Adjournment

I move, That the House do now adjourn until Friday, 12 August 2005. That is the traditional motion that is moved. The House, of course, will be dissolved on Thursday, 11 August.

I begin by thanking all the staff in this building, beginning with the Clerk and the rest of the Clerk’s Office staff, including the Hansard writers; the security officers; and the messengers. I also thank you, Madam Speaker, and the other presiding officers of Parliament. Madam Speaker, your style of chairing is quite different from that of your predecessor—but, in my view, a no less competent form of chairing.

I thank also those parties that have been assisting this Government through a 3-year stable period—in particular, United Future, which has stuck absolutely to its word in terms of the confidence and supply agreement. That, of course, is why it continues tonight to be savagely attacked by the National Party, which just might want to talk to United Future after the election, if National believes its own rhetoric about what will happen at the election. But, of course, that is the National Party: always treating everybody else like dogs and scum, but grovelling around people should it actually need them at some point within the future.

I want to thank also the Green Party, which has supported this Government on a whole range of progressive legislation. Indeed, I note that it has voted against us less often than United Future has, which has differentiated itself from the Government on a whole range of issues. I thank New Zealand First, particularly for its support in relation to the foreshore and seabed legislation.

It will be sad for some, perhaps, to see the back of ACT after this election, but it is summed up by the fact that tonight the ACT party voted “3” on the only division we had. As ACT is entitled to two proxies, if we subtract those from three, that leaves Deborah Coddington, who, of course, is the only person, apart from Richard Prebble, from the ACT party actually to give a valedictory speech. That shows ACT’s commitment to this Parliament.

This election that is forthcoming, and that we on this side of the House look forward to enormously, is one about leadership, credibility, policies, and the record. And our record is very good! We have achieved over 20 percent growth during our time in Government. We have averaged 3.9 percent growth versus 3.1 percent under the National Party Government. We have created 260,000-plus new jobs, and achieved one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world. At the end of National’s period in office, all it could claim was that it had got unemployment back to what it had started with when it had become the Government in 1990. We have started reversing the unconscionable growth in poverty that occurred during the 1990s, whereby when National left office one in three of all our children was living in poverty. What does Dr Brash say about that? “Well, sometimes poverty goes up and you have to live with that.”—if one wants the kind of policy that he believes in.

We have increased by tens of thousands the number of surgical procedures being carried out in this country. We have put in place the new primary health care—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Sex-change operations.

Well, some of those members obviously need it but simply have not turned up to get the treatment. I encourage them to do so. It is much cheaper now for most of those people opposite to get proper health-care.

Of course, the one thing that they agree with us on—they have to agree, if they are to pay for their promises—is that we have governed fiscally in a highly responsible fashion. We have one of the best records in the developed world. We have reduced debt. Government spending is lower, as a percentage of GDP, than when we became the Government. I see that Dr Brash is giving me a signal; I say: “Peace to you too, Dr Brash”. He should remember that signal at the present time—namely, peace. We have lowered Government spending as a proportion of GDP. Taxation is just about the same as it was when we became the Government. What National cannot get used to is the fact that if an economy has grown by more than 20 percent in real terms, then of course Government spending can go up by about 33 percent, while actually going down as a proportion of GDP. National members cannot do the arithmetic properly; I would not expect them to be able to do so.

I look across at the Opposition benches. This Parliament has ended exactly as one might expect—with the National Party in total disarray. Lockwood Smith was caught with his pants down. He spends his life trying to be caught with his shirt off, but this time he was caught with his pants down. Dr Smith’s problem is actually the problem of the current National Party under Dr Brash’s leadership—that is, he cannot tell us what his secret desires are. It is the love that dare not speak its name—the love for the atomic bomb and for nuclear power. We have known that, for 20 years, the thought of nuclear power coming to this country has brought a glow to Dr Lockwood Smith’s cheeks—I will not say which cheeks, but to Dr Lockwood Smith’s cheeks. He wants to change the policy but cannot bring himself to say so. Just say it, Dr Smith! He wants to abandon the antinuclear policy, so that he can cuddle up to the Americans.

Dr Brash wants to do it, too. He wants to tell us that he wants to completely deregulate the labour market, but he will not say it. He wants to tell us that he wants to cut superannuation, but he will not say so. He has so many things he would love to tell us, but he dare not say them, because if he did, National’s position in the polls would plummet almost immediately into the nether regions. Dr Brash came into this Parliament to rescue the National Party from its own dangerous centrist friends, as evidenced by Bill English. Now, he desperately tries to pretend he is not a far-right ideologist. My goodness me! The evidence is all there in speech after speech he gave as Governor of the Reserve Bank. [Interruption] The great thing about going to Christ’s College is that one learns about the rich, and learns to realise that not all of them are rich because of their own virtue. Most of them are rich because they had the good fortune to choose rich parents. That is the main reason that people are rich in this country.

So National has a leadership that, when it comes to credibility, had to say yesterday: “I can neither confirm nor deny.”—Dr Brash not knowing how wonderfully appropriate that particular comment was. Asked whether he could remember Dr Lockwood Smith saying: “Please, sir, could we have some money for a think tank to persuade our people that nuclear weapons are a good idea?”, Dr Brash said: “I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Goodness me! Dr Brash said that Trevor Mallard was telling porkies when he claimed that National’s policy was written in Washington. Well, that “neither confirm nor deny” phrase was written in Washington a long time ago. Of course, National’s big policy—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Get out of the gutter.

America is not the gutter. That is a terrible thing to say about one of our longest-standing friends and, at times, allies in terms of our history.

So what is National’s big policy at this election? It is to bribe the people with big tax cuts, but will National show us those tax cuts? No, it will not. Those members are a bit like this, Dr Smith—not very big. Dr Brash has already promised over $1 billion of tax cuts, before National starts counting the real ones. Company tax gets a nod, carbon charge gets a nod, and tax rebates get a nod-nod. “Noddy” sitting over there is agreeing with me. National has already promised tax cuts of over $1 billion a year, and we have $1 billion to come, according to Mr Key. That is $2 billion—it is quite easy; $1 billion plus $1 billion is $2 billion—in promised tax cuts.

Somehow all of this can be done without cutting spending on health, or education, or superannuation. What are the weasel words from Dr Brash? “We’ll keep spending where it is this year, and it will go up each year.” Well, I say to Dr Brash that health spending has to go up about $650 million a year just to keep current services and keep up with changes in technology; Mr English knows that—$50 million will not do, $100 million will not do, and $200 million will not do. Education spending has to go up about $350 million a year to keep pace with demand, to pay increased salaries, and to do all the other things that we are supposed to do in an education system. That is $1 billion a year gone before one starts, out of that $1.9 billion allocation.

The worm has turned, I think one can say. With the student loan announcement and the farce over nuclear ships, the National Party is staring defeat in the face. I will make a confident prediction that the day after the election Dr Brash will be gone by lunchtime!

That speech from Michael Cullen was full of half-truths, quarter-truths, and non-truths. It was full of self-satisfied, self-congratulatory claptrap designed to fool the public—I will come back to that in a moment. Madam Speaker, let me also add my thanks to you, and to your colleagues, for the way you have conducted this often very unruly House in the last few months. I also thank the staff who keep this place functioning: the Clerk of the House—and by that, of course, I mean “Clerk” spelled with an “e”—David McGee, through to the Hansard reporters, the messengers, the telephonists, the drivers, the security staff, and all the rest. I give special thanks also to the staff of the National Party.

