Address in Reply

When my contribution to the Address in Reply debate was interrupted I was reflecting on the reasons why New Zealanders voted resoundingly in November for change. After 9 years of opportunity and economic fair weather, Labour was found wanting. Some may say—and they have—that it was a good election to lose, but the National Government was certainly not thinking like that at the time. We believe in our vision. We will deliver to the people of New Zealand our promises, even though that task may have become more complicated by the dirty socks that were left by Labour. Yes, I am referring to the uncosted promises and unfunded commitment—things like the state of accident compensation funding.

It must be galling to sit on the Opposition benches and watch the National Government taking true action and bringing forward infrastructure spending to stimulate our economy. Opposition members have tried in vain to undermine the infrastructure package that was announced yesterday, although deep in their hearts I know they will be pleased to see jobs saved for New Zealanders. We saw education net five new schools, school refurbishments and maintenance, and an information and communications technology infrastructure improvement plan. We saw transport spending set to encompass five large State highway projects, and in housing 10,000 State houses will be upgraded and renovated and an additional 69 new State houses will be built—but, more important, built quickly. The Social Services Committee heard yesterday that the nation’s State housing stock has suffered from years of insufficient upgrades and maintenance. This deferred maintenance amounts to an estimated $2 billion. We were told that it will need 10 successive years of spending to address that. The neglect of the previous Labour Government has come home to roost for New Zealanders.

Last week’s small to medium sized enterprise package has been well received in my electorate. It is amazing how many people will ring your electorate office when they hear that things will get better and say “Thank goodness for common-sense orders.”

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We had pedantic comment on “your” earlier in the day and again yesterday. This member has breached the Standing Orders in that way. I am sure she would not be referring to your office, Mr Deputy Speaker. Therefore, I ask that the rules be applied evenly.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It did come up again yesterday. Members cannot bring the Speaker into the debate, so future speakers should not use the words “you” or “your”, because they relate to the Speaker. Please continue.

I give my apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker. These same people rang my office and said “Thank goodness we can see some common-sense measures coming from the Government.”

Resource Management Act reforms are filling New Zealanders with hope. Anyone who has encountered delays with consents is saying “Thank goodness!” again. It is amazing how such news triggers a whole lot of stories coming into our offices. Let me give some examples: a code of compliance that was not granted because the plugs for the sinks did not have chains attached; and bolts that had round washers, not square ones, and therefore did not comply. It beggars belief, does it not?

Then there was the story of the housebuyer who lived in his new house at No. 11. He was contacted by the local council and told that his number 11 on the fence was larger than 300 millimetres and therefore he needed a consent because it was a sign. Can we believe this? The $400 cost and the five forms to get that consent seemed ridiculously idiotic so the house owner just gave up, removed the number 11 from the outside of the fence, and put it on the inside of the fence where it has become a talking point for anyone who can find his house.

Changes to the Resource Management Act and to the culture that brings about idiotic and frequent examples like the ones I have just mentioned are absolutely essential for New Zealand’s future. For our country to weather the current economic storm and rise out and above the effects of the recession we need to work hard, preparing the way for our country to be more productive than it has ever been before. The National Government has the purpose, the drive, and the determination to steer New Zealand in the right direction through these tough times. But at the same time we must apply the building blocks.

I am informed that the next call is a National call and it will be split. I call Chris Tremain.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I acknowledge you and congratulate you on election to your office. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Napier and Wairoa for electing me as their member of Parliament. It is a privilege that I do not take lightly and a privilege that has to continue to be earned.

The Speech from the Throne highlighted two crises ravaging the belly of New Zealand communities: the financial crisis and the gang crisis. The financial crisis has been much debated in this House. John Key has a clear vision for this nation: blunt the edge of the recession and place New Zealand in the very best position to go forward and to recover and grow. There has been total focus in this regard. A coalition agreement was reached within 11 days, Cabinet was selected in 2 weeks, and Parliament was reconvened in just 30 days. Before Christmas the House sat under urgency from 9 a.m. until midnight in order to give effect to a tranche of measures to deliver on John Key’s vision to blunt the edge of the recession. Just 93 days following the election we are back in this House, in urgency again, delivering a further spread of initiatives to deliver on the Prime Minister’s vision for blunting the recession and preparing the economy for growth.

The small-business package has been practical and proactive. The infrastructure announcements are sensible. They are helping to protect jobs and laying the foundations for growth. I acknowledge the impact of the Matahōrua Gorge project in Hawke’s Bay. This project will shave significant time off the Napier to Wairoa route, improve safety, and drive economic growth to the region. This is an example of short-term impact and long-term benefit. On any measure, this package of initiatives is impressive but also measured. We are cognisant of the fact that any dollar borrowed today needs to be paid back tomorrow.

The second crisis I wish to speak about is the ravaging of our communities by gangs. Members should make no mistake: it is a crisis. When I was 18 a friend of mine, Vaughan Gooch, stood up for a young woman at a Napier party. He was punched senseless by gang members, to the point where he was unrecognisable in hospital. Twenty-four years on, the situation is simply worse. Now people are not only punched senseless but murdered. The social experiment with gangs has failed.

Whether it is the killing in Murupara, which we read about in this morning’s Dominion Post, or the murder in Hawke’s Bay of 34-year-old Mark McCutcheon—who went to the aid of a woman and who leaves behind a wife and three young daughters—the cup of evidence is indeed overflowing. Every day stories such as those go below the radar. Before the Ōtāne murder, a gang member went into a Waipukurau cafe, grabbed food, walked out, came back 3 hours later, grabbed more food, and sat down. The proprietor, a woman, confronted the gang member, who spat at her and head-butted her for good measure as he walked out.

These people are no longer part of our community, yet we continue to treat them as though they are. We feed them, we house them, we pander to them in our prisons, and what do we get in return? We are repaid with horrible crimes. We condone their existence. We condone the gangs to such an extent that many Kiwis and international tourists see them as the face of Māori culture. Yet they are a stain on Māori culture. Gangs hide behind tikanga, of which they know nothing. Most cannot recite their whakapapa, except back to ngā kurī—the dogs—and they wear disfigured moko as some alien connection with a culture of which they have no idea.

Māori need to break free from the shackles of gang thuggery, to disown gangs, and to stop making excuses for them. Rape, murder, burglary, and intimidation are not part of tikanga. While Māori leaders continue to make excuses for gangs, Māoridom, in my opinion, will be the loser.

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: What about the Pākehā gangs in Timaru?

And those too. In that respect, I congratulate Ngāti Kahungunu. At their Clive Waitangi Day celebrations they banned gangs and they banned patches. This is the leadership that needs to be taken. The Māori Party needs to lead the way in that respect; all Māori MPs need to lead the way. Māori culture will not advance to where it should be while these thugs continue to drag on our coat-tails.

In that regard, I totally support the legislation of Simon Power. Would we allow 3,000 people who wore Hitler’s swastika to parade in our streets, to commit murder, rape, and burglary, to feed our kids P, and then to turn up in the courts barking like dogs? No, we would not. Yet we condone a private army of people wearing Mongrel Mob and Black Power insignia. We condone a private army where rape is an act that qualifies one for the patch. I no longer condone these patches, and I join my Hawke’s Bay colleague Craig Foss in doing all that I can to wipe out this menace from the face of New Zealand society. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Deputy Speaker, can I congratulate you on your position and, indeed, Mr Speaker Lockwood Smith and the Assistant Speakers, Eric Roy and Rick Barker. Indeed, it is a privilege to be in this Parliament, sitting on this side of the House. I also need to acknowledge the fantastic maiden speeches and maiden statements that have been delivered in the House in this term. There was a very high quality of speeches right across the House.

