General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Today I want to take my time in this House to try to get a message to Labour members. The message is not going to be too career enhancing for me as a member on this side of the House, because it will get me into some trouble. The message is “Please listen to what your leader has been saying because in many cases he has been right and you should support what he has been saying.” I know Darren Hughes is looking aghast that a National Minister should be telling Labour members to listen to what the Hon Phil Goff has been saying, but I am going to take members for a little jaunt through some of what Phil Goff has said along the way—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Because you were there!

Yes, I was there, I say to Darren Hughes and I thoroughly agree with these statements. My plea to the Labour members of this House is to start taking their leader seriously and to start listening to what he says, because Phil Goff is right in so many respects. I will cover three portfolios. Actually Phil Goff is arriving; he will be able to listen to some of these statements because they are wonderful.

I want to cover three headings: housing, education, and unemployment and job creation. The Hon Phil Heatley, our fantastic Minister of Housing, recently announced a policy in housing. National is going to sell some State houses to the tenants. The people who have been living in State houses for some time will be allowed to buy them. With the money that is freed up we can buy more appropriate houses. In some cases there may be an elderly person living in a four-bedroom home, which is grossly inappropriate for that person’s circumstances, and the demand is for one or two-bedroom homes elsewhere, so we will let that person buy the house that he or she has lived in for a long time and does not want to give up.

I tell members that Moana Mackey, the Labour spokesperson on housing, immediately attacked National for that. She said it was an outrageous policy. Well, we would have to say that is the Opposition doing its job. But, honestly, Moana Mackey must start listening to her leader; she must start listening to some of the things that Phil Goff has said along the way. Some of the announcements from Phil Goff are just amazing. Let me give members an example from the Hon Phil Goff in October 1986. He said: “The sale of those houses and the purchase of replacement properties will assist the Housing Corporation to house more applicants off the waiting list in appropriate accommodation.” He was absolutely right. Well done, I say to Phil Goff. He should go to the head of the class. He deserves the leadership of the Labour Party. It is a shame that its members do not support what he had to say.

But wait, just like at the Warehouse, there is more. He said: “Lifting the ban is designed to give longstanding tenants whose houses have become their homes the opportunity to buy those properties.” Again, well done, I say to him. It is exactly what National’s policy is, and it is exactly what Moana Mackey is attacking, even though Phil Goff thought it was a great idea. He goes on—as I said, there is more: “Because they are unlikely to vacate their homes, the sale of those houses and the purchase of replacement properties will assist the Housing Corporation to house more applicants off the waiting list.” I think that is just spectacular. I thank Phil Goff for the endorsement and for supporting National’s policy. We totally agree with him, and we totally disagree with Moana Mackey who has been rabbiting on about how the sale of State housing stock is not the answer, it will not work, and it potentially erodes the stock of those unsold.

We now come to the next item I want to cover—education—and I know that in my last 40 seconds I will not be able to cover much. But, again, Phil Goff was the Minister and I have quotes from him from many times in the past. In the Hansard of October 1989, Phil Goff said that he recognised the need for the country to live within its means. He talked about the need to maintain and improve national standards in education. Again, I ask Labour members to please get to Trevor Mallard and ask him to start listening to some of the things that the Hon Phil Goff has said along the way. He was absolutely right.

I should be flattered that the National research unit is working full-time finding out what I said 25 years ago in Parliament when the members on the opposite benches were mere novices. Unfortunately, most of them are still in that category. I am particularly flattered to be quoted by Maurice Williamson. Maurice Williamson has the hat trick: he is the only National Minister who has been sacked by three different National leaders. It is much safer for Maurice Williamson to quote of words of wisdom that I spoke as a callow 28-year-old in Parliament 25 years ago than it is to quote any people on the same side of the House as him.

I want now to address in a more serious fashion what I think is the most critical issue facing New Zealand at the moment. We are 7 months into this National Government, and each week 1,200 New Zealand men and women are joining the dole queues—1,200. We know that for every person who joins the dole queue another three people are losing their jobs, so 3,000 people a week are likely to be losing their jobs in this country. Those people are losing their livelihood. They are breadwinners who can no longer support their families. Schoolkids are leaving school without hope and without a job. Twenty percent of our teenagers are on the job market at the moment, unable to find work in New Zealand. What worries New Zealanders is that there is no plan, and there are no ideas to address this situation. That is why the Prime Minister spent the entire question time quoting me from 25 years ago rather than come up with a single idea himself.

He made a statement yesterday that he was going to come out with a plan and some fresh ideas. After 7 months in Government, he will have a plan and some fresh ideas. Well, we had the Job Summit. Do members remember the Prime Minister’s words? It was going to be a “do-fest”, not a talkfest. But all we got was rhetoric. There were three big ideas. There have been no jobs from the credit provision facility that was going to create thousands of jobs and save firms. There have been no jobs from cycleways, which Treasury told the Prime Minister was an inefficient way of creating jobs. And the Government got so desperate that last week it came up with the claim that 32 new jobs have been created under the 9-day working fortnight—32 jobs. Do members know what is tragic about that? It represents about 10 percent of the jobs that have been lost in any one day each and every day that National has been in office. Yet all National can do is come into this House and through the Prime Minister claim that 32 jobs have been saved by the 9-day working fortnight. Well, with 60,000 New Zealanders likely to be thrown out of their jobs in the next year, that simply is not good enough.