I also pay tribute to some of those who have given valedictory speeches here in the last few days. Roger Sowry has made a great contribution in this House—and not just as an MP but also as a hard-working, conscientious, and compassionate former Minister. He will be sorely missed. Lynda Scott has been unable to give her valedictory speech this week because she is unwell, but she has also made a great contribution over the last 6 years, and would have made a fine Minister in the next National Government. I am personally sorry to see Richard Prebble go. He has been an extraordinary politician, and has left an indelible mark on New Zealand.

Michael Cullen has argued that Helen Clark’s Government can take the credit for good economic growth over the last 6 years. No objective observer agrees with him—not one. Treasury does not agree with him, the Reserve Bank does not, and the OECD does not. They recognise that growth over the past 5 years has been virtually identical to growth in the previous 5 years, despite two successive droughts and the Asian crisis in that earlier period. They recognise that growth in the past 5 years has been driven by factors Helen Clark can take no credit for, at all: high commodity prices, a low exchange rate, low international interest rates, and a flow of people into New Zealand after September 11. None of that has had anything to do with the performance of this Government.

In the adjournment debate of 1999, when Helen Clark was Leader of the Opposition, she said: “I am not prepared to stand back and see the best and brightest of New Zealanders leave this country, taking their ideas and their businesses with them. We are going to build a future here for those people.” Well, 6 years later New Zealanders are still pouring out of this country, and Helen Clark has stopped talking about that because she has done nothing at all to stop it. She used to talk also about getting New Zealand into the top half of the OECD within 10 years. She has stopped talking about that as well, which is just as well because there is absolutely no chance at all of New Zealand accomplishing that with its current policies. The New Zealand economy has already slowed down sharply, with growth in the 6 months to March this year of less that 1 percent—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Above the average. Better than you achieved.

Dr DON BRASH:—to an annualised growth of less then 2 percent, I tell Mr Cunliffe. No reputable observer believes the New Zealand economy will grow at more than 3 percent a year for the foreseeable future.

A Government cannot crank up growth overnight—a Government cannot even crank up growth in 12 months—but surely a Government can crank up growth over 6 years. Surely there should be some sign of an increased trend growth rate if current policies will deliver it. But, of course, current policies will not deliver faster growth. On current trends we will never again be in the top half of the OECD, let alone be there within a decade. As a consequence of that, the exodus of bright New Zealanders will not only continue but will grow. The student loan policy announced by Helen Clark will have absolutely no effect on that. Why is that? Because 94 percent of those holding student loans already live in New Zealand. Most people with student loans do not leave the country.

When Helen Clark finally announced the election date last week, she said this election would be about trust, at least in part. New Zealanders trusted Helen Clark to improve our economy and stem the exodus of New Zealanders overseas. Well, she has done nothing to improve our growth rate or stem the exodus. She has failed to fix the Resource Management Act, she has failed to fix the infrastructure problems of this country, she has increased the bureaucracy, she has increased the tax rates, and she has increased the compliance costs facing the business sector. The exodus continues—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Bill’s on the way back!

Dr DON BRASH:—and grows, I tell Mr Mallard. New Zealanders trusted Helen Clark to deliver a good-quality education system, but we have seen more resources channelled into the education bureaucracy while schools struggle with inadequate resources. We have seen the shambles of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement implementation, and we have seen prodigious amounts of money wasted in the tertiary education sector. New Zealanders have trusted Helen Clark to lead the country towards harmony and togetherness. Instead, we have State-sponsored separatism being extended from parliamentary electorates to local government, district health boards, and primary health organisations, with special privileges for Māori New Zealanders in legislation and in the funding of health care and education.

Now the Labour Party has taken to telling half-truths and lies, as we have seen from Trevor Mallard and Phil Goff over the last week. Labour is desperate to avoid debating the issues of real concern to mainstream New Zealanders, and will stop at nothing to try to divert attention on to something else. That, of course, is what has been happening in recent days.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who’s paying the bills? Who’s pulling the strings?

There is no American bagman, I tell Mr Mallard. National’s policies are being written in New Zealand, I tell Mr Mallard, by New Zealanders in the interest of New Zealanders, and there will be no change in the antinuclear policy unless it is approved by referendum. I guess we can expect to hear more of those kinds of diversions every time Helen Clark or her Government get into trouble.

Of course, the Government has now started to throw bribes around. Less than 2 months ago Michael Cullen told the people of New Zealand that he could not afford tax cuts of more than 67c a week in 3 years’ time, and all of a sudden he has found $500 million of extra funding for roads. National applauds more money being allocated for roads, but asks why it took the election campaign for Michael Cullen to find that money. Last week the extraordinary, and extraordinarily cynical, student loan bribe was announced. Nobody whom I have met regards that as a good policy. It is massively expensive, and it sends absolutely the wrong signals to students.

I am happy to make this election campaign about trust, and I am happy to make it about integrity and experience. It is true that I have had just 3 years’ parliamentary experience—about the same length as Bob Hawke had before he became Prime Minister of Australia—but I have had long experience in the real world. I am more than happy to contrast my experience in the real world with the experience of Helen Clark’s 24 years in Parliament and umpteen years in academia.

The reality is that this election campaign will offer New Zealanders a choice. That choice is between, on the one hand, a politically correct, social engineering, arrogant Government that has done nothing to improve our growth rate or to stem the exodus of Kiwis, and that believes it can spend our money better than we can, and, on the other hand, a party that offers New Zealanders a fresh start, with new faces, and without arrogance—a party that wants to leave as much money in the hands of those who earn it as is consistent with the wider needs of society being fully met. The National Party is that party.

I want to carry on where Dr Don Brash left off, because he has raised some points of considerable concern to New Zealand First. But, first of all, I take this opportunity on behalf of my colleagues to thank all the parliamentary staff. They have done an excellent job for all MPs. We are very impressed with them—not only with their competence and their attitude to work but also with their friendly disposition under sometimes very difficult circumstances. So we would like to offer our thanks to all the people who work in the parliamentary complex, and that includes you, Madam Speaker. We recognise that in the short time you have been in the job, it has not been terribly easy for you, and on behalf of New Zealand First I would like to offer our compliments.

Dr Brash, if I heard him correctly—I will give him the benefit of the doubt—accused people of lying. That concerns me, because I know that National Party MPs are saying that the seabed and foreshore legislation is not in favour of all New Zealanders. We helped the Government to produce legislation that is in favour of all New Zealanders, and there should be no doubt about that. Further, I heard today—and maybe the National Party colleagues would like to confirm this—that a candidate in Hamilton told an audience that he or she would give tax cuts by increasing GST. I ask National members whether that is true.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: It was the Green candidate.

They had better sort something out.

In April this year, in my own patch, I was a guest—as were all the spokespeople on transport—at the New Zealand Automobile Association conference in Napier—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did you hear it yourself?

