Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

I continue my contribution from last night and say that we believe in celebrating our people’s successes across business, education, sport, and the arts and culture—across the many areas where Kiwis are doing very well. We are proud that this Government has the Working for Families package and will invest $1.1 billion towards helping New Zealanders—working families—to make work pay and towards offering them more choices to succeed. We have over 7,000 people in Modern Apprenticeships and more than 126,000 in industry training at the moment. We are investing in education and health. Education spending is up by 39 percent over the last 5 years, and there have been especially big increases in spending on early childhood education.

The Labour Party has kept its word to students and their families, and has delivered on its pledge-card promise to cut the cost of tertiary education to students, starting with a fairer loan scheme. Student loan borrowers saved more than $250 million in interest charges in the first 3 years of Labour’s “no interest while studying” policy. Those changes contributed to a considerable reduction in the average repayment time for student loans. Estimated loan repayment times have decreased from 14.8 years in 1999 to 9.3 years currently. We have loan growth under control. Under the previous National Government, between 1995 and 1999 the average loan balance increased by over 76 percent. At the moment over half the full-time student population now receives an allowance. Labour has delivered an end to the tuition fees rises of the 1990s. A new system of fee maxima is in place that constrains fee rises; it was introduced in 2004.

Our achievements reflect the individual actions and decisions of thousands of New Zealanders and New Zealand enterprises. We accept that those achievements are not just the Government’s alone but a contribution made by many New Zealanders. However, it does indicate that the Government’s policies are well designed and appropriate to the purpose. This is a Government with a bold agenda to realise New Zealand’s huge potential in the future. The Government is getting many things right. However, we know that raising labour productivity is critical to staying on track. The investments that the Government and industry are making in skills, innovation, science, research, and technology will boost productivity. It makes sense to bring back our best and brightest people if we can. So we will focus on creating a 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 the workplace, and the policies we have in place support that intent. We are looking at options in that mix of policies for increasing the availability of home-based childcare, as part of the overall solution to getting enough places. We want to help New Zealanders to save, in order to increase their assets and security and reduce the national reliance on the savings of others. We have already set up a superannuation scheme for public servants, but this year we will announce more programmes to encourage more families to take part in workplace savings.

I shall say a few words about our engagement with Asia. I am delighted that our Government is taking many steps to engage with Asia. We know that Asians, particularly the Chinese and Indians, and the Asian markets are all doing so well that our future does lie with Asia. I am proud that we have taken so many steps towards that engagement. The Prime Minister’s visit to India last year and many of the free-trade engagements we are doing with many countries will be very fruitful in the long term. I am delighted at that, because Asia is making huge strides in economic development and our future does lie in engagement with it. I am pleased that our Government is taking major steps in that area.

Finally, I say we want all New Zealanders to have real choices. That is fundamental to creating a fair society, in which every family has a stake and sees a future. The choice this year is straightforward.

People should stick with a Government that they know works, that is getting results, and that is building a stronger future for New Zealand, or they will run the risk of lurching back to the division, the unfairness, and the sheer nastiness and arrogance of the 1990s. There is no future for our country in that.

Obviously, that member has read and taken an exact sentence from the Prime Minister’s statement. Mothers in New Zealand are offended by the way in which the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, in her first and most important speech in Parliament this year, has put down the contributions and values of mothers who stay home to do a thankless task and undertake a never-ending commitment to their children. That should not come as a surprise, because the Rt Hon Helen Clark and the Labour Party do not see New Zealanders as citizens of equal value.

In order to fit New Zealanders into Labour’s polling-mechanism and focus-group structures, it divides New Zealanders neatly into groups of Māori, Pacific Islanders, Asians, working women, students, and senior citizens. Aspirations and policies are articulated, delivered, and packaged specifically towards those different groups. They are tailor-made, one would say. Oops! Mothers at home obviously have not yet come into the frame of the Labour spin machine. But I am sure that from now on the Prime Minister’s speeches and statements will be full of references to mothers at home, because a focus group will be immediately set up, and mothers at home will feature in the Prime Minister’s statements.

The Prime Minister, who dismisses the importance of the economy but benefits from the fruits of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, has no idea of what drives economic growth and productivity. That is why she lectures on about getting mothers into work. Well, productivity is not just about body counts. It is about skills, as well. It is about fixing the mess that the Labour Government has made of our schools.

Quite interestingly, the new Associate Minister of Education, the Hon David Benson-Pope, who is responsible for compulsory education and State sector schools, was obviously misled by Trevor Mallard and talked into taking up that portfolio. He was told that there were no issues and nothing to worry about in that portfolio, and that is why he has said so. Well, a few days later he suddenly realised that there is a funding issue in our schools—donations are no longer voluntary. And what happened to the scholarship results? Nobody actually knows what happened, but what was the answer given by the Minister? There is to be a report, a review, another plan. It has been 5 years. This country, our education system, and our children cannot afford this Labour Government continuing to mess up our school funding and our school standards.

The Prime Minister talks about building national identity and about shared aspirations for our country. It will not happen, because she and the Labour Government see New Zealanders as voting blocs to target rather than as people living in the same country. Labour’s policies and speeches are tailor-made towards specific groups and are full of contradictions, because of their knee-jerk reactions to the findings of focus groups.

I am very pleased to share a few specific examples that demonstrate the contradictions and divisiveness that the Government’s approach has brought to our nation. The Hon Chris Carter, the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, talked about the apology made by the Prime Minister to the Chinese community for the poll tax. What he failed to remind people of was why the poll tax was imposed in the first place. It was imposed to stop the Chinese and Asians from coming here. Together with the English language test, it was designed to stop the “Asian invasion”. In the Prime Minister’s statement to the House in the year 2000, she complained that the National Government’s English language test for potential migrants was set at too high a level, and she promised that Labour would bring the level down. Guess what? In the year 2002 there was a sudden announcement from the Minister of Immigration that the level for the English language test, which National had set at 5, was to be lifted to 6.5 for skilled migrants and to 5 for business migrants.

Let me share the reason why Labour suddenly raised the level of the English language test and changed its immigration policy. The Asian migration figure has been increasing since 1997 and it peaked in the year 2001, under National’s policy, at about 20,000 approvals for people from China, India, and South Korea. Guess what happened when Labour announced the policy change the next year? The figure went down to 9,700. This year we expect it to reach a low of 6,000. So Asian migration has been cut by more than half. I think New Zealand First should congratulate the Labour Government on that. I really plead with the Prime Minister and the Ministers of the Labour Government not to just go along to Asian community functions, continue to tell them how wonderful they are, and say they want more Asian people to come here. The Asian communities are not silly. They understand. I am embarrassed and they are embarrassed, so the Government should do us all a favour and stop making those sorts of statements. The facts are very clear. The Labour Government has cut the number of Asian migrants by half.

Last night I went along to the launch of the police’s ethnic responsiveness strategy. I am concerned about whether it will work, because this Labour Government has deprived the police, starved them of funding, and made sure that their priority is to issue speeding tickets. Anyway, then I thought: “Well, good on the police. I will support them. Our police are trying to do a good job, but they are really handicapped by this Labour Government, which does not give them the proper funding and the tools to do their job.” I looked at the outcomes the ethnic community want from the police. Surprise, surprise! That community wants to feel safe under the protection given by the police force. Do we think that response is different from that of any other community?

All New Zealanders want to feel safe. All New Zealanders want to know that they do not have to scream down the telephone line to get the police to come out. I do not think that any New Zealanders would whisper down the line to the police: “Don’t come in the next 5 minutes. Come in 2 days’ time.” That was what the Minister of Police basically told us—that New Zealanders would actually say: “Don’t come and help me now; come in 48 hours’ time.”

I want to say to members that ethnic communities’ aspirations and wishes are no different from those of any other New Zealanders. Under Labour’s continued divisive attentions, and its treatment of those communities as voting blocs for the attention of focus groups, we will not be able to foster national identity or shared aspirations. Labour should take a page out of the book of National leader, Dr Don Brash, who advocates one standard of citizenship. All people in New Zealand should be valued, respected, and given the opportunity to maximise their potential. We definitely cannot afford one more day of this Labour Government.

I have a lot of good news to impart about this Government’s policies, but the speech we have just heard reminded me that I should respond to the National Party leader’s initiative of introducing to New Zealand a one-child family policy. Just as the People’s Republic of China moves away from that policy, the National Party leader of New Zealand seeks to introduce it here. I have been fielding comments from New Zealand women since that time, expressing their rage and concern at what is going on and at the constructive dismissal of National’s second front-bench woman spokesperson in two Ōrewa speeches. The first was Georgina te Heuheu. She was driven from her position last year because no self-respecting Māori policy expert could stay holding that position, given the Māori-bashing policies introduced by Don Brash in his Ōrewa I speech.

The National Party, having successfully alienated the hapless National Party from Māori voters—and I might remind the House that in about 20 years’ time approximately 50 percent of New Zealanders will have some Māori in their whakapapa; so this is National’s plan for being a niche party—moved this year to ensure that it alienated 51 percent of the rest of voters by a systematic attack on women. There will be a one-child family policy for any woman who wants income support from the State. Well, that happens to be everybody with a family, because the Working for Families package will greatly reinforce existing policies that provide assistance for families. But Dr Brash’s National Party wants to exclude from that assistance any woman who has the temerity to have another child—unless she complies with Dr Brash’s social standing.

💬 Darren Hughes: Social engineering.

Social engineering it most certainly is. It is repugnant, and National’s excellent spokesperson on social welfare, Katherine Rich, was driven from her post because she could not stomach that wicked policy. She was not on her own. Of course, if there were exceptional circumstances, perhaps women who have a second child while receiving a benefit may be allowed to get a little more help from the Government. But I think what that means is that they would have to appear before Judith Collins MP, in an inquisition to see whether their circumstances were exceptional enough. They will no doubt receive a stern lecture on the wickedness of their ways. Getting pregnant, after all, is against National Party policy for beneficiaries. So if they can handle that, they might get a bit of help. If that policy were ever to be introduced, I think we would see a return to the bad, sad days of old when young women who fell pregnant would sneak away and secretly give birth. They would go down south or up north and secretly give birth and adopt out their babies. And that is another National Party policy. National will pressure unmarried mothers to adopt out their babies. It used to happen. Young, unmarried mothers would be pressured into adopting out their babies, which led in so many tragic cases to a lifetime of heartbreak—for two parties, at least.

For any party in the 21st century to be contemplating the reintroduction of those sorts of social attitudes, I think is despicable. This House should reject it. Certainly, the voters of New Zealand will. Fortunately, Mrs Rich was not without support, even on that side of the House. It is reported that Lynda Scott—who is leaving Parliament; she cannot take any more of this—was visibly angry, and she expressed her anger. Georgina te Heuheu pointedly refused to endorse Dr Brash’s policies and actions. I think that Judith Collins applauded them. She is being promoted but, of course, she is not getting ahead of the brat pack. All the brat pack applaud this move. They all move up one more place. Members of that brat pack think they are on the way back, but there is one thing they have not taken into account—

💬 Darren Hughes: The polling!

No—the rising new star of National’s rural hinterland. I speak of none other than—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: John Key?

No, no—Brian Connell.

💬 Darren Hughes: Who?

Brian Connell, the self-styled, international business consultant, the holder of senior positions in large multinational companies—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Which Brian Connell is that?

The Brian Connell who presented himself to the National Party branch in Ashburton seeking the nomination he successfully got. They could not find anyone better. [Interruption] He had been overseas for 20 years, then came back. It turned out later, on investigation, that by “overseas” he meant Wellington. He had crossed Cook Strait. Let no man say that Brian Connell is not a man of his word. But he is on the move up, too. He at least had the courage to publicly state his opinion of the shabby treatment of Katherine Rich. He said he was very disappointed and thought the decision was stupid. Well he might, because earlier—in fact, on 3 August 2002—he told the Christchurch Press: “I’ve got to have ambitions, first of all, to get into Cabinet. On the basis of doing a good job there, the prime ministership is certainly in my sights.”

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Your next leadership bid!

Mr Connell is in the wrong party. He will never become Prime Minister by rising to the top of the National Party. It will not be long before he works that out. Perhaps he will work it out by the time the next election campaign is over and make his big move then. I recommend that he move to ACT, because the ACT party will not have any MPs then and he might go right to the top. Who knows, on the basis of doing a good job there, what might happen.

💬 Darren Hughes: He could do a “Banksie”.

