australia. But by 1996 National had decided to raise defence spending again, and announced a $2 billion capital re-equipment programme in the 1997 defence white paper. That was a major increase in spending on defence, and in the period of its last term of office the National Government paid for the two frigates, the Aermacchi force, the re-winging of the Orions, and the maritime helicopter replacement programme.

If I were to single out one defence issue that would make a significant difference to the Australian relationship, it would be captured in the word “interoperability”. During the dinner break I had the opportunity of talking to one of the senior Cabinet Ministers in the present Government, and he said that for him, if he were to single out one defence issue, it would be to dismiss the Minister of Defence. That did not seem to me to be a particularly loyal comment to make, but it was clearly heartfelt. I think the Minister of Defence should be permitted to continue in the clay pigeon role that he currently occupies. But I would just like, in the few moments that remain, to talk about the concept of interoperability with regard to a specific example, because the present New Zealand Government runs away from that concept.

A case in point is the history of the Orions. Those aircraft have a proud record of maritime surveillance, and they work, and have worked, in close conjunction with the Australian Defence Force. The New Zealand Government has refused to fund the Orion upgrade known as Project Sirius. The total cost of the project is about $600 million, or it was then. The upgrading, known as Project Sirius, is all about radar profiling, which includes the ability to spot life rafts at sea, and to find fishing vessels. What would be the consequence of making that change? The first consequence is that there would be interoperability with the Australian Defence Force in that area, and that is not there at the moment. The second consequence is that we would be seen to be pulling our weight, and the third consequence is that I believe that our relationship with Australia would be rekindled.

I conclude by urging an unthinking Government to think about those things, and not only to say that the Australian relationship is important but also to act as though it is.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this Address in Reply debate, because this Government has a really good story to tell. After many years of seeing sluggish growth and social decay, New Zealand has picked up momentum, and is moving forward on many fronts. The measure of the success of any Government must be the extent to which it is successful in improving the lives of the people it governs. For that reason, I am really proud to be a member of this Labour-Progressive Government, which is making a real difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, is improving both the opportunities and outcomes for the disadvantaged in our communities, is providing a better life right now, and, even more important, is giving hope for an even brighter future to many people who felt forgotten, disempowered, and hopeless over the previous decade.

It has always been difficult to prove claims of significant improvements in social areas, because there have been no objective measurements available. This Government has been the first to have the courage to institute a regular reporting programme that measures the social well-being of New Zealanders. This Government wants our nation to be a place where everyone has the chance to reach his or her full potential, where everyone has the chance to participate in the economy, and where everyone can enjoy an environment that reflects our lifestyle, our culture, and our heritage. I am pleased to tell this House that the social report showed substantial improvements in the important areas of average income, employment, educational attainment, and life expectancy. As well, there has been a reduction in many areas of disadvantage and exclusion.

There are particularly pleasing statistics in the area of employment. For example, there are now more people in work than at any other time in our history. There are 176,000 more people in work since Labour formed the Government, and I am proud of that. In spite of those in the Opposition who consistently put down and criticise our country, I can say that our unemployment rate is below that of any of our major trading partners. Our unemployment rate is 4.6 percent, while Australia’s is 5.6 percent, and the USA’s is 5.9 percent. The OECD average is 7 percent. So in comparison with others, we are doing exceptionally well. People’s right to work, and to provide for their own needs and those of their family, is fundamental to a feeling of self-worth and of being included in society, so I am really pleased with the steady improvement in our employment rates. There are still inequalities, and we are all aware that the unemployment rates for Māori and Pacific people are still higher than those for other New Zealanders. This Government will continue to actively promote employment opportunities for those groups.

Where inequalities exist, there is the potential for conflict and division in our society. This Government is dedicated to addressing and minimising such inequalities, in the interests of the social well-being of our nation. This Government wants there to be fairness and opportunity in employment, and to that end we have increased the minimum wage four times in 4 years. For low-paid workers, that means earning approximately $60 extra per week. Although that may not seem much to people who work in this place, I can tell members that it makes a huge difference for people on low incomes. It makes a huge difference to the quality of their lives and the lives of their families. Since 1999, this Government has methodically established and strengthened the minimum standards, in order to provide fairness, security, and opportunity in employment. As well, the Government has begun a review of children’s employment, in order to ensure that those vulnerable young people are aware of their rights and legal protections.