I heard this myself. Dr Don Brash gave a speech to the conference in the early afternoon. This is what he said, and it is a direct quote from his speech: “In the late nineties, the last National Government lifted road spending to a little over 1.0% of GDP, by starting a process to move more petrol tax out of the consolidated fund into the road fund.” That would not have occurred without New Zealand First, and Bill Birch is on record as saying: “Over my dead body.” We were there. But it gets worse. Dr Brash said: “At that time—1998—we said that, as circumstances allowed, more transfers would be made.” New Zealand First alone said that. Dr Brash continued: “Labour came in, and stopped the process.” That is not true. It was stopped in the 1999 Budget by Bill Birch, and I am absolutely correct on that. When I confronted the leader of the National Party in the foyer of the auditorium immediately afterwards, he said: “I don’t know; I wasn’t there.” Those were his exact words.

For the remainder of my speech, I want to give a bit of advice to all parliamentarians and all parties. I say to National that if it wants to take policies from New Zealand First we are quite flattered, but it should at least acknowledge it. It has taken large segments of our law and order policy, large segments of our Treaty of Waitangi policy, and large segments of our road funding policy. I have here the Hansard of Maurice Williamson from 1995, when he spoke on a Winston Peters bill about shifting money from the consolidated account to the roading account. I have his quotes here, and they do not bear any resemblance to what he is currently saying.

I say to the Government members over there that they are doing very, very well with the “Cullen fund”. It has had a 14 percent return. I say to those members that they should invest some of it in their own country, and let this country get ahead. They might not get the 14 percent return, but they will get the tax take from getting the country moving again—literally moving. The Minister got it half right by going to Tauranga and saying he would fund the Harbour Link project in part, but he should be funding it all. Those members over there who know anything about roading and road funding know that I am absolutely on the ball on that. That should be funded from the roading account. I say to the Labour members over there that they should use some of that money in the “Cullen fund” to invest in this country, and we would all be better off. I think that Clayton Cosgrove has the message; I think he was giving me the thumbs-up sign—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: He hasn’t even put “Labour Party” on his hoardings.

We cannot blame him for that, can we?

I want to give a little bit of advice to the Green Party. It should stand up for green issues. It should not leave it up to just us. It should not get involved in those loopy left-wing, socialist-type policies. It should stand up for green, environmental issues—there are plenty of them. We need some help. New Zealand First cannot do it all on its own. That party over there is the party that adopted the name “Green”, and it should help us on the green issues. We invite those members to show concern for the environment.

I want to give a little bit of advice to my colleagues in United Future. We have respected their strategy of sticking by the Government for 3 years, no matter what. We respect that United Future had a strategy, and that it said it would prop the Government up for 3 years, no matter what. United Future lost the cause on the prostitution legislation, but it stuck by the strategy. It lost the cause on the smoke-free legislation, but it stuck by the strategy. It lost the cause on the civil union legislation, but it stuck by the strategy. It did not get GST removed from rates, but it stuck by the strategy. It wanted to revise tax thresholds on income, and it got a little bit—half a packet of chewing gum in 3 years’ time—and it still stuck by the strategy. It lost the cause on tax splitting, but it stuck by the strategy. I give the honourable members in United Future a little bit of “Winston” advice. [Interruption] No, not Winston Peters; Winston Churchill. He said: “However beautiful the strategy, sometimes you should look at the outcomes.” United Future has done this country a total disservice.

In all seriousness, that advice from Winston Churchill should apply to us all: “However beautiful the strategy, sometimes you should look at the outcomes.” We are not getting the outcome out of this House that New Zealanders deserve. We are not achieving it. Members are sitting there, clapping their hands, and moving legislation that the average New Zealander is appalled at. I suggest to members that they go away from the House—we are coming up to an election, as I am sure they are aware—and talk policies that can advance this country rather than advancing the cause of MPs or any particular political party. Join us in New Zealand First and vote for this country. It is a beautiful country, and it is worth doing the right thing for.

I thought I gave my last speech yesterday, but 24 hours is a long time in politics, and I did say I would not rule out a come-back.

💬 Georgina Beyer: That was quick, Deborah.

It was a quick come-back. I do not muck around.

I would like to thank the Clerk and the clerks, the messengers, the security service, Hansard, and, of course, the ACT staff.

I listened to Michael Cullen give his speech just now. He was boasting about the economy, and I wondered whether this is as good as it gets. Is this as good as it is ever going to get for New Zealanders, if Labour can boast about it? If that is so, it is absolutely nothing to be proud of.

Labour boasts about employment figures. Well, the reality is that hundreds of thousands of able-bodied, fit young men and women are wasting away on unemployment and sickness benefits. There is no excuse. If the economy is so good, why are those people wasting away on benefits? All that people need to do these days is to go to their general practitioner and get a letter. This Government has encouraged a policy of people going to their general practitioner and getting a letter, and then, as long as they are willing to drink two bottles of whisky a day, they can sit on a sickness benefit for the rest of their lives. Welfare fraud costs us $2 billion a year in this country. We could use that money. If we attacked welfare fraud, we could use the savings for tax cuts. We could get the top rate down to 33c and we could get all the rest down to 24c, just by attacking welfare fraud. That is without even touching the $7 billion surplus, and without touching all the horror scenes that the left always puts up, because as soon as we mention tax cuts they ask which hospitals and schools we will close.

The Inland Revenue Department constantly reports that the black economy costs us $10 billion a year. It is the same morality. It is not the corporates that are ripping off the tax department; it is the same people as those who are ripping off the welfare department. If they are morally immune to ripping off the welfare system, they will feel the same towards ripping off the Inland Revenue Department. Even if we only halved that black economy, there would be another $5 billion. In Wisconsin, when the 40-hour week was brought in, the black economy disappeared overnight, because people on welfare chose a job rather than a cash job.

Under this Government, crime has just rocketed. There is absolutely no faith in the police any more. We have seen one of the worst police Ministers that anyone—even people older than me—can remember. He has just sat there doing nothing, while people who dialled 111 have died because a cab was sent instead of a police car. The Minister of Police was given a list of suspected paedophiles on a disk by Interpol. He did nothing for 4 months. He just sat there. In the meantime public faith in the police has dropped to an all-time low. So what does the Government do? It goes out and has a massive public relations exercise. It rounds up a few celebrities and gets a few headlines with some celebrity drug busts, which Labour thinks will restore faith in the police. It will not, because the police are giving mothers who run their children to school in their dressing gowns tickets for speeding or for wrongly parking, yet when those same mothers get home and find that their houses have been broken into, it takes them 3 days to get a policeman to come. Anyone going to a police station to report a crime these days will find that the police are so under-resourced that they actually admit that people are better to go to their insurance companies and get paid out, because they cannot do anything for people.

Education has become another way to hide unemployment. What used to be called night classes is now called community education or tertiary education. If people want to learn basket weaving or macramé, or if they want to go to a class that teaches them how to make a fire screen and a poker to match, they just have to roll up to one of those tertiary institutes and the Government will subsidise it and shovel money into it. It is called adult education—“catch-up education”, “second-time round education”, or “second-go education”—and it takes more money. Then it is let fall over—especially if it is a wānanga and it is privately owned. More money is shovelled in, a blind eye is turned to all the waste and all the warning signs that are coming through, and it is allowed to fall over. Then it can be taken over, and its new owners can make it look like they are doing something.

