General Debate

Can I just follow on from my honourable colleague here to say to Mrs Collins that we are more than happy, at any time today, tomorrow, the day after, or the day after that, to receive that name. If the member has that name, she has a duty to give it to us. She tells us she has that doctor’s name, and the Minister for Social Development and Employment will welcome receiving that so we can deal with that. She is an honourable member; she will undoubtedly take the step of giving us that name.

Following the departure of Mr Don Brash from the leadership of the National Party the warring factions of the National Party came together, a little like a blended family, under the civil union leadership of Bill English and Mr John Key. In the early days it looked a bit like a rerun of The Waltons. Mr Williamson, of course, is nodding; I know he is a fan of The Waltons, and he could see that the outbreak of peace in the National camp was exactly what he was after. But we all know that after a little while all that blending starts to pay its price, reality starts to bite, and people have to live up to what they are being asked to do.

For example, National Party members have been asked what they will do, and amazingly they have told us. And they have told us! We have Mr Groser, Mr Foss, and Mr Ryall. We have Jacqui Blue, we have Jo Goodhew, we have Chris Tremain, we have Colin King, we have John Hayes, and we have people one did not even know were in the National Party. We have John Carter, we have David Bennett, Mark Blumsky, Nathan Guy, and Bob Clarkson—there are pages and pages of promises to spend money, from National Party members. Every time they are asked what they will do, they rack up yet another multimillion-dollar promise from the tax-cutting National Party.

Now this is something the leadership could not allow to carry on. As civil union leaders, they knew they could not be outdone by all the promises coming from virtually every sector of the party—unknown people rushing in to promise roads, art galleries, education spending, and whatever they could lay their hands on. So, of course, we have watched Mr Key and Mr English do the same. One promises huge tax cuts; one says we should not have tax cuts. One says: “I don’t think we like the Working for Families.”; the other says: “We do.” Someone does not like the KiwiSaver, but says: “We are now promised; we will have it.” Someone says: “The loan system was the most evil, nasty thing to do.”, but then says: “We’ll have it, after all.”

This is the one that most upset Mr Williamson: State housing—the thing that Mr Williamson said should be sold off because people should just buy their own house. He has had to eat the dead rat, because the other National Party members say they like the rental policy and like State houses. Mr Williamson quite reasonably wriggles in his seat as though he has been hit by a hail of something—policies, no doubt, from all around him—as he realises that he is going to have to carry on eating that rat. People like Tim Groser over there have to eat their foreign policy; it is embarrassing for someone of his sophistication to hear Mr Key wrecking the foreign trade policy of the National Party. Mr Hutchison, who is very aggrieved that he is not the health spokesperson, watches Mr Ryall do his job. Mr Brownlee is very bitter that he is not in the civil union; he is just the head boy in the family these days.

The list of people who are disgruntled goes on and on, but it has been highlighted by Sue Bradford’s bill. Congratulations should go to the National Party for seeing a compromise—well done! But let us look at the process. This is the party that said one should not be whipped on this issue. We see it has now been whipped on the issue. This is the party that said it was well run by Mr English, who said that his strength was not marketing, that that was John Key’s strength, but that he had the experience in policy and government. There was no consultation. The entire front bench—Mrs Collins over there is virtually foaming in the mouth at her opposition to the “Bradford bill”; people are just about killing themselves. Mrs Bennett over there sent out 19,000 letters and got 400 replies, and on the basis of that non-statistical sample said: “I’ve got proof”—she was grasping at straws here—“so I can change my mind now.” So she changed from supporting the bill to being against it, and then a minute later—no consultation, nobody asked her, nobody asked “Is it all right?”—National whips said: “I’m sorry Paula Bennett, you’re going to have to vote for it now.” This is the kind of thing that we know blended families find very, very difficult to cope with, and that is why the National Party is falling to pieces.

Just in case anyone missed it, that speaker was the Hon Steve Maharey. He has a kind of reverse Midas touch, that guy. Everything Midas touched turned to gold; everything Maharey touches turns to—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Don’t say it; it’s rude.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: OK, I will not say it, because it is rude. If we look what he did to tertiary education, we see he stuffed it—and I shudder to think about what he is going to do now to the school system, as the Minister of Education. In listening to his contribution just now, did we hear him say he cares about the fact that Australians, after the Australian Budget, are now to receive more after-tax income? Since Labour has been in office here in New Zealand, the average Australian’s income has gone up by almost twice as much as the average New Zealander’s. The average Australian’s after-tax income has gone up by 33.6 percent since Labour has been in office here, while the average after-tax income in New Zealand has gone up by 18.9 percent.