Providing jobs is very important to this Government, but we do not want to have just any old jobs. We want to have jobs that develop the skills and the talents of our New Zealand population. So we are training the workforce of the future and fostering growth and innovation. We are trying to upskill New Zealanders, so that they can move forward confidently into the future. The Jobs Jolt package, which was announced a little while ago, contains a range of initiatives to tackle skills shortages and to get New Zealanders into work. It contains 10 initiatives to help employers to meet skills shortages, and to help people with disabilities, long-term sickness and invalid beneficiaries, mature job seekers, drug-dependent job seekers, young people, and people who have been made redundant to get into the workforce—into employment. We have regionalised services in order to tailor them to the needs of women, young people, Pacific people, people with disabilities, and so on. We want to see our communities delivering services in ways that suit their needs, and we have no intention of changing that policy and trying to turn it into a one-size-fits-all policy, because the policy that we have is working. Unemployment is at a 16-year low, and Work and Income has succeeded in placing record numbers of people into work.

We want to train a workforce in which we match skills to the jobs that are available, and we are fostering growth and innovation by improving the access to tertiary education. This Government wants to have all 15 to 19-year-olds engaged in appropriate tertiary education, training, work, or other career development options by 2007, and we are well on the way towards achieving that goal. I know that every parent in New Zealand wants that to happen. We are fostering a skilled workforce and a strong culture of workplace training. It is great to see so many New Zealanders taking up work-based learning options. We want to build up an even wider set of opportunities, in order to ensure that all young people successfully make the transition from school into the world of work. Successful programmes like Gateway and Modern Apprenticeships are already showing strong results, indicating that young people are keen to take up the expanded opportunities for training. We are keeping tertiary education affordable, and we are making student loan repayments easier as part of our plans to make tertiary education even more affordable.

Industry training is booming, giving people in employment the opportunity to gain recognised qualifications through a combination of on-the-job and off-the-job learning. Modern Apprenticeships reached its target of 6,000 trainees 3 months early last year. Those are just a few of the host of programmes that this Government is putting in place to make sure that our young people, our mature people, and everyone within our society have the opportunity to progress into a bright future.

I want to finish by saying that I was at Waitangi this year. Some things happened there that most of us would rather not have been a part of, but I had the opportunity to talk to someone who was here in New Zealand for a conference on race relations. When I spoke to him at dinner after the events on the Thursday afternoon, he made the comment that New Zealand was a wonderful society, because what he had seen was a whole lot of people who were at Te Tii Marae protesting and making their feelings felt. Then he went along to the hotel and mixed with the people who were there for the Governor-General’s reception, and—lo and behold—a number of the same protestors were there at that function. Everybody was talking and getting on together, and discussing the events in a really good way. That is something that is wonderful about our New Zealand society.

I conclude by quoting the Prime Minister, who said in her speech: “... we want to build a New Zealand that offers equal opportunity, a fair go, and security for all our people. We want to unite, not divide. We want New Zealanders to take pride in all our country’s achievements—economic, social, and creative.” I endorse those sentiments totally.

This evening at dinner time, I had the opportunity to attend the Chinese New Year celebrations, where there were 300 people. I was delighted to see the happy faces of the people, particularly the Chinese people, who had gathered from all over the country to see what the Government is doing in terms of the apology that was made 2 years ago, and what initiatives or actions are in place following that. I was pleased to hear this Government announcing a $5 million seeding grant for a community trust, which will be administered by people who are the sons and daughters of those early Chinese people who settled in New Zealand. It was really great to see the Chinese people feeling that they are part of this society. Even the speaker from the New Zealand Chinese Association mentioned how proud he was that, for the first time, he felt equal to any other New Zealander. I thought that was a great occasion for us to celebrate. We are one united nation in this country.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Waitangi Day celebrations in Palmerston North. It was really great to see so many Māori, Pākehā, and other nationalities gathered together—many thousands of them—to enjoy the occasion and to celebrate the unique thing in this country that is the Treaty of Waitangi, which brings people together. I was proud to be part of that gathering, and I feel proud that this nation is moving ahead, together, side by side, and making progress.