He might go back overseas. I thought it necessary to alert the House to some of these developments, in case they had not come to members’ attention.

I want to spend the last moment or so of my time referring to international trade and the exciting developments under way in my trade negotiations portfolio. This country depends on international trade to sustain its aspirations for a First World lifestyle. We will not achieve a First World lifestyle by running big Budget deficits, as Dr Brash advocates. We will achieve a First World lifestyle by earning First World level incomes and by achieving First World level productivity. This Government stands for growth in productivity. To achieve growth in productivity of that order we must be able to specialise in the things we do well, and especially in those things we do better than anyone else in the world. To be able to specialise like that our specialised products must have access to the markets of the world. We have a tiny domestic market, and to achieve First World levels of specialisation, productivity, and income we have to trade internationally.

I would not blame National Party members for not wanting to take a call. I would not blame them if they were not here at all, today. Outside, the sun is shining and the people are happy. I watched the parade of New Zealanders going down to the park to enjoy the Rugby Sevens. This country is vibrant. New Zealanders love this country. It is led by a Government that is in tune with New Zealand’s aspirations.

The National Party is down to its barest rump in the House. Its members cannot even take a call, and I would not want to if I were one of them—particularly if I were Roger Sowry. He cannot wait to get out of the place. He is watching the party, of which he has been a proud member and deputy leader, fall apart. Never would we have accused Roger Sowry and Bill English of mismanaging their caucus in the way the current leadership has. Having received lectures from Roger Sowry about the way business is run, I would say that he must be tearing his hair out at the way his current leader is treating the people in his caucus. The National Party will need seats outside the House shortly, to demote National Party members to. There is so much dissent within that outfit that soon nobody will want to sit in the front row with Don Brash and Gerry Brownlee. What a shambles!

We can contrast that with the mood of this country and the vision outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement. I heard some criticism from members in the House in question time over the last couple of days about the ideas of this Government for helping families, and for helping women back into the workforce, should they wish to go back. I suppose that if people’s minds are stuck in the patterns of 30 years ago, as are the National Party’s, they would not understand that.

We have a Working for Families package that will enable more women to go back into the workforce, women who are not able to do so at present for financial reasons. We have a package that will give to those families, where one parent stays at home to look after the children in their younger years, enough money for that choice to be a reality. That is what this Government is all about in its Working for Families package.

What do we have from the Opposition? I read the hype in the New Zealand Herald about the big speech in Ōrewa and the attack on bludgers that was coming. Over the holidays I read the newspapers with scant interest, as most New Zealanders did, but some of the things I picked up were tales of people who had ripped off other people. People had got small-business people to build massive developments, and then were still driving around in their flash cars but had not paid the tradespeople for that work. They were still holidaying in their million-dollar mansions, but they used bankruptcy or limited liability company mechanisms to avoid paying those hard-working New Zealand tradespeople for the work they had done. I thought that Don Brash was going to have a real go at the bludgers, and I thought: “Good on him! I’m really looking forward to it.”

But, oh dear! What did we get? Did we get an attack on the people who owe millions and millions of dollars and walk away without paying? No. We did not hear a jot about that from Dr Brash—not a thing. He thinks that that is acceptable business behaviour, I presume. What we got was an attack on the defenceless people of this country. That is something we would expect from Dr Brash because he has never known anything about average New Zealanders. He has never known how they live, how they survive, or what their aspirations are. No, we got an attack on people who are sick, people with disabilities, people on the invalids benefit, and people who look after children on their own.

Did we hear from Dr Brash anything about the multimillion-dollar rip-off artists, the real bludgers in this country who need to be dealt to? No. We did not hear a thing. He goes after only those people who are without power and without defence, and who do not have the big chequebooks that come out at election time to pay for politicians like Dr Brash to survive.

I want to know from National Party members what their views are on that sort of thing instead of listening to their utter garbage and back-to-the-future policies. National says that if a woman dares to have a child in this country and her partner leaves her—and there are plenty on that side of the House who know what that is about—it will blame the woman, blame the child, and punish them financially. That is the modern, forward-thinking policy that is coming from the National Party!

I am just waiting to see a National spokesperson who is brave enough to poke his or her head up and say something without first clearing it with the shadowless people up there on the third floor who make National Party policy—because it ain’t their caucus that does it. When will National build big orphanages again? Why does it stop with telling people they have to have their children adopted? Why do they not bring back those whopping great orphanages we used to have when I was a young child growing up in south Auckland. Thank goodness they are gone! But the National Party, if it has its way, will bring them back.

There is a very interesting “Weekend Herald Jury” article in the Weekend Herald. I have been reading this each week, as most people probably have. In that article, a dozen people are asked what they think about what is going on in the country that week. I have never seen this particular thing so one-sided in all my life. Only one person tried to defend Dr Brash’s views on having children forcibly adopted because their parents do not have the money to bring them up—or so he said. I quote just one comment, which I think probably sums up what the average New Zealander thinks of Dr Brash’s view: “Why only adopt the children out when we can export and sell them to the highest bidder for the mass production of organs for donation?”. That is what the general public thinks of Dr Brash and his ideas.

So what happened? National members turned up for Parliament, bushy-tailed and bright, only to have their great leader bumble his way through a couple of days and sack Katherine Rich, the so-called rising star. What did we get in return for the sacking of Katherine Rich? We got the only woman in New Zealand who is capable of making Jenny Shipley and Ruth Richardson look warm and caring—the member for Clevedon, Judith Collins.

She came to Parliament with a well-established record for making sure we have a very strong gambling industry. That is good for families! She has spent her time roaming the world and looking at the gambling industry, at the expense of who knows whom. But that is a good qualification for a spokesperson on welfare, because we know what damage gambling does to families in this country—she has been spending a lot of time making sure that the gambling industry is a big and healthy industry!

As well, her time in housing was spent selling off 13,000 State houses so that families could not rent them, and selling off the mortgages that the bulk of people in New Zealand could once rely on to get their first homes. That is another big star against the name of Judith Collins in terms of her CV for the job of National spokesperson on welfare.

The National Party is in a shambles, and I am really looking forward to the next time we debate industrial relations, good management, and how to run businesses. I am really looking forward to hearing advice from Dr Brash about how businesses should manage people, because he has shown the whole country that he cannot even manage 27 fools who are still there in the National Party. Yet he thinks the country should vote him in to run the whole show.

Well, we have to ask ourselves: what sort of cheek does it take to have a man like that who cannot even manage his own caucus? He cannot even say: “Look, this is the policy. I’m going to make a speech on it. What do you think? No, it doesn’t match the policy that you’ve spent a year or two writing. Maybe I need to change my thinking.” No, he cannot say that. He is right and she is wrong—and she is gone.

I have to say to Dr Brash that he should enjoy his time in Parliament. He will have a short and very uneventful career but he will be able to collect his pension and go happily off into retirement, because who on earth would want to employ somebody who is incapable of getting along with half the world’s population—its women. That would be a real difficulty. He will most definitely have to export himself somewhere else in the world, because nobody in their right mind would want a man like that, who cannot cope with women in the workforce and who does not understand the basic things that New Zealanders hold dear to their hearts—like their children. That man has no qualifications to lead this country.

We heard the rapturous echo of an empty hall when that former failed Minister completed his speech. Not one member of this House expects Mr Gosche ever to come back to ministerial office. Not one person in this House thinks Mark Gosche will ever enjoy the magic of being a Minister again. That appalling speech, that drivel, that nonsense that some 16-year-old Labour Party researcher wrote and the member read out—

💬 Hon Roger Sowry: Darren Hughes wrote it!

That is exactly what I said. That nonsense demonstrates why Mr Gosche will never ever serve in a Government in this country again.

The members opposite will never ever serve in a Government after the next election, because this Government is completely distracted by social engineering. It has no plan for the future of the New Zealand economy. This Government has sat back and relied on all the work and sacrifice of New Zealanders in the last 10 to 15 years. It has rapaciously gathered all their taxes and disbursed them to the people as part of its social engineering agenda. Never once has it brought forward a vision or a policy for the future prosperity of this country. Never once has it brought forward a vision for sustaining economic growth in New Zealand. It has plenty of plans for spending the dosh, but not one policy, not one plan, and no vision at all for keeping the economy moving forward.

In fact, the only vision it has is a separatist vision. This Government is prepared to tolerate two standards of citizenship. It is prepared to give special preference to one group of New Zealanders over another. This Government’s separatist ideology sees approval given to a Māori protest hīkoi to cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge, but it is against the rules for non-Māori to protest across the Auckland Harbour Bridge. This Government has a separatist agenda that New Zealanders are on to.

The Government is overseeing the decline in our education standards. Do any New Zealand parents actually think David Benson-Pope will be good for their kids? Not even Labour Party members are prepared to say as parents that they think David Benson-Pope will be good for their kids. We heard today in the House that that Minister has no appreciation of the risk his incompetence poses for the qualifications of many thousands of fine young New Zealanders who have sat for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement scholarships. Those are the kids who will be most affected by his incompetence. Why will the Minister not release the information? Why is he prepared to see that qualification downgraded?

This Government is incompetent in its handling of personal security. A Minister in charge of law and order, George Hawkins, is the political dead. He is propped up by his right-wing Labour Party mates, who thought they would keep him in Cabinet. Then they realised when the reshuffle came that they had all pushed themselves out of a job, because Mr Hawkins was staying there. That Minister put out a press release last month saying that there were a lot of problems with 111 response times, but we should not rely on the figures because they were affected by some people ringing 111 in a dire emergency and asking the police to come in 2 days’ time. We asked the Minister in the House today whether he had any evidence for that. Has he ever been told by the police of someone whose family home was being burgled ringing up during the burglary and asking them to come in 2 days’ time? Have the police ever had a man ring up and say his wife was being held with a knife to her throat but the police should come in 2 days’ time? We heard arrant nonsense from this hopeless Minister of Police, who wanders around the country in a daze, blinded by his own incompetence.

Then we have the hopeless Minister of Corrections, a man who cannot keep his eye on the ball. In fact, he is quite distracted by what is going on. He has no idea. Let us take the case of the Government’s sex offenders policy. At the end of November the Department of Corrections, led by that Minister, told the High Court that Lloyd Alexander McIntosh was so dangerous that it had two people monitoring him for 24 hours a day, and he should be put under an extended supervision order. The judge agreed. The judge was not to know that 2 days later some Department of Corrections noddy, with the Minister’s approval, instructed the provider to cut the supervision of Lloyd Alexander McIntosh to 1 day a week. Then the Minister got a letter from the provider. His office lied to the media, saying it had received no such letter. Then the Minister’s office sheepishly rang up and said it actually had received a letter. It was asked whether the Minister would release the letter. The answer was no—because that letter from the people who were monitoring Lloyd Alexander McIntosh said it was too dangerous to cut his supervision.

What did Mr Goff say? Mr Goff said he could guarantee that having one person monitoring Lloyd Alexander McIntosh would do the job. Well, one person was monitoring Lloyd Alexander McIntosh when he attacked a disabled woman in his room; the person monitoring him jumped around outside, not knowing what to do. Lloyd Alexander McIntosh is manipulative and cunning. That is why he needs two people monitoring him. When he inevitably reoffends, this Government will be held accountable.

Let us look at the failed Minister for ACC, Ruth Dyson. On 2 December Ruth Dyson stood up in this House and, in answer to a question from the National Party’s accident compensation spokesman, said that nothing was wrong with the accident compensation review. What she did not tell the House was that she and Annette King had approved the release of the Accident Compensation Corporation paper setting out the plan to dismember rescue helicopter services in New Zealand. Annette King signed it off. Ruth Dyson signed it off. The paper exists. The public servants know. The Labour caucus was told it was coming out, and its members clapped, I am told.

What happened? An excellent New Zealander and the next MP for Otaki, a guy called Nathan Guy, went out and got over 10,000 signatures from the Levin area opposing the plan that Darren Hughes had OK’d. In the Bay of Plenty, another excellent New Zealander, Anne Tolley, went out and collected 19,000 signatures opposing the plan that Moana Mackey and Janet Mackey supported. Do members know what happened? Thousands of people signed these petitions, the Government backed down, and Moana Mackey said that it was all her work! Moana Mackey did not even go to Whakatāne until after the Government had made the decision.

It is like the floods. I wonder whether members of the House know this. We had serious floods in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, mainly in Janet Mackey’s electorate. Do members know how long it took Janet Mackey and Moana Mackey to see their constituents?