What is happening to the exodus from New Zealand to Australia? Is it going up or going down? Would David Benson-Pope like to tell us that? I bet he would not, because it is going up hugely. Just a couple of years ago the net exodus was under 10,000 New Zealanders a year, and last year it was 22,000—a net exodus of 22,000 of our good Kiwis who went off to Australia. Does anyone blame them for going there, when after-tax incomes in Australia are going up more and more relative to those in New Zealand, because of the inept economic management of this Labour Government? New Zealand is not a worse, dumber place than Australia; it is a better place than Australia. It is just that the appallingly bad economic management of this Labour Government is killing New Zealanders. There is no opportunity here. That is why they are going to Australia.

Dr Cullen is now so absolutely devoid of economic nous that he has given up; he has now asked the Finance and Expenditure Committee to give him advice on how to manage the economy. There is a serious problem. If one looks at what is going on right now in New Zealand’s economy, one sees that we are towards the bottom of a growth cycle. Economic growth in the last year was under 2 percent—under 2 percent in real GDP growth. We are towards the bottom of a growth cycle, yet capacity utilisation in our economy is very high. That means we cannot get higher growth without inflation. The Reserve Bank knows that, so under the Labour Government’s policies, the Reserve bank is having to tighten monetary policy. It is putting interest rates up, and, of course, the exchange rate is going up as international money seeks higher yields, and our exporters are haemorrhaging. Dr Cullen has no idea how to fix that up. He wants the Finance and Expenditure Committee to give him some answers to that problem, which he has created through his inept management.

I was at a seminar at Treasury just 8 days ago. The New Zealand Treasury put on a seminar, which was presented under the auspices of Treasury by Dr Roderick Deane. They presented us with some data about what has been happening to productivity growth in New Zealand under this Labour Government. During the 1990s—during the term of the last National Government—from 1992 to 2000 productivity growth was at 2.3 percent per year. Since Labour has been in office, from 2000 to 2006 it has dropped to only one-third of that level of productivity growth—down to 0.7 percent. This year the latest data on productivity growth has it down at 0.4 percent—almost zero. That is one of the biggest problems that Dr Cullen faces. What has Dr Cullen done to this economy to so screw it that under his and this Government’s policies, productivity growth has dropped from 2 percent annually—which is not too bad; under that we would see New Zealanders’ incomes start to go back up towards the OECD average—to productivity growth of 0.4 percent, which is almost zero?

The causes of the decline in productivity growth that we were presented with at that seminar at Treasury were clear. There is an excessive regulatory burden. Business New Zealand tells us there have been more than 2,000 extra regulations since Labour has been in office. The regulations are such that the building of houses is now starting to fall behind demand. So, not surprisingly, house prices are going up. There is infrastructure inadequacy. When it takes one-third more trucks and drivers to get the same product to the market, one has real problems. This Government has real economic problems.

It was an extraordinary thing for Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith to make pejorative remarks about the Hon Steve Maharey, the Minister of Education. Everybody in this House knows and remembers Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith’s unseemly exit via a window in front of thousands of upset students. That is what they did to that member as a Minister of Education; they chased him out of office. He has been out of office for a long time, and, on the basis of that speech, he will not be back into office for a long, long time.

There are obvious cracks in the leadership of the National Party—internal cracks, external cracks, and cracks in policy. The internal cracks are quite profound. We have had the ignominious situation of all the National members in this House being lined up by the voice of one person, John Key, about a decision; there was no consultation whatsoever. National Party members are muttering around the country that they have been betrayed. They are angry. They are upset. They did not agree with the decision, but they did not want to overturn the leader of the National Party this time. But this is a festering, burning sore within the National Party. There is no leadership without taking one’s team with one.

On the policy and external front, it was very interesting to see an article in the Independent a short time ago, quoting a business person in Auckland as saying that Bill English had turned up and told the business group there that the National Party would do whatever it takes to get into Government next time, and that it would say whatever people wanted to hear to get into office. We have many examples of that. People hear one thing from the National Party, then if we change the audience we hear a different story. If we change the day, then we hear a different policy. If we change the week, then the issue changes. Every time there is a change by the National Party. There is no consistency. It is, quite simply, a case of whatever it takes.

The National Party has fallen into the trap that politicians from time to time fall into when they do not have policy. They identify trouble where there is not any, they diagnose it incorrectly, and they apply the wrong remedy. Nothing could be a better example of that than John Key’s speech to the North Island conference, in which he identified as one of his ten points the Employment Relations Act. He said that National was going to make changes to the Act. His speech ignored the issues and the evidence that showed the Employment Relations Act is working very well. It ignored the fact that unemployment has fallen dramatically. It ignored the fact that the number of days lost through industrial action has fallen dramatically. It ignored the fact that the number of people in vocational training and apprenticeships has gone up. But what National’s John Key was interesting in doing, because he had an old-fashioned audience, was to apply the remedies of the last decade to the problems of our century.

Let us get some facts on the table. When National was last in office unemployment was rising dramatically and unstoppably; 161,000 people were dumped on to the scrapheap of despair, with no hope and no opportunity. Today we have 28,845 people around New Zealand on the unemployment benefit; that is a difference of 132,000—approximately the population of Hawke’s Bay.