Pre-school education is in an absolutely shambolic state. This Government would wipe out the private providers if it could, but it knows that if it did, the not-for-profit providers would never be able to cope. The Minister of Education actually went out there and called private early childhood centres “Kentucky Fried Childcare”. That is what his opinion of them is. He is so out of touch as Minister of Education that he thinks early childhood education is still about changing nappies and warming bottles. That is what he thinks. He will allow free hours of early childhood education only for those who take their kids to a not-for-profit, community-owned centre. It does not matter if the poor mum has to drive halfway across town to get there, and has to spend all her money on petrol getting there and back, as long as her kids are at a not-for-profit provider. This Government hates private enterprise. It hates profit, and it hates competition.

It has demoralised families and schools with its massive school closures up and down the country. The network reviews, for no good reason, closed schools that had got glowing Education Review Office reports. The United Future party, which calls itself a family party, sat there and did nothing while families were going through hell with their schools being closed. United Future, which calls itself the Christian, caring party, quickly took down its website, which had some very unchristian things on it, such as a statement that the Prime Minister should not be the Prime Minister, because she does not have children and she does not watch the rugby.

The first piece of legislation that this Parliament passed after I came in was a social welfare amendment bill, which provided that people could go on the domestic purposes benefit at the age of 18, that they would never have to seek work until their youngest child was 18, and that they could go overseas for 3 weeks and still get the benefit. The “Family Party”, the United Future party, voted for it. It voted for that legislation. It was the first legislation to be voted on, and the “Poodle Party” voted for it.

The Minister of Education calls the National Certificate of Educational Achievement a triumph. It is a total disaster.

Before I go I would like to talk about the National Party. I remind the National Party that we do have MMP. I remind the National Party that when it and the New Zealand First Party fell apart in 1998, ACT supported the National Party. It was ACT that kept the National Party in Government, and it was ACT that stopped the country from going back to the polls. Without the ACT support then, National would have been back on the Opposition benches. National is campaigning in this election to get rid of MMP. The people of New Zealand own their votes—not the two old parties. It is not a two-party race. I give a warning to the National Party, more in sorrow than in anger: if the National Party continues trying to kill off its future coalition partners, it will ensure that Dr Brash will not be the Prime Minister, and the National Party will be in Opposition. If the Labour Party gets 40 percent of the votes, it gets 52 seats. If the Māori Party gets 5 or 6 seats, we will quite likely have an overhang of 124 members. Does the National Party seriously think it will get 63 seats and team up with New Zealand First? Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

The New Zealand public likes ACT’s policies of targeting welfare abuse, of one law for all, of zero tolerance of crime, of a tax cut for every worker, of world-class education standards; those have been accepted, because the National Party and the Labour Party are promoting some of them, too. The country wants a change—that is well known. But if it wants a stable, centre-right Government, it needs ACT there, too.

As we reach the end of this term of Parliament, the second in which the Green Party has been represented here in our own right, we face an absolutely critical election, which will be held in a volatile environment, locally and internationally. Overseas, wars in Iraq and elsewhere simmer and burn. Millions live in poverty and continue to die of starvation, AIDS, and other diseases. The planet keeps getting hotter, and our ability to depend on fossil fuels as our main source of energy is starting to decline rapidly. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand we ignore all that at our peril. The general election, in just over 6 weeks’ time, pales into insignificance when put it up against those global concerns. Yet, as always, it is in our own place that we can all try to make our primary contribution towards improving the state of the world. I hope our next Government will be one that prefers peace to war, that does not chase slavishly after American neo-conservative ambitions, and that continues to increase our own small contributions towards helping to deal with desperate poverty and environmental degradation in the world out there.

We have in front of us a stark choice at this election between a Government led by Don Brash and backed mainly by New Zealand First, or one led by Helen Clark and backed primarily by the Green Party. Those two possibilities present very different outcomes, and I hope people will consider quite deeply the kind of future they prefer. Unlike some of the other smaller parties, we in the Greens have made it quite clear where we stand. We will not support a National-led Government under any circumstances, and I am sure that National feels pretty much the same way about us. However, we will be open to negotiating an agreement with Labour, should it be open to that possibility. Indications so far are that it may well be.

We nine Green MPs stand on our record through the last two terms of Parliament, and believe we have a lot to offer should the voters give us and Labour the possibility and opportunity to work together in the next Government. The Green Party brings with it to the table a kaupapa of environmental nurturing, social justice, non-violence, and participatory democracy. We have no bottom lines. Through both the Values Party and the Green Party we have maintained our principles for 3 decades, despite the oft-times derision and contempt of our political opponents. Now we believe we have reached the point where we are ready to give Government a go. Labour needs us, too; it is not a one-way street. Labour needs our commitment to a sustainable future and a fairer society, and our many ideas about solutions to environmental and social problems. A Labour - New Zealand First Government would look very different from a Labour-Green one. One only has to look at Winston Peters’ approach to immigrants and refugees, or at his outright support for “forced work for the dole as fast as possible”, to see the direction in which he would quickly like to take the country.

Although over the last 3 years of this parliamentary term the Greens have basically been an Opposition party that has given support to the Government when we have seen fit, within that role we have brought a voice and a vision to Parliament and to public discourse that would not otherwise have been heard or visible. Our achievements in the last couple of years include our members’ bills. Recently, Sue Kedgley’s bill promoted flexible working hours, and now my own bill aims to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act. Both of those bills are now before select committees. Our MPs also had a major input into the development of the Land Transport Management Act. We foiled the Government’s plans to set up a trans-Tasman food regulatory authority based in Canberra, helped to stop Project Aqua on the Waitaki, put animal welfare, food safety, and waste reduction firmly on the political agenda, and supported civil unions, Māori Television, and the clean slate legislation. We have played a key role in the 2-year campaign to get Ahmed Zaoui out of jail. We have kept child and adult poverty on the political agenda, negotiated a Government commitment to an independent prison inspectorate, instigated an inquiry into cannabis, and catalysed the party pill legislation. We have kept pressing for the reduction of the student debt burden and for a universal living allowance for students. We have supported Labour on all its reforming legislation around accident compensation and workers’ rights and conditions. We have consistently opposed the foreshore and seabed legislation, have got the Government to adopt a proposal for a community-driven national dialogue on the treaty, and have taken a leadership role on issues of human rights and peace. There is still no commercial release of GE into the environment of this country. A new monitoring programme for the use of GE in food has begun, after years of Green lobbying. Green-Government cooperation on transport issues has assisted in achieving the buy-back of the rail track, action on vehicle emissions screening, and a big boost to Auckland rail and bus services, including bus and cycle lanes.

Our MPs have continued, as we did in our first term here, to take a principled stand on issues, and not to trade between them. Nor do we get into personal stoushes here in the House. We are here to make a serious contribution. That is what we have done and will continue to do after 17 September. There is a lot of unfinished business. Just in my portfolio areas alone, I am aware of legislation like the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which would reform and improve the law for people living in boarding houses, but which has sadly lingered on the Order Paper for years and still has not seen the light of day in this House, for reasons unknown to me. The New Zealand Sign Language Bill and the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill also languish on the Order Paper. I am sorry that those two bills, both of which are geared towards improving the situation of big groups of people within the disabilities sector, have not quite made it out of the gate. As with the three bills I have just named, my own bill to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act and remove the defence of reasonable force, which allows parents to seriously beat their children and get away with it, legitimised by the State, will survive only if we end up with a new Parliament that supports continuing with such legislation.