I want to talk about the fantastic result in this election and how John Key is progressing extremely well as our Prime Minister through difficult economic times. In record time he has pulled together a very stable Government, with the support of the ACT Party, the Māori Party, and United Future. I believe that it will be a long-serving and very stable arrangement as we go forward. Of course there will be times when we will have disagreements, but that is part of our democracy, and we have some tough decisions to make going forward.

But the biggest issue in 2009 is indeed the economy, and that is why the Prime Minister has taken the steps he has taken in recent times to take the sharpest edge off the economy, to try to protect jobs, and to try, indeed, to get us out of this recession, which I believe we were in in 2008 but many people did not realise it. I believe that with the packages that have been announced over the last couple of months, we will track out of the recession a lot more quickly. I will talk a little about those packages, and also about what a privilege it is to be representing the people of Horowhenua and Kapiti in the Ōtaki electorate, and the fantastic result those people gave me, to enable me to serve as the Ōtaki MP in this House—a huge honour. In fact, we had the highest voter turn-out in the whole of the country, which just goes to show what a close contest it was out there in the Ōtaki electorate.

I alluded before to the packages that will take the sharpest edge off the recession. They include the tax cuts that will be rolling out on 1 April. They will put more money in people’s pockets. The ReStart package will help those people, the most vulnerable, who may in fact lose their jobs. The announcement made by the Prime Minister of $480 million for small and medium sized enterprises will help those small businesses. Indeed, in my electorate there are 7,700 of them, and they employ about 20,000 people. The package that has just been rolled out in our infrastructure announcements made yesterday, of $500 million across about 4¼ years, will also help to kick-start our economy.

One of the important things is the reform of the Resource Management Act. It has allowed vexatious and frivolous objections that have slowed down projects of national significance. There are about 100 clause changes, and they will help to streamline and speed up this process. I am excited about that initiative, because I believe that it will also help us get through this economic recession. It will create more jobs. It is important that we get started on some of these big projects, rather than the process taking as long as it does now. Transit openly told a select committee just a couple of years ago that it takes as long now to get resource consent as it does to build about 1 kilometre of road, and most times that can take up to 3 years.

We also have important initiatives around law and order, which Chris Tremain, the previous speaker, has so rightly just spoken about. Those initiatives will be really important in allowing our communities to be safer.

It is interesting, when we sit on this side of the House and move around Parliament, to see the different factions currently in the Labour Party all starting to form up and jostle for different leadership bids as we progress to the next election. Indeed, we have Mr Cunliffe’s camp there, talking about how they do not actually have a plan for the economy now, but they will deliver it for the next election. We are interested to see who will run in the Mt Albert by-election. Will it be Phil Twyford? Will young Darren Hughes head up north to run in Mt Albert? We also have the different camps for Jones, Horomia, and Cosgrove. We are interested to see who will come into Parliament over the next few months, from the list. The water cooler conversations have already started amongst Labour Party members. They are not very settled, at all. We are waiting to see whether Phil Goff will survive the 90-day probation period.

As is appropriate, Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you—and your fellow office holders—on your appointment and also the Speaker, Dr Lockwood Smith. I also pay my compliments to the Governor-General.

This debate is occurring in the biggest global economic crisis we have ever seen—certainly in the lifetime of members here. I suspect that no one in this House, nor in the great countries of the world—the UK, Australia, and the US—knows how deep it will cut or the impact it will ultimately have on our people in New Zealand and those in other countries. The leadership of the UK, the US, and Australia has been called upon to do everything they can to try to stem the tide, as it were, of the negative impact of the recession.

We can look at and compare the approach here—and I mentioned a couple of these points when talking on the tax bill—with what Barack Obama, the President of the United States, whom Mr Key takes great relish in likening himself to, has done in the United States. Even before Mr Key and Mr Obama were elected roughly at the same time, and even before President-elect Obama became President, he had publicly put out a plan. He had put together a strategy, he had published that strategy, and he had talked and jawboned about his economic package in the House and the Senate. He cajoled people and he gained support for his economic package, over and above the previous President’s package, so that when he was elected and actually had the power to do something about it, the wheels were turning, the support was there, and the package was moved to practical implementation.

If we look at Australia we see Kevin Rudd’s package—and a second package has been announced today. The National Party tends to debate this argument by comparing dollar figures. But I say that we should compare National’s approach with the aggressive nature of the package in Australia, where the Australian Prime Minister and the Australian Government, together with the state Governments, have pledged to do everything they can—not to drip-feed or have rolling mauls. We know that Mr Brownlee—I think he made the third XV at St Bede’s College—knows all about rolling mauls. There should not be rolling mauls or drip-feeds, because they are based upon the political cynicism of the National Government, which just drips it out so that it has something to put in its Budget and to try to lengthen its honeymoon. Those are the motivations in relation to the rolling maul. It is not about actually saying “To hell with it! We’re going to put a stake in the ground, we’re going to have a strategy, and we’re going to do everything now. And if we don’t have anything to announce in the Budget, well, we will have tried everything we could have to protect the people of New Zealand.”

If we look at Gordon Brown in the UK we see that he is doing everything that he and his Government can do. They are not drip-feeding for political purposes but they are saying that they will try to stem the tide of the negative economic impact that this recession will have. But the game plan of members over there on the Government benches—and I hope the journalists are listening, because a few of them have latched on to it—is to try to convince the people of New Zealand that the Government inherited a mess, that it inherited hell in a hand basket, and that it now has to clean it up. Well, let us look at a couple of very clear facts that are evidenced throughout the world.

That crew over there inherited from the Labour Government the lowest unemployment rate for 20, 30, or 40 years, but in the previous 2 years especially the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD and the world. Those are clear OECD figures. The National Government inherited from the previous Government the third-lowest level of debt in the OECD. Gross debt was 20 percent of GDP, and net debt was almost zero. That is what the National-led Government inherited from the previous Government.

It inherited a 4 percent unemployment rate. The present Government can look at Labour’s record over 9 years, during which each week 1,000 jobs were created. A thousand jobs were created each week over 9 years. Now we know the big bang package, the next scrum or maul, the next movement of the forward pack in National—the summit of five Ministers going up the line.

We had an admission today by Mr Joyce that the total amount of relief that New Zealanders can expect is, perhaps—maybe, if they are lucky—the creation or saving of 2,000 jobs in total. But as Phil Goff said, in the last 3 months 10,000 jobs have gone. Treasury predicts, and we know, that every week for the next 15 months 1,000 jobs will go, but this Government is trying to say that its package is the big bang that will maybe, as Mr Joyce said, save 2,000 jobs. Well, I say that that is grotesque and irresponsible, and that National—this rolling maul with its drip-feeding—is motivated by one thing, which is to generate an announcement once a week or once every few days that tries to hoodwink people.

I heard Mr Heatley interject on me earlier about State houses. He has said that the Government will build 69 new State houses, and he calls that an increase, when on the same day he has cut 1,500 houses—the construction build—out of Project Hope. Even with my limited mathematics I know that that works out to be a cut, and a deep one. That member stands up and has the audacity to bleat and to accuse the previous Labour Government of being slum landlords, when the previous National Government sold, I believe, 13,000-plus State houses in its time in office.

