General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is very, very easy to see when a Government is in trouble. There are lots of tell-tale signs when a Government is in trouble. The first thing is that Ministers cannot coherently answer questions. They just speak more loudly, with more rabble and less coherency through all their statements, and if we want an example of that we need look no further than Pete Hodgson. He is a man so out of his depth in the health portfolio that nobody listens to him, not even the former Minister of Health, Annette King—and let us look at Annette King today. She was embarrassed by my colleague Simon Power, who has made her look like a blithering fool. She does not know a decoy cop from an ordinary cop. Those are signs of a Government in trouble.

But there is another way that a Government shows it is in trouble. The heads go down when questions are being asked. That is what we saw in the House this afternoon. When David Cunliffe was on his feet, Helen Clark did not look up. She did not look up from her papers. It was the famous “David Benson-Pope look”—she looked at those papers; not a good sign. Anything would be better. She was filling in her Christmas cards for 2006. That was more important than looking up when David Cunliffe was on his feet.

Another way we can tell the Government is in trouble is that Government members run when they see the first sign of trouble. This afternoon we saw the miraculous statement from this Government that it is now exempting Guinness Peat Group shareholders for 5 years from the “grey list”. Because the Government cannot stand the heat from Tony Gibbs’ advertising in the newspapers, it is running for the hills. I say to Guinness Peat Group shareholders: “Good on you! Good on you for standing up for your rights, and good on you Tony Gibbs for taking it to this Government.” But I say this—it shows what a crazy policy this is. We now have a “grey list” that includes 2 percent of the world’s markets. We have a “grey list” that includes only Australia and New Zealand—unless one is a Guinness Peat Group shareholder and one is in England. What is so special about Guinness Peat Group that does not apply everywhere else around the country?

This is a Government in serious trouble because its Budget, which comes out tomorrow, is a botch-up from start to finish. Frankly, I am not quite sure whether I should expect a Budget speech or a valedictory speech from Michael Cullen, although I am pretty sure that one will lead to the other. Michael Cullen is like David Cunliffe. This is what they have in common: they are both dead men walking. That is the situation, for different reasons. Helen Clark has cut Michael Cullen loose. He was the disaster that was Budget 2005, and I will tell members that privately Labour members never talk to me about Budget 2005. They never talk to me about the “chewing gum Budget”. When those Labour members walk around they call it “Michael’s Budget”, because that is the way Helen talks about it—“Michael’s Budget”, the Budget that delivered them within a whisker of losing the potentially unloseable election. What a shocking disgrace of a Budget it was!

So Michael Cullen is a dead man walking. He is not allowed input into this Budget. That has been delegated to Heather Simpson. He is not allowed to write the policy for the Budget, and this week he is not even allowed to characterise his own Budget. His own Budget is boring. He knows it, but it is not his Budget any more. It is either David Cunliffe’s, before he was a dead man walking, or it is Heather Simpson’s.

There was one interesting piece of the Budget. Well—at least it was meant to come out before it was leaked, as we heard so eloquently this afternoon. That was the “shock and awe” piece of this Budget—the local loop unbundling. Well, it has been shock and awe, and it will turn into “shock and awe-ful” for David Cunliffe, because this is a fiasco of monumental proportions. It has wiped off $2.6 billion of shareholders’ value—even bigger than David Cunliffe’s ego—

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Oh, I don’t know!

Well, it is a pretty close call.

💬 Simon Power: The most popular member in the Labour Party.

Yes. David Cunliffe is so popular I have already had emails from members of the Labour caucus leaking me things about David to use in next week’s question time. But this is the interesting thing. When $2.6 billion was being wiped off Telecom’s share price, each and every one of us suffered at the hands of the clumsy David Cunliffe. We all own shares in Telecom through the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and yesterday afternoon we all shared in the $200 million loss that David Cunliffe delivered.

We have just heard from the man who would be the leader of the National Party, but he has just given a really good example of why he is not the leader of the National Party. He is sitting next to Bill English, who must have been thinking to himself: “Well, I can do better than that.”—and in his speech just half an hour ago he did do better than that. It is not clear when Don Brash will stop being the leader of the National Party. The ground is still shifting in that caucus. The long and short of it is that Bill English’s supporters are not yet ready to pull their support from Don Brash, because they do not have the numbers to defeat John Key. That is the guts of it. That is the prisoner’s dilemma the National Party finds itself in. Bill English supporters are still supporting Don Brash—whom they voted against when he came into the leadership role—because they do not have the numbers to defeat John Key. That is the guts of it, and it will not get resolved until those two gentlemen over there come to a deal, come to some sort of arrangement or understanding—cut something—and then there will be a change.

But I can tell members what we do know. We know what Don Brash said when he became sort of famous. He said in October 2003: “And I don’t want us to be afraid of the electorate, by watering down our message.” Big, brave Don said for National members not to water down their message just because they might scare the electorate. Has he kept that idea anywhere close to his actions ever since? No chance!

That is the man who was going to sell assets to pay for his tax cuts if he had won the last election, but we did not hear a word of it. That is the man who was going to give us part charges for hospitals and get rid of universality in primary health care to pay for his tax cuts, but we did not hear a bit of it. That is the man who was going to have swingeing cuts to social services to pay for his tax cuts, but we did not hear a word of that. In fact, he did not even tell his own caucus that bit, because Bill English, Katherine Rich, or whoever, would not have let him do so. So that is a man who does not tell the whole truth. That is a man who is afraid of the electorate, who waters down his message and, therefore, who shows to be someone who does not tell the whole truth.

