Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

This debate and yesterday’s fiasco within the National Party demonstrate quite clearly the choice the country has later this year. Across the House we see the National front bench, divided, chaotic, embittered, lacking in skills, colourless, visionless, and biding its time, as Gerry Brownlee is—he is ambitious because he thinks the ability to be leader depends on size. We see Bill English, who sits there remembering what happened to him—the chance he never got—and waiting for his time to exact utu on Dr Brash. By contrast, we have on this side of the House, a Government, a caucus and a Cabinet, that is united, works together, and has a forward-looking vision for this country, a Government that has delivered to the country and will continue to deliver in the years ahead.

We look across at the National caucus, and we see a front bench that is actually smaller in size than those former front-benchers who have been sacked from their positions. Who do we have there? We have Georgina te Heuheu, David Carter, Lockwood Smith, Katherine Rich, Wayne Mapp, Lynda Scott, and Maurice Williamson—all sacked from the front bench of the National Party, and still the National Party fails, and each of those members asks: “Why me? Why not one of those other people on the front bench who are failing to perform?”. And, of course, Simon Power is there. He was dismissed from his portfolios because of incompetence, and he is still sitting on the front bench.

Yesterday was the first parliamentary day of this year, and in a totally unprecedented way, rather than front up to his caucus meeting, Don Brash cancelled it. I cannot remember that ever happening before. He cancelled it because the dissenters, the disillusioned, and the alienated are growing in numbers within the National caucus. Roger Sowry and Lynda Scott—members will remember those former rising stars of the National Party—are now quitting it altogether but will probably take the opportunity to get utu against Don Brash before they go. They are planning. They did not have “a” caucus yesterday; they had eight different caucuses, as they met in the lobbies and the rooms, and they planned their next steps. Then there are Georgina te Heuheu and Katherine Rich. They were sacked for disagreeing with their leader; apparently, a leader with a corporate management style who cannot tolerate a diversity of views. Each year that he gives a speech at Ōrewa he has to sack the spokesperson on the area he gave the speech on, because he—this man who is so ambitious to govern the country—cannot even govern his own caucus, and the country will not have a bar of it.

Brian Connell, on the back bench over there, was on the radio this morning openly criticising his leader’s incompetence. An anonymous National MP—maybe one of them will own up—stated in the media this morning that Don Brash’s handling of his caucus was stupid. Now, which member said that and does not have the courage of his or her convictions to own up to it?

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Gerry Brownlee!

Gerry Brownlee it is. Yes, we can believe that. This is a shambles of an Opposition that is not fit to govern a dog pound, let alone this country. Perhaps that is why every public opinion poll in this country shows that the New Zealand voting public has confidence in this Government, but not in the Opposition, and confidence in this country because it is doing extraordinarily well. This country has been governed by a Labour-led Government for 5 years. In those 5 years we have consistently been in the top half of the OECD in our growth figures. We have consistently beaten Australia in terms of the growth we have achieved, and over the last year—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!

The member says: “Rubbish!”. Let us look at the figures. Over the last year we have had 4.6 percent growth, the second-highest in the developed world, under the management of this Labour-led Government. Over the same period, there have been 200,000 new jobs—200,000 more New Zealanders are out in the workforce improving their living standards and contributing to this country. Unemployment plummeted to 3.8 percent, the second-lowest rate in the OECD.

It is no wonder that we have had no speeches from Don Brash or John Key on the management of the economy. What could they possibly say? Instead, we have had an attack on benefits. Let us look at the record. The number of adults in this country who are dependent on welfare has gone down by 23 percent under this Government. The number is down by 100,000 and we have achieved that in 5 years. Don Brash came up with the great idea that he would reduce that number by 100,000 but he would take 10 years over what this Government has achieved in 5 years. No one in this country will forget that relentlessly, year after year, under a National Government more people, not fewer, were joining the welfare queue. Today the welfare roll is down by 100,000. It is no wonder that when Don Brash gives a speech on welfare the Dominion Post gets 50 emails and that number trickles down to none by the second day.

Then there is the issue of crime. The crime rate in this country is down by 18 percent. That is the lowest rate in 21 years. Do members remember when Don Brash said he was going to give speeches on five major policy areas? His policy on law and order fell flat and went nowhere. Don Brash, once promoted as a man of gravitas and substance, tries to be a populist but cannot do it convincingly. His policy fell flat, and why did it fall flat? In 1999 there was a referendum on law and order. Do members remember that referendum? It was a vote of lack of confidence in what National had done for 9 years. Ninety-two percent of New Zealanders expressed their disapproval about the failure of the National Party on law and order.

We have done what the National Party can only talk about. We have toughened up laws. We have made things better for victims. We now have the Victims’ Rights Act, the Sentencing Act, the Parole Act, and the Bail Act, which are putting away more recidivist serious offenders than ever before. We have a police force that, for the first time, is resourced properly and therefore is achieving crime resolution rates that are more than 10 percent higher than what was being achieved under a National Government. That is why more offenders are in jail. The crime rate is going down. More offenders are being caught because we have a more effective police force and decent legislation to provide the protection New Zealanders need against those people who are serious offenders.

I finish on this note. Don Brash spent his holiday in Hawaii. I do not have an objection to that. He sat on the beach for 10 days. The greatest catastrophe to affect Asia occurred during that time and we had 10 days of deafening silence. There was not a word from the Leader of the Opposition about that catastrophe. But somehow he thought it good enough to come back to this country after his 10 days’ holiday, having said nothing and done nothing, to criticise the effort made by New Zealand and New Zealanders with regard to the tsunami. I tell members that I am proud of what New Zealand did over that period. I am proud of the effort of ordinary New Zealanders. I am proud of our police who are working and doing a dirty job in Thailand with disaster victim identification. I am proud of what our service personnel are doing in Indonesia. It was an appalling misjudgment on the part of the Leader of the Opposition to come back from his holiday and criticise that. Thank God he almost apologised for doing so yesterday.

Those were the calm and soothing words of the Hon Phil Goff. Well, I have a suggestion for him: “Drink less coffee before you come down to the House.” But it is no wonder Phil Goff is angry, because if he had only gone down to the Mad Butcher and bought a few more sausages, then he too could have flung them on the barbeque and been Prime Minister of this country. He could have been Prime Minister of this country, but he has missed his chance and he is an angry Minister indeed.

There was no economic vision in the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, for one very good reason: this Government does not have an economic vision. This Government would not know an economic vision if it fell over one. It has been very quick to come down to the House to claim credit for the economy—very quick, indeed—and it has been very quick to say that somehow it is responsible for the economic conditions New Zealanders enjoy today. But that is simply not the case, and I suggest that the Prime Minister look at a recent speech made by Alan Bollard, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, about the economy of New Zealand. About 4 or 5 days ago he delivered a speech, in which he outlined five reasons why the New Zealand economy has been strong in the last 4 or 5 years. Reason No. 1 was the policies of the 1980s and 1990s. They were the same policies that the Prime Minister said were the daft and nasty policies of the 1990s. That is the No. 1 reason that the Governor of the Reserve Bank thinks the New Zealand economy is strong.

Reason No. 2 was the low and competitive exchange rate and the high commodity prices. I know that Michael Cullen, who now has a war chest of money, is on to some crazy little scheme whereby he thinks he can engineer the New Zealand dollar lower, but so far even Alan Bollard has not followed that. Last time I looked, the Kiwi was 71c. So there is nothing there from this Government.

The third factor was the post-9/11 implications. Fewer New Zealanders went overseas, and I assume the Prime Minister is not taking the credit for that. The fourth reason was the incredibly strong Chinese economy and its impact on the demand for commodities and goods produced in New Zealand. Helen Clark has not had a lot to do with that. The fifth reason was the increased consumption patterns of New Zealanders—the very New Zealanders who now have a mountain of debt because they do not have any after-tax income in their pockets. They have one option under this Government: to rack up the credit card and the mortgage. This Government does not care about them as long as its balance sheet is all right. That is why the economy is strong. Not one of those conditions has anything to do with this Government or with what this Government has done.

But I want to address just one point. In her euphoria yesterday afternoon the Prime Minister forgot a simple fact. She was pretty quick to come out and say that the conditions and policies of the National Government in the 1990s were daft and nasty. Let us remember how National left the economy in 1999. We left it firing on all cylinders. The growth rate was higher than was enjoyed last year or the year before it. It was much higher than this Government has enjoyed. Certainly, we did not leave the economy in the way we inherited the Treasury benches in 1990. We did not leave it with a set of accounts that were nothing short of a lie, which said there was a surplus of $89 million when really there was a mystery deficit of billions and billions of dollars. The National Party came into Government and sorted out the fiasco and mess the Labour Government had left it. That is why we did the things we did. New Zealanders know we created that economy. They are not fooled by a Prime Minister who came down to the House with absolutely no vision for this economy at all but was quick to claim credit for something she has not done. Any fool can spend money. It takes a lot of guts, courage, and vision to create it, but this Prime Minister does not do that.

I was very interested to talk to a couple of journalists yesterday morning. My phone was running hot with journalists ringing me up about the ownership society. They wanted to know a little bit about that. I was interested in having that discussion with them, and I asked one or two of them why they had rung me about the ownership society. They told me that on Sunday afternoon the Prime Minister had done a ring-around to journalists to give them a bit of the flavour of what would be in her speech on Tuesday. They were the same journalists who ran stories on the front page of their newspapers across the country about a universal benefit that would be introduced and announced in her speech. Where was the universal benefit yesterday? It was not in the speech. These same journalists were led by the Prime Minister to believe that this Government would come up with a credible solution to the ownership society—not a few words of puffery and words to try to make the feel-good factor, but real solutions. She came down to this House with not one real solution, at all. She was happy to tell journalists on Sunday afternoon about something but not so happy to front up to the people of New Zealand with some credible solutions. The same Prime Minister said to New Zealanders: “Tax cuts might be on the agenda. Watch out in my speech.”, but there was a deafening silence when it came to tax cuts. I notice that when Dr Brash asked her a question this afternoon, she pretty much ruled out tax cuts. She was not happy to talk about them in her speech, so it was a typical and complete spin job.

This Government may not have an economic vision, but New Zealanders want some very serious questions answered. The first question is: why, after 5 years of economic growth, are their incomes totally stagnant? If the economic conditions are strong, why do New Zealanders not have an extra dollar of real income? Well, there is a very simple answer to that: this Government wants to hog the lion’s share of all the benefit of their hard work. This Government is very happy to come in and take $34 billion worth of additional taxes in 5 years. It is very happy to get six out of every seven dollars of economic growth and pocket them for itself, leaving New Zealanders racking up their credit cards and drowning in a mountain of debt. That is what happening to New Zealand families at the moment. They are drowning under credit card bills and mortgage payments.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: It’s all from Christmas.

It is all very well for the Government to be doing OK, but families in New Zealand are certainly not. This Government has overseen an increase in the State sector, which means there are now over 300,000 State sector employees. It is very similar to the number on the benefit. One in five working New Zealanders now work for the Government. That has been the build-up in the State sector, and that is where New Zealanders’ taxpayer dollars are going. They are not going to the police, nurses, or teachers; they are going—as Bill English said quite correctly in the House today—to bureaucrats in suits and to all sorts of PC nonsense. It is the kind of PC nonsense that is so rotten to the core that the Prime Minister sacked Steve Maharey to take him out of the fiasco he created in the tertiary education sector. That is the truth of it. She sacked Steve Maharey.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Worse than useless.

It is absolutely worse than useless. New Zealanders have a lot of other questions they want answered. Why do they not get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work? When the Government rolled out the Working for Families package, why did welfare beneficiaries, by and large, receive an income supplement from day one? Why do working families have to wait until 2006 to receive the in-work payment? Where does that policy create the right incentives for New Zealanders to get up and work the extra hours, to take overtime, and to have more New Zealanders in the workforce and to retrain? Where are the incentives in that kind of society? Last week we saw a grant going to Hubbard Foods as part of a $40 million giveaway programme this Government has, when the company itself told the media that it would have done it anyway. But the Government gave the company the money—it was on offer, so why not take it? Why not go down to the trough, if that is where the money is?

So as members speak in this Parliament this afternoon, hard-working New Zealanders are out there having to work longer and harder, and they have higher debts and credit card bills so that Jim Anderton can have a photo shoot. I do not think that is fair, and I do not think the people of New Zealand are very happy about it.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: And is the cereal any better?

The cereal is no better. The best doozy of all came in the Prime Minister’s statement when she came out with this line: “Since 2001 our saving rate has exceeded that of Australia.” Well, she is right, actually. The public sector savings rate, which is all the additional taxes the Government takes from us, has gone up, but private sector debt has gone through the roof—130 percent of average household income is what New Zealanders owe, up from 90 percent in the last 10 years. They are drowning in debt, and this Government will not give them an extra dollar to pay those credit card bills. No wonder they are worried!

There was not one mention of putting New Zealand back in the top half of the OECD. Michael Cullen comes down now and talks about social indicators, but that will not put shoes on little Johnny’s feet. It was a disgraceful economic speech.

The battle lines are drawn and the election campaign is clearly under way. Without doubt, Winston Peters stole the show in yesterday’s opening salvo. Let us face it: he is a modern-day court jester. But would we want him to be our king, let alone our king-maker? As always, his stand-up routine contains grains of truth, but he was so carried away with his performance that he forgot to deliver his serious lines—the no-confidence motion he was meant to move against Labour. On the other hand, he blasted National to the point of promising to supplant it at the election. So we are still none the wiser as to which side he is on. That remains a secret known only to Winston Peters.

However, there is no doubt where ACT stands or falls. Rodney Hide pledged allegiance to National, but it sounded hollow, because, as Jeanette Fitzsimons pointed out in her state of the planet speech, ACT is an endangered species—but not one we are willing to save. It is not surprising that the ACT MPs gave Don Brash’s speech a standing ovation. After all, they did once claim him as their 10th MP and his policies are so backward and punitive that even some members of his own caucus do not support them. That is why National has about as much chance, I say to Mr Key, of becoming the next Government as ACT has of being re-elected.

Don Brash’s performance this week confirmed that he does not have what it takes to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. Sacking Nick Smith as his deputy was inept, getting rid of Georgina te Heuheu was intolerant, and demoting Katherine Rich was just plain nasty—as are his welfare policies. Under Dr Brash’s autocratic leadership, National’s depleted front bench now consists of a leader, a deputy leader, a deposed leader, a sacked deputy leader, a man who declined to be deputy leader, and a man who wants to be National’s next leader—yes, that is Mr Key. There is not a woman in sight, and no unity either. We know a party is in meltdown when its MPs drop their public facade. By calling Don Brash’s decisions “stupid”, Brian Connell is clearly looking forward to National’s next leadership spill. Those members may not even wait until after the election. Certainly, National cannot afford for Dr Brash to make any more keynote speeches if each one costs the party a spokesperson. Those members must be painfully aware that a leader who causes so much division in his own party has no chance of uniting the public behind him.

Helen Clark was right to say that if New Zealanders vote for National, they run the risk of lurching back to the division, unfairness, and sheer nastiness of the 1990s. But she is wrong to claim that the only alternative is the status quo. New Zealanders deserve better than that. In any case, having only two choices is first-past-the-post thinking. The reality with MMP is that no one party is likely to win a majority of votes. There are good reasons for that. Voters have had enough of single-party Governments running amok. Labour’s past record is no better than National’s in that regard, which is why discerning voters will re-elect the Greens, and in greater numbers, to keep Labour honest. The Prime Minister’s speech was not honest. I know that that is a harsh judgment call, but the fact is that she did not tell the truth about the state of the economy, let alone the state of the environment. Yes, her speech pushed lots of the right buttons—prosperity, great quality of life, lifting overall well-being, and sustainable future, but the best of all was that Labour is now the champion of the ownership society, brilliantly outflanking National, which used to stand for the property-owning democracy.

But Labour wants to be popular rather than to tell the truth. I believe we can do both. Jeanette Fitzsimons’ state of the planet speech confirms that. She put the hard issues of climate change, oil depletion, environmental destruction, and the unsustainability of the current economic model firmly on the agenda, and, despite our sober message, we have had a significant lift in the two opinion polls since.

The Prime Minister’s speech provided no answers to the sober questions asked by Colin James in his recent column: “We love debt to bits but the party can’t go on forever”. While Dr Cullen is sitting on overflowing coffers and the Government’s fiscal position is the best it has been in decades, New Zealand as a whole, and individuals within it, are becoming increasingly indebted. Household debt has tripled to around 130 percent of income in the past 15 years, making us one of the most indebted nations in the developed world. It is bad enough that we have been spending our borrowings on a consumption binge; what is worse is that we are financing it by borrowing against inflated house prices. If that bubble does not burst soon, it certainly will deflate—which, of course, is the last thing Dr Cullen wants, because the apparent buoyant economy contributes to our sense of well-being, hence there being no reality check in the Prime Minister’s speech. She did talk a lot about encouraging savings, and that is a good thing. But working and beneficiary families do not need to be told to develop a savings habit. What they need are wage and benefit rises. Despite the minimum wage going up to $9.50 an hour, it is still not enough to live on. Family support helps if one has children, but why should taxpayers be subsidising employers who do not pay their workers enough to bring up their families in decency?

Helen Clark also talked about the importance of asset ownership to enable people to fully participate in society. Everything she said about people owning their own homes was true, but she refused to acknowledge that a major reason that homeownership levels are dropping is the $7 billion student debt burden on our young people. Setting up a tertiary education savings scheme is a sick joke when full-time students should receive the so-called universal benefit that the Government is promising so that they do not need to borrow to buy their groceries.

The Prime Minister’s speech studiously avoided New Zealand’s massive current account deficit and the record $4 billion trade deficit that is contributing to it. Instead, she preached free trade. The truth is that free trade is taking our economy and society backwards. The more we open up our borders to imports, the worse our trade deficit gets. Meanwhile, despite excellent world prices for commodities, the value of New Zealand’s exports is actually less than it was 3 years ago. Free trade, like genetic engineering, simply has not delivered on its promises, yet the Government remains shackled to the globalisation agenda. Three years ago, Jim Anderton and Jim Sutton predicted that New Zealand’s exports to Singapore would grow as a result of that free-trade agreement. They were proved wrong. Yesterday Helen Clark predicted that the new free-trade agreement with Thailand will improve our access to that growing market. I believe that our $260 million trade deficit with Thailand will actually increase as a result of throwing open our borders to cheap imports. I also predict that there will be job losses in the manufacturing sector, because Kiwis cannot and should not have to compete with skilled Thai workers who are being paid less than their cost of living.

But the real dark cloud on the horizon is the free-trade agreement that the Government is currently negotiating with China. Unions and manufacturers are now speaking with one voice when they say that up to 300,000 jobs could be affected if that deal proceeds. How will those workers feel about their quality of life, well-being, and participation in the ownership society when their jobs are sacrificed?

I urge Government members to pause for a cup of tea on free trade. They should take the time to read the thoughtful critique by Nobel Prize - winning economist Paul Samuelson, who said that he is having second thoughts about free trade and concedes that it is not the unqualified blessing it is cracked up to be, let alone a win-win solution. While the Government is pausing, it should put its Overseas Investment Bill on the backburner and do a proper cost-benefit analysis of its plans to make foreign ownership of our country and our economy even easier. Foreign investment costs New Zealand $8.2 billion in dividends and interest for the year to September. Why make it worse?

What the Government should be taking swift action on is the real, immediate challenges raised in the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s latest report, Growing for Good: Intensive farming, sustainability and New Zealand’s environment, which tackles head-on the unsustainability of intensive farming practices in New Zealand. Why did the Prime Minister’s bold agenda not include the Government’s strategy for addressing the serious issues raised in that report? The report states the obvious: that we are highly dependent on our natural capital—our water, soils, and biodiversity—for sustaining a very high proportion of our wealth-generating capabilities, whether it be the production of food, fibre, wine, or film, or delivering great visitor experiences to overseas tourists. It acknowledges that changes are already under way to address the environmental impacts of farming, but concludes that there is little evidence that existing efforts will be sufficiently or widespread to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s natural capital. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has issued a challenge that we cannot afford to ignore. Farming systems need to be developed that deliver environmental sustainability and economic wealth, not short-term economic wealth at the expense of environmental sustainability. The Government must ensure that its policies, regulations, and other drivers are redesigned to achieve the right, rather than the wrong, outcomes.

The Greens are ready to work with Labour on all those challenges in order to steer it in the right direction, to apply the brake when it looks like it is slipping backwards, and to take bold steps to protect our environment and become a fairer society.

This Government is committed to improving the health of New Zealanders. We are prepared to put our money where our mouth is. At present, $10 billion per year is going into health. One dollar in five taken in tax is now paid into the health budget. We are prepared to commit our energy and resources into rebuilding a health system that is available to all New Zealanders when they need it, regardless of their ability to pay.

Yesterday the Prime Minister outlined our priorities and objectives in health, but yesterday we also saw the stark contrast between this Government and the National Opposition. It could not have been clearer. The differentiation that Dr Brash likes to talk about stands out in health like a beacon. Yesterday yet another National health spokesperson bit the dust. Yet another one left the portfolio. Five health spokespeople in 5 years—that is the record of the National Opposition. I think it is probably a world record in terms of the turnover of health spokespeople in any country.

When I became the Minister of Health, Wyatt Creech was the National spokesperson. Wyatt Creech is a very good man. He understood the portfolio—he had been the Minister. He was then followed by Roger Sowry, who hated the portfolio, thought it was a poisoned chalice, and could not get rid of it fast enough. Then we had Dr Lynda Scott, a person who had worked in the health sector and who worked very hard on her portfolio. But she was pushed out of it by Dr Don Brash and it was given to Judith Collins, who held it for about 7 or 8 months.

Now we have Paul Hutchison. There have been five health spokespeople in 5 years. Paul Hutchison got the job only because Dr Brash had sacked the most capable front-bench person he had, so he had to put Judith Collins into the social welfare portfolio and promote Dr Hutchison to the health portfolio. He was not National’s first, second, or third choice. At the end of the day, he was its fourth choice. He got the job by a process of elimination. That tells us that the National Party is continuing to disregard the health portfolio, as it always has. This was the party that when in Government had five health Ministers in 9 years. That was a record, as well. The speed of turnover of health spokespeople has accelerated since National became the Opposition. Five spokespeople in 5 years—what a record!

I have to tell you, Mr Speaker, that National’s health portfolio started off on the front bench. It was a key portfolio on the front bench of the National Opposition, but over the last 5 years it has been slowly relegated back a row until, finally, it has ended up on the back bench. In fact, Paul Hutchison is seated so close to the door that he is in danger of falling out of Parliament altogether. That is what the National Party thinks about the importance of the health portfolio.

It is no wonder that the health sector is totally bemused by the National Party’s antics. People in the sector tell me they know that the National Party is not serious about health. Yesterday Dr Brash said that the seating on the front bench reflected the party’s strategic priority. Well, there is no strategic priority for health from the National Opposition. Health is seated in the third row. It is almost out the door. I predict that next it will fall out the door.

In fact, there is no strategic place for women on National’s front row. It is a women-free zone. There is no place for them, at all. Dr Brash said he thought it was PC to worry about gender issues when it came to seating women on National’s front bench. He should tell that to 51 percent of the population of New Zealand. He should tell them he thinks it is PC that women should sit on the front bench of the National Opposition.

💬 Darren Hughes: Oops!

“Oops!” is absolutely right. There are many capable women, even in the National Party. I would have thought there would be a place for one of them on the front bench, but it is a women-free zone.

All I can say to Simon Power is that he should look out, because the whisper around the corridors is that he will have to give up his seat so that in a few weeks’ time a woman can come on to National’s front row. The reason is that National cannot be seen to go into an election treating women and health with such disregard. So, Simon Power, who occupies a seat that he ought not to have because he is a whip, is about to be moved back to his rightful seat. That is yet another sacking in the National Party—a party that has had more sacked members than its members have had hot dinners.