I will quote Brian Gaynor, as I did the other day. Members opposite rubbish Brian Gaynor today, but he is an eminent business person. I know Mr Gaynor; I had some interactions with him in the minerals industry some years ago. He is an eminent business person and an eminent commentator. In today’s New Zealand Herald he compared the trans-Tasman package with our own and said “our transtasman neighbours are planning to take the direct and aggressive route to the try line while we have a slow moving maul with little idea who is carrying the ball and which way the maul will move next.” That is what he said about New Zealand’s package. The Australians are taking direct and aggressive action. It was Kevin Rudd who stood up, after he delivered—

💬 Paul Quinn: That’s why the All Blacks win, because the Aussies don’t know which way we’re going.

I think we have a parrot or something chirping away at the back of the Chamber. Maybe he should have a few more sunflower seeds.

Kevin Rudd said his first package was not enough, so he said “We’re going to go again.” This National Government is gambling with New Zealanders’ lives. It is saying to New Zealanders “Well, we’re going to drip-feed a bit here and a bit there.” National members are saying today, by their own admission, that even though the country has lost 10,000 jobs, and even though the Government inherited the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, National’s package will save maybe, if it is lucky, 2,000 jobs but will bleed 2,000 New Zealanders’ jobs per week for the next 15 months. That is irresponsible.

💬 Colin King: What about the 43,000 who were leaving for Australia under your lot?

That is the sort of arrogance coming from the back row. That member might want to reflect on the impact of 1,000 job losses a week in his own electorate of Kaikōura. [Interruption] That member does not have an electorate; he is a list MP. Well, where he lives there will be 1,000 job losses a week. Those members should reflect on that rather than stand up and try to trivialise what is a serious economic crisis.

People know the economic facts. They know that this crew in the National Government inherited one of the best economies in the world, with low debt and the lowest unemployment in the world. But National’s political tactic is to try to convince people that the economy was a mess when it got in. That is rubbish. It will not wash. I ask members opposite whether the best they can do is to have a summit of five Ministers, then a Māori employment hui, and then a Job Summit chaired by Mark Weldon, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, who is an odd choice of individual to have chairing a summit, I would have thought, given the economic crisis in the capital markets.

National members’ strategy is to go to a Job Summit but not say “This is our plan that we were elected on, this is our strategy that we were elected on, and we want the commerce sector to help us implement it.” Oh no! It is a bit like the case with Judith Collins. She wanders around this country and says “We’ve been elected, but what should we do? What is the plan?”. The plan is to go to a Job Summit but not present a plan. Bill English will not get up and present a strategy, vision, or plan like Obama did, like Rudd did, and like Brown did; Bill English will go to a Job Summit and say “Can you give me a plan? What should I do? I’m going to take the edge off.” We say that if the sharp edge of the knife adds up to only 2,000 jobs, when 10,000 have been lost and we will lose 1,000 a week—thanks to Mr Joyce—then that proves that, today, National has no plan and no vision and is grossly irresponsible in using this recession as a political tactic to drip-feed little announcements.

At the end of all those announcements, New Zealanders will say “Well, why didn’t you do it aggressively like the Australians? Why didn’t you do it aggressively and responsibly like the Australians and the British? Why didn’t you throw everything at it?”. Every one of those 1,000 who will lose his or her job each week will ask why the Government did not act to do everything it could to save his or her job. I look forward to hearing Mr Brownlee, Mr English, and Mr Key giving a robust explanation for that.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on being a person from the Waikato who now holds the position of Deputy Speaker. We look forward to that continuing in the future.

When we look at what is happening around the world, we see that it is pretty obvious that all of the major economies are developing a plan based on three key factors. Those key factors are to reduce interest rates, to have stimulus packages based around infrastructure development, and to support those who will be in need of help during this crisis. The reason why all those countries are basically engaging in the same plan is that they want to kick-start the economic system of the world. They want a situation where people can go out there and invest in businesses, and have confidence that the economic environment will provide a future. That stimulus will lead to economic growth around the world.

People need low interest rates because they are an incentive for businesses to take the risk of borrowing money to try to make a go of it. They need stimulus packages, so countries invest in infrastructure. Major infrastructure programmes are the norm for most countries around the world. The question then becomes: which infrastructure projects are ready? That was one of the failings of the previous Labour Government—it did not have the programmes ready. The National Government has to bridge that gap by getting programmes through that we can actually deliver this year, when unemployment is due to rise. It is not good enough to wait 2 or 3 years for the design and implementation that are required for the work. The Labour Party did not do those things while it was in Government. The previous Government did not set the New Zealand economy up for this situation; it left us in a situation where we did not have those infrastructure projects ready to go. The National Government in the last week has tried to push through some infrastructure projects that are ready to go; it has more to do in this area. As a political party, we have led the charge in providing support for those in need. We have the ReStart package for people who will be in difficulty over this time.

Those three key factors are universal around the world: to reduce interest rates, to have a stimulus package, and to have a support package for those who will be in need. That is the base of most economic planning at this stage. When Labour members talk of Obama and Brown, and use the terminology of grand plans, they forget the reality and the fundamentals of what those political parties are pushing for. They are pushing for these three key things, which the National Government has done in New Zealand. They are pushing to get that economic base so that we can grow this economy.

When we look at what the National Government has done, we see that it has delivered on its 100-day plan, it has given some direction to the New Zealand public, it has given direction to the economy, and it has indicated to the world that National is leading this country in a way that is possible in these tough economic times. I ask members to compare that with the 90-day plan of Phil Goff, which is coming to an end very soon. He may not be there in the long term of the Labour Party.

The jobs and growth plan of this Government is about keeping this economy running so that it can deliver as strong a solution as possible to the recession the country will face. The infrastructure programme that was released gives a $500 million boost to this economy. The infrastructure is based around areas of education, transport, and housing and is spread geographically through New Zealand. It is also spread through different industries, and amongst different groups of the community that will be struggling. For those on low incomes a housing programme will provide some comfort coming into those cold winter months. For the economic growth that we need we have a transport programme, which will advance some of the larger State highway projects in some of our regions. And in education we are building the blocks that will deliver a stronger New Zealand, giving the strong base that the young people of New Zealand need to tackle the future economies of the world.

Those are the things the National Government has done that are practical and realistic, and that deliver. Let us compare that with what Labour would have done. Its infrastructure programme would have been to build embassies around the world. That would not have helped New Zealand workers, would it? No way. Labour was not delivering for New Zealanders; it was delivering an empire of embassies around the world. That would have been Labour’s plan if it had returned to Government. Labour does not understand what it means to invest in the New Zealand economy. It set up programme after programme investing in US stocks—stocks that have lost billions and billions of dollars. The heart of the New Zealand economy, which did so well in those good years, has been transferred to the US stock exchange, and that money has been lost to the public of New Zealand.

What else did Labour do? It felt it was better to put money into the hands of Australians—through Toll—by paying for a rail network rather than delivering the roading infrastructure that New Zealand needs. It was prepared to send billions of dollars overseas rather than keep it here. Well, National believes in New Zealand. We have a vision and a direction for New Zealand and we will invest in this country. We believe that New Zealanders can make the best of their money. We will not do what Labour was going to do: spend it on building embassies and send it to overseas companies. New Zealanders can build a stronger country—we will, and we have.

What will the Labour Government’s economic legacy be? Labour members always talk about what they have done for this country. Well, let us look at it. Labour put New Zealand into recession before the rest of the world. It destroyed the economy before the rest of the world hit the tidal wave. We are in a situation of recession before the rest of the world is. If we look at the TV channels we see that countries such as America and Australia are fearful of a recession. What about New Zealand? New Zealand has been in a recession for month after month because of the antics of the Labour members, their inability to determine how an economy should grow, and their spending priorities, which were not in the best interests of this country. That is the difference between the National Party and the Labour Party. The National Party has a plan that will deliver, unlike the Labour Party.