We also have a dramatic change in youth unemployment. The National Party says that it is interested in young people, but that it wants to change the 90-day rule to make the conditions of employment for young people much weaker. It says it is concerned about young people, but the National Government took away from them the very opportunity to train themselves and to get the skills to enter the modern economy. The Labour Government repealed the Employment Contracts Act. The National Government sacked all of the provisions for vocational training. The Labour Government has reinstated the apprenticeship system and invested heavily in vocational training, and it shows. In 1999 there were approximately 16,000 young people aged 18 to 19 on the unemployment benefit. Today there are 1,500. That is a reduction of 90 percent in the number of young people on the unemployment benefit. That is directly attributable to the policies of this Government.

National members try to say that the improvements are luck. Well, I say to National members, it is like the words of the great golfer the Great White Shark, Greg Norman, who said the harder he tried, the more he practised, and the harder he worked, then the luckier he got. This Government is working at reducing unemployment and giving opportunities to all New Zealanders. The National Party is also advocating Work for the Dole; it wants the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income to run around trying to get make-believe jobs. The Labour Party says it wants to get people into jobs that are real jobs. That shows a difference in attitude.

The National Party flip-flops on different issues. It said years ago that it would get rid of 4 weeks’ annual leave. Dr Lockwood Smith asks why so many people are leaving for Australia. I say to Dr Lockwood Smith that one of the reasons they are going to Australia is for 4 weeks’ annual leave. The National Party opposes 4 weeks’ annual leave here for New Zealanders. Australia also has savings schemes. Labour brings in the KiwiSaver scheme. What does the National Party do? It says it is opposed to it.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. In a period of crisis, people pull together to find a pathway forward. Me kimi i te ara tōtika hei oranga mō te ao—seek the right path to benefit your world. In Wanganui the local newspaper and district council have stood up to host this coming Friday a Love This Place public rally. In that same town the Black Power president has called out for people to come forward and take full responsibility for the crisis that resulted in the death of a 2-year-old child. We must exercise that same calm approach, that commitment to solutions, as we in this House exercise judgment over how best to respond to the gang drive-by shooting in Wanganui that killed Jhia Harmony Te Tua. I join with all members of this House in condemning this horrific event. The outrage that has been expressed throughout the country is testimony to the fact that New Zealanders are no longer prepared to accept gang warfare. I stand alongside those calling for that Mongrel Mob chapter to give up the actual perpetrators responsible for this shooting to the police.

But what of a way forward from here? How can we stop gangs from taking up arms in the public arena against other gangs? It is not about a magic solution that we strip these guys of their insignia, and gangs will willingly seek to address the actual offending they commit. A law banning patches will not work; neither will aggressive policing that will simply serve to drive gang activities underground. I deeply regret the shooting of Jhia Harmony Te Tua. A young life has been taken, and that cannot be replaced.

But I also regret the shooting because gangs, for the first time in 37 years, have begun meeting together to determine the means by which they can co-exist without violence. After years of continual fighting, these meetings constitute a major breakthrough in the culture of gang conflict. Responding initially to the charge that they themselves were responsible for establishing the culture of street violence, which has now been adopted by the new youth street gangs, these traditional groups gathered together to consider how they might cooperate to eliminate violence. Leaders representing such gangs as Black Power, the Mongrel Mob, the King Cobras, Highway 61, Hells Angels, the Storm Troopers, and many others, sat side by side in the same room in discussion about how to initiate change.

This is an opportunity we cannot ignore. A strategy to assist gangs to discard their violent activities is required by us. We have here a real chance to make a difference. Even if some form of utu—retaliation—for the Wanganui shooting follows, I believe we have turned a corner on the culture of gang fighting and we must follow this up with a well-thought-out plan involving the community, the agencies, police, and the gangs themselves.

In the mid to late 1970s when gang warfare was at its worst, with a killing happening every week in some town or other in New Zealand, we began a process of creating work programmes for two of the most notorious gangs. Working with Auckland mayors, we created 71 jobs for one gang in the west of the city, and 50 jobs for another gang in the east of the city. Gang hits immediately decreased and ultimately ceased between these two groups.

We cannot let this opportunity pass. If we work with these leaders and others in supporting their desire to bring their children up in a non-violent environment, we will effect change. It will take time to enrol all branches—all chapters—in these programmes, but I feel the door is open for meaningful intervention. I urge all members to support this proposal, this idea. For close to 40 years now we have not been able to crack gang violence. Now gang leaders themselves, for the first time, want to eliminate this violence. That to me is a major, major move forward that we cannot afford to turn our back on. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

We know things are in trouble for Opposition members when they lack ideas and they cannot inspire people in the direction they are going. We know things are really in trouble for Opposition members when they go around and reconnect with communities that they ignored. They are there to listen, but they have no solutions. We know things are in trouble when the Leader of the Opposition sets out to oppose the Government on an issue like the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act, then right at the eleventh hour he changes his mind by himself, without consulting his caucus.

