General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Seven years ago in November 2000 former Minister of Justice Phil Goff issued a dramatic statement saying that it was in the interests of all New Zealanders to bring down the rate of Māori offending, and in particular the rate of Māori youth offending. He said: “The social statistics are pretty appalling. We cannot be relaxed about the fact that 51 percent of people in our prisons are Māori when Māori only make up 14 percent of the community.”

Seven years later the Hon Eddie Taihākūrei Durie told the New Zealand Parole Board conference that although Māori are only 14 percent of the population they account for 51 percent of those in prison, being overrepresented in prison by 3.5 times. So what has happened in the last 7 years for absolutely no progress to be made in achieving a more equitable justice system? Mr Goff was absolutely right: Māori rates of apprehension, incarceration, and reimprisonment are appalling; we cannot relax.

Justice Durie laid the challenge of establishing a school for the study of Māori offending. It is an inspired suggestion, which seeks to find solutions other than what he describes as pandering to “our national preference for imprisonment”. Such a school may give us all an opportunity to ask the hard questions about whether the present system of justice is actually impartial to all. How can it be that when one taps into the police website one finds a statement about “identifying organised crime by ethnicity”? How can it be that that remains a useful way for police to deal with organised crime? What is meant by that—that we target Scottish fraudsters, Indian criminals involved in money laundering, Pākehā people committing wildlife smuggling? Is this not classical racial or ethnic profiling, an exercise the New Zealand Police has typically denied it is doing? Is this the ethnic profiling based on the type of thinking that former policeman and National Party MP Ross Meurant refers to in his most revealing essay, “Deep in the forest:”, the type of thinking that Meurant claims has resulted from bias and subjectivity, the type of thinking that produces the facts to suit the bias in the thinking?

An inconsistent application of the law is an act of injustice. For Māori, the pursuit of justice, te whāinga i te tika, has always been fundamental to our world view. We recognise that kaupapa and tikanga are the first law of this land, and that justice in its broadest sense covers matters from the wrongs people may do to one another to the rules that determine how the land should be cared for. So we welcome the wisdom of Justice Durie, and are motivated by his concerns that “harsher penalties mean harsher criminals, the more inmates the more there are to be infected by an experienced core, and denunciation can lead to defiance not reform”.

We need to draw on the best advice available to achieve effective rehabilitation of offenders, in order to curb our dramatically spiralling costs that flow from the hobby of building new prisons, while also aiming for a declining prison population muster. I have spoken before about the value of restorative justice, and the experience that we lead at Hoani Waititi Marae in encouraging the local community to take its own control of adverse behaviour, a programme that was drawn upon extensively for the design of the family group conferencing that was introduced into our courts, and indeed into the courts of the world. I have seen the most formidable offenders crumple under the confrontation of their elders. I have observed the shifts in community compassion that emerge out of the blossoming Māori pride and autonomy. Valmaine Toki of Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, and Ngāti Rehua has pioneered research into “therapeutic jurisprudence” as a means of reducing the disproportionate number of Māori offenders. She envisages a specialist court that embraces Māori custom, ethics, values, and norms.

This House must take seriously this growing body of evidence that examines possibilities for preventing criminal offending by the restoration of mana as the central concept in Māori tradition. The essential strength of our value system, our kaupapa, and our collective commitment to justice must be drawn upon to invigorate Māori communities in taking control of the situation before it is too late. Thank you.

Eight years ago New Zealand’s economy was faltering when this Labour Government took over. There was high unemployment, high levels of child poverty, low profits, inadequate infrastructure, and inadequate skills development, to mention just a few. We have delivered on our promises to rebuild that economy. We have more than halved unemployment. We have created 360,000 more jobs. More Kiwis are in work than ever before, and a higher proportion of Kiwis are in work than ever before in our history. We have had the longest period of sustained economic growth in more than a generation. Profits are up, and work stoppages are down. Over 100,000 children have been lifted out of poverty. Regional economies that were in decline are now thriving.

Along the way this Government has run a responsible fiscal policy. We have never taken our eye off the long term for the sake of the short term. We have built surpluses that are the envy of many other countries, which has allowed us to increase the rate of superannuation and to invest heavily in the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We have built surpluses that have allowed us to invest heavily in transportation infrastructure, both roading and public transport. We have built surpluses that have allowed us to cut taxes on families, cut taxes on savings, and cut taxes on business. National has voted against every one of those tax cuts at every possible stage that they have been through this House.

We have built surpluses big enough to enable us to deliver Working for Families, which has lifted those 100,000 children out of poverty. We have built surpluses big enough to build the KiwiSaver scheme. More than 250,000 New Zealanders are now in KiwiSaver. I predict that over half a million people will be in the KiwiSaver scheme by the time we come to the 2008 election.

What is it about all of that good news that the National Party does not understand? What is it about all of that good news that it wants to go back on and change, if it ever gets the chance to be Government? In line with our previous approaches, our next step will be to cut personal taxes. Why? It is because our strong economic record means that surpluses are strong enough to enable us to do that without risking our strong investments in families, in services, and in infrastructure, which we have rebuilt over this last 8 years against the bitter opposition of the National Party Opposition.

