General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. We saw today that the Prime Minister is totally out of touch with working New Zealand. We heard her reply to a question from the leader of the National Party, Don Brash, that she did not know what impact her much-vaunted Working for Families package, on which she wants to spend $21 million of taxpayers’ money explaining, would have on a working family earning $50,000 per year. She said that she did not know, and that she had not sought advice on what impact the union claim for a 5 percent wage increase would have on a hard-working family. That is how out of touch this Prime Minister is with the day-to-day cares of ordinary, hard-working New Zealanders.

💬 Hon Annette King: Two percent and going down.

Annette King calls out. She has no care at all for those poor New Zealanders stuck on health waiting lists. Why would the Prime Minister say that she did not know? It is simple!

💬 Hon Annette King: The ACT party really cares.

I say that we do, because we have the numbers that the Prime Minister does not have, and they are these. I ask Annette King: if people earned $50,000 and received a 5 percent wage increase—that is $2,500 a year—what would they get in the hand per week? I ask Phil Goff what they would get in a week. I ask Mr Steve Maharey what they would get in a week. Not one of them knows. I will go across and ask my friend Mr Gerry Brownlee how much they would get in a week.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Five lousy dollars.

Five miserable dollars is what they would get—from a $50 wage increase they would get to keep $5. [Interruption] Oh, well, Mr Goff is like Helen Clark or Steve Maharey. Steve Maharey turned up on the radio with John Key and said that he was not prepared to debate the numbers. That is what he said.

💬 Stephen Franks: He’s not stupid.

He is not stupid, because he knows that those numbers are death to hard-working New Zealanders.

Here is another thing. Prime Minister Helen Clark has gone out and said that the Government will spend $21 million of taxpayers’ money to promote the Working for Families package—$21 million! There was a front-page story yesterday about the two old parties jacking it up to spend $3 million on party propaganda. The Government is spending $21 million of taxpayers’ money to promote its Working for Families package.

Why did Helen Clark give a justification for that? I can see why she might think that it is important, because clearly she does not understand it. But she said that it is important that people know what they are entitled to, because they have to apply for the extra benefit. That statement was false—totally false.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: Put some feeling in it.

Pete Hodgson says that I am making it up. Let me explain from the answer to question for written answer No. 1185. Does Pete Hodgson know what those numbers are? No, his head is in the newspaper. Government members do not want to know. They just want to rely on the $21 million taxpayer-funded splurge on advertising.

I say to Mr Hodgson that it goes like this. There are 300,000 people who will get the extra benefit from the Working for Families package. Does Annette King know what the answer to question for written answer No. 1185 states?

💬 Hon Annette King: Ken Shirley would do a much better job.

Ken Shirley is a great MP. I know that the member loves him to bits, and I know that he was a great loss to Labour, but she should just listen to this. She might learn where $21 million will be going. Steve Maharey had to explain, in answer to a written question, that all the adjustments are automatic. That is right. If a person is a beneficiary or is getting a family allowance now, that person does not have to do a thing. The money just comes along; it is automatic.

Let me see what the numbers are. Of the people entitled to the Working for Families package, 150,000 are beneficiaries. Another 100,000 are already in assistance. That is 250,000 people. They do not have to do a thing. The adjustment is automatic. Another 50,000 do not have to do anything, either. I say to Steve Maharey that it is a joke.

It is always good to indulge in a little nostalgia at the beginning of these debates, as we watch the waning days of the ACT party and its leader. ACT is at 1.7 percent in the polls and consistently polls at under 2 percent. It will not be here in Parliament after the next election. I say to the member that when he is out there, enjoying the fruits of being independent from the House again, he will notice that New Zealanders all over the country—290,000 of those families around the country—will be enjoying money from the Working for Families package. He will be able to sit back and say what a good thing that is.

A solemn responsibility of the Government is to keep the Opposition honest. It is something we want to do today. I will concentrate my comments on that very honest saying “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”, which is what we should be seeing from members of the Opposition. The job of the Opposition is to focus on opposing the Government and proposing alternatives to the Government’s actions that people can weigh up and judge. But the Opposition is just not doing its job, and it cannot do it. The National Party cannot do it because, I am afraid, its senior strategist and spinner, Mr “Muzzer” Murray McCully, as he is known affectionately on the Government side of the House, tells us that there is a crisis in the National caucus room and, if unity is not restored and the divisions are not pasted over, National can never expect to be the Government. I just want to make sure members understand that the Government is not making those statements. We are saying that the Opposition itself is saying that. Its key strategist and spinner is saying himself that National cannot win the election.