This year the Green Party is campaigning hard for the return of political parties to this Parliament that can work together in a cooperative and consultative way, for the common good. Our kaupapa and our people can help to give Labour the heart, soul, and spine it needs, not only to push through some of the legislation that has been left half-done but also to instigate a whole lot of new and positive progress on social, economic, and environmental issues. We would like to have the opportunity to do more to protect our native plants and animals, and to restrict the sale of high country land and coastal property to New Zealand citizens and residents. It is critical that we speed up progress on the protection of our marine environment, and nurture our coastal fisheries so that anyone can go out and catch a fish for dinner again. We must prepare for the end of cheap oil, by future-proofing New Zealand against the shocks to come, through our energy, transport, and housing strategies.

The Green Party is committed to doing everything we can to bring an end to endemic child poverty, the legacy of the last 2 decades, which still affects over 20 percent of our country’s children, even after 5½ years of a Labour Government. The minimum wage should be put up to $12 an hour immediately. We would very much like to see the introduction of a universal child benefit, like the old family benefit, and our income support system should be enough for people to actually live on, without going endlessly into deeper and deeper debt. We will continue to oppose GE food and GE releases into our environment. We will do everything we can to protect and nurture taonga Māori, including the foreshore and seabed and areas threatened by inappropriate mining. Our waterways should be safe for swimming and for collecting kai for the whānau. The food our children eat should be fresh and healthy. And there is so much more.

The Green Party stands in Parliament to give a voice to those who often have not had a voice in this place: children, people who have mental illness or other forms of disability, and people who have been abused or raped. We stand here for prisoners, refugees, migrants, unemployed workers, beneficiaries, and also for the non-human lives of our world, which are totally defenceless here unless we humans give them expression. The Greens can and will add enormous value to the next Government. We intend to be back very shortly. We will be bigger, bolder, and stronger, and ready to continue our work for a future that will work for us all here in this land, and for all the species that share it with us.

I rise to take part in the adjournment debate on behalf of United Future and, in particular, on behalf of the Hon Peter Dunne, who is unable to be with us tonight. I start from a position of gratitude—firstly, to my colleagues for an amazing 3 years. To come to Parliament with one statesman and seven rookies was a pretty unusual start for a party. We have had a wonderful journey and we are very grateful to each other.

We want to thank United Future party officials. Those people have worked tirelessly for us for 3 years and continue to do so at an increased pace right now. They do not get salaries at the end of the day but work in a very fine way, because they are committed to the cause of New Zealand families, as we all are.

We would like to thank our new affiliated partner, Outdoor Recreation NZ, which has added strength to our party policy. Its members, the “bright greens”, have given us some common-sense conservation policies, and have given voters a chance now to vote for conservation-based policies without having to be pro-drug or anti-trade in their ideology.

We also want to thank our staff, who have been amazing, and who have supported us in amazing ways. In particular I thank our research team, who include some of the most amazing young people I have ever had the privilege to work with. We want to thank the Clerk’s Office, and we want to thank you, Madam Speaker, for the way you have so smoothly taken over your new role and provided support.

As we go into this election campaign, I want to reiterate what other members have said—that there is unfinished business. Certainly, United Future believes that we have much unfinished business to continue after the election, particularly in the area of family outcomes.

Family law in New Zealand still needs a huge amount of work, and the Care of Children Act was a wasted opportunity to do that work. It is unbelievable that in New Zealand right now there is no clear legal path by which a father can ensure that he is named on a child’s birth certificate, and that the power for that decision still remains in the hands of the mother, who can put huge legal obstacles in front of a father who genuinely wants to be part of his child’s life. United Future is committed into the future to seeing that changed.

We also want to bring to the attention of the House, as we finish this 3-year period, the amazing work of kinship caregivers. In particular, I want to give credit to the members of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust, who have been valuable lobbyists for me during the last 3 years. Those people—thousands of them in New Zealand—are some of the unsung heroes of our nation. They are people who give up a whole season of their life to take over, under difficult circumstances, extremely traumatised children, and who are yet to be acknowledged by the State by being given full foster-care status, so that they may receive the financial benefits they desperately need at a time of life when they are often on fixed incomes. Again, that is another family cause on which United Future is committed to seeing improved outcomes.

United Future wants to thank the Sensible Sentencing Trust for the relationship we have had with it. We want to remain committed to the victims in New Zealand families who, I believe, are yet to receive the full support of law they deserve. Until the law in this country becomes victims-focused, we will not see the kinds of outcomes we need. We need to see a complete restructuring of our legal system. Having 30,000 cases backlogged in our court system is a complete nonsense and makes no sense. Victims certainly feel re-victimised by the lack of action in our court system. We want to be part of the ongoing work to see that situation improved.

I also want to bring to the House’s attention the fact that although we believe that United Future has been able to make a series of sensible contributions to the improvement of the very dysfunctional Government department, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, we believe there is still a long way to go. For every James Whakaruru and Coral Burrows who comes to the public’s attention, every week—without a lie—I have had a letter from a family whose children have been removed by that department for reasons that seem shabby and shaky. It is years, sometimes, before those decisions are reviewed and those people get their children back. [Interruption] Yes, sometimes the decision is right, and we are not trying to undo those situations when it is right. But too many families have had their children removed for reasons that are unclear, and have waited a long time for a review of their cases. We want to show our gratitude to the many community organisations and non-governmental organisations that are working in the area of child protection in this country and working with families to improve outcomes.

United Future remains committed to New Zealand families. We believe, for instance, that couples who are raising dependent children must get the chance to hold on to more of their income through the process of income splitting. It is absolute nonsense to say that somebody who earns $40,000 and supports only himself or herself needs the same tax breaks as somebody on $40,000 who is raising three children and who has a dependent partner. We must start to have a tax system that reflects the number of people being supported by each income, and income splitting is an amazingly good way to go about that. It is fair and it gives recognition and value to a parent who chooses to spend some time at home doing the all-important task of raising children.

Both the Labour Party and the National Party have a lot to answer for with policies that provide all the incentives at the other end of the spectrum—towards subsidising people to put their children into proxy childcare rather than providing any financial incentive to have their children raised at home by one of the parents. Income splitting is one of the best opportunities for that, and there are National Party candidates standing at this election who support us on that policy. We know it, and we believe that the National Party should have a serious look at the issue.

We are about to discover in the next few weeks whether keeping one’s word makes a difference to New Zealand voters. Until 2002 the experience of MMP in this country was that smaller parties providing support either imploded on themselves or “tantrummed” and threw their toys out of the cot when they did not get their own way, thus bringing down the Government of the day. They were punished severely by the voters at the next election for so doing. We are about to find out whether the voters see some value in a party giving its word, keeping its word, and sticking to the agreement it has made.

I find the comments made by the deputy leader of New Zealand First absolutely ironic. That party has one of the worst track records in this Parliament’s history for poor behaviour, and once absolutely held the country to ransom for 9 weeks, followed by scandal after scandal with late-night drinking binges and with the whole media fiasco seen by the nation. He stood up tonight at the end of this 3-year term and made fun of a party that kept its word, when after this election he is dying for New Zealand First to get the role United Future has had with the major party.