National members do not have a health policy. They do not have a clue about what to do in health. They have a series of slogans that make up their policy. “Too much money in health,” they say, “and not enough productivity.” Well, I say to National members that they should go out and campaign on that among the doctors and nurses of New Zealand, and tell them that they can do more than they are already doing, that they can crank up their productivity, that they are getting too much money, and that the National Party thinks they can perform more operations than they do now. They should tell that to doctors and nurses and then let them say what they think of National’s approach to health.

A considerable amount of funding has gone into wages in the health sector. That is true. In fact, doctors have had a 50 percent—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: How much on the bureaucracy?

I will tell Dr Smith this; Dr Smith is one of the doctors who make one sick, not well. I tell him that over the last 3 years, according to Dr Wayne Crombie, doctors have had a 50 percent pay increase. Why have they had to have a pay increase? The reason is that we were not holding enough doctors in New Zealand to enable us to provide health services. One of the big problems of the 1990s was the screwing-down of wages, particularly for our nurses. I am pleased to say that in the very near future our nurses will receive a big pay increase. We need to pay our health workforce more. That does mean that more money will go into health; it does not mean that any more can be squeezed out of the working day of health workers. They certainly deserve to receive the pay that keeps them here working for New Zealanders to provide the health system we need.

So National members say: “Too much money in health; not enough productivity.”, and I ask: “What are they going to cut?” Then they move to their next slogan that makes up their policy in health: “Too much bureaucracy.” Well, let me tell the National Party that when we became the Government there were 23 health boards in New Zealand. There are now 21. There are now more doctors and nurses in the health system than there were, and the ratio between bureaucrats and clinical staff is less than it was.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: More bureaucrats. They’ve gone up.

I will table the figures for the member. I will give him the figures. When his mate Bill English was the Minister of Health the percentage of bureaucrats was higher than it is today.

Now we will look at the figures those members like to quote about operations. They say there are not enough operations and that the number of operations is falling. Let us quote the official figures, not the bodgie rhetoric from the National Opposition. We find that in the 1998-99 financial year, 247,000 surgical operations were carried out. In 2003-04, there were 272,881 operations. Members should try to turn that into a reduction in the number of procedures carried out. That is the sort of rhetoric we get from the National Party—rhetoric that is supposed to make up for policy.

This Government has clearly set out its priorities in health, and for us health is a priority. We have had a policy in place for 5 years, implementing the primary health strategy and increasing the number of orthopaedic operations. We are about to announce our policy in the next few months on cataracts for New Zealanders. There will be more operations for cataracts, particularly for our older people. More money will be going into mental health. More money will be going into the health system to improve it gradually and slowly so we can ensure the provision of health services for New Zealand.

We stand on our record in health. We are not a party that runs around with a whole series of slogans and misery to try to squeeze a few votes. This is a party committed to health when compared with that party—the party that puts its health spokesperson out the door.

That was the “Minister for Health Bureaucracy”. That Minister, for all she says about health care, needs to be reminded that in the time she has been the Minister of Health the number of New Zealanders on sickness and invalids benefits has grown by 32,000. There are 32,000 more beneficiaries—an extra 1,000 in my community of Nelson alone—and that shows something of the failed Government record on health. If the best this Government can do is to produce the tired, boring agenda that was outlined yesterday, then it is time for Labour to call it quits. It is a do-nothing Government. It stands for nothing, and it is taking New Zealand absolutely nowhere.

If we put aside all the flowery rhetoric of Helen Clark’s speech, we see that the Government’s programme is truly pathetic. At the end of the speech we were told of the legislation that this Government intends to pass to make the bold, new nation the Labour Party favours. The legislation includes the Architects Amendment Bill, the Charities Bill, the Securities Legislation Bill, and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. For all the challenges that this nation in 2005 has, that is the work programme for this Parliament!

This will be the fifth general election since I have been in Parliament, and the Government’s programme is the most pathetic I have seen in that period. The only elements that have any substance at all are the Resource Management Amendment Bill, the Overseas Investment Bill, and the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill. But everybody knows that the only reason for those bills is the heat coming from the Opposition on those issues. My message to the voter is that if the policy agenda of any issues of substance is to be written by the Opposition, then cut out the middle man and put National in so the job can be done properly.

The only other bill that was left on the Government’s programme is the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, which is about making de facto, gay, and married relationships all the same. As if that is going to take New Zealand anywhere! This is just another part of this Government’s anti-family agenda.

The part of Helen Clark’s speech that had me choking at the throat was her rhetoric about Labour creating an ownership society. Coming from the community of Nelson, where house prices have doubled, I want to ask the House today about the issues of income, interest rates, and housing costs. In all three of those areas, for the average New Zealand family Labour has made the dream of getting their own home only harder. Let us take the issue of income. It has been well exposed by Dr Don Brash and John Key that despite the economic growth of the last 5 years, real per household income has been static. It is true that we have had buoyant times. The income of the average New Zealand household has gone up in real terms by $4,000 a year, but taxes have gone up by $3,700 a year.

In other words, this Government has taken all the economic dividend. It is absolutely no wonder that the average New Zealand family is struggling.

Then if we look at rates, they have gone up under this Government’s local government policy by 33 percent since it has been in office, and families have to struggle with those bills. Let us look at the area of education. Average school fees have gone up by over 30 percent since this Government has been in office, and, again, that is why families are feeling squeezed.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Those terrible private schools, putting fees up.

That Minister and that Government are totally out of touch with the real struggle that the ordinary New Zealand family is facing with the increased costs and taxes imposed on them by this Government.

Then we come to the issue of housing costs. Government members somehow believe from the Prime Minister’s speech that they can be the ownership party. On 1 March, new building laws come into effect. They will double the cost for the average New Zealand family to get a building permit from the local council. How will that help the average family who wants to put another room on the house, or those who are building the new houses that our nation needs?

Then there is the Government’s mad policy in respect of the Resource Management Act and the impact that that is having on pushing housing prices well out of the reach of ordinary families. There is also the Government’s record on interest rates. Interest rates have gone up by 25 percent from the time this Government took office, and that has a very real bearing on the cost that families have in trying to aspire to own their own home. The idea that this Labour Party can in any way claim a stake to homeownership has to be one of the biggest jokes I have heard in this Parliament in a very, very long time.

Then there is the real crunch issue. I want to challenge the Prime Minister. She says that the figures produced by our Parliamentary Library are rubbish. Let me put those figures on the record so that New Zealanders know just how much the gap has opened up between New Zealand and Australia over the last 5 years. Back in 1999, when this Government took office, there was a gap of $111 a week in the net weekly earnings of New Zealand households compared with Australian households, yet now, just 5 years later, that gap has opened up to $169. It is no wonder that some of our best and brightest citizens are crossing the Tasman, when this Government’s policies drive the net income gap so much wider between New Zealand and Australia.

I will summarise the figures in this way because it really is the verdict of failure on this Government: over the last 5 years net weekly family wages in Australia have gone up by $75 a week; in New Zealand they have gone up by $16 a week over 5 years. Is that as much as this Government thinks is acceptable? My goodness, if they are the good times, God save New Zealand if we get into the bad times!

I want to contrast the Prime Minister’s speech—the speech that stated that the minor amendments to the Architects Act and a few other bills will somehow drive the next stage of growth for the New Zealand economy—with the sort of speech we heard from Don Brash. It was a speech that outlined that by giving New Zealanders back their hard-earned earnings the country will be far better off, and that rather than having the nation indulge more and more in welfare, we want to promote independence and self-reliance.

It is an awful indictment on this Government that its own Budget says that there will be 18,000 more beneficiaries in 3 years’ time. That is the Budget that Trevor Mallard signed off last year. He thinks it is OK that over the next 3 years there will be another 18,000 beneficiaries. National members say that that is not good enough, we need to get those benefit numbers down, and Don Brash has set out a very detailed programme on how to do that.

In relation to law and order, New Zealanders have had a gutsful of this Government’s soft policies. National has been absolutely specific on the bail changes, the parole changes, the prison changes, and the victims’ rights changes that we will advance to get on top of that very real New Zealand concern about law and order.

Then there is education. In no area has this Government failed so badly as in the area of education. The implementation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement has been a disaster. Employers and parents want to know what in the heck is going on. Why is it that we have a politically correct Government that says we are no longer allowed to use the word “fail”? Why did Trevor Mallard, back in 2001, make a decision that the Qualifications Authority would not record when people did not achieve, such is the PC nonsense of this Government?

New Zealanders have had enough of this tired Government. They want a Government that is committed to raising the stakes of living, and raising education standards so that they might prosper and not be held back by the pathetic people who make up this Government.

I think the former Minister indicated to the House that the challenge I have as Minister of Education, now taking full responsibility for tertiary education, is a challenge that has been there for some time, and that while some might criticise tertiary education standards as having slipped recently, it is clear that they slipped some time ago.

For the people who are not aware, that was Dr Nick Smith, the member for Nelson. It is fair to say that a couple of years ago I would not have thought I would be saying “Go!” to the former president of the Post Primary Teachers Association. I think she will beat him. She is a very reasonable person, especially when one compares her with Nick Smith. She showed that she could be the president of a major union for 2 years, whereas that member showed that he could be the deputy leader of a minor party for 3 days. That is the comparison, and those—

💬 Darren Hughes: But he took 2 weeks’ pay, though.

Did he? I thought he hit John Carter the day after he became deputy. I cannot remember the exact sequence, but it was clear that he took off after about 3 days, or was it 2 days later? I will get it right. The member can correct me later on as to which day it was.

I have been around this place for a little over 20 years, and although I am a relatively young person, every now and again one feels inclined to share one’s advice with people from the Opposition. I truly believe that it is important for a Government to have a strong Opposition, one that works well together, one that tests the Government, and one that improves the policy. Frankly, the Opposition—the National Opposition in particular—has been a bit wanting in that area and I want this Government to stay sharp.

I think there is beginning to be what might be described as a leadership crisis within the National Party, and that is particularly sad. I have been working it out, but can I just say that I will send the comment from Nick Smith’s speech, when he called me PC, to my Labour electorate committee. It is one of those things that if I could have on the record pretty often would not do any harm!

One or two of my colleagues gave me a bit of a hard time earlier when I indicated that if Dr Mapp had been a sheila he would be out by now for disagreeing with the leader of the National Party but that, because he is not a sheila, he was pretty safe. We know that Dr Brash is very good at being assertive with women when there is an argument—or maybe he is not good at being assertive; he is good at being authoritarian and sacking them when there is a problem. He cannot handle dissent from a woman, especially a woman who is young enough to be his granddaughter.

It must be a problem when someone who pretends to the leadership of the country cannot have a rational discussion with a young woman and seems to think that because a woman is young and possibly slightly more televisual than he is—and is certainly not using a comb-over—she cannot have brains. That seems to be the point Dr Brash has reached. Either he thinks she cannot have brains or he thinks he cannot have a good discussion with her and work through an issue with her.

Frankly, I think it is very sad for the country that people within a party like the National Party cannot get together in a room, maybe with a referee, someone reasonable, understanding, and neutral—there are probably quite a few within that group—to arbitrate or mediate. A number of them could do that job. On occasions in the past when we in our party have had some intense discussions, the deputy leader has been good at helping us work through issues and come to a conclusion. There should be someone in the National Party who can sit in the same room as Dr Brash and his women MPs, either individually or collectively, so that they can discuss the issues and work through them to a conclusion, rather than having the arrangement whereby they tell Dr Brash that they are going to resign if he says a particular thing, and he goes ahead and says it anyway and then expresses surprise when they do what they have said they were going to do.

💬 Darren Hughes: Isn’t that Murray McCully’s job?

No, I understand that Murray McCully is a special assistant to the Leader of the Opposition on parliamentary matters, or something like that. I think it is fair to say that Mr McCully is probably not the best liaison person as far as women and Don Brash are concerned. I do not think that would be an appropriate role for Mr McCully.

There is one other thing. Members will remember that in about August last year I raised in this House the possibility of an intense caucus debate on the welfare issue—a Mexican stand-off between Dr Brash and Katherine Rich—and it was denied absolutely. A lot of denials and cover-ups came from them. I will now share something else with the House. I will hear it denied.

💬 Darren Hughes: Take them into your confidence.

I will share it with a few close colleagues who are here to listen to me, and with anyone else who happens to be out there in radioland. I want Dr Brash to deny that he has made migration inquiries. I want him to deny that he is looking—or someone is looking on his behalf—to shift to the United States. Is that true? Has he made that sort of inquiry? Has someone made that sort of inquiry on his behalf? Has he already decided that he will lose and that, when he does lose, he will be so embarrassed that he will leave the country? Early next year, when Dr Brash—

💬 Deborah Coddington: Who with?

I will not say whom he is shifting with. That would be inappropriate. That would be bringing other people into the debate, and I do not do that, despite the invitation of the member to do so. I do want to say that I want Dr Brash, who has already promised to resign by Christmas if he loses—or when he loses, I suppose; that is the way we look at it—to say that he will stay in the country afterwards and contribute to New Zealand, as we contribute to the superannuation he gets.

I would like to make a few brief comments on student loans. I want to thank the 62 percent of students who, when surveyed, said that they thought the Government’s policies were fair, compared with 15 percent in 1994. I want to say to people who have been students that I think they are great in the way they are reducing their loan balances. I want especially to congratulate the people with big loans who, the evidence now shows, are paying off more of their loans, not only in proportion but also absolutely. I congratulate them. They are making some real progress, and I think that is good. They are getting on top of the debt. Those with the biggest loans are getting on top of their debt the most quickly, and I think that that is very important.

Average student loan balances are not growing nearly as fast as they were. When one includes those people who are paying the loans off, they are dropping. Some of the gender differences are reducing as well. I think that is good. There are some things that we have to do. It is clear, for example, that when Māori finish their degrees they pay their loans off as quickly as Pākehā, because they get good jobs. But too many Māori students get—I will not use the full words of the Minister of Māori Affairs—nonsense “tohu”, certificates that do not have much value, which leave students in debt but without the income needed to pay their loans. The Prime Minister has said we will be working on that, and that is my job.

It is my privilege to speak on behalf of New Zealand First today. In doing so, I want to start by taking the attention of the House back to the 2002 election. In the 2002 campaign, New Zealand First told the public that if we were elected to govern we would concentrate on fixing three specific things in 3 years. Those were the treaty gravy train, the out-of-control immigration policies of this Government and of former National Governments, and the lawlessness that continues to plague our streets and—sadly, regretfully—the homes of many New Zealanders. When it became very clear after the votes were counted that New Zealand First would not be part of the Government—and that was largely due to the unseemly, undignified speed with which Mr Peter Dunne formed a civil union with Helen Clark and dragged his colleagues, who were very inexperienced and, in our view, immature as MPs, into a coalition agreement—we pledged to New Zealand that we would fight on those three issues to fix the problems. I had the privilege of being appointed as the spokesman on law and order for New Zealand First, focusing specifically on police and corrections.

After listening to the debates and the boasting and bragging of this Government—and, indeed, of some of the other parties that sit in Opposition—I must say that we need to put the record straight on a couple of things. Despite the purported successes of the Government in law and order matters, it has had some distinct and abject failures. The party that has been the first to bring those failures to the notice of the public is New Zealand First.

I will give the House a couple of instances. Which party was the first to point out that the Hon Phil Goff’s much-lauded Sentencing Act and Parole Act had holes in their deferred sentencing clauses? It was New Zealand First. And how did those holes become apparent? They became apparent when it seemed obvious to everybody else that when the Government decided it was appropriate for judges to give convicts leave to apply for home detention, it also decided the judges could also defer the jail sentence that had been ordered.

What happened? A person who was given a jail sentence was given leave to apply for home detention. He received a deferred sentence and went home. When the police carried on their investigations, they found that the character had not only committed the crime for which he was charged, but was also the prime suspect in three aggravated robberies. They went to his house to pick him up. What did they find? Surprise, surprise! He was not there. He had absconded and was on the run. New Zealand taxpayers could not believe it when they saw tens of thousands of dollars being wasted as the police tried to track down that person.

There was another case in Christchurch where a woman who had been convicted of embezzling funds was given a jail sentence and a deferred sentence with leave to apply for home detention. Within a week, local people and the man whose business she had embezzled from found her at the pokie machines carrying on her gambling ways, which was the very habit that got her into trouble in the first place.

This Government is to blame. Deferred sentencing is a mess. I will give the Government credit for turning round and acknowledging that New Zealand First was right to say there was a problem. The Government said it would fix it, but has it fixed it? No, it has not.

I come back to the issue of home detention. A lot of people now want to be in the limelight as they point out the flaws and problems with home detention. To be honest, New Zealand First was one party that voted—reluctantly—for home detention. But we did not vote for it to be conducted, run, and operated in the manner in which it has been. We raised those questions with the Government. We did our homework and put the written questions in. When we asked whether it was appropriate that rapists, thugs, and murderers be on home detention, Mr Rick Barker, as an Associate Minister, stood up and told this House that there were no violent offenders on home detention.

R Doug Woolerton: He wouldn’t know.

He did not know anything. He was forced to retract very shortly thereafter, when New Zealand First tabled its evidence to show that there were not only murderers, rapists, thugs, and wife-beaters on home detention, but also child beaters. What has happened subsequently? Nothing! There are still people out there getting supposedly back-end home detention from this Government who should not be on home detention. When New Zealand First raised the possibility that a person on home detention had not only manufactured P but also had died of an overdose, the Government’s first response was that we were making it up and that it was rubbish.

R Doug Woolerton: They denied it.

Was it true? Yes, it was true. All we know is that since then we have seen another person go on the run for months on end.

Just recently a woman was transferred from the Wellington district to Christchurch on an aircraft while wearing no anklet and with no supervision, and the department authorised her co-offending, drug-dealing partner as the person who could pick her up at the airport and take her home. The department said that some time later it would have a man pop around and put her anklet back on. Was that the sort of thing the public expected of this Government with home detention? No, it was not.

Which is the most effective party? [Interruption] Mr Mallard can lament the need for a strident, firm, and active Opposition. The real opponent is here—it is New Zealand First. We are the Opposition today. We are the party that stands for law and order, and the party with credibility on law and order issues.

Which was the first party to come out and say that quota ticketing was nonsense? It was New Zealand First. It took some other parties a little time before they worked out that the public did not like quota ticketing. The concerns we have with this issue, more than anything, is that the public is losing interest in, confidence in, and respect for the men and women in blue. The highway patrol, strategic traffic unit, and the plethora of other highway-focused units have all the resources, while the police who do general duties, attend incidents, and face wife-beaters and knife wielders get nothing.

I say in evidence of that statement that I went out with a team policing unit in Christchurch before Christmas. I got into a car with the sergeant in control and the very first thing I noticed was that the old bomb the team policing unit gets around in was so clapped out and such a dunger, the front seat had snapped. When one put one’s hand on the back of the seat to pull oneself forward from the rear seat, the whole seat came back and folded double on to the floor. That is ridiculous. Yet if one goes into the same vehicle park and checks out the highway patrol and strategic traffic unit’s cars, they have all the toys.

If a policeman needs body armour, the best place to get it is from the boot of a highway patrol car. If a policeman needs a decent car, he goes to the highway patrol cars. Time and time again the boys and women in blue, who are trying to do the real law enforcement, are left as the poor cousins. That comes from a Minister of Police who, when he was in Opposition, bemoaned the fact that police had to use Twink to mark out scratches on their cars. I tell Mr Hawkins that they need more than Twink today; they need a competent Minister, who is prepared and able to fight for the resources they need.

Before I finish, I will get to my last point about the Department of Corrections. New Zealand First was the party that brought this next issue home. In a report from the State Services Commissioner is the story of the most sordid and disgusting tale of prisoner abuse, staff abuse, and a department out of control that I can recall in the history of this nation. We want to see from this Government some of the accountability the Prime Minister is so big on talking about. Someone needs to be fired. We could not do better than to start with Mr McCarthy and Mr Byers, and we should also look at the inspector of prisons. The report tells an absolutely diabolical story. If people want to worry about why prisoners are seeking to be paid compensation, they should not look at the inmates. They should look at the managers of those prisons who turn a blind eye to the sorts of abuses that go on. New Zealand First is a tough party on law and order, but we want law and order from all New Zealanders and—specifically and more important—from those who are responsible for enforcing the law and for managing people incarcerated as a result of their convictions.

With situations like this, we cannot have the public building any form of confidence. Indeed, there are good staff in the Department of Corrections. There are honest ones like the members of the emergency response unit who came forward and said that this was wrong, such as Maureen Love, Mr Kinney, and Mr Dyer, who are no longer with the department. Those people deserve justice, and New Zealand First expects this Government to deliver it.

Two thousand and five is the time to further the work of this Government from dealing with disparities to realising the full potential of Māori and building upon past successes, of which there are many. As Minister of Māori Affairs, along with my colleagues in the Māori caucus I am leading an approach of Māori succeeding as Māori. All the energies of the wider portfolio responsibilities will be directed towards providing an environment of opportunity and choice that supports and encourages moving Māori from dependency to development. Our work programme going forward in 2005 will consistently focus on unlocking, supporting, and realising Māori potential. The Māori caucus and my other colleagues have supported me in taking the Māori affairs portfolio to the next level: one that is based on realising Māori potential. That approach complements the tried and tested pragmatic approaches of those who work with our people kanohi ki te kanohi—face to face—day after day. My associate responsibilities for State services will also complement this work, as well as giving momentum to succession planning. The other associate responsibilities will also do that. Certainly, that will encourage the provision of seamless services in the communities where Government departments operate and provide opportunities for Māori to realise their potential.

However, it is important to understand that at this stage Māori are really starting to do things for themselves because of this economy. When the Government took office in 1999 we recognised that New Zealanders had put their trust in us again—and they will do so again at the end of this year—and that, no matter what, we could not let them down. After 15 years of ad hoc change people were looking for stable and predictable leadership, and for a commitment to the basics that households and families rely on. Māori families rely on simple things: work, homes, good education, and health care, and opportunities for all of them to innovate, succeed, and build a solid platform for future generations. As our economy has grown, as unemployment has plummeted, and as our films, music, arts, sportspeople, businesses, and high achievers have attracted international recognition, we have felt a real pride in who and what we are. Keeping the momentum going by building on current Māori success and investing in Māori potential is the primary focus of our work programme going forward in 2005—and that member really appreciates that.

Though we have much to celebrate, we are also mindful of the challenges ahead. Our contribution as tangata whenua to the greatness of this country lies in our unique cultural identity, which defines and sets us apart from the rest of the world. One of the biggest challenges to our national pride and to the stability of New Zealand has come from those who have used Māori as a political target—as that Opposition member knows—claiming that the most disadvantaged group in this country is somehow the most advantaged. New Zealanders have a deep desire for this country to move ahead as one, understanding that we are not all the same, nor would we want to be. We must respect Māori as the first people of this land; that is a fact of our shared settlement history. The Crown and Māori made commitments to each other in the Treaty of Waitangi that cemented our respective rights and responsibilities. The relationship that has flowed from that settlement pact has, like all relationships, had its ups and downs. Striking the balance again, as with all relationships, is what committed partners who believe in the real future do together. Under our Government, a lot more opportunity, choices, and chances are available for Māori. Māori have been as quick to see, and as keen to take up, those opportunities as anybody else.

Some people in this country are divisive and happy to remain so. There are a whole lot of those people who have great Crown contracts. There are people who want to keep Māori subservient, locked in the dungeons of doom and gloom. They would love to keep Māori there, but there is a surprise in store for them because Māori are moving forward. Those people do not want Māori to do that; they do not want Māori to go forward. They are used to them being behind, and being subservient. I am a 54-year-old Māori. I am from the last generation of children of manual labourers. Ninety-nine percent of my parents’ generation worked for the Ministry of Works, the Post and Telegraph Department, or for the freezing works, or were shearers or fencers. They did all those great labouring jobs. They were loyal, and they worked for 30 to 40 years for the same employer. They were neither close to management experience nor close to enterprise opportunities, because other people kept them out. They were misinformed or uninformed, and their potential was not realised.