The public know that things are not good for the Opposition. They also know that despite the verbiage coming from members on that side of the House, it is actually a very difficult time for the National Party. In a sense, although National members are trying to propose a way forward on particular issues, they take positions where there are definite flip-flops. National members say one thing, then they mean another thing. What do we do? That is the kind of scenario we are faced with when we listen to the types of things coming out of the National Party.

I think National members are in trouble and that we should take a good, hard look at what they really mean—not just at what they say, but at what lies behind it. So far the U-turns made by National actually put at risk what New Zealanders want. New Zealanders want certainty, direction, and vision. New Zealanders want people who say what they mean and do it. They also want people who are going to deliver, and that is what they get with this Government.

There has been a lot of contribution in the general debate today on all sorts of things. I will pick up on just one aspect of the debate, referred to by the previous speaker, and that is youth crime. On the issue of flip-flops from the National Party, I have picked up from my own local community newspaper an article in which David Bennett has said that he blames Government inaction in the face of increasingly popular youth gangs for the huge surge in Waikato youth crime.

However, in that same article Hamilton police themselves have said that they do not know where Mr Bennett got his figures from. Why? It is because Hamilton is probably a model community in that we have had the Family Violence Intervention Programme, family safety teams, and youth offending teams. The community is working together in a constructive way—in a real way—to tackle the issues of youth crime, youth violence, and making a difference in the lives of young people so that they can make positive choices.

When people go off half-baked on an issue about which they do not have a full set of facts, that is the kind of thing that critically affects good work being done at a community level. Their comments on those issues put at risk the credibility of the good work being done at a community level to tackle the hard issues, and that is the type of thing I am talking about.

When we look to make a difference in the community on some really difficult things, everybody in our community knows that it is not just about the Government; it is about the Government working successfully across other agencies, with the community, in partnership for change. These are the types of positive successes that this Government contributes to. We just cannot have the types of shallow statistics, not supported by evidence, that are put up by members like David Bennett in a way that undermines the work being done.

If we really look at the issue of youth crime and at making a real difference, we know that busy hands matter. That is really important. If we get people into education, keep them in there, and get them into work and employment, then we know that that fundamentally makes a difference.

When the Labour-led Government came into power in 1999, in my own community in Huntly 849 people were on the unemployment benefit. In fact, if members know my region very well, they will know that between Huntly and Ngāruawāhia we skewed the overall statistics of the region. So there had to be a deliberate response in terms of providing sustainable employment options. These are also the communities where people would say there are hard issues. In 2006, in that same community, we have only 164 people on the unemployment benefit.

That is the type of change this Government is delivering on. It is not just about words; it is supported by doing, by action.

Last weekend John Key, the leader of the National Party, laid out 10 priorities for the next National-led Government of New Zealand. These are forward-looking priorities designed to take New Zealand as a country forward again. Today I want to focus on four of those priorities.

The first priority is National’s ongoing commitment to tax reform. This is not a one-off gain. This is a competitive issue in the global economy, and we are committed to ongoing and comprehensive tax reform—not opening up the chequebook when enough pressure builds up, for electoral reasons, to focus on some politically selected target group.

The second priority of Mr Key’s 10 priority points was a commitment to a sustained long-term programme of reinvestment in this country’s infrastructure. Following the highly successful fiscal consolidation of the early 1990s, which has been sustained in New Zealand now for some time, we have the basis to do that. We are like a company that has invested too little in its future, possibly because of an intense cash-flow problem at some point. We have got beyond that point. Now is the time for sustained commitment to investment in our future and in the infrastructure that this country needs to give it a decent future.

The third key point that I wish to focus on is National’s sustained commitment to rolling back regulatory creep in this country. John Key has outlined a number of issues, including, of course, the headline matter of the Resource Management Act, but we are looking at something much more profound than that. The basic point that people quote about New Zealand being an easy country to do business in is usually based on World Bank studies or similar studies that are designed for developing countries, where it is incredibly difficult sometimes to get the approvals necessary to start businesses. In New Zealand, thank goodness, thanks to earlier regulatory reforms, it is actually very straightforward to establish a business—as all the members of this House know. The problem, as one of my business friends put it, is that it may be very easy to start a business but it is very difficult sometimes to do anything with that business when it has been started. We are going to attack that; that is the third key priority point.

The fourth priority point that I wish to focus on is National’s commitment to a sensible spending track, going forward. The core public services that New Zealand wants and values will be sustained, but we will cut down on some of the obvious absurdities and massive waste that we have seen in the public service in the last 8 years.

💬 Steve Chadwick: Tell us about it!