We know that one of the problems Mr Murray McCully has is that he has spent his time on getting rid of Katherine Rich. That is why he has been unable to come to Parliament for quite some time. She was a tad angry with him for getting rid of her and then spreading rumours about her that undermined her. We know he has only been able to return because that has now been settled.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not want to stop the flow of that member, but it is not appropriate for him to start referring to a person’s absence from the Chamber for any aspect of the proceedings, and therefore I suggest to him that coming back to his point may be a good idea—although, quite frankly, just what that is no one would know.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I want to make it clear, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you may have been distracted during the change-over, that the member was not referring to the member’s current absence from the Chamber, which would have been out of order. It is in order to say that members have not been attending Parliament. That is a matter of record, and it is very clear from the records that Mr McCully has not been attending.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before Mr Brownlee speaks to his point of order, I want to make it perfectly clear that while points of order are being heard, there will be silence. That applies to all members on both sides of the Chamber.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I apologise for barracking at one point when Mr Mallard was speaking to the point of order, but when the point of order procedure is used to breach Standing Orders it probably does invite the sort of response that he got. The point Mr Mallard wants to make is nothing to do with the situation that we face. It is simply a matter of the Chair insisting that Mr Maharey stop referring to the absence of members. There is no register of attendance in the House. Mr Mallard knows that. There is no day-register taken. [Interruption] No, there is no such thing as a day-register, and there has not been for quite some time. Perhaps it would be a good thing if we brought it back; I suspect it would be more embarrassing for the Government than for anybody else. However, the reference Mr Maharey was making was unparliamentary, and if he cannot withdraw and apologise for his silly comments he should at least desist from making them.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I say to Mr Mallard that that is a final warning against interjecting during points of order. I have made that point very clearly. It is a convention—and only a convention—that members do not refer to the absence of MPs from the House. The spirit of that convention has been that they refrain from all comment on members’ absences at any time. There is also no register of attendance.

The point I am making is that the Opposition is unable to operate as an Opposition, and Mr Murray McCully’s getting rid of Katherine Rich seemed to do nothing to her demeanour. I have never seen Katherine Rich look so radiant. She looks like a person who knows that her day will come after the next election, when the reshuffle comes and she is back on the front bench—perhaps leading the National Party.

Then there is Maurice Williamson. We are reliably informed that Maurice Williamson was asked to step down from the Pakuranga electorate in order to make way for John Banks, who would then run for the ACT party. Maurice Williamson, we are reliably told, said the person who suggested that should do something that is anatomically impossible, and said he wants to stay on as the MP for that area. It is like a soap opera.ACT, meanwhile, took offence at that, and we have seen a series of attacks on the National Party by the ACT party ever since. I thought the extreme right was supposed to hang together. If those members keep this up, they will hang individually.

Then we have Mr Gerry Brownlee. He does not think the National and ACT parties can make it. We know that; he knows that. He has had his shoes off, so that he can count on his fingers and toes. He has counted the numbers, and they do not add up. So, we understand, he went off to New Zealand First and asked whether it would be National’s working coalition partner. Unfortunately for Gerry Brownlee, Don Brash had already ruled out working with New Zealand First. But of course, because Gerry Brownlee is one of the four or five leaders within the National Party he did not feel the need to consult with the other three or four leaders before he went off to talk to Mr Winston Peters. Mr Peters, of course, is the only leader of New Zealand First, so he knew that he had been talked to by Don Brash and he was able to tell Gerry Brownlee that that would not work and New Zealand First would not be able to do it. Mr Peters told Gerry Brownlee that New Zealand First would rather go with a winner—the Labour Party—if that is what we have after the next election.

And, of course, that leads us to the last piece of evidence: the Don Brash biography.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not want you to reply in respect of this point of order that it is a debating point, because it is not a debating point. What the member is saying at the moment he is just making up as he goes along. There is not a shred of truth in the last allegation he made—that we have somehow given a commitment to, of all things, the New Zealand Labour Party, tired and bereft of any new ideas as it is. That is not right.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member knows that that is a debating point. There is a robust debate taking place.

The last straw for the National Party was the Brash biography. It must have been hard to write the blurb on the back. The blurb tells us, excitingly, that the story runs from the dance floors of 1960s Peru. But if we look through the book, we find only a single line about the dance floors of Peru in the 1960s, where, Mr Brash tells us, he was lost on the Latin beats—he could not handle the Latin beats. He goes on to tell us in the book that he froze corned beef, sliced it, and heated it up over peas, while feeling lonely in his own flat. He tells us that he loves his pyjamas so much that he still wears to bed the ones his mother gave him, and resembles someone from Steptoe And Son. It is no wonder the National Party feels that it is completely and utterly lost.

John Albert Thomas Clarke committed crimes in December 1996. In 1997 he was charged with violently attacking a woman in her home. He had tried to rape her, he had threatened to kill her, and he had beaten her with his fists and then with a tennis racquet. He was committed for trial and given bail. On 20 September 1997 he was charged with rape, kidnap, unlawful sexual connection, threatening to kill, and injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to a 15-year-old girl. He had strangled her until she nearly passed out, threatened to drive her off the top of a cliff in Lyttelton in the back of his car, and told her he would bash her to death with a crowbar from his boot. And he admitted all those charges. He had done all that while he was on bail. On 25 September 1997, although he was sentenced to a total of—I had it wrong; I said he was sentenced to what was essentially 38 years’ jail, but a quick tally shows that it was 44 years. Let me make it clear. Clarke received 3 years’ imprisonment for threatening to kill, 3 years for indecent assault, and 2 years for injuring with intent. He was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment for abduction, 3 years for threatening to kill, 5 years for injuring with intent again, and 11 years each for each of the sexual violation charges, but with all terms to be served concurrently. Clearly the judge knew how dangerous this man was.