Well, times are changing, and changing fast. In 1986, two-thirds of working-age Māori had no qualification. By 2004, that figure had decreased significantly to one-third. Some exciting things are happening in Māoridom: more people are in good housing, thousands of Māori are participating in things like the Modern Apprenticeships programme, and more Māori are taking on managerial responsibility and ownership. I know that the next 5 to 10 years will be one of the most exciting and progressive periods of time for Māori economic development in a long time.

In the sport and cultural areas, our people excel. The cultural revitalisation amongst Māori is also strong. Custom and ritual are still strong for us, but culture is not static, and Māori must not hold themselves back by not being prepared for modern times and not getting modern skills. Kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga—they are about rights and also responsibilities. They are about maintaining the things passed down from our ancestors—that is, about our mana. Moni is about earning money—income—and creating a better life through enterprise, and about better housing and providing for our grandchildren so that they can enjoy life. We need both mana and moni, and this Government is supplying and supporting that.

Māori are good at building partnerships, but there is room for improvement. We need to be more rigorous in the sense of what partnerships mean in contemporary times. Often when we talk about partnerships, we instantly think about the treaty relationship between iwi and the Crown, and only that. To me partnership is also about working together with Pākehā, central and local government, and corporate as well as international forums. While those partnerships are important and must continue, in these contemporary times we need to develop specialised partnerships in order for Māori to move forward. But by far the most important partnership we can have is to be better with each other. We need to get better at working amongst ourselves and understanding what is available for our children and grandchildren. Leadership roles make it difficult to please and address everyone’s needs at every level—try being the Minster of Māori Affairs. Leadership is about balance—about ensuring that enduring decisions are made in a strategic and well-managed way. This year we will continue to work with leadership at all levels of development, with the aim of helping us to keep trucking forward.

There will be stresses in that journey, but I have learnt from experience that the bumpier bits are worthwhile. For the year to September 1999, the Māori unemployment rate averaged 17.9 percent. It is now down to 9.1 percent. During that time, we have nearly halved the number of Māori on the unemployment benefit. There were more than 44,000 on that benefit in December. We have halved the number on that benefit, and there are more people than before going directly into work, rather than hanging around. There are a whole lot of things in the early childhood area. The number of Māori in early childhood education has almost trebled since 1983. Tertiary education participation has doubled. Māori Television is up and running. I remember the mean spirits from the Opposition side of the House saying that that would not happen, and it has had its bumpy bits in it. It is great that a lot of Pākehā watch Māori Television. They are energised by it because it is local stuff that they understand. Total Māori-owned commercial assets are worth nearly $9 billion. We have to extrapolate that out for the benefit of our people. Māori are estimated to control around 10 percent of New Zealand’s forest holdings. They are big owners of the fisheries and are developing them. Ninety-five percent of Māori who are able to work are in work. That is a huge number of employed people. Nobody talks about that; they talk about all the other bits.

The question posed now is: “Where to from here?”. Let me assure the House that we are not resting on our laurels. Over the past 5 years we have engaged with our communities up and down the country. It is time to consolidate. Whānau, family and individual development lies at the heart of that, with considerable attention being paid to building leadership successes. I am pleased with the framework of the Ministry of Māori Development, Te Puni Kōkiri. It is critical that that framework is understood. It is about clear succession planning, and it is about ensuring that Māori rights and issues are recognised. But at the same time it is important that we develop opportunities for our people.

I am amazed at the effrontery with which the previous speaker lauds himself and this Government on their achievements for Māori. At the very first sign of trouble last year, when it got hot in the kitchen, what did the Government do? It appointed a Coordinating Minister, Race Relations, and it turned and left Māori flat on the ground. So it is no wonder that the Prime Minister turned up at Rātana with 27 MPs in her wake. She had better do something, because Māori are probably turning to the Māori Party and New Zealand First in large numbers.

Ahead of the Prime Minister’s address yesterday, she built up big expectations that she would paint an economic vision for New Zealand. So we sat for 20 minutes, and we waited and waited for that economic vision. We did not get it. We would have appreciated even a grand social vision, but we did not get that either. Instead, what we got was an itemised list of all the mostly irrelevant initiatives that this Government has spent taxpayers’ hard-earned wages on in the last 6 years, and also a list of how it will spend the hard-earned wages and salaries of ordinary New Zealanders over the coming years. Of course, I suppose when members think about it, they will realise this is an election year and what we saw yesterday was good old pork barrel politics in full cry.

This is a typical socialist Government. There was no grand vision as such, but there was an agenda. The agenda that sits in behind the economic centre-left language that Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and others are so wont to use is the good old socialist agenda. They can talk of innovation, of prosperity, and of lifting the living standards of ordinary New Zealanders, but the good old socialist agenda sits in at the back of that—the cradle-to-grave approach of the last century. It is the “State will provide all” approach, and the “State knows best” approach. I believe that New Zealanders are entitled to something far grander and far better than that. They did not get it yesterday, and they will never get it under a socialist Government because that kind of Government does not change its colours no matter what language it employs.

The Government’s socialist agenda is on display everywhere for everyone to see. The Government takes hard-earned money out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders and doles it out—some here, some there, and some over there. The Government doles money out as if it belonged to the Government, as if it earned it, as if it were responsible for the surpluses that the economy is now running, and as if it alone had the right to tell New Zealanders what is best for them. That is a cruel, cruel hoax. It is on display in the Working for Families package, the second part of which will roll out in a couple of months. It is on display in the way Jim Anderton takes hard-earned taxes and doles them out to the likes of Dick Hubbard, and in the previous term to Sovereign Yachts. The latter funding all went down the drain. What a cruel hoax it is to play on hard-working New Zealanders that this Government thinks it can take money out of their pockets and spend it in ways that it thinks it ought to be spent.

I say, and National says, that the Government should leave those hard-earned dollars with the people who earn them. New Zealanders are already taxed too highly. We should let hard-working New Zealanders decide how best to use the extra dollars that they alone have earned. We should let them determine their own lives, and let them make their own choices with their own money. That is not an unreasonable thing to ask for in the 21st century. One might see that it was easy enough for a socialist Government to take money from taxpayers in the last century, but not in the 21st century when, supposedly, we are more enlightened, not just in New Zealand but worldwide—internationally. We should let ordinary people who work hard day in and day out, but who have seen no visible increase in their pay packets during the time of this Government, decide how to spend their money. That is the only fair thing to do.

Funnily enough, I do not believe that members of the New Zealand public are fooled. They are sick of the socialist agenda of this Government—they really are. But, understandably, people probably go along with it because they appreciate the ability to work and to provide for their families, even if it is hard-yards activity. People probably go along with what the Government is doing because the economy is trucking along. That is where the electoral focus of most New Zealanders would be—that is understandable. Why is the economy trucking along? Why is it buoyant? Why are there surpluses? Why are there jobs available? There is only one reason why—

💬 Georgina Beyer: Labour, that’s why!

It is not because of anything this Government has done either in this term or the previous term. It is the fact that the economic fundamentals from which New Zealand is now benefiting were laid down in the late 1980s, and particularly in the 1990s.

💬 Georgina Beyer: The Labour Party.

But Helen Clark denies the Labour Governments of the 1980s; she will not have a bar of them. Half the members of that party’s caucus will not have a bar of them. They do not want to own the late 1980s, but that is the reality. The economic fundamentals from which this country is benefiting now were laid down in the late 1980s and 1990s.

The Prime Minister referred to the harsh Governments of the 1990s, but this Labour Government has not removed any of those fundamentals. It has had 6 years in which to do that, but it has not done it. Why has it not done so? It is because the Government knows, but will not admit, that, indeed, one had to have those fundamentals put in place in order to get the buoyant economy we have now. That buoyancy is not because of anything at all that this current Labour Government has done, either in this term or the last term. The benefits that we are now reaping from the economy flow from the fundamentals put in place in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Michael Cullen knows that. Members of the New Zealand public are not fooled by his professor-like glasses and the grey suit. They, too, know that the hard yards of that decade have now resulted in an economy that is buoyant.

I want to make some comments in relation to the that is coming up. That Hui Taumata will celebrate 20 years of progress for Māori. Let us not forget that National was in Government for 9 of those 20 years. I know that in a whole lot of places in Māori communities Māori are looking forward. Despite the harshness of some of the years past, and despite the way they were spat on by this current Government last year, they are looking forward with optimism and with great hope. We have a trust on the shores of Lake Taupō, which has had a significant farming operation for a number of years. Five or 6 years ago the trust opened a geothermal power station that caters for the power demands of about 23,000 New Zealanders. This year the second stage of that geothermal power generation will be opened. The trust is also growing capsicums and tomatoes for the New Zealand and Australian markets in a glasshouse development. The trust is currently looking to bring broadband to rural areas. Those advances have been made not because of anything this Government has done. When the Hui Taumata is celebrated, let Māori take the credit themselves for what they have achieved. This Government should not think that it is responsible for the advances made by Māori people, because it is not. The way that the Government turned on Māori last year and left them in the dust proves that it does not give a jot about Māori people.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I am really proud of the achievements of this Labour-Progressive Government. However, I am a little bit sad to follow the previous speaker. Her speech was a sad, pathetic speech in so many ways. Knowing the attitude towards women of the current leadership in the National Party and what was actually done to that member this time last year—after the first Ōrewa speech when Dr Brash lost the first of his women’s spokespeople—we are now looking at the same thing happening to Katherine Rich. It is very sad.

When we think back to the previous election campaign, we realise that we have had a forerunner of this situation, of course. When National thought it would lose in 1999, what did it do? It carefully divested itself of all its good women MPs from the top spots. Some of us remember women who made a sterling contribution in the House—Katherine O’Regan, Belinda Vernon, and Annabel Young. They were all hard-working MPs but were all relegated well down the list to make sure that the men went through and were elected. That attitude contrasts very much with the attitude of my own party that encourages the participation of women and that actively works to promote women.

The results are obvious in the way the country is going. Women comprise 51 percent of the population, and if we do not encourage that 51 percent to take a full and active role in the economic and political life of our country, then we will not get the best results. One cannot ignore half the population and expect things to go well.

I am proud of the measures that have been put in place for women by the Labour-Progressive Government. Paid parental leave has been extended during the term of this Government after having been introduced during our previous term. We have also done a lot of work in early childhood education that benefits women immensely. There is increased funding for childcare and after-school-care subsidies, more places in early childhood education, and from 2007 there will be 20 hours of free early childhood education a week in community-based services. Of course, lower and fairer tertiary education costs are important for women, as are increased family incomes. The 4-weeks’ leave is a boon for families, and there are a lot more women now in Modern Apprenticeships. We are encouraging women in all walks of life. We can contrast this with the attitude of Dr Brash and we will see why women are so keen to support this Labour-Progressive Government.

In listening to some of the Opposition spokespeople talking, particularly about the area of housing, one would feel like laughing if it did not make one want to cry. Access to decent, affordable housing for all New Zealanders is a fundamental part of the social policy of this Government. To hear National Party speakers talk about housing and home ownership and criticise this Government is really ironic when one thinks what that party did to homeownership in this country.

I do not mean just the selling-off of State houses and the iniquitous market rental that National put in place; I actually mean the sale of all the Housing Corporation mortgages. Those low-interest mortgages and low-deposit homes were what gave the chance of homeownership to thousands and thousands of low-income New Zealanders, one of whom was myself as a sole parent. What did the National Party do when it was in power? It sold those mortgages, and then frittered away the money and destroyed the income stream that enabled the Housing Corporation to house low-income New Zealanders and help them get into their own homes.

We are looking now at ways to try to resurrect those sorts of policies. But with the asset base stripped away—because all those mortgages are gone that gave the income stream that made homeownership possible—it is very hard to go back and retrieve that situation. We are looking at ways to solve it and have had a homeownership pilot scheme running, and we will be even more innovative in those areas as time goes by. We are committed to it, so I am not prepared to listen to Opposition members talking down this Government’s efforts when I know what they did when they were in power—which was to destroy something that meant so much to low-income New Zealanders.

I would also like to commend the work that this Government has done in the area of employment relations. We replaced the draconian Employment Contracts Act with the much more balanced and fair Employment Relations Act, and in this term of our Government we have improved the Act even further. Because I was on the special committee that introduced the Employment Relations Act, I can remember all the stories of doom and gloom that Opposition members put about at that time. The sky was going to fall because we were putting in place a fair industrial relations regime. Well, the sky did not fall, and the economy has gone from strength to strength. All good economists know that one needs to reward people—all sections of society—for the work they do.

New Zealanders are entitled to decent living wages. I was working in a hospital in Auckland during the time of the Employment Contracts Act under the previous National Government, and every time the contract was sold the salaries and wages of the cleaners and workers in that hospital went down. They actually went down. Those cleaners and workers would come and talk to me, and the women would be crying. They were hard-working Polynesian women doing the menial jobs that nobody else wanted to do, and every time there was a change of contract their wages went down. But now National members in Opposition get up and talk proudly about what they did. It is absolutely disgraceful.

I am proud to be part of a Government that has made those changes. We still do not have a high-income regime in New Zealand for ordinary working people, but it is a darn sight better than it was. We have increased the minimum wage five times in the last 5 years. We can contrast that with no increase at all during the 9 years of a National-led Government. So I am proud of what we have been able to do for ordinary working New Zealanders, even though it is not as much as we would like to do. The minimum wage has increased, and so has the youth rate. I am really proud about all that.

I want to mention accident compensation briefly, too, because that is another area of success. When we became the Government we moved swiftly to renationalise our accident compensation scheme. Again, all the doomsayers said that it would be the end and that things would get worse. Well, things have not got worse. Under this Labour Government, average employer levies have remained the same for this year as they did for the 2003-04 year. The Australian comparative performance monitoring report said that while Australian levies were similar to those in New Zealand 6 years ago, New Zealand rates are now, on average, 65 percent less than those of Australia. That gives us, as New Zealanders, a clear, competitive advantage in most industries. That is what the Government has been able to do.

We know that the National Party, should it ever become the Government again—which is most unlikely—would re-privatise or, at the very least, open accident compensation to competition. We know that because it has told us. That just shows that there is no way National learns from its mistakes. Those National members have not even got the nous to learn from the things they did wrongly last time. Recently, of course, Australian private insurance schemes have been in trouble. HIH, which was hugely active in the New Zealand market, went belly up with great losses. That would have happened in New Zealand if it had not been for our Government, which got us out of that situation.

So I am proud to be part of a Government that has done great things for this country. It will continue to do great things for this country and for the people who live in it.

I am delighted to speak on the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech, which we all heard yesterday. This is an incredibly important year for envisaging our country’s future, not confusing the public, and not disenfranchising women voters. It is not a time for the doom and gloom and divisive mean-spirited approach that the Opposition showed yesterday.

This Government has a proud record. Economic growth for the year is at 4.6 percent. More than a quarter of a million people in jobs have been added to the economy since 1999. The crime rate is down, we have announced the Working for Families package, there are more than 7,000 people on the Modern Apprenticeships scheme, and there have been significant boosts to health spending. It is a proud and positive record, and it is one that we know the voters will look to very, very closely this year, as they look back and compare it with the decade of mean-spirited, so-called reform of the 1990s.

I want to point to the way in which we are moving forward through investing in education. Why are we doing this? Because we want every individual to fulfil his or her potential—every individual, across the board, throughout society—and that includes those poor disenfranchised beneficiaries who have been so meanly attacked. Our dream is for every family and every child in this country.

Our leader’s speech showed vision. It was not carping. Our leader also showed what a good neighbour we are to our Pacific neighbours. I shall report here a response I received as chair of the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development from Mr Brash about being a good neighbour and the National Party’s contribution to overseas development. He said, in a letter in 2002, that he had given up pushing for a sharp increase in official development assistance overseas. Yet he had the cheek to come back from holiday and carp about the Government’s response to the tsunami disaster. That was very, very sad.

I want to refer now to health. Spending on health care has gone up 40 percent in 5 years, and we are investing in keeping New Zealand well. We focus on waiting times, not waiting lists, and the previous spokesperson on health never got that right. She never got her head around that role, and that is why she has gone. She was absolutely hopeless.

Of course, the Leader of the Opposition talked about the “minor reassignment” that happened yesterday. It was a bit of a surgical reassignment. He needs a few more women on the front bench—that might be what he means by reassignment. He got rid of Lynda Scott, the only person in his whole ranks who knew health. She was great and fearsome to us. She is gone; she is out of the position. Judith Collins was hopeless and never got her head around the role. She came to score big king hits against the Minister of Health, but never once got a rating. In fact, she upset all the senior health professionals in the country with the few words that she did say. She then got confused with Paul Hutchison. I welcome Paul Hutchison. I think that he will enjoy the poisoned chalice from his leader. It is an incredible indictment on the Opposition that the health spokesman still languishes on the very back benches. The National Opposition does not see health as a priority and this country knows that and it will show that in the election.

Let us look at the role of National’s spokesperson on health and at what has happened. The public is absolutely confused with a leader who is shuffling things around. This morning he said that he would not stoop to the lowest common denominator. That is what he thought Katherine Rich’s opposition to his leadership was. She has had a sound spanking. That woman with integrity shows that she understands this Government’s approach to beneficiaries and welfare reform. She is very intelligent, aligning herself to the new, more progressive and compassionate conservatives who will emerge once Mr Brash has gone. Georgina te Heuheu has gone—she challenged Ōrewa I—and the leader thought he might find her a nice little job. He really did not understand how he disenfranchised the tribes of Tūwharetoa and Te Arawa in my area, not only with his pathetic stance on the ownership of lakes but also with what he did to his Māori spokeswoman. We welcome Katherine Rich; this beatified Katherine Rich among womanhood in New Zealand. National will not have much effect on the Minister of Health leading up to the election, because it really does not have a clue about that portfolio. It is a complicated issue and it is extremely important to this Government.

The public response to the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has treated women shows that people think it has been absolutely lousy. However, I did enjoy hearing Winston Peters yesterday. I say thank you but no thank you to Mr Peters for his love and compassion for motherhood and apple pie. We have 16 Labour women MPs. That is 31 percent of our caucus. We have pushed for 4 weeks’ holiday, for work-life balance, for parental leave provisions, for after-school care, for the Working for Families package, for workplace friendly initiatives, and more childcare centre funding, and that is just absolutely fantastic. We remember the Opposition spokesperson actually voting against the parental leave legislation—against current world trends. Do members believe that?

We will have fun during this election, as we go out and about. People need to remember, as does the current Opposition spokesperson on social welfare, what was said in the past when she voted against paid parental leave and when she was going to get rid of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. I vaguely recall—and we have mentioned this before—that she thought that scrubbing floors at home was a good option for women. She should remember what she says, as it will come back to bite her in the mouth, probably. That person is politically ruthless, opportunistic, and very hungry for power, and women in this country do not like women to work like that. What is this about adoption as an option? It is no option. It is an option that has always been there. It is not a new idea. It has hurt in the past—and whom has it hurt? It has hurt those young women who are having babies and it hurts the children themselves, and research shows that. That idea has gone down very badly.

I shall finish by talking about the School for Young Parents in Rotorua. Dr Brash has put the signature of death on National in Rotorua. He took a photo opportunity in the school that I set up while I was on the district council with the support of this Government. He dangled children on his lap and looked like the father of the nation. When he left, the young mothers asked who he was. That is absolutely amazing. Under that mean-spirited Opposition, those 18 to 24-year-olds would have their dole cut. Let us talk about them. Last year 17 of 23 went back to finish their qualifications, two were going to university, and four were going to polytech. Is that not wonderful? Without that school to carry on their education, and without the benefit, those people could not do that, and that Opposition would cut their benefit. That record will stand against that Opposition.

I am very, very confident that women in the country will know that the National Opposition has no policy—noting at all to support women and families, other than a mean-spirited approach. In my book, and in our party’s book, that is not about building a strong, confident, and proud nation.

It has been absolutely deadening to have to listen to the speeches from the Labour Party’s research unit, all of which have been written out for the members who spoke because they could not work out any for themselves. That is just appalling.

That member skites about the number of women MPs Labour has. There are an awful lot of blokes in this House who would say “Name one!”. There are an awful lot of people in this House who would ask us to name any of them who understand about being mums. Ask how many of them understand about being a working mum and trying to juggle all the sorts of things working mums have to do, and ask them what they know about having to breastfeed babies, run law firms, and everything else, because they would not know. They are not interested in real mums. They are interested only in their sorts of women. It has nothing to do with real mums.

When I think about their nasty, mean-spirited, petty little attacks on National today, I have to ask this: how many of our people had to leave the job because they lied to the public? How many of our people had to leave their job because they bullied a little 16-year-old girl out of this country and lied? How many of our people did that? None! That is because this Labour Government does not care a scrap about women. It just wants their votes. It is happy to bully a 16-year-old girl who had been sexually abused most of her life. That is what this Labour Government did for women. That is what it does. It is all talk and no action. [Interruption] Is the member speaking of himself like that?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member. I know that Ms Collins is making a hard-hitting speech and some interjections can be expected, but not so much as to drown out a speaker. The Speaker will not allow a member to be drowned out.

How many of our members have had to go and front up for the great big tax-free handout of—what was it—$320,000, having said they would not? One of their members lost his position because of it. Worse than that, he is one of their better members, because at least he is a bloke who says that he is a bloke.

Look at the mean-spirited, nasty, and patronising attack they made in relation to my colleague Georgina te Heuheu. What a nasty, patronising attack, saying that they felt sorry for her. They said that only because she is Māori and a woman.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take grave exception to that slur. I think that the member should be careful. She is talking about a colleague and personal friend of mine, and to suggest that there was anything tokenistic about the concern expressed by my colleagues is an insult.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Members should look at Speaker’s ruling 50/5. It depends on the context in which the word is used. I would ask the member to come to order.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister was not here when previous speakers were attacking Georgina te Heuheu. She made a speech and she was attacked, and the Minister who has just commented was not here at that time. I think his comments are out of the context of what happened earlier on. Georgina te Heuheu took it, she made a brilliant speech, and I think that should be acknowledged and recognised.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member.

I will come more to the point, because I do not want to spend my entire speech talking about that lot. Frankly, they are not worth it.

I am really pleased to be in charge of the welfare portfolio and really pleased that Katherine Rich will be assisting me, as she already has done. One of the things I am looking at is a story from the Nelson edition of The Leader. It tells us all about just how tough the Hon Steve Maharey is as the Minister of—what is it called now? It is not called “social welfare”, but “social development”. Is that not interesting? It is now the Ministry of Social Development and Employment.

💬 Steve Chadwick: She doesn’t even know!

Oh, yes, I say to Ms Chadwick, I do know. In fact, that name is political speak for “social welfare”, but Government members cannot bring themselves to say that—people would have to have a new university degree in it.

The article tells us about David Gibson and his wife Julia. David is an electrical engineer and was a mathematics lecturer in Britain, and his wife Julia is a special-needs teacher. They came here in 1999, and guess what they have done since then. Have they worked in their occupations? Well, they may have for a short time, but since 2001 those people have been bludging on the dole. I say “bludging on the dole” because they have used their time to set up a new business for themselves. Poor old New Zealand taxpayers are used to being taken for a ride in this country, but what are those new immigrants doing who came here and sorted out how to get the dole as soon as they had been here 2 years? David states in the article that the couple were invited by the Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, to conduct trials on the benefits of a game they are setting up—on the taxpayer—by contacting the schools advisory service.