The member wants me to tell her about it—OK. Let us start with some of the more spectacularly silly examples. Let us start with the 145 State houses that are worth in excess of $1 million. Or let us start, if members want to look at housing, with the fact that 9 percent more houses have been taken on by the State in the last 6 years but there has been a 42 percent increase in Housing New Zealand Corporation’s staff numbers. That is completely inexplicable.

But let us not muck around with small numbers like $150 million. If Labour members really want me to give them examples of massive waste, I will remind them about the $1.1 billion in failed maintenance payments that the taxpayers of this country have to front up with because of a completely inadequate attempt to recover this money. In each of the last 3 years, the Labour Government has acquired $55 million of this $1.1 billion back through weak recovery attempts. A massive amount of money is owed to the people who are supporting this Government.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: And you would do what?

If the member sits and listens, he will hear that I am going through a variety of examples. They keep asking me for examples. I keep coming up with them and they keep asking me for more, so I will give them some more.

There is the $250 million overexpenditure on the NH90 helicopters. The original estimates given by the Government were between $400 million and $500 million, and the final figure coming in is a quarter of a billion dollars above that—enough to build the last Auckland hospital—due to the completely inadequate attention on the part of the Government to a crucial element of cost control. When we come to further examples of waste and gross political mismanagement, we see the incredible attempt to convert a $500 million profit into a $1.1 billion carbon debit.

What a tragic spectacle Opposition members have been today. They have been looking over the Ditch lustfully at how much more money people earn over in Australia, and how much better conditions are there. Things that are happening in New Zealand today must drive Opposition members absolutely crazy.

Out of the 10 new priorities that John Key announced last weekend, not one of them is new. We heard about a sensible spending track. Let us go back to the sensible spending track of the 1990s, when numbers of nurses and doctors were cut, when hospitals were being closed down, and when little hospitals like the one at Taupō had hands around the hospital from the entire community. This Government announced just last week that we are spending $25 million to rebuild Taupō Hospital. I ask members to remind themselves of some of those things when we talk about a sensible spending track.

We then heard about regulatory reform. I wonder whether members opposite are aware of the work that the Minister of Commerce is doing about regulatory review in small businesses. Ministry officials are going around the small-business community of New Zealand, getting the ideas, and implementing the ideas of those working parties—today; it is going on now. So we wonder what National members will actually deliver on rather than announcing the rhetoric of 10 big promises.

Tax reform was another one mentioned. Well, people should wait for the Budget next week. All sorts of work is going on regarding tax reform with the Hon Peter Dunne and Michael Cullen. Some things are driving Opposition members crazy because they are under way now. Poor old Nick Smith thought he had got climate change right. He was gazumped just this week by David Parker, who has brought out an actual carbon trading regime and is not just talking about it. That has been given a time frame.

Other things that are happening are the unemployment trends, where rates of unemployment have been down consistently since 1999. This must drive the Opposition members absolutely crazy, because they are the real things that are happening. They are measured too by measures for unemployment. They are going on now.

Today we heard the member Judith Collins talking about sickness and invalids benefits. She beat up on them, and blamed the doctors for not properly managing those clients. She implied that doctors are signing sickness beneficiary forms incorrectly. That is simply appalling! To beat up on the doctors is not a good look for the Opposition.

I will talk about the debate on section 59 of the Crimes Act we had last week. We heard such cant and rhetoric from the Opposition—and it was not missed by New Zealand women voters. The Opposition has been working quite hard to find out how to get the votes of women, but we women will always remember the words of Judith Collins: “I ask the people in the Labour Government who are shouting out whether they were ever smacked as a child. Were their parents criminals? I tell them that my parents are not criminals and I am not a criminal. I smacked my child and I am … proud of it, …”.

💬 Jill Pettis: Who said that?

It was Judith Collins. She is one of the women who is now very unhappy with the decision of John Key. Without consulting Judith Collins—in fact, without consulting any of the National caucus members—John Key made what was quite a pragmatic decision. But it is always very good to ask one’s colleagues whether they are walking with one.

So we are seeing some real splits and divisions in the Opposition—especially when Bill English knows that this has probably lost the Opposition the chance of a good run at the election next year. He knows about pragmatic politics. He knows about politics, and he knows that National Party members are not happy that this deal was done.

Members of that party are certainly not happy. We heard about Paula Bennett flip-flopping away—and women notice that, too. Her charade of consulting her community when she came under pressure was not a good look. Then, at the last minute, she caved in. I admire Katherine Rich; she did not cave in.

Poor old Colin King spoke about the amendment that National members were having to support collectively and that they had been whipped into supporting. For all that those members told Labour members that we were whipped, we knew our minds and had made them up as a party much earlier, and we stuck to our guns the whole way through. Colin King said it was a hollow victory for National and that people could say that National members had sold their souls. After John Key tried to claim all the credit, Colin King described the debate on the amendment as pontificating and ego-stroking about achievement.