Like my colleagues here today, I would like to speak about some initiatives and achievements, particularly in the area of training and education. I pay tribute to my colleague the MP for Palmerston North, Steve Maharey, who has made a lot of very good initiatives in that area. There are a lot of positive stories to tell about what is happening in New Zealand. It is great to see New Zealanders taking up work-based learning options. The Government wants to build up an even wider variety of opportunities to ensure that our young people successfully make the transition from school into the world of work, further education, and training. Successful programmes like the Gateway programme and Modern Apprenticeships are already showing strong results, indicating that young people are taking up the expanded range of training opportunities now available.

In the area of tertiary education, we are making student loan repayment easier as part of the plan to make tertiary education more affordable. From 1 April this year, the income threshold for student loan repayment will rise, and the maximum income level for a full interest write-off for part-time, part-year students will also rise. We anticipate a $2.6 million decrease in student debt, largely due to our decision not to charge interest rates during the period of study and to freeze fees for 3 years. Our fee maxima policy will keep the cost of tertiary education affordable and certain. Also, more debt has been repaid over time as the scheme matures. The Government intends to further reduce student debt by widening eligibility for student allowances.

Much has been said about Māori and Pacific Island students not performing very well in education. Māori have historically been under-represented in education, especially in fields like medicine and dentistry. We have now been offering scholarships for many years as a positive way to gain greater access for Māori to those professions, just as they have been used in the past to encourage students of other groups, such as women, to go ahead. They still have to meet the same standards as everyone else to graduate and practise. When a person walks into some educational institution or Work and Income New Zealand to justify income support, that person gets it on the basis of need. How it is delivered will reflect such things as age, gender, ethnicity, region, and so on, but the entitlement is based on need, not on race.

Industry training gives people in employment the opportunity to gain recognised qualifications through a combination of on-the-job and off-the-job learning. Record numbers now participate in industry training. At the end of September last year, there were 88,777 industry trainees. The Modern Apprenticeship programme reached its target of 6,000 trainees 3 months early this year, and at the end of September 2003 there were 6,073 young New Zealanders participating in Modern Apprenticeships. The programme has expanded to be available in 30 different industry sectors, widening the apprenticeship concept beyond its trade origins. We are on track to reach our target of 7,500 Modern Apprenticeship apprentices by 2006. The Gateway programme broadened the choice of secondary school students by offering them structured, traditional, and workplace training. Originally piloted in 63 schools, the programme has expanded and should include all 203 1 to 5 decile schools—those in the areas of high social need—by 2007. Creating a world-class tertiary system, we are investing $25 million over the next 3 to 4 years in the University of Otago’s Leading Thinkers programme. This is a partnership programme between the Government, the university, and private funding donors. The partners aim to recruit internationally known academics to help foster innovation, particularly in the areas of science and business.

I want to say a word about skilled migration, which is pretty much a win-win situation for all of us. Changes to the skilled migrant category make it easier to attract talented individuals who can bring needed skills to and create new opportunities for New Zealand. By focusing on settlement outcomes for the skilled migrants as well as on New Zealand’s actual needs, the skilled migrant category is a win-win situation for both migrants and New Zealand. The talent visa scheme has helped over 2,020 employers recruit people to fill skill shortages by targeting talented and skilled people around the world. The London office of the New Zealand Immigration Service has launched a customised service, providing an information brokerage service to match prospective immigrants with the New Zealand job market.

Similarly, funding for the Auckland Metropolitan Migrant and Refugee Strategy to move greater numbers of skilled migrants and refugees into work was announced in December last year. This will also help to close the skills gap faced by Auckland business. The strategy includes funding for English language tuition over the next 2 years and a multilingual contact centre that will help job seekers speak to Work and Income in their own languages.

Nothing would be more divisive now than to force a one-nation charter. Responsible leaders must acknowledge the aspirations of all elements of our society. Dr Don Brash and the National Party will need to do better than they are doing. Treating people fairly does not necessarily mean treating them exactly the same. It is like growing a plant in a garden or field. We need to determine a plant’s need for water and nutrition. If we under-irrigate or under-fertilise those plants, they will either die or underperform. Labour’s core mission is to build a confident and dynamic nation based on an innovative, growing, smart economy that can deliver more jobs, more opportunities, and higher living standards. The nation we seek to live in is creative, looks after its environment, and values diversity and tolerance.