We are not asking for a miracle solution. We are not saying that we can be exempt from the impact of international recession. But we are saying that it is incumbent on a Government to set priorities. The priority here and now is to stop those tens of thousands of New Zealanders from losing their jobs. But all we have seen from the Government are steps that take us in the opposite direction. The December tax legislation gave a third of the income tax cuts to the top 3 percent of income earners—the very people who would save the money because they would not need to spend it. The economy would not be stimulated, nor a single job created, by a third of those tax cuts going to the income-earning elite of this country. The Prime Minister can twist and distort things all he likes, but that is the fact of that stimulus package. It was not a stimulus package; the Government could have used that money to save tens of thousands of jobs.

What is it doing about the one in five teenagers who is out of work? The Government has cut Enterprising Communities, the scheme that everybody agreed was doing something in practical terms to help our school leavers and to give them a fair go. We found in the Budget papers today that $12 million over 3 years has been cut out of Career Services. The Government would rather 32,000 young people rot on unemployment queues than spend that money trying to help them find jobs. Then there is the matter of training. We know that it takes 4 years to train an apprentice, but do we have a countercyclical policy to help employers take on apprentices? No.

We are hearing a lot about, and from, Phil Goff today, and I want to focus on the real mismatch between Labour rhetoric and the beliefs of its current leader. The Hon Phil Goff has been around Parliament for a long time. It has been a long haul from 1981 to 2009. It has been a long time of standing behind Clark and Cullen, and a long time of being on the wrong philosophical side of the powerbrokers.

All Labour members know that Phil Goff has always been to the right of the party, and way back in the mid-1980s whenever the party was in dispute, he generally positioned himself on the side of Roger Douglas, which was in support of deregulation and free trade. I am sure that is very pleased to see Roger Douglas back in the House these days. When we read his quotes from the 1980s, we know that deep down he absolutely does not support the things his party is saying. And now, as the country is facing a global recession, it must be particularly difficult for him to support the, frankly, simplistic and fiscally naive prattle that we have been hearing from that side of the House in the last few weeks.

Phil Goff is a Clark clone, but that will not do now. The prosperous economic times that buoyed up her administration have been kicked into touch, and after 9 years of loose fiscal control and irresponsible spending by the Labour Government, New Zealanders are now paying the price. It is all very well for Phil Goff to cry crocodile tears, but why did he not take notice of the situation to be fiscally responsible in the last 9 years? To go forward, we need a whole new, responsible, value-for-money attitude to Government spending. We need a positive focus on jobs, we need to increase productivity, and we need to prepare our nation to seize opportunities when this recession is over. Phil Goff understands that. He has said that low inflation and high productivity are essential means of creating new jobs. Well done, Phil! National certainly would not argue with that. He also knows and understands how difficult it is to create jobs. He says that there is always, in some quarters, a temptation to address the problem of unemployment with simplistic answers—and we have heard those today.

In reality, there are no quick-fix solutions with easy answers. National agrees with that. We are not about sitting around and bleating about the problem or asking irrelevant questions in the House; we are all about getting on with the job of keeping people in work, helping people to hold on to the jobs they have now, and creating new ones. That is our first focus; that is the most important thing for all New Zealanders. If we as a community, instead of scaremongering, can hold our nerve, can keep our businesses and organisations functioning, then we will get through this recession. We will come out of it stronger and better prepared to meet the challenges of the future.

National is absolutely committed to honouring all present entitlements and to looking after our elderly in the future. In the short term, we may have to make some decisions that are not ideal, as in postponing the transference of funds into our long-term Superannuation Fund. But, of course, it is the right thing to do. The fund was set up as a means to park surpluses in the good times, which were to be used in the future—perhaps in 2020. That is a great idea when there is money to spare. But in the face of really tough economic times, nobody with any financial acumen would suggest that anybody should borrow to pay our money overseas to play the stock market. Yet that was the main criticism by Phil Goff of the Budget. He contended that we should keep on borrowing and keep on borrowing, to invest overseas, even though he must have known that that does not make sense.

If only that member, Nicky Wagner, spoke with conviction. In fact, she sounded as if she were rehearsing for a community meeting at which she had to convince people that the direction of this Government was the right way to go. Sadly, not once did she outline the Government’s plan to create more jobs in small communities throughout our country—not once.

Phil Goff put his finger on a very important issue for many, many New Zealanders, and for all our communities throughout New Zealand—that is, how we create jobs, not lose them. How do we ensure that Kiwis stay in their jobs and not get sacked? How do we ensure that the Government shows leadership on this front and stops its slash-and-burn approach to the whole sustainability of the public sector? This is a really important issue. I know that in small communities 12 jobs make a difference. In small communities, having 12 families unemployed will make a difference to the livelihood of those towns. Anyone who is listening to this debate will be very concerned that the Government cannot demonstrate its plan to ensure that jobs are protected, that Kiwis stay in their jobs, and that we will do more to create jobs.