There were a couple of telling points in the speech made by the previous speaker, Steve Chadwick. The first one was that she said the Opposition was going crazy. I can tell members that on the Opposition side of the House we are going crazy—over the issue of gangs and the total inaction coming from the Government side of the House.

Opposition members are also going crazy over the fact that Annette King, the Minister of Police, until today has refused to make any comment about the gang problem at all, citing that it is an operational issue. I went to look at a lot of the questions that Annette King has answered since she has been Minister of Police. I saw she has answered questions on everything from the number of burglaries to the number of annual leave hours taken in Nightcaps to whether she supports the police car pool in Horowhenua. Yet she says that the issue of gangs is an operational issue and that she will not make any comment. It is the No. 1 issue in her portfolio, so at least today she made a few comments.

The second thing is that the previous speaker said there would be something in the Budget for tax reform. Well, who was the first person she paid tribute to? It was Peter Dunne, not Michael Cullen—because we all know that he is agreeing to that only through clenched teeth. If it had not been for Peter Dunne, there probably would not be anything in there.

If people look at the whole issue of the 20 free hours’ early childhood education policy, they will see that it is an interesting example of how to spend $140 million without pleasing anybody. There is not one group or one organisation that is happy with the 20 free hours policy, and that is a result of its mismanagement by Minister Steve Maharey. He will go down in New Zealand history for being the one person who has made a once-proud, free kindergarten movement into one that now charges fees.

We have seen the kindergarten associations up and down the country say they will be moving from charging families what is supposedly a donation of $60 a term, here in Wellington, to up to $60 a week. In Southland the situation is worse. Parents who are being asked to pay $100 a term could be asked to pay $100 a week. The Minister can have an academic argument about what constitutes a donation, but I would tell him that the effect on families’ pockets is the same.

What an interesting weekend the Minister had, his having given us a window into his thinking and into how he really feels about private provision in the early childhood sector. We saw from his comments that he does not like the private sector, at all. He said his officials would be trawling through the annual accounts of certain private providers to see whether shareholders were making a return, and if they were making a return, then the Government would question whether the Government subsidies were appropriate. What a clear message to private providers that is. Why would any mum and dad investors look at setting up a private early childhood centre when Government members are saying that there will be no return for their investment and that they will barely be able to pay their bills?

This Government has forgotten that had there not been such a huge growth in private provision, Labour members would be in dire straits, because working families up and down the country would not be able to get their kids into care. Some 60 percent of the education and care part of the New Zealand early childhood provisions is provided by the private sector, and it does that well.

The Minister had huge egg on his face, because he started talking about some of the corporate chains. What he forgot, of course, was that one of those firms is listed on the New Zealand stock exchange. So as a result of the Minister’s embarrassing gaffe, he has now been embroiled in a situation where he has been forced to be part of a formal statement to the New Zealand stock exchange, because on Monday, as a result of his ill-judged comments to the Sunday Star-Times, the share price for Kidicorp dropped significantly—by 17 percent in just 24 hours. It just shows how commercially naive that Minister is, and how he fails to understand the make-up of the early childhood sector.

Of course, the Minister tells us he dreams that the sector will be more like the compulsory sector—whatever that means. Does that mean we will have big classrooms, little choice, and little variation in teaching practices? One of the strengths of our early childhood sector is its vibrancy, its choice, and its ability to provide a better service than a one-size-fits-all model can. So the Minister, through his veiled threats to private providers, has been forced to make an embarrassing back-down and he should apologise to Kidicorp immediately.

I make a contribution to the debate today by saying how proud I am to be a member of a Government that actually delivers on its promises. Since the election of our Government in 1999, people have known what we stand for. People understand our programme, which is based on prosperity, openness, and fairness. The problem for members opposite is that nobody actually knows what the National Party stands for these days.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: It changes every 2 minutes.

That is right; it changes every 2 minutes, as Ruth Dyson says. But I am not talking just about National’s policy flip-flops that other speakers have mentioned today in respect of keeping the mechanism of Working for Families, supporting 4 weeks’ annual leave, keeping New Zealand nuclear-free, and now, we understand, adopting our interest-free student loan policy. It was interesting, though, to stand on platforms during the election campaign and hear how bad those policies would be for New Zealand from National Party members. It was depressing to sit there listening to a litany of new-right thinking during those election campaign meetings.

We were told that Working for Families would be middle-class welfare and that it would be a terrible thing that would sap people’s sense of self-reliance—never mind that it has been done in the UK, and that John Howard’s Government is doing exactly the same thing in Australia; the same mechanism is being adopted in comparable liberal and social democracies. National candidates were telling us during the election campaign that it was a terrible thing, just as 4 weeks’ annual leave would bankrupt all the employers around the country, and be a terrible thing for the economy that would bring New Zealand down. Well, now National is adopting that policy, as well. National members said that maintaining a nuclear-free New Zealand would freeze relationships with the United States forever, that it would be a terrible set-back for our foreign policy, and that we would never recover from it. But now that policy has been adopted by National. Of course, National members said that the interest-free student loan policy would bankrupt Treasury, and that it was simply vote-buying by Labour—intergenerational theft was one expression that was used at a meeting I was present at.