An interesting question arises about Don Brash. Does Don Brash bungle, or does he have a deeper problem—have difficulty in revealing the full truth? There are quite a lot of examples of bungling. Last week’s example was a good one. Don Brash called a press conference about an email. He was the guy who called the press conference, and he rocked up to the press conference he had called, but without the email. That seems to be a bungle. It was written up as a bungle but it does start to make one wonder whether a deeper thing is going on with Don Brash—whether somehow in his psyche he thinks: “If I don’t bring the email to the press conference, maybe no one else will, either. Maybe the email doesn’t exist.” So we have a guy whom we know can bungle. It is like the situation in the election when Mr Connell from Rākaia said: “We’re going to log the West Coast.” Nick Smith, from the same party, said: “Oh no, we’re not.” And Don Brash said: “Ah, ah, ah …”, quite a bit. We know that was a bungle.

But there is also the two-truth syndrome. The two-truth syndrome is starting to come out in Dr Brash. The classic one from the campaign was when he said, within the marae, that he liked Māoris but said, as soon as he got outside the marae, that he was going to be nasty to them. Where that syndrome really came to light was in the Exclusive Brethren revelations during the course of the campaign. Don Brash, in his opening bid, started off by saying that he could not remember meeting with the Exclusive Brethren. Within a day he said that he might have met with them once. Within about a day after that he said that he might have met with them once, but certainly came to no deal with them. Then it became clear that he had met with them more than once and discussed a few things, and then he said that he had met with them several times and discussed their support for the party. That is a man whom we now know—from the last week or two, because it has been revealed by the police—was talking about a $1.2 million level of support for the National Party campaign, but he could not remember.

That is the man who does not immediately see the need to tell the truth; he does not immediately see the need to do that. It is a most unusual situation—that he continues to get this far into his political scene without yet being shopped for it. He has been shopped only for being a bungler, but the underlying problem this gentleman has is that he does not want to tell the truth.

The Labour Minister can say what he likes about those issues, but he needs to consider that this Budget will be overshadowed by the fracas around the Telecom leak and, now, David Cunliffe, the Minister of Communications, being subject to a Securities Commission investigation. In fact, it prompted a thought—[Interruption]—the Cunliffe Budget, that is right; his first, his best, and I suspect his last. In a way, though, Dr Cullen deserves it, I think.

It did make me think about the inquiries that this Government has had to deal with this year. I will just run through a quick list, for the benefit of Parliament and the public who are listening. This year there has been a police inquiry into David Benson-Pope; a Companies Act inquiry into David Parker; a police investigation into the Labour Party’s election expenses, which concluded that Heather Simpson would be prosecuted if she went before a court; a State Services Commission inquiry into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which we have debated today; and on Friday the Securities Commission initiated an inquiry into Government processes for protecting confidential commercial information, and in the next day or two it will almost certainly start to investigate David Cunliffe’s statements that, as an insider, affected the Telecom share price the other day. That is six inquiries by statutory agencies into potentially serious offences committed by people who are in, or working for, the current Labour Government.

💬 Simon Power: It’s one every 3 weeks.

I thought it was one a month, but the member is right; it is one every 3 weeks. It is that kind of shadiness and growing untrustworthiness that will cloud the public’s view of the Budget. All of those things are elements and symptoms of their mistrust of Dr Cullen. The key public reaction to this Budget will be that they do not trust Dr Cullen’s statements that New Zealand cannot afford tax cuts. When he says it now, they just do not believe him. What compounds that lack of belief is the growing understanding among the public that Labour operates in the shade, says things that it knows are not true but says them anyway, and is now getting caught regularly doing it by the statutory agencies of law and order. It is all part of a bigger picture. And Dr Cullen will be telling New Zealanders something that is not correct. He can afford tax cuts, and by the time he gets up to give his speech tomorrow he will wish that he had been giving them, because he does not have much else to say.

The other problem he has is that the public now do not trust the Labour Government with spending public money. The public like Working for Families, but almost everything else the Government initiates now they regard as wasting public money. So when Dr Cullen gets up tomorrow and announces 23 different initiatives that spread $3.2 million each over 4 years, they will think it is a waste of time—just like the reception of Steve Maharey’s announcement about giving schools $9 million over 4 years to fix bullying. That will be enough to employ the bureaucrat who will organise the workshops and the PowerPoint presentation, and write the strategy. That is the end of it; it is all gone, and the public know that.

What will underlie this Budget tomorrow is not so much its boredom, although it will be boring, not so much that it will do nothing for growth, although it will not do anything for growth, nor that it means we will fall further behind Australia, because it certainly means we will, but that the public just will not trust anything Dr Cullen says. That is why my colleague is right—Dr Cullen is now a dead man walking. The one person in the Labour caucus who knows that for sure is Helen Clark. That is why she has already said she does not know whether he will be there again. Of course, the shame is that tomorrow Dr Cullen may not get to give a valedictory. He may get to pretend that it is a vigorous, new, visionary Budget transforming the economy, and I think he will try that, but it will probably be his last Budget. That would not be a bad thing for New Zealand.