Stability is something that should not have too small a price put on it. The OECD credits New Zealand with having had 5 of the most prosperous years in its measurable history. One of the main reasons the OECD has given for that is that we have enjoyed 3 of the most stable years of Government in our MMP history. United Future is hugely proud to have been part of that.

But we want to put both Labour and National on notice right now, because neither party is automatically entitled to our support after this election unless it is prepared to look very seriously at the policy planks on which we are going into this election campaign. Those things are not to be dismissed lightly at the end of this term.

💬 Simon Power: Are they bottom-line?

Yes, some of them will be bottom-line. We have made it very, very clear that the retention of the Families Commission, and the maintenance of the current status in law of cannabis, are bottom-line issues for us, and we will certainly be bringing other issues to the table. We appreciate, as does no other party, that we will have to wait and see what window of opportunity exists after this election. Whether it is a centre-right opportunity or a centre-left opportunity, we will have policy planks that are achievable in the following 3 years for New Zealand families. We are excited about those prospects, and we are very willing to work cooperatively, but if either of the major parties feels that we are some sort of political pushover and that the things written in our policies can be traded off—[Interruption]

I say to Mr Brownlee that we are very proud of the fact that we can hold up pages and pages of accomplishments that United Future has achieved in the last 3 years. Some of them are clauses in bills that would not have existed if we had not been pushing for them. We are very proud of that. Those are the kinds of accomplishments one gets when one works cooperatively. Mr Brownlee might be very, very pleased with our track record, should he manage to drag his party over the appropriate line after the election on 17 September.

Madam Speaker, thank you for all you have done in this debate and in the time you have been leading this House. We wish everybody in Parliament well for this next period, and we hope that everybody has a safe and exciting journey.

Madam Speaker, I hope you do not take umbrage if I do not make effusive statements about the job you have done. You have done it well, but we expected, when we elected you, that you would make improvements on those who had gone before you. Besides, when people receive effusive statements from their colleagues, they know that the axe may soon be falling on them—as I am sure Bill English would attest to in his time, and as the ghosts of leaders past would also attest.

The general election is an opportunity for everybody to have an equal say on the type of society we want to live in and on the type of society we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren. Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party’s campaign launch is on Sunday week, on 14 August. All are welcome. It will be in the Tamaki electorate, in which I am campaigning for party votes.

I am proud to have worked alongside Jim Anderton since the day he led the establishment of an independent, progressive-left party in Parliament back in 1989. When Progressive MPs are returned in the next Parliament, then the independent progressive left will have been represented in this House of Representatives for 19 years, which is a full generation in biblical terms. Progressive is left of Labour on the issues of most importance to working families—that is, access to universal education and health services, and building an active role for democratically elected Governments to help in the transformation of our productive capacity as an economy, so that by working intelligently together with industry and agriculture, we are able to create the number of jobs we need to become a full-employment society in New Zealand. That is the most progressive and social democratic goal that any political party could have, and it is one that, of course, is Progressive’s top goal: full employment and making poverty history.

Our party stands for putting the common and public good ahead of vested, and financial and sectarian, interests. That is why Progressive puts young people and vulnerable people first, and why we are not afraid to upset the liquor advertising and liquor marketing sectarian groups if we have to, in order to give the coalition Government a real spine in the campaign to reduce the harm caused by alcohol consumption within our communities. Progressive is campaigning for party votes so that my bill on our youth binge-drinking problem is not buried by a reactionary Government that does not care enough about the people, the family, and the communities that are being hurt daily by our biggest drug problem: alcohol.

Progressive is campaigning for an investment to cut the company tax rate to be in line with Australia, because we want more private sector investment in research and development and in jobs. We want to ensure that New Zealand prospers in the global market so that we can afford First World, social democratic type education and health services for all. The Progressive Party is campaigning on a much more ambitious first home policy to do more for low-income families to get over the deposit gap hurdle between them and their first home.

Progressive is delighted that Labour, our colleagues in Government, recognised in 2005 the damage of the higher and higher, fee-paying tertiary policy that was introduced in late 1989. Progressive is campaigning on a platform to cut the debt monkey off our graduates’ back in return for them working in New Zealand and using their skills to build up the regions of New Zealand.

Progressive looks forward to helping Labour deliver the common left position now, which is to move away from the policies of the last user-pays Government of 1984-90. Labour has governed in coalition with Progressive over the past 3 years and in coalition with the Alliance of five left parties between 1999 and 2002. Over the next 6 weeks, 50 Progressive candidates and I will be campaigning for a historic, third-term left-wing coalition Government. We will be campaigning for a further expansion and deepening of the industry and regional development programmes, and the spectacular regional initiatives around the country, none of which existed until the independent left party in this Parliament won over doubters and sceptics and built up the majorities we have always needed to deliver genuinely progressive policies for the benefit of all.

I am looking forward to having the opportunity to explain the next steps that the Progressive party would like to see delivered by our next coalition Government. The only way that a strategic, asset-selling, pro-war, National-led Government could be established under MMP is if New Zealand First emerges from an election in the position to deliver a National-led Government. That is why we are campaigning for no party on this side of the House to go into coalition with a Government that New Zealand First takes part in.

The low point of this Parliament has been the attack on the Muslim communities, and on other communities in New Zealand, by the leader of New Zealand First, who yesterday in this Parliament would not meet the two men whom he had grievously slandered as New Zealand citizens, saying that they had been complicit in crimes against humanity committed by the Government of Saddam Hussein. He skulked in this Parliament, he skulked in the building, and he would not meet the two men about whom, for 2 months, he has refused to put any evidence forward as to why he has so grievously slandered them and their communities. That is the lowest point for this Parliament, and that party has gone below a moral line that I think no other parties in this Parliament—no matter how much I disagree with them—would ever go below.

I should like to say briefly that the progressive left has lost a good, solid member in Ian Ewen-Street. He has many qualities—amongst them, of course, his being Australian-born. He is a man who has always kept his head down and worked hard, and I have very much appreciated his vote in favour of Progressive’s Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill proceeding to a select committee. I thank Ian Ewen-Street and I wish him all the best.

Finally, I extend my best wishes and those of the Progressive Party to those who have given their valedictory speeches, and I wish them all the best as they are rehabilitated back with their families and communities and into a new environment.

Listening to the speeches tonight from the ACT party, the Progressive Party, and United Future, I suddenly became aware of why the Nigerian scam men send so many emails to this Parliament. It is because there are literally tens of MPs here who believe that their electoral chances are so good that they will be back. It is interesting to note that those who will not be back are those who have seriously failed their constituencies. I want to say to Deborah Coddington, who had hard words for the National Party, that she should go back to the mirror and look at the ACT party. She should go back to see what drove the ACT party into Parliament in 1996 and the member will be able to see what that party lost, forgot, and is now being cast on the scrap heap because of.

I want to discuss in the rest of my speech some of the issues raised by Michael Cullen. Michael Cullen claims that the Government will be re-elected because of its extraordinary economic success. It must be one of the only Governments in the history of this Parliament to go through the revolving door of economic success on someone else’s shove, because during its 6 years in office, it has done all it possibly can to prevent people from taking the best advantage of what this economy has to offer. A National Party in Government will have a clear plan for how this country can grow at an even greater rate than is currently the case.