Mr Assistant Speaker Simich, as this is the first call I have taken this year, I belatedly wish you the compliments of the season. May I say that I have admired the way you grace this Chamber with your presence, and I admire the way you administer your functions in such a fair-handed style.

I support Don Brash’s motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister’s statement and, by extrapolation, no confidence in the Prime Minister herself and no confidence in this Government. The Prime Minister’s speech was full of platitudes and slogans—[Interruption] At least we are getting a reaction now! It was full of platitudes, and it had no depth, no strategies, and no vision. It was thin, it was bland, and it had no meat. It was the political equivalent of tofu. This Prime Minister has no sense of what it takes to remain in touch with mainstream New Zealanders. Her instincts are deserting her. The very instincts that enabled her to get into the role she has now are deserting her when she needs them most.

This Government is a house of cards. Once we destabilise the Prime Minister—and that is happening—this Government will come down, and it will leave awful rubble in this Chamber. The consequences are very clear. This Government will lose the next election, and I say: “Bring it on!”. Next week, next month, or next year—I do not care. The Nats are back. We are on a roll. I say to the members opposite: “Thanks for keeping the seats warm. Thanks for the memories. Now scurry off back to your offices and start cleaning them out to make room for the next Government.” Boy, it is hurting them, is it not? It is hurting them big time. One has only to witness John Tamihere’s disgusting performance last night. In his eyes all Kiwis are equal, but some are more equal than others. His outburst was pathetic. His leadership aspirations disappeared in the course of one speech. He was emotional, and he was not detached, because a few of his sacred cows were being threatened.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: He was hysterical.

He was hysterical. Boy, we cannot tell the truth about Māori in this country, can we, without the politically correct brigade standing up and starting to yell, scream, and lose all sense of proportion. So do members know what he did? Ironically, he played the cheapest card in the pack. He played the race card. Suddenly, all the Nats were rednecks. Instead of having a calm, rational debate about legitimate issues, he started name-calling and casting insults. And when Gerry Brownlee gave it back, he did not like it, did he? He was the first to cry foul then. The Prime Minister, in a rather pathetic way, I have to say, tried to suggest that Don Brash’s speech was divisive. When we boil it down, he was simply saying that all Kiwis should be treated on the basis of their needs and not race. And here is the rub: most Kiwis agree with him. That is what hurts the crowd over there. At the same time that John Tamihere was mouthing off, the Holmes programme fielded 34,075 calls, 30,667 of which—and, for that dim-witted crowd over there, I point out that that is 90 percent—said that Don Brash was right and the Government was wrong, and the Government did not like it.

Then Phil Goff got to his feet and chimed in, trying desperately to distract the debate away from the Government’s failed race relations policies. He attacked the Nats on their supposed nuclear policy. He argued that 80 percent of New Zealanders do not want to change our nuclear policy, so how dare the National Party raise the issue for debate! How dare National try to inform New Zealanders about the cost of this policy! His figures are rubbish, but let us allow for the sake of argument that they are right. If that is the case, the hypocrisy of the argument is not lost on me. Was he not the very Minister who, despite a referendum organised by Norm Withers, in which 93 percent of Kiwis said they wanted tougher sentencing laws, said: “Too bad!”, and just thumbed his nose at them? Is it any wonder that when Phil Goff walks in the streets of urban New Zealand, the words “Soft Goff, soft Goff” are echoed everywhere?

As for Winston Peters’ pathetic attack on the Nats, I have this to say: if he keeps cuddling up to the Prime Minister the way he is, he will be exposed for the charlatan he is. Let him just keep on going. He is arguing both sides of the argument because he just does not know where to stand on it anymore. Do members know why? It is because he knows that the Nats are right, and he is simply upset that he has been upstaged. His narrow policies—all three of them—are myopic at best, and his anti-Asian migration stance is doing more harm to the reputation of New Zealand than this Government has ever done in two terms of Government—and boy, coming from me, that is really saying something! Mr Peters says the Nats are the B team, and I say to him that his views are, at best, subjective. I can say one inescapable fact—at least we have a team, and I think it is a pretty good team. In fact, it is a team that will lead the next Government of New Zealand. This team is on 32 percent in the polls and is going through the roof. Mr Peters’ crowd is on 8 percent and is going out the back door as fast as it possibly can.