Well, in a way I am glad that these policies are now being adopted by the National Party, because they are good policies for New Zealand.

The student loan policy, the latest one to be adopted by National, is a good way to bring young Kiwis back to New Zealand after they have done their OEs. That policy has cost less than it was budgeted for, as opposed to the wild predictions that were made about its cost. It has actually been a very sensible policy, and I congratulate National on adopting it—and I do so in respect of those other progressive policies that are good for New Zealand.

But there is a problem for the National Party if it is trying to shrug off its image as the nasty party. As I said at the outset, no one actually knows what the National Party stands for. It was interesting to hear Bill English talk about taking a tough line on spending. He is doing that while other members are promising to spend up large because it is what they think people in their electorates want to hear.

I was also interested to hear Tim Groser talk about John Key’s 10 points for the future direction of the National Party. We heard only four of them, but it is instructive to look at them. First, there was the ongoing commitment to tax reform and not opening the cheque book. But, at the same time, principle No. 3 is all about a commitment to sensible spending. I want to know how one reconciles those two policies. What about policy No. 2—a sustained commitment to infrastructure? Well, one can either spend or cut taxes; it is very difficult to do both. This is what the electorate found out about National’s policies at the last election. If this dichotomy continues, it is what people will continue to say about the National Party in the present.

It was interesting also to hear Mr Groser talk about a sustained commitment to what he called rolling back regulatory creep. He mentioned the Resource Management Act, conveniently forgetting that a National Government enacted that legislation—but, never mind, that is clearly an inconvenient fact of history. He neglected to remind the House that New Zealand is the fourth-easiest place in the world, according to a latest survey, in which to do business—not just to start a business but to do business.

I spent 2 years working in Australia. I remember having to advise New Zealand companies wanting to start up over there about the over 160 taxes they would have to learn to be compliant with, at state, federal, and local level. There is nothing like that level of compliance requirement here, and people should be very careful, when they compare the two regimes and jurisdictions, about idolizing Australia. That is simply not right, we have a lot going for ourselves here, and we should remind ourselves of that.

I rise today to speak on behalf of New Zealand First about the cancer that is currently eating away at the very social fabric of our nation—that being the cancer—

💬 Dr Jonathan Coleman: New Zealand First!

Isn’t he a child—Jonathan Coleman? The cancer that eats away at our communities is known as gangs and those lawless elements that make up gangs. I do not want to be here accusing this Government or that Government of what it did or did not do. What New Zealand First wants to talk about is what we can be doing. The first thing we can do is to recognise that we have a problem.

I want to quote some words of a famous New Zealander, who said when speaking on gangs that those people posed a most dangerous threat to New Zealand’s peace, tranquillity and security. Those were the words of former Prime Minister Mike Moore. Another well-known and highly regarded member of Parliament said that he “had had a gutsful of gang intimidation and violence, and that the police and local bodies should be given laws with teeth to deal with them. He did not accept that it was too difficult to come up with laws that targeted gang activities.”1 That was Paul Swain’s view when MP for Eastern Hutt.

Many Governments have wrestled with this problem, but we say to the House that as parliamentarians we have only touched on the fringes. Here in Parliament we still have this attitude of legitimising the existence of gangs by talking and negotiating with them over the perceived problems and difficulties that give cause to their being. By doing such things we actually legitimise their existence, and we give credence to their right to exist in the form they do. Let it be clearly understood that gangs exist in this country for one purpose, and for one purpose alone—to conduct criminal activity and from that to derive profit.

We know that we have armed groups of thugs in every community, and in every corner of our communities throughout New Zealand. We know that they are actively recruiting young people. We know that each of the major gangs has youth feeder gangs, such as the Troublesome gang and the Bud Smoking Thugs up in Manukau. We know that each one of those youth gangs feeds into the parent gang, which so often is the Mongrel Mob or Black Power. It is time that we as a nation grabbed hold of this problem at its very core.

New Zealand First will stand and support any legislation put up by the Government, or by any other MP such as Chester Borrows. Banning patches—we are with that. Increasing the penalties for crimes committed by gangs—we are with that. Cutting into their asset bases, and confiscating their money and all their assets—we are with that. We will vote for that; we will support that. But we say that that legislation is peripheral to the one core piece of legislation we need to pass, and that legislation is legislation to ban their very existence.