But then we come to December 2004 when, although Clarke had served only 7 years in prison, under this Government and its policies we saw him released on home detention to Cardijn House in Addington, Christchurch. The staff at Cardijn House, a group of social support workers led by a 76-year-old supervisor, were given no details whatsoever of Clarke’s past offending. They have subsequently said that had they known about it, they would have refused to have him there. On 26 January the Parole Board heard Clarke’s parole application. Just 8 weeks after being put on home detention, he was paroled. On 18 February 2005 a complaint was made to the Sydenham police against Clarke, alleging that he had duped two of the female staff in the Cardijn House facility into having sexual relationships with him, that he had tried to do the same with a third woman who had gone to Cardijn House to seek assistance from the support staff, and that he had gone on to threaten to kill and to take revenge on all three of those women. He subsequently threatened the children of one of the women, who had rejected his advances.

John Albert Thomas Clarke is a high-risk sexual offender. He shows no remorse. He is proud of his past; he boasts of it. On being placed in home detention, he immediately engaged in acts of conning innocent women into relationships and then, when he did not get his way, he threatened to kill and rape them all, and he threatened children. Clarke continues to associate with known paedophiles. Clark was released by the Parole Board after serving only 7 years of his sentence. The report that the Parole Board obviously received from the Department of Corrections was inaccurate at best, and a whitewash or absolutely pure fiction at worst. Those responsible for that report—not the Parole Board—are the Minister, the Department of Corrections, and the much-vaunted integrated offender management system that they are so proud of—a system that continually fails, continually lets people down, and continually jeopardises the safety and well-being of New Zealanders, as it has done in this case.

No disclosure was made to the staff of Cardijn House as to this man’s past. I understand that there was disclosure to a priest who recommended that he go there, but no disclosure at all was made to the female staff of that place or, indeed, to the 76-year-old woman who ran it. Why not? Because this politically correct Government will not allow such disclosure about people who are placed on home detention. Indeed, Mr Rick Barker stood up and told this House one day there were no violent offenders on home detention. How does that Minister feel today? He is soft on crime, Labour is politically correct, and the people who pay the price for that are people like “victim C”, a young, innocent woman who was conned and duped and whose children were threatened.

I am grateful for the contribution from Ron Mark after the frivolous speeches made by the first two speakers. I, too, am interested in the area of crime, and I would like to pursue that topic.

The Government has claimed that its tougher approach to crime has meant higher police resolution rates, longer sentences, and lower crime rates. That is a fiction. It is bollocks. Let us take a look at the crime rates first. It is getting harder to register and report offences. That is a fact. One detective agency in Auckland told me that slam-dunk cases were being ignored—that even after someone made three trips to the police, officers still refused to take a complaint. Police do not register any suspect complaints, and therefore these are absent from statistics, as well. That is something that did not happen before. Police further skew data by calling some offences civil when they should be called criminal—again, skewing the statistics and creating a fiction.

In terms of resolutions, the police are increasingly adept at distorting the numbers. Undue pressure has been put on police to record burglary call-outs as resolved, even when they attend and find that no burglary has occurred at all, thereby inflating the apparent number of solved crimes. Cases such as those where a neighbour might have alerted police to what he or she thought was burglary but turned out to be, for example, a homeowner fumbling with keys in a lock, go into the stats as resolved cases. They look like another burglary solved, yet that is completely and utterly untrue. The fact is, I have got this information from the police themselves. They tell me what is happening. This Government is utterly out of touch with one of the critical departments responsible for looking after the citizens of this country.

Police have a code for some of these events. “K1”, for example, means “police attention sufficient”, and “K3” means “no offence disclosed”. Police codes are being misused in the handling of burglary call-outs, which are considered to be resolved when in fact no crime might have taken place at all. The denials by the Minister of Police, George Hawkins, in answers to written questions that these things happen are clearly just the official line. Officers on the street know differently. They are working in a bureaucratic police culture that is massively focused on perceived outcomes, to the point that there is dodgy paperwork created to make things look more impressive than they really are, all at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers who deserve to know the truth and who deserve to be protected adequately.

Here is another example: middle-income earners who cannot afford legal aid and who cannot afford lawyers are more inclined just to plead guilty to lower level offences and get a quick clearance. The Government is forcing the police to generate good police stats, rather than good policing. What about the much-vaunted Sentencing Act? How is that really working? The reality is that there are more prisoners, due to shorter, not tougher, sentences. Our courts are sending more offenders to prison but many are serving shorter sentences. This is based on figures I have obtained to written questions.

Since 1994 the overall prison population has increased by 16 percent, from 7,360 to 8,540. But, despite claims from the Government that this is due to much tougher sentencing, the biggest increase is in sentences of under 3-years in duration. Sentences from 6 months to 12 months in length have increased by 48 percent, from 1,468 to 2,169. Sentences of 1 year to 2 years in duration have increased by 96 percent, from 850 to 1,646. Sentences of 2 to 3 years’ duration have increased by 87 percent, from 298 to 557. It is the waves of prisoners who do a few years or less who have most bolstered the prison population, and because of their short sentences they gain next to nothing out of prison-based rehabilitation or skills programmes. They certainly do not get rehabilitated and there is no sense of retribution for the victims.