What do we hear from members on the other side? What is the great solution? It is $51 million for a national cycleway. The Government should tell the people in Huntly, Te Aroha, Paeroa, Ngātea, Tuakau, Kāwhia, and Te Kūiti how many jobs that will create in their small communities. It just does not resonate. What have those towns seen? They have seen cuts to adult and community education, they have seen cuts to the Enterprising Communities initiative, they have seen a retraction from investment in training—when we need it most—and they have also seen, at a very local level, what the critical impact will be of a small number of people, and of small to medium sized enterprises, losing jobs. What they want to hear from a Government that is even remotely interested is what it will do to ensure that employment in our small communities will be sustainable.

The National Government should tell the community of Ōtorohanga what it will do, in relation to Ōtorohanga’s pre-trades training course. A lot of energy has gone into that community, and a lot of local leadership, to ensure that its young people can train in their own community, with their own business people, to be able to pursue a pathway in trades training. The investment that Ōtorohanga has put into pre-trades training, with the support of Enterprising Communities, has been shown to have very good outcomes. There has been strong local leadership from the mayor, strong support from the previous Labour Government, and strong support, also, from the students themselves and their parents. They have known that for any solution to be sustainable in a community, it needs everybody working together and everybody being committed to the long-term development of their skilled workforce.

But what have we seen? We have seen the Minister for Social Development and Employment pull Enterprising Communities—

💬 Hon Member: Shame.

—shame on them—which, again, makes an impact in small communities where those types of decisions reverberate. Let us take Te Whangai Trust in my own electorate, near Kaiawa. Only 12 people are employed by the trust, through the initiative of Enterprising Communities, but a family has made some land available to be used for a nursery, to enable sustainable planting. The trust has contracts with Environment Waikato. The 12 people who are employed there will be affected, because their third year of funding has not been guaranteed by the Government. Why is the Government pulling Enterprising Communities funding in that way? Because it says there is no sustainable employment outcome. Let me say something about that. If Government members bothered to look at some of the backgrounds of those 12 people, they would see that many of them have had difficulty in getting full-time employment. But that programme in itself has lifted self-esteem. It has enabled some of those people to take on further training, and for some of them—a very small number—there are a couple of employment outcomes. In its totality the programme has made a difference, not only to those 12 people but to their families. Those people are finding now that they do not need to access the range of mental health support services they needed because they were at home and feeling depressed. Families are finding now that their family members are getting up in the morning and going to do something that is worthwhile.

These are the types of outcomes that cannot be measured strictly by an employment outcome. It is far better to have people in initiatives supported by programmes and funding like Enterprising Communities, and actively doing something, than being in the dole queue. But what did we hear from the Government? Well, the Government said that the scheme did not have an employment outcome so it chose to get rid of the funding. What the Government does not know, though, is that the unemployment numbers will go up.

I am delighted to enter this debate this afternoon, and to speak about the confused Opposition and the mixed messages that are coming from the current Leader of the Opposition. I want to examine some of the statements that reinforce the delusion and the confusion of the Opposition. I will look at three areas: the economy, education, and programmes for young people. Firstly, let us take a reality check. We are in the worst global recession since the 1930s. Unfortunately, that does mean unemployment will rise, and anyone who says that this will not happen is dishonest, deluded, and living in la-la land.

Let us take a little trip through history. The four highest years of growth in the unemployment benefit in New Zealand were 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990—goodness me—and the Ministers of Employment were Phil Goff and Annette King; surprise, surprise! They had a challenge to deal with, back then. In 1988, when unemployment was rising rapidly, the Minister of Employment, Phil Goff, said: “New jobs take time to emerge. … We would all like recovery, growth and full employment to happen right now. Unfortunately the economy does not work like that.” We agree. There is no quick fix. The National Government is responding responsibly and recognises that there is no silver bullet.

Let us have a look at what National is doing in running a responsible Budget in these tough economic times. It is keeping our credit rating up and interest rates down, maintaining welfare entitlements, investing $7.5 billion in productive infrastructure over the next 4 years, and a billion dollars on roads. The people of my electorate appreciate the Waikato Expressway that has been funded as part of that infrastructure. It is also investing $323 million to provide insulation and heating for Kiwis who live in cold houses. The Government is providing record spending on front-line services in health, in education, and in law and order, and as well it is providing $500 million in assistance to small to medium sized enterprises.

Let us look at education. National is focusing its spending in education on improving literacy and numeracy. In tight economic times we cannot afford every programme, but we are committed to spending on quality. Let us have another walk back into the dark ages. Phil Goff recognised that “The need for New Zealand to live within its means, and competition from other priorities within education spending, set a limit on the extent to which the Government is able to keep pace with expanding demand …”. That was from 1989. Well, New Zealand has to live within its means, and New Zealanders understand that. New Zealanders understand that this Government has to make tough decisions around where the money is spent.