💬 Hon Roger Sowry: Two days.

It was 2 weeks before the Mesdames Mackey could get off their hind legs in their flash apartment in Gisborne and go to see the people of Whakatāne who were suffering from the floods. Janet Mackey and Moana Mackey said that they could not get through because the gorge was blocked. Every other Minister was able to fly into Whakatāne Airport to try to get his or her picture in the paper, but Moana and Janet Mackey were sitting in Gisborne. Where was Moana Mackey when the people of the Eastern Bay of Plenty were rallying to save their rescue helicopter services? She was on holiday, and that is why she is not coming back after the election.

Having heard that speech for the last 10 minutes, I just about sought leave for that member, Tony Ryall, to have another 10 minutes to say what he stands for. That member is quick to say what he stands against, but not what he stands for. That is just not good enough in a debate that is about going forward.

This is a Government that believes in opportunity. This is a Government that believes in diversity. This is a Government that supports families. This is a Government that invests in New Zealanders. This is a Government that promotes understanding. This is a Government that thrives on providing creative solutions to age-old problems. This is a Government that looks towards the future. And the list goes on. What people all over the country were saying as I talked to them throughout the holidays was very positive, but listening to the speaker before me one would have thought that the world was full of doom and gloom. Well, that is the trademark of an Opposition that is going nowhere, that has been nowhere, and that has no vision.

There is a lot of optimism out there in our communities. There are more jobs in our communities, more people working, and lower unemployment. For Māori alone, unemployment is down below 9 percent. In the Waikato region alone it is down to around 2.3 percent. That is good news. It is good news for members of my community in my Tainui electorate. When we look at what this Government is about, those hallmarks of achievement speak for themselves because there are more opportunities. Busy hands and busy minds lead to lower crime. We know that the crime rate has dropped in a number of our communities, and we have heard numbers of Government speakers talk about that fact.

Health spending is up by 40 percent. We have more people enrolled in primary health organisations. They are accessing early intervention, through primary health-care, at an affordable level. That means that under-18-year-olds can access free health-care, and soon that threshold will move up to those aged 24 years. Free health-care is already available to people aged over 65 years. Those are hallmarks that speak for themselves. They are the achievements of this Government.

Education spending is up by about 39 percent in the last 5 years. More pre-schoolers are accessing early childhood education services. In Pukekohe we opened the first purpose-built early childhood education centre. We are happy for families around there, because kids who were never ever going to kindergarten, or even to kōhanga reo, are now able to access an early childhood centre close to the community in which they live. They love it. They get up eagerly every morning, and they love their early childhood education centre. Better access to education leads to greater participation in our education system, and also leads to better opportunities. That creates a better place to live in. That is what this Government is about—creating vibrant, confident Kiwi kids who can contribute as citizens to all communities in our society. This Government is about building a New Zealand that is committed to its people.

I will talk very briefly about the Working for Families package, because this is something that is closer to home for me. At the beginning of last year I received a letter from a constituent who said: “I am a mother of two kids. I’m working. OK, the wage isn’t that great, but I love to work. By the time I pay for my childcare I am actually getting less in the hand than what I would get if I wasn’t working. Now where’s the sense in that?”. This is a constituent of mine who raised this issue. She did the sums and said that if there was support for childcare assistance, it would encourage mums like her to go back to work.

She saw the Budget announcements last year. She opened up the New Zealand Herald, saw the announcements of the Working for Families package, and saw that it affected her. She was just an ordinary mum who wanted to work, and who was getting an average income, and here was support from the Government for her having the opportunity to go back into the workplace. She loved it.

Another mum in my constituency stopped me in the street and said: “You know, I haven’t been working for 15 years. Just the other day I got a job in a factory. I didn’t think I had enough skills to work in a factory, so one of my relations got me a job.” She said that the best thing about having a job was that she looked forward to waking up in the morning, sending the kids off to school, going to work, then coming home and being tired because she had done a full day of work. That kind of enthusiasm from mothers who have not been working for a long time, who have perhaps lost a bit of confidence, and who do not have the self-assurance to get jobs shows that we are making some positive steps in a lot of our communities for mums just like that. She loves what this Government is signalling—that there is a place for her out there in the community. She is not just relegated to the domestic purposes benefit. She is not just a useless part of her society, as members of the Opposition would have her believe. She can make a valuable contribution to the quality of life of her family, first and foremost. That is what she wants. She loves what this Government is doing.

The Government has made many, many gains in the workplace. Members on this side of the House have highlighted a number of them. The shift in emphasis alone from the Employment Contracts Act to the Employment Relations Act has signalled, again, some gains in the workplace: 4 weeks’ annual leave; increasing the minimum wage; improving paid parental leave; and introducing 20 hours of free early childhood education care subsidies to help working parents. Those are all positive gains that help promote people back into the workplace. I say they are working in a lot of our smaller communities that really want to see this type of thing happen.

Those are the achievements of this Government; they speak for themselves. But, more important, when I go into Pak ’N Save, people stop me—in Pak ’N Save; that is a really good indicator for any politician—to say: “Do you know what is happening in our community? About three local businesses have just started up that employ two or three people in our community.” New businesses are being attracted into their small town. When I hear that at Pak ’N Save about a little community that is about 35 kilometres away, I have to think to myself that there are positive things happening around the place. And I have heard this all over.

I am proud to say that the achievements in the Tainui electorate with regard to health, education—in particular—and housing initiatives have had a fundamental, positive impact on our community. In terms of growth and innovation, we have an innovation park that looks to lead new businesses in our region. Tainui went into partnership to provide the land for the innovation park. What we are seeing coming out of there is good, hard research and fact-based innovations leading to business opportunities. That is greenfield stuff, and we like it, we want it to continue, and it will work for us.

Those are the achievements of this Government, and they speak for themselves. They are positive. They are working for our communities. It is really about being responsive to the change in our society—the look of our society. It is not about simple divisions between Pākehā and Māori. It is not about simple divisions between mums on the domestic purposes benefit and working mums. It is about getting all our people to be active participants and citizens in our society, no matter where they come from, what their income background is, or whatever. Providing opportunity—that is what this Government is about. People do want to contribute. They do want to participate.

Benefit bashing by the Opposition will not work in today’s society. Why? Because it leads to a doom and gloom philosophy that says there is no place for some people in our society. That is not what this Government is about. This Government believes that all New Zealanders can make a positive contribution. This Government also believes that despite some of the ups and downs we have on some of the hardest issues, mainly race relations, we are not afraid to confront some of those really hard issues and try to deal with them. Albeit they are hard, we will deal with them in a way that leads to greater understanding. Those are the achievements of this Government, and they speak for themselves.

The Prime Minister in her speech referred to “dreams” and “visions”. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to speak about dreams and visions, but many of the things that New Zealanders have to face are really a nightmare. She said that she wanted to make it possible for every individual to fulfil that person’s educational potential, and that was her dream. Well, for those going back to school this year that is something of a nightmare, with school fees, uniform fees, and suchlike. The Prime Minister says that the future of our dreams will provide better wages and salaries—that at a time when the OECD has put us in the lower to middle income bracket, along with two former communist countries. The situation is not a dream for New Zealanders; it is a nightmare. This Prime Minister has no idea of what is going on in the country.

Of course, there is no reason for the nightmare. We in New Zealand First know, as Dr Bollard said in his recent statement, that in 2000 and 2001 we had an exchange rate low, commodity prices were up, and climatic conditions were good, and that we have been doing well financially. He went on to point out that since September 11, 2001 our tourism industry has been just tremendous, with more than two million people coming to New Zealand and over $6 billion in foreign exchange being earned. He went on to say that in the last couple of years world commodity prices have gone up for reasons such as the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the US, which stopped the exporting of US beef to Japan, the continuing rundown of sheep numbers in the European Union, and droughts in Australia that affected that country’s rural exports. All that was good for New Zealand and for New Zealand farmers—and we still run on the back of the farmer in New Zealand, although did the Minister, Jim Sutton, when he spoke just a few moments ago, mention farming at all? I do not think so; there was not a word about farming. I really cannot say that I have heard any Labour member, let alone any National member, give any credit to farmers in our society, and we still run on the back of the sheep, the lamb, the dairy cow, and beef cattle in this country.

Of course, Mr Bollard also made the point that the growth in private consumption has been very strong—in other words, we are borrowing a lot. Sure, we are borrowing a lot: $21.6 billion on credit cards in 2004, with hard-core debt now for the first time ever reaching over $4 billion. It is no wonder that we should be doing well. But what does it mean for New Zealand? What does it mean for the average mother? Does she have the same length of stay in hospital today as she did, say, when the Prime Minister came into the House in 1981? In those days mothers had 7 or 10 days in which to stay in hospital to get attached to their children, and suchlike. Now, the mother is out on the first day, and Helen Clark does not even want mothers to stay at home to breastfeed their children. She wants the mother to be back out in the workforce, getting a job, and leaving the child behind, and she offers parents dawn to dusk childcare. What a disgrace! Obviously, we would expect that from a Labour Prime Minister whose main interest is in things like the Civil Union Bill and the Prostitution Reform Bill, rather than in really caring for mothers and families in this society. Fortunately, of course, children under 6 years are entitled to free medicine, something assured to them by New Zealand First when we were in Government before, and we intend to extend that when we get back into Government again.

Is education free? Well, the only people in New Zealand who think so are the Hon David Benson-Pope and the Prime Minister. We know it is not free in secondary schools any more, and we know it is not free even in primary schools. Why, there is a letter to the editor today from Bern Hoani of Browns Bay, stating that a child’s school fees at Sherwood School in Browns Bay on the North Shore are $160 a year, plus $40 per term for resource fees, which are compulsory.That is $320 if people want to go to school in Browns Bay. Where is the free education today? Sure, the Prime Minister can talk about her dreams, but it is a dream for her. She has never had to worry about children going to school, although that is a nightmare for everybody else. Student debt is now at $14,242 per student; it was $11,664 in 1999.

People cannot own their own homes any more. It is a nightmare for young people to try to buy their first home—it is just absolutely impossible. The average price of a house in Auckland was $316,000 in December 1999, it is now $491,000. That is a 60 percent increase. Throughout the country there has been a 45 percent increase in the price of houses. Workers have been given the great news that we are now a low to middle income country as far as the OECD is concerned.

The Prime Minister can keep her dreams; it is about time she got back here from her walkabout and suchlike. It is dreamtime for her, but it is a nightmare for the rest of New Zealand. New Zealand First intends to fix that. Students will get a living allowance when they are at university, rather than having to borrow and hope in the way that they do today.

It is rather astounding, as my colleague noted, that throughout the whole course of the debate from the Prime Minister and members opposite, scarcely a word has been said about the farming community. Therefore, I waited with great interest when the Minister of Agriculture, a man of great fortitude and independence—I seem to recall he was the member who told his party that its forestry policy was wrong some years ago—stood and spoke for 9.5 minutes about all sorts of irrelevant issues. It was not until the very last part of his speech that he deigned to give us a few seconds about world trade and something called productivity. He gave not one word of tribute to the farming community.

Other speakers have railed over how wonderful the economy is, but there has not been one word of acknowledgment of past administrations or about the fact that in 1999 the farming economy was buoyant and has remained so ever since. I can recall that in 1994-95 lambs were making $23 apiece. By 1998-99, the average price for a good draft was $65. Today it is $75 to $80, depending on where people are. The dairy farming community has enjoyed that same success, and beef farming, hitherto, throughout the whole of that period. Virtually it was only deer farming, in the area of venison, that suffered a drop in prices. All of that put together is an accumulated base of surplus funds for this country, which this Government has squandered. It has squandered the opportunities provided by the 60 to 65 percent of the rural community that earned the bulk of that wealth.

In fairness to the Government, when I think back over the last 5 years and try to work out how farmers benefited from this administration, the only matter that comes to mind is the speeded-up process by which Fonterra was formed from the amalgamation of Kiwi Dairy and New Zealand Dairy. Not one other feature of the rural community has benefited yet. The Minister talked about trade. We know what has happened there. He has gone overseas on numerous trips and returned, but at this point in time there is scarcely one advantageous trade agreement or deal in place that benefits the rural economy now, or one that the country can look forward to with some confidence.