If we look at some of those plans we see that National has a business package for small and medium businesses. The package takes away some of the tax and regulatory impacts that have been stifling businesses for a number of years. They are simple measures, but measures that are very important and very well accepted by the business community. The tax cut package will come. New Zealanders will get a tax cut under a National-led Government. Let us compare that with the Labour Government. It took Labour 9 years to deliver a tax cut, and it had no intention of delivering the rest of the tax cuts. In December it was going to stop the next tranche of tax cuts. That was Labour’s grand plan of economic development. Its grand plan to deal with the recession was to stop the tax cuts that most economies are taking on board—about 40 percent of the US package is made up of tax cuts, and that country is led by the Democratic Party! Labour would have stopped the tax cut package. It only put it up for the election—that was it. It had no intention of carrying it through, because it does not understand the fundamentals of business. It does not understand that if businesses are given money they can use that money to build a stronger economy.

Labour would have taken money off New Zealanders because it thinks it knows best how to spend that money in these difficult times. On the other hand, National understands that New Zealanders need that money in their hands. We understand that New Zealanders can make the right choices. We will back them in these times so that they can deliver the kind of future that we need. Under a National Government we will have a growing economy. We will not leave this place in a recession, as the Labour Government did. We will not squander on political things the best economic conditions that this country has had—through international trade—for many years. We will look for a direction that will build a stronger New Zealand and a way forward. Thank you.

I would like to add my congratulations to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and your colleagues on your elevation to the speakership role. In particular, I congratulate the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith.

It is increasingly obvious to all that the world is caught in the grip of a profound recession, the like of which has not been seen since the 1930s, or even, in New Zealand’s history, since perhaps the 1880s. But it is well known both at home and abroad that New Zealand goes into this period of economic uncertainty in better condition that almost any other developed country, such is the legacy of the careful husbandry of Dr Cullen and the previous Labour administration. What the country needs at this point is bold and decisive leadership—boldness because unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, and decisiveness because there are, and will continue to be, hard decisions to make about how best to protect Kiwi workers and their families from the worst effects of the recession.

We in the Labour team stand ready to support the Government when it takes such measures and makes such decisions in the best interests of all New Zealanders. We have said that from the start of our time in Opposition and it still holds true. For example, we would be happy to participate constructively in the Government’s Job Summit at the end of the month, but we have not been asked. We will resist attempting to score cheap and easy points against the National-led Government because of its ineptness and clumsiness, but we will not stand by and let this National-led Government hoodwink the New Zealand public into thinking it is doing new, innovative, bold, and decisive things when it is doing the opposite. This drip-feed approach to stemming job losses is neither bold nor decisive. It is meant to be gearing up production, infrastructure, and spending, but it does none of those things. If we could have confidence that there was a bold plan and not a series of “just in time” decisions recycling money already appropriated, then we could assess the merits of that plan and support the Government where there was merit.

But so far we have had worse than a lack of boldness; we have had deception. Yesterday the Minister of Housing announced that 69 new State houses would be built in various locations around the country, in addition to the 450 already planned for this financial year. Although the figure of 69 was pathetic enough, the figure of 450 was even more alarming. The Housing New Zealand Corporation’s statement of intent for the 2008-09 year clearly states that the goal for housing acquisitions for that year is 650. In fact, the Budget also demonstrates that the appropriation for acquisitions was tied to the goal of 650 new State houses to be added to the stock. The statement of intent actually states that the corporation would seek to revise the number downwards to a range of 530 to 550 but, as the Minister of Housing, I refused to do that, because there was an outstanding and remarkable need to add to the State housing stock, not deplete it. In fact, the goal of 650 remains in the statement of intent as it appears on the Housing New Zealand Corporation website today. I have to add, though—and it is the sort of thing one knows only because one has been the Minister—that the corporation’s concerns were not about the money appropriated; they were about consent processing times.

But what have we seen with the plummeting of the housing market? Yesterday Kevin Mara from the Housing New Zealand Corporation came to a select committee and said that most local councils are now approving building consents in 20 days or fewer. So this is the optimal opportunity for the Housing New Zealand Corporation to use the appropriation that was there to buy houses at bargain prices, and to flood councils with building consents, knowing that they will be turned round in record time. There is still time in the financial year for the Housing New Zealand Corporation to snap up the bargains that are currently out there. But the truth of the Minister’s announcement yesterday is that he is, in fact, cutting by 200 the goal to increase Housing New Zealand Corporation stock by 650, then adding 69 new houses—a net reduction, or “cut” in anybody’s language, of 131 houses. As I have said, money was appropriated for that purpose last year to achieve that goal of 650. The Minister has clearly shown that he is not prepared to compel his officials to stick by the statement of intent. So it has not taken that Minister long to be overriden by his officials.

But this Government is, in fact, doing the opposite to what is required. It is calling the announcement yesterday an investment in jobs with additional spending. I would welcome the modest announcement of 69 additional houses if it were an increase over and above 650, but it is a cut of 131 houses. This figure does not go even anywhere near the 1,500 houses that were planned for the Home Ownership on the Public Estate programme that my colleague Clayton Cosgrove mentioned earlier. It does not go anywhere near that so I am not being extravagant in my claims. The number of new houses to be built is a drop in the bucket. I ask whether the Government will bring forward the work on the 3,000 houses to be built in Hobsonville, or the up to 3,000 houses to be renovated and reconfigured and added to the stock in Tāmaki. Those were the plans of the Labour administration; it was talking in the order of thousands of new houses. This National Government comes up with 69, but it will cut 131 in the process. John Key has actually promised the people of Hobsonville that no State houses will be built there. So we can take 500 out of the mix. He promised them that, and I have an audio recording—which I am willing to make available to members should they require it—to prove it.

The previous Labour administration talked about, and planned and budgeted for thousands of new houses, and this Minister comes up with 69. Let us just see where these houses will go, because that is a bit interesting as well. According to the Minister’s chart there will be 14 new houses in South Auckland, but as at 31 January this year—not last year, not the year before—there are 1,441 people in serious, significant, or persistent housing need in South Auckland. This Minister seeks to address that with 14 houses. These are the families with the most serious housing need. It is hardly surprising that the Mayor of Manukau City, Len Brown, although welcoming 14 new houses—because who would not—says that does not go far enough. There will be seven new houses in west Auckland and North Auckland, but there are 528 people there with a severe, significant, or persistent housing need. These are people in the A and B category on the waiting list. These numbers are new and larger than last year’s, so new solutions are required. The Minister says there will be three new houses built in Auckland Central. This is meant to be a boost to the regional economy—three new houses! Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

To coin a phrase used by a former member of this House, ka pō, ka pō, ka awatea.

[It is night, it is night, and then it is dawn.]

It is a new dawn for Māori under a National Government. I want to pick up five points. The first one is Waitangi Day—a baptism of fire. But under the Labour Government, its members were too gutless to turn up, year after year—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A member has just said that Labour members were too gutless to turn up at Waitangi. That is an out-of- order accusation, and the member knows it.

Speaking to the point of order, I said the Labour Party was too gutless to turn up year after year. If you want to take that as referring to the members of the Labour Party here, well, that is up to you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): I thank the member for that. Exception is taken and the exception is ruled for. I ask the member to refrain from using that language in that tone. It is a very cute line to draw between the party the person represents and the individual. Members should well know that. I ask the member to continue with his speech.

The Labour Party was too scared to turn up.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is now being very cute indeed. He is also factually incorrect; a number of members of the Labour Party turn up every year.