This Government is not deluded, as the Opposition is. Those members seem to think that the Government’s coffers are a bottomless pit, and that everything and anything that could be spent should be spent, plus a little bit more on top. The Opposition is in la-la land. The Government is dealing with reality, and focusing on literacy and numeracy, and is ensuring that we have skilled young people who are ready for work.

The final thing I want to comment on is the youth camps. Phil Goff said this week that youth camps have a proven track record of failure. Yet—as I say, the mixed message and the confusion—he is on record as saying that Labour would also encourage young offenders into the armed services to gain discipline, self-esteem, and trade qualifications. There is a programme in the Taupō electorate that is working with youth at risk, and it is getting great results. Funnily enough, the programme is based on armed services thinking. Participants gain discipline and self-esteem; surprise, surprise! This Government is working hard for New Zealand. It is working on the economy, it is working on education, and it is making sure that young people get the breaks they need. Guess what? New Zealanders know it. Take a look at the polls and we will realise that New Zealanders know that this Government is working hard for them. It is working on the areas that matter to them, as hard-working New Zealanders.

I have previously spoken in this House about the Government’s ideological daftness in reducing investment in programmes to keep people well. We know that health services are facing a floodtide of need in the coming years, with an increasingly elderly population, a constant increase in the availability of new technologies—mostly expensive ones—and epidemics of chronic disease such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Yet the Government’s Budget is projecting, after a one-off significant increase in funding for the current year, a decline in health spending in out-years.

The only rational response to this growing gap between need and health service provision is investment in public health, which is designed to keep people well in the first place. Yet as the Public Health Association has pointed out this week, and as I have spoken about in the House previously, this is the very area where funding cuts are already being felt. This strongly suggests short-term rather than long-term thinking. When I asked the Minister of Health at the Health Committee about the evidence base for reducing investment in the Healthy Eating - Health Action programme, he confirmed that there was no evidence base, and that essentially that had been a political decision.

Another matter I asked the Minister about was the one area of significant new investment in health for this year: extra spending on building new elective surgery theatres, and now on contracting out services to the private sector. I asked what evidence he had about the utilisation of our current theatres, and he confirmed that there was none. Once again, that was an ideologically driven decision. The private surgical hospitals, at their request, recently presented to the select committee, seeking essentially two things. They wanted the Government to increase district health board - funded surgery contracted out to the private sector, and they wanted Government action to encourage people to take out private health insurance. Well, the Government has just delivered on the first of those. I wonder how long it will be before it starts on the second. I would guess not long, judging by the Government’s Budget intention to give the public system less resource, and therefore less capacity, in the future. Of course, there is an interaction between the public and private sectors on elective surgery, and the Government intervenes in that at its peril. I would have thought that a better message for New Zealanders to hear is that our health services are generally very good, and that the Government is committed to funding the health services people need as of right.

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, essentially the senior doctors working in our hospitals, has criticised the Government’s announcement of this new contracting to the private sector, on a number of grounds. Firstly, that association was not consulted, which I say is a damning indictment. But it is worse than that, because the Government has also removed the requirement for district health boards to consult their workforces when they are contemplating the contracting out of services. Secondly, the initiative is being implemented in a cavalier manner. Thirdly, the Government seems blind to the workforce issues involved. A likely consequence of the decision is that surgeons, anaesthetists, and other theatre teams will move from the public sector to the private sector, thus further undermining the capacity of the public sector. Oh, but of course that is right—that is what the Government is trying to achieve. That is why it has budgeted less.

What instead needs to happen is proper logistics planning in the public sector. Rather than planning out the logistics of surgery 21 different times with 21 different queues, let us instead plan that in a coordinated, collaborative way, matching patients who are waiting for surgery with theatre teams and theatres that are underutilised. The Minister talks all the time about the importance of collaboration, and I support him in that, but here is an actual opportunity to make that happen. Instead of policy driven by ideology, populism, and the short term, let us instead see a commitment to system-wide planning that shows some responsibility for the future, that is based on the best evidence available, and that makes the best possible use of the resources we already have.

Phil Goff is yesterday’s man. He is hardly the new face of Labour. He might have been in 1982 when he was a new MP in the House, but—let us face it—he is yesterday’s man; he is last century’s man.

This country has been left with a nosediving economy, falling economic growth, rising unemployment, high inflation, a rising current account deficit, annual productivity growth of only 1.1 percent between 2000 and 2008, deteriorating fiscal deficits, and sharply rising Crown debt. This country needs sound economic management going forward, and not the spend-it-up, “Visa-nomics”, “whack-it-on-the-bill” approach that is so loved by the Opposition. The “whack-it-on-the-bill” approach will not work in the worst global recession since 1930.

This Government is focused on what matters. This Government is focused on creating jobs and reducing employment. Let us refresh members as to what Mr Goff has said about unemployment and job creation: “There is in some quarters a temptation to address the problem of unemployment with simplistic answers. In reality, there are no quick-fix solutions. Unemployment has to be addressed at a number of levels. By far the most important are macroeconomic policies aimed at achieving sustainable economic and employment growth.” We agree with that. What about: “The first responsibility of a Government in spending money on improving employment was to run the economy competently. Inefficient structures with high levels of staffing had fed costs downstream, inhibiting other enterprises that could have created jobs.”? We could not agree more. These quotes are ringing endorsements of National’s policy to create jobs through improving the economy. I thank Mr Goff.