It gives me great pleasure today to rise to speak in the general debate on behalf of New Zealand First, because I have to say that tomorrow will be a blue-ribbon day for the New Zealand Police—that is for sure. We can compare the joy, elation, and satisfaction that exists on these cross benches with the scepticism, pessimism, moaning, whingeing, and bitching that we hear coming from Simon Power’s quarters. [Interruption] I withdraw the word; I did not mean to call Simon Power a bitch.

💬 Simon Power: Point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member has withdrawn.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member has just said it twice. He is quite entitled to call me any range of things within the Standing Orders, but reference to that particular word twice in the course of his speech is not only outside the Standing Orders but I would think, quite frankly, is grossly offensive to most people present in the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member will withdraw.

I withdraw, if I have offended the member’s sensibility. “Bitch”, I would assert, Madam Speaker, is a female dog.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Please be seated. I warn the member. He knows that when he withdraws and apologises he is not to repeat the indiscretion for which he has been called to withdraw and apologise. I ask the member now to withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. Is it not interesting that the people who are complaining, who are casting the most pessimism and doubt, and who are trying their level best to undermine the morale of the police right now, are National members, who claim the National Party as the law and order party of this nation?

Let us talk about the facts of the matter. The fact is that National Governments slashed police numbers. The fact is that a National Government promised to increase the police strength by 900 officers and did that by merging the Ministry of Transport with the police force and calling those traffic officers crime fighters—which clearly was not the case. The fact is that a National Government gave the police a computer worth $200 million, and then asked them to seek cost recovery through staffing reductions—and that cost about 400 police. The fact is that it was not until Jim Bolger, that National leader with vision, signed up to a coalition agreement with New Zealand First and pledged to reinstate 500 police officers in the force, that that increase in staffing happened, during the coalition period with New Zealand First and National.

That pattern of support for the police has continued now, with New Zealand First securing not 1,000 but 1,250 new staff. Do members remember the whining that came from the Opposition side when Mr Power said: “Oh no, it’s not going to be 1,000. It’s going to be fewer, because there’s going to be non-sworn people.”? What did we find? He was right—the number was not 1,000; it was 1,250.

But wait—there is more. Now we are bringing on stream about 30 specialist forensic people—people who are graduates from university who have seen CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, like it as a career option, and like that sort of work. They are lining up to enlist in the police force to become New Zealand’s—I guess Auckland’s—CSI team. Is that not great? But Mr Power is not happy. He has to have something to denigrate the police with—to rubbish them. So he stands there saying that it is not going to happen.

Well, here is a challenge to Mr Power. If we do not achieve the target, that is fine; he may well be vindicated in his criticisms. But, if we do, I ask the member whether he will resign from Parliament. Will he put his money where his mouth is? Will he accept responsibility, by resigning, for denigrating the police, for denigrating the commissioner, and for denigrating the fine men and women out there who are trying to do the job? I do not hear him say “Yes”. He simply laughs, because he has aspirations of being a Cabinet Minister. Well, the chances are that that might not happen.

New Zealand First is encouraged by this Government’s commitment to supporting its supply and confidence agreement. That agreement goes one step further. We are not finished with only about 1,250 police. We have an agreement to achieve ratios comparable with those in Australia by 2010, and our figures put that at around an extra 1,640 police. So on one side of the House we have people who are moaning, whingeing, and whining—about not being in Government; that is the real crux of the matter—and on the other side of the House we have people who are getting on, striking deals, getting commitments, getting funding, implementing policies, and making it happen.

Who are the winners? The winners are the men and women who every day put themselves on the line to protect our communities. I tell National members to go and talk to police officers. One of the things coming through that gives me great confidence we will achieve those recruitment figures is the flow-on effect of officers knowing that stress levels and workloads will be reduced, and that crime cases will get more scrutiny, because more people are on stream. That in itself is giving an incentive to officers—who might well have thought of giving the job away—to stay on so that they can bring those new recruits through, mentor them, and make them good productive people.

There are some issues that Labour and New Zealand First will continue to discuss, and one of those will be the timed run for potential recruits. I do not think that it is sensible for a 37-year-old woman to be assessed on a standard stricter than that of the SAS or the Special Tactics Group. Mr Power is laughing. I challenge Mr Power to come and do the timed run with me. He should show everyone that as a law and order spokesperson who wants to lead by example, he is capable of doing that run. I ask Mr Power to pass the run test with me, despite the fact that he is probably half my age, and then we will judge him by how he walks and not by how he talks.

Members will be interested to know that it is 8 months to the day since New Zealand went to the polls and elected this current Labour-led Government for its historic third term. Since then the community is not unsurprised that the achievements of the Government could not be more starkly defined than by comparison with the failings of the Opposition. National is certainly muddled, and we are used to that. We hear some pretty befuddled comments in the House, and we are now quietly finding out how much Mr Key and Dr Brash have been cuddling up to their strange religious Exclusive Brethren friends.

What has the Government been doing in the meantime? Well, it has been getting on with business. For example, our active approach to social assistance, with case managers increasingly focused on supporting people into sustainable work rather than simply processing benefits, has yielded results that speak for themselves. There are now 2.1 million New Zealanders in work—the highest level of employment ever recorded. According to last week’s household labour force survey, 313,000 more New Zealanders are in jobs since this Government took office. That is approximately 135 additional New Zealanders in jobs each day, every day, since Labour came to office. That is 50,000 extra New Zealanders in work each year under Labour.