But the picture is worse than that. This very week many, many students went back to school. I want quickly to look at the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), so-called, because the students who have gone off this year, after 3 years of a project that one could say was a medium success—and from which, we heard today, the Minister will draw conclusions—cannot regard it with confidence. The NCEA had the broad support of most parties in the House, but at this point, in 2005, that achievement award needs a review. There are two issues in respect of that whole award. First, the aggregation of achievement standards and unit standards, thereby taking out the identity and the status of the vocational subjects and the industry training groups, was a mistake. Last year we heard much in the House about how the New Zealand Qualifications Authority made Cambridge High School a whipping school with regard to that award. That school had gone ahead and taken out of the then New Zealand Qualifications Authority criteria for NCEA exactly what was required—namely, that credits would be awarded and that the 80 at level 1, 60 at level 2, and 42 at level 3 could be gained in any way. The school took those criteria and put together what the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has subsequently said was a disproportionate and fragmented use of the credit system.

The point I want to emphasise right now is that every other school did the same. In April, when we finally have the list of the qualifications gained by students last year, we will see a disparate range of credits gained, ranging right across vocational achievement. The whole thing is an amalgam of supposed credits, and in many cases without there being any central rationale to what the student has done. Schools did it last year. They are doing it now and they will do it in the future. The Minister should take up this matter, not just with regard to the recent issues that have emerged with Scholarship—some of which we told the Minister at the time would happen—but with both levels 1 and 2, as well.

What is really interesting, I think, for people listening to this debate is the line between what one hears from members on the Labour-led side of this House and what people in the National Party say. One could summarise it this way. It is about a view on life. On the Labour side of Parliament, we have people who are proud of New Zealand and want to promote the positive things about New Zealand. Members on this side of the House are energetic and enthusiastic about New Zealand’s future, and they pay tribute to the great heroes and battlers within the New Zealand communities, and to the people who are really leading this country forward—the scientists, the artists, the people in the creative industries, and our business leaders. We are a Government that wants to promote those people. What we hear from the National Party is doom, gloom, whinge, whine, grizzle, and groan. It is a sad and pathetic world outlook that we are hearing from the National Party.

What is obviously getting through to New Zealanders is the fact that they do not want to hear all that negativity. They do not want to hear all the bad things. They do not want to hear about a party that wants to constantly remind them about what life used to be like in the 1990s. They do not want to hear all that. They do not want to know about all the things that National is standing for—the division it promotes. People want to hear about where we are going as a nation, and where we are being led as a nation. That is what they want to hear about.

What we heard from the Prime Minister was a view on where we should be going as a country, where we can get to, and where we should be in the next few years. That is what I think the public were looking for when they heard the comments from Dr Don Brash at Ōrewa. Of course, in the first Ōrewa speech he essentially wanted to divide Māori against non-Māori. That is basically what that speech was about. Then there was Ōrewa II. That speech was essentially about trying to divide off those who are in work and those who are not. It was about the politics of division. We had that in the 1990s. We have had the politics of division, and it did not work, and in the end, by the way, the National Party was chucked out because of it.

People do not want to talk about division. People want to be proud of New Zealand. They want to know where we are going, and they want to hear the positive things. Of course, what people are now talking about is the fact that Dr Brash has lost two spokespeople. After Ōrewa I he lost one, and after Ōrewa II he lost another. To lose one spokesperson is careless, but to lose two is downright reckless. Of course, those demotions have upset Māori. Don Brash demoted Georgina te Heuheu. I have an enormous amount of respect for that woman. I think she has dignity. I certainly listen to what she says. She has a lot to say about things, and I have a lot of respect for her views. To be fair to Katherine Rich, I have to say that although I disagree with what she said, she was certainly able. And boy, are they short of able people over there!

People are saying that if Don Brash cannot run even his own caucus, how could he possibly be expected to run the country? That is a theme that people are coming to me to talk about as I go around the country. The problem is, of course, that Don Brash is trying to run the caucus like he ran the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, where he was the top bureaucrat. What he says went, and everybody fell into line. Everyone fawned with sophistry and said: “Oh, what a great person you are!”. Of course, in here people have opinions, and they want to be listened to. When someone has done a lot of work on a policy, he or she expects to be able to have major input into the speech about that policy, but Katherine Rich learnt that does not happen with him.

The problem we have with that leader, Don Brash, is that he does not listen. If he does not listen to his own caucus and if he does not listen to even his own spokesperson, how could he possibly hold himself up as someone who will listen to New Zealanders? His whole life has been spent telling people, directing people, and expecting people to fall into line. Well, New Zealanders have had a gutsful of that. To be frank, they had a gutsful of that in the 1980s and the 1990s, and they do not want it any more. They expect to be shown some respect, and that is something that they get under this Labour-led Government.

When one looks at who is in the National Party, we see Simon Power—the once great hope of the National Party—who gave us the old, basic line: “Where America goes we go.” That, of course, did not go down terribly well with the public, nor within his own party, and he has gone. Now he sits, like a kind of empty vessel, as No. 3 on the front bench as the whip. Having a whip on the front bench is an incredible position that has not been heard of before.

Then there is the brat pack. If one looks up the words “negative, bitter people” in the dictionary, one will find the National Party brat pack. They are bitter, bitter men. Why is that? Well, deep down they still have not forgiven New Zealand for dumping them in 1999. That is the problem. They still cannot believe it. They still think that the New Zealand public were wrong in doing that, and they are bitter about that. As a result, they never have a positive word to say about New Zealand. Tony Ryall did not say one positive word about New Zealand in 10 minutes of vitriol. Nick Smith is always on about negative things. Bill English whinges, moans, and grizzles about education, when in fact there are hugely good things going on in education, as anyone who knows anything about that subject knows. Roger Sowry has actually lightened up a bit now, given that he will not be here much longer. He is on a lifeboat heading for the beach as the National Party heads down the gurgler.

National is a sad and pathetic party. It used to be a great party. It used to be the party of great leaders, like Keith Holyoake. It used to be a great party that people respected, but now it is just a pathetic, miserable, whingeing, whining party led by a person who clearly does not have leadership qualities, and later on this year it will find itself in a very similar position to the one it found itself in after the last election.

So what are the things about New Zealand that we need to be proud of? Well, there are a lot of things. Economic growth for the year to September is at 4.6 percent. What does that mean? Well, actually, it means that we are now outperforming a lot of the developed countries. With growth comes jobs. We have 3.8 percent unemployment. This has not been seen for at least two decades. More people are in work, and if more people are in work, then more people are actually providing for their families. More people are able to give their kids the things they have not been able to give them. They are paying taxes, and we can better afford to pay for better education and health care. As a result, everybody is better off.

We have the Working for Families package. The crime rate is the lowest it has been in 21 years. There are 7,000 people in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and 125,000 people in industry training. Huge amounts of effort have gone into health and education funding. That is why people are feeling good. That is why the polls are showing that, basically, we are on the right track. People are feeling good. They can feel it, and they can see it.

The Prime Minister spelt out that we are never happy—we always need to be doing more. We need to get workplace productivity up to make sure that our growth is sustainable. We need to improve labour force participation, particularly for women. It is a choice. Some women want to go back to work and some do not. We want to make it easier for those who do. We need some savings initiatives. We need to do a lot more in terms of our infrastructure development, even though we have done a great deal, and we need to do a lot more in the trade area.

The Labour Party is a party that is positive about New Zealand. It is confident about New Zealand. We want to celebrate the good things about New Zealanders, and New Zealanders want to celebrate those things about themselves, as opposed to listening to the negative, whingeing, whining, and groaning National Party. I challenge the next speaker from the National Party to tell us one thing that is positive about New Zealand. That is what New Zealanders want to hear, and that is why they will be voting for a Labour-led Government after the next election.

Kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. Today I stand with immense pride, being a member of this Labour-led Government, and the member of Parliament for Mana. Our Government is good for the people of Mana and it is good for New Zealand. I am a woman, I am a Kiwi, a proud New Zealander, and a proud Pacific Islander. I am also a proud Wellingtonian, who this afternoon witnessed the pride of our area hosting the international sevens teams and celebrating all those things that make us proud, sportsmanlike, and successful. I am also proud to be part of our Government that is led by two dynamic leaders in our country—that is, our Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and our Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. I am also proud to be part of the Labour caucus and part of a Labour team that symbolises and represents every facet of our New Zealand society. Like the sevens, we work as a team, we hang together as a team, we set the game plan, and we win. We are a powerful team.

Labour’s point of difference from the Opposition is that we are the human face of economic and social development. Our policies and our actions show that we care, that we Kiwis are successful, we keep our word, and we deliver. We represent the New Zealand values of innovation, dreaming, making it happen, working hard, can-do, giving a fair go, and good savings and investment. We believe in the values of teamwork, extended family and community, and in celebrating and encouraging opportunity and potential in every one of our people in our society. We can do, and we Kiwis believe it in our heads, and our actions show it. We are strong, because we represent all those values.

These are three snapshots. As the Hon Paul Swain said, our economic growth is wonderful. In the year to September, growth was 4.6 percent. The crime rate is the lowest in 21 years. The Working for Families package has meant that benefit numbers are down. There are almost 7,000 Modern Apprenticeships. There has been a significant boost to health and education. Over 3 million people are enrolled in primary health organisations, and we are significantly investing in infrastructure like transport.

One of my examples of transport is that since 1999 in the Wellington region the transport budget has increased by 58 percent. In my own electorate we will have seen the work on the $33 million Plimmerton to Mana upgrade, and the $21.7 million McKay’s Crossing overbridge. Just over the last week, on 26 January, the Minister of Transport announced with Transit and the greater Wellington Regional Council a boost of $225 million for our region. Also since 31 January we have an extra $15 million for construction of the median barrier on Centennial Highway, which is one of the highlights of Transit’s other package. It is well done and we have all worked very, very hard in our Wellington region for that.

When I talk about a team, and we New Zealanders working together and really making our mark in this world, I talk about how we bring all the players together and we come up with a significant game plan to be successful, powerful, and to be winners. Back in my electorate we have a team of all the key stakeholders, the district health boards health units, the medical profession, the Māori and Pacific health providers, and the Whitireia Community Law Centre, that have come together to look at our project of the accident and medical centre that will open in July this year, to look at how we can deliver the best services to the diversity of our communities and ensure that those who are most in need have access to service.

Lastly, but not least, last week we celebrated the historical launch of the New Zealand Pacific Business Council. It is a wonderful initiative, delivered by the private sector, chaired by Gilbert Ullrich, that wants to strengthen exporters and importers in New Zealand, to look at trade being two-way between New Zealand and the Pacific. Is it not great news? I am proud to be a New Zealander and part of this Government.

I found it very interesting to contrast the two speeches made by the co-leader of the Green Party Jeanette Fitzsimons and then my own leader, Peter Dunne, in the context of this debate. I have long known, particularly since I have been here, that the Greens tend to trade on fear, so I noted down some of the words Jeanette Fitzsimons used in her speech. She mentioned “fear” once, “threaten” twice, “dangerous” once, “worrying” once, and “the coming crisis” once. I found it a little bit ironic that a couple of days after Jeanette Fitzsimons’ state of the planet speech on peak oil, the US Government announced that it had just issued permits for new exploration in a vast area of Alaska, with an estimate that it might yield 13 billion new barrels of oil. So I do not think that Armageddon is about to descend on us yet. I remember in my days in the oil industry about 1980, in today’s terms the price of oil was US$104 a barrel, contrasting with $44 a barrel today. So I think we should really take some of that with a pinch of salt.

On the other hand I noted some of Peter Dunne’s words, such as “new spirit”, “confidence” three times, “certainty”, “hope”, “identity”, and “purpose. I just note the great contrast between the two speeches.

I want, though, to come back to the Prime Minister’s statement. It is clear from that statement the Government has no intention of cutting or reducing taxes in this year’s Budget. But I believe that it should, because—as I will outline—there is a fundamental inequality in the present system that affects the income of families and needs to be fixed. I speak of the current inability of couples with dependent children to split their income for taxation purposes.

I believe that couples should be able to split their incomes fifty-fifty for taxation purposes. Each partner should then be taxed as if that person had personally earned that 50 percent share, which would result in a significant reduction in tax for many families. I gave an example at question time today. It would result in a reduction of $3,000 a year for a sole-income family on $60,000 a year.

United Future believes that inequity and unfairness in the tax system must be brought to an end, and we do not intend to let up on this issue until it is resolved to our satisfaction, and income splitting becomes a fact for New Zealand families.