When we cut those taxes, we will do so in a way that is consistent with our economic and social record. There will be four tests. We will not borrow to pay for them. Mr Key believes in borrowing more; he has said it time after time after time over the last few years. We will not cut services to pay for them. Mr English says retirement provision in New Zealand is too generous. We will not implement tax cuts in a way that will exacerbate inflationary pressure. Mr English once said we should not worry about that. He said that my job was to run the Budget, that Dr Bollard’s job was to run monetary policy and deal with inflation, and that it was not a matter for the Minister of Finance to be worried about, at all.

We will not design tax cuts in a way that leads to greater inequality. When we said that, Mr Key and Mr English started foaming and wittering away, because they could not explain which of those four tests they did not think was reasonable. Which was it? Remember Mr English on Morning Report trying to explain what he actually meant by all his various contradictory statements in that particular regard? But the bit Mr Key and Mr English really hate in all of that is the bit that tax cuts should not lead to greater inequality. They believe deeply in greater inequality. They believe that greater inequality drives a stronger economy. Well, it has not done so in the past, it is not doing so in the present, and it will not do so in the future.

All New Zealanders deserve a dividend from the fact that we have governed this country so well and built up those strong surpluses, not just those who wear the flash striped suits and the bright ties, and who exist in the merchant banking communities and give all those speeches about the fact that they have to reward themselves, otherwise known as hard-working New Zealanders—the people who try to make money out of nothing, rather than making money out of the sweat of their brow and through their honest contribution to this country’s future. Well, they are not the people who will get really big fat gains. If they are waiting for next year’s Budget, they should not worry; they should turn off. It is ordinary Kiwis whom this Government is concerned about, and it is ordinary Kiwis to whom we will deliver.

That sounded like a Minister of Finance who is on the way out and wanted to make a few closing remarks before the curtain finally came down. I tell members that I watched question time with interest today. Unfortunately, I was not able to be here yesterday, but I got the sense that the Prime Minister had made a statement to the nation that went something like this: “Don’t worry, I have reshuffled Cabinet. All is well.” If we wanted to know what was going on in her mind, all we needed to do was wait for Charles Chauvel to put out a statement, because he would certainly alert us to what he was up to prior to anybody making any decisions, and he would no doubt let the rest of the country know what else was on the Prime Minister’s mind.

Today we saw the cracks in the new Cabinet appear for the first time. It was most interesting. The sweepstake at our caucus has been won by Tony Ryall, who said it would take David Cunliffe only 48 hours to overstretch, and he was about on the money—about on the hour. Now we know that David Cunliffe, who puffs himself up in his corner seat over there, has stuck his chest out 2 days into the job and said: “I’m running this show.” Well, those words will come back to haunt that Minister for the remaining 10 months he is in that job. I was sitting here watching this new line-up in operation today and thinking that Maryan Street had so much promise. Phil Heatley took to her today in question time and left her struggling on her feet to string a sentence together. Michael Cullen had his head down during question time today. He was thinking about how he could sell the tax cuts he had spent 8 years arguing against.

The key to today’s question time was a bit more subtle than that. The really revealing thing that happened today was a question asked in the name of Russell Fairbrother, who refused to stand on his feet and ask a question in his name while he was in this House. That in itself says more about what is going on in that caucus than any other single incident in the last 24 hours. We know that there is a member sitting back there who knows that the person running against him for the Labour nomination had his nomination signed by the Deputy Prime Minister. Frankly, it is surprising that Russell Fairbrother even decided to come to the House today, let alone ask a question that was set down in his name. This is the first time I have seen that in 8 years in this Parliament, and that is a deep reflection of the types of bitter and desperate struggles that are currently going on in the Labour Party caucus.

We also know that while an axe murderer is on the loose in greater Wellington, Phil Goff is off overseas, and Damien O’Connor is back in the game with two supplementary questions in his tourism portfolio, desperately trying to recover his credibility. But what we know about the Department of Corrections and the justice sector is this: same problems, same issues, different Ministers. Phil Goff had been the Minister of Corrections for a day and a half when under the watch of the Labour Party an axe murderer went on an unsupervised work party and wandered off, having left a note in his cell that said words to the effect of “the hunt is on.” This is a Government that has never taken a stick to the Department of Corrections. We know that the police said this about that individual: “No crime is more violent than murder. The very nature of his crime makes him a risk.” Helicopters are deployed, the Miramar Peninsula is cordoned off, police dogs are on the look-out for this guy, it is on the news every night, and what does the Department of Corrections spokesperson say? “He breached the trust we placed in him.” Well, that tells us about the culture of denial and stupidity that still exists in a department with 15 media and communications people. We know these problems are not going away.

How many other axe murderers, or for that matter just plain murderers, are also on unsupervised work-party schemes as we sit here today discussing this issue? Is it everybody except the Department of Corrections that thinks an axe murderer being on an unsupervised work party is a bad idea? Is it just that the department could not see the problem as it presented itself over the last few days? What we know is that this Government is struggling. It does not matter who it puts in place; the same issues that that Government created will continue to haunt it right up until election day, no matter who is in charge of the show or any ministry or department.