But wait, there is more. Our labour force participation rate is at its highest ever, at 68.5 percent. And we have the second-lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, at 3.9 percent. The current OECD average is almost double ours, at 6.3 percent. By comparison, I mention those countries to which Dr Brash and his friends so often look for direction. The United States ranks 9th in the OECD, with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent; the UK is 10th, with unemployment at 4.9 percent; and Australia is 11th, with unemployment at 5 percent. I tell Dr Brash that maybe the grass is not so green over there, after all.

But wait, there is even more. The number of New Zealanders receiving an unemployment benefit has fallen by 72.4 percent since we took office in 1999. The total number of beneficiaries has fallen by nearly 30 percent over the same period. The impact of these kinds of results on the lives of ordinary Kiwis should never be underestimated. When Labour took office in 1999 over 17 percent of the working-age population were on some kind of benefit. Today that figure is down to 11 percent. Likewise, nearly 7 percent of our working-age population was receiving an unemployment benefit in 1999. Today the figure is 1.8 percent. All this means that the number of children living in benefit-dependent households has dropped by 20 percent. These are significant changes—significant for individuals, for communities, and for our country.

I am really proud that these changes are being delivered by a Labour-led Government. Pride is something that Labour has. We are not ashamed to celebrate New Zealand’s sporting and cultural successes, our creativity, our unique heritage, our cosmopolitan lifestyle, our great outdoors, or our ability to live largely at peace with each other in a multicultural society. That is why it grows so tiresome that all those people on the other side of the Chamber can do is criticise. But that seems to be the National Party way. To those members, every initiative is flawed and every achievement is derisory. To them, it is all downside. The grass is always greener somewhere else, and almost always in Australia. I do not think many New Zealanders can recall in recent years, or in their lifetime, a political party, or at least a political party’s leadership, so willing to bag and put down their own country and their own countrymen and women. They take delight in every study that does not place New Zealand first, and greater delight if they can paint New Zealand and New Zealanders as failures.

Over the Christmas break we saw the unsavoury situation of the Leader of the Opposition slathering in hope of a recession. In truly bizarre style we saw Dr Brash standing in a hydro lake, praying for a drought so that National might inflict power outages on our population this winter. In the last week alone that shrill crescendo of “life across the Tasman is better” has grown again. I say that if that is the way the National Party sees it, and if Don Brash, John Key, Bill English, and Gerry Brownlee would rather live in Australia then let us help them go. Several travel agents have sales on at the moment. I know that one-way tickets to Australia are going for $180, and I think that is a steal. I am happy to buy every member of the National Party caucus—every member—a one-way ticket to Oz. The only proviso is, of course, that they stay there.

I say to the Hon David Benson-Pope, who has just resumed his seat, that the only way Labour has any chance of winning the next election is by trying to get rid of this Opposition. That will not be very easy. I ask him what pride there is in someone who bullies children in his charge. That member stands up in this House and talks about pride, and he has been shown to bully girls and boys in his charge, which is a disgrace.

Tomorrow Dr Cullen will read his seventh Budget to this Parliament. We would think it should be one of the most important days of the year for the Government—the day of the Budget. This year it has been totally overshadowed by the bungling around a leak that has wiped over $2 billion off the equity owned by ordinary men and women in this country. It has been overshadowed by the fact that the Minister of Communications, David Cunliffe, has been referred to the Securities Commission for a possible insider knowledge leak, through the wholesale news service, to wholesalers in our stock market that wiped another $200 million off the equity owned by ordinary men and women in New Zealand. Those scandals will totally overshadow the reading of Dr Cullen’s seventh Budget tomorrow.

Dr Michael Cullen may also explain why his New Zealand Superannuation Fund has been the biggest seller of Telecom shares in recent times. Something has a fairly bad odour about it there; we cannot help but wonder whether some of the people in this Labour Government might have said things, either advertently or inadvertently, to some of their mates involved with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund that led to a rather large sell-down of the shares in Telecom held by that fund. Dr Cullen may care to advise us what has gone on there.

Only a few days ago the Australian Budget was read by the centre-right Liberal Government of Australia. It announced tax cuts, and everyone said that would be great for Australia, for the economy, and for Australian people. They said that was a great way to attract more skilled people to Australia. Everyone said that Budget was great, because it made Australia more competitive. And what will happen tomorrow here in New Zealand? Why do New Zealanders not deserve that kind of thing? Why do New Zealanders not deserve to have the chance to say it is great that their hard work has finally been recognised by their Government sharing some of the dividend with them and cutting their taxes? But oh no, this Labour Government will not do that. It now collects 50 percent more tax, in dollar of the day terms—

💬 Craig Foss: What?

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: —50 percent more tax than when it came into office just over 6 years ago. The Government is collecting half as much tax again as it collected then.

Dr Cullen says we cannot reduce taxes, and people earning $60,000 a year should pay our top tax rate—despite the fact that that rate cuts in far earlier than in almost any other OECD country. But what is absurd about it is this: Dr Cullen says on the one hand people on $60,000 a year are so wealthy that they should pay our top tax rate, yet on the other hand this Labour Government says those people are so poor that if they have three children they should receive in benefits a year, excluding the accommodation supplement, $6,752 of handouts. How can the Government say on the one hand that those people are so wealthy they should pay the top tax rate, and on the other hand, if they have three dependent children, they are so poor that we have to give them back more than $100 a week in benefits? That is absurd! The Government says those people are so wealthy that they must pay the top tax rate, yet it also says they are so poor that the Government is to give them over $6,700 a year in handouts and benefits. That is just absurd!