Let us take a sole-income family on $60,000 as an example. Under the current system, it would pay $14,670 per annum in tax. Under income splitting, that would be reduced to $11,700—a saving of $2,970 per annum, or $57 a week. As I mentioned, such an option is not at present available to couples under the New Zealand tax system, but it should be. The status quo is grossly unfair for a number of reasons. Firstly, as I have just illustrated, a family with dependent children on a single income of $60,000 is paying about $3,000 more per year than an equivalent-sized family where each partner earns $30,000 per annum. That is unfair because its needs are essentially the same.

Secondly, the present tax system means that people who have no dependants pay exactly the same amount of tax as people with dependants. That is unfair and it breaches the fundamental principle contained in the “from each according to their means, to each according to their need” basis of a progressive tax system. That is something the Labour Party used to be careful to uphold.

Obviously, the sole breadwinner in, say, a family of four—two adults and two children—has a net income need that is far greater than that of a single individual. In addition, couples who are self-employed in farming or business, and retired couples, are already able to split their income for tax purposes. It is only those working families whose income is derived from salaries or wages who are unable to split income, and that is unfair. Therefore, income splitting for couples with dependent children rectifies and corrects a fundamental anomaly in the present tax system.

However, it goes further than that. Income splitting also specifically recognises that the spouse or partner who has opted out of the workforce in order to raise the children is making a full and, indeed, vital contribution to our society. The assignment of 50 percent of the household income to the principal caregiver of the children tangibly recognises that reality. Put another way, it is fair to view a couple with dependent children as forming a fifty-fifty partnership, which has the essential goal of giving their children the best possible start in life. Raising children is the most important job in the world. Simply stated, income splitting, and the resultant savings in tax, plays an important role in providing such families with an income sufficient to live on.

The Prime Minister, in her first speech for the year, said: “We have forged an independent foreign policy record we can be proud of. We continue to place disarmament, human rights, and engagement in peace making at the forefront of foreign policy.” The Green Party certainly supports such an approach, and there is much we can be proud of in that respect. New Zealand continues to promote complete nuclear disarmament as part of the New Agenda Coalition of countries, we have done good peacekeeping work in East Timor and the Solomons, and we are among the best countries in terms of the promotion of international human rights.

Phil Goff stuck his neck out in promoting an international tribunal to bring to justice the Indonesian military officers who oversaw the massive violations of human rights in East Timor before independence. The importance of such a stance has been shown by the acquittal of every military officer brought to trial in Indonesia for offences committed in East Timor. That has left the military with the attitude that it is above the law, which, unfortunately, is what we see in Aceh today. That arrogance has seriously impeded the delivery of aid to the many victims of the tsunami. The Indonesian military seems more interested in continuing the war against the Free Aceh Movement and lining its own pockets than in helping the people of Aceh in their hour of need, despite a ceasefire order from the new President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

However, it does not help us to advance human rights on a world stage when our Government is undermining them in some serious ways at home. On this very day, in the Supreme Court just across the road from Parliament, our Government is arguing that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should not have to take into account our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and international refugee law in ruling on the security risk certificate against the former Algerian MP Ahmed Zaoui. On that matter, it is unlikely that the Government will be any more successful in the Supreme Court than it was in the High Court or the Court of Appeal, or than it was in all the other court cases against Mr Zaoui, all of which it has lost. Just before Christmas the Supreme Court issued a warning to the Government that it cannot keep a refugee like Mr Zaoui in jail indefinitely without charge. After 2 horrible years in jail Mr Zaoui is now on bail, and is loving living in the real New Zealand—the one without the bars on the windows—and loving mixing with ordinary Kiwis.

In some areas, such as in the passage of the Civil Union Bill last year, Labour members do respect human rights, but when the pressure comes on from George Bush for nations to fall in line with his war on terror, and all the breaches of human rights that go with it, this Labour Government buckles. Be it using the security risk certificate procedure against Mr Zaoui, or bringing in legislation like the Terrorism Suppression Act, or handing the police and security services more surveillance powers, the traffic is, unfortunately, in one direction: to reduce the freedoms and the rights to privacy of ordinary New Zealanders, and to increase the power of politicians and civil servants over what we can do, with that power being less and less constrained by the courts.

We have all seen, at Abu Ghraib prison, at Guantanamo Bay, and, most recently, among British soldiers in Iraq, what happens if we take judicial restraints off soldiers, prison guards, and other officials; when we let them put into effect George Bush’s so-called war on terror, human rights go out the window. New Zealanders are waking up to this, which is why there has been so much support for Ahmed Zaoui, and why the Government is not getting a free run with its Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill, which gives to a political figure—that is, a Minister—the right to take away a New Zealander’s passport on very loose national security grounds.

This year the Greens will be trying to convince Labour to take another path: to consistently uphold human rights, to promote peace, and to have us pull our weight in overseas development aid. As a nation, we must have a timetable to get us up from the pitiful 0.23 percent of gross national income currently devoted to overseas aid, to the international standard of 0.7 percent, which we committed ourselves to at the UN millennium summit a couple of years ago. We should take note of the petition launched today by the Council for International Development here in New Zealand that a definite timetable be established to reach that target by the year 2015.

I listened in vain during the Prime Minister’s speech, and, indeed, since then to the speeches from members of the Labour Party, for two little words to come from any member of the Government—any member whatsoever during this quite long debate. I have been waiting for the words “thank you”, but I have not heard them. I will check Hansard later, but I have not heard those words come from the Prime Minister in any of her prime ministerial statements, nor from any member of the Labour team, to say “thank you” to the taxpayers of this country.

They laud themselves for the massive surpluses they are now wallowing in; they seem to believe that those surpluses come from them. Well, I have something to say to the Prime Minister and her people: they neither grow nor create; they merely take—and they take from the taxpayer. It would help just a little if they said thank you from time to time—thank you to people in the fishing industry, or the forestry industry, or the farming industry. They are the people who get out of bed in the morning, go to work, and create the wealth of this country. But I have never heard those words “thank you”. All we hear is: “We are going to take, and take some more.”

That is the theme of what I wish to say this afternoon in my speech, and I make no apologies for bringing attention back to the issue of the Government taking more private property from landowners in this country. The Prime Minister confirmed in her speech that rural New Zealand to her is nothing more than a playground. She has determined that sometime this year, she tells us, legislation will be brought into this House whereby the Government will appropriate, take, or steal—regardless of what we call it—a strip of land from all of those who have a body of water on their property.

But the Prime Minister says that the Government is going to be kind to landowners, to rural New Zealand, and will not allow a right to roam. Well, that is wrong. I want to quote to the House the former Minister for Rural Affairs, Jim Sutton. He was dumped because of the total lack of confidence rural people had in him. He said, just 2 days prior to Christmas: “They”—that is, the public—“will be able to come to the access commission or whatever we decide to call it, and say: ‘We think there is a big demand to get access to this piece of bush, or that piece of conservation land, where there is no form of access now.’ ” That is what he said in an interview with the Otago Daily Times. There is no mention of water bodies there; it is about somebody going across private land to get to where he or she wants to go. Yet again, we have been misled—some would say lied to—by this Government, because once that legislation is passed it will take just 1 hour to push through an amendment at some stage to ensure that a right to roam does exist. So if anybody listening to this debate believes for one moment that the Government will keep its word in saying that it is just around a water margin that people will have this right to roam, then he or she is wrong.

I was delighted to see the Prime Minister sack—dump, at least, or certainly demote—Jim Sutton. As our rural advocate, he was the man who promoted a right to roam; he is the man who is promoting this access commission, this theft of private property; he is the man who stole carbon credits from farm foresters, from the forestry industry; and he is the man who stood by and watched while accident compensation levies rose, for example, by 40 percent, and he did absolutely nothing.

But, worst of all, he stands by and watches the security of rural New Zealand diminish. What reaction has the Government had to the murder of Jack Nicholas or to the recent murder of that poor woman, Mrs Morriss? It has taken absolutely no action, at all. Well, I suspect that at this next election the people of rural New Zealand will remember. The fact is security—the prime function of any Government—has been lost to rural New Zealand. Rural New Zealanders will remember, and they will react on election day to that abuse—and that is all it can be called.

The previous speaker accused Labour members of not saying thank you, so I am about to say thank you. At the beginning of this new year and at the beginning of this speech I want to acknowledge and thank the source of all good things and of the blessings that this nation enjoys: Almighty God, who is the giver of life, the God that this Parliament prays to for guidance at the beginning of every sitting day, and the God that New Zealand petitions to defend New Zealand when we sing our national anthem. The year 2005 will be a challenging year. It is the year in which our nation goes to the polls to decide who will govern and determine the direction this nation takes for the next 3 years.

I want to congratulate the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, on her prime ministerial statement. It was a positive speech of vision and optimism, and a speech that outlined not only what this Government has achieved—and it is considerable—but what New Zealand as a nation has achieved. The achievements are ones that we can all be proud of as fellow Kiwis. It was a speech that called not only for celebrating our achievements as a nation but also for the unity of our people, so that together we can achieve more, both economically and socially. It was about “united we stand, and divided we fall”. The Prime Minister’s speech was the speech of a leader, and indeed I believe that history will judge her to be one of the finest Prime Ministers New Zealand has ever had, if not the finest.

The question is what the difference is between the speech made by the Prime Minister, compared with the speech given last week at Ōrewa by the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, and with his response to this week’s prime ministerial statement. As far as I am concerned, the difference was like night and day, darkness and light. Don Brash’s speech and message was one of doom and gloom. It was mean-spirited, as usual, and appealed to the darker side of human nature. It was a speech of pessimism, of scaremongering, of fear, and of playing with people’s prejudice, like last year’s speech when he played the race card. That was a speech that promoted division and disunity, setting Kiwis against Kiwis, as this year’s speech did again. And for what? To get a bit of political traction.

The sad part of it all is that most New Zealanders, with regard to Don Brash’s ideas, know that we have been there and done that, and it did not work. Someone amongst the Tories on the Opposition side of the House needs to tell Don Brash that he is about a decade and a half behind the times. The experiments with ideas that we have seen, with regard to what he is talking about, in places like Wisconsin have proven, frankly, to be an absolute failure and a disaster. It is certainly a disaster for the young mothers and children concerned, in relation to that state in America. We know there are problems in the welfare system. We know of some cases of people who may be exploiting the system, but that has been the case since Adam was a boy. It does not justify changing the welfare policy back to policy directions that were clear failures in the 1980s and 1990s.

Leadership will be a major factor in this year’s election, and Helen Clark is clearly the best option for New Zealand. As a matter of fact, let me reiterate some of what my colleagues said previously about some of the fine outcomes this Prime Minister and this Labour-Progressive coalition Government have achieved, for the benefit of those on the Opposition side of the House. Led by this Prime Minister, this Government has strengthened relations with our neighbouring Pacific nations. The Pacific Islands Forum, through her leadership, has become a strong vehicle for high-level discussions amongst the leaders of our neighbouring Pacific nations, and for economic and social development in the Pacific region. We have one of the best-performing economies in the modern world. In the past 5 years more than a quarter of a million jobs have been added to this economy. Unemployment has plummeted. It has gone down by 44 percent from the September 1999 quarter to the September quarter last year. That has been great for Māori and Pacific people. Pacific unemployment has been halved since we took power in 1999. That is an absolutely great achievement in 5 years. New Zealand’s crime rate is down to its lowest level for 21 years.

Pacific families are heeding the dangers of meningococcal meningitis for Pacific children, in particular. The result is that 95 percent of Pacific children in the south Auckland region have received their first dose of the vaccine that this Government is responsible for introducing. In addition, Pacific families recognise the danger of not fully completing the vaccination process, and Pacific children are more likely than those from other ethnic groups to receive the third and final dose of the vaccine. Much of the success of the vaccine update for Pacific families and communities is because of the resourcing for advertising to target an increase in Pacific vaccination, because of community awareness-raising workshops, and because of dedicated Pacific health workers across the health sector.

There are now nearly 7,000 Modern Apprenticeships, and more than 120,000 people are involved in industry training. The Working for Families package that commences from 1 April this year will enable 300,000 low and modest income families with dependent children to receive a boost to their income. That is great news for Māori and Pacific low-income families. According to our Prime Minister’s statement, those changes will have a dramatic effect on child poverty, reducing it by 30 percent. At the new level, the rate of child poverty here will be on a par with that in countries like the Netherlands. I want to commend my ministerial colleague Steve Maharey for his outstanding tenure as Minister for Social Development and Employment. It is his leadership in welfare, social development, and employment that has put New Zealand at the top of the OECD countries in terms of reducing unemployment. The lowering of the unemployment rate in New Zealand is an outstanding achievement for Steve Maharey, for the Ministry of Social Development, and for this Government.