I say to the Government that the one thing it cannot get past is that the wealth gap between this country and Australia has widened during the term of its government. That is why 600 young people cross the Tasman each week for a better life, and why so many people here decide that this is not a country that they want to do business in. That issue is perhaps crystallised to the greatest extent when we look at the Māori constituency, which has been so loyal to Labour for so long. Labour will lose the Māori seats in this election. Those seven seats will go to the Māori Party. I have no doubt about that, at all—not only because of the seabed and foreshore issue, which I think was the issue that perhaps galvanised Māori into looking at Labour, but because when they looked, they started to see what Labour’s activities in relation to them were. They saw the patronising, paternalistic approach that Labour has to most New Zealanders.

Māori in this country today are a group of people who earn, on average, $7,000 less in income than non-Māori. Labour has done nothing but sit and watch that gap grow wider throughout the last 6 years—6 years of not addressing the issues that New Zealanders, Māori included, want addressed, and 6 years of dividing us racially through its very paternalistic programmes.

I am delighted that the Prime Minister has gone out and said that this campaign will see candidates fight the election on the issues of trust, experience, and integrity. Well, Dr Brash outlined some of those, but when it comes to trust, it is simple and easy for us to point out that New Zealanders trusted Labour in education and got the National Certificate of Educational Achievement debacle. They trusted Labour in education and got the wānanga blowout. They trusted Labour in education and got universities absolutely screwed for funds. They trusted Labour in health care and got longer waiting lists. They trusted Labour to deal with the issues around social welfare, and, as the insider, Judy Turner, told the House tonight, it is a seriously dysfunctional department. That is the sort of trust one gets from Labour.

New Zealanders trusted Labour on defence and got Project Protector. We got the light armoured vehicles. What about those light armoured vehicles? We have all those light armoured vehicles and do members know that only 18 of the 105 are operational? They do not have the personnel.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Don’t be stupid.

I tell the Minister over there, who thinks that he has been a marvellous Minister of Defence, that I ran into a private from the New Zealand Army while I was out canvassing the other day.

💬 Simon Power: What did he say?

He said: “Mr Brownlee, are you going to do anything about the wages and salaries for the military?”. I said: “Tell me what the situation is.” He said: “Well, I’ve got three guys that I’m at work with in the Army all coming to the end of their sign-on term all about to leave. They are going to Australia to join the Australian Army—young men about 25.” Interestingly, the salary increase for those young men will be about $27,000 a year. That is why they are going. So even in our military—in our armed forces—we are losing young, capable people to Australia day by day.

So let us talk about the experience that the Labour Government wants to tout. Well, as I said the other day in the general debate—[Interruption] That is David Benson-Pope yelling over there—the Billie Jean King of the Labour Party—bouncing up and down in his seat as usual. I want to talk about experience. As I said in the general debate the other day, one sums up the experience of this Government, generally, in a series of two words: “George Hawkins”. That is what one gets for experience, a Minister of Police who had a 111 call answered by a cab; a Minister of Police who hides day by day from Parliament’s scrutiny by saying: “That’s an operational matter.”, and a police commissioner who is such a blatant lackey for the Prime Minister that it is surely embarrassing. He is a man who has a very short career ahead of him. When one talks about experience one could also use the words “Trevor Mallard”, because there are tens of thousands of young New Zealanders who do not know whether their secondary qualification has any great validity. That is what Mr Mallard has done for the education system. That is what experience does for one.

Then there is the issue of integrity, and we come straight to the Prime Minister on that one: “paintergate”, “Bathgate-gate”, the Yelash allegations, the allegations against the Auckland surgeon—so many things. And then this week, to cap it off, a Prime Minister who said: “We were travelling at 170-plus k’s in a car. I had no idea. I was so engrossed in conversation with Jim Sutton that I didn’t notice that they were travelling at such an excessive speed. And when at the other end of the journey I got out of the car and said to the police officer: ‘That was a courageous trip.’, I didn’t know why I said it.” So we have five policemen and one civilian in the court because Helen Clark has not got enough integrity to take responsibility for her own actions. So on trust, experience, and integrity the campaign is going to be a lot of fun from our point of view.

I tell members something else. One generally knows whether one is in the political frame. Politicians have a nose for it. And I tell members that National is very much in the frame. National will win the next election, and National will form the next Government. Ask Clayton Cosgrove. He will not even put the word “Labour” on his hoardings in his electorate. Ask Darren Hughes, who has been getting the door slammed in his face in his own electorate. Mind, he has been out only half a day, and he will not take any more of that! Ask so many of that Labour backbench what sort of reaction that they are getting.

Here is a name for the nation—it will be one people have not heard before—“Martin Gallagher”. He is a dead duck in his seat. Even Tim Barnett has to work his feet off trying to gather some votes in his own electorate. One knows when it is on, and when it is off, and it is on for National. So I to say to the Labour Party: bring out the lies, bring out the mistruths, bring out the red herrings, dry them on the table; they will not count. At the end of the day, New Zealanders are not silly. They know that they are overtaxed. They know they are over-controlled. They are sick of it, and there will be a change of Government.

For those many millions of New Zealanders who are at home now with their ear glued to their radio listening to the end of Parliament—as New Zealanders so often do; they want to tune in to hear the best of speakers in this nation—that was the once great Gerry Brownlee. I noticed the other day that the newspaper said: “Where was Gerry Brownlee? Where has he gone? That great voice from the south has been silenced by so many things that have gone wrong. He must be marginalised.” I think he has been, and that performance tonight seemed to me to be a defeatist speech. That is what came through.

I am delighted to take part in this speech at the end of this Parliament. It is great to be here with the House packed, the galleries overflowing, and people tuned in all over the country to listen to this speech. It is one of those rare opportunities to speak to one of those mega audiences that, of course, we want to speak to during the election campaign.

Before I begin my substantive comments, I thank you, Madam Speaker. You have been the best looking Speaker in that Chair for a very long time. I think you have controlled this House with real style since you have been in that particular Chair.

I say to all my colleagues in the House who are about to campaign that I wish them well, and I mean that genuinely. We as New Zealanders are about to go back to the hustings to do something that in many countries simply could not happen, which is to put before people what we think is the best way forward for them, their families, their communities, their businesses, and their country. We will do that within a democratic framework, and the people will choose. We enjoy that very, very important right, and we should go out and do our best for the people of the country.

On behalf of everyone on this side of the House, I thank those members who will not be returning—some of whom have already given their valedictory speeches—for the service they have provided to the House. I know from the many people who have left the House over the years that, whether or not one disagrees with them, they all came here honestly to do their best, and that is a very, very important thing for us to acknowledge.

As many people have said, there are 46 days or so to go before we go to the polls and, as Donald Brash has said this evening, it is a real choice. It is a real choice this time. There is a choice out there for people to say whether they want to carry on with policies that for 6 years have made a real difference to their lives, or whether they want to take a radical departure from that pathway and go off in a different direction. I emphasise that. This is not a choice about fine-tuning or about personnel; this is, as Dr Brash has so rightly said, a fundamental philosophical choice between a party that wants to slash taxes—and by doing so set the scene for slashing services that people rely on for health, education, roading, and all of the things that we feel are precious in this country—versus what we believe on this side of the House, which is that every single New Zealander needs the opportunity to do the best with his or her life. People can do that only if the foundation is laid by proper investment made by a sensible, wise, astute Government, which is what we have tried to be.