It is great to follow Simon Power’s speech in this general debate, a speech that was largely focused on personal politics, chaos, and despair. I want to talk about the Labour conference, which was an affirmation from a huge membership; the largest number of people to turn to a Labour Party conference for 13 years was hardly the message of a Government on its way out. For 2½ days our conference focused on the leadership of this Government, the policies of this Government, and the team—yes the new faces in the team, but also the way this team has pulled together without splits and dissention. I am proud to be part of that team brimming with ideas and with new ideas and new policies coming through we have turned the corner and are now steaming sustainably ahead. I know that with the hard work of all of us out there around New Zealand, going out and talking about our achievements over the last 8 years, we could well be heading towards a Labour-led victory for a fourth term.

Let us look at what Labour has done—remarkable gains for New Zealanders. We have led on transforming the economy; we have led on rebuilding social policy from the years of despair of the 1990s and restoring integrity and transparency to essential public services; we have led on building New Zealand’s identity as an inclusive nation projecting our values of peace, reconciliation, and social cohesion to the world; and now we are leading on sustainability. They are great stories to take out, and they build on the way that Labour-led Governments in the past brought in votes for women, social security for those vulnerable people needing to know that they have security and then opportunity, and workers’ rights.

Those gains have happened for most of our Labour-led history when we have been in Government and we will not give them away. We are focused on giving our children the best start in life, and I know that in my role as Minister of Women’s Affairs I will have quite a central approach with the Minister of Health in improving the lives of women and children in this country—adding on to the paid parental leave, the Working for Families tax credit, the 20 free hours’ early childhood education, the smaller classes for new entrants at school, and the affordable doctors’ fees and prescriptions. We will not change any of those things.

Do New Zealanders want change or do they want leadership—leadership, which we saw right through 2½ days of our conference, that showed commitment and the need for us to work on continual improvement in our Government? Do we want those new ideas or do we want privatisation, private education over public, threats to New Zealand superannuation and KiwiSaver, Australian-style industrial relations, American-style private health-care, a dependent foreign policy not an independent one, social polarisation and marginalisation of minorities of all kinds? Forewarned is to be forearmed, and when we go out on our policies we will be showing the country that this is how we are determined to secure a Labour-led Government in the future. We forget the politics of division. Labour does what works for New Zealand, and it will work with anyone to take our country ahead.

I am really looking forward to working on the cluster of portfolios that I was given: conservation, women’s affairs, and associate health. The Prime Minister made an incredible statement at our conference about instructing the Ministry of Health to get on with the papilloma virus vaccination. Women in the country were really thrilled. They have been speaking out about this since the Cartwright inquiry. We have a prevention and the Prime Minister said: “This must be funded, get on with it.” I also want to talk about issues that we will be leading on: reducing family violence, and particularly the impact of women as mothers, the impact on children as victims of family violence, sexual abuse, and teenage pregnancy. In conservation I want to work on the further gains for biodiversity, heritage protection, and the recreational use of the conservation estate; opening out so much of our country—our beautiful country that is our New Zealand identity—so New Zealanders can get into that conservation estate, take their children there, and bring tourists in to tell them the wonderful stories about this wonderful land.

I want to finish with one of the observations about the appointments to Cabinet. I heard the comment “diligence and hard work have been rewarded.” Well, this Government wants to reward hard-working New Zealanders.

If anyone wanted to see what the personification of the nanny State is, well we have just had it—an utter diatribe about “We’re going to tell you how to live your lives and what we’ve done for you.” Well, actually, I have a message for that brand-new Minister, and this is the message. The people of New Zealand do this for us, we do not do it just for them. They are the people who create the jobs. They are the people who get out and pay the taxes. They are the people who look after their children. They are the people who make the roads. They are the people who pay us, actually. They are the people; we are their servants, they are not our servants. It is about time that that Minister and that Government remembered it. I ask the House this: who said this? “Tax cuts are a path to inequality. They are the promises of a visionless and intellectually bankrupt people.” Who said that?

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Many of them.

Well, it was actually the Rt Hon Helen Clark. In fact, she said that in this century, in 2000. In fact, she said in the weekend that actually tax cuts are really good and we should all have them. That is the new message, and that is called: “I’m really getting worried that the people of New Zealand are sick of being told what to do with their own money, while I should be able to go off and spend anything I like.” She is suddenly getting the message.

She also said at the weekend: “I actually always did want to give tax cuts. In fact, my whole caucus really wanted to give tax cuts, and we couldn’t, because Treasury said we couldn’t.” It was all Treasury’s fault—that is what she said. In fact, what we know is that Treasury said in 2003 that structural surpluses were available for tax cuts. Treasury said that in 2003, not just in 2007, and it said so in 2005, as well. Now, in 2007, Helen Clark has just heard that the surpluses are structural and not just one-offs. So it has taken her 7 years of being told by Treasury that there is actually money available for tax cuts.