This Government has maintained benefits, student support, and Working for Families, and has locked in national superannuation at 66 percent of the after-tax average wage. Members may ask what Mr Goff would say regarding benefits. In a past Government that was confronting high debt and rising unemployment, astonishingly Phil Goff supported the decision to impose a surtax on older New Zealanders. Phil Goff said: “It is true that the Labour Party said that a Labour Government would not cut superannuation. Frankly, to sustain that point of view against all the evidence would have been totally irresponsible.” Well, we are facing tough times, but, unlike Mr Goff and his Labour Party, John Key’s Government has moved to protect entitlements.

This Government is focused on what matters. We have delivered jobs and support schemes to soften the blow for those who lose their jobs, and introduced a package to make life easier for small to medium sized businesses. We have got unions, businesses, and the Government together to agree on a 9-day working fortnight that has set the scene for good-faith dialogue between all three sectors. We have moved to ensure that interest rates do not rise because of a credit downgrade. Higher interest rates would have removed money from the pockets of every New Zealander who has a mortgage, a credit card, or an overdraft, or who pays rent.

We are being very careful in the way we spend public money. Labour would sacrifice interest rates and borrow even more heavily—

💬 Colin King: Recklessly!

—recklessly—against our children’s future. We are delighted Phil Goff supports National’s policy to create jobs through improving the economy.

This Government is focused on what matters. Our eyes are firmly on the present and the future of New Zealand. I am pleased to report that despite the worst economic times for 70 years, business confidence remains positive, our unemployment rate is still much lower than countries we are compared with, interest rates remain low, and the threat of a credit downgrade has eased. I know we will get through this recession.

Labour has left us with a litany of poor decisions too numerous to talk about today, but I want to take a bit of time to talk about the transport area. What about the $3 billion unbudgeted promise for the Waterview Connection, when $1 billion is the entire budget of the Counties Manukau District Health Board? That is plain reckless. What about the $8.5 million bill for the Civil Aviation Authority to move from Pētone to downtown Wellington? That is just extravagant.

I say this to the previous speaker, Dr Jackie Blue: what about the lowest unemployment in the OECD that New Zealand had for 9 years under a Labour Government? What about that? It is a bit desperate when members have to go digging around back in the 1980s in order to find someone who will agree with the National Party. My goodness!

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s so last century!

It is so last century!

The Government is failing hard-working New Zealanders. Every day the news gets worse and worse. Every day there are more job lay-offs, and more than 1,200 people a week are going on to the dole queue. We hear nothing from the Government about it—nothing! There has been a deathly silence since the Job Summit, which was held way back in February—a long time ago. There has been nothing but bad news. It is bad news for the 110 Line 7 workers who are facing redundancy; bad news for the 186 Lane Walker Rudkin workers; bad news for the 200 Child, Youth and Family and Ministry of Social Development workers; bad news for Summit Wool Spinners workers who are facing redundancy, even though they participated in the 9-day working fortnight; bad news for the 900 workers facing uncertainty under Telecom’s change of contract to Visionstream; and bad news for the more than 1,700 Public Service workers. The Government is doing nothing to secure the jobs of New Zealanders and to secure their living standards. John Key is failing to protect Kiwi jobs.

The Government claims that it is trying to cushion the hardest-hit New Zealanders from the effects of the recession by helping businesses to protect jobs and by doing a range of other things that I will talk about. I would like to know how the Government will do this, because in this debate all we have heard is some talk about the 1980s. We have heard no plans and no ideas. The only idea of any substance that survived the hot air of the Job Summit was the 9-day working fortnight. How many jobs has that saved? It has saved 345. Of course, all good jobs are worth saving—there is no argument about that—but it has saved so few. I do not understand why the Public Service is exempt from this drive to save jobs. Thousands of people in the Public Service are losing their jobs. Somehow public sector workers are not real workers, so they are less deserving. The Minister is not even sure that Public Service workers qualify for ReStart, a scheme that is the Government’s only contribution to workers who have been made redundant.

The Government says it is giving New Zealanders who lose their job the best possible chance to find a new one. Well, how? I cannot see any ideas, and I think John Key has realised he has no ideas, because he has said he will come up with some new ones. That is very, very funny. We are waiting; we will be interested in that.

It is not just job losses that are hurting New Zealanders; it is also cuts to pay, cuts to hours of work and conditions, and no pay increases, especially to the lowest paid, who need them most in order to keep up with the cost of living. School support staff took part in a pay equity rally outside Parliament yesterday. Labour and Green members were at the rally. School support staff start on the basic wage of $12.94 an hour, yet the Government has offered them nothing in their pay round. Not only are hospital cleaners, kitchen workers, and orderlies being offered nothing by the Government in their pay talks at the moment but also the Government is trying to take back the pay rise it gave those workers last year. That is a zero percent pay increase that is backdated! I think that is how that is being touted.