People on the other side of the House say they have an agenda, but it is a gone-by-lunchtime agenda. Over the years Mr Brash has revealed an agenda to people around the country through his speeches, comments, and so on that he does not want to reveal now. He would have sent to troops to Iraq. That is what he said. He said he would not have nuclear ships in our harbours—oh, he would have nuclear ships in our harbours. He is someone who does not believe in 4 weeks’ holiday for hard-working New Zealanders. That will be gone by lunchtime—and lunchtime will be gone by lunchtime, as people say. What about the minimum wage—does he believe in that? It will be gone by lunchtime. Does he believe in public schooling? It will be gone by lunchtime. Does he believe in free health-care for New Zealanders? Does he believe in public investment in hospitals? They will be gone by lunchtime. That is the agenda for the National Party. That is what Donald Brash stands for.

Don Brash does not stand for the kinds of advances made in a civilised, progressive society. He believes that all of that should be swept away. It is the last gasp for the people who tried so hard to capture New Zealand for the private, large, international business interests that had tried through the 1980s and 1990s to capture Governments and to drive that agenda. They could not do it with Bill English, because he was more like us than the National Party is today, but they can do it with Donald Brash. Donald Brash believes the country should be made fit for the few. He does not believe that it should be made fit for the majority. He is prepared to deliver those people that agenda. That is what he is coming back for. That is why he is coy about his agenda—he knows that the majority would never vote for that agenda. The thing that will make the difference here, of course, is that New Zealanders will not vote for him.

I say sorry to Mr Brownlee, but he is wrong. It is wishful thinking. The National Party is not in the frame unless it is being framed to be put above the mantelpiece along with the other beheaded chooks that have been put up there over the years. It is not going to happen, and this is why: every single member in this House will go back to an electorate where things have never been so good. That is why. Do people remember what Franklin D Roosevelt said to the American people? He said: “I want to ask one simple question. Are you better off after this Government’s term?”. Is there any electorate in this country where the halls will not be full of people who will say: “Frankly, I am better off after 6 years of a Labour-led Government. Frankly, my business is better, my family is stronger, the schools are better, my roads are being built.”?

We should just flick around the electorates. Let us take the example of youth unemployment in Rick Barker’s electorate. There were 10 unemployed people who were categorised as youth; there is one now. Nine of them are back in work, he tells me. Ann Hartley tells me that investment in schools has transformed her electorate. Mr Goff tells me that he has never had so many new school facilities. Clayton Cosgrove tells me that $12 million is being spent on a bridge that he was waiting for under the National Government. Mr Hughes tell me that $14 million is being spent on the health system in his electorate. Mr Burton tells me that tomorrow he will announce a major regional tourism initiative worth $2 million. He has presided over more tourism in this country than ever in our history—2.3 million tourists are coming through under his watch. Mrs Hobbs tells me she has investment for her creative dance school. In the Manawatū there were 500 more businesses in the last 6 years—500—and 6,900 more people are working. Taito Phillip Field tells me that Pacific Island unemployment has fallen by 52 percent in the last 2 years. Mr Damien O’Connor, of the West Coast, tells me that the rates rebate scheme has gone down fabulously with the old people of his area. In Auckland Judith Tizard tells me that people can hardly move for the investment in roads. Dover Samuels tells me that people in his electorate never thought they would see 1 percent to 5 percent unemployment again. In Auckland we have built over 4,000 houses, and in the Waikato we can see the new public investment in the incubator that is taking ideas and turning them into commercial realities. The list goes on and on.

Do people know what eats up the National members? It is that, unfortunately for them, it is their story too. Simon Power has to go home and tell people to thank the Government for the new runway at Ohakea. He has to go home and say that $300 million has been invested in the Rangitīkei area because the Government rebuilt the place after the floods. He has to go to EziBuy and watch one of the biggest pours of concrete put into a major business in his electorate.

Who does Simon Power have to thank for that? Well, for the last 6 years he has virtually been a Labour MP at home, because he has so many things to open and so many things that he is pleased about. There are so many things he has had to congratulate people on. People have said to me: “That lovely young Simon Power, what a great Labour MP he is!”. They tell me he is a fabulous young man and, I have to say, I have not disabused them. I have said that I think he is a fabulous Labour MP, too—he is so positive all the time around his electorate. That is the truth of the matter.

I say again to Mr Brownlee that I am sorry for him but he, and everybody in this House, has to go back to tell that story during the election campaign. National members can whinge, whine, moan, and groan, but in the end, people are better off after 6 years of this Government. They will vote Labour.

As the forty-seventh Parliament comes to a close I would like to thank all those who have played a part in keeping the House running so efficiently. As members know, I came to this role at a somewhat unusual time—part-way through a parliamentary term. I was then, and continue to be, most appreciative of the support of my deputy, Ann Hartley, and the Assistant Speakers, Clem Simich and Ross Robertson.

As of this evening this House has met on 256 sitting days, spread over 293 days of real time. This gives a total of approximately 1,800 hours, including time in Committee—more hours than any of the previous three Parliaments. We have sat under urgency for nearly 400 hours and there have been more than 3,500 votes. Members have put up 3,063 questions for oral answer, about 55,000 written questions, and have filled more than 22,300 pages of Hansard. During the 3 years of this Parliament 402 bills have been served up for royal assent, not including the four bills we have passed this week. A relatively high number—eight—of members’ bills have also been passed. In the hard-working select committee area there have been 1,600 meetings during the session, involving members and staff in considerably more than 4,100 hours.

Members would have gathered that the effort behind those statistics is equally impressive. and there are many people to thank. First, of course, is the Clerk of the House, Dave McGee, and the staff of the Clerk’s Office for their professional and administrative skills in servicing the Table of the House; compiling Hansard records; processing legislation, questions, and petitions; and serving select committees. I thank the General Manager of the Parliamentary Service, Joel George, and the staff of the Parliamentary Service: members and party support staff, executive secretaries, the staff of the Parliamentary Library, the security staff, Building Services staff, the telephonists, messengers, Travel Office staff, and the Visitor and Reception Services staff. I also thank the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, George Tanner, and his staff for their role in drafting legislation. Nor do I forget the Serjeant-at-Arms, Brent Smith, and the Chamber and gallery staff, my personal staff earlier in the session as a Cabinet Minister, and my staff in recent months as Speaker of the House. I also extend my thanks to members and staff of the bodies that, as Speaker, I chair: the Parliamentary Service Commission, the Business Committee, the Standing Orders Committee, and the Officers of Parliament Committee.

Beyond these walls, but closely linked to this Parliament, my thanks go to the Controller and Auditor-General and his staff; the Chief Ombudsman, his fellow ombudsmen, and staff; and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

I also thank the leaders of all the parties in the House and their deputies; the Leader of the House, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen; and, in particular, the party whips, without whom I am sure that this Parliament would not function as efficiently as it does, so I have a special thanks to them. My thanks to all fellow members of Parliament for their support and work throughout this year and for the contribution they make, not only to this House but also to our country.

Finally, I extend my best wishes for the future to the colleagues of all political parties who have chosen not to stand for re-election.