What we have seen over the last few days are some of the most amazing things in terms of a party that is falling apart. I opened up the New Zealand Herald on Tuesday and saw that Russell Fairbrother, the chair of the Social Services Committee, was being challenged by one Stuart Nash, and that one of the people who had signed Stuart Nash’s nomination form for the Labour Party selection was none other than the Hon Michael Cullen, the Deputy Prime Minister. That is unheard-of backstabbing by one’s own deputy leader—unheard-of backstabbing. This is the same Michael Cullen who lives in the said electorate of Napier. This is the same Michael Cullen who promoted Russell Fairbrother in the first place, and now he has turned on him. It is the same Michael Cullen who, as Chris Tremain reminds me, is one of his own constituents, and I bet he is a troublesome one, too.

💬 Hon Member: He’s welcome to come into the office at any time.

Good idea! That is what the Deputy Prime Minister is doing. Today we saw Russell Fairbrother effectively sit and say he would not ask a patsy question. He said that. He said: “I’m not going to do this.” He gave it to Darien Fenton, who was more than happy to ask a patsy question. She will do anything at all, because she is after George Hawkins’ seat in Manurewa.

💬 Simon Power: Oh!

Oh, yes. And Mr Hawkins will not give up easily, either. Then we heard David Benson-Pope ask a patsy question, and even though he is being attacked from all sides of the Labour Party, he chose to ask the question because he likes doing what he is told. He is quite submissive on these issues.

But what the House will want to know about is my mate George Hawkins. George Hawkins is under attack at the moment by the Labour Party because he will not leave. He will not do the “death with dignity” exit that Helen Clark has decreed he will have. He is fighting back, and along the way, he has been able to get the boundary changes he wants. So Manurewa is stronger than ever. He said in the New Zealand Herald that he is coming out fighting. He said he has the best electorate membership in the whole Labour Party. He said he is going nowhere. So George Hawkins, the mouse that roared, has stood up to Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, and he has told them where to get off. He has said that to them, but Helen Clark has absolutely ignored that. She will not talk about that, because it is nasty. It will get very nasty, because the more they push George Hawkins, the more George Hawkins will push back. He knows all the secrets, and he will reveal a few.

One of the stark differences between that party opposite and the Labour Party is that we are pleased to have democratic processes in our party and we are not afraid of challengers. We have an embarrassment of riches, so the only spin the Opposition can put on that is that somehow it means we are falling apart. Nobody else could possibly deduce that from the facts as they stand. There have always been challengers within the Labour Party, and I hope there always will be.

We are an active and democratic party, and what we saw last weekend was not only the largest conference we have had since 1984 but a conference brimming with ideas and plans for going ahead and progressing Labour Party goals and aspirations. Those aspirations are the aspirations of ordinary families in New Zealand. What families in New Zealand want is exactly the same as the agenda of the Labour Party. The Labour Party can prove that and demonstrate that, because of the things this Labour-led Government has done for families in the last 8 years. We look forward to continuing to do more.

I begin with the area of housing, which I have now taken up as a ministerial portfolio, a portfolio I am very happy to walk into. When Labour became the Government in 1999 we restored income-related rents for State house tenants. State house tenants—low-income tenants—now pay no more than 25 percent of their income in rent. Already, more than 60,000 Kiwi families are benefiting.

💬 Dianne Yates: How many?

More than 60,000 Kiwi families are benefiting from that policy alone. Their anxiety will be about what will happen should the National Party members ever be elected to Government. We can predict what would happen, because they have done it before. They would introduce market rentals again and create the kind of housing shortage that used to be associated with Depression times. National, in selling off 13,000 State houses when last in Government, sold 10,000 of them to developers, so all this talk and bleeding-heart nonsense about this newly acquired concern for people in substandard housing is sensationalism at its worst because it is sensationalism at the expense of the most vulnerable. Those members opposite know that people remember National’s record in Government. National absolutely dealt to the most vulnerable in our society, because it has no interest in them at best and does not care about them at worst.

Labour has increased the housing stock. We are a little over halfway through recovering the position that National members when in Government brought this country to. Labour has built something in the order of 7,500 more State houses since it took office. In addition, we have tried to assist people to get into their first homes. Housing affordability is a really important issue. It is a fundamentally important issue for New Zealand families going ahead. We are leading on affordable housing with the ground-breaking development at Hobsonville, which has in its ambit 30 percent of sections set aside for the vulnerable. It is that kind of creativity and commitment that will get us back to where we were.

At the beginning of this week, almost unnoticed by most New Zealanders, the Government made an announcement that I thought should have been a bit more earth-shattering than it was, although I understand that the function was well attended. I am referring to the announcement by the Minister of Transport and the release of this document Sea Change: Transforming Coastal Shipping in New Zealand.

It is a very significant move that the Government is apparently embarking on. I say “apparently” because nothing is firmly committed in this booklet, but it is going in the right direction. It is a move in the right direction. We have a Government that at last has recognised that an island nation tucked at the bottom of the South Pacific should have an efficient shipping service, certainly an efficient coastal service. I guess it does not surprise many people in this House that with my background I am absolutely delighted that the Government has chosen to move along those lines.