Those are just the sentences that are imposed. It says nothing about the prisoners who get out earlier on parole. A census of prison inmates that was carried out in November 2003 showed that only 21 percent of male inmates had no previous sentences, 66 percent had more than 10 previous sentences, and 16 percent had over 50 previous sentences. We should remember our rehabilitation statistics. Within 5 years, 86 percent of offenders go straight back into prison. The higher rate of recidivism suggests that it is the number of prisoners making a return trip to jail after serving a short sentence, rather than the imposition of longer sentences, that is driving up the prison population. Average sentences from 2002 have gone up by just 6 months. The reason is that the very top end of offenders are definitely getting longer sentences, but there are not very many of them. There is only a small handful. Whatever tinkering the police do, the reality is that sentences are increasing.

I acknowledge the contributions in the House this afternoon from Marc Alexander and Ron Mark. They were two speeches that helped to highlight how out of touch the current Government is with ordinary New Zealanders, and they showed how much there is to be bothered about by crime in this country. We have spent weeks finding out how bad the education system is. We know what is wrong with welfare, and we know also that the economy is not as rosy as Michael Cullen may like to paint it.

If we ever wanted proof that the Labour Party despises workers, does not trust workers, and does not like workers, we got it from the Prime Minister today. When she was asked a simple question about whether New Zealanders who received a pay rise should keep most of it or pay most of it to the Government, her response was: “I think it’s ludicrous that workers should get more pay through tax cuts.” That is code for the Prime Minister thinking that it is ludicrous that more workers in this country keep more of the money they earn.

The Prime Minister and her Ministers think that the best way to improve incomes for New Zealanders is to turn them into State beneficiaries. That is exactly what the Working for Families package sets out to do. Apparently, 300,000 families will benefit from it. Will they benefit from it by keeping more of the money that they earn? The answer is no. They will not do that. They will benefit because Helen Clark will send them a cheque out of the State’s funds every 2 weeks. The Opposition simply asks that people be allowed to keep more of what they earn. What is worse, not only is the Prime Minister saying that it is ludicrous for workers to keep more of the money they earn and much better for the Government to give out benefits, but she also overlooks the fact that only one out of every four families in this country will benefit from this income advancement.

Over the next couple of weeks I want to see Ministers stand up in this House and—rather than go through the sort of exercise that we saw from Mr Maharey today, where he tried to rehearse his future occupation as a stand-up comic—explain why workers in this country should vote for a Labour Government. Why should workers who constantly have the Government’s hand in their pockets give Labour their vote later this year? Thirty new taxes have been applied by the Government in the last 5 years. Who pays for that? It is the workers. From 1 April, every time those workers pull up at the petrol pump, another 5.6c will come out of their pockets for every litre of petrol they buy.

Government members may say that 5.6c a litre of petrol is not much and that it will be only a few dollars a week, but when one is earning $30,000 or $35,000 a year, those few dollars make a very big difference. I say to Government members that when they lose touch with that fact, and they cannot understand even for a moment what it is like to live on a tight, fixed income and cannot empathise with New Zealanders, they start to lose the vote. I predict that very shortly the polls will start telling Helen Clark and her Ministers what a disaster they will face on election day later this year.

Is it not amazing the way that some of the best Ministers in the Government have started to lose their tracks this year? Today Trevor Mallard was unable to answer a simple question as Associate Minister of Finance. He had to send the question to Pete Hodgson, Minister of Transport, to get him to answer it. He had the Minister of Transport explain why the Government is applying more tax. The Government is a group of people who have lost touch with New Zealanders and who will pay the price for it.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Oh!

I see that my good friend Clayton Cosgrove, the outgoing MP for Waimakariri, groans in his seat at the prospect at having to look for a job after the election.

That speech was made by a representative of the party that made a headline today because its chief electoral strategist told its members that they will lose the election and that it is their own fault due to their disunity and lack of credibility. Gerry Brownlee just provided the House with the evidence of that lack of credibility. He talked about the poor economic record. This country has the highest growth rate in the OECD and the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD.

Then he got on the crime rate bandwagon—as have several other members—when independent police statistics that have just come out show that the crime rate in this country has fallen by 22 percent. There are 700 fewer crimes a week under the Labour-led Government. We have the highest rate of police resolution—it was 36 percent and it is now 45 percent. Members of the Opposition like to say that people will not report crime, when there has been a huge increase in the rate of crimes solved by police.

Opposition members say that this Government is soft on law and order, yet four prisons are being built. One opened yesterday. There are 1,500 extra prison beds because this Government has taken the tough line on law and order that the National Party never had the guts to do when it was in Government.

This Government passed sentencing legislation that has seen those people who are guilty of the worst murders in this country sentenced for up to 30 years before being eligible for parole. Under this Government, in 1 year twice as many people were sentenced to preventive detention than had occurred in any other year in the history of this country. Those people who time and time again commit serious crimes are now being locked up indefinitely under preventive detention. That spokesperson never said anything about the fact that parole laws and bail laws have now been toughened, which is why we have such a large number of people in our prison system.

We have seen further evidence of this National Party not being fit even to be an Opposition party, let alone make a claim to govern this country. We have seen those who have jumped the sinking ship—the rats swimming away from the sinking ship. We have seen Lynda—what is her name?

💬 Opposition Member: Scott.

Scott—yes, she is gone. Roger Sowry has gone. We have seen Katherine Rich distancing herself as fast as she can from the person who is going to lose the election and the National Party leadership, and now we are seeing Murray McCully doing the same. We have seen ACT and the National Party—two parties that would have to come together to form a coalition—attacking each other viciously.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: No!