This Government has done more to advance New Zealand’s Pacific communities than any other Government, and it will continue to do so in the key areas of health and education, and social and economic development, as well as in the other important areas of culture and the promotion of languages. The development is also for all the other sections of the community in New Zealand. There is no question in my mind that the people of New Zealand will make the right judgment on election day this year, and judge this Labour coalition Government on its achievements and leadership, not on the empty rhetoric from Don Brash and other Opposition members. I am sure that the achievements we talk about are a positive message for New Zealand, and I am sure that in a united way we can achieve better results for our communities.

The diversity of the New Zealand community is something we need to appreciate. The answers in terms of development for our people have to be appropriate solutions that will work for the different communities we have. I come from the background of a very diverse electorate in Auckland, with over 100 different ethnic communities. I believe that this Labour Government is the most sensitive Government this country has had in many years in terms of the diversity of our communities, not only in Auckland but in other parts of New Zealand. I look forward to working with my colleagues to promote policies that will work, and not the sorts of ideas that have been an absolute failure in past years, which is what has been suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. I congratulate my colleagues again on the discipline they have shown in the development of policy that has worked for the last 5 years.

Since the Prime Minister’s speech the other day, much talk has been going on in the media and in this House about how we are to grow our society, our assets, and all those things that are predicated on the future. All this has struck everybody as if there is something new about it. The Government in all its offerings suggested at least one way to help to raise our economic standards, was to send women out to work. My colleague Judy Turner said, in response to that, that the State should enhance the family, not the other way around—it is not for the family to enhance the Government. I support her view, because it has a great deal of common sense associated with it. If the State supports the family—and some of what the Prime Minister was talking about was along those lines—then the policies to support that need to be rolled out.

United Future has a number of polices that we will roll out during this year, which will undergird our family-friendly, supportive policies. We do not have a one-policy-solves-all approach, as some parties and others have talked about. We have a myriad of policies to cover the great range of possibilities, and they are all incentives to promote growth in this country. United Future has policies to encourage growth even from birth, and I would like to relate one or two of those to all of us in the House today. United Future says that all children need to be literate, not only in the reading and writing sense but also in the sense of how to handle money. They need to be financially literate. They need to learn how to earn and how to create wealth, and how to spend it.

In this country we have a culture based on consumerism, and it says that the credit card is money. Our culture has deceiving people into thinking in that way. In fact, youth as well as some adults today do not know that there is a difference between an asset and a liability. I was talking to a young man over the summer period, and he boldly showed me his shiny new asset, which was an old car. Then I had to remind him that it was nothing more than a liability, and that he needed to change his mindset. I think that if we start with children learning the difference between those two things, we will start to encourage the asset growth and the dynamic that this nation and this economy need. In homes and in schools we need to teach that difference. United Future, in a common-sense way, is trying to recover the mess that we have had from the voodoo economics passed on to us from the left in the past—from Karl Marx—and from the libertarians on the extreme right. Those economics are basically the same, by the way. They are about “all for me and none for you” in the economic sense. It just depends on whom the “me” is. If one is on the left, the “me” is the State and there is none for the individual, and if one is a libertarian it is “all for me and none for you”. It is the same concept.

United Future is committed to lower taxes, so that people can save and invest more and so that we can increase the productivity of our nation. We also have policies to free our students from the debt culture that has grown up around us. There are, I am told, some 400,00 tertiary students this year, all voters, and they have been told that if they want to have access to higher education, then they will have to go into debt. We feel that that is nothing but a millstone.

United Future has policies that will turn aspirations into reality, and when combined they will help people in this nation—the families and the households—to save, to invest, and to build assets.

There appears to be very little doubt that the election campaign is in full swing, having been opened by the Prime Minister and continued strongly in this debate. I want to pick up on two very important issues that were raised. One is the issue of encouraging saving, and the other is that of lifting the rate of home ownership. Let me say that the continuing emphasis on wealth redistribution by this Labour Government scares the daylights out of me, as it simply does not, has not, and will not work. Many Government MPs, along with the Greens, continue to falsely believe that if they throw enough money at something, all the problems go away. In other words, they believe people face certain problems only because of a lack of money, and that is simply nonsense. What we need to understand is that money is harder to handle than poverty. When people have money they find that they have to make most of the decisions on what to do with it themselves, and that they receive very little help from others on how to increase it. In contrast, if people become sufficiently broke other people end up making the decisions for them. That seems to me to be the road that this Government wants to pursue, as people then become dependent instead of independent.

I am in the process of developing ideas, which I will put to our caucus, that will encourage people to save, with the emphasis on first section or first home ownership.I agree that we need to teach and encourage people to save. We need to focus more on giving people a hand up and reducing the handout mentality. If this Government is serious about saving and homeownership it needs to recognise that that is, in fact, wealth creation. On the basis of my understanding, I think that would be a major policy shift for the Government. I believe that United Future has the power to influence the Government, and I am pleased that we are seeing some of that influence rub off on it.

My plan would be very simple to achieve. It would need to be neutral in terms of age, matrimonial status, and gender. Saving could be linked to tax rebates attributed to dollars saved each year, and those tax rebates would be obtained only on the purchase of a home or section. My plan would encourage people to save for a section or a home from the day they started work, and it would be available until the day they made the final payment on their first home, if they chose to keep the home for as long as that. We need to show people that saving little by little will, in the end, bring success. I heard the Prime Minister say that that was what the Government wanted to achieve, yet I see most of the things it has been doing as heading in totally the opposite direction of that. The Government loves to take from the haves and give to the have-nots. It does not reward success; it pays for failure. New Zealanders do not believe that the nanny State does know best.

If there is now to be a change in direction, United Future will greatly encourage that. Let us change. Let us encourage saving. Let us encourage homeownership and reward success, for a change. But that will require a fresh way of thinking. It will require providing a hand up and a disincentive to handouts. Money is certainly harder to handle than poverty, so let us encourage wealth creation. Let us teach and encourage people to build assets and handle money, instead of becoming experts in obtaining handouts, for which the majority of hard-working middle New Zealanders are becoming very tired of being overtaxed.

A vote for United Future is a vote for the strengthening of families, for stable Government, and for creative and constructive policy development that focuses on building families by giving them a hand up. I ask the Government to give United Future credit for many of the policies that have made a fantastic difference to the families of New Zealand—policies for which we have not been given enough credit. At a political forum I attended last weekend, I was amazed when Moana Mackey seemed horrified that a teacher could teach a child a viewpoint that was contrary to that of a parent. She said that if that was really happening, she wanted to know about it. I could not believe what I was hearing, as I know that that happens every single day in the classrooms of New Zealand. Then I realised she was horrified about that because teachers must teach the philosophy of the nanny State, and woe betide them if they do not. As a parent, I have totally disagreed with many policies of the nanny State.

I am proud to be a United Future MP, a member of a centrist party that is progressive, that has great leadership and great ideas, that is focused on the families of New Zealand, and that wants to build this nation into the greatest nation in which to bring up a family and raise children. People should look out, because United Future is on the campaign trail and is looking forward to the election.

I am very proud that this Government is investing so heavily in the early childhood sector. The comments made by the Prime Minister in her speech about the huge investment we are making and will continue to make in this area have generated a lot of debate. I welcome that debate. I welcome the comments from the sensitive new-age guys about childcare. I wonder where they have been all these years, but I am very pleased that we are, at long last, having an open debate about the care of children while mothers are working. I was a working mother. Unfashionably, I went back to work very, very early. I was able to do that because I had a supportive mother who gave up her time to look after our children; but the tension levels in our house rose considerably 2 weeks before any school holidays, because it is not easy finding childcare—in fact, it was impossible when my children were very young and I was working. So I am proud of the very positive results we are getting from investments in programmes like the out-of-school-care and recreation programmes and all the other childcare services that are now being provided and were not provided in such great numbers until this Government invested so heavily in them.

The media has been dominated this week by comments about what has happened to Katherine Rich. Katherine Rich tries to be a soft face for a hard message. She tries to reinforce this idea by using her gender to substitute for flawed and failed policies. One is reminded of a programme that used to be on TV, The Smiling Assassin. Katherine is a very wise woman. She has planned this for a long time. There was no shock-horror surprise about this at all. Ms Rich did not come down in the last shower. She knew exactly what she was doing. In fact, she had the whole of the holidays to plan it, for goodness’ sake! She voted for Brash. She knew that his speech was not a winner. She knows he is dog tucker, and she is looking towards the future. She is a young woman with a long political future ahead of her. This is all very calculated, so I do not know what all this mock horror and surprise—“What a shame; isn’t it terrible?”—is all about. Ms Rich knows exactly what she is doing.

She made a major blunder on the paid parental leave issue. She said she was taking paid time off work for her new baby because it was the right thing to do. That is perfectly fine—absolutely. She said she was going to do that regardless of her party’s stance on paid parental leave. But weeks later she retracted her statement and claimed that she had not stopped drawing a salary, for the very reason that she had not stopped working. She cannot have a bob each way. The public are aware of these kinds of comments. In fact, Ms Rich made them in her own press releases on 28 June 2001 and 27 March 2003. She said very early in the piece that she did not want to be the poster girl for the paid parental leave campaign. Of course she did not want to be its poster girl; she was going to vote against it. She was always going to vote against it. She knows what she is doing. Katherine Rich is not indecisive. I give her credit for knowing where she stands, even if I do not agree with the stance she takes. Ms Rich, the soft face for the hard message, voted against the Working for Families package and certainly voted against the Families Commission.

She voted against 4 weeks’ annual leave, which will assist women and give them extra time off work to spend with their families. She voted against the Employment Relations Act, which allows for more flexible and family-friendly workplaces. She voted against the Working for Families package, which puts more money into the pockets of 300,000 families. She has never spoken out against National’s market rents policy that destroyed families in the 1990s. As I said, Ms Rich is not indecisive. She knows where she stands on these matters and makes it abundantly clear.

Comments have been made this week that Mr Brash cannot handle females in his caucus who have an opinion. He cannot handle anybody in his caucus who has an opinion, regardless of gender. Mr Brash is a bad manager. This should not come as any surprise. This is not a shock-horror probe, headline-bursting statement. This is very evident and has been evident from the moment he was placed in the leadership position. If he cannot lead 27 people, how will he lead the whole nation? It is very, very obvious—Mr Brash may have skills, but they are not leadership skills. Leadership skills are not in his personal list of attributes.

One of the things that has also become very, very evident is how much of a game of musical chairs is going on in the National caucus. One has to keep up with who is speaking on what, these days. One area I am gravely concerned about is National’s complete lack of attention to arts and culture, when arts and culture is providing huge economic growth and significant growth in employment in New Zealand. It is an area where we are being increasingly recognised internationally. National has no arts and culture spokesperson at the moment. It has no spokesperson on women’s affairs or on youth affairs either.

Arts and culture is an area where New Zealand is very highly rated internationally, and not to have a spokesperson for this area is appalling. In the past the responsibility has always gone to someone whom National has had to find a job for because he or she had been sacked from a previous job, such as Georgina te Heuheu. Paul Hutchison had responsibility for the arts for a while. Katherine Rich had it for a while, but then she moved on so now the situation remains vacant. That is a bit like the National caucus.

National does not care about health. In fact, Don Brash has made several alarming statements about health. I quote from Lynda Scott, the former health spokesperson who was also moved aside. On 22 July of last year she said “Don”—Mr Brash—“has determined five priorities for National, and health is not one of those.” National does not see health as something it can define itself clearly on, so it will not speak on it at all other than to say things that are negative about the future health service provision in this country. It is no wonder that Lynda Scott is going away, and I have to say that she is doing it in a dignified manner.

Mr Brash has made statements like: “I’ve had private health insurance for a long time.” That sounds like: “I’m all right, Jack, shame about you.” He has also said that under National some people would get no treatment at all if they had not led a clean lifestyle. If they had overeaten for 2 years and required kidney dialysis, then that was their fault. That shows us the caring face of the National leader! My electorate of Whanganui, which I am very proud and privileged to represent, is absolutely booming at the moment. When I use that word “booming” I am quoting directly from headlines in local newspapers.