Do members know what one of the most disgusting things will be in tomorrow’s Budget? It is that the Working for Families package looks after New Zealanders who earn from about $40,000 to $60,000 or more of income a year, and who have kids. But the people who have really missed out, because Labour knew helping them would not buy it any more votes, are the women on the domestic purposes benefit earning $10,000 to $25,000 of income a year. Those women are trying to get off the domestic purposes benefit—and this rapacious Labour Government takes 92 percent of every extra dollar they earn. It has crapped on its own supporters.

Last weekend two significant events took place in this country. One took place at Upper Hutt; the other, somewhere else in New Zealand. One was a conference on justice issues run by the Prison Fellowship; the other was a regional conference of the National Party, where the leader, Don Brash, spoke on law and order. I will take the time to congratulate the organisers, Kim Workman and the Prison Fellowship, on their conference. They had a distinguished line-up of speakers, speaking on the very difficult issue of prison muster numbers in this country. Don Brash, on the other hand, was speaking to the party faithful—well, I guess they are at the moment; they soon may not be—and he was saying things like: “National supports the justice system.”, it “advocates”, it “supports”, it “believes”, it “knows”, and it “proposes a focus”. There was not one thing on policy or what National would do.

I have to go back to 2004 to look at National Party policy in this area. The policy at that time stated that National would abolish parole and would be prepared to accept 3,000 more prisoners going to prison—at a cost of about $1.5 billion of capital; $500 million a year. That policy comes from the party that we just heard Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith say would give tax cuts to everyone. I cannot reconcile that contradiction; neither can the wise people of New Zealand—neither can the people who spoke at this restorative justice conference, such as Dr Warren Young, Professor Pratt, Judge David Carruthers, and Bonnie Robinson from the Salvation Army. They are all learned people with a genuine commitment to try to move New Zealand ahead in this difficult area of corrections management.

I acknowledge that Simon Power came along to the conference, for a day. He was honest enough to admit that he did learn some things. I hope he takes that wise judgment back to his caucus and speaks to his leader, Dr Don Brash, to try to change his view in this area, although I do not hold out much hope—of course, I do not hold out much hope for Don Brash, either.

We are moving ahead as a Government in this area. We have a number of things going on, because it is embarrassing and shameful to have New Zealand locking people up at the second-highest rate in the Western World. This happens in a country where most of us know one another. We are 4 million people living in small communities, caring and looking after one another—or we should be.

There are some visionary people in the National Party. We do not hear from them often, though. We could take, for example, one Tau Henare. He knows that there are a lot of people in prison who do not actually belong in prison. Their crimes do not actually require that they should be locked up like the other prisoners. Don Brash tried to paint a picture of us letting people out of jails. We are not doing that. What we are proposing, and thinking and talking about, is that the 30 percent of people who are in prison for fewer than 12 weeks may better serve their penalty, and repay their debt to society and to victims, in ways other than just being locked up in expensive prisons. That is what we are talking about—and Tau Henare agrees with us.

Who else in the National Party agrees with us? Well, we have a very learned new member, who is not allowed to speak, from Marlborough. He too thinks we should have a fresh approach—along with all the people who were at that conference at Upper Hutt—not at the regional National Party conference, though, because people attending that conference were fed a load of garbage. Colin King, obviously, cannot have been at that conference, because he said: “I am not suggesting we go soft on crime, but argue that there is a problem when as a nation we lock up criminals at a rate second only to the United States.” He went on to say: “We must look at a totally new way of dealing with crime while still insisting that if you do the crime, you will do the time.” Well, I agree. Colin King, along with the Government, thinks that there should be a fresh way of looking at this problem.

💬 Simon Power: It’s hardly a revelation.

And I hope that Simon Power, Don Brash, and most of the people in the National Party who would like to see 3,000 more people locked up in prisons will look at the lessons coming from the conference in Upper Hutt, not from the National Party regional conference.

That was a public broadcast from Damien O’Connor, the Minister who is currently overseeing the construction of the “Milton Hilton” just south of Dunedin, which is the most expensive prison to be built in New Zealand’s history.

Tomorrow will be known forever more as the day of the Cunliffe Budget—the one that got away. It is the Budget that was to have a flagship announcement but that was leaked 3 weeks earlier by someone from within the Beehive. I read the documents put out by the State Services Commissioner, and, frankly, I say that the document actually begs more questions than it answers. The report requires one major question to be asked, which is how it happened at all. If one reads the document one can see it is clear that although the State Services Commissioner wants to make this look like an extremely simple chain of events, the reality is probably quite different.

Some aspects of the report are very, very strange indeed. My colleagues Bill English and Gerry Brownlee, who have spoken before me, covered some of the major issues, but I would like to turn to an exchange between the Minister of State Services, Annette King, and Mark Prebble. On 3 May, as a result of the leak, Annette King got on the phone and said to Mark Prebble that she wanted an inquiry. But what is very strange is that the Minister did not confirm this by letter until some 6 days after that. Her letter to Mark Prebble is dated 9 May. Some 6 days after the phone call the Minister confirmed the terms of reference and the nature of that discussion.