There was an interesting comment in the booklet: “Without question, coastal shipping has been neglected and considered less relevant to society than it once was.” Who said that? Shipping has been, and will continue to be, very important to an island nation, not only because it moves freight around the country and is the most environmentally friendly transportation system for doing that but because a country that operates, I think, 13 ports needs maritime expertise. We need maritime expertise that is shore-based. We need deck officers, engineering officers, and people who serve in rating capacities on board a ship, who are trained and who have shipboard experience.

In this country, 99.5 percent of its exports and imports come and go by ship, and it needs a port system and maritime expertise in that port system. Many of us in the shipping fraternity, and those who are familiar with ships, know that coastal shipping, in particular, has been neglected for ages in this country. It really took a body blow with the introduction of the Maritime Transport Act 1994, and in particular clause 198, that allowed foreign ships to cart coastal cargo around our coast. I would suggest that, without exception, every foreign ship coming to this country—and there are several of them—works under a favourable tax regime of some sort or other. They work under an international register or a flag of convenience – type register, but they are taxed far less than New Zealand shipowners and operators. So they have a huge advantage. They pick up the cargo and it is cream on the pudding, so to speak. The New Zealand coastal fleet finds it very, very difficult to compete.

New Zealand First has been a long-time advocate of having a favourable fiscal regime for shipping. In a way, this document outlines that consideration has been given to having that regime. The action plan on page 25 of this document states in part: “The second step of the plan, then, is to review and put in place criteria, and processes, to ensure government funding is provided for worthwhile coastal shipping projects.” What is that telling us? Where is this funding coming from? I asked the Minister of Transport in the House the other day whether any share of it was coming from the National Land Transport Fund, from money and funding generated from the motorists and truckers and those sorts of sources. She said I would have to wait for the Budget to see where it comes from. I am hoping that the Government will not take the 18.7c from petrol that it puts into the Crown bank account, put it into the National Land Transport Fund, and then extract it again. I trust the Minister to do the right thing by the New Zealand shipping industry.

It has been a very telling couple of days in this debating chamber after the Prime Minister’s shake-up of her very, very tired, old Cabinet. We knew there was not much depth at all in terms of the Labour Government. I am not talking about age; I am simply talking about energy, enthusiasm, and ideas.

What was most telling today, I have to say, was the new Minister of Health’s statement about who was in charge and who was running the show. It did not take him long. Tony Ryall was quite right. It was 48 hours before David Cunliffe stuck out his chest, pointed his craggy finger across the Chamber, and told the Opposition to shut up and stop keeping the Government accountable on behalf of taxpayers because he is running the show. That is what the Minister of Health said. All the while we see meltdown in every district health board and hospital in the country, where nobody’s grandmother can get a hip replacement, nobody’s grandfather can get cataract surgery, and nobody’s sister can get Herceptin or cancer treatment within 6, 12, or even 18 months.

What was more telling than David Cunliffe’s saying who is in charge here or who is running the show was when the previous Minister of Housing, Chris Carter, stood up—not once, but twice—to protect new Ministers. First of all, he stood up, as the previous Minister of Housing, to protect Maryan Street as the new Minister of Housing. The second time he stood up, as the previous Minister of Conservation, to protect Steve Chadwick, the new Minister of Conservation. I have to tell members—and I want my National colleagues to know—that if they ever feel the need to stand up and protect me, they should please, please not send Chris Carter. They should not send Chris Carter. He is not dangerous. Chris Carter is not dangerous. It was a huge surprise to us, and I guess to the country, to see him move to the front bench.

The country is saying that the reason why Labour Ministers like Steve Maharey—and about 10 other Labour MPs like Jill Pettis, and so on and so forth—are throwing in the towel is that they are rats leaving a sinking ship. That is right. Steve Maharey is leaving the sinking ship. He sees the Titanic going down and he has a lifeboat.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: He can get out.

He can get out. Steve Maharey has found a lifeboat. What is incredible is that there are all these other Ministers as well. We can picture the Titanic: the back end, the stern, is sticking up; the bow is down in the water; and Ministers and Labour MPs are holding on to the rails at the top, hoping they can get a raft and get off the sinking ship.

But the most incredible vision in this picture is not those people falling off the sinking ship or Steve Maharey rowing away from the sinking ship on his life raft. It is the vision of the only guy in a boat heading towards the Titanic, saying “Let me aboard! Can I jump on?”. Here we have David Benson-Pope on his life raft heading towards the Titanic, saying: “Let down a cable; I want to climb on to the sinking ship. I will lead you forward.” We have Steve Maharey rowing away. We have the rest of the Labour caucus and Ministers clinging on to the stern of the Titanic. And we have David Benson-Pope rowing furiously towards the Titanic, asking Labour to send him a life raft.

Kia ora anō tātou, Mr Assistant Speaker. I te tuatahi me mihi ahau ki tō tātou iwi i roto o Aotearoa nō te mea, kua tae mai te kanohi Māori tuatoru ki roto i te kāhui teitei o te Kāwanatanga.