Our crime rate has reduced phenomenally in Whanganui overall, but I want to acknowledge sympathetically the terrible crimes that occurred in our area during the holiday period. We all hope for a very early resolution of those cases. Our police in Whanganui are of the highest calibre, and police numbers in the region are amongst the highest in the whole central police district. Health funding in Whanganui has increased dramatically, as has health funding overall in New Zealand. There has been a 40 percent increase during the term of the Labour Government. The Whanganui District Health Board will receive an additional $4.2 million in 2005-6, which is over and above the additional $3.3 million that it received in 2004-5. The Government is certainly recognising the health needs of the people in Wanganui and the larger Whanganui electorate.

Building is happening at an accelerated pace in Whanganui, which is creating jobs. Our schools are well staffed, with 25 extra secondary teachers joining staffrooms in the Whanganui electorate who are over and above those required for roll growth. These are exciting numbers. High-quality education will be delivered to the future leaders of this country, because that is who our young people will be. Yesterday I attended the opening of the Patea Area School, which was a very exciting event. All in all, the economy and the situation in my electorate is fabulously exciting. This Government is working together with the people of New Zealand.

When I listened to the Prime Minister speaking about the need to increase women’s participation in the workforce, and to encourage two-income families, I felt a sense of unease. It reminded me of the wartime rhetoric when the Government of the day briefly decided it was convenient to have women in the workforce when the men were away at the war. Members should not get me wrong; the Green Party strongly supports women being able to participate in the workforce if they so wish, and their being supported if they make that choice. We strongly support the Government’s investment in childcare, and its efforts to improve the quality of childcare and to introduce paid parental leave, greater holiday leave, and pay equity in the workplace. But we do not want to see full-time motherhood or parenthood even further devalued, or even greater economic and social pressures put on parents to work full-time, even when their children are very young.

Listening to the Prime Minister’s speech, people might not realise that nearly 70 percent of mothers in relationships, and almost half of single mothers, are already in the paid workforce, and many of those women are in low-income jobs, such as the cleaners we MPs see coming to work as we go home after a late-night sitting. Their wages are so low that they are forced to work long hours, and often at night, at the expense of being with their families. We can only hope that their never seeing their kids is not part of the “future of our dreams” that the Prime Minister advocates for New Zealand families struggling on a single income.

Already, motherhood has been so undervalued in our society that many people do not regard it as real work. Already, mothers or fathers who choose to parent full-time feel under stress and attack. Many women say they do not believe that staying home while their children are young is a real option, not only because of the enormous difficulty of trying to live on one income, but also because of the loss of financial independence and loss of identity that full-time mothers and fathers experience in our work-focused society. The truth is that women and men who choose to parent full-time are penalised on all sorts of levels for being full-time parents. They are not entitled to paid parental leave, and they are looked upon in market terms as if they have vegetated or are dropouts from the workforce. If they are sole mothers on the domestic purposes benefit, they are stigmatised as bludgers, attacked in public, singled out by politicians, and the targets of all kinds of abuse. The clear impression from some politicians in this House is that single mothers are layabouts who spend their days down at the TAB or local pub—and this from politicians who claim they value motherhood.

But while most people in New Zealand would agree that caring for children is one of the most important and productive activities that there is, our society does very little to value it, unless it is done by someone other than parents and the family. It is one of the great ironies of our society that people who look after other people’s children—nannies and childcare workers—are paid, albeit poorly, but parents and relatives who look after their own children, their own mokopuna, are not paid a cent, which forces them into a state of financial dependence on their spouse or the State. Since the demise of the universal family benefit, we have had no payment that values childcare for its own sake, which is one reason why the Greens want to bring back a modest universal child allowance. We believe that it is time we put some of our money where our future lies.

The Prime Minister’s rationale for getting more women back into the workforce seems to be economic, just as it was all those years ago in World War II. She wants to raise our gross domestic produce rates to the average of the top five OECD nations, and to get women’s participation in the paid workforce up to the level of that of the top Scandinavian economies, so that we can raise our standard of living—the implication being that full-time parents will drag down our GDP rates, and therefore our whole economy. Everything, it seems, is now viewed through an economic lens. Everything is geared to improving our economy, not our quality of life. Indeed, the Government seems to be so obsessed with improving New Zealand’s economic performance, as measured by GDP, that it seems to be losing sight of the quality-of-life issues that are so important to New Zealanders, and are identified in every survey over the last decade. “Working for Families” is in danger of becoming “Families for Work”.

The fact that parents are not paid, and therefore do not contribute to the GDP per capita, seems to be a main driver of the Government agenda to get women, or more women, back into the workforce, and the Prime Minister was quite clear about this in her statement to Parliament on Tuesday. So the message goes out: let us get more women into the workforce, because then they can contribute to the GDP. And of course the GDP will also rise because childcare will then be done by paid workers.

The problem with this vision is its extremely narrow focus—its narrow view of what is valuable to society. It reinforces the already widely held perception that worth is measured by whether money changes hands, not by whether it contributes to genuine well-being and quality of life. There was no mention in the Prime Minister’s speech of the importance of parents being able to spend time with their children when they are young, or the cost to children when they cannot, or the value to our society of well-adjusted, stable children. This is just one illustration of why the Greens say GDP tells only half the story; it is only loosely connected to well-being and quality of life. We need to change what we value, rather than becoming a nation of dual-income wage slaves with no time for our children or our communities.

I was glad to hear the Prime Minister say yesterday, to clarify, that she stands for choice for women and the rights of parents to choose to work in the home or in the paid workforce when their children are young. But in the same answer she said that the Government wanted to encourage two-income, two-earner families. That seems to be a contradiction, because if our whole society is geared around two-earner families, if it is virtually impossible for a family to survive on one full-time wage, then in reality there is no choice for parents. And this approach also makes single parents even bigger victims, as people think that if they cannot stay home to look after their kids, why should single parents be able to.

At present many families do not have the choice of living on a single income, and the Government’s policies seem all about getting more workers in the workforce, with little regard to how much they earn once they are there. The Green Party is determined that a full-time wage should be sufficient to allow families the choice of having one parent working while children are young. That is why we believe that it is so important to raise the basic minimum wage. We want to make it easier, not harder, for parents to spend time with their children when they are young, and that is why we have been pushing for the universal child benefit and flexible working hours member’s bill that I have in the ballot, which would guarantee that parents could work flexibly or part-time without being penalised, when their children are young. We hope the Government, and other parties in this House, will support the bill when it comes to the House. I hope too that the scapegoating of single parents in this House will cease, and that we will begin to offer support, not punishment, to single mothers.

In 1990 Gordon Campbell noted in a Listener article: “It’s election year, politicians are already out DPB bashing, playing on the widespread hostility towards solo parents.” His article could have been written yesterday. It seems to be open season against domestic purposes benefit recipients. I view as shameful Don Brash’s suggestion that single mothers on the domestic purposes benefit should have to go back to work when their children are 5. Do Don Brash and his National Party believe that all women should be forced to go into the paid workforce when their children are 5? Of course he does not! He and his party are only too happy for upper middle class mothers to be full-time parents even when their children turn 5, 10, or whatever. It is only single mothers who will be denied that right under his vision and policy. We know that children of single mothers are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Are these already deprived children also to be deprived of the opportunity to have a parent at home when they are young?

But, as my colleague Sue Bradford pointed out early in the week, the Government seems to be competing with the National Party in targeting single mothers. Like National, Labour continues to discriminate against the children of beneficiary parents through its Working for Families package, and, like Don Brash, it wants to punish sole parents and impose penalties on mothers who cannot or will not name the father of their child. Overall, the Government continues to say that sole parents should have as their primary goal in life a return to the workforce as soon as possible, neglecting the reality that bringing up children well is a full-time job.

This Government believes it can do no wrong. It has an innate arrogance when it talks about the financial largesse that it distributes as if that largesse were its own, when the reality is that it is the money of taxpayers that the Government distributes. However, I would say that the magic is but a veneer, and it is a veneer that wears increasingly thin. That is why it is that without amendment we are debating in the Prime Minister’s statement the words: “That this House has no confidence in the Government led by Helen Clark who, given the opportunity to outline her vision for New Zealand, has failed to even identify the big challenges which lie ahead for our nation, whose Government has confiscated from hard-working New Zealanders the fruits of the best international economic conditions we have enjoyed for many decades, and who sees our future as the creation of an all-powerful, all-knowing Government, rather than the result of the Kiwi spirit of enterprise, skill, innovation and hard work which resides with individual New Zealanders.”

I deplore much of the debate that we have heard because of its essential bitterness—because of the singularity that many members of this Parliament have pursued in targeting individuals, rather than staying with the issues that should properly characterise debate on a Prime Minister’s statement. The comments that the Prime Minister made were far-reaching. They deserve to be given consideration and a considered response. Instead, the debate has been cheapened by personal attacks and gratuitous abuse. I express the hope that in future debates it will not be seen as necessary for some members of this House to pursue that particular line. I do not think there is anything particularly smart about attacking individual members of Parliament, whether they are National members, Labour members, or members from the minor parties.

In the short time that remains I would like to talk about issues relating to law and order, which is clearly one of the five big issues that will be addressed by the next National Government. The most basic responsibility of Government—of every Government—is to keep the public safe. Law-abiding people have the right to expect that they will be kept safe from those who prey on them, on their families, and on the wider community. At present the public do not, and cannot, have that expectation. Even in the last few weeks we have witnessed a series of events that cause a chill to run down the backs of reasonable, thinking New Zealanders with regard to law and order issues. The issues may touch the murder of innocent individuals, or they may touch the types of activities that we have heard discussed in the House today relating to the activist Tame Iti and the apparent freedom that he feels to be above the law and to discharge a weapon in a public place.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is my observation that there is no Minister in the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for making that observation.

💬 Jill Pettis: The member’s observation is wrong.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I didn’t recognise him as one.

I was talking about law and order issues. We all know that New Zealand has a terrible record; it is in front of us each day. The police tell us that in New Zealand every 5 weeks one woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner, and that 10 children are killed every year in acts of family violence. Every day the media carries stories of horrendous crimes—of appalling family violence that results in death and disfigurement for women and children, of random killings by drug-crazed criminals out on parole, of muggings of young tourists visiting our country, and of dangerous and often drunk drivers, many with numerous previous driving convictions, killing people on the roads.

As a society we seem to have lost the confidence to defend ourselves. We seem to have lost the determination to stand up and defend our core values. As a result we have created a society where women and older New Zealanders are forced to significantly modify their behaviour because of the threat of violence. Our children are much less safe than they should be. Obviously, there are many factors that contribute to that intolerable state of affairs.We have, for example, tolerated the growth of intergenerational welfare dependency and the educational failure that often goes with it. That has created a breeding ground of at-risk children from which the next generation of hard-core criminals is likely to be drawn. We have also disregarded the importance of families and downplayed the importance of having fathers on site as positive role models, and all too many men have abandoned their responsibilities as fathers. Likewise, we regard grossly fraudulent white-collar crime as of minor consequence, when some crimes of that kind have a devastating impact on victims and deserve to attract harsh penalties. We have scarce police resources, yet instead of focusing them on the most serious crimes we too often use them to generate revenue. I would assert that we do not even take the existing penalties seriously. The courts wiped $32 million in fines off the record books in 2003, and less than 40 percent of those sentenced do the community work that they have been ordered to do.

We have also underfunded our police. I cannot accept with credibility the assertions of the current Minister of Police that the police are well resourced. We see that under-resourcing in so many ways. It is well illustrated by the length of time that it takes for an accused person to have the case brought against him or her resolved. [Interruption] The Minister of Police is interrupting what I am saying. I cannot catch the tenor of the comments that he is making, but he cannot deny that the police are poorly resourced. Why do I say that? Well, let us look for just a moment at the statistics. We have one of the lowest numbers of police per head of population—18 per 10,000 of population, compared with 22 per 10,000 of population in New South Wales and 25 per 10,000 of population in the United Kingdom. If the Minister has a serious contribution to make in this debate then surely he should make it, rather than offer those petty interruptions of no substance across the Chamber. What this Minister has failed to do is to give our police the tools they need to deal with the gangs, which through the control of the drug trade have amassed fortunes that make them all but impervious to traditional policing methods.