What will the Nats do that the Prime Minister’s paper failed to address? We will do a number of things. The first thing we will do is grow this economy at a rate faster than it is being grown at the moment. We pat ourselves on the back because, having had the best economic conditions for decades, we achieve 4 percent growth and think we have done really well. I have worked and lived in economies where 5 percent was the minimum and people were getting pessimistic. I have worked in economies where it was 10 percent, and we were cooking on gas. Why is it that New Zealanders condition themselves to accept 4 percent growth?

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: It was 6 percent under Mrs Shipley.

It was 6 percent under Mrs Shipley, and it will be higher under Don Brash. Mark my words. Why is it that we can take a hiding from Australia in rugby and suddenly have a national day of mourning while we analyse what took place but we say that it is just our luck that, at the moment, economically, the average worker in Australia could be $175 to $200 better off? We do not accept that over on this side of the House. We have better aspirations for our country than that. What we are to do is start growing our economy faster, and we are to start doing that in rural New Zealand, because that is the powerhouse. And what is this stupid Minister of Education’s answer to that? What is Trevor Mallard saying? He is saying: “I’m going to close down rural schools. I’m going to close down rural schools and hurt rural New Zealand just where it hurts most.” Truancy, juvenile crime, dole bludgers—they are not the issues for rural New Zealand. They are urban problems. Do members know why? It is because parents get involved. Parents are interested. They are the types of things that rural New Zealand values. We reap as we sow, and the way that this Minister of Education is sowing at the moment we will have a very poor harvest. I have a better vision for this country than he is leading us with. The holy grail of economies of scale is what he is pursuing, and the great desperation and pity about it all is that he has no idea what it means. Someone pointed it out to him in a book, and the trouble is that it will kill this country.

Tangata whenua are born of this land. We are part of the landscape and the environment, and we are here to stay. Our people have lived through many changes. Our knowledge of our past gives us confidence to face the future. We know who we are, we are secure in our identity, and we welcome the contribution that all people bring to this nation.

Sometimes, however, our people despair. We despair of political leadership that expects to reap rewards from sowing seeds of division, spreading lies and deceit, and cultivating fear and envy. We despair of those who deny the past and denigrate the high ideals of our ancestors—tangata whenua and Pākehā—who signed the Treaty of Waitangi.

The treaty laid the foundation for a modern, developed nation in which all cultures and peoples can contribute to their full potential towards shared goals—and we stand by that. The treaty enabled settlers to migrate and establish kāwanatanga—governance over themselves. In return, our rangatiratanga—power and authority over our people, lands, forests, and fisheries—was recognised, respected, and protected. The treaty did not say that the culture and heritage of tangata whenua should be extinguished—in fact, quite the opposite. It guaranteed the Crown’s protection of our distinctive way of life, as tangata whenua.

The settlers needed the treaty more than we did in 1840, and for 150 years they and their descendants were the main beneficiaries. They had the privileges conferred upon them. Our resources have been stolen and plundered, yet those who should know better seek now to gain power through misleading the public by implying that our people have privileges conferred on them.

The notion of special privilege is interesting. Negative statistics show that our people are not doing so well. Surely that is a good indicator that Governments must encourage and support communities to take responsibility, to meet their obligations, to focus on their families’ potential, to heal and restore, and to build the capability that will enable them not to rely on others for their well-being. If that is Government conferring privilege, then I am proud to be part of this Government.

There are 30 pieces of legislation that refer to the Treaty of Waitangi or its principles. They aim to rebuild equity into the relationship, to provide a basis for tangata whenua to recover our position. Previous National Governments recognised that. Tangata whenua despair of those who now try to argue that one size fits all, and who say that the laws and institutions of this country should recognise only one cultural reality and one way of life. Have they not read the reports over the years that have highlighted institutional racism in a number of our Crown agencies? Survivors of apartheid know that those who claimed to be colour-blind and to deal equally with all individuals were in denial of institutional racism and personal prejudice, and that treating everyone the same maintained and perpetuated their positions of real privilege and power.