I have heard people say that it cannot be done. Well, the legislation we are talking about is based around the Terrorism Suppression Act, which this Government passed. It works! The legislation we are talking about is also based around the Singaporean legislation, which Singapore passed and enacted. I would like anyone who has been in Singapore to tell me whether they saw gangs in Singapore—not one. This is the time for this nation, through this House, to get control of its own streets and return our communities to being safe communities—where people can sleep in their beds without fear of being shot, where they can go out at night without fear of being harassed, beaten up, and robbed, where 96-year-old ladies can walk down a footpath without fear of being accosted by some young thug and beaten up, and where a man who goes out to stop people knocking over his letterbox does not end up in a wheelchair with one eye missing and brain damage. That is the sort of community that New Zealand First wants to see.

We see that the first approach and the first attack, if we in this Parliament are serious about reducing violence and crime, is to eliminate gangs. Anything short of that is not good enough. Members may tell me that section 98A of the Crimes Act is not sufficient—fine. But there is confusion among the Ministers in the House. Mr Burton says that the provision is too complex to enforce. Mr Goff told me in this very Chamber that it is not being used because the penalties are not harsh enough. New Zealand First does not care which the answer is; all we care about is passing legislation with the support of this House to eliminate gangs from our society and our communities.

One of the privileges of being an MP is the opportunity to represent one’s constituency of constituents from across the political spectrum. One gets involved with great things as a constituent MP, and one gets involved with some really tough things.

Last week I had to get involved with one of those tough things. Let me paint a picture. A woman lives in a Napier neighbourhood—although this could happen in any neighbourhood around the country. The woman is a solo mum with a young 5-year-old daughter, who is her life. She knows that the home behind her is a Child, Youth and Family property, and that for the entire time the woman has lived there the property has housed foster kids. Balls have come over the back fence, and she has helped out like a good neighbour normally would.

One day, after a working bee where the woman has talked with the neighbours and saw a new young man living there, a tennis ball comes over the fence, followed by the young man she met earlier. She is pleasant, and provides him with the tennis ball—as a nice neighbour normally would.

These events go on. The young man comes over the fence a number of times chasing balls, and is seemingly harmless. He is a bit simple, but the woman assumes he is OK. She hears a few bangs against the fence in the early evening, and up to 10 p.m. On one occasion she sees a flannel resting on the fence, but she does not see anything else.

One day, the woman sees the young man’s face pressed against her window at 9.45 p.m., and she confronts him. He jumps back over the fence. Scared now, she confronts the caregivers, who have just driven home and who are carrying takeaways into their house. They apologise, and tell her that he should not be doing that, but she is damned concerned.

The woman starts to make inquires, and the next day both the local police and Child, Youth and Family are on her doorstep. They tell her they were not aware the young man was there, that he is dangerous, and that she is right to be frightened. She finds out that the person who has been jumping the fence is a juvenile sex offender, with a record of four sex offences against children. She finds out that the caregivers are being paid $3,000 a week, and that the young man is supposed to have 24/7 cover and needs two minders when he goes for a walk. She is so frightened that she packs her bags and leaves her house.

This is a story that no one should have to go through. This poor woman thanks her lucky stars that nothing happened to her little girl. She challenges herself as to whether she made the right decisions—whether she was too friendly, and whether she was a good mum. I tell her that she did make the right decisions, and that she is a fantastic mother. As an aside, I thank the local police and local Child, Youth and Family for their outstanding work in dealing with a difficult situation that landed in their laps from nowhere. But that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Some of those questions were put to the Minister, Ruth Dyson, yesterday. How did this young man get transferred to Napier without notification to the local police? How did this young man get transferred to Napier without notification to the local Child, Youth and Family branch? How was this young man allowed to roam free around the neighbourhood while caregivers went out to get takeaways? How was this offender able to get over the fence into a neighbour’s property up to 14 times when he was supposed to have 24/7 supervision? What were the supervisors, who were being paid $3,000 per week, doing when they allowed young children in the neighbourhood to be put at risk? Was the vetting process for the selection of caregivers adequate, when it is alleged that one of the supervisors left under a cloud from a similar organisation in Auckland? Why is this young man still with the same supervisor, who has already proven that he has failed in this job?

What did the Minister say to the questions asked in this House? She did acknowledge that the supervisor had not done the job. But then she went on to blame the mother for not acting quickly enough.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, I did not.

That is what the Minister said yesterday. She blamed the mother for not acting quickly enough. She also said: “I have confidence in Child, Youth and Family’s approval process and selection procedure for the caregivers of the young people …”. Well, frankly, that is not good enough. There are many questions the Minister failed to answer. In fact, she chose to attack the mother at the centre of this debacle, and that is not good enough. That mother is a good mother—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Chris, tell the truth!

I am telling the truth. The Minister has not listened to that mother. The mother has not come to talk to her, so the Minister cannot tell me across this House that I am not telling the truth, because I am. I tell the Minister that her answers are not good enough. Napier people, and New Zealand people, want to live in communities where their children are safe. Putting our kids at risk from predators like that is simply unacceptable, and this Parliament should not stand for it.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.