I greet all our Māori whānau out there and remind them that the third Māori has arrived in the Cabinet of the Government that is heading towards its fourth term. I did not bring a hammer, an apron, or a hard hat. However, I certainly look forward to adding to the great mahi of Mr Clayton Cosgrove, who, despite Dr Nick Smith’s best efforts at muttering, meandering, and irritating, has advanced the interests—and I hope to emulate him in this—of those who were afflicted through poor regulation in terms of weather-damaged housing.

We have addressed the concerns of the hundreds, the thousands, of men and women who shoot down to ITM, Carters, and PlaceMakers on a Saturday morning in order to put up a trellis, tend to the rose garden, or put up a garage in which to stack all the policies and brilliant ideas that they are seeing from us on a regular basis. We deliver on our ideas from this side of the House. Those people will not need unnecessary levels of licensing. They are known as our greatest fan club—the DIY builders. We will continue with those good policies.

In addition to that I had the pleasure last night to represent both the department and the Government at the awarding of prizes to apprentices. We must not overlook the fact, of course, that I and the great international rugby athlete Glen “Ozzy”, otherwise known as Osborne, from Wanganui, did share a story or three on rugby, but with a mind to my future I made the stories very short and largely irrelevant to my role as a Minister. However, we were able to present prizes to 10 young men. I actually wait for the wāhine apprentices who are about to complete their apprenticeships. I told every single one of those apprentices that when they go back to their mahi, their workplace, they should thank Dr Cullen and Helen Clark, because through their stewardship apprenticeships are now a part of the labour market. They are a goal that every New Zealand family can commit its young people to achieving.

In the time of Dr Lockwood Smith—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Yeah, who repealed the Apprenticeship Act?

That is right. In the time of that tired crowd over there, trade training and apprenticeships were swept aside by “Scrooge”, otherwise known as Mr Bill Birch, whose hand was known to go down into the lavatory, and into parts of his anatomy perhaps, to get a 5c piece. However, he destroyed the apprenticeship scheme, completely devalued the worth of trades, and left the long-suffering construction sector with a problem that we, fortunately, are overcoming by funding, encouraging, and leading young people to come and achieve in the trades.

Let me continue. Dr Cullen has taken up the cudgels and will lead with his characteristic intellectual flair and decisiveness the Treaty settlement programme. I contrast what he will be doing with what my whanaunga from the Māori Party have been doing: beating a dangerous drum of discord and divisiveness amongst our people in the Bay of Plenty. I say to them that, as troubling and as hurtful as some of the images on television may be about that part of the Bay of Plenty, it is better that they wait, as MPs and parliamentarians, until the facts are placed before the court. There is plenty of time to search out for soothing words and to offer calm advice to the families. They need to wait and see what the self-styled “King of Tūhoe”, Tame Iti, has actually been up to.

However, let us continue. As my colleague has said here in relation to our party conference, we can look forward to tax cuts. When we had Mr Tony Ryall standing up on his two hind feet today, he reminded me of what Helen Clark said, because in the front row there is not just the one-trick pony; there is also the show pony. The show pony has searched every nook and crevice for every sort of bad story he can dredge up to blast against our new Minister.

I want to talk about the Prime Minister’s comments about the cervical cancer vaccine that she called for at the Labour Party conference last weekend. In fact, we caught her out, good and proper, in the Health Committee this morning. On the back of the UK announcing funding for its cervical cancer vaccine, the Prime Minister has called for urgent advice on the rolling out of a cervical cancer vaccine in New Zealand. Let us look at this urgent advice. We had the Ministry of Health officials in front of the committee and I asked them whether there had been urgent advice, whether someone had pressed the button, and whether there had been a directive from HQ that they should get on to this, and, no, they were not able to say that there had been. There has been work in progress. They have been working on this for at least 1 or 2 years, so this is nothing new to them. There was no urgent advice sought. Certainly, no one has been communicating with the ministry. There has been no phone call from the Minister to the ministry. The officials were unable to say whether they had been asked to start work—the work is already there. They had the business plan. The knowledge is already there.

The other thing is that if the Prime Minister needed to find countries that are funding a cervical cancer vaccine as an excuse to start funding one in New Zealand, then why on earth did she not step in a year ago, when our nearest neighbour, Australia, announced that it would be able to start its vaccine early this year? So to me, it was all crocodile tears from the Labour Party conference last weekend. If the Prime Minister had really cared about a cervical cancer vaccine, then she would have acted a year ago when Australia announced its package and not have waited for this rubbish comment about the UK—that that was the reason she wanted urgent advice. The advice was already in the ministry. It is a crock! What has happened is that Labour is behind in the polls, those members are desperate, and they have made this announcement. If the Prime Minister really cared, then she would have been there a year ago. Nonetheless, I hope that she follows through with this promise, because we do not want it consigned to the dustbin, which is what she did with the infamous “chewing gum tax cut”, the blitzing of hospital waiting lists, and the promise to get New Zealand back in the top half of the OECD. They were all empty promises. I hope for the sake of young women in New Zealand that the Prime Minister follows through with this promise to act on her comments. But the comments were insincere. She should have been acting a year ago to help the young women of New Zealand—not a year later—and she has used the excuse of the United Kingdom starting to announce a funding package for its vaccine to roll out her announcement at the Labour Party conference this year. That was just a political crock, in my opinion.