Speaking to the point of order, we have just seen the former Deputy Prime Minister rise to his feet and call a point of order. There was no point of order in the point of order he raised, and he immediately sat down. It was used just to break up the momentum of a speech. I ask you to deal with that matter very seriously, because if we let Dr Cullen get away with it [Interruption]—and there goes another interruption on a point of order—and if we let that sort of thing go, then you will have disruption in the House.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Mr Assistant Speaker, you ruled out of order the member saying Labour members were too gutless. The member then said the Labour Party was too scared. That is just a cute way of trying to make the same point. It is out of order, as well as being factually incorrect.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): Firstly, I say to Mr Henare it is well known and understood that it is just as wrong to refer to people as parties as it is to refer to them as individuals. I make that point again. The second thing is that it is not correct to simply try to remake the objection in another way. The third point the member raised was about the breaking up of his speech. As I recall it, the member had hardly uttered a further 10 words before objection was taken to the same thing. I just invite the member to continue with his speech, but in a vein that is acceptable to the House.

They did not turn up because they knew they would get a hiding at Waitangi. They did not do the bully-boy tactics, but they did the verbals and the protests, and they said they did not want to go there but would rather go somewhere where their mates were.

I will give members a quote from John Roughan in the New Zealand Herald: “she could not find it in herself to rise above small indignities and defeat them with humility and generosity of spirit. … She couldn’t find the capacity in her soul to say something humble, heartfelt and uplifting in” the cradle of the nation’s people, “the cradle of the nation’s hopes.” At Waitangi Labour members have shown how really awkward they are when faced with difficult situations. That is reflected in their relationship with Māori, which is strained and awkward.

The National Party leader has turned up every year, despite the scuffles and the tellings-off, because it is a demonstration of our Government’s humility and generosity of spirit. Our Prime Minister has pledged to the people of Te Tii Marae that he will be back, no matter what occurs. He will be back, no matter what occurs, every year—ia tau, ia tau, ia tau. And why? This is a new dawn.

Where else has Labour demonstrated its clumsiness? Oh, that is right; it is on the battlefields of national identity. We heard from Labour about Kiwi this and Kiwi that, but it never properly defined what it means by the word “Kiwi”, or even by the words “national identity”, because it was all just spin. When Labour ran out of ideas it was all spin, spin, spin. Labour applied that to everything from closing schools to State housing. When National asked where Māori fitted into Labour’s version of a national identity, we were told that they had a special place. I have always wondered what that place was, and now, after 9 years and after looking back, I see that it is in the corner, on the naughty-mat.

Under National we approach national identity is a deeper and more meaningful way, because we know that Māori are central to this country’s identity. Without Māori and their unique outlook on the world, in terms of their language, customs, traditions, history, and stories, this country would indeed be a cultural wasteland filled with the ghosts of lost opportunity. That is why National has more Māori MPs than the Labour Party. That is why, under National, it is important for us to celebrate Waitangi Day at Waitangi, the birthplace of our nation. That is why, under National, the debate is not about whether a Māori flag is flown but about which Māori flag is flown over this noble building, and why, under Labour, debate on that would absolutely not have been possible. The Labour members did not believe in the idea of a national identity. I say it is a new dawn. The biggest—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Ka awatea! You’ve said that before; you said that 10 years ago.

That is right. Absolutely! I am glad Darren Hughes was listening.

But the biggest insult that Labour directed at Māori was the foreshore and seabed legislation. A vicious campaign of misinformation was carried out by none other than the former Prime Minister and the former Deputy Prime Minister, ending with the immortal words of Dr Cullen: “If you do not agree with it, you do not understand it.” Well, 30,000 people marched on Parliament simply to say they understood the bill all right, and still did not agree with it. The question remains whether Helen Clark was there to listen to their pleas. No; she sent her mates Parekura Horomia and John Tamihere out on to the battlefield. Where was she? She was watching a sheep being shorn—adding Shrek to her version of national identity.

But it is a new dawn. One would expect that under Labour, with its significant Māori support, we would have seen huge progress with Treaty settlements over 9 years—not just over the last part of it before the election. Labour had teenagers from the Office of Treaty Settlements negotiating with tribal leaders. But, as I say, it is a new dawn.

Labour’s best faux pas was reserved for the Māori Party, calling those members “haters and wreckers”, and “the last cab off the rank”. That is what the former Prime Minister said. That relationship degenerated by the day, to the point where Labour now struggles to engage with voters in the Māori seats, who were once the party’s most loyal supporters. And I doubt whether those seats will ever go back to the Labour Party.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: You said that when you were in New Zealand First.

Oh no! No, I never did. Members can see that the difference between the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and me is that I can remember. I am glad that voters in the Māori seats have once again seen the light and returned to a National coalition Government. It is a new dawn.

I have a message for Parekura Horomia, and it is that I can hear the hills of Tolaga Bay calling the former Minister home. The dogs are in the yard; the sheep are all ready to be rounded up. My message to Shane Jones is to take the reins right now and maybe, just maybe, he can retain what little mana Labour has left among Māori voters. It is over. It is done and dusted. It is time for him to ride off into the sunset and close the door behind him, because it is for Labour ka pō, ka pō, and for National ka awatea, ka awatea. What that means is out of the darkness comes a new dawn. Kia ora.

It is a real pleasure to follow that quite strange and crazy speech. I will take a moment if I may, Mr Assistant Speaker Barker, to congratulate you on your elevation to the role of Assistant Speaker. I offer my congratulations to the Speaker—the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith—the Deputy Speaker, and Assistant Speaker Roy, as well.

I also congratulate the new members of Parliament from all sides. I listened to their speeches with great interest and I was struck by the conviction and motivation of so many of them. I am impressed with, and very excited about, our new Labour colleagues, who are now part of the team, and I welcome them. May I say to the new MPs on the other side of the House that we will disagree often but please do not take it personally. I have no doubt that every MP—

💬 Paul Quinn: Not a problem.

—comes to this House for a purpose—

💬 Moana Mackey: Except for you.

—yes; except for maybe that member over there—and I believe that they sincerely and genuinely want to make a difference. I am looking forward to those new members finding out that doing that is not as easy as they think.

That is why the Opposition will be keeping the Government accountable for the many, many promises made during the election campaign by those new members and the members from National who were re-elected. The promises just rolled off their lips. The Leader of the Opposition’s very reasonable amendment that he is suggesting be added to the motion on the Order Paper today spells out the things that New Zealanders have been led to expect under this National-led Government. It sets a benchmark for the Government to measure itself by, and I tell the House that Labour will be vigorously monitoring it. As many of my colleagues have said, Labour will work constructively with the Government where it acts in a positive way on behalf of all New Zealanders. Where it does not, the Labour Party will be forceful in its opposition.

As we all know, New Zealanders are not immune to the global downturn, and they deserve some real leadership in these unprecedented economic times. But I fear that the Government is clueless in a crisis. We are all hoping that National knows what it is doing; well, I have not seen much sign of that yet. It made a really bad start before Christmas by cutting workers’ rights, increasing tax for low-paid workers, and slashing KiwiSaver, as well as “retro-charging” research and development and climate change initiatives.

I heard Chris Finlayson’s snobby comments yesterday about some of my new colleagues—those who have advocated for working people for most of their lives. His disparaging comments about unionists show the underlying prejudices that the National Party members still have and their failure to understand the modern union movement. That was demonstrated so clearly by National’s contemptuous process in rushing through the 90-day fire-at-will bill before Christmas. Now National members expect unions to sit down with them at the Job Summit and help solve all their problems. Actually, calling a Job Summit is not a plan. It says to the country that the Government has used up all its big ideas already and is struggling to find more. I hope the summit is more than a talkfest, but I am not holding my breath.