Well, I have a whole advisory service for that couple. It is to get off their bottoms, stop taking the New Zealand taxpayer for a ride, and do what they are supposed to do, which is work. We have skill shortages in maths teachers and special-needs teachers all around the country. Electorate MPs deal with special-needs education issues all the time, and parents out there are crying out for some help on this issue. But this couple are two highly trained and, obviously, highly competent people who are happy to come to this country and benefit from the nice New Zealand taxpayer. The worst thing is not only did they do that but they have the gall to skite about it, because the article says that they have been on the dole for the last 3 years. They say they have a reason for it. Oh, of course, they wanted to set up a business.

How many other business people want to set up a business? I know that my colleague across the way agrees with me. What a pack of wasters! Those people should be out. A lot of people mistakenly think that all the bludgers who come into the country come from some place where they do not speak English. Well, they are wrong. Here is a perfect example of people who have come here from the UK, with no excuse whatsoever for taking our people for a ride. I am not sure where they are living, but I bet it will have something to do with the taxpayer again. Yet those people are allowed into this country and allowed to sit around on benefits. Obviously, their skills are being enhanced by the new maths game they are working on, but that does not do a scrap of good for the New Zealand taxpayer.

Should the other game they are supposed to be making, which Trevor Mallard is so keen on—members will remember him; he used to be in charge of education, but that has now gone to David Benson-Pope—be successful and make them multimillions, will they pay back that money to the New Zealand taxpayer? No, they will not. The first thing they will do is take off overseas, back to England, and make their money over there, having used the poor old Kiwi taxpayer for 3 long years, to date. If the Minister does not do something about it, he will really have to answer to this House, because that is an absolute disgrace.

Of course, that is not the only instance. This Government has made its whole name out of taking money from people who are not well off. If anyone thinks that trying to bring up a family on $60,000 gross income a year makes one rich—which is what the Prime Minister thinks—then that person is wrong. The Government takes money from people, churns it here in Wellington, and then sends it back out, having already taken out all the money for the bureaucracy, and it does not give anything extra. If the Government wanted to look after women and do something for them—and, by the way, women do not need looking after; women can look after themselves—it should give them the choice about how their money is spent. That is the best way to do it for women. If the Government wants to do that, all it has to do is give women a bit more money—in other words, give them their own money. It should give them back some taxes.

💬 Hon Member: Oh no!

The member says: “Oh no—we couldn’t do that.” Why? Are women not capable of looking after their own money? The fact is that of course they are. What we see is a Government that will not trust women—or anyone else who does not belong to the Public Service Association or some other Labour Party organisation. That is what we have. That is what the Government could do.

When the Government had the opportunity, as it did, to extend paid parental leave to self-employed women, I asked it to do that rather than give extra weeks to employed women—I have been there myself and I know how tough it is—but the Government said no. It was too hard to find out how much those women earned. Well, I do not think there would be a self-employed woman in the country who would believe that rubbish, because the Inland Revenue Department certainly knows exactly what self-employed women earn and so does the Accident Compensation Corporation, and all the Government had to do was ask. As a self-employed woman in this country, one can certainly earn money to pay taxes but, by goodness, do not ask for anything back.

God help New Zealand! That member who just resumed her seat is apparently going to be the spokesperson on social welfare matters for the New Zealand National Party. Not one shred of policy did that spokesperson—appointed only as recently as yesterday—give us; not one piece of National Party policy, vision, hope, or confidence in this nation did we hear from Judith Collins.

Well, I have to say that is in stark contrast to the Government, because when a Labour-led Government delivers, New Zealand succeeds. We have the track record. The comments from the Prime Minister in her speech yesterday consolidated everything that this Government has worked toward for 5 years in order to enhance the quality of life of New Zealanders and the potential of all New Zealanders to participate fully in our country at every level. It has not been easy.

We have heard this afternoon from members of the Opposition. Georgina te Heuheu made almost gloating reflections on the 1980s and 1990s. The member Judith Collins went on about what will now be National’s banner—benefit bashing. That is what she did right then in her speech. I saw shades of Mrs Shipley in Mrs Collins’ delivery, right down even to the colour scheme, I might add. I also saw shades of that mean and very nasty time. I was a beneficiary in 1991 when that famous “mother of all Budgets”, which cut benefits, was delivered. I was a beneficiary—of the sickness and unemployment benefits—at various periods during the 1980s, and I will tell members of one thing that the Labour Government did then. That Labour Government was much maligned for some of its very hard policies in those days, but one particularly useful thing it did that I, as a beneficiary at the time, found to be absolutely liberating was to provide an amnesty for beneficiaries who had been rorting the system. That gave an opportunity for those who felt guilty about having done that at least to come clean, clean the slate, and have a fresh start. In other words, it assisted people to get out of the benefit rut.

Mrs Collins just went on about people receiving benefits—bash, bash, bash. I heard no call for some kind of solution, and that is quite contrary to what this Government offers to New Zealanders on low incomes who are beneficiaries. We are assisting them into training. We have provided all the apprenticeship rejuvenation and industry training that are happening in the country. I certainly can and will talk about the great benefits that my electorate, Wairarapa, has received during the term of Government that we have enjoyed so far—and I hope we will be endorsed at the next election.

We achieved growth of 4.6 percent for the year ended September. That is equal to that of the United States, and, among the OECD, second only to that of Korea. Unemployment has plummeted under our watch—down 44 percent from the September quarter in 1999 to the same quarter last year. In the past 5 years more than a quarter of a million jobs have been added to this economy.

We have invested those benefits back into the things that matter to New Zealanders. The Working for Families package will invest, when fully kicked in, a massive $1.1 billion towards helping New Zealand’s working families, thereby making work pay and offering more chance to succeed. The Working for Families package announced in last year’s Budget will benefit more than 300,000 families nationwide, including those in my Wairarapa electorate. It will help to deliver up to $150 per week in extra support for low and moderate income families. The average increase in direct income assistance to families in the $25,000 to $45,000 bracket will be around $100 per week. It will help to reduce child poverty, and, nationally, 28,000 families and 33,000 children will benefit from increases in childcare assistance, with average gains of $23 per week per child from next year. Around 95,000 households will receive increases in their accommodation supplement averaging $19 per week, in 2005-06.

Those are some examples of how the Government wants to assist New Zealanders who are needy and are struggling to make it for themselves in this country. The assistance comes across a whole lot of areas. It is not just one sector of Government; it covers a whole range of policy areas throughout Government. I heard State housing talked about, and we have spoken about how much of it was sold. Income-related rents were devastating in their day.

I can tell members that I am a successful person who has, through the generosity of New Zealanders and the fairness of Governments that know how to lead this country, been given the opportunity to succeed. I am absolutely a goddam living example of that in this House. Members should just look at where I have come from. That is why we should be a tolerant society—tolerant of differences. I believe that this Government certainly promotes tolerance in all sectors of our country. That has to be good for nation-building and for feeling like one is contributing to the building of a nation that will be worthwhile in the future.

I am proud, as a Labour member of the New Zealand Parliament, that when I travel—and I travel relatively extensively—and speak to large international audiences overseas, in question and answer sessions I get questions about what makes New Zealand able to have people like me and others in this Parliament, representing true diversity. Other people can only wish for it. We have watched people in Iraq clamouring to enjoy their chance to have democracy in their country, which is something we truly support. How do we really reconcile the fact that we in this House twitter on about things that are relatively unimportant when countries overseas are enjoying democracy for the first time? We value less some of what we enjoy in this country.

With regard to the Prime Minister’s speech, I say that it held a vision for the future of New Zealand. It focused on what the future of New Zealand will be after the election this year. We hope that a Labour-led Government will be the only alternative. We certainly do not have an Opposition that looks like it is anywhere near being able to manage the country. It cannot even manage its own caucus very well, at the moment. I offered advice last year—I feel like I am repeating myself—when we debated on the Prime Minister’s statement. At that time, Georgina te Heuheu had been sacked from herfront-bench portfolio and relegated to the bowels of the back bench of the Opposition. We saw that happen last year. I reiterate my offer to members of the Opposition that if the gentlemen of the front row of the National Party want to look as though they are gender-equal from time to time, I can offer them an item of clothing to put on to make them feel better, or I can offer advice on a surgeon they may care to visit.

In concluding my speech this afternoon, I reiterate that I am a proud member of this Labour-led Government. We are delivering to New Zealanders. We have leadership that knows how to lead and how to govern. We have very good, strong, sound fiscal management in this country, and we also have a burgeoning economy. In my area, Wairarapa, the towns are bubbling. Their problems are positive problems. It is about getting people into work, about providing the resources needed for our small and larger businesses in areas like the Wairarapa to go forth and provide more for our country by way of income, revenue, and pride. We have pride in this nation. I only wish the people in the Opposition had likewise.

We have heard a lot in this debate about women and mothers. I think the whole House loses from the decision by the leader of the National Party that women who disagree will be moved back, and I look forward to the day that Katherine Rich is back on the front bench.

We have heard from the leader of New Zealand First, who has suddenly discovered motherhood. He has a very good mother in his caucus. She is on the back bench; we look forward to the day when she is moved forward to the front bench. I applaud the mothers on the other side of the House. Labour is the only party that has a mother and daughter in the House. But I am proud to be a member of the ACT caucus. The three mothers in the ACT caucus have 11 children between them, and that is quite an achievement. However, I think it was typical of the Prime Minister’s speech that she absolutely ignored the biggest problem facing women in this country today. If the Prime Minister really wanted to make this country one where women could feel safe and confident, she would have stood up and said that the No. 1 problem facing women in this country—facing mothers and their children—is violent crime. She would have stood up and said she was as mad as hell and that she would not take it any more.

What has happened to this country’s safety and security when an 83-year-old woman can spend the autumn years of her life travelling all around the world, only to return to her home town of Marton—a small town where she had lived for 45 years—to be stabbed to death in her own home?

The same week, just 40 kilometres away in Wanganui, a 20-year-old girl was found floating naked in the river on the morning of her birthday. She died of massive head injuries. Mrs Morris had never hurt anyone, as far as we know. She had worked all her life, bringing up nine children in another house in the same street in which she was finally killed. She had 33 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. One of her adult sons told the local newspaper about his mother’s energy. He said: “The generation that made its own butter is always busy.” That just about sums up that generation. People worked for what they got. They got nothing for doing nothing.

As the days go past, the trail of those murders grows cold. The committed and outstanding detectives we have in our police force are hugely under-resourced. They are stretched to the limit every time two or more homicides occur. Our defence is so under-resourced that violent criminals literally get away with murder. Crime pays, because police resources are directed at handing out traffic fines. As we heard earlier, when the Minister of Police, George Hawkins, received a complaint about this he told the constituent not to worry, that crims were bad drivers too, and that in one way or other they get caught.

This is a disgrace. There are killers on the loose in this country, and that is not an overdramatic statement. Families are shattered. Loved grandmothers, mothers, and daughters are murdered in towns with tiny populations. Government after Government utters words about getting tough on crime.

What would a visitor to this country have thought had he or she turned on the television the other night and seen that so-called demonstration against the Waitangi Tribunal led by Tame Iti, where cars were burnt on the side of the road, and demonstrators with ash all over their faces rode horses and brandished shotguns? Nobody has been arrested. The Minister of Police says that the police are investigating, and we hear that it is a matter of identification. For goodness’ sake! They have only to look at the tape. The next day we heard Tama Iti on radio saying that he did not care if it delayed Tūhoe’s claims another 20 years. That is an insult to Sir John Turei, who worked for years to get those claims before the Waitangi Tribunal. If I had gone down and demonstrated like that outside the District Court, I would have been arrested.

How tough is it on crime in this country when from 1999 to 2003, 1,262 adults who were so sick that they had to live on a sickness benefit committed a violent crime? Those adults were not so sick that they could not go out and commit a violent crime. How tough is it when in the same period 624 solo parents who were on the domestic purposes benefit, which is meant to be for those parents who cannot manage and is a safety net—and nobody disagrees with that; everybody in this country is quite happy that their taxes help those who are truly in need of some help—went out and committed a crime while we were paying them to look after their children?

Getting tough on crime means spending much more money on training and on paying top rates to detectives who can bring these people to court, so that the trail does not go cold and we do not have so many unsolved murders in this country. In the 1950s when Mrs Mona Morriss was bathing her children and pushing the home-grown vegetables through the Mouli, murder was so outrageous that it was on the front page of every newspaper. There were nine murders a year. Now in 2005, it is only February and already there have been nine murders. I cannot bear the apathetic sort of attitude that permeates this country, whereby we are now so inured that a murder becomes just another murder.

Because the justice system sometimes does get it wrong, I do not support the death penalty, but if it were my 83-year-old mother or my 20-year-old daughter killed by some random maniac, I think I would be calling for capital punishment, just like some of the good folk in Marton. I can understand how they feel when we have gone so soft on crime in this country. We need tough love in this country, with heaps of intervention for those dysfunctional families where the children are in contact again and again with the authorities. We need some stern mentoring, with sticks and carrots so that those abused children whom we feel sorry for will not one day turn into criminals that we fear and loathe.

I will tell members why our women are not safe on the streets or in their homes any more: it is because we have gone soft on crime in this country and because criminals matter more than victims when it comes to rights. At present the Government spends about 18 times more money on welfare than on the police. The ultimate insult to a lifelong worker like Mrs Morriss and to young Tania McKenzie beginning her career in the hospitality industry will be if their killers turn out to be beneficiaries.

In her speech the Prime Minister said she wanted to get more women into the workforce. At the same time, we have the Minister of Education, Mr Mallard, making it almost impossible, or harder and harder, for women to access good quality childcare or early childhood education. He brings in 20 hours free early childhood education for people who send their children to community centres, and then what happens? The fees are put up outside those 20 hours. So now he is considering a fee freeze in the same manner as Muldoon. He wants to impose a qualification on teachers so that one size fits all in early childhood. Some of them are forced to close because they cannot meet these requirements. How are women going to get back into the workforce when at the same time the Government is making it harder and harder for early childhood education providers to remain viable?

It is time we ended name suppression in this country. It is time we ended the “we know best” attitude from the Government and from the Department of Corrections. We need to stop this nonsense about criminals having rights. We need to think about the rights of mothers to keep their children safe. I urge the House this year to get the sex offenders registry through so that families can be armed with the information they need to try to keep their children safe.

It is a pleasure to get up at the start of this year, a very, very important year for this country and, of course, for this Government. I would actually like to acknowledge the ACT party. I do not do that very often, but I have to say that most of its members are down here to support a woman speaker, Deborah Coddington, who just gave a speech. I did not agree with everything she said, but I have to acknowledge that the ACT party is behind its female members, unlike the National Party—

💬 Stephen Franks: We’re behind them.

I am sure ACT is. This year New Zealand gets to scrutinise the Government and it gets to scrutinise the Opposition. We are very, very happy to stand on our record. Our record is a proud one. New Zealand is now in the best economic situation it has ever been in. We are in a modern age, with modern communications and modern facilities. We have strong economic growth and we have an increasing number of people who are proud to be New Zealanders.

As I said, the public will scrutinise the Opposition. What a sorry, sad state Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition is in at the moment. I think that anyone observing Parliament over the last week or two will be in despair, because we do need a reasonable Opposition in order to have a very good Government. We have a good Government, and I guess unless at least the guys can front up—because the girls will not be there; they are not allowed; no party for them—and at least come up with some alternative policies, we will end up with a one-horse show, and I am sure New Zealanders do not want that. In the meantime, we will get on and do what we do best, and that is govern this country.

The country has to look at Don Brash. This is the man who is the alternative Prime Minister to Helen Clark. Well, Don Brash has got it wrong, time after time after time. He got it wrong last year when he sacked Georgina te Heuheu, a very reasonable, responsible person. Don Brash got it wrong when he criticised this Government’s response to the tsunami. He was so mean-spirited that he was not prepared to commit to an international exercise to try to help those desperate people. Don Brash got it wrong when he sacked Lynda Scott. She is off now. Some say that she was a bright star in Parliament, but she is off. He certainly got it wrong with Katherine Rich. Although we do not agree with her philosophy, she brought a huge amount of experience, talent, and energy to this place. But she disagreed with Don Brash when he tried to beat up on beneficiaries.

In my view, someone who tries to do that is a very, very low life. Most of us on this side of the House understand that accidents occur, people get pregnant, or they might be struck down by a sudden illness such as cancer. It is not necessarily their own fault; these things occur. Someone might pack his bags and leave his wife with the kids. Where do they go for help? Back in the dark old days they did not have anywhere to go, but, thankfully, we now have the domestic purposes benefit. Thankfully, because of the Labour Government, we have support systems in this country to make us fair-minded and to make this country the place that we are proud to call New Zealand.

It is very, very clear that that would not be the case under Don Brash. He has kicked out Katherine Rich and replaced her with Judith Collins. Judith Collins says that there was nothing wrong with Don Brash’s speech. Every fair-minded New Zealander will be horrified with that and with the team that will present itself at the election as the alternative Government. One can imagine John Key and Don Brash, the macroeconomic managers—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, it isn’t.

Winston Peters will put himself up as an alternative, as well, and good luck to him. I have to acknowledge that he is certainly better than that other mob. We will have John Key and Don Brash, the macroeconomic managers, all tied up with economic management, interest rates, and what should happen. But what about the people? I ask Don Brash, John Key, and National Party members: what about the people? Some National members must feel very, very uncomfortable. Lindsay Tisch looks very uncomfortable. Even David Carter looks very uncomfortable, because in his rural portfolio he knows that the farmers in the rural industries require people.

We are proud as a Government to stand on our record of injecting huge amounts of money into health and of providing better services for people up and down this country, be they in urban or rural areas. I must take the opportunity to speak briefly about my portfolio areas. As the Minister for Rural Affairs I am very proud to represent a sector in this country that is the backbone of our economy—there is no doubt about that. I say to Mr Carter and Mr Eckhoff that the people who live in rural areas—not the industries, which they will speak of—support those industries and drive this economy.

Those people have accidents, they have illnesses, and they require good health systems. What we hear from Mr Carter and Mr Eckhoff is that the market will deliver that. They would privatise, as they intended through the 1990s, our health system, our roads, and our infrastructure, and then expect the minority of people in this country who live in rural areas to pay for their own services. Well, we do not believe that. Traditionally as a party we have not been seen as the friend of farmers, but that has changed. Does Mr Carter know why? He should go and ask the farmers because they understand that they need support, through infrastructure, to run their businesses. The National Party ignored that throughout the 1990s and that is why it got the royal kick from the rural sector. Labour has come in and increased funding for roading, for rural education—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Where?

I can tell Mr Peters that we have increased funding around every region in this country. If Mr Peters got out of Tauranga he would understand that he would be slowed down by roadworks all over this country. It takes half an hour longer to get anywhere these days because the Government has committed to road funding, and I am proud to be part of a Government that has done that.

We have upgraded hospitals in Thames, Masterton, Levin, Dunstan, Hawera, and Kaitaia. All of those areas now have secure health services. We have put more money in to retain and attract general practitioners and nurses into rural areas, because without those basic services we will not have people living in rural New Zealand to provide support for agriculture and horticulture.

Labour members are proud to stand on this record. There have been a large number of initiatives, particularly in the area of rural health-care. One of the most innovative initiatives has been this Government’s support of the mobile surgical services bus. I mention that briefly because it does not matter whether one is in Te Puia, in Tākaka, or in Gore—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many?

Just one. If Mr Peters ever drove on the roads at night he might see it. During the day it is carrying out vital surgery in every rural nook and cranny in this country. We support rural health services. We support rural education services. When members go around this country on the hustings this year, people will acknowledge that this Government has delivered for rural New Zealand. The National Party and its mates in the ACT party would go back to selling off the Crown jewels—often for a song—and selling off our infrastructure, and then expect farmers, farm workers, and all of those providing services to pay market prices. As a Government—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who did that? You fellas did.

Mr Peters might understand that some of the reforms of the 1980s, the restructuring of the 1990s, and now the revitalisation of rural New Zealand under this Labour-led Government are going to lead this country into a prosperous future, and I am sure the people of this country understand that, as well.

That Minister, the Hon Damien O’Connor, had the audacity to come into the House and say that he has increased the funding for rural education. He should pay one of his infrequent visits back to his own electorate, the West Coast – Tasman electorate, and go to the communities where the Minister of Education has closed rural schools. If he went anywhere around rural New Zealand and talked to people, he would find out what they think of the Minister for Rural Affairs.

Yesterday I had the misfortune to listen to 50 minutes of drivel from the Prime Minister. During those 50 minutes I waited for her to once mention New Zealand farmers. Not once in her speech did she mention the contribution New Zealand farmers have made to this economy. Not once was there a vote of thanks for the contribution that hard-working New Zealand farmers have made to this economy over the last 5 years. Instead we heard a whole lot of words from the Prime Minister about how the Government has been responsible for New Zealand’s economic performance over that period. I say to the few Labour members who are sitting in the House today that they should acknowledge that the Government has not been responsible for our economic performance. Our economic performance has come from the backbone of hard-working New Zealanders, mainly in the farming sector. But what thanks and support have the farming community had from the Government over the last 5 years? In all honesty, I cannot name a single initiative that has been of any assistance to the sector to date.

As Don Brash adequately told the House yesterday, the gross income of some New Zealanders has increased over the last 5 years.

💬 Darren Hughes: Adequately?

Darren Hughes should dig deeper into those figures, and should then acknowledge that the net income status of average New Zealanders has not increased one iota while the economy has performed reasonably well. That increase has not been delivered to hundreds and thousands of New Zealand houses, although the Prime Minister attempted to claim both yesterday and in question time today that it had, because the additional benefits have gone into the coffers of the Government. Dr Cullen sits on a huge $7.4 billion surplus. Sadly for New Zealand, the Government has the ability to spend that money with absolute reckless abandon to buy votes in the forthcoming election.

Helen Clark did not mention farmers, and Mr Damien O’Connor, the associate Minister, barely mentioned them in his contribution. When Jim Sutton deigns to make a speech in the House he will probably forget to mention farmers. That complacency and ignorance is being noticed by the rural sector. Plenty of angst has been set off in the rural sector by the Labour Government’s debate about public access to private land. That debate has now been around for nearly 2 years. The Acland report was cobbled together in an attempt to make a problem where a problem does not exist around public access to private land. That report was presented to the Minister in August 2003. At that time the agriculture Minister, the invisible Mr Jim Sutton, said to New Zealand that he would table legislation in the House 6 months later—in other words, in March 2004. So we waited all last year for the Minister of Agriculture to deliver that legislation to the House. Even though the legislation sat in the Minister’s in tray all last year, finally he had the audacity to put it out to the public of New Zealand in a very surreptitious form 2 days before Christmas. On 23 December he said that that was the proposal whereby the Government would nationalise a huge portion of privately owned rural land.

It was interesting to observe the back-down that occurred yesterday in the Prime Minister’s speech. Jim Sutton said on 23 December that the legislation on public access would be in the House this year, in 2005. Then we went through the Prime Minister’s speech and found that the legislation was no longer mentioned. There was a little paragraph saying that the Government would progress its work on the public access issue. While Helen Clark was swanning around Europe, skiing and being unavailable to New Zealand, Heather Simpson managed to catch up with her and send her a copy of the New Zealand Herald survey that reported that 79 percent of urban Aucklanders disagreed with the Government’s stance on public access. So all of a sudden we have seen another flip-flop from the Labour Party, which now says the legislation promised by Jim Sutton on 23 December may not be progressed between now and the election.

R Doug Woolerton: Good!

I say to Doug Woolerton that the Labour Party can try to hose down the public access issue, but the National Party will make it an election issue in rural New Zealand. I look forward to seeing the junior agriculture Minister, Damien O’Connor, on any hustings that he wishes to name. I will enjoy the opportunity to debate the issue, because that issue is worrying farmers. [Interruption] Darren Hughes can object and interject all he likes. He will not be here next time; Nathan Guy will take his seat. Where was that member when the helicopter issue was running hot in his electorate? He was hiding. It took Nathan Guy to get Ruth Dyson on TV and produce yet another flip-flop from the Labour Government—another back-down. The people of Otaki know the member. They do not trust him, and Nathan Guy is on his way into Parliament after the next election.