It is great that we have a new Minister of Health running the show—8 years, three Ministers of Health, and an extra $5 billion later. We can just look at the legacy he has inherited and see that it is pretty bad. We have workforce strikes, and senior doctors are having an unprecedented ballot on whether we are to have more strikes. We have had 40,000 people culled from waiting lists, and morale is so low that we are haemorrhaging doctors and nurses from our country. We have a health workforce that is being propped up by overseas doctors, and if we did not have them, then we would not be able to operate. We would have a health workforce that was non-existent, and our public hospitals would have to close. We have access to medicines that lags behind our nearest neighbour, Australia, and the list is endless. I could go on and on. It is a dreadful legacy for our new Minister of Health, who, fortunately, has decided to run the show.

Wellington Hospital is symptomatic of the malaise that is running through the health system. It is a sick puppy—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but I would say to those members on my right that if they could please look at Speakers’ ruling 57/3. Thank you.

I have certainly hit a nerve, have I not, I say to my colleagues. The malaise is percolating through the health system. It is bubbling away, it is there, and it is of epidemic proportions. But in Wellington, it is worse; it is acute. It is not bubbling; it is boiling away. It has become a boil. It is red, it is painful, it is tense, and it is fluctuant. Guess what? Unfortunately, it has landed on our new Minister of Health’s backside, and it will be a painful proposition. But, you know, it is pretty good. This Minister of Health has decided, after 48 hours, that he is running the show. But even if the Titanic had had a new person rearranging the deck chairs, it would not have helped the Titanic, and it will not help this new Minister of Health. The Titanic sank, just as this Government will sink in the election in 2008—wait and see.

My blood ran absolutely cold when I read the Dominion Post this morning. The headline was, “Dysfunction, mistrust, morale at rock bottom”. “Board like a headless chicken, says doctor” was the subheading.

If there was ever a party in Parliament that should not talk about a social policy record, I would have thought it would be the National Party. To be lectured by that member, Jackie Blue, who obviously knows nothing about her own political party’s track record on health care in New Zealand, is just a disgrace.

Does that member know that when National was in Government in the 1990s there were cash registers in our hospitals? Is the member aware of that? Does she know that people used to have to pay $50 a night just to stay at a public hospital? I ask the National Party’s associate health spokesperson right now whether she thinks that was a good idea or a bad idea. Well, Dr Blue had a lot to say during the debate when she read out, line by line, the research unit notes, but she is not so quick on her feet when we ask her a question, not about the Government but about her own party and her own policy in terms of the National Party.

She talked about the number of members of Parliament from Labour who had had the privilege of serving as Minister of Health, which, as everybody knows, is a difficult, challenging, and rewarding portfolio. But she did not know about her own party—that in the time that Labour has been on the Treasury benches there have been six National Party spokespersons on health and not a single health policy. That mob went to the last election without a health policy. That is how serious they are about trying to help people out. What do we have on this side of the House?

💬 Christopher Finlayson: We want to hear about your health policy.

I am very happy to tell members about Labour’s health policy. Labour introduced primary health organisations and now people pay up to half of the fee of going to the doctor that they paid when the National Government ruled New Zealand.

In my electorate of Otaki, people pay no more than a $3 prescription charge. That is Labour’s policy and that is what this Government is doing in the public health area, because we believe in it. We do not try to hide our health policy; we put in the specifics and basics that will help real, ordinary people. That is what being in Government is about; it is about having policies that will make a difference for people.

Members opposite laugh and jeer, but when National put together a health discussion document and put it out to the public, what was the key thing that was missing? National missed out one statistic when it released its health policy, if I may refer to a new portfolio that I am becoming familiar with. One statistic that National missed out when it released its health policy was the fact that it was going to put up general practitioners’ fees. That is the very part of the health system that most members of the public access on a day-by-day basis.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: They would remove the cap.

National has said it would remove the cap on those fees. Tony Ryall had said, in his nonchalant way: “Oh, that’s a ridiculous Labour idea; we’re going to knock it on the head.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact manner; I am amazed we have not heard about it since.

When Labour announces a policy, people hear about it day and night. My fellow colleagues have been talking today about the speech the Prime Minister gave at our very successful conference, and about all the policies that were rehearsed and recited by her, as we focused on working towards the future. We talk about our policies, because, firstly, we have thought about them; secondly, we all agree on our policies; and, thirdly, we want to go out there and promote them, because we think they are going to help New Zealand to be the just, vibrant, and inclusive place we know it can be.

When the National Party announces a policy, the first part of the media cycle is how none of those members really agree with it; the second part of the cycle is how a bit of the policy came out that was not meant to; and the third part of the cycle of the great strategy is how those members make sure they never mention it again. So when Dr Jackie Blue, the National Party spokesperson on health, got up and made a 5-minute contribution to Parliament, she did not once mention National’s health discussion document, because she is embarrassed about it.