However, we in the Opposition like to be helpful, so let me offer some suggestions. When it comes to jobs the priority must be to retain and reskill, because if we do not do this, not only will the economy nosedive further than it needs to but we will find that our country has the same problem of skills shortages that it had after the gutting of the labour market in the 1990s. It means supporting firms to hang on to workers, not retrench them, and providing training funds—as, indeed, Labour had proposed to do prior to the election—so that workers can spend downtime on upskilling while not losing income. It means creating green jobs, as Barack Obama has done, and heeding Ban Ki-moon’s call to the world’s business and other leaders to use the current economic crisis to launch a global “Green New Deal” that creates jobs and that fights climate change at the same time by investing in renewable energy and technological development.

What it is not about is pay freezes. Yes, maybe it is for the higher paid, including the chief executive officers of private companies who have had a bonanza in recent years, but not for those who rely on their incomes to feed their families. One of the reasons that New Zealand pay is so far behind that of Australia is the pay freezes and pay cuts during the 1990s, during the two recessions we had under the last National Government. That money has never been recovered. It is never spent, it is removed from the economy, it disappears offshore in profits, and it is not invested in New Zealand. Everyone at home pays, and workers still lose their jobs.

Yesterday’s infrastructure package falls well short of the mega-boost we need to protect New Zealanders from the fall-out of the global economic crisis. New Zealanders are looking for leadership from this National Government, but all we are seeing are timid and weak actions. I have noticed that it is almost fashionable to have been a State house kid—I was one of them—but I suppose it depends which side one is on. I am not so sure about Hobsonville in John Key’s electorate. It is so unfashionable there that John Key will ditch a progressive-model mixed housing development.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Didn’t he have one?

He had one but he does not want anyone else to have one. He does not want modest-income families in his electorate to live in pride and dignity, among the better-off, with access to good facilities and with a view of our beautiful harbour. The poor do not deserve views! National’s State housing announcement was really disappointing. It is, as my colleague Maryan Street has pointed out, a cut, not an increase. I also noticed the seven new State houses being built in the west and north, and there is need there, but I find that quite contemptuous. [Interruption] That is right.

I come now to the minimum wage increase. In hard times like these it is the lowest paid who should take precedence. It is unconscionable that the highest paid in the country will be getting a huge boost with tax cuts on April 1, while those on the lowest incomes will get almost nothing. National’s gifts to workers before Christmas were tax increases and the right to be sacked in the first 90 days. Where is the compensation for those vulnerable workers? It is a $3.78 a week pay rise, if they are full-time workers, as the Minister confirmed yesterday—the lowest increase to the minimum wage in many years.

I take the opportunity to acknowledge the Māori Party’s attempts to gain a bigger increase for lower-paid workers. What a frustrating exercise that must have been. After all Tau Henare’s lovely words about a new dawn, the Māori Party tried to get a better increase in the minimum wage and was ignored. I want to know how this measly minimum wage increase contributes to closing the wage gap with Australia. You know, Australia’s minimum wage is $18 an hour.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: How much?

It is $18 an hour. So how are we closing the gap? [Interruption] No, it did not lose jobs during that period; it gained them.

💬 Moana Mackey: Why don’t they want to copy the Australians on that?

I am not sure. They like to copy them on all sorts of things. As the Council of Trade Unions says, the current crisis was not created by workers, but boy are they paying for it under this National Government! We need to do better for those who are laid off. We need minimum redundancy entitlements to be introduced urgently. The pitiful $26 million ReStart package goes nowhere near helping those who are going to lose their jobs.

People are better off, and have been better off, under Labour. Unlike the National Government, Labour gave priority to ensuring that the low-paid workers of the country were not left behind when it came to sharing the prosperity and growth of the last 9 years. But that has been the way of Labour Governments ever since we were first elected. It seems to me that talking about an underclass in New Zealand—as National likes to do—is one thing, but doing something about it is left to Labour. Thank you.

When one has been in politics for a long time—as Dr Cullen and a number of other members here, including me, have—one gets to know one thing that is almost an absolute fact, and that is that New Zealand is highly, highly dependent on what goes on in the rest of the world. No matter how much we would like to crow about what a magnificent Government we are or what a dreadful Government somebody else was, or whatever, the fact is that the vast bulk of what happens to us, economically and with regard to employment and a whole range of other things, is very, very dependent on the rest of the world. I wish that that were not the case, and I wish we were isolated enough that we could completely control our own destiny, but the fact is that the world is some sort of global marketplace now, we are part of it, and we have to get used to it.

In respect of that point, I say that it was really galling to be a member of the Opposition for 9 years and to see world conditions so staggeringly good—to see unbelievable levels of commodity prices, to see the strength of the world economy, and to see levels of unemployment that were the lowest across the world. We sat in Opposition watching the Labour Government and hearing Michael Cullen making statements about how it was ferreting some of the good stuff away for a rainy day.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Just as well!

Well—“Just as well!”, says Steve Chadwick—what is really tragic is what happened just as the time came for National to clean up at the election. And clean up we did. I do not think I have ever known, in the eight election campaigns I have fought—and I say this absolutely sincerely—more people saying this one sentence to me: “We’ve got to get this lot out.” I heard it over and over, no matter where I went. The old axiom is slightly true: when one is in Government, friends come and go but enemies accumulate. But I have never known it to be quite as strong as that, ever.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Come on—1999!

No, I am sorry, but I tell Dr Cullen that it was not as strong as that in 1999. Yes, it was strong. It was not as strong as that in 1990 when Labour was slung out, but this time it was time for that lot to go. So poor old National came into power at a time when the entire world was heading for meltdown.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

No, it is no good lamenting it, because that is just the reality—that is the reality of it. So now we have to pick up the cudgel and start to do some things that will take off the sharp edges of the world recession. It is no good, ever, trying to pretend that we will fix the world’s economy. It is no good trying to pretend that what is happening in the United States, Europe, Britain, or Australia does not matter; it all matters. They are all major trading partners of ours; what is going on there matters.

I am really proud to see the National Party in Government, along with its coalition partners, start to take some action almost immediately on being elected—almost immediately. Members will remember that the election did not take place until November, and the Government was not sworn in until a couple of weeks later, yet by the very beginning of December legislation was firing through this House to do some things.

Let me take what I think is one of the very, very best things National did when it came into office. This morning I met with an organisation called the Small Business Advisory Group. Interestingly, every one of the members in that group was appointed by the Labour Government when it was in power, so they are not a bunch of National Party lackeys, or a bunch of our supporters. Every member of the Small Business Advisory Group was appointed by the previous Labour Government, but the members of that group unanimously said thank you—they said thank you so much—for the 90-day provisional employment legislation. They all represent small business, they are all small-business people themselves, and they said that it would make a huge difference. As we went around the table nearly every one of them said they were facing falls in retail sales and customer orders, and they were having to let some staff go as time went by. But for those who wanted to take a chance at bringing on a new staff member, the 90-day provisional employment legislation meant they were at least prepared to take that risk. I asked if any of them there would want to bring somebody on to their staff, hire that person for 89 days while they were trained up to be a productive staff member, then sack that person so they could bring the next person in, to start training him or her. They started laughing—they absolutely started laughing—and quite rightly so.

That shows why Labour members have their thinking on this issue so wrong. I do not think that any of those members have employed anybody; that is their problem. They do not know about employing people. If only they knew that the most valuable asset a company can have is good staff, and that when companies bring someone on and find that person is of value, they will do anything to keep the person. I know a number of businesses that struggle almost daily to ensure they keep good conditions and the right environment.