I assure Labour members that the biggest issue in rural New Zealand is that around public access. There is no problem with regard to public access in this country. It is given freely and willingly by New Zealand farmers; it has been like that for 150 years. But Helen Clark and her mates, the socialists of this country, want to take rights from private landowners in order to provide for a few trampers. The goodwill of 150 years will be totally destroyed.

The final issue I want to touch on briefly is the Prime Minister’s discussion in her speech of the homeownership society. She had the audacity to accuse National again of dismantling State support for first home ownership—that is what she said. National did not dismantle the Home Buy scheme. Labour dismantled that scheme, which was set up by the previous National Government specifically to encourage State house tenants to get out of welfare dependency by giving them the opportunity to buy their first home. Mr Maharey, Helen Clark, and Labour ideology could not allow State house tenants to own their own homes. That would have taken those people out of welfare dependency and let them achieve homeownership. We should not let Helen Clark come into this House and waffle on in the homeownership debate, when she herself knows that it was the Labour Party that abandoned the very successful Home Buy scheme that allowed State house tenants to buy their first home.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: They were bought by your developer mates.

I suggest to David Cunliffe that I take him to Christchurch and give him a list of the people who rang me after the 1999 election, after the Labour Party had determined that there would be no Home Buy scheme. Those people were in my electorate office in tears, because they had thought they finally had the opportunity to buy their first home and the ideology of the Labour Government took that opportunity away from them. David Cunliffe ought to be very aware that thousands of New Zealanders wanted to buy their own home, and the Labour Government stopped them. It did so because it does not like people to get out of welfare dependency. The Government wants people to be welfare dependent, because it works on the basis that if they are dependent on welfare they will vote for the Government. That is the most cynical vote-buying exercise I have ever seen in my time in this House.

💬 Nandor Tanczos: How does owning a home get someone off welfare?

A tenant of a State house is dependent on the State. Mr Nandor Tanczos should put the joint down and listen. Tenants had the opportunity under the Home Buy—

💬 Hon Mark Burton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member knows better than to accuse another member of smoking an illegal substance in the House. Mr Carter knows what he said; it will be in Hansard. There is no other interpretation of what the member said.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member for his contribution. The member at whom the reference was aimed took no offence. This is a robust debate, but I ask Mr Carter to come to order.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am not out of order. Your discussion of the rather stupid intervention from Mark Burton would suggest that I was not out of order, so I am not about to come to order.

💬 Nandor Tanczos: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not hear the comment, but I have just been informed by the Rt Hon Winston Peters that David Carter told me to put my drink down and listen. Since I do not drink, I am not offended. [Interruption] Oh—he said “the joint”?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is the member taking offence?

💬 Nandor Tanczos: I am, because if the member was implying that I—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break.

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

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Prior to the dinner break I was in the middle of a point of order when the Speaker who was in the Chair suspended the sitting. I am not sure whether that was the correct procedure. My point of order was about a comment made by David Carter, which was highly offensive and derogatory to me. I would call for the member to be asked to withdraw and apologise, but, given that it is now after the dinner break and he has chosen not to come back to the House, I am not sure how that will happen. I think the nature of his comment demands that response.

The member is correct that when the House rose for the dinner break there were points of order, and Mr Tanczos was speaking at the time. It was our expectation that David Carter would, in fact, continue his speech after the dinner break, but when the Speaker left the House and walked out into the lobby he said that the time had expired and that Mr Carter would not be speaking again. We have a situation where we have points of order, which is acknowledged. Mr Carter was speaking when the points of order were taken. The House rose and Mr Carter was told that his time was up. The points of order had not been ruled on. Now Mr Tanczos is asking for an apology, or for the comment to be withdrawn, when Mr Carter has been told that his time was already up and has left the House.

That is the situation as I see it. It is an unfortunate position. We did not have this matter resolved before the dinner break, and David Carter is not returning to the House—not because of anything that might be transpiring now but simply because he was told his time was up. He will not be returning after the dinner break. That is how we see it, Madam Speaker, and I would be interested in your ruling.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank Mr Tisch and Mr Tanczos. I heard the interchange. Mr Carter had 5 seconds remaining, so he could have come back. I think it is fair to rule that the member should withdraw and apologise, which he can still do the next time he comes to the House. So I would rule that the member be asked to withdraw and apologise. Mr Tanczos has taken offence and has expressed his view on the matter. That is my ruling.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you be conferring with Mr Carter to the effect that he needs to apologise, or is it up to myself as junior whip to notify him that he is required, as per your ruling, to apologise the next time he is in the House?

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is correct. The next time he comes into the House he will be asked to withdraw and apologise for that remark.

In taking the opportunity to contribute to this debate, I would like to place on the record some of the achievements that we have managed to work towards over the past 5 years. Before that, I say upfront that I acknowledge and support every word presented in the Prime Minister’s address yesterday. In a nutshell, the address was about improving living standards and life opportunities for all New Zealanders. That was one of the policies that I decided on when thinking about entering Parliament. It is on that basis that our nation has every reason to be confident about its future and proud of its achievements. Improving those standards is a flagship policy of the Government. The opportunity to do that does not just fall into the lap of the Government. We have been positioning ourselves to ensure that we are able to deliver. Over the past 5 years we have, obviously, promoted prudent fiscal management and applied a “steady as you go” role, so that New Zealanders were able to align with that. I recall that quite often in the 1990s New Zealanders were waking up to disaster after disaster. I think that over the past 5 years, while the Government has promoted some stability, there has also been an opportunity to unite our nation.

The same things cannot be said about the National Party. I think that it continues to go from disaster to disaster. There has been the Ōrewa I situation, after which Georgina te Heuheu was gone. Obviously, after Ōrewa II Katherine Rich has gone as well. No doubt there will be an Ōrewa III, but I figure that Ōrewa III will come following the election result. It could be that Dr Brash will be gone; I am sure that some National Party members would welcome that. After question time this afternoon I was in the forecourt, enjoying the fresh air—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Oh yes!

I was enjoying the fresh air and a National Party member whizzed past, turned, and said “What a wonderful day for the Government.” I could see in his eyes that he was disillusioned. He was heading down the hill. I am not sure where he was going, but I assume he was looking for a rock at the bottom of the hill. I do not think the National member would be able to get under the rock, because some of his mates would already be there. He looked very disillusioned. It is disappointing to see a party such as the National Party has been in the past drop as low as it has.

I did say that I wanted to place on record some of our achievements. I acknowledge the industrial reforms that we have introduced. We have got rid of the freeloading stuff. We have brought a bit of balance back into bargaining. That has made the process a bit fairer for workers, as they have an opportunity to sit at the table and know that they are listened to. We have increased the minimum wage five times in the last 5 years. I understand that in March it is going up even further—from $9 to $9.50 an hour. The next achievement relates to parental leave. Obviously, we are a Government that acknowledges the opportunities to have families working. The Holidays Act is another reform we have introduced. It is a family-friendly policy, which gives more opportunities for families to be together and to enjoy each others’ company. Fair holidays for all have returned to workers the right to be fairly compensated for the sacrifice they make in rest, recreation, and family time when working on a public holiday. I think that is absolutely wonderful.

The other area that I want to place on record is Māori development. We have moved away from the grievance mode and are into Māori development. The Prime Minister was, in her address yesterday, talking about the Hui Taumata. This century will see Māori emerge even more strongly as very significant stakeholders, asset holders, and contributors to economic development. The Māori commercial asset base is already estimated at $9 billion, with Māori owning 37 percent of the fishing quota and 10 percent of the land in the forest estate, as well as contributing 7 percent of agricultural output. I think that is marvellous. Our aim is to complete the historical settlements in the next 10 to 15 years. Achieving that will need a closing-off date for the lodging of claims to be set. The Hui Taumata is focused on developing people, assets, and enterprise. The hui sees Māori picking up the challenge of development and planning how to accelerate it. Ensuring that Māori can stand tall and make a big contribution to New Zealand’s development and well-being is crucial to our future.

The other achievement that I want to place on the record is that Māori unemployment is less than 9 percent, the lowest it has been since that data started to be collected. I know people do not want to hear that, but it is the truth. Over 40,000 more Māori are now in work than were working at the same time in 1999. As a significant part of New Zealand’s economy, the Māori economy contributes $700 million, or approximately 7.4 percent, of New Zealand’s total agricultural output and 37 percent of New Zealand’s domestic fishing quota, and Māori manage round 10 percent of New Zealand’s forest holdings. I think that is quite significant. Since September 2000, the Māori Business Facilitation Service has assisted over 4,000 clients. Of those, it has supported 762 businesses that were starting up, 72 business expansions, and 59 business turn-rounds, and has assisted with 1,551 business plans.

The Māori Fisheries Act of 2004 transferred control of roughly $750 million in assets to iwi, as a full and final settlement of Māori claims. That issue had been sitting around for about 15 years—I think for the majority of that time National had control of it—and we have finally settled it. Māori interests in commercial and marine farming space have been addressed by providing iwi, where possible, with 20 percent of the marine farming space allocated since 1992 and 20 percent of any future new space. That was secured with the enactment of the aquaculture reform legislation late last year.

More treaty claims have been progressed than ever before. Seven major treaty claims have been settled since this Government came into office, and we are hoping to try to complete that process in a positive manner as we go on. Twelve more claims have been actively progressed during the past 12 months. They include the claims of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Manawa, Ngāti Whare, Te Arawa, Wellington Māori, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Moriori, and Te Roroa. As we move closer towards those settlements, the development within Māoridom will be enhanced.

Māori enrolments in tertiary education as at May 2004 revealed that the number of Māori enrolled in tertiary training almost doubled from 1999 to 2003, rising from 32,825 in 1999 to 62,574 in 2003. I do believe it is important to place those figures on the record, because it does show our accountability as the Government, show that we are making positive changes, and show the Government is providing for families under the flagship policy.

What are we focusing on in the next 3 years? The Government is getting more things right, but we know that raising labour productivity is critical to staying on track. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to stand here as a member of the Government caucus and say that we are getting things right. Not everyone can do that. The investments that the Government and industry are making in skills, innovation, science, research, and technology will boost productivity. Plans are under way to set up a reference group to identify concrete steps to boost productivity improvements in the workplace, and it makes sense to bring back our best and brightest people, if we can do so. We are going to focus on creating the most inviting environment for them, and we are working with employers on how best to do that. The Budget this year will support more innovation in business. We want to get more women into work, and the policies we have in place will support that intent. We are revisiting parental leave, child and out-of-school care, flexible working hours, and the work-life balance, in order to boost workforce participation while protecting the interests of children. We are looking at options in the mix of policies for increasing home-based childcare, as part of the overall solution to getting enough places. Finally, we want to help New Zealanders to save, in order to increase their assets and security and reduce our national reliance on the savings of others.

When the Prime Minister gave her address to Parliament yesterday, she spoke of making it possible for every individual to fulfil his or her potential through education. She said that that would enable our nation to fulfil its dreams. Those are nice words, but they will remain just platitudes unless they are accompanied by some real action on the major problem facing tertiary students. It was curious, in the context of a discussion of a universal benefit—which I support as a good move to simplify the benefit system—that a major group of people is being consistently denied a benefit: full-time students who are incapable of working full-time, although some are approaching that to the enormous detriment of their study. The announcement of a universal benefit actually provides the Government with a perfect opportunity to remedy the financial plight of students, and I urge it to take it. But I do that without great hope because, instead, the Government is hinting at a savings scheme for tertiary education. The Prime Minister has signalled that the Government would introduce incentives for people to save for tertiary education, which is a great thing for those who can afford it, but not much help for the bulk of students.

The Association of University Staff general secretary, Helen Kelly, has said that a private savings scheme to fund individuals into tertiary education would further erode the idea that education is a public good, and would strengthen the notion that tertiary education is a private benefit that should be increasingly funded through individual contributions. In fact the Green Party agrees with her that what we should do is to be committed to a publicly funded high-quality education system that provides equal access to all people, not just to those who can afford to pay for it. A private savings scheme is highly regressive—let us not have any illusions about that—and it will discriminate against low-income families. Helen Kelly also pointed out the dangers of developing a two-tier tertiary education system: one for those who are able to save privately, and another inferior one for those dependent on an underfunded public system. We share those fears.

I asked the Prime Minister a question in the House today about student debt. She told the House that average student debt has decreased, and she said it was due to interest fees, fees maxima, and the like. I cannot for the life of me think where she gets those figures from. I just cannot imagine—and I have asked around. No-one seems to know where those figures come from, because the Government’s own figures from the student loan annual report show that the average loan balance has increased by more than 23.5 percent since 1999, when Labour came to power, and by 4.1 percent from 2003. Let us remember that those figures include all loan balances—including those of people who have not yet completed their study, and of those who have been paying their debt off and do not have much left to go—so that has skewed those figures artificially down. In contrast, we got the figures from the New Zealand University Students Association that came from the income and expenditure survey of 4,000 real students from 21 institutions, which show that the average debt—including debts to parents, banks, and the loan scheme—is now at $18,726 on average. That is a 36 percent increase since 2001. The average debt is 60 percent higher than it was in 1998, and more and more students are looking elsewhere for borrowings, with debts to parents of over $10,000 on average. In November 1999, Labour promised to increase course subsidies in order to stabilise student fees, but fees have risen by 34 percent since 2001. The average cost of tuition fees for courses in 2004 was $5,644.

Student debt is now over $7 billion in this country. The Prime Minister was not the first to make mistakes with the figures. Last week, Trevor Mallard had a scrap with the New Zealand University Students Association after he claimed that average debt among students is less than $10,000. That is simply incorrect. The average student debt among current students is $18,726. Mr Mallard also claimed that the higher a student’s loan, the faster it is paid off. In fact, the factors most likely to affect repayment are gender and ethnicity, with women taking, on average, twice as long to repay their loans as men. Many students with large loans will never ever repay them in their lifetimes.

There is a real unacknowledged effect of student debt, as well—that is, the debt mentality of the current generation of students. The Prime Minister talks a lot about savings: the need to incentivise savings and the need to encourage people to save for the future. But we have a generation of students who have to borrow in order to live. We have forced a generation of students to take on Muldoon’s theories of sound economics in their personal affairs. I do not think we have begun to appreciate what that will mean in the future.

The Prime Minister’s speech referred to every hard-working family enjoying a secure asset base, and to building a society in which every New Zealander has a stake. But what impact do we think student loans have on the capacity of young New Zealanders to participate and become stakeholders in our society? Forty-four percent of students consider that student loans will impact on their ability to buy a house, 48 percent on their ability to save for the future, and 41 percent on deciding when to go overseas. It is not just students who are worried about those issues. According to Dr David Skilling, the chief executive of the New Zealand Institute, student loan debt is an increasingly significant financial issue for young people. Statistics New Zealand estimates that 47 percent of the 18 to 24-year-old population and 31 percent of the 25 to 34-year-old population have negative wealth, where their debt exceeds their assets. Those developments have compromised the ability of young people to build wealth and get ahead financially in the same way as previous generations were able to by buying a home when young, paying off the mortgage, and benefiting from the capital gains. The student income and expenditure survey also showed that significant numbers of students consider their student loan impacts on their ability to buy a home, save for their retirement, and undertake further study. We have to contrast that with the good intentions of the Prime Minister to encourage homeownership.

The Prime Minister also spoke about bringing New Zealanders home. However, there is a clear link between the size of student loans and the decision to go overseas. According to Statistics New Zealand figures, New Zealanders living overseas owe an average of nearly $20,000 in student loans. That is almost twice as much as those at home. The statements made by the Prime Minister about an ownership society, spreading economic benefits, and an inclusive society are great words. It is good to hear her make those comments, but students seem to have been left out of the picture. Until this Government takes seriously the enormous debt facing students and takes real courageous steps on the student loan scheme, that vision will not be a reality for this country.

The state of New Zealand is in good heart. When the Prime Minister rose yesterday to give her annual statement to Parliament, I think it would be fair to say that by the end of it New Zealanders who listened to the message the Prime Minister delivered could agree that after 5 years of a Labour-led Government a lot has been achieved. At the end of the speech people could also say that there is still a lot to do. That is what I like about this Prime Minister and this Government: we have set out a very clear record of the areas we came into office hoping to make a difference in. We now have 5 years over which we can measure our progress on those matters, but, most important, we have a leader who sets out a positive vision of where she wants to go next. Right throughout her speech—all 14 pages—we can see where the Prime Minister wants to take New Zealand into the future. This is not a leader or a Government that is resting on its laurels; it is a Government that is taking stock after half a decade and saying that the job has been well done, and here are the areas it wants to go into next.

After 5 years under this Government we see the economy growing very, very strongly. There has been year-on-year growth since this Government came to office, despite all the protestations in 1999 when this Government was elected that Labour did not know how to run the economy and things would go belly up. The Labour-Progressive Government can report to this House that 5 years of year-on-year growth has led to the lowest unemployment rate in 20 years and, at the same time, the lowest crime rate in 21 years. These are the areas that make a difference for ordinary people in New Zealand—when they see a Government delivering in this way.

Not only has the New Zealand economy grown year-on-year but also it has grown relative to our OECD trading partners. Indeed, we have been over the average in the last 5 years. I think that is a very important thing. This Government understands that we cannot pay for all the social programmes that we want to bring in without actually making sure the money is in the bank. Dr Cullen’s careful fiscal stewardship has been very important to making sure that we can put the money into health, education, the environment, housing, and all the other areas in which we do want to make a difference for ordinary people.

So when I listened to the Prime Minister yesterday going through the areas where we have a proven record and the areas where we want to go to next, I knew that this was a Government that was going places and going forward full steam ahead, despite the fact we are opposed by a bunch of has-beens and no-hopers—clapped-out, tired people who, after 5 years in Opposition, are tired of even that. Normally, political parties get tired of being in Government, but that political party across the Chamber from us is exhausted from being in Opposition. It is an extraordinary thing to see.

This week we saw an amazing thing happen. Last year Dr Brash sacked Mrs te Heuheu, which was seen as a great sign of leadership and strength, and was reported and spun in that way. But what happened this year, when Mrs Rich was opposed to policy and she was put out the door as well, was that people started to work out that he is not a political party leader but a kind of one-man show, surrounded by a few sycophants who have not had experience in Parliament—unlike, as was mentioned, the Labour front bench. The only experience the National Party can point to is the fact that 15 of its 27 members have been on the front bench at some point in the last 2 years.

That kind of merry-go-round might give one the impression that they understand power and influence, but they are not actually soaking up politics. I look along our front bench and see people who have been in politics for a long time and who understand the nuances of policy development, of working with a team, of personalities, and of reaching out to communities. It is no surprise to me that when I look across at the other parties in the Chamber I see that the parties that are doing well are being led by people who understand the body politic. But when we look at the National Party, which is led by someone who entered Parliament at the same time as I did, in 2002, and the ACT party, which is on 1.6 percent, and is led by Rodney Hide, we can see that they are going down the gurgler because they do not have any sense of purpose about what they are trying to do. There is no philosophy that unites them and no sense of cohesion about their programme. In fact, the massive speech that Dr Brash wanted to give at Ōrewa was decided only a few days before. Who was in on that? Obviously, no one.

I find it amazing that in all the media interviews Dr Brash has done he keeps saying that he cannot go into details about the areas Mrs Rich and he disagreed on. Presumably, in an ongoing debate, one would know immediately what the areas were that one disagreed on. One would know immediately the differences one had about statistics, approach, international research, and anecdotal evidence from constituency clinics. One would think he would have all the sorts of things that feed into every political party process and every policy development at the tips of his fingers, but he does not have the answers. He trots up north to Ōrewa once a year and relies on people’s perceptions of things. He sets out a hazy sort of thing, and, with his glasses at the end of his nose and in that sort of leaned-over kind of way, tries to make out as though he will put all these things right. Then he is thanked by the Rotary club people, sits down, and has a cup of tea. The next day the New Zealand people—because this is a democracy—want to ask questions about what was in the speech, but every time he is asked a question he says: “Er, well, we’re still to work out the final approach in this area.” If he is asked about the other areas he wants to look at, he says: “Well, quite clearly we’ve got to develop some further points in this area.” So people do not have a single clue about it.

What is worse is that he calls it a state of the nation speech. We could forgive him for not having details, information, and facts and figures, if it were a broad, positioning speech, but, no, this man says: “This is the state of the nation I want to lead, but don’t ask me any questions about it. Don’t ask me what any of these things are about.”

💬 Peter Brown: Tell us again how he says it.

How does he say it? He says: “Er, I’m quite uncomfortable with the way my own party won’t get on board.” The first thing he does when he returns to Wellington is to cancel his caucus meeting. We are elected to Parliament to serve here with one another—and political parties are based on a party vote system, so we all come together from our different parts of New Zealand—but as soon as the going gets tough he says: “Uh, I don’t want to have a caucus meeting today; can you cancel it?”. The reason is, he says, that he wants to be able to respond to the Prime Minister’s speech that she will give in 5 hours’ time. Here is the problem, though: a week ago he had given the state of the nation speech. He should have been prepped more than any other member of Parliament to respond to Helen Clark on Tuesday, because—apparently—he had given the state of the nation speech the week before. So it is an absolute shambles. Right across the National Party, all its members are talking about one another.

What occurs to me about Dr Brash is that he has a very old-fashioned view of the world. Dr Brash looks back on New Zealand and thinks of it in a 1950s and 1960s kind of a way. The problem is that it is now the 21st century. This man says with a straight face that it is politically correct to have a woman on the front bench of a political party. In 2005 he says that it is a politically correct thing to make sure there are women on the front bench. That is an amazing thing to say.

But we know what is going on. The back-stabbing has begun so vigorously because all the traditional alliances are unravelling. National members cannot wait to climb into one another. I say to my neighbour to the north, Simon Power, that they are talking about him. The women are asking: “Why didn’t our people stand by us? Why did they allow this to happen to us?”. They are gunning for his seat on that front bench. They are saying that Simon Power should be sent back to the second row, where whips are meant to sit, so that a place in the front row can be opened up. Presumably, it will be for Judith Collins.

National had five new MPs in 2002: Don Brash was made the leader, John Key was made the finance spokesman, and Judith Collins was made the welfare spokesperson. The only two who got left behind were Brian Connell—and we know his view, vaguely, on these kinds of things—and Sandra Goudie. Sandra Goudie has remained silent on this because she is the woman gunning for Simon Power’s front-bench seat. I say to him: “Mate, I think it’s all going to be on because the brain trust from Coromandel is on the way to serve up a big sign to Dr Brash.”

In the Otaki electorate Government policies are really making a huge difference. I was delighted in December when the Minister of Health announced that capital funding would be made available for a new health facility in Levin. The people of Horowhenua have worked for a long time on health services in our area, because they were let down year after year by a National Government. We gathered together all the key community people and worked very, very hard over 2½ years to make sure we put together a plan—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: That member was not there.

Oh, I was there the first time we started that, in March 2002. We started the process around the Horowhenua health centre development in March 2002, and in December 2004 we had the victory on that, and I am very grateful to the Government for that.

The other thing that affects our electorate is transport in the Kapiti part of the electorate. I was delighted by last week’s Wellington funding package of $225 million extra for our region. Of course, the western corridor is not part of that at this stage. The preliminary findings will be out in April, and I am looking forward to working with Winnie Laban, Peter Dunne, and my other Wellington regional colleagues, plus all the councils, including the Kapiti Coast District Council, to make sure we put together a package that will assist commuters—rail and road—in my electorate, because that will be very important to the economic development of the community in my constituency.

So there is energy, there is enthusiasm, there is employment, which is a very good thing, and there is vibrancy, not only in my electorate of Otaki but right through this country. Unemployment is down and health spending is up. Kids went back to school this week to find more teachers in classrooms, and for the first time there is more funding available for them. The Prime Minister put out ideas around homeownership, childcare, savings for retirement, and making sure that we offer a New Zealand that is forward-looking and dynamic, and that includes people—and does not have a Government whose members are constantly turning on one another. When our Prime Minister goes out and gives a speech anywhere around this country, she does not have to come back to Parliament and sack the responsible Cabinet Minister because he or she does not agree with it. We do not expel back-bench MPs from the party because they do not agree.