It is very, very disappointing, but not surprising, to see a National Government responding with its usual ideology when it comes to facing an economic crisis. It usually attacks workers’ rights, and have we not seen that? There is the 90-day bill, and now we are looking at a scaling back of the Holidays Act and the Employment Relations Act. There will also be cuts in terms of equity in paid employment, so women, once again, will have to bear the burden of the downturn.

As more than 1,000 Kiwis lose their jobs and income every week because of the recession, John Key does nothing to help them and their families. I have to say that the ReStart package just does not cut it, nor does the Minister’s grand plan for “McJobs” and minimum wage jobs in the aged-care sector. That is not acceptable; that is not good enough. Even traditionally better-off areas such as Devonport are now having to open food banks. The North Shore area is beset with redundancies, not least in John Key’s own area of Kumeu, where this week 41 workers at Fletcher Building learnt that their jobs would be lost. That is a lot of jobs lost in a small town. Mr Key could do something about that. One of the major beneficiaries of the Government’s home insulation scheme could be Fletcher Building. He could encourage that company to provide that work and keep jobs.

I note that the chief Opposition whip has been taking very good notes, because of the challenging and undermining of the leadership of the Hon Phil Goff by the previous speaker. That member was challenging his ideas, his principles, and the whakapapa of his ideas, and tracing them back to the 1980s, a time the Opposition constantly criticises. I find that very interesting, because that time saw the genesis of their current leader’s ideas and thoughts. So it will be very interesting to see where Labour goes. Phil Goff has been talked about as yesterday’s man, I understand, but perhaps he has been undermined somewhat by today’s woman, tomorrow’s woman, or tomorrow’s man. Of the various MPs who sit alongside him, perhaps one or two tower over him as they get themselves in the media, talking about various financial issues. This is the new face of Labour; back 25-odd years ago Labour had some good ideas at the time, I guess.

But we recently had a glimpse of the true Phil Goff coming through, I suppose, with his “encouragement”, shall we say, in the selection and now election of the gentleman yet to be sworn in, Mr Shearer, who has ideas about privatisation and efficiencies in the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps that is the true sign of the old Phil Goff coming through, or re-emerging; I am not too sure. I wait, not quite with bated breath, but we shall see anyway. Yes, the true colours are coming through occasionally, as under that example, but the contradictions are being seen all over the place now that the gentleman is in Opposition. Perhaps it is the reverse of a “Mahareyism”—the thing one says in Government is not necessarily the thing one says in Opposition. I think Mr Maharey had it around the other way when challenged. At the same time, at least he was quite upfront about the positions he took.

Normally I sit beside my benchmate on the cross benches, Sir Roger Douglas. It is very interesting to hear some of the comments he makes, because he sat in the same caucus and the same Cabinet as many of the members on the Opposition side, including its current leader. Some of the things that he tells me are quite admirable, because we talk about some of the ideas he originally had when he came into the House as a fresh face, and perhaps as a bit of a reformist. So what has happened now? Where are we now? Suddenly the idea of the home-owning democracy does not seem to work any more. Mickey Savage would be turning in his grave, because what was previously agreed to and endorsed by the current Leader of the Opposition—which would give families the ability to buy their State houses, their homes—is suddenly not a good idea. Why? The other day we heard the now legendary Hon Phil Heatley answer questions from Moana Mackey about housing, but that member constantly and totally undermined her leader. Mr Goff’s statements had been right on the money, and Mr Heatley had offered further advice, jointly with Mr Goff at the time, about the rights this National-led Government was giving families to enter into homeownership. Yet that member Moana Mackey started to buy into what is currently in vogue on the other side of the House, and therefore undermined the Opposition leader. If anybody wants to have a look at the exchange, I tell them it is quite a legendary YouTube; I know the member opposite watches that a fair bit.

Regarding comments made post-Budget, because the previous speaker was talking about there being no jobs, and things like that, I tell members there is no magic wand. If we look at some of the statements made in the past, in the previous recession, by the current Leader of the Opposition, we see there is no magic wand. All we can do is try to stop the depth of the recession hitting New Zealand families and businesses as hard as it is hitting offshore. There is nothing we can do to stand in the way of a global recession. Even the previous Minister of Finance, the Hon Michael Cullen, was making that point as late as the middle of last year.

Finally, in relation to rail, I say that unfortunately the member who raised that has not spoken about it any more since then, but the day after the Budget he scoffed at the credit upgrade that New Zealand had been given. Actually, the importance of that upgrade for jobs, for families, for working capital, and for New Zealand cannot be overstated. It is so important; 150 points on people’s mortgages have been saved because of the robustness and the pragmatism of the recent Budget. Hard decisions were made, which actually adhered to some of the principles that the current Labour leader once held in the 1980s, as some of his statements show. He has secretly held those principles all the way through; I am quite sure he holds them now. We will be very interested to see the new defence policy come out, once the new Labour member is sworn in. Perhaps the true colours of the current Leader of the Opposition will then come through.