Members know that if Ministers want to turn round letters they can do so in a matter of minutes. That was not the case here, so I think the Minister needs to explain. The letter was not complex; it is only a couple of hundred words long, but attached to it are the terms of reference. What is strange is that Mark Prebble was quoting those terms of reference days earlier in correspondence with people on the subject. So obviously Mark Prebble has a photographic memory, or can recite text from an oral submission. It seems odd that he was able to have the terms of reference and act upon them before the Minister had formally given them to him. Surely the Minister or the ministerial office cannot forget to write a letter that confirms a discussion. What this says to me is that there was some sneaky little arrangement behind the scenes to not confirm the actual terms of reference and what would go on. I think the Minister needs to explain what the strategy was here, because it simply does not stack up that some 6 days later she chose to confirm the nature of that discussion.

One of the other points that I think is quite hilarious, though, is that when this issue of a leaked document was a matter of concern, David Cunliffe again put himself into the fray. At the time when all focus was on this one leaked document, David Cunliffe is subject to another paragraph in Mark Prebble’s report. Mark Prebble notes that again—for a second time—the document went missing and was found somewhat haplessly behind a photocopier. This can only indicate that David Cunliffe’s office was somehow in a state of chaos. One can imagine the flurry of documents being copied left, right, and centre. I do not know how someone manages to drop one extra copy down behind the photocopier, but that itself, although it may seem a small issue, is perhaps indicative of the way that office is being run. So while David Cunliffe is considering his new role as a market analyst/commentator he might like to think about how his office is being run.

This week we are seeing another charm offensive blown to bits—that is, the charm offensive that Trevor Mallard was trying to inflict on the business community. He was trying to look like a resurrected Minister who was interested in business issues. One speech actually had Trevor Mallard saying that we should celebrate wealth creators. If that is not a road to Damascus conversion, I do not know what is. But yesterday in the House we saw all of that blown to bits. Under pressure from questions from the Opposition, the Minister just blew to bits and decided that he would dish dirt, which is basically reverting to type.

The focus of our debate today is on leadership. After a week of Opposition bungling and botch-ups, I want to talk about another little starlet who is lurking in the leader’s shadow, and who the Opposition needs to be very mindful of. From dead man walking to Pākehā woman squawking—yes, I am talking about the actions of Judith Collins on the Korowai Manaaki Youth Justice North visit on 15 May. I was there, and I took deep offence at what I observed. I am talking about “Calamity Collins”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member must always refer to all members by their correct name.

I withdraw and apologise. I am talking about Judith Collins. The incident was no surprise to any of us in Government. The overt, deliberate, and stage-managed actions of that member, and her subsequent bathing in the media light, show a member who is absolutely desperate for power at any price.

We received an email on 4 May stating: “We agreed that the centres would be told we did not want a pōwhiri if women MPs were seated at the back. Has this been relayed to those organising the visit?”. Who agreed? It was not us. The issue never came to the select committee, and I personally would have taken offence at that suggestion. Members should be real about this. I knew there would be a pōwhiri; it was on the programme.

Since that member’s visit to Kelvin Road School, her stance has provoked healthy debate and plenty of attention. I met Maria Tiini, the Regional Director of Te Puni Kōkiri on 2 December after that incident to seek assurance that I, as a Pākehā woman MP in Rotorua, had never offended Te Arawa. I was advised of the difference between kawa and policy, and what happened at that Korowai Manaaki Youth Justice North visit was departmental policy. At that time we were not aware of the protocol on that marae. We were on a marae, and Judith Collins does not seem to understand that. Her attempts to negotiate or arrange protocol went terribly wrong. She tried to dictate where members could sit. Māori will adjust protocol if it is negotiated in good favour.

I ask members whether her actions were those of a role model for women. I think those in the National Party need to sit up and take notice. Mrs Collins is an example of everything that is wrong with the National Party. She shows two faces, she is inconsistent, and she is a reflection of the absolute lack of leadership and control in that caucus. Judith Collins was busting for a rumble that day. She was clumsily hiding behind the belief that she had organised the protocol. This was never going to be a no-surprises visit, and I have not spoken out until now. If Judith Collins cannot take the heat, she should get out of the kitchen. We stood outside the marae and she knew there would be a pōwhiri. Why did she not go away if she knew she was going to cause offence?

This is the self-same member who overstepped the line of decency with her David Benson-Pope allegations. It is the same Judith Collins who said to the Sunday Star-Times: “I’d often be in tears saying goodbye to the bobby calves. I couldn’t do it—I’m just a big softy wimp.” Well, her tears in our select committee were not those of a wimp; they were the tears of a woman with calamity all around her. That woman shed crocodile tears that day. Will the real woman express herself? Is this the woman who was relentless, ruthless, and determined in her exposure of David Benson-Pope and in her attempts to undermine Lianne Dalziel? We will not forget that. Bullies like to dish out dirt and abuse, but cannot take a challenge. There was no wimp there.

Referring back to the marae, whether boots were on or off was irrelevant to us. That member’s gloves were on, and when things turned to custard she went to the media and bleated. Judith Collins walked to the front and sat down absolutely deliberately, and she stuck to the chair like a piece of Velcro. Brownie Rauwhero has already spoken out. He was not at all upset about where she sat; he was absolutely upset about the MPs’ actions during a haka performed by children at the event, and that was what made him respond. He said that those children who came from troubled backgrounds were showing their mana and standing tall during that performance. Those women MPs let themselves and their colleagues down. It was a disgrace.