We have a sense of purpose, a philosophy, and things we agree on, and we are here for more than just venal politics. We are here to serve the people of this country, and we will keep on doing that with vision, purpose, and a great sense of idealism and hope for this great country, Aotearoa.

Yesterday this House took time to reflect on the tsunami tragedy and the awful human suffering that the power of nature wrought on Boxing Day. But let us spare a thought for those who have daily confronted the horrific spectacle—the sights and the smells—to enable us, in the comfort of our living rooms, to gain some insight into the magnitude of that tragedy. I refer, of course, to members of the media—reporters such as Charlotte Glennie, the camera crews, and many others. I hope their bosses comprehend the trauma these people have in terms of witnessing the carnage and devastation on a daily basis for weeks on end.

Compare that meritorious devotion to duty with the bizarre behaviour of locally based media in the week leading up to the Ōrewa speech. For a week we had the surreal spectacle of the media analysing, dissecting, and proclaiming professional judgment upon what Don Brash was going to say, before he had even delivered the speech. It was bizarre. We entered the twilight zone of political commentary. It was like a week before going to the dentist having someone telling one every day what the dentist was going to do to one! After all of that, the only excitement generated was the sacking of Katherine Rich.

I met up with my mate John Carter at Whangarei Airport yesterday coming down here, and I said to him flippantly: “You’d better hope your boss doesn’t decide to do an Ōrewa III speech and make the topic defence.” How little I realised that my statement was prophetic. Every member of the National caucus with a spokesperson’s role must live in fear and trepidation that Don Brash’s next speech will be in his or her portfolio area. What does one do? One either concurs with dopey policy, or gets sacked by lunchtime.

There has been considerable comment recently on the amount of parental contribution towards schooling. Considerable heat has been generated but there has been no in-depth analysis of the issue. The political spin is that because locally raised funds have increased—and that includes parents’ fees and donations, foreign fee-paying students’ costs, fund-raising activities such as galas, corporate and trust sponsorship, leasing of property and buildings, etc.—that is proof of the proposition that Government is under-funding our schools. Such a conclusion is simply not logical. If a Government doubled the amount it gave to schools, parents would still want to raise funds, and principals would still do everything possible to maximise resources available to students.

During the 1980s I was principal of a rural area school. Most of the parents were farming folk and were always willing to roll up their shirtsleeves for working bees and fund-raising activities. The principal of Howick Intermediate visited our school and told me that his parents would not roll up their shirtsleeves, but they were more than willing to open their chequebooks. Are we going to ban parents from opening their chequebooks? If we do, then we are also going to have to ban gala days, raffles, mystery envelopes, batons up, and a host of other fund-raising activities. I find the donation of $750 requested by an Auckland boys’ school to be offensive. But if the parents are willing to pay that, who am I to say they should not do so? Therefore, the question should be asked: are the parents making this donation voluntarily? Is the school in breach of its legal obligations through bringing pressure on the parents by way of threatening to withdraw opportunities from their children? If there is a concern, it is this: if parents feel they are being pressurised, where do they go? It is no good going to the board of trustees. They have already set those policies. The parents will not get any sympathy from boards of trustees.

So I am calling on the Government to complete the original design of Tomorrow’s Schools and to establish a parents advocacy council. Because if parents know of their legal obligations, and their legal rights, and there is a mechanism to remedy any over-enthusiasm by schools, which is what a parents advocacy council could do, if we seriously think about it, that is about as far as policy can go unless we are prepared to ban school fund-raising of any sort.

As for the vexed question of whether schools are being underfunded, let us just say that it costs a whole lot more to deliver a computerised curriculum than it does to do so via chalk and a blackboard. This Government, in fact, tells everybody it is giving enough to schools to deliver the curriculum via chalk and a blackboard and so therefore it is giving them enough.

I finish by saying that the only time there has been a major increase in funding for schools through the operational grant has been in 1997 and 1998 when New Zealand First was able to loosen National’s purse strings and provide some funding for the additional costs that schools were incurring in this modern world.

As the Rt Hon Winston Peters stated in this House yesterday, the state of the nation address given by the Prime Minister did not really give us a true picture of the state of the nation’s health. It was a really great vision, but it was not the full picture. There is still more work to be done, and I know that the Prime Minister acknowledged that. Despite the additional dollars that have been invested in the health system—and the Prime Minister said yesterday that an additional 40 percent had been invested in health, and we acknowledge that—there are hundreds of thousands of very young New Zealanders waiting for service in this health system. We realise we cannot meet all of the needs of all of the people all of the time, but we need to meet more of the needs of the people some of the time.

The Prime Minister has told us that a stitch in time saves nine, and in New Zealand First we totally agree with that statement, particularly as it relates to the health system. The health system needs to deliver a far greater output from the great investment that it has. We want, and we need, an efficient and an effective health service.

One of the most important issues the health system faces, and it needs to be addressed, is the issue of workforce numbers and the retention of the workforce in the health service. On that issue there is silence. The bottom line is that that numbers challenge impacts negatively upon the services the health system can actually offer to New Zealanders.While the Government is busy telling New Zealanders just how well off we all are, the effects of this deficiency in resources is being felt by all sectors of our society.

Of great concern, and the area I wish to focus on, is oral health, and in particular the hospital dental service. That service is totally relied on by parents who have young children who need to be anaesthetised in order for dental work to be carried out, and there are a growing number of children in that category.

Unfortunately, an increasing number of under 5-year-olds are having a large number of teeth extracted or having multiple fillings, and for many special-needs patients that is the only way oral health can be maintained at a reasonable level. Dental therapists and dentists are unable to treat those patients and they are obliged to go into the hospital system.

The waiting times for that service are totally outrageous. In Wellington last year there was a waiting list of 12 months for dental work on children requiring a general anaesthetic. That is totally unsatisfactory for children who suffer from the effects of rotting teeth and the pain that results from that, and for their parents or caregivers who have to try to deal with the consequences. That is not an isolated case; there are others. As a former dental nurse, the Minister of Health should be aware of the consequences of having to wait for dental treatment, and a solution is urgently required for that particular problem. They are children, to whom one cannot explain the reasons for a lack of service.

Likewise, the number of dentists who provide free adolescent care under the general dental benefits contract, or the adolescent oral health service agreement, is minimal. We now have an oral health service in this country where those parents who can afford to do so pay for those services for those children, and those who cannot, go without. That is a disgrace for our supposedly First World system. Urgent attention is required in that particular area.

However, other aspects of children’s health are being neglected as well. It is very troubling to find that many children in New Zealand are suffering from Third World diseases that relate to poverty, poor housing, and overcrowding. In the past 14 months in the south Waikato area that was particularly evident, with almost 2,000 preventable hospital admissions for rheumatic fever, bronchial pneumonia, meningitis, whooping cough, and gastroenteritis. We acknowledge that something is being done in the meningitis area. Add to that fact that more than 140 children were hospitalised with severe dental problems.

Those figures do not make good reading and they were printed in the Waikato Times. That is only in one district health board. It is estimated that some 12,000 Waikato children, many of whom live in rural areas, have yet to be enrolled in primary health organisations. On a per capita basis the rate of illness in south Waikato and King Country was higher than it was in south Auckland. We believe that other district health boards will have a similar set of figures. It is an unfortunate fact that we know more about our dogs in our communities than we know about our children. That is something that we really need to do something about.

I rise to speak to the Prime Minister’s statement, and open by saying that I have observed politics for some years before I came to this place. I have to say—and I think many commentators would agree with me—that this has been a titanic week in politics in this country. It is apt that all this has happened around the time the Prime Minister presented her platform and the record of this Government’s achievements to Parliament. It is rather helpful that the National Party has melted down, because over the last couple of days in this Parliament we have been able to present to the people of New Zealand a stark contrast between the political parties.

Here is the deal: one party, the National Party, has spent the last week and a half haemorrhaging all over the place. Its members are so bitter now that one can see the bitterness on their faces. In the cafeteria and around the corridors one can see that for some of them that bitterness is even tinged—I hesitate to say—with a little taint of hatred between factions. After today, Brian Connell makes Maurice Williamson look loyal to Bill English. Maurice Williamson has been there; he knows that. Compared with Brian Connell, he now looks like a good guy. National Party members are out there knifing each other all over the show. The smell of wet blood and dry blood is everywhere.

That is one option for the New Zealand people. Their other option, of course, is this Government and the platform, policies, and achievements over the last 5 years that were aptly articulated by the Prime Minister in her statement. In the next couple of months, as we lead up to the election, the people of New Zealand will be presented with that contrast—that is, a Government that is stable, that has a Prime Minister who provides leadership, that has kept its promises, and that has achieved—and we will talk about that in a moment—or the rabble we see opposite. If National cannot convince its own team that its own policy platform has integrity, then how on earth does it think it will convince the New Zealand people? If in some bizarre way in their little minds they think they can convince the people, then they are fooling themselves. The one thing I know from my time in Parliament as a politician and a constituent member is that people out there are smart and we cannot fool them. They can smell blood, and a few other things, over on the other side. They know what they will get if ever that crew makes the Treasury benches.

I shall talk for a moment on the achievements of this Government. Dr Brash portrays himself as being some sort of eminent economist, yet all he has done since he has been National’s leader is to go around New Zealand trying, again, to fool the people by trying to convince them that this country is going down the toilet economically. But if we look at the facts—and people do: they buy their groceries, they can budget, they can work out the difference between the money they are getting in and the money they are paying out, and they know how much the Government is contributing to that and looking after their families; they are smart—and at our achievements, we will see there has been 4.6 percent solid growth. That is equal to the United States in the OECD, and second only to Korea. That is a solid achievement. That is not political spin; it is an independent OECD fact. Can members hear the silence over there? Is it not deafening? That is a fact.

The second fact has to do with unemployment. Over the last 5 years, since 1999, 250,000 jobs have been created. Unemployment is down to its lowest level for almost 20 years. The sum of $1.1 billion has been put aside to help working families. Dr Brash made a speech that was supposedly sticking up for working families and giving a policy position that said National would make tax cuts. That will not help the working families we are targeting. We then had the position of this Government, which has targeted monetary resources directly to hard-working—and I emphasise “working”—families, and that is an achievement. That is a fact, and it is solid.

Then there is crime. Despite what some people may want to portray in this place, the truth is that crime is down to its lowest level in 21 years. Next are the increases in funding for education and health—39 percent for education, and 40 percent for health over 5 years. This is not spin; this is a fact. That is what we will go to the country on, together with our vision of building on that platform and of providing further solid leadership, and stable Government. We will go to the people in this country on that at election time, and then the people will have a choice. That is our record. I am proud to stand up in Waimakariri any time, anywhere, with any candidate, or with any lost, wandering National Party MP soul like Nick Smith who might wander in there to see his folks occasionally. I am proud, and ready and willing to stand up and defend that record, because the only legacy that those members over there can present to the New Zealand people is the economic vandalism of the 1990s and the total mismanagement of their own crew, and party, for the last 5 years.

Let us look at it. In the last term of Parliament, National has had two leaders. There has been Bill English and Don Brash. I think that Bill English will be New Zealand’s version of the comeback kid, but he will come back only as far as the Opposition bench. He will be the comeback kid of New Zealand politics. Those members have no policies. They have some hidden policies, like slashing the pension and doing a whole lot of other things to our elderly folk. What is their vision? Well, we had Ōrewa I, as my colleague Mr Hughes said, and what was the only result of that? Apart from trying to divide the country and slash it in two, the result of Ōrewa I was that Georgina te Heuheu has gone. Lynda Scott was so demoralised and so marginalised that she threw in the towel. Nick Smith was even gone by morning tea. Then, as the year progressed, there was the defence spokesperson who would go anywhere, lift up the sabre, and go where our allies go without question. Into the valley of death rode the 600, led by Simon Power—

💬 Darren Hughes: The scholar.

—who has his speeches written by a guy with a PhD at Victoria University. What happened to him? He is gone—dumped and demoted—but he has kept his front-bench seat.

Then it was Ōrewa II, which we have just had, and Katherine Rich was dumped. Brian Connell, who, as I said, makes Maurice Williamson look loyal, is putting the knife in. Shane Ardern, who I would have said was a pretty moderate member of the National Party, put the boot in today. He told the truth. He said it was not on. Even Lynda Scott, who does not have much to lose these days, I suppose, was telling the truth again. The truth has come to her as she leaves this place. She said that the decision was silly and unwise. Do we know who the big winner in the National Party is? I have said this once before, when Simon Power was dumped. It is John Key. He is just rolling down that runway. He has not offended anybody and he has not brassed off any of his colleagues. He just wades through the blood, the bodies, and the corpses. John Key is the guy we will have to watch.

💬 Dave Hereora: He’s in the wrong party.

He may well be. My colleague may be right. Now I will turn briefly to the National Party’s so-called coalition partner, the 1.6 percent party—the ACT party. It is so desperate and so much in the mire that it is now “Bring back ‘Banksie’!”. I know that Maurice Williamson is relishing the opportunity to go up against that “popular” former Auckland local body politician John Banks, whose campaign manager was caught out telling porkies. Who is his campaign manager again? He is the campaign manager for the ACT party. But telling porkies—well, some people do and some people do not.

Then we have the leader of the ACT party, Rodney Hide, who is a bit like one of those Australian skinks that change colour when put on a piece of cloth. On a blue cloth it changes to blue and on a green cloth it changes to green. Then when we put it on a piece of tartan, it really does not know what to do. We have had Rodney Hide going from being the macho man to being the new statesman. Do members remember that programme, The New Statesman? He is the Alan B’stard of New Zealand politics. He tried that out, but it did not work, so he went back to form—to being the thug of Parliament. And where has that got him? His party is on 1.6 percent.

I will take heart from three things at the next election. The first is that we will return the Prime Minister and the Government to our rightful place in Government. It is a privilege to be here. Secondly, we will render the National Party terminal, if it is not terminal already. Thirdly, it is bye-bye to Rodney Hide and to the ACT boys. They will have to go back to selling Rolexes out of suitcases on Lambton Quay.

Can I say to the House to start with that when I think of all the members in this Parliament, I would probably be the one least able to be accused of being a sycophant. So I want to say this to put it on the record right from the outset. I have never been more proud to serve under a leader of the calibre of Don Brash in my entire 18 years in this House. He has a mind that is sharper than any person I have dealt with and a better understanding of issues that concern the general public than any person I have dealt with. I want to make it clear that, yes, there has been some disagreement between Don Brash and a couple of our members. Yes, there has, and there is no question about it. The public have seen that, but the Labour Government would portray that as some sort of a meltdown.

Let me ask those members whether they thought the same meltdown was happening in their party when Helen Clark sacked a heap of them. She sacked Marian Hobbs, Phillida Bunkle, Ruth Dyson, and Lianne Dalziel. Did they ever portray that as a meltdown within their party? It goes further. When it was apparent that Margaret Wilson was alienating so many people in the business community with the labour portfolio, she was sacked. She was dumped unceremoniously and taken out of it. By the time she had gone into about two or three other portfolios, it was clear that the only place Margaret Wilson could be put into was the Speaker’s Chair, where she would not cause any disruption other than here in Parliament. Was that seen as being anti-women? Well, hang on, Helen Clark got rid of—tell me the gender of these people—Marian Hobbs, Phillida Bunkle, Ruth Dyson, Lianne Dalziel, and Margaret Wilson. What about those people? Were they females? Oh, yes, they were. So that is the duplicity of the Labour Party.

💬 Phil Heatley: It’s a line call.

Well, it may be a line call, but that is this Labour Party all over. That party can have as many sackings as it likes. Dover Samuels got the chop. Paul Swain was demoted in the last go around, but that was something no one noticed. Paul Swain was moved from Minister of Communications to Associate Minister of Communications and David Cunliffe got the top job. Did anyone notice that? No one noticed it. Was that portrayed as Paul Swain being given the chop? No, of course it was not, because politics is about moving people into various positions at times, and Helen Clark has done more of it.

In the case of my portfolio, transport, we have seen three Labour transport Ministers already, and guess what? Every time the media run a transport story, they start off with: “Transport Minister, Harry Duynhoven, today said …”, but Harry Duynhoven is not the Minister.

💬 Simon Power: Who is?

That is a very good question. That is what the public would ask if we did a survey. The Government has changed its transport Minister so regularly that no one could tell us who the Minister of Transport was. Again, it is a game of selective morality. For example, let us take sexism and size-ism. Judith Tizard, in her speech in reply to the Prime Minister’s statement, got stuck into National Party members and said they are “little men”. That is what the National Party is made up of—just “little men”. Now, if we turned the table and returned the favour, I know that Ruth Dyson and Lianne Dalziel would be climbing out of their tree saying that we were sexist, size-ist, and so on.

I thought a lot about Judith Tizard’s attack—“little men”. As someone who is nearly 6 foot 4 inches and weighs over 90 kilograms, I do not reckon I am a little man. That is what I thought to myself. I do not reckon that I am a little man, but then I suddenly realised that it was Judith Tizard who was saying it. Relative to her, we are all little men. That is true. In fact, there is not a person in this House, including Gerry Brownlee, who is not a little man relative to Judith Tizard. Gerry Brownlee looks like a graduate out of some sort of Jenny Craig college relative to Judith Tizard. However, we see how bad the Labour Government duplicity is. If we had ever stood up and called one of those members “a fat woman”, there would be outrage—simple outrage. Yet they can say “you are little men” and get away with it. But I digress.

I want to talk about one issue and one issue alone, given that I have only 5 minutes to talk about it, which is to do with road funding. If there has ever been an area where there is spin, it is road funding. It is the main issue I get from the Minister of Transport regularly, and the media parrot it. The Government says that road funding has never been higher than under this Government, and that is true. But it has been true for every year since statistics on road funding were captured. I have them here. I ask members to pick a year and then pick any year behind it and they will see that it has always become bigger. So next year road funding will be bigger than it is this year, and the year after that, road funding will be bigger than that year. So it is not a great big story when Pete Hodgson says the Government is spending more on roading than ever before. That is true in any year we want to pick.

Then he comes out with this magic figure of $18.9 billion for roading over the next 10 years. They say that last bit really quickly. They say the first bit slowly—“$18.9 billion for roading over the next 10 years”. If one asks “What was that last bit?”, they say “over the next 10 years”.I do not know why they do not make it $189 billion over the next century. It sounds more; it sounds good. But I have analysed that, because that was a bit of a kick in the guts for me. I thought: ”Jeez, $18.9 billion! How does National counter that?”. So I had a look at what this year’s road funding is. I then escalated it for the average growth that has occurred in road funding over the last decade, which is 18.1 percent. I added up the numbers and came to a figure of $19.3 billion. So even if road funding grows over the next 10 years at only the rate it has been growing, $18.9 billion is less than it needs to be. Let us take Auckland. The big spin from Judith Tizard, the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues, is that the Government has done more for roading in Auckland than we could care to name. I have here a graph, using information from the Minister’s answers, of how much money has been spent on new roading in Auckland. How much money?

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: Heaps!

Dover Samuels has really led me into this. Members will notice that the first tower is blue, because that was the last year of the National Government, then the next four towers represent the first 4 years of Labour. In every year of the first 4 years that Labour was in office, it spent less on Auckland’s roads than National did in its last year in office. I must admit that last year Labour actually exceeded the line. There is the line. Anyone can have the graph; I will table it at the end of the speech.

I must say that at least last year, the Government exceeded National’s spending. But after 5 years of phenomenal growth in traffic and revenue, I have another table to show how much money the Government is now taking from the poor old motorist. We would expect that graph to go through the ceiling. Again, the spin from Labour is that it has done more in roading. Labour claims credit for a number of the projects that had already started while I was the Minister of Transport. The Albany to Pūhoi realignment had finished its first stage when Labour finally got into office, but somehow that project was Labour’s. The fact that it was all under way beforehand does not seem to rankle Labour.

The next thing Labour does not seem ever to want to touch is the fact that at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at the end of 2003, Transit New Zealand said something that should curdle the blood of every member of this House. It said that it takes us longer to consent a major project than it does to build it. In fact, it takes us considerably longer to consent.

💬 Steve Chadwick: No!

Steve Chadwick is saying: “No”. Firstly, she was not at the select committee, and, secondly, she understands very little, at any rate. Let me repeat the words. The then Chief Executive of Transit New Zealand, Robin Dunlop, said to the committee: “I have to say to the member’s question that from Transit’s perspective, it now takes us considerably longer to get the consent approval for a major project than it takes …”. So the National Party proposed a series of sensible amendments to the Resource Management Act to stop that nonsense. The Millau bridge in southern France—a US$700 million project—was consented in 3 months; it took 7 years to get the Albany to Pūhoi realignment B2 consent. It goes on.

If the Government really wants to crow about its record in road funding, members will see from the graphs that funding has dropped every year. I have here a graph of the percentage of GDP being spent on our roads. Every year while Labour has been in office it has been dropping as a percentage of our GDP. Every year the funding for Auckland has been under what it was when Labour came to power. Let us just stop the spin and start the reality.

Finally, I say to the motorists who are still in peak hour traffic in Auckland, trying to get home to their families tonight, that if they seriously believe—[Interruption] Dover Samuels needs to know that at half-past 8 it is still peak hour in Auckland. I say to motorists that this Government has done nothing to fix their problems, but to hold on, because help is on the way with a new National Government.

I congratulate Maurice Williamson on his contribution to the debate. Everyone who is anyone in the National Party is asking: “Why not Maurice? What a great leader he would be.”, and we on this side of the House agree. He might be right wing—we know that he is—but we know where he stands. That is what people in his party say. He does not ask for referenda on issues that he believes in, and there are no flip-flops on policy because Murray McCully says that that might help National in the polls. The retired Governor of the Reserve Bank has no competition within the National Party, because he ignores talent like Maurice Williamson and keeps sacking the rest.

I really begin my contribution by picking up from where my colleague Phil Goff ended his contribution earlier in the debate. The circumstances that he described were nothing short of galling. Don Brash was in New Zealand, according to the media, when the Boxing Day tsunami struck the coastlines of many countries in Asia. The next day he left for his much-needed holiday in Hawaii. It is true that when he left New Zealand the estimated level of lives lost was well below the level it would rise to over the coming days. I remember watching it on TV. I think that on the first day we thought 10,000 people had died, the next day we thought it might be 15,000, the next day 20,000, then 30,000, then 50,000, then, horrendously, over 150,000. It did take several days for the enormity of what had happened actually to sink in. But our Prime Minister was already on her way home from her holiday. She cancelled her holiday, because of the enormity of what had occurred.

I do not object to Dr Don Brash’s decision to continue with his holiday—after all, his contract with the Reserve Bank gave him 4 weeks’ annual leave, well ahead of the rest of the country getting that. He is used to it, and I think it is important to maintain continuity. But what I truly object to—and this is what Phil Goff was saying earlier—is that after his 10 days in the sun, which is more than what the rest of us who stayed in New Zealand had, he returned to say that this Government had not done enough. He said nothing and did nothing while he was away on holiday in Hawaii, and then he came back and had the gall to tell this Government that it had not done enough. He criticised the Prime Minister for waiting until the first Cabinet meeting to deal with what is the largest contribution to a crisis like that that this country has made in my lifetime. He criticised her for not announcing a memorial day, as other countries had done, whereas if he had been in the country the day before he said that he would have known that a memorial day was soon to be announced, once the details had been organised. If he had stayed in touch, he would have known what was going to happen.