Gerry Brownlee said in the newspaper this week that the ACT party has not achieved one new idea in 9 years. Of course, the ACT members are counter-attacking. They cannot maintain even a semblance of unity in Opposition, yet they claim that they could govern this country. This country saw enough of a National Government unable to govern because of instability. Jenny Shipley could not get on with New Zealand First—

💬 Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am doing this to interrupt the Minister’s speech, because I think he needs a spell. He is popping his blood vessels and is losing control. I think that if he just has 10 seconds sitting down, it will be good for his health.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: The member will be seated. That was not a point of order, and I warn the member on that—that was a deliberate interruption of a member’s speech. [Interruption] If the member does that again, he will be out, because it was not a point of order.

This week we have seen a further blunder by the National Party—a blunder in foreign policy. A judicial court, separate from executive Government, has made a decision that a person did not have enough evidence against him to be convicted. What did Don Brash say? He said that he would withdraw the ambassador. What a ridiculous thing to do. Does he not understand the separation of executive from judiciary? Does he not understand that the Indonesian Government, with regard to the Bali bombers, has imprisoned 30 people and has imposed maximum sentences as serious as the death penalty?

That member, who knows nothing about foreign policy, blundered into the area once again. He blundered about the tsunami. When the tsunami occurred he had left New Zealand and had gone to lie on the beach at Hawaii for 10 days, where he ignored the worst catastrophe in our part of the world for many, many years. He came back and said that New Zealand was not doing enough. What a blunder! He is the same man who said in public that his party would maintain the nuclear-free policy and who said separately to American congressmen that the policy would be gone by lunchtime. It is no wonder that he has no credibility. It is no wonder that he is being abandoned by members of his own party. It is no wonder that Murray McCully is saying the National Opposition is doomed to failure.

On Monday the Norwegian Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik, will be hosted in this Parliament, and I think we have a lot to learn from him and the experience of his Government, particularly in the area of peacemaking. Norway is a country that is roughly the same size as New Zealand with 4.5 million people, and it has made a huge contribution to peacemaking in many countries. Members will remember the Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestinians, and more recently Norway has been involved in the peace negotiations that led to a successful settlement in the southern Sudan. The Norwegians are also very strongly involved in peacemaking in Sri Lanka, and in other conflicts, such as that between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and in Somalia, Columbia, Haiti, the Philippines, the Balkans, and Guatemala. Norway has specialised in peacemaking, despite being such a small country, and it has invested a lot of money in peacekeeping.

I visited Norway last October and spoke to members of the peace and reconciliation section of their ministry of foreign affairs. They have a specialist section, and those specialists in peacemaking work closely with their embassies. They have embassies in over a hundred countries, despite being a small nation. They also work in with non-governmental organisations, particularly those involved on the ground in the countries in which they are doing the peacemaking.

They do have a lot of people on the ground. Norway gives a much higher proportion of its gross national income to overseas development assistance than does New Zealand. For example, in 2003, 0.92 percent of Norway’s gross national income went to overseas aid, whereas in New Zealand it was one-quarter of that, just 0.23 percent of our gross national income. One-third of the money that Norway puts in is delivered to the countries by Norwegian non-governmental organisations that are linked up with overseas non-governmental organisations, or Norwegian people out in the field doing the work.

In fact, the work of non-governmental organisations is often the beginning of Norway getting involved in peace negotiations. For example, in Guatemala, where there has been very successful peacemaking work, it was the Norwegian Church Aid people on the ground there who alerted the Norwegian Government to the possibilities for Norwegian peacemaking. In Sri Lanka, it was the specialists over there, like Mr Terje Roed-Larsen, who did the initial groundwork that was followed up later by the Norwegian Government.

They are doing tremendous work there, first of all in establishing the ceasefire, which has lasted for over 3 years now, and in monitoring the ceasefire, along with other Nordic countries, and trying to get the peace negotiations going again. Of course, that is very important in Sri Lanka, because areas affected by war were also devastated by the tsunami—the coastal areas of the north and the east. The same applies to tsunami-devastated Aceh, where there is a need for peacemaking between people in Aceh and the Indonesian Government. It is important that we work to prevent a situation where war breaks out again in either Sri Lanka or Aceh.

Although I am saying New Zealand can learn a lot from Norway, of course we have our own very positive experiences in peacemaking in Bougainville. In fact, the solution in Bougainville—that is, to set up an interim situation of a Bougainville Government, with a strong degree of autonomy, putting off any decision or referendum on independence for some years, but leaving it open—is exactly what has been applied in the recent peace agreement in the southern Sudan. That agreement allows for a decision on possible independence for southern Sudan in a few years’ time.

The Norwegians talk not just about peacemaking, they also use the term “peace-building”. Peace-building has four components, which the Norwegians are all very actively involved in. One is the peacemaking I have talked about—the negotiations, the monitoring of ceasefire, and that sort of thing. Another is human rights and democracy-building—giving aid to institutions to empower the people to build a civil society and to get good governance going. The third leg is development assistance itself to social economic development, sustainability, and all those sorts of things that make a country viable. The fourth leg, particularly coming out of an armed conflict, is post-conflict work in disarmament, demobilisation, and reconciliation.

There is a crisis of confidence in the National Party. There is a crisis of confidence in its relationships and there is a crisis of confidence in its policy. The National Party is in meltdown. Its caucus is a toxic brew of poisoned personal relationships, bruised feelings, punctured egos, and frustrated ambition.