It is telling that Government members, at a time like this when we see 1,100 Kiwis lining up in the dole queue, seem to have spent their entire week googling. After they looked for ideas on saving jobs on Google, probably they then, in desperation, typed in “Phil Goff 1980s” and hit “try my luck”, and they have been working on the outcome of that trawl ever since.

I think that this issue is a lot more important than a couple of pithy quotes that the National research unit has managed to draw up. We are talking about 1,100 Kiwis per week joining the dole queue. We are talking about 32,000 15 to 19-year-olds being unemployed. That is our future generation and it represents 10 percent of that entire age cohort. We are talking about 12 percent of 20 to 24-year-olds being unemployed, which is a 5 percent increase on the last quarter. Those numbers are big; they are relevant. They are the reason this Government needs to act, and it needs to act now.

We have given the Government time to respond. We have put these questions to it in a constructive manner in question time. What was the response? One response was for the Prime Minister to wave around his latest popularity graphs, as if that somehow would console the hundreds of people who were facing redundancy or joining the dole queue. I say to the Prime Minister that if he would not do that to one individual person who has lost his or her job, why would he do it to the thousands who have lost their jobs?

The second reason put forward by the Government in response to the massive job losses we have seen is to claim that it is a recession and that the response in a recession is to tough it out. The recession may be a problem. Indeed, we acknowledge that it is, but it is a problem that requires an answer. A recession in itself is not an answer. It is merely the cause and the call to act. It is not an excuse; it is a reason. The Government will be measured on this, and so far it would be marked poorly.

I want to delve a little further into the question of youth unemployment. It is a question that is dear to my heart and it is something I have grave concerns over. I have already said that 32,000 youth are not in work, education, or training. If we take out of that group those who are supported by the Government in some form, whether it be Government support as some form of benefit for those who are eligible or the independent living allowance, we are left with 15,000 15 to 19-year-olds who not in work, not in training, and not supported by the Government. We cannot account for these 15,000 young people. We have no idea how they are even supporting themselves, let alone what they are doing with their time. In a sense, they are an abandoned generation. Therefore, because it is such a young age group—15 to 19-year-olds—one could assume that they have left school with no plan and no support.

That then begs the question: what can we do? The Opposition is arguing, as we are, that in a time of recession we must act, not simply wait it out. Well, what can we do? We can certainly tell members, based on the Budget, what they should not do. In fact, in many ways the Budget was a blueprint for what not to do. When we have 32,000 young unemployed people we do not cut $3.3 million out of careers advice and training for young people as they transition out of school into work. If we do that, the result will be that we will increase from 15,000 the number of totally unsupported young people who are not in work or in education or in anything. I say to the Government that it cannot cut $98 million in scholarships for low-income students who require support if they are to further their education. The Government should not have cut adult and community education. Neither should it have cut industry training. Allowing 2,000 apprentices to lose their placement without any form of ongoing support or back-up industry training, which has happened as a result of real cuts, would also be on our list of things not to do in a recession.

In fact, the one thing I would say is that we could perhaps assume that there is only one thing worse than a recession. The one thing worse than a recession is not having a plan for a recession. It is probably the only thing that is worse, yet it is exactly what we have seen from this Government. It does not have an ounce of a plan to respond to the recession and high unemployment.

It is pretty sad to hear the Labour members spend most of their time in the House this afternoon talking this country down. This is a country that is currently surviving the global recession better than just about any other country in the world, yet Labour members persist in talking it down.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Except Australia.

I say to Mr Hughes that we can compare our unemployment rate with Australia’s. Labour members are talking the country down but we know that their leader does not believe it. We know that Phil Goff does not believe it. We have heard all the stuff that Phil Goff used to say when he was in Government, so we can probably excuse the way he behaves now as cynical politicking. We can probably excuse him for that sort of behaviour, but it is hard to excuse the rest of them because they show no understanding of economics, which I would have thought was reasonably unforgivable in a recession. Labour members do not understand interest rates, and they do not understand the importance of keeping up our credit rating. Instead they say that we should put up the wage rates for, I think, pretty much everybody, except, of course, that would be making them a lot higher than they managed to do in the last 9 years—in the teeth of a global recession.

Let us look at the Labour Party guide to politically spinning the current recession. The first point is to pretend there is no global recession. It is a very important first step. We have to pretend that there is no global recession. If we are able to do that then we can pretend that we should have full employment, which, of course, we should have because there is no global recession and it is outrageous that the Government should act as if there is a global recession just because there is one. So that is the first thing. The second point in the Labour Party guide to politically spinning the recession is to pretend that money is limitless. The important second point is to pretend that money is absolutely limitless. We should pretend that money is absolutely limitless when it comes to the Superannuation Fund, and we should be building the $3 billion tunnel for the Waterview Connection and all of those things because, let us remember, money is limitless. That is the second point in the Labour Party guide to spinning the recession. The third point is to pretend that we can create jobs—that we can magic jobs out of thin air. The third point in the political spin guide from Labour in a recession is that we should just say “we should have jobs” and they will happen; we should pretend that jobs will just happen.