As we approach Budget day, the Māori Party has been asking questions of anyone who will listen as to whether the Budget will make a difference. Will tomorrow’s Budget improve the cultural, social, and economic wealth of the nation? A boom for whom? The irony is, of course, that although United Future, Progressive, the Greens, and New Zealand First have been asked for an input, Labour has deliberately ignored the fact, denied, or just plain forgotten, that tangata whenua may also have something worthy to contribute to the Budget. Why should we be surprised, when the Government produced a Budget last year that failed even to include the word “Māori”?

The Māori Party is committed to a true and accurate account of the economic picture of our nation, for the connection of truth and accuracy is particularly important. Whose truth are we telling if we are counting only part of the picture? How accurate can predictions be, if only a partial account of wealth is conveyed? The million-dollar question for all economists and analysts is why, if GDP is up, Aotearoa is so down. Why are we experiencing crippling rates of poverty, escalating trends of convictions, unprecedented growth in police numbers, and the breaking of all international records in child abuse and youth suicides? Where is the pleasure in evaluating the impact of new technologies if they are accompanied by jobless growth—growth of economic activity without any subsequent impact on employment rates?

Another riddle to stifle all laughter is that the more fossil fuels we burn and the more greenhouse gases we emit, the greater GDP grows. The problem is not with GDP per se. GDP was only ever intended as a measure of activity—as a quantitative count of the goods and services used to make the economy grow. One would think that no politician in his or her right mind would argue that higher poverty rates, dirty air, increased stress, or the loss of first language speakers are signs of a successful nation, yet that is exactly what GDP does. It measures the quantity of the fishing haul without even stopping to count the cost of the destruction of the seabed. It counts the profit of felling logs without assessing the damage to the eco-environment and measuring what is left behind. The Māori Party knows that just because one does not count something, that does not mean it does not count. The Māori Party also knows and believes that some of the things that are counted, as happens with GDP, do not count in making this society of ours a better place for all of us.

For years New Zealanders have watched MPs turn up to give certificates to community workers, talk about how much they value a safe neighbourhood, and praise the volunteer workforce who care for the elderly, the young, the sick, the poor, the vulnerable, and the lonely. Yet that volunteer work is never included in the national accounts. It is time to make a difference and to make it count. We need a dramatic shift in the political vocabulary to take account of all those who are locked out of the Budget, sidelined from the discussions, left behind, and alienated. That includes the Māori Party, which is the only independent Māori voice in this House.

Māori know better than most the impact of measuring things right. Tangata whenua live by kaupapa that remind us that if we are not caring for Papatūānuku, mother Earth, and if we are not feeding the wairua and sustaining our spiritual growth, then our mauri, our life force, will be compromised. We understand that the revival of te reo Māori, te reo rangatira, and the advancement of mātauranga, knowledge, will not only ensure the survival of the people as Māori but also increase our nation’s prosperity and cultural capital.

We know that indicators already exist, as stated in a social report of the Te Hoe Nuku Roa study undertaken at Massey University. That study assesses a range of quality outcomes that provide a wider assessment than GDP. Currently, these frameworks are seen only as interesting additions—add-ons—to conventional measures. While GDP is misused to represent far more than it was ever intended to, these social indicators are reserved in separate asides that can be pushed away. The Māori Party wants to bring to the core a framework of indicators that account for our human, social, and cultural assets, alongside our produced and manufactured wealth. At the centre of all our policy thinking is the genuine progress index as a measurement of our pathway to a truly healthy and prosperous society.

Tomorrow is Budget day. Tomorrow, New Zealand’s Bledisloe Cup” for economic growth, for well-being, and for keeping our best and brightest in the country will be gifted to Australia. The first half of the game came last week: the score was 4-0 to Australia, because Australia has had 4 years of tax cuts—$45 billion worth being the most recent announcement. But New Zealanders will get no personal tax cuts whatsoever tomorrow in the Budget. The “Bledisloe Cup” for competitiveness will again be gifted to Australia tomorrow. The World Competitiveness Index saw New Zealand fall in place from No. 16 to No. 22 and Australia move up from No. 9 to No. 6. We are losing to Australia again and again. The “Bledisloe Cup” for tax efficiency and GDP will again be gifted to Australia tomorrow. About 6 years ago Australian after-tax incomes were 20 percent higher than those in New Zealand. Come tomorrow they will be 33 percent higher—and that was before the recent Australian Budget.

I would like to talk about some numbers. So far, $2.6 billion worth of wealth and confidence has been lost since Cabinet started leaking and the Minister of Communications started speaking. For those who have invested in Telecom over the past few months, $2.14 per share has been lost. Another number is $200 million, which is the amount that was knocked off the wealth of New Zealanders with investments in Telecom, because the Minister of Communications decided that he knew best how to run the dividend policy for New Zealand’s largest listed company.

The Minister of Communications and the Prime Minister just could not help themselves. Every time they opened their mouths, decided they knew best, and decided to share their business acumen and wide-ranging commercial and real-world experience with the New Zealand public, the share price of Telecom dropped another 20c or 30c. There is a great saying in the financial markets that “the trend is your friend”. If the Prime Minister and the Minister had just shut up, perhaps New Zealanders would have been able to avoid some of those losses.

The invoices for Cabinet’s leaks and for Labour’s incompetence and incredible commercial naivety are about to be sent out to New Zealanders. They will arrive over the next few days when broker share statements and valuations are sent to those people who have been trying to save for their retirement and build up nest eggs. Trusts and charities that had been doing the right thing will have to pay about 20 percent of what they thought their Telecom investments were worth, because Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking.