All the signs of this have spewed on to the front page of the Independent today, where the headline screams “Crisis in Nats’ caucus room”. According to the article, Murray McCully, the chief strategist and spinner for the National Party, has told his caucus colleagues that they have little hope of winning this year’s election, and this is confirmed by none other than Don Brash, who said at the time he was elected as leader: “A lot of people who supported me said: ‘Look, we probably won’t win in 2005, but we need to be sufficiently well placed so we can win in 2008.’ ” I wonder what Dr Brash now thinks when he reflects on that. This crisis of leadership should come as no surprise to the public, or to the National Party. Dr Don Brash has been in the electoral process before: he stood twice in East Coast Bays, and lost on both occasions. In short, Dr Don Brash is unelectable; he could get into the House only on the National Party list. His worst trait is coming to the fore in how he manages people.

The crisis in the National Party caucus room is well documented: Katherine Rich—sacked; Georgina te Heuheu—sacked; Nick Smith—according to his own words—“dorked” by his caucus and his leader; Bill English—shafted by his own caucus, still bruised and trying to count back to 14; Lynda Scott—totally disillusioned, so she has left politics; Roger Sowry—totally disillusioned by what has happened in the National Party; all the doors have been slammed on him, and he is leaving as well. Brian Connell said that his leader was stupid. “Stupid” was the word that he used about the sacking of Katherine Rich. Simon Power has been demoted for revealing, truthfully, probably, the National Party’s true defence policy. Maurice Williamson has been left languishing on the back bench. In fact, it has just been revealed today that they are trying to push him out of his seat of Pakuranga to make way for the ACT party. Clem Simich is facing a brutal coup to shove him out of Tamaki. Paul Hutchison was passed over by a small-town lawyer for the health portfolio, even though he is a doctor. Lindsay Tisch, a former president of the National Party, is still languishing on the back benches. He is constantly being passed over. Richard Worth has not been given any of the responsibilities that he believes are commensurate with his ability and his perceived talents. John Carter has resigned from the whip’s position because of the actions of the National caucus. Wayne Mapp has been demoted.

The simple maths of this tells us that over half the members of the National Party caucus are disillusioned. In fact, the disaffection index of the National Party caucus is now over 50 percent. The National Party caucus has gone—in nuclear power station terms—critical. Bells are clanging, lights are flashing, and hooters are hooting, simply because there is such a crisis, and it is all because the people are aggrieved, or, as Nick Smith said, “dorked”; or, in the words of Brian Connell, they have been treated by a stupid leadership. This is a very fertile ground for the rising of a soufflé a second time. The National Party needs only 14 votes to become the leader again, and today we witnessed yet again in the House that Bill English is outshining Dr Brash on every front. Any count that members may like to do on the work in this House will show that Bill English is well ahead of Dr Don Brash. He asks more substantive questions and more supplementary questions, and he takes part in debates.

It is interesting that here we are in the Wednesday general debate, but yet again Dr Brash is sitting in the House silent. He will not take a call and take up the argument against the Government. He sits there silent, letting his minions try to do it. That is pathetic. Maurice Williamson is the best weathervane one can have on the performance of Dr Don Brash. After all, he was the person who promoted him the most. If one looks at Maurice Williamson’s face when Dr Brash speaks in the House, one will see him looking at the ceiling of the Chamber and drumming his fingers with embarrassment. It has been very embarrassing. But this is not the worst part of the National Party’s crisis. It is not just the toxic personality clashes of the National Party; it is a crisis in policy. Its members cannot agree on one simple thing. Let us take, for example, 4 weeks’ annual leave. They have said they will get rid of it.

If there is any political party in this House that is losing confidence, it is not the National Party—it is the Labour Party.

I make this observation, very simply, for the benefit of the House. That speaker was the Minister of Customs, who a couple of weeks ago was allowed to front the petrol tax issue. Labour members decided they should not put up Dr Cullen, so they went to the Minister of Customs. Today we came down to the House and we asked a very simple question about petrol tax. I can understand why Labour members would not want to give the issue to Rick Barker; I understand that, and I will not question their strategy team on it, because it was probably a wise choice. But the Associate Minister of Finance Trevor Mallard sat in the House, and if he had not made such a hash of his question yesterday, he might have got a shot at it. Even he now lacks the confidence of the inner circle of Labour. He is no longer a safe pair of hands, because Bill English has made him look like the inept, bungling fool that he is. He is now unable to come to this House to answer basic questions on taxes. He is the Associate Minister of Finance, and he has to give those questions to the Minister of Transport. Mark my words, Labour is not looking terribly flash.

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Ha, ha!

I tell Mr Cosgrove to look around the Chamber today. The entire front bench had their heads down. The entire front bench was not looking chipper, and I am sorry but Labour members know a disaster when they see one coming, and it is called election 2005—mark my words.

Andrew Little from the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, Ross Wilson from the Council of Trade Unions, and Mike Williams from the Labour Party all want something; “5 in 05” is what they want. Well, I have a piece of advice for Andrew Little, Ross Wilson, and Mike Williams. They should be extremely careful what they wish for, because I have a prediction for them, and it is that they are going to get what they asked for. They are certainly going to get “5 in 05”. They are going to get $5.20 for their workers, per week.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: What a disgrace!