I know a number of small-business managers who have told me they are approached on a regular basis, especially now that times are tough, by some people who might be thought to be at the lower end of the employment register. Those people might be terribly low on the educational or socio-economic scale, or whatever, but they desperately want to get into the workforce. The managers of these companies whom I have talked to have not been prepared to take that risk in the past. But when the new legislation kicks in, they will take that risk; they will have a crack at it, and they will see whether those people can get on the first rung of the labour force ladder. They said they will be delighted if that works out and they can keep those people employed. But the Labour Party’s attitude to that is that the boss class will abuse the workforce by taking people on for 89 days and, when they are just getting trained up, give them the boot.

Regarding the small-business portfolio, I am pleased this Government has taken a whole range of other measures. Frankly, I think there is a good argument to say that if a company is a Fletcher Challenge, a Carter Holt Harvey, or a Fonterra, it will have a human resources department and an accounting department with a whole fleet of accountants—if “fleet” is the right collective for accountants. It will also have a whole series of legal advice people and a whole range of other things, and therefore it will be able to comply with tax laws, which are massive, with occupational safety and health laws, and with employment law. But it is quite clear that when a company is a one or two person business, a husband and wife business, or a three-person business, the red tape and the bureaucracy of complying with the Inland Revenue Department and a whole range of other Government bodies can literally send that business down the gurgler, and then there is not a business at all. So I am really pleased that as a first step in our small-business package, we have allowed some discretion. We have said we will move the thresholds for GST filing, PAYE filing, provisional tax, and all of those things. When a company is a one or two person business struggling to keep its operation going, it is really annoying to be treated in the same way as a lot of big businesses, which have the resources to do those things.

We have also put in place some things put up by the Small Business Advisory Group. That group wanted an 0800 number that businesses could call for advice. There is now a free mentoring service. We have offered small-business people a free health check on their businesses. People who really do know their oats in this area can go in and look at how those businesses are functioning. There is no question about the methods this National-ACT coalition Government has put in place—within weeks, not within months. In many cases it has taken up to a year for some Governments to have an impact after coming into power, but within 2 weeks of the election result being declared, things were flying through this House, and packages are now being announced that change tax and employment laws, and that will allow this country to survive this recession better than it would ever have had a chance to do had the country stayed under the Labour regime.

The last thing I say is “Roll on with some changes to the RMA!”, because if there has been one thing that has killed this country’s ability to make economic progress and go forward, it has been the Resource Management Act. I welcome the fact that we will take a stick to it in two ways.

It is appropriate that the member Maurice Williamson finished with a classic bit of National Party spin. Let me remind him that the Resource Management Act, which he just condemned as holding back the New Zealand economy, was passed by the National Government that he was part of in 1991. National has spent 9 years working on its spin lines and not 9 days working on its policies, and that has been its problem ever since the election.

We have seen two spin lines coming out in this debate. One is that New Zealand was the first and only country to have a recession in the last year. Let me correct that. The National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States is the official determiner of when the US is in recession. About 4 weeks ago it said that the US had been in recession since the fourth quarter of 2007. That is the official United States view.

The second spin line is about all these things being unfunded. This is cute stuff. This is simply saying that when we say something is happening in 2 or 3 years’ time, it has not yet been appropriated—it is unfunded. Well, practically everything is unfunded at this point, as far as 2010, 2011, and 2012 are concerned. Right through the campaign it was National that pretended the economy was better than it was, and that was summed up by Mr Key always telling us that New Zealand did not have a debt problem. Well, the sound we hear from members opposite now is the sound of chickens coming home to roost faster than I have ever seen following a change of Government.

This Government’s actions will now be measured against the scale of the problem we face. We do face the worst economic crisis in the world since the Second World War. There are two sources of that crisis. The first is the folly, greed, and dishonesty of those in international financial markets. Within the last 48 hours, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase announced that he got a US$27 million bonus last year, having picked up US$10 billion from the US Government to fix up the mess that was made in that business. There have been US$18 billion in bonuses in the US financial system, at a time when the US taxpayer is pouring money out hand over fist for people who never properly assessed risk and reward, who disguised their behaviour, who acted utterly improperly, and who are now threatening to bring the world into a great depression. Those are the people whom members opposite admire.

The second source of the crisis is the growing imbalance between the countries that have been borrowers and the countries that have been savers over the last 10 years. That fact was brought to the attention of every international economic conference over the last few years.

What do we need to do in this situation? First, we need to cushion the effects of this recession. Second, we need to take advantage of the opportunities that are opened up as resources are being freed up. Some things that were not possible a year or two ago are actually possible now. Thirdly, we must deal with the financial market issues, and, fourthly, we have to deal with those imbalances.

Let me take those in reverse order, and judge the Government’s actions against them. On the question of imbalances, this Government’s response has not merely been inadequate; it has been completely the opposite of what is required. We have been one of the borrowing countries, and this has led to the growing imbalances in the world. Whereas the Chinese have to learn to spend more, we have to learn to save more over the long term.

And what is the Government’s answer? The Government’s answer has been to cut KiwiSaver—the first real attempt to lift private sector household savings in New Zealand—and to have unsustainable tax cuts, which will lead to a fiscal position that the Minister of Finance admitted yesterday will, on the present best estimates, take us back to where we were in the early 1990s. What I left this Government was gross Government debt under 20 percent of GDP—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: A decade of deficits.

—and I remind the member opposite that he attacked the Government every year for running too big a surplus. Every year National promised to spend the surplus. Now it can live off that surplus for a year or two, but within 3 years it will be looking at debt going back to being worse than it was in 1999, and within 5 or 6 years it will be back to where it was in the early 1990s. It will be a long haul through the next decade, in that regard.

To correct those imbalances, New Zealand needs more exports and more research and development, but the Government’s answer was to can the research and development incentive, to cancel the Fast Forward fund, and to cancel the Broadband Investment Fund, which was ready to roll. So this will not be a year for asking business what it wants, which is what Mr Joyce announced it would be today. By the time National decides that, the rest of the world will have moved forward to the next stage, and we will be catching up again in that regard.

What about the extraordinary claim from Mr Key that New Zealand does not have a debt problem? New Zealand has always had a debt problem. For a while the Government did not have a debt problem, but the new Government solved that pretty quickly. Now we have a household debt problem within New Zealand. Unfortunately, the Government’s obsession with tax cuts will not work, because the individual in the household acts pro-cyclically. When the economy is turning down and people are afraid of losing their jobs, they will actually start to save more, not spend, unless money is given to those at the bottom. What did the Government do? It introduced a tax cut programme that took away tax cuts from those at the bottom and redistributed them to those at the top, who will not be spending that money in stimulating the New Zealand economy.

What of the financial markets? There is no sign of a comprehensive understanding of what needs to be done. The Government is still locked into a right-wing agenda in that respect. New Zealand needs a new social contract around a market economy that states clearly that capitalism succeeds best not merely in producing wealth but when there is a fair sharing of that wealth. That was the contract that dominated the first three-quarters of the 20th century. It has been broken over the last quarter of a century, and that has led directly to the crisis that we are now in. Unless there is a move to have much greater disclosure in financial markets, both within countries and across countries, unless there is much greater commonality of rules, and unless there is the ability to intervene by regulators without tight, brightline rules that create means for financial sector people to move around them, we will simply see the next recession being worse than this. This recession is worse than the last one precisely because those issues have not been addressed.