I believe very strongly in what the Prime Minister said in her statement to the House at the beginning of this year: we have to be good neighbours in bad times as well as good times. We cannot be just fair-weather friends. We have to be good friends to our neighbours when they suffer something such as they have suffered with the Boxing Day tsunami. The people of New Zealand have been overwhelmingly generous. I think we have all been struck by the enormity of what has happened, and think that but for the grace of God there go we. I think it has been truly petty and unpatriotic to be so spiteful in the face of the contribution that this country, this Government, and the people of New Zealand have made in terms of the tsunami.

As members might have gathered, I was feeling very strong resentment towards Dr Brash when the Press asked me to write 150 words suggesting what he should say in his Ōrewa II speech. It was published in the Press on Saturday, 22 January this year, and I thought I would share it with the House: “Well, Don, you’ve really got yourself in a bind. As many film-makers know, the sequel to a blockbuster is never as good as the original. Makes me think you never realised what a powder keg Orewa I would be, and I bet you’re wishing you’d saved it for election year. So what’s my advice? Race relations? That was Orewa I. Law and order? Crime rate is down. Immigration? I don’t think so; after all, what would your wife think? The economy? It’s doing quite well, actually. Welfare? Unemployment at it’s lowest level in years. Health and education? Maybe the public isn’t ready for your privatisation agenda yet. I don’t know, Don. Given your recent musings on a referendum to get rid of MMP (which is how you got into Parliament), the fact you qualify for national superannuation this year and you want front-page news as well, maybe you should just announce your retirement.”

That is what I think Don Brash should have done in his Ōrewa speech this year. But, no, instead he drew out that tired, worn strategy of divide and rule—“Let’s pit one group of New Zealanders against another. Oh, and let’s not be strictly truthful in the way we present the case in respect of people who are in need of benefits at particular times in their lives.”

But I really do not want to spend time on an Opposition that is going nowhere. I want to talk about a Government that has a future, and that is because this Government believes in the future of this nation and its people, and we are prepared to articulate a vision that is inclusive of everyone in this nation. We are not into divide and rule; we are into ensuring that everyone is able to participate at every level.

I am proud of what this Government has achieved in the last 5 years. I believe that this Government has every reason to be confident about its future, and I think we should all be proud of what we have achieved. Economic growth for the year ended September was at 4.6 percent, and more than a quarter of a million jobs have been added to the economy since 1999. These are fantastic statistics, because they form the base for building. That is what I think has been missed by members of the Opposition. They get stuck in their economic area and do not see the benefits that are able to flow through to the social side. There are two sides: the economic side and the social side. The two go hand in hand. This Government is the only Government capable of merging the two.

We have the lowest crime rate in 21 years. We still have an Opposition that thinks there is no correlation between the crime rate and the unemployment rate, yet when we look at the unemployment rate and the crime rate, we see they are directly related. As unemployment comes down, so does the crime rate. As unemployment goes up, so does the crime rate. It is not that people who are unemployed necessarily are driven to a life of crime; it is just that choices and opportunities are narrowed for people when employment is at its lowest ebb.

Last year I described the Working for Families package as the best thing that had happened that year. When the Budget was read out in Parliament, I felt so proud to be part of a Government that was delivering to working families.

There are almost 7,000 Modern Apprentices in this country. I can blame Bill Birch for a lot of things, such as the Employment Contracts Act, the destruction of accident compensation, and “think big”. We can say a lot of things about Bill Birch, but I say to the House that the worst thing Bill Birch ever did to this country was to destroy our apprenticeship scheme. This Government has rebuilt an apprenticeship scheme that has given real opportunities to young people to take their place proudly in our infrastructure as the tradesmen and tradeswomen of the future.

And we have given a real boost to health and education spending.

I think the choice this year is really quite straightforward. People need to decide whether they will stick with a Government that they know works—and Labour is working at the moment. It will also work in the future, because we have the fundamentals right. We are getting results and we are building a stronger future for New Zealand. The alternative offered to us by the Opposition is a lurching back to division, to unfairness, and to the almost sheer nastiness of the 1990s. That is not the future that our people want for our country. In the wake of the tsunami, the country pulled together. We truly came together. We do not accept the politics of division—driving people apart, saying that one group of people is better than another, that one group has it over another. That is not what New Zealanders want. They want a future together. They get that with Labour.

Over the last 15 to 20 years successive Governments have reformed almost every aspect of our society, particularly the economy. We have moved from a controlled economy to a market economy. The European Community’s emergence and Britain’s involvement in the European Economic Community caused us to expand markets and expand our export produce. In welfare, the massive costs of the welfare State have required a reformation of our approach, to focus on getting people off benefits and into work. That, of course, is the current debate we are having. In health, huge reforms in how to deliver have come from changes in our approach to health, as medical science has developed. In all these things we have been moving into the 21st century and making the changes necessary for us to do that.

In comparison, there is one area we have not touched. Indeed, we are still in the 19th century when it comes to this area, and there is a desperate need for fundamental reform, because it is failing to meet the basic needs of 21st century New Zealanders. I refer to the justice system, which is inaccessible to most New Zealanders, unaffordable for most New Zealanders, and delivers unjust results because it is based on a flawed approach.

The Law Commission, in issuing a paper last year entitled Delivering Justice for All: A Vision for New Zealand Courts and Tribunals, reflected these sentiments: “The core lesson we have learned from the people who offered their views in the course of this review is that the court system has to do better in winning and retaining the confidence of New Zealanders from all our many communities. … If people cease to see courts as relevant, effective and accessible, they are less likely to believe that the rule of law means everyone is entitled to the benefit and protection of the law, including them and people like them. They are less likely to believe that courts will fairly and impartially resolve disputes between citizens and the state.” The commission went on: “It is clear that cohesion or coherence have not featured in the creation of our existing arrangements for courts and tribunals. Reform of the law often proceeds without regard to the downstream effects on the overall structure of the courts.” When reporting what people had told the commission about the court system, it said: “The responses, which came from all sectors, were that courts too often exclude people rather than provide an environment in which they can comfortably and naturally seek redress or assistance.”

The commission repeated and furthered those statements in its report for the year ended 30 June 2004. At page 4 of that report, it said: “… if it is important to us as a nation to turn the rhetoric of an accessible and fair justice system into reality, we cannot maintain the current framework and approach.”

The Government’s response so far has been woefully inadequate. It has rejected more than it has agreed upon, and it has basically ignored the urgency and seriousness of the situation. The Prime Minister’s statement reinforced that position. Mind you, we do have a Minister of Justice who has no legal training, let alone courtroom experience. Like most New Zealanders, he simply does not understand how the system works, and is therefore unwilling to consider any substantive changes. That is not to criticise him for his lack of knowledge and experience; it is simply the reality. Labour does not have anyone else who has the knowledge and ability adequately and confidently to tackle the problems.

On the other hand, the National Party does have MPs with courtroom experience, but they are captured by the entrenched old boy network of lawyers and judges, who are very comfortable in having a justice system that they alone understand and that, through its mystique, ensures they will always be needed to interpret it for the common man. No other party in this House has even addressed the issue, or, it appears, has any inclination to do so.

United Future is prepared to take a radical look at our justice system, to ensure that it is affordable, accessible, and delivers the best results possible. We will deliver a court system that New Zealanders can understand. We will deliver a court system that New Zealanders genuinely believe is affordable, accessible, fair, and delivers justice, and we will deliver a court system that New Zealanders genuinely consider that they own, and are proud to own. United Future is the party concerned for the average New Zealander, for families, for the community, and for the future of our society. New Zealand’s antiquated approach to our justice system does not deliver for those people, and over the next few months we will be announcing policy to change it so that it does.

I was very interested to listen to the Prime Minister’s speech, as I think most people were. I will not go over those items that I can agree with but will concentrate on those areas that I cannot agree with. The Prime Minister articulated a vision, not of individual aspiration but of even more Government intervention. She talked about giving Kiwis the chance to realise the great New Zealand dream. But the dream she spoke of was not one that recognised reward for individual effort; it was not a dream that empowered each of us to shape our own destiny. Instead she gave us a dream without wings, a dream manufactured by ideology, sanitised by political correctness, and supported by collective responsibility, which, in reality, is no responsibility at all.

I recognise that there needs to be a balance between what an individual can do and what a State should ensure, but I suggest that that balance has become one-sided. The Government is no longer the servant of the people, but, rather, it has become their enslaver. In a time of economic growth, low unemployment, and high possibilities the last Budget made beneficiaries out of families on $70,000 per year. The huge surpluses generated off the backs of Kiwi workers have been stripped off them through punitive taxes, and when people ask to keep more of the money that they earn, they are painted as greedy. But this Government, blinded by its own ideological prejudice, has arrogantly decided that it knows better what to do with the wealth it had no part in creating. It is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong.

This Government, which is so keen to rid us of discrimination against every minority it can find, is guilty of discrimination against one minority it will never have the intention of helping—employers. The last 5 years have seen a systematic increase in the State’s financial imposition on employers. The Holidays Act and compliance costs, such as occupational safety and health regulations and so on, have all been placed on the employers’ back. It is why despite the economic growth, no one is better off except the Government tax take. We have witnessed an incremental discrimination against employers, greater reliance on Government handouts resulting in a lessening of freedom of choice, self-responsibility, and a killing of our aspiration to innovate and be entrepreneurial.

Although employers have been hit in their dreams, the irony is that it is the workers, through increased costs, who end up having to pay for the lot. What about their dreams? Why are they forced to flee from being fleeced to capitalise offshore, to replace New Zealand workers with foreigners as has been done recently, or to leave altogether to pursue their futures in other lands?

As far as crime is concerned, I was interested to hear the Prime Minister talk about a downturn in crime. On what basis can she make such a claim? There have been more murders at this time this year than at this time last year. Increasingly, people are disheartened about reporting crime. While we strap useless home-detention bracelets on violent offenders who simply walk off, give compensation handouts and pursue expensive and ineffective rehabilitation programmes, the police are having their work undermined by sentences that do not reflect the severity of the crimes. The police are torn between commitments to help victims and income-revenue generation for this greedy Government. Meanwhile, law-abiding people and victims are left shaking their heads as their interests and their rights are superseded by those of the criminal.

I will give members an example. We have advanced a host of policies recently, but think on this: the Nelson child pornographer jailed for a year yesterday would have and should have got a sentence of anything up to 10 years, if the Government was seriously interested in progressing strong legislation that is already on its books. The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Amendment Bill is still awaiting its second reading, after the select committee reported back in August last year, and child pornographers everywhere are still getting weak sentences as a result.

But I guess we can all see the Government’s point of view—right. It was absolutely imperative that it legalise same-sex marriages and stop people from smoking in bars before election year. The trouble is that perverts such as Jason Gorman are getting wet-bus-ticket sentences while we wait and wait and wait. It is time to start thinking about individuals who are victims and individuals who are employers. The people who matter in this country have been relegated to the dustbin by the aspirations of ideology over common sense, and it is wrong.

The Christian party’s spokesperson sits down—the lion has roared. Mr Marc Alexander used to be a mate—

💬 Marc Alexander: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have never been a member of any Christian organisation. I am an atheist and proud of it.

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

Before I get to the formal part of my speech in regard to supporting and commending the Prime Minister’s statement to the House, I will make a number of observations in regard to the National Party and the state of it.

We heard this evening that John Banks is thinking of standing for the ACT party in the Pakuranga seat. If “Banksie” is going to join the ACT party, what does that say for his former colleagues in the National Party when he will not even contemplate going to their aid? They are dog tucker. However, “Banksie” knows, as we know, that when he joins ACT it is like taking a ticket on the Titanic knowing what was going to happen. He knows that joining the ACT party is like a rat going on to a boat that is going down rather than trying to escape it. But, anyway, he has escaped the National Party so that is probably a bonus.

I also want to commend Katherine Rich in the House today. It is a great moment in politics and in this House when individual members stand by their principles and are not cowered, bowed, or intimidated by others in regard to gongs, “incentivisation” programmes, and the like that leaders may dispense. I am grateful to her for at least standing up for some constitutional integrity on that side of the House.

The Prime Minister’s statement set out clear points of difference between us and members opposite and I want to spend a bit of time on exploring the differentiation and why Kiwis out in the heartland right now tonight will continue to vote for a Labour Government. They will continue to vote for us because we understand the evolution of our nationhood. Nationhood is a keynote approach to the Prime Minister’s statement. Understanding the Kiwi evolution and its track is very important. Equally important is the way in which race relations issues have meshed within our continuing nationhood story. Many of us can recall when Michael Joseph Savage declared war on Germany—“Where England goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand.” That is great and stirring stuff and is part of our nationhood story.

💬 Jill Pettis: But he didn’t say “without reservation”.

We can tell Mr Power that he did not say “without reservation”! But at the same time as that was a great and moving call to arms in favour of the United Kingdom, it also expressed our strong connection as merely a colony in the Antipodes.

In 65 years we have come a long way and I want to put the proposition that it was not until the 1970s that we started to find ourselves and explore our place in Oceania, the Pacific, and, indeed, having Asia on our borders. It is very important that we understand how recent, therefore, not just the race debate is between Māori and the nation, but also a range of other matters in terms of the restructuring of our economy and the like, knowing that the umbilical cord to Great Britain was broken in 1974 when it voted to join, as it was then known, the EEC. Members on this side of the House, if they understand our history, can start to plan our future a lot better.

I conclude this part of my speech by saying that the backbone of our nation and its leadership of tomorrow are the young Kiwis out there. They stand up and sing our national anthem in Māori and in English. They are far more tolerant and respectful of others and their rights despite how people might look, dress, eat, and act. They have been lucky enough to be exposed to greater diversity. They energise and set the direction and standard for our music, our fashion, and our language, and, through text messaging, they are going to destroy the English language faster than the Yanks. In the global marketplace they have a sense of their points of difference and how special they are. They are born out of, and are very much patriotic to, a great country. They will push the envelope, so to speak, but that is the role of the youth sector. It evidences a vibrant, dynamic, and Kiwi-centred approach to our going forward. It is Kiwi-centred because significant decisions have been made and implemented that we are driving right in, right now, as a baseline to a nationhood concept that gives them, regardless of race and creed, a sense of belonging as Kiwis in this great country. Our challenge is in moving forward.

I will comment now on the constitution. Our constitutional process lends itself to continuing incremental change and it is anchored by the supremacy of Parliament. It is not anchored in unelected judges and it is not anchored in the supremacy of unelected editors in the fourth estate and the like. It stands right here in this House and I would argue that we have been bequeathed a supreme process known as a Kiwi version and shaping of a Westminster system. There has been widespread disquiet over the role of the Treaty of Waitangi. I commend Peter Dunne and United Future as Peter Dunne heads a parliamentary select committee that will help to shape a constitutional conversation without hate, without envy, and without division. That is the type of leadership a Labour Government can give, by acknowledging the leader of another party in leading a very important debate. That is how important it is. I make the point this evening that to us the Treaty of Waitangi is, in a constitutional sense, what the Declaration of Independence was to the Americans and what the Magna Carta is to the UK. It is a foundation statement, a foundation document, that will never be unwoven, regardless of any rhetoric Dr Brash may care to spread around.

Moving on to the issue of race, given that we deferred our nationhood debate and, therefore, the debate on the position of Māori in Kiwi society until the 1970s, it is important that we acknowledge and accept that significant outcomes have been achieved with the goodwill of all parties. The rise of the Māori Party is unfortunate and frustrating. It is not Māori; Māori is a generic term. The group of people who have supported the rise of the Māori Party are actually tribal fundamentalists. At the end of the day, once they wake up in bed—either before or after the election—we will start to see an implosion. The problem with the Māori Party is that it is led by a bunch of people who have done extraordinarily well out of protest activism, so they can tell their children why they should vote against things, why they should march against things, and why they should dislike others. Under no circumstances will the Māori members of the Labour caucus accept that, as we start to march forward hand in hand as we must and as we should.

It is quite clear. The Māori Party is built around new-age educationalists, reconstructionists in terms of history, and the academics and the new elite around the Treaty of Waitangi chequebooks. There is no case and no space in this country for separatists. I am very proud of my Ngāti Porou tānga—very proud of that tribal background. We do not ram it down other people’s throats, but we are very proud of it. Our being proud of it does not mean to say that we can coerce others into our way of thinking. We have to acknowledge that this is a great land of diversity, difference, and opportunity. The days when people could stand up and scream “treaty” and believe that they would get special rights have gone. The Labour Party has led by its very rich tapestry and genealogy. Great rights have been won for Māori. Now Māori have to wake up as to how we are going to bank those rights and how we are going to use them, rather than always grasping—as the Māori Party continues to do—for more and more. In the last 25 years Māori have made huge progress. It is about time we had a new leadership that stood up and started to celebrate and rejoice in the potential of our communities, rather than continuing to protest.

I want to conclude by noting how strong the economy is. The fact is that the whole calibration overseen by Dr Michael Cullen and the leadership combo of Clark and Cullen is not just giving greater headspace to other Governments—fearful, of course, of the thought that any other Government could replace us—but is also adding huge headspace in terms of the level of debt, in terms of prudent and appropriate taxation policy, and with regard to the “Cullen fund”, which provides a huge stabiliser. On every step of a business case we have debt. Firstly, we will reduce it. We have reduced it from 33 percent to 25 percent, and it will go down to 20 percent by 2008. Secondly, we must be certain of our income flows, like any business. We must be certain that they are solid and stable before we start to spend them. We are not certain; therefore, we will not hold a lolly scramble. Thirdly, we must invest in our skills competency, capability, and capacity. We are putting huge dollars into that. Fourthly, like any good business we can then start to give rewards through either dividends or tax cuts. But we have to answer the first three questions first. We must have a very fair conversation about that, and we have to cut the masses in. This is not a debate about a failed Reserve Bank governor leading a failed National Party; this is a debate that goes to the heart and soul of every Kiwi household as they watch their TVs and go to the barbie at the beach every Sunday. I commend the Prime Minister’s statement.

Mr Speaker, as I rise to speak in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, I first welcome you back for the new parliamentary year in your rightful job. I congratulate you and your colleagues on the work you do, and I congratulate my parliamentary colleagues. It has been interesting to note the number of Labour Party speakers who have gone for almost two-thirds—sometimes three-quarters—of their speeches without even referring to the Prime Minister’s statement. That is because it is the most forgettable document we have ever seen presented to the Parliament. It has absolutely no vision and definitely no leadership—unlike the leadership of the National Party, which has articulated clearly tonight and over the last wee while where we intend to go. [Interruption] It is great to hear the member for Whanganui carping away. I heard a great line over the Christmas break: “Don’t get into a debate with idiots; they’ll only bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” I am not going to respond to the member for Whanganui. But let me just say that there is no vision.

I listened to John Tamihere. The irony of the debate over the last few days about the changes in the National Party is apparent when we hear John Tamihere speaking. Suddenly the National Party changes spokesmen and it is headline news; the Labour Party, of course, does that on about a weekly basis. Let us look—and let us look at the duplicity of the media on this as well—at the long line of Labour Cabinet Ministers who have been casualties under this regime. We started with Phillida Bunkle and Marian Hobbs. Then we had Dover Samuels, Ruth Dyson, and Lianne Dalziel. The list goes on. And of course it includes the famous one, Tariana Turia, who has formed her own political party and is now in opposition to the Labour Party. I say to the media, which has kept running this line over and over in the last few days, that it should look at what goes on in the Labour Party, because National Party members are very moderate by comparison.

Let us come back to the Prime Minister’s statement for a moment and look at the vision she articulates for New Zealand. The best I can make of it is that she is articulating that she and her band of Labour socialist colleagues know best for New Zealand. They will tax people and tell them what is good for them. There is nothing aspirational, nothing about leadership, and nothing about young New Zealanders getting out there and making it happen—Labour knows what is best for the people.

Let us look at where the wealth the Prime Minister crowed about in her statement comes from. I went to the Parliamentary Library, because I could not find anything in the Prime Minister’s statement, to find out where the figures came from. What did the Parliamentary Library tell me? It told me that $3.677 billion came from land-based agricultural industries. So I went back to the Prime Minister’s statement, thinking that there would be at least half a dozen paragraphs about how agriculture and land-based industries, the strong economic base of New Zealand, would benefit from this Government. I saw not a single mention of it in the Prime Minister’s statement. Over the summer I watched all of the media with great interest, particularly the rural media. I noticed that we have a new Minister for Rural Affairs, Damien O’Connor. He is in the House now, and I congratulate him on being the new Minister for Rural Affairs. I say that he will be the next Labour Minister of Agriculture. The problem is that he will have to wait until he is Jim Sutton’s age before he gets there. That is the problem, because the Labour Party will not be in Government post the next election. I hope the new Minister for Rural Affairs can do better than the last Minister for Rural Affairs and actually secure one cent in a Budget for rural affairs. As it stands at the moment, rural affairs has no budget. We have a Minister for Rural Affairs, but we have no budget for rural affairs. Some money is tossed aside by the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Forestry, but there is no budget for rural affairs. The Minister for Rural Affairs should try to get a budget, because it would be useful in carrying out his portfolio duties. I also tell that Minister, who will eventually be Minister of Agriculture if he hangs around here until he is in his 70s, that there is absolutely no mention of biosecurity or customs—or money for it—in the Prime Minister’s statement to the House.

We have seen the bizarre situation this summer where a scorpion hitchhiked into Auckland International Airport and then managed to get a bus or a taxi down town, stayed in a hotel room overnight, came back to the domestic terminal the next morning, jumped out of a bag, walked up to somebody standing at the check-in counter, and bit that person on the ankle.

I say: “Well done to the scorpion!” But at the same time that that happened, the Minister for Biosecurity was proposing a major Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry exercise concerning what would happen in New Zealand if we had a foot-and-mouth outbreak. Foot-and-mouth is a virus and is undetectable to the naked eye. Something that is 7 centimetres long, like a scorpion, can travel through all our border controls, travel around Auckland on a sightseeing tour, stay overnight in a hotel, and come back to the domestic airport and bite somebody on the foot—and the Minister for Biosecurity is going to carry out an exercise to see what would happen if we had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in New Zealand!

I say to the Minister that in his own press statement Treasury warned him that if there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in New Zealand it would cost $6 billion in the first year. Given that the total exports from New Zealand in a year are about $6.9 billion—and I am sure my finance colleague, John Key, will correct me if I am wrong—the Minister is quite rightly focusing on foot-and-mouth because that would have a serious outcome for New Zealand. But what is the Minister doing to improve surveillance now? Absolutely nothing is happening. The scorpion that walked through the airport is absolute testimony to that. I ask the Government where the comments were in the Prime Minister’s statement about that. There was not a single dicky bird.

I will look at another great issue that took place over the summer months, and before. Despite the fact that the Government and the Minister of Agriculture said time and time again that the Government would not take property rights off farmers, we now have legislation that is likely to pop up at any time—but nobody knows where it is—called the Land Access Bill.

💬 Hon Damien O'Connor: Where?

I tell that member, who is now the Minister for Rural Affairs, to stand in Parliament tonight and tell us where that legislation is and what it is that he is trying to fix.

One of the surveys I did over the summer was to talk to farming and recreational groups about what is wrong with the status quo. The Government has been creating a perception for at least 12 months that there is a problem with the current structure. But nobody knows what it is, except for the country’s most famous tramper, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who has flown into the odd private station in the South Island without asking first, and been told: “Helen, please ask. You may be the Prime Minister but you haven’t bought the whole of the South Island yet—not quite.” She has only 40 percent of it. Because the Prime Minister has dropped into a couple of stations in the South Island without permission and it has been suggested to her that she might have asked first, she has decided she will fix that. The socialists know how to fix that. They will pass legislation that says that people can wander over private property without asking. If that is not what the Government is doing, Government members should stand and tell us what they are doing and what the problem is that they are trying to fix, because nobody knows what the problem is or what the Government is intending to do.

If there has ever been duplicity in comments from the Government, then people should look at the range of comments that have come from the Government over this issue. The Minister, in one of the rural papers over the summer months, said that no means no. I hope he is correct because we will support “no means no”. That is all we are really campaigning for. If people turn up at the farm gate and say they want access, and the farmer says that they cannot have access, then that is what it means. I say to the Minister for Rural Affairs that that is where the issue should lie, and he should clear it up tonight.