What a disgrace! The party of the workers has sold them down the river. They will get a $2,500 pay increase, and they will get to keep five bucks. By the time they fill up the car they will be down for the week. That is the party of the workers.

What did the Prime Minister tell the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Don Brash, the next Prime Minister of New Zealand? What did she tell Dr Brash? She said: “That’s right, when the unions go out there and strive for a 5 percent wage increase, all of that money will go back to the Government.” It is not bad enough that it is running a $7.4 billion operating balance; more of that wage increase will go back to it. So the average worker is now sitting at home saying: “Let me work this one out. I’m potentially going to go on strike to get a 5 percent wage increase. It’ll cost me, probably, days of militant action. I’ll be picketing out there in the cold and the rain and the wet. I’ll be begging with my boy for a raise, and when I get it I’ll lose more money than if I’d stayed in the comfort of my own environment.” Members should check it out. If that is the party of the workers, no wonder there is a confidence crisis taking place in Labour. That crisis is well founded.

This morning I had the wonderful opportunity to go on Morning Report with Steve Maharey, the architect of the Working for Families package. I sat there and Geoff Robinson, in those tones of his, said: “Mr Key, can you explain the situation?”. I said: “Workers will get $2,500 as a pay increase; they will get $5 to take home per week.” He looked at me and said: “That can’t possibly be right.” He turned to the architect of Working for Families, Steve Maharey, and Mr Maharey said: “Oh, I’m not going to argue with John about the numbers. They’re right.” They are right! Can members imagine the workers of New Zealand having their Weet-Bix, listening to Steve Maharey, and spitting their Kornies all over the breakfast table? The poor kids are wondering why they have got cornflakes all over them. All of a sudden the workers realise that they should not have been painting those signs stating “Strike Now” and “5 in 05” in their garages in the weekend, because they are about to lose money. It is a disgrace. That is the situation. That is Working for Families—one of the most deeply flawed policies this country has.

I rise to speak to the women in this party, and the women of this country, because this was the week when we celebrated International Women’s Day. Yesterday we got our first woman Speaker in the House—something that we are incredibly proud of on this side of the House. We celebrated a precious token, and that was the right to vote, which was gained in 1893. Around the country, women met for breakfast yesterday, and we talked about the gains that this party has achieved for women.

Another issue that happened this week was a 1-day hearing on the elimination of violence against women and children. I want to say that not one member of Parliament of any party, other than the Labour Party, turned up for that hearing. I found that really sad, when other parties are talking about their issues. They did not take the opportunity to come and present at that 1-day hearing that was attended by a lot of women who came and talked about the issue of violence in this country, and that is recorded by women.

But I want to talk also about what we have done for women. It is not just about income in our back pocket as families, it is also about things like paid parental leave, which from December of this year will go up to 13 weeks. It is about increases in early childhood education—millions more are going in for funding childcare and after-school care subsidies for our children.That is a wonderful thing. In 2007 there will be 20 free hours, and for families that is huge. So it is not just the net gain in our back pocket.

We also talked that day about strategies that we need to improve on, and this was a Government that was prepared to listen to what is working, what is not working, and what it can do better. I wonder whether the Leader of the Opposition has any reflections on that.

Let us look at that leadership style and its impact on women. It has been divisive, alienating colleagues—and one-time allies, including women around the country, notice that. We watched the treatment of Georgina te Heuheu. We understand she got a safe little job, but fancy getting rid of somebody who spoke proudly on Māori affairs! We watched Lynda Scott challenge the leader, and for that challenge she has resigned and will be gone. We watched the latest debacle with Katherine Rich—the doyenne, the new look, and the intelligent woman who could have been branded with National so cleverly. We watched her being pushed to the back benches, and women in this country do not like that.

Helen Bain observed that the sacking of Katherine Rich by National was like watching bystanders observing the wreckage of a car crash—not knowing what to do, or who to blame. It was an absolute tragedy. Was it about those who could talk, and would talk, and those who would shut up? There is a huge gap in the Opposition that will not be closed at this election by women of the country when they go to the polls to make their decision. There are no women on the front bench of the Opposition. Even Mr McCully is too busy to be seen sitting next to Katherine Rich, who is back on the second row. He doubts whether they can win the election, and he would resign from the campaign committee.

Murray McCully should go to ACT. Catherine Judd acknowledged that Dr Brash is the ninth ACT MP. Perhaps he could help ACT with its campaign. That leader, that man with “gravitas”, we have heard, with “considerable pulling power for the girls”—that was in his biography—and does anyone in this House have any reflections on that! That is the man who has admitted he was backed as the leader because he would lose less badly. It is all rather sad, really.

That leader has more than a few speckles on a cream carpet. He has custard on his face with the flip-flops he has led since he has bungled his way through policy decisions in this House.

What about his women? The disunity within will cause more distress to Dr Brash than the cream carpet with a few speckles. Dr Brash alleges that he has lived and worked with women throughout his professional career. “I think I do it effectively.”, he said. “It just happens that we don’t have a large number of women in my caucus at this stage.”