What about the cushioning effects and taking advantage of them? It is much too little, much too timid, and it is constrained by National’s tax decisions. There should have been bold moves on sustainability, on public transport, and on skills, and these areas have not been mentioned at all so far in the Government’s announcements. A whole strategy has been agreed between Business New Zealand, the Council of Trade Unions, and the Government, and it is ready to roll out. It could be funded much more—Business New Zealand wants that. Where is the announcement around that? There is nothing so far. Where are we building the skills for when the economy takes up again? Luckily, the Government will get Kiwis coming back from Australia. Luckily, there will be fewer Kiwis going to Australia. That will be the great success in the next year. Why? Because Australia is in recession, and therefore there will not be so many people going. It is a great move, but it does not mean anything for the future of this country.

Where are the moves to retool industry while we have the chance to do so in this situation? Instead, there will be 69 new State houses, which is actually a reduction of 11, even on the Government’s own numbers. There will be a $42 million roading package. In terms of the cost of bringing it forward, half will be spent on a bridge designed merely to get people to and from their holidays faster. What will that do to productivity? Well, if the Government is going to take a week off people’s holidays, they will need to get to and from their holidays faster! Of course, the doozy concerns Transpower and the network—the Government is going to paint the pylons. So it is not a case of Fawlty Towers; rather, “Monty Pylon” is the Government’s answer to an infrastructure package. Painting pylons will be the answer to New Zealand’s economic problems! Well, it is slightly better than the situation in the 1930s—but not an awful lot.

It is no wonder that yesterday and today Mr English has looked overwhelmed by the problems. I know that the numbers he is getting from Treasury are enough to frighten any Minister of Finance. It is no wonder that he said yesterday, in a slip of the tongue, that it is the worst recession for 90 years. If that is true, the Minister of Finance yesterday told us that it is worse than the Great Depression. That was a frightening comment from a Minister of Finance. This Government does not have an answer, at all. It is fiddling and fiddling around, and it does not know what to do. It simply has spin lines to try to blame the previous Government. It will not work.

That speech was from a member whose legacy to New Zealand is a decade of deficits. That member said today that we should be spending more, but only 6 months ago he was accusing John Key of being reckless for wanting a $4.5 billion programme of infrastructure investment. What we have now is a Government that is committed to keeping its word to the public of New Zealand. We have a Government that is committed to responding properly to the global recession and to doing so in a way that is realistic and responsible.

We are 85 days into the first 100 days of the new Government. Is this a Government that is doing what it said it would do? Well, we said that in the first 100 days we would pass a tax package to reduce tax for all New Zealanders and to improve the incentives to create wealth. I note and compare the first act of the previous Labour Government when it came to office. It put taxes up. Members on this side of the House are proud of the fact that one of the first actions we have taken is to reduce the tax burden on those who earn the wealth for this country.

We have come to office with a huge infrastructure deficit. If there is any part that reflects that, it is in respect of the shambles of the Cook Strait cable. As a Minister in the previous National Government I remember being told that if there was an area where we would be attacked in the unlikely event of a military threat, then it would be the Cook Strait cable. Do members realise that the previous Labour Government, without any enemy, has created a set of infrastructure where half the Cook Strait cable is down? Whether we look at roading in Auckland, at electricity, at water, or at any other part of the infrastructure we will see that the last Government neglected New Zealand. National is on track to address that problem.

We said that during our 100-day programme there would be a Minister for Infrastructure. We said that we would be setting out a programme with a 20-year plan for infrastructure, and we said that we would bring those projects forward early so that we could get on and do them. The Government is doing just that.

The third thing we said we would do within that 100-day programme is to introduce and announce a set of reforms to the Resource Management Act. For 9 years there were pleas from every corner of New Zealand for the previous Government to make changes to that Act, which has acted as such a brake on the engine room of growth for the New Zealand economy, but the previous Minister for the Environment said that the Act was beautifully crafted and beautifully written, and steadfastly refused to make changes to that statute.

I was amazed to get a letter today from a former president of the Labour Party, Mr Bob Harvey. He has written to me to congratulate the Government on its Resource Management Act reforms and to say that they are excellent. He went one step further: he said that they should have occurred years ago. Bob Harvey is right; they should have occurred years ago. Next week this Government will be introducing a resource management reform bill so that we can build the infrastructure and have the engine room of the New Zealand economy growing.

We also said that we would be introducing a transitional relief tax package. I say to members opposite that there is almost a pretence from David Cunliffe that if only the Government spent enough, then it could somehow make the international recession go away in New Zealand. Members on this side of the House are far more realistic. Anybody who pretends that New Zealand can somehow magically—as David Cunliffe would have it—remove itself from the international events that are occurring is off in cuckoo land. We have seen from this Government a very realistic response to those things that we can do. We are aware that there will be New Zealanders out there, hard-working New Zealanders, who will lose their jobs through no fault of their own. I congratulate Paula Bennett on the package she has brought forward that will make it easier for people, particularly for low and middle income families, as they manage the effects of the recession.

I particularly compliment Simon Power on the work he has done in the justice area. If one looks at the 100-day programme and the challenges—[Interruption] Well, what does it say in the 100-day programme? It says that legislation will be introduced to deal with the parole issues for the worst repeat violent offenders. We have done that. I say well done to Simon Power. It says that we will introduce legislation to clamp down on criminal gangs and the drug trade. It says that we will make changes to the bail laws. It says that we will make changes around the DNA laws. It says that we will introduce a levy for those who commit crimes so that we can help victims of crime. It is a very ambitious agenda.

The interesting thing coming from members opposite is that every one of them has said that the Government is going too fast. Members on this side of the House say that we are keeping our word—and we will keep our word to the electorate.

I also commend Anne Tolley, the Minister of Education. She said that in her first 100 days she would introduce legislative change to provide for literacy and numeracy standards—and she has delivered on that. I say well done to her. New Zealanders up and down the country will also say well done to her.

Tonight I am holding a public meeting in my Nelson electorate around the issue of special education facilities. I have to say that the community in Nelson welcomes the extra money that has been brought forward for educational facilities. What does it mean for my community? It means that special-needs children in Richmond will have access to a newer facility so that they might get the education they deserve. I know that members on all sides of the House will say that that is right and proper. I just cannot see why members opposite would whinge about a plan that will see children in New Zealand have better facilities than they have had previously.

I look at the programme in terms of what the Government is planning in the area of health. The Government said it would instruct the Ministry of Health and the district health boards to pull back on their bureaucracy, and I congratulate the Minister of Health—my benchmate—on doing that. The Government campaigned on providing the full 12-month treatment for Herceptin. I have to say, the most amazing thing happened to me over the holiday period when I hopped down to my local Mitre 10. A lovely woman and her family came up to me—in a way that has never occurred in my 18 years as a parliamentarian—to express how grateful they are that the Government is providing that Herceptin. In fact, it was actually very emotional, in that the woman broke down in tears over the fact that no longer would they have to raise a mortgage on their house so that their daughter might be able to get the best chance of life. I say good on the Minister of Health for meeting that part of the 100-day programme. I know that families all over New Zealand are grateful for that.

Also in that 100-day programme John Key said that National would repeal the Electoral Finance Act. I know that there are New Zealanders up and down this country who are grateful for that. I look forward to members opposite apologising for that Draconian law, which was nothing other than an abuse of power by a desperate Labour Government that would do anything to hang on to power, even screw the electoral laws to its own advantage. The most amazing element has been the Leader of the Opposition admitting that Labour had that wrong.

This is a Government that is keeping its word. This is a Government that is responding responsibly to the recession. This is a Government that is on track to be able to be a responsible and good Government for the people of New Zealand.