The fourth point in the Labour Party guide to political spin is to pretend that we worry about interest rates, and that we should pretend to do so by calling for a select inquiry as that would sort out interest rates, no trouble at all. There would be no problems then, because the select committee is coming, and that will sort out interest rates. Of course, we would be arguing for lots of spending, which would cause a credit downgrade, and which would push up interest rates. So on one hand we are pretending that a committee of parliamentarians can solve the problem, but on the other hand we are saying that we should just spend away and forget interest rates. That is the fourth point. The fifth point is to pretend that the Government is not doing anything. We should pretend that the Government is not investing in productive infrastructure, that it is not providing $323 million for insulation and heating for 180,000 Kiwi homes. We should pretend that the Government is not undertaking record spending on front-line services in health, education, and law and order. We should pretend that the Government is not providing nearly half a billion dollars in assistance to small and medium enterprises. We should pretend that it is not keeping up our credit rating and keeping down interest rates. And we should pretend that it is not maintaining welfare entitlements. So the fifth point is that we should pretend the Government is not doing anything.

The sixth point is to pretend that we do not have to prioritise Government spending. We can pretend that it is possible just to keep spending more and more money. We can pretend that if we have a programme but we want to add another programme, we do not have to trim a programme, we can just go out there and add another programme, then another programme again. They are all good programmes so we can then add another spending programme again. Actually, that is how Labour spent the last 9 years. That is why public spending increased by about 50 percent in the last 5 years, because rather than take any tough decisions all Labour did was just add another programme. Labour members would say “Well that programme is probably not working but let’s not say so, let’s just add another programme again, and another programme one more time.” The last point in the Labour Party guide to politically spinning the recession is to pretend that one knows everything—to pretend that everything the Labour Party did was perfect and any subsequent Government that has the temerity to change anything is outrageously bad. One needs to have a lot of ego to do that, to rock up to Parliament after taking a hiding at the election, and to say that it is outrageous to change a damn thing. That is the Labour Party guide to politically spinning a global recession.

Today is a day of celebration. The foreshore and seabed report has been released. The issue started in Te Tau Ihu when one of my iwi sought a mussel farming licence. Their humble request to farm in their traditional rohe was rejected by the Marlborough District Council, so all the eight iwi in Te Tau Ihu, in a characteristic show of unity, decided to go to court.

Just over 6 years ago the Court of Appeal, in the pivotal case Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa, ruled that the Crown was wrong to contend that certain statutes affecting the foreshore and seabed had had the effect of extinguishing such Māori customary title as might exist. It went further, ruling that the Māori Land Court had the jurisdiction under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to determine whether any part of the foreshore and seabed is still Māori customary land. Within days all hell broke loose. So began the long and agonising journey that resulted in the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004.

Today that journey has taken on a bold new pathway ahead. Just over 3 hours ago the ministerial review panel’s report on the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 was released. It stated clearly that the Act “was simply wrong in principle and approach. The timing and the process were also wrong.” It was not just wrong; it was discriminatory. Edward Ellison, on behalf of Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, described the act as a “knee-jerk reaction” that was also “an opportunity to secure the right to license, sell, farm off”. The issue that started from such small beginnings was never, as Moana Jackson said, “a sterile debate about rights or politics”; this issue “goes to the essence of our integrity and our place as tangata whenua”.

Today is a day to make right the wrongs that have stung at the very heart of Māori and non-Māori. Today is a day in which the nation knows that the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 will be repealed, but it is also a day for new beginnings.

The ministerial panel sets out the pathway to nationhood based on kotahitanga. The foundation for our future lies in taking an approach based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a Treaty that was provided for two peoples of the land. The panel cut through the myths and fears that surrounded the debate of 2004 and suggested that it was time to expect that both cultural views should be recognised in law and reconciled. To stimulate the conversation, the panel proposes a new Act based on the Treaty principle of providing for both Māori and Pākehā world views. It seems so easy. The panel recommends that the key lies in the recognition that hapū and iwi, and the general public both have interests in the coastal marine area, and that both interests must be respected and provided for.

The Māori Party welcomes this report as clearly marking a line in the sand between the days of conflict and division and the pathway ahead. It is a pathway that New Zealanders want. Of those who commented on what should happen to the Act, 85 percent favoured repeal—85 percent. That 85 percent includes those hapū and iwi who are already in negotiations. A mere 5 percent of submitters wanted to see the Act remain unchanged. In my electorate the Christchurch City Council put in words what the future could look like when it suggested that “if there were informed and considered discussions between Māori and Pākehā then consensus would be feasible. What is important is finding the right solutions for all New Zealanders, not a hasty solution as was the case in 2004.”

The foreshore and seabed report does not put forward a quick fix or a hasty solution. It suggests instead the need for a longer conversation—a conversation stimulated by the report as a catalyst for further discussion. And there is much to discuss: the set of core principles, what should comprise the interim Act, the Treaty framework, the proposal for national settlement, and the regional iwi proposal. There is debate to be had about customary usage, customary authority, and ownership of the foreshore and seabed. The Māori Party welcomes the debate with enormous energy for finally setting things right and restoring justice to Aotearoa. Kia ora.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.