In reality, that is what the National Party in Opposition and the ACT party believe. They want to ensure that the natives know their place. These are the parties who purport to uphold the property rights of people—that is, so long as those people are not the tangata whenua. That is the sad truth. Clearly they want to retain power in the hands of non-Māori by denying our people’s right to participate in decision making that seriously affects our lives. Councils have always consulted with particular sectors of the community, and no one has ever shown concern before. Those who believe—

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member, and I apologise, but the junior Government whip made a very unparliamentary comment about my colleague, and I would like her—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I ask the member concerned to withdraw and apologise, please.

💬 Jill Pettis: I withdraw and apologise.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to point out that a particular member on the opposite side has continually been speaking the whole time while I have been trying to speak, and has been making snide comments.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I ask Sandra Goudie, please, to control her remarks.

Clearly they want to retain power in the hands of non-Māori by denying our people’s right to participate in decision making that seriously affects their lives. Councils have always consulted with particular sectors of the community, and no one has ever shown concern before. Those who believe the misinformation are allowing their own values, practices, and beliefs to be exposed.

It is dangerous talk. It is provocative. It is factually and historically wrong to imply that we have no rights in this land. It is provocative to say that ensuring our people have a voice in decision making somehow violates the guiding democratic principles of one person, one vote, one value. Whose “one value” are we talking about? Where did that “one value” come from?

It is incredible to me that an aspiring National leader cannot describe our distinct national identity. Whom does he belong to? How can a person who does not know his own culture and identity appreciate and respect the culture and identity of others? How can he join debate on the values that we want to underpin our nation if he wants that debate to begin in 2004 and take no account of our founding constitutional document? We are getting caught up in the politics of envy, driven by a desire to gain the seat of power.

Māori privilege in treatment is a myth, propped up by false statements. Holidays legislation does not give Māori unlimited tangi leave—Minister Margaret Wilson corrected the statement—but the myth is repeated as fact to reinforce prejudice. So-called special services meet special needs—for Māori, old people, rural people, and other communities. They create equality of opportunity. Services designed and delivered by Māori, for Māori, get results. They give value for money, and the whole country benefits. Māori-managed services have many non-Māori clients—people who like a family-oriented approach based on building family strength to prevent problems in the future.

It has taken this nation a long time to develop ways to give effect to our national values of respect, hospitality, tolerance, good faith, partnership, and a fair go. We have developed positive attitudes and built bicultural institutions that are the envy of the world.

This Government knows how lucky we are to have escaped the racial violence and conflict of other countries, and we must be careful. Unleashing racial division will have dire consequences. There are considerable tensions in some of our communities, arising from disadvantage and aggravated by mental illness and drug abuse. To politicise those divisions is courting disaster.

Responsible political leadership must explore how to build a rich and vibrant nation. It is the task of the Government to enable all people to participate in building a nation where all peoples retain their cultures, participate in key decision-making, and honour the founding constitutional document of this country, the Treaty of Waitangi.

I would like to begin by congratulating the Government on opening up Molesworth Station to year-round public access, and on purchasing Birchwood Station so that the rare habitats it contains can be added to the conservation estate. Helen Clark was right to say that our clean, green, and beautiful image needs more than rhetoric to sustain it.

Unfortunately, these two conservation initiatives highlight the contradiction in the Government’s whole approach to the environment. It is prepared to preserve the black stilt habitat at Birchwood because that does not threaten its economic growth agenda, but it is determined to destroy another black stilt habitat on the lower Waitaki River because it stands in the way of the Government’s idea of progress. Labour and National are very good at preserving pockets of nature, but neither is prepared to tackle fundamental issues—notably, the unsustainability of the current economic model.

The crucial difference between the Greens and the other parties in this Parliament is that we recognise the need to transform our economy so that we can live within the natural capital of our country and this planet, and we recognise the need to make the economy society’s servant, not its master. When our forebears the Values Party started in 1972, these were radical concepts. Today they are mainstream.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Morgan Williams, expresses our perspective extremely well in his latest report, “See Change: Learning and Education for Sustainability”. He says we need learning that is focused on quality of life and the opportunities to design and craft more sustainable ways of achieving it. We need to redesign many of our institutional, economic, and business systems so that we can improve that quality without ever-expanding demand and ever-intensifying pressure on the environment to assimilate our wastes.