I am proud of our Primary Health Care Strategy. I am proud that we have halved doctors’ fees for working families in New Zealand. I am proud that it does not cost any more than $3 for a subsidised prescription item. Those are good things for our families and for our community. But National is embarrassed about its policies.

Labour is coming into Parliament for the rest of this year and through to the next election saying we are working towards the future. We want to have policies that make a difference for people. We want to make sure that the policies of this Government actually do come in and change New Zealand for the better.

National members can try to rehearse all the arguments of the 1990s. They can try to hide all the policies they would like to introduce. They can try to do all these far-right-wing things by having massive tax cuts, when Labour is talking about sustainable and responsible tax cuts, balanced off with the social spending on priorities. [Interruption] National members are screaming and shouting.

When John Hayes, member for Wairarapa, was campaigning around the Wairarapa at the last election did he say: “Send me to Parliament and I will vote to keep business taxes higher than Labour wants to have them.”? Did he say that? He did not say that, but he came to Parliament and on to the floor of this Chamber and voted for higher business taxes than a Labour Government will deliver. I wonder whether when Chris Finlayson made his two or three appearances on the election campaign trail in the Mana electorate he said: “When I get to Parliament I’m going to vote for higher taxes on savers than a Labour Government will do.” When Nathan Guy was running his shambolic campaign around the great Otaki electorate did he say to working families: “I’m going to make sure that Darren Hughes has lower taxes for your family than I want.”? Not one of them said it. People should vote for Labour.

We have heard all the huff and puff. The Labour Party has had its reshuffle, and it is a bit like the person who was employed on the Titanic to shuffle the deckchairs. Unfortunately, those people were not helped by that, and Labour’s reshuffle will not help its tired, sinking ship going down at the next election. This started 6 months ago, and Helen Clark knows that. The new faces on Labour’s front bench, second bench, and third bench will not help the situation at all. We all know there is a lot of blood on the floor, do we not, colleagues? We know that Charles Chauvel spat the dummy; “hot and cold Charles” we are calling him now, and then he put out a press release announcing—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Members must be referred to by their full name, not by a nickname; Speaker’s ruling 26/5.

I did refer to Mr Charles Chauvel by his full name. Does he have another name?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member referred to him also as “hot and cold Charles”; before that, he said Charles Chauvel. The member knows he cannot do that.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. There are others, as well. Today Mr Fairbrother was down to ask a primary question but he was so reluctant to ask it, and he was exposed today. He reluctantly asked the question, and did not look very happy about being here at all. Things are going to change, I believe, for Mr Fairbrother, now that we have heard that the deputy leader, Michael Cullen, has signed the nomination of Mr Nash. So there is blood all over the floor from this reshuffle. Mr Burton has now announced he wants to spend more time in his electorate. We know that about 12 or 15 MPs are on their way out now. The main thing is that the National Party rejuvenated in 2005.

I want to refer to my opposite, Darren Hughes, the new Minister of Statistics. He is trying to hold a marginal seat, got rewarded for looking after Helen Clark’s handbag, and now has a plum salary and a Crown limo car to drive around the most marginal seat of the whole country. It is interesting that, according to talkback radio, Mr Hughes had a wheelie bin outside his office the day before Labour had the caucus party. So he was clearing out his office. He knew he was going to get some so-called promotion as Minister of Statistics. It goes to show, one does not even need to go to the Labour Party caucus to know what is happening. One just listens to talkback and one hears it all there.

I ask Mr Hughes in terms of his new portfolio of statistics what he is going to do about a headline in this week’s Daily Chronicle that talks about the shocking levels of poverty in the area I live in, and which he represents occasionally. The headline states: “shocking levels of … poverty”. I quote the Levin school principal, Mr Trevor Jeffries: “take home packet is pathetic”. We all know why take-home pay is pathetic. It is because Mr Cullen is hoarding all this tax, and we know that hard-working families are getting shafted by this Government, because Michael Cullen is there with a bulging piggy bank, acting like a little schoolboy, proud as punch, ready for “lolly-nomics” next year to hand out the lollies, while hard-working New Zealanders in Levin are suffering because of the poverty.

What is the Minister of Statistics going to do about this? Food prices are on the way up. He will be getting weekly correspondence, and will know from his ministry that food prices are on the way up. Mortgage rates are on the way up. Interest rates are on the way up. What will the Minister of Statistics do about all of the increases that this Labour Government could not control, because it is sitting on this huge surplus of money—nearly $9 billion? Michael Cullen and the Labour Government are saying: “We know what’s best.” The Minister of Statistics is left trying to analyse all of these figures.

There is only one thing that we know: that Minister opposite is going to drive around in his Crown car, around the most marginal seat, which is Otaki. But those hard-working Kiwis will absolutely hate that. While he will be over there, on a high salary, hard-working New Zealanders are suffering poverty. That was shown in this newspaper when our local paper rang around all of the schools and found so many hard-working families are in poverty in New Zealand.

I want also to move to the crisis in health, and we have seen that today where Mr Cunliffe, the new Minister of Health who has been in the job 5 minutes, said he is running the show.

I seek leave to table a list of the schools in my electorate that are receiving increased funding as a result of the decile ratings that the list member just referred to.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.