The pale shadow of a Labour Party we have in this Parliament today would have Michael Joseph Savage turning in his grave. Yesterday hundreds of workers in this country lost their jobs. Tanners and timber businesses closed down. Phoenix Freight is going to the wall, and Skope Industries laid off dozens of workers yesterday. Yet senior Cabinet Ministers who have spoken in the general debate today have not shown the slightest concern for those workers. The Prime Minister admitted that she did not even get advice on how her policy, the Working for Families package, would impact on workers and wage earners as they sought to earn more money in this country.

So far we have heard only the good bits about that package. The news is not so bad. We have heard the news that if two-parent families with a couple of children are on $50,000 and seek to get the 5 percent pay increase that the president of the Labour Party and a few other unionists want them to get, of the $2,500 pay increase they would get to keep $270 of it. The Government gets $2,230 and that worker gets $270. People think that that applies only if that family has two children. I tell this Parliament that if a family has six children it still keeps only $270 out of that pay increase. They are the lucky ones. If a family was on $65,000 and got a 5 percent pay increase, under Labour’s Working for Families package, in theory it would get $3,250 in increased pay. Of that $3,250 that family would get to keep $156. The Government would get $3,094 of that increase, and the family would keep $156. Under a Labour Government a worker would get to keep $156 out of that $3,250.

💬 John Key: Three bucks a week.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: Three bucks a week, says my good colleague John Key, a future Minister of Finance and a very good mathematician.

But that is not the worst news. Labour once used to say that it cared for low-income people. If that same family is on really low wages—on $10 an hour; earning $20,000 a year—and it gets a 5 percent pay increase, it would get $1,000 extra. This is what is so disgusting with this hopeless Labour Government: that family would get to keep $78. That is $1.50 a week. With a 5 percent pay increase under Labour’s policy, Helen Clark’s wonderful Working for Families policy, which that clever, clever senior Cabinet Minister Steve Maharey dreamt up, low-income workers on $20,000 a year get to keep, out of a 5 percent pay increase, $78. The Government takes $922. This Labour Government takes $922 out of that 5 percent pay increase, and a working family on $10 an hour keeps $78. The Government—Labour—takes $922. I ask Marian Hobbs, as a Cabinet Minister, to justify why Labour is taking $922 of the $1,000 pay increase—

💬 Helen Duncan: The member is talking absolute rubbish, as usual.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: The figures I have used are from the Inland Revenue Department. They are not our figures.

What is quite good, though, is that if one is really a high-income earner and is on $75,000 a year, the 5 percent pay increase would give that person $3,750. That family would get to keep $2,240 of it. So the high-income people do better and the low-income people really suffer under this Labour Government.

I have three questions to put to this House today. The first question is whether the National Party will get its act together, the second is whether the National Party will get together with ACT, and the third is what National would do if it ever got its act together. I shall ask the first one: will National get its act together? I know Murray McCully. He is a team player. He is prepared to put his body on the line in a parliamentary team right to the bitter end. He is a team player, yet he has admitted that he is playing with a bunch of losers in the National Party, because they cannot win the next election. It is not good enough just to take Murray McCully’s word. We should ask Richard Long. Perhaps Murray McCully is outside the inner circle. Richard Long said that as far as he was aware, Murray McCully remained very much an active member of the election campaign committee.I suggest that Murray McCully may be the only active member of that committee.

The second question, given that we can clearly see the National Party will never get its act together, is whether it can get together with ACT. ACT is the only other foolish party chasing right-wing ideology in this House and the only other party that could ever get into bed with the National Party. How would the National members build a relationship with ACT? They could ask their deputy leader what he thinks about their potential coalition partner. Gerry Brownlee said that ACT had been in Parliament for 9 years and had done nothing. I do not think that is a very good start to a good relationship. I do not think that we can seriously suggest that ACT and the National Party can get together. So that is the second question, and I suggest the answer is no.

What would National do if it ever got into Government? I look to John Key, that master of economic destiny, and his speech this week. What would he do as Minister of Finance? The new revolutionary policy that National has is to sell State assets.

💬 John Key: I didn’t say that!

Let us take one small example of that, because John Key qualified his sales pitch by saying that in the first 3 years National probably would not sell Transpower or Air New Zealand. Would people trust National? I will tell the House why National wants to sell things. It is not because the assets “slow the boat”, to use Mr Key’s words; it is because his mates want to have a slice of the action. Would National sell a non-performing State asset to the sharemarket? No, it would not. Would National sell a top-performing asset? Yes, it would.

Two examples of those top-performing assets would be Landcorp and Solid Energy. Both of those are brilliantly performing State-owned enterprises, returning huge returns to the taxpayer. For example, what is the financial performance of Landcorp? Its net profit after tax last year was $37.4 million, and its increased value of land and improvements was 28 percent up, to $623 million. There are some who say that perhaps Landcorp should sell off the smaller farms. I have to say that there are no small farms with Landcorp, because, very successfully, it has built up amalgamated units that are quite substantial in size.

If John Key gets his way, if National ever gets its act together, if it ever gets together with ACT, and if they are ever in the position of being in Government, which is highly unlikely, they would sell key State assets. They would sell the performing State assets to their mates. We can take an example of what happens if we sell strategic assets and put them into the hands of the wonderful private sector. Lockwood Smith told us in this House that the private sector can no longer guarantee jobs, because those poor workers, unfortunately, lost their jobs yesterday. We feel sorry for them, but this economy will give them job opportunities. National would sell our State assets.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.