Despite stating last year that current Government goals are unsustainable, Morgan Williams remains optimistic. He believes that we could and should be the first in the world to become a truly sustainable nation. We agree, but I would add “just” to sustainable, because too many people, even in our own country, are denied the material well-being they need to have the quality of life they deserve.

While our message often falls on deaf ears in this Parliament, more and more members of the public are responding positively to the positions we take on a wide range of issues. It is pleasing to see our rise in the opinion polls since Christmas. While other third parties are dropping, some below the threshold, we are up to between 8 and 9 percent. What is more, our rise is not built on cheap shots or divisive statements, but on thoughtful, coherent positions on issues such as the foreshore and seabed, saving the Waitaki River, waste minimisation, opposing school closures, and calling for the release of Ahmed Zaoui. Our stand on all those issues is different from the Government’s. In some cases we oppose it outright, and in others we want to take it further and faster in the right direction.

On the whole, though, we support what Labour is doing more often than not, whereas the opposite is true of National, especially after Don Brash’s speech yesterday. In fact, there are times when we are the only party supporting the Labour-Progressive coalition Government. The Climate Change Response Act, the Crown Minerals Amendment Act, the Education (Tertiary Reform) Amendment Act, the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Act, the Health and Safety in Employment Act, the accident compensation Act, the Māori Television Service Act, and the Supreme Court Act all only passed because we voted for them. Two other bills—the Holidays Bill and the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill—were also opposed by Labour’s confidence and supply partner. The same is true of two of the Government’s major legislative priorities this year—the Care of Children Bill and the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill. In all cases, we exercise wisely the influence we have by negotiating improvements to these bills.

However, our standout success in this Parliament is, undoubtedly, the transport legislation. As Jeanette Fitzsimons said in her speech, our focus is now on making sure that all the green initiatives it contains are implemented. I sense that our work has only just begun. As Morgan Williams said in his report, there will be strong resistance in some sections of society, governance, and business to any steps towards sustainability. I believe that resistance will diminish, however, as more and more people—especially in Auckland—recognise that the traffic congestion problems will not be solved by building more motorways, and instead that better public transport for people and greater utilisation of rail for freight represent the way forward.

In the same way that a strong focus on demand management and sustainable alternatives to the car culture are the Greens’ solutions to New Zealand’s transport woes, this logic can also be applied to energy, as well as trade and capital. The solution to our growing energy demands and winter power shortages is not Project Aqua or more coal-fired power stations. Meeting our energy needs lies in efficiency and conservation—equivalent to 20 percent of our current generation capacity—as well as ecologically wise alternatives such as wind, solar, and biomass.

As the former leader of the Alliance used to say: “This stuff is not rocket science.” In fact, it is good old-fashioned economics. It is worth remembering that one definition of economy is the careful management of resources. We seem to have lost sight of that basic truth in our consumer society, where better often takes second place to more, and quality loses out to quantity. It is time to turn that around, and it is time to remember that the origin of the word “economy” is simply household management.

This Government, and its predecessors, have done a shocking job of managing the house we live in. In one room we have Michael Cullen wallowing in his $6 billion Budget surplus, in another room we have 30 percent of our children growing up in poverty, and in yet another our talented young people are saddled with over $6 billion in student debt while trying to get an education that should be recognised as a public good. Meanwhile, as a whole household we imported $3.4 billion more goods last year than we sold overseas, and we paid for them by selling off a bit of the backyard, a bit more of the family silver, and the bach at the beach, as well as borrowing a bit more—in fact, $3 billion more, taking our national debt to $102 billion.

This morning Dr Cullen said that the economy continues to perform strongly. I do not see how he can say that when the trade deficit is the second largest it has ever been, export receipts are down 2 years in a row, and the current account deficit is heading towards 6 percent of GDP. He said that the solution to these problems lies in trying to boost exports even more. The Greens say why not strengthen our domestic economy by promoting import substitution, rather than increasing our dependence on the increasingly fragile and volatile global economy.