I would also say that we have put up with a parole system that allows the seemingly erratic judgments of the Parole Board to override the judgment of those who sentence criminals to jail. It is interesting to reflect on that issue for just a moment. In the United States, in the federal system, there is no parole—no parole at all. At best a convicted person will get a limited amount of time off for good behaviour, but that is about as far as it goes. It is against that background, and in particular the referendum in 1999, that 92 percent of people voted for longer sentences.

I would like to talk for a moment about what National will do when coming into office later this year, and to summarise the commitments that we have made. The first thing is that we are going to launch an all-out assault on crime in our communities—crime of all kinds. We should be safe in our homes and on our streets. Our kids should be able to walk home safely from school, and we should not feel uneasy about parking our cars on city streets in the evening. The second thing is that we are going to deal compassionately with young first offenders, but we will reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 14 years to 12. We will move offenders from the children’s system to the Youth Court after two family conferences. The third thing we are going to do is to record the DNA of all convicted criminals, because at just about every crime scene there will be traces of blood, hair, or semen. Whereas as a matter of routine we currently fingerprint all arrested persons, we do not, as a matter of routine, take a DNA swab of all accused persons in the very simple way that is now possible with modern technology. There is no doubt about it, one can look at the experience in death row in the United States to see how effective that system is in incriminating the offender and exculpating the innocent. There are other matters, but time does not permit me to deal with them.

The ACT party supports and totally endorses the motion of the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Brash, namely that this House does not have confidence in a Helen Clark - led Labour Government. We are drawing to a close of this 14-hour debate, and there have been some interesting and less interesting contributions, I would have to say. One of the fascinating contributions I heard just in the last half hour was from the United Future member Paul Adams. He actually made what I thought was a fair enough analysis of the economic situation. He condemned the Government for its economic policies, highlighted the point that it pays for failure, creates the incentives for failure, yet it penalises success. He was right on with his analysis. But the question I put to him now is, why on earth does that party support this Government’s Budgets and allow it to govern if they are genuinely as opposed to its economic policies as he purported to be?

💬 Ron Mark: It’s poodle policy

Well, it is either poodle policy or doormat policy. Call it what one likes, but it beggars belief that on the one hand they can rail against it, and then stump up, time and time again, and pass the very measures that they say they are opposed to. There is no place for that sort of behaviour in this Parliament.

I think we are all getting a bit sick—I know that the country at large is getting sick—of this Government’s arrogant wallowing, and claiming success for what are, yes, very buoyant times in the New Zealand economy. We should all be thankful for that. But it is not of this Labour Government’s making. It is the hard yards from reforms of the past decades when real hardships were endured to change the structures and make those hard decisions. I am thinking of the Rogernomic reforms and the Ruth Richardson reforms. That is what has borne the fruit. That is what has delivered the fruit.

This Government is plucking the low fruit while it messes up the fundamentals. When the cycles do turn, and they always do—commodity prices and global interest rates—they will have messed up the fundamentals, and this economy will be in a poorer state to weather the storms that surely lie ahead. It is for this reason the ACT party says: for goodness’ sake, when we have a surplus of the size we have today, give it back to those people who paid it. That is where one will get growth in the economy. That is where one will get real jobs. I heard the member for Whanganui, Jill Pettis, interject, I think it was on Mr Worth. He said: “It is not the Government’s money.” She said: “Yes it is.” She believes that taxes paid by hard-working New Zealanders in hard-working communities actually belong to the Government. That is not the situation.

💬 Jill Pettis: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not make that interjection at all.

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

That is not a point of order, indeed. I think that others in the House would have heard similar sentiments where the assumption was that, yes, it belonged to the Government, and the Government has the right to distribute it as it sees fit to try to secure its own support base. But the Government’s tracking for the operating surplus is to continue, to get to be more than 4 percent of GDP. There has never been a better time to give taxes back. All successful countries in the OECD have reduced taxes. No economy has increased taxes and had sustained growth. That is the reality.

So now is the time. Yet the Prime Minister has in subsequent comments missed taking advantage of that opportunity. Twenty-two percent of the 250,000 full-time workers are treated as rich by this Government. They are sick of seeing no reward for the hard work and the longer hours they put in.

It has been pointed out by numerous parties in this House that in the 5 or 6 years of this Government those workers are not better off. If one takes inflation into it they are no better off, yet the economy is booming. What we have is a rich Government but poor people. Our wages are amongst the lowest in the OECD. They are far lower than those in Australia. So we have a rich Government but a poor people. That is an appalling situation and cannot be left to continue.

But day after day, week after week, the Government dreams up new ways to throw out the largesse and say we are all benefiting. That is absolute nonsense. Its mates might be benefiting, but in fact it is “poor people, rich Government”, and that is a very bad situation to have.

One thing that really concerned me, however, was this quote from the Prime Minister’s statement. It relates to trade, which is very important for our country: “We remain ready to enter negotiations with the United States, as the mutual benefits of a free-trade agreement between us are clear.” Can members believe that? “We remain ready”! We know we are not ready, and we know what the obstacle is. We have seen our neighbour, our partner in closer economic relations, take those first steps towards a free-trade agreement. All economic analysis tells us that the New Zealand economy would benefit from a billion dollars a year if we were to secure a free-trade agreement with what is the largest economy on the planet. But this Government’s policies and its senseless, cold war mantras and dogma, by continuing the ban on nuclear-powered vessels visiting our ports and territorial waters, prevent that occurring.

Even this week there was a very significant trade lobby in the US, rating New Zealand in the top five in preference terms. But what they say is that it will not happen, because Washington cannot accept the continuation of the ban. A comment in a speech has already been made—perish the thought—but imagine if a mega disaster such as we have just seen in the Indian Ocean were to hit our part of the world. Earthquakes and tsunamis of those proportions have hit us in the past as we do live in a very vulnerable part of the world, on a tectonic plate. Perhaps if a major force 9 earthquake or a tsunami were to occur in Wellington for example, with massive suffering, we would welcome an aircraft carrier like the one that provided so much support off the coast of Sumatra. They have hospitals on board and it is the only logistical way that relief could be offered in a mega disaster of that proportion.

That is the point, is it not? If we faced that situation we would tear up our legislation, beg them, and welcome that aircraft carrier to come into our ports. But oh no, we continue that mantra and dogma when we know there is no public safety or environmental risk factor. We had a major report over 15 years ago that told us that. It concluded that four times more radiation is emitted into the environment every day from Auckland Hospital than from the entire US naval fleet in a year. That is the nonsense of our continued ban on nuclear propulsion.

So I say to the Prime Minister that if she is genuine in wanting to establish a free-trade agreement she should remove that obstacle, and we can then start talking on equal terms with Australia and start making the progress that we all want to see.

Crime has been a key issue in this debate, and so it should be. New Zealanders do not feel safe. The Government may claim that it has brought crime records down, but what it is not saying is that it is reported crime. People are no longer reporting burglaries, because they do not get investigated. It is a waste of time even reporting them. The Government should make that claim to the families of the murder victims. There have been nine murders already, I believe, this year. That is an appalling record. If we go back to the 1950s, there was one murder a year and it would dominate the news. Now, it is almost a weekly, if not daily, occurrence, and this Government is certainly not on top of that appalling situation.

It must be a major concern to all New Zealanders. There have been some dreadful situations, like the one in Foxton just in recent times, and crime—certainly, violent crime particularly—is not falling. Violent crime is increasing. This Government does not have the solutions. It has a hapless Minister. We saw that today in question time with the Tame Iti issue. He is a totally hapless Minister. If the Prime Minister were serious about crime, then the first step she would take would be to change the Minister.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The next contribution from New Zealand First is split between Craig McNair and Edwin Perry.

The Prime Minister set out what she called her vision for this country a couple of days ago. Then, over the last few days, Labour Government MPs have been saying how great things are for all New Zealanders, and that every New Zealander is experiencing the so-called economic boom. It is very interesting that most of the people whom I have had the privilege of meeting lately are not feeling the economic boom that this Government talks about now. There has been growth, but why are average New Zealanders not feeling any direct effects from the growth that we hear about? They tell me that their wallets are not exploding with extra cash, and that they are not tasting, smelling, sniffing, not feeling, nor experiencing that growth.

We have to ask ourselves why average New Zealanders are not feeling the effects of economic growth. Well, I have some answers that I want to give the House today. It could be because this Government is hoarding a $6 billion surplus, and holding it in its fat little hands. This is a greedy Government—that is what we have here. It is a greedy Government holding massive surpluses for election-year politics. While the Government is holding that money, people in New Zealand, in this nation, are dying on hospital waiting lists. I say that is disgraceful, despicable, wrong, and—most of all—devastating for the families and loved ones of those people. Another answer to the question could be housing prices, which are six times the average wage. The last time prices were so high was in 1996, when they were four times the average wage. Just about all the young couples whom I know cannot buy their first house. That is a major problem. Those young couples are educated, they are hard-working young people, and they have degrees and jobs. But this Government, along with its policies on immigration and other issues surrounding it, is taking that Kiwi dream away from young New Zealanders. This Government would rather concentrate on issues such as social engineering and political correctness than fix the huge issues facing this country as we speak.

Last election my leader Winston Peters brought out Labour’s debit card, the promises that Labour members are not telling people about. I want to read some of his predictions that have already come true or are in the process of coming true as I speak. He said Labour would legalise prostitution and soliciting. That has already been done. He said Labour would legislate for gay marriages and adoptions. It is doing that right now. Mr Peters also said Labour would raise the taxes further on cigarettes, alcohol, and petrol. Do members remember the famous sherry tax, which was supposed to stop youth drinking—stop young people from being out on the streets or having problems with alcohol—the famous tax that did not work? I say to this Government that it should have adopted the New Zealand First member’s bill to raise the drinking age, rather than putting extra tax on sherry. That is what I say to this Government, and I say that it is way off the track in areas such as those I have just mentioned.

I also want to raise a couple more of Mr Peters’ predictions that are coming true as I speak. First, he said Labour would provide further large payments for prisoners, which is what we have seen in this term. Second, he said it would continue to bring large numbers of immigrants in every year—and it is doing that; that is what we have seen. All those predictions that my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, made are coming true or have come true.

We in New Zealand First are very concerned about that, and we say that we cannot let things keep on going on in the way they are going. We must stop that. We must put an end to the social engineering and the political correctness, and face the issues. We must face the big problems that I have just talked about with regard to house prices and young people who are trying to get into their first home.

While I was enjoying my Christmas break, I heard the dulcet tones of the leader of the National Party, Dr Brash. He was pontificating on the virtues of National’s policies regarding social welfare. I say to Dr Brash with regard to his speech at Ōrewa that I do not think he will ever pinch the patch off that man there—

💬 Ron Mark: Who is it?

Sir Robert Muldoon. Sir Robert has inscribed on his tombstone the words: “He loved his country”. Sometimes I wonder whether National members really love this country. After listening to one of the speakers talk about a problem with regard to the police, I point out that when National was in power it had 9 years in which to fix that. Then who had to come along and help National to fix it but New Zealand First? I say to both the major parties that every election we hear the same old rhetoric about the different things they want to do. Well, I say that New Zealand should wake up, because New Zealand First is coming along at this election to fix things. Obviously, the National Party has said it does not need us. That is fine; we will see about that when election night comes.

I want to point out to Dr Brash some figures that I have. When Roger Douglas was in charge of his portfolio, there were 86,000 people on the unemployment benefit. It is a funny thing that when National came into power and Ruth Richardson came along with the “mother of all Budgets”, there were nearly 167,000 people unemployed. I see from the figures at the bottom of the page that Labour now has 78,000 people unemployed. If that is a fact and the figure does not include people on the sickness benefit who have jumped across from the unemployment benefit, then I need to say that Labour is doing a good job.

I will reiterate some points here. Targeting people who are on benefits is easy, but if we look back a few years we will see that the welfare system we have today is an end result of the policies followed previously by the two major parties when they have been in Government. When Labour and National sold off over $16 billion worth of our assets during the 1980s and 1990s, they shifted many workers—and, by extension, their families—from meaningful work to the dole queue. New Zealand Rail, the Ministry of Works, Telecom, the Post Office, and the Forestry Corporation, to name a few entities, were all owned by us as taxpayers at the time when they were sold off to the highest bidder. The resulting loss of jobs meant that many New Zealanders simply ended up on the scrapheap. That is the result today of what happened. Our Defence Force is a pale shadow of its former self. The Army, Air Force, and Navy should still be training grounds for many young people today, especially for those who need to have some guidance and support in their lives.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.