Those numbers—$200 million, $2.6 billion—are huge, so for those listening on the radio, let me bring it down to pretty simple numbers. For someone who had about $1,000 worth of Telecom shares a few months ago, before Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking, those shares are now worth about $800. That is a loss of about $200. For those who had started to build up a bit of a nest egg for retirement and who had about $10,000 of Telecom shares a few months ago, those shares—after Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking—are now worth $8,000, which is a loss of $2,000.

For goodness’ sake, we in the Finance and Expenditure Committee have spent the last two meetings talking about KiwiSaver. Well, what is the point when the Minister has recently shown such incompetence in absolutely annihilating what good Kiwis have tried to save? Kiwis were just trying to do the right thing; they were just trying to save.

Let us have a little look at this hall of shame of incompetence and incredible commercial naivety. First of all, the Minister apparently dropped a confidential, very sensitive Cabinet paper behind a photocopier, and it ended up in a smoko room. Well, let us think that through for a moment. It also begs the question, once we finally deal with this issue, of what other confidential papers may be lurking behind unsuspecting photocopy machines around the Cabinet Office. Adding to our list, after the Minister leaked he held a press conference and gave the press a statement that fessed up, a little bit. But it showed his incredible naivety. He is totally oblivious of how the financial markets work. He said that the New Zealand market was closed—quite correct—but that the Australian market was still open. Australians were still trading Telecom shares! The list of shame gets longer by the day.

For those listening who may be confused by the speeches they have heard this afternoon, we can confirm that National will, of course, vote for the telecommunications package that it has spent the whole general debate opposing.

I start by saying how nice it was to hear Katherine Rich speaking in the general debate. Katherine Rich, who is so often muzzled by her own party—in the fear that she might say something liberal—often has very good things to say, and I welcome her back to speaking in the House.

It has not been a very good couple of weeks for the Opposition. It started with Judith Collins deciding that standing up for herself at a pōwhiri and sitting in the front row would win votes for the National Party. I was on the Social Services Committee in the last term, and I visited youth justice facilities. It is not like going to the head office of the Inland Revenue Department. For the troubled young people who are there it is their home. The people who run those facilities do a lot of preparation and make quite an effort, and I cannot imagine how difficult it is for them to organise those young people into doing a formal pōwhiri. They make a considerable effort to teach young people the values and traditions behind those customs. So when people go to such places they know they will not always do so on their terms.

I cannot believe the arrogance of Judith Collins, who thinks she can put up a challenge like that during a pōwhiri and not expect the challenge to be given back to her by the kaumātua. It was fine that she put up the challenge—that was her decision—but then she cried and huffed off with her handbag because the kaumātua stood up and challenged her straight back by saying that he was insulted. To describe her behaviour would be to use a word that we are not allowed to use in the House. I say to Judith Collins that she might want to explain why she is allowed to be offended by having to sit in the second row at a pōwhiri, but a kaumātua is not allowed to be offended by the way in which she chooses to demonstrate her opposition to that. If Judith Collins was speaking up for Māori women everywhere, then why was it that the Māori women at the pōwhiri were the most upset and offended by what she did? [Interruption] Yes, Judith Collins is a really good feminist—she is really big on that!

Is it not interesting how Judith Collins was muzzled? During the first question time after that hearing of the Social Services Committee, a question from Judith Collins to Georgina Beyer, the chair of the Social Services Committee, was pulled. Judith Collins was muzzled—and muddled. It just goes to show how divided the National caucus is. All its members are on their own paths and doing their own thing.

Simon Power constantly goes on about New Zealanders needing to have confidence in the police force. I say to Mr Power that he should stop running it down. He is the biggest critic of the police force—often unfairly. He is always in the media running it down, and then he complains about how people do not have confidence in it. I tell members that after Mr Ron Mark’s contribution we had a phone call from Mrs Cammell in Naenae, who is listening to the debate. She said she is delighted with the announcement of $500 million for extra police. Her son is joining the police force this month, and he is living his dream. That is what this Budget will be about: real issues facing real New Zealanders.

Telecommunications is only one issue that National has backed down on. When the package was announced, Maurice Williamson came up with the position that we all expected the National Party to take, which was that it did not support it. Then, all of a sudden, it flip-flopped and now it does support the package. We have just heard a number of speeches that said how bad the package was, but we have also heard that the National Party not only will vote for the bill going to the select committee but, according to Mr Williamson, probably will vote for it progressing all the way to completion.

I turn to tax cuts. We finally have recognition of what Labour was saying all through the election campaign, which was that the tax cuts that National was promising would not be affordable, and that when it got to try to implement them it would have to cut social services. We have had a press release from Dr Brash saying that National would review its tax policy: “We probably can’t afford to do what we said before the election.”

Regarding race relations, who knows where the National Party stands on the issue of the Māori seats? Prior to the election it was all for getting rid of them. After the election Mr Brownlee said he was not really sure. Now National members are saying they are standing firm on that one. New Zealanders are no clearer on where National stands on race relations, particularly following the muzzling of Judith Collins after the pōwhiri debacle.

I turn to relations with the United States. The National Party now supports the nuclear-free policy that it is was so adamant it did not support—until it realised that the public supported it. It is no wonder that New Zealanders have no idea about not only what the National Party stands for but whether its members are rowing in the same direction. Don Brash’s days are numbered.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.