The same argument applies to New Zealand’s capital needs. Not only is it foolish for the Government to gamble superannuation funds on the roulette wheel of the overseas sharemarket, but the prudent course of action would be to provide real incentives for people to consume less and save, and therefore invest more. What we certainly should not be doing is what Dr Cullen has signalled he wants to do—that is, remove any rules on foreign takeovers of New Zealand businesses. We should be stopping all land sales to non-resident foreigners.

Cullen explicitly rejected import substitution, quipping: “Do the Greens want New Zealand to make its own cars again?”. Perhaps we should, given that we imported $3.3 billion worth of them last year. Seriously, though, what we should be doing is making more of our own buses—like the excellent electric ones built by Design Line in Ashburton—and more rail carriages, as the Hillside workshops in Dunedin do.

We certainly should be growing our own garlic instead of importing 730 tonnes of disease-ridden bulbs from China. We should be growing our own pork instead of importing it from Canada, making our own pet food instead of importing chicken-based products from China—especially as it is one of the countries most affected by bird flu. We should be making our own biscuits and ice cream instead of importing them from Australia. Unless we do, we will never be able to balance the household budget. No wonder our trade deficit with Australia is just over a billion dollars and over $1.4 billion with China.

Meanwhile, the Government’s last free-trade effort was a flop. That was the agreement with Singapore. We had a deficit there of $24 million before it started. It jumped to over $200 million in its first year, and for last year it exceeded $300 million. I have to ask whether Labour and National will learn the lesson that free trade is not the answer. Both ought to have learnt that fact after seeing the deal that John Howard has just signed up to. He dangled a juicy carrot in front of the people of Australia, but ended up buying them a lemon. Not only will that deal destroy jobs in Australia, but it will lead to its current $9 billion trade deficit blowing out even further. It is a big price to pay, just so it can be said that George Bush is your mate.

There would be an even bigger price for New Zealand to pay if Labour signs up for the free-trade deal with China. It is time the Labour Government rediscovered its moral fibre and said “no thanks” to China. There is no way we should be opening our borders to a country that abuses human rights, denies Tibet sovereignty, and exploits children. Labour knows that China will not budge on any of those issues, because it said so during the negotiations of the aborted Hong Kong free-trade agreement. If Labour really wanted to be a good neighbour to the developing countries, it would lift New Zealand’s level of overseas development assistance to 0.7 percent of gross national income, and we could feel proud of our place in the world again—as we did under the Kirk Labour Government, when New Zealand’s overseas development assistance contribution was more than twice what it is now.

E tū ana ahau ki te mihi nui ki a tātou kei roto i tēnei Whare Pāremata. Nō reira, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[I rise to extend a huge greeting to us all in this House. Greetings to all of us.]

I stand in support of the many comments made by my caucus colleagues, particularly those of my Māori colleagues, and also in support of the opening statement made by the Prime Minister. It is not often we have the opportunity to tautoko our record, and I do believe it is important to place on the public record the Government’s accountability.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge my tīpuna. I would like to bring them into my contribution; my tīpuna who made up some of the pioneers of our nation. They had a dream, a dream that led to opening the door of opportunity that encouraged peace and harmony. It was a dream that we as two peoples may live in good grace with each other, so that when one falls the other will assist and when one needs help the other will be there in support. To this day, the waiata and chants expressed on the pā continue to manifest those principles. I want to reassure my tīpuna not to be disturbed, because this Government will accelerate and progress those very same principles and will not compromise them. Nō reira e ōku tīpuna, haere atu rā, haere atu rā, haere atu rā. Haere atu rā kei runga ki te Matua i te rangi. Nō reira moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rātou. Ā, kua huri noa ki te hunga ora, ki a koe te rangatira.

[Therefore to my ancestors, go well, travel on, farewell. Go on to the Father in the sky. So to the ones who have passed on, rest there, sleep there, slumber on. I turn now to the world of the living, to you, sir.]

Māori have a place in this society. Who says we are privileged? What a lot of rot! What are these separate rights? We will always be the tangata whenua of this land, in celebration as we evolve as a nation. Over 40,000 more Māori are in work since 1999. Māori unemployment is at an all-time low.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.