Another issue is the amount of land that is going into the Department of Conservation. The Minister is jumping up and down. There was nothing in the famous tramper’s speech about the fact that the department now owns 40 percent of the South Island, and recently bought Birchwood Station in the South Island for $10 million. Why is it that people do not now have access where they used to have access previously on to Birchwood Station?

The Prime Minister, in her statement to Parliament yesterday, said that we are building a nation that offers fairness in opportunity and is tolerant and respectful of all. Those are words that all New Zealanders should be proud of, I am sure, but not all New Zealanders practise the sentiment.

This evening I was privileged, as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, to represent the Government at a launch by the police of a programme where they are engaging with ethnic peoples, so that police officers are more sensitive about cultural differences in our country. Simultaneous launches were also being held in Auckland and Christchurch. Those events tonight in the three cities are really indicative of the attitude this Government has towards the increasingly diverse society we live in—the multi-ethnic and multicultural society that is the reality of New Zealand today. This Government, led by Helen Clark, is an inclusive Government. It seeks to unite communities, not to drag them apart.

Last year at Ōrewa, the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, gave a speech that sought to divide New Zealanders—to separate Māori New Zealanders from non-Māori New Zealanders. This year we had another speech at Ōrewa that sought to divide New Zealanders. This time, the divide was between those on a benefit and those who are privileged and lucky enough not to be on one. The speech sought to divide New Zealanders, not to unite them.

The police today were showing a lead among Government agencies in seeking to bring New Zealanders together through understanding. That is a very sensible move, because it means that the very difficult job the police do in maintaining order in our society is made easier because they are able to deal with all New Zealanders, regardless of cultural difference. That is a very sensible approach, and it took place because 3 years ago Cabinet passed a decision that all Government departments would seek to engage with the increasing ethnic diversity of New Zealand. Departments would be sensitive in developing policies that recognised the reality that 10 percent of New Zealanders are not of Anglo, Celtic, Polynesian, or Māori origin. They are everything from Koreans to Russians, and from Croats to Bosnians.

That is the reality of New Zealand today, and it is a country I am very proud of. I am especially proud, as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, to be part of a Government that has been extraordinarily proactive in addressing that diversity. We have done all sorts of things in the past 5 years. First of all, we set up an Office of Ethnic Affairs. That had never been done before. My predecessor, the Hon George Hawkins, was the first Minister for Ethnic Affairs.

From that foundation 5 years ago we have created that direction for Government departments to recognise the different cultural needs of people, and to try to develop policies that deal with that reality. We have set up Language Line, a $2 million programme where people who want to ring a Government agency but who may not be very proficient in English can now address problems in 33 different languages, whether it be with the Accident Compensation Corporation, the Inland Revenue Department, the Housing New Zealand Corporation, or the police.

In fact, all members of this House will receive a letter in the next day or so, from me as the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, informing them that their electorate offices will be able to use Language Line. I know, as an MP from West Auckland, that my electorate staff are increasingly facing constituency cases where people are coming in from new migrant communities in which language is a problem. The Language Line programme set up by this Government, with the $2 million a year we put aside to work with that, is another example of how we are a Government that is committed to trying to bring New Zealanders together to solve problems.

A year ago the Prime Minister gave an apology to the Chinese community. That was a unique and wonderful thing to do. As many members of this House would be aware, the Chinese community in New Zealand suffered what was probably the only institutional, legal racism that any community in New Zealand has faced. They had a punitive poll tax, first of all of £10 and then of £100, which was levied in the 1890s. It was not abolished until after the Labour Government came in, in the 1930s. That Government abolished the poll tax in the early 1940s. The Prime Minister, recognising that this was still an issue for the Chinese community and responding to approaches from that community, acknowledged that a historic grievance had taken place. She issued a formal apology, and the Government set aside $5 million so that a trust for the descendants of poll tax payers now has a brief to preserve Chinese culture in New Zealand, to promote diversity and recognition of difference, and to encourage good community relationships.

That is a first. Chinese people also suffered poll tax discrimination in Australia, Canada, and the United States. None of those other countries have addressed that historic issue. When I was recently in Malaysia talking on conservation issues to the Malaysian Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, a Minister who happened to be ethnic Chinese, I discussed that issue. He was absolutely blown away—incredibly impressed that the New Zealand Government was prepared to recognise that discrimination had taken place for the Chinese community, and to do something about it. That is something I am very proud of.

In the two and a half years I have been Minister for Ethnic Affairs, I have held nine listening forums right around New Zealand, where hundreds and hundreds of people have attended from different ethnic communities. They have come along, met with me as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, met with the chief executives of large Government ministries such as Housing New Zealand, the Immigration Service, New Zealand Police, the Inland Revenue Department, the Accident Compensation Corporation, and so on. We have addressed, in a practical way, issues that those ethnic communities are facing.

That is another example of a Government prepared to build a nation, a nation the Prime Minister said yesterday that offers fairness and opportunity, tolerance and respect for all. It is not a Government that tears New Zealanders apart or that sets one New Zealander against another—Māori against non-Māori, and beneficiaries against non-beneficiaries. It is very important that we as a Government never go down that path of dividing New Zealanders, because members should look at where that can go.

Last week I represented the Government at the synagogue in Auckland when it commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, a place where over 2 million people were exterminated because of racism, because of xenophobia, and because of governmental discrimination. That extermination took place under a repulsive and repressive Nazi regime in Germany. I am not saying that New Zealand would ever get to that stage, but that is ultimately where the path of division goes. That is where the path of racism and division in communities can ultimately lead to.

Since Auschwitz was liberated 60 years ago, government-sanctioned racism has happened again in the world, sadly. In the former Yugoslavia—a place that you, Mr Speaker, would be very familiar with; I know that as a young man you attended school in that country—in the 1990s, in perhaps the most developed country of Eastern Europe, 200,000 people were killed in genocidal wars. Those took place in a very modern European country. That fighting in Bosnia and Croatia had shades of some of the racist wars of World War II.

Following that, in the country of Rwanda, in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, a terrible genocide took place against the Tutsi people who lived there, carried out by the majority Hutu in that country. Closer to home in the Solomons, another community where politicians sought to divide communities, conflict between people from the island of Malaita, and that of Guadalcanal has led to armed intervention by Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific countries in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands. That is a direct outcome of politicians seeking to exploit divisions within communities and setting people against each other, which leads to society breaking down, people being killed, and civil disorder taking place. At this very moment in the Darfur region of Sudan, Arab militias are battling against people of African origin in a racist war over land and resources.

Those are practical examples of politicians who have used divisions within society for their political advantage. Of course, 60 years ago it was Adolf Hitler in Germany. A few years later it was Enoch Powell in Britain. More recently we have seen Mr Le Pen in France, Jorg Heider in Austria, Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Pauline Hanson closer to home in Australia, and today Mr Mugabe is playing the race card to divide people in Zimbabwe—whites against people of African origin. Politicians do that to keep political power.

So there is a moral imperative. The previous speaker, the National member for the Taranaki region, talked about a Government not having leadership. What I have just talked about is a Government showing leadership and bringing New Zealanders together, not dividing them.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The next contribution from New Zealand First will be split two ways between Bill Gudgeon and Pita Paraone. There will be a bell at 4 minutes.

I asked a question today during question time. I asked the Minister for Social Development and Employment: “Does the Minister expect benefit restructuring to reduce dependency on the State, if so, how long will it be before this happens, and what will be the numbers?” I would just like to quote from a past President of the United States, Ted Roosevelt, who said: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, … who strives valiantly, … but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

As I listened to the statement made by our Prime Minister yesterday, I thought about the very words that that past President of the United States said. When will the people who are in the situation of being on a benefit ever feel success and failure? When will that happen? New Zealand First is about making things happen for the country. It is about sensible achievement administration, accountability to the citizens of this nation, answering to the public for all that has transpired, and ensuring that what our forefathers sacrificed their lives for is protected and remains as the foundation and governing criteria of this nation.

Yesterday I heard that a leading point was made towards changing the flag. No—our forefathers and those who fought in previous wars would not agreed. This brings me to the matter of Agent Orange. Why is this debacle going on? There has not been even an apology. Our veterans are getting to the stage where they are demanding compensation. New Zealand First supports that, and we will support further investigation into why these things are swept under the mat.

I refer now to immigration. New Zealand First is not averse to immigration. We invite those people, regardless of ethnicity and race, to come here, but as skilled qualified people who will contribute to the goodwill, economy, and overall culture of New Zealand. Our country is not a stepping stone towards receiving a New Zealand passport and heading for our neighbours, or any other nation for that matter.

It is interesting to talk about welfare. Sir Apirana Ngata said in the 1930s that the welfare programme would be detrimental to the Māori people, and to anybody else on it. Today the fruits are before us. For the last 12 days, except Sunday, my son has been running a swimming complex in a township in Waikato. I asked some young Māori boys whether they would like to be good swimmers and reach the Olympics. They replied: “No.” I asked them: “Why not?”, and they said: “Because it’s too much like hard work. The interesting point is that the police have been invited to that place. Why? The reason is that those who are unemployed are causing too many problems. They have nothing to do but drink and get into trouble. Consequently, this particular little town has the highest statistics of domestic abuse in the country, and ranked second to it is another little town about 5 kilometres away. People talk about welfare and dangling the carrot. What for? To keep the votes coming? We have a responsibility to sort this out. As Sir Apirana said, it is detrimental to our nation.

Ā, tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, me ngā mema katoa o te Whare nei, ahakoa tēhea tō rōpū.

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker, and to all members of his House, regardless of party.]

In a few days our country will commemorate the day that gave birth to New Zealand as a nation. I refer, of course, to the 165th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. A number of us, together with other New Zealanders, will travel to Waitangi to commemorate that event, which is often referred to as the birth of our nation. Some members who will not attend will list protest action at Waitangi over the years as the reason.

Yesterday we heard from the Prime Minister about how well the Government is doing. Clearly, there are people, together with those of us on this side of the House, who obviously do not share that view. Last year at Waitangi we witnessed a level of protest against the Prime Minister and some of her ministerial colleagues that has never before been seen in this country. Notwithstanding the reason for that protest, I will be the first to condemn that treatment of our country’s Prime Minister. While I do not expect that level of protest to be repeated this year, I expect that the reason will remain—that is, dissatisfaction with this Government. Yesterday the Prime Minister made very little reference to things Māori. However, two matters were referred to: firstly, that Treaty of Waitangi historical claims be dealt with in a timely fashion, and, secondly, the proposed Hui Taumata to be held next month.

💬 Jill Pettis: Get out and get a job!

I can see that the fish market is open at the moment. With regard to Treaty to Waitangi claims, it seemed that this Government was relying on the process of direct negotiation to achieve a timely process of dealing with historical claims. I want to say that claimants are subscribing to this process only because they are frustrated at the time it will take to have their claims heard. All of this denies those claimants the opportunity to have their day in court, so to speak.

I say to the Government that what is really required is adequate resourcing of both the Office of Treaty Settlements and the Waitangi Tribunal. If we were to subscribe to that view, then I would say that the intention to deal with historical claims in a timely fashion will be achieved. Failure to do so will see this whole area, commonly known as “the treaty industry,” continue forever. I was hoping that the Prime Minister, while on the subject of the treaty, would also commit to providing a clear definition of what the principles of the treaty are as advanced by her Government in legislative work. Sadly, I hoped for too much.

With the time left to me, I now want to comment on the proposed Hui Taumata and, in particular, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Māori Affairs, and those Māori members in Government who referred to this hui. These are the points they did not make about the Hui Taumata: firstly, attendance is limited to only 400 people; secondly, they will decide who those 400 people will be; thirdly, already over 1,000 people have indicated a wish to attend the Hui Taumata; and fourthly, and more important, the cost for those people who are successful in being accepted to attend will be $200 each.

The Government is hailing this hui as an opportunity for Māori to advise the Government on how to develop economic policy for the Māori people. Although this may seem laudable, Māori are in fact being asked to pay for this opportunity. Where does this Government get off having to charge Māori to help it develop policy? Will this Government ask non-Māori for similar advice and then charge them for that advice? I think not.

Finally, I note that the Minister of Māori Affairs extolled the virtues of this Government’s efforts in bringing the number of unemployed Māori down to 9.1 percent and the number on benefits down to 22,000. I say to the Minister that he and his Government ought to consider this fact: why do Māori who live in Australia earn more than their kith and kin here in New Zealand? Why are they healthier than their kith and kin here in New Zealand? Why do many of them own their own homes? It is because they are better off in Australia.

The last 4 weeks have made me very proud to be a New Zealander and very proud to be part of this Government. I always knew we were pretty good at lending a hand, not in a goody-two-shoes sort of way—sort of “Look at me, aren’t I the best.”—but in an unassuming, practical, hands-to-the-wheel response. That is generally how we behave towards each other in our communities. Given that, I should have expected our response to the tsunami, but $17 million from the public has surpassed even what I expected.

However, it did not remain with community generosity alone. New Zealand’s generosity will be honoured in the first place, as we know, by the New Zealand Government meeting that, dollar for dollar. When the Wellington Chinese community raised $30,000 last Saturday night for the Red Cross, overnight that became $60,000. In total New Zealand has set aside $68 million for tsunami relief work.

Where is it going? I understand that the New Zealand Red Cross will build 2,000 houses in the Maldive Islands. We do not hear about the Maldives very much. They comprise 1,200 small islands. The waves washed straight across 200 of them and destroyed every house on them. Two thousand houses are being built there, and 3,500 more houses are being repaired. Oxfam provided sanitation, latrines, temporary shelter, and water storage in Sri Lanka, India, and Aceh. The Salvation Army is involved in building 1,000 houses in Sri Lanka. There is family tracing, mosquito nets, care for pregnant women, measles immunisation, and all variety of tasks are being undertaken. World Vision has even reached the southernmost town in Burma, about which we were really worried, and has guaranteed relief feeding there for 6 months. It has been a tremendous effort by New Zealanders, and we are making a difference.

The tsunami effort has been not only about cash donations. Like Mr Goff, I am also very proud of the consular and aid work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NZAID staff in the days and weeks of January. Many had a very sober New Year’s Eve on the phone. I want to thank them for working so hard for us and for contributing so many hours.

Members will be aware that the aid agencies are beginning to close off their tsunami funds. While it has been an enormous catastrophe with up to 200,000 people dead, that number of people die at least every week from malaria, HIV/AIDS, and hunger, and therein lies my other source of pride—NZAID, the Government development agency responsible for New Zealand overseas aid. While non-Government organisations will argue for more Government aid expenditure, they will not criticise NZAID. It is an internationally applauded Government aid agency that knows how to work with Pacific communities—not tell them what to do, but how to be real partners, how to grow good governance skills, and how to encourage trade and business.

In New Zealand we know that to raise productivity we have to raise the standard of educational achievement. The House should consider the Solomon Islands where only about 30 percent of the population ever get to 3 or 4 years of primary school. It costs families over there who do not have a cash economy 600 Solomon Islands dollars to pay for a child each year at school. New Zealand is turning that around. Our contribution will mean that 70 to 80 percent of Solomon Islands children will receive 5 to 6 years of free education. That is building a stable future.

Our footprint is everywhere in the Pacific, and it needs to be. The United Nations Millennium Project report has just shown that the Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa are the two areas in the world failing to meet the targets on infant mortality, on clean water supply, on sanitation, on youth employment, and on coping with HIV/AIDS. In the Prime Minister’s words: “We work to be good neighbours.”

Sadly, I fear that that work would not be supported if ever there were to be a National Government. Any aid increase would surely be gone by lunchtime, or at least by the next tax cut. There is nothing on National’s website about foreign aid, and nothing about New Zealand aid; it is all about trade and trade agreements. There is nothing there about being a good neighbour.

We also work at growing peace in the world. New Zealand is a member of the New Agenda Coalition. It is a group of seven States: Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden. It was formed in 1998 to pursue nuclear disarmament and a nuclear-free world. The world community relaxed a little after the cold war. It should not have. Nuclear missiles are still on alert. New nuclear weapons are still being developed, and additional countries are gaining nuclear weapons. While the world is focused on new terrors, the old terror of potential nuclear warfare is still there. In 2004 the New Agenda Coalition, prodded by New Zealand, decided to gain new allies, and it presented a strongly worded statement to the UN, and gained not only the support of the normal 188 non-aligned countries, but also key NATO States. This is New Zealand’s work: Canada, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Turkey, as well as Japan, Korea, and Switzerland. This year, when we review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons New Zealand will work hard to strengthen the movement across different alliances for a nuclear-free world.

It is not headline-making work, but it is about life, about peace, and about honouring 60 years without another explosion to match Hiroshima. It is work that this Government supports and gives leadership to. When I am negotiating overseas, as I was last week, I am so proud to be part of a nuclear-free New Zealand, and I know that I have a Prime Minister supportive and demanding of me of energetic work on disarmament.

Who on the other side would argue for disarmament? Dr Brash has said he would consider changing the legislation if it helped the United States - New Zealand relationship. Where is the vision in that? Where are the principles?

Finally, to a constituent who wrote angrily in the Dominion Post today that she was fed up with women being treated as a disposable workforce in and out of the economy, I agree. I never wanted that for myself, and neither does our Prime Minister want women to be an extra. This Government wants to ensure that men and women have the choice to work, and that childcare or early childhood education is no longer a financial hurdle that they cannot afford in order to return to work. If we are to increase productivity we need a more educated, more skilled workforce.

As a young university graduate with a toddler in the 1970s I had no choice except if my husband swapped roles and stayed home—and he managed that for only 3 months. This Government wants to provide the support to remove the hurdles of costly childcare and after-school care, so that the country is able to benefit from the skills and energies of those who want to work outside the home.

And, of course, parents at home work, but let us have a choice, and let all the income brackets have that choice, not just the professionals who can afford nannies or full-time childcare. Let that be out there for all women.

We in the Labour-Progressive Government have much more to do. We have repaired much of the damage done in the 1990s, but as our Prime Minister outlined yesterday, we still have a long way to go to achieve a society where everyone is valued, where all can contribute, and where all can grow their talents, and where we can be good neighbours and advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons. It is no wonder I am proud to be a New Zealander and very proud to be a member of this Government.

Before I embark on directly addressing the Prime Minister’s idea of a vision speech, I would like to address three issues raised by the Hon Marian Hobbs. The first issue regards the generosity—as she put it—of the Labour Government in relation to the tsunami appeal. She made it sound like Helen Clark had written out a personal cheque from Helen Clark and Labour Party colleagues and given it to those suffering overseas. There was absolutely no acknowledgment of the fact that it is actually taxpayers’ money that has gone to help those in need, and not Government or personal Labour Party money.

Does the National Party support the tsunami appeal in its various forms across this country? Absolutely! Do we acknowledge all those organisations that individually have contributed? Yes, we do, but we also acknowledge that taxpayers have also contributed, and, I would add, gladly. However, many taxpayers are quite cynical about the Government claiming that that money was its own. No, it was earned off the backs of hard-working New Zealanders and gladly given to those suffering overseas.

The second issue I would like to raise about Marian Hobbs’ speech was her comment that she was overseas quite a bit in the last 12 months. Interestingly enough, quite plainly she has taken a leaf out of the Prime Minister’s book. I can track the Prime Minister’s trips overseas by looking at the newspaper. Every time a serious issue blows up in New Zealand our Prime Minister is on the first Qantas flight overseas. And who is left behind in charge? [Interruption] No, Jill Pettis is not in charge. Michael Cullen is left to fend off the wolves from the door to deal with the problems back home while the Prime Minister racks up her chances for a United Nations job overseas. We have seen that time and time again.

The third issue I would like to raise, as the Labour Party’s paint stripper peals out comments from the other side of the House, is the issue regarding the Prime Minister’s and Labour’s goal of getting every mother in this country into work. Mums and dads who choose to stay at home to look after their children are working a lot more than the Prime Minister and the Labour Government would presume. They are not working an 8-hour day or a 16-hour day, they are working a 24-hour day, and it has absolute value. Women who go into paid employment add value to our country. Women who stay home to work in the home for their children add value to our country. Men who go to work every day in paid employment add value to our country, as do men who choose to stay home to look after their children. I am concerned at the liberal snobbery—

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise to my colleague Phil Heatley. Members on this side of the House have had to endure, in some pain, Chris Carter and Marian Hobbs making contributions to this debate. We largely kept quiet through those contributions and allowed them to make their contributions with a measure of dignity. The chief Government whip has indulged in a constant barrage against Phil Heatley since he stood to take a call and I ask you to bring her to order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that. It had concerned me, too, and I tried to bring the interjector to order. However, I thought that Phil Heatley was in fact thriving on the interjections. I may have been wrong.

As I said, all those parents, male and female alike, who choose to stay at home to look after their children full time add value to our country, just as wage earners and salary earners do. I am very disappointed, as many New Zealanders are disgusted, that Helen Clark, and the Labour Party’s vision for all women is that liberal snobbery that they actually have to earn a wage packet to add value. In fact, they should be able to choose how they best add value at various stages through their lives.

Returning to the Prime Minister’s idea of a vision speech, it has been said more than once in this House that if it was a vision speech, the Prime Minister clearly needs spectacles. She clearly needs binoculars or a magnifying glass. She has no vision for this country, because, first of all, she is unable to identify or confront those issues deep in New Zealanders’ hearts that are concerning them.

Last year we had Dr Don Brash raise the issue of racial preference in this country in its various forms. Whether it was factual or not, there was a clear perception in New Zealanders’ minds that the pendulum had swung too far. The Labour Government denied that there was this general feeling in New Zealand, as did the mainstream media at that time, and then we saw 6 months of New Zealanders—Kiwis themselves—indicating clearly to Helen Clark and her Government that, no, they were concerned about that issue. So clearly, Helen Clark had no finger on the pulse back then.

We had the second Ōrewa speech only a few weeks ago, addressing the issue of social welfare and welfare dependency, and where it can head in terms of family life when people are virtually addicted to getting some sort of benefit. Of course, the Prime Minister and the Labour Government indicated that there was no concern in this country of ours about that issue. They were wrong again. New Zealanders will spend another 6 months convincing the Labour Government that that issue is a concern in this country, particularly when the unemployment rate has come down.

We continue to see the numbers of those on welfare benefits grow, grow, and grow some more, but the Government denies that. Numbers on the invalids benefit and the sickness benefit are growing. We see fruit rotting in orchards, sharemilkers unable to get staff, and on it goes throughout the country; yet we see those welfare payments expand over time.

With unemployment going down, the Prime Minister claims the Government has somehow carefully orchestrated the surplus. Yet in 6 years all we have seen is an attack on the opportunity for New Zealand to do better. Whether it is in the OECD rankings or in some sort of opportunity to do with work or trading markets overseas, the Government has undermined it. We will see that, because when the good times move on, it will be laid bare—accident compensation, occupational safety and health, the Resource Management Act, the Holidays Act, taxes going up, petrol taxes, and on it goes.

What have we seen in 5 years? The economy is lifting and unemployment is down, because of everything the Government has not done. It has not influenced the dollar, and the dollar was low during much of the first 3 or 4 years of its term. International demand for our commodities was high over those 5 years. The Government had no effect on that. There was generally good weather throughout the country every winter, and summer tended to be mild in most areas of the country, although there have been some exceptions to that rule, and the Government had no effect on that. Generally we have seen an economy grow and unemployment go down, simply because of those factors, which were completely outside the Government’s control, and we thank providence for that.

Just think if those factors had been in the Government’s control what would have happened to unemployment and to the economy! We have a Government that has ridden on luck for 5 years, and it is luck that is fast running out. We will see that in the next 6 months leading up the general election. This country can have a vision for New Zealand in the form of Dr Don Brash and his National Party team.

Debate interrupted.