General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. How does one know the Labour Party is about to change its leader? It is simple: its members start to talk about having barbecues. Do members remember 1999? Phil Goff got 12 of his mates around to his place to have a barbecue to talk about chopping Helen Clark out and replacing her as Labour leader. Helen Clark was on 23 percent when Phil Goff thought that was a good idea; this week, Phil Goff is on 6.5 percent. How did the Labour members react? They have put on their website a massive series of barbecues from one end of the country to the other over Labour weekend—not just one, but a series of barbecues—where they will discuss whether Mr Goff should go or stay. I want to make a plea for Mr Goff to stay. I point out to the Labour Party that in the recent poll he made a bit of progress, and at that rate of progress he will overtake John Key in the year 2024. So Labour should stick with him.

When they have those barbecues, one person I can guarantee will not be on the invitation list is Dover Samuels. He might have turned up with a bit of snapper, but it would not have been fresh and there would have been a bit more lip. He said to Phil Goff and Annette King that it is time to step aside, as the retreads have gone past their use-by date. He said they have a fundamental problem: right now the leadership does not resonate with ordinary people. He is not alone in thinking that. Mr Hipkins has put a piece of opinion on the blog site.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Who? Master Hipkins?

Some people might want to call him Master Hipkins, but he is a member of this House. His name is Chris Hipkins. He is C Hipkins, and the C, of course, stands for “Chippy”. Anyway, he has put on his website that he expects that the high poll ratings for the National Party will continue for some time right throughout this parliamentary term. He said: “I would be very surprised if we make much of a dent in the poll gap before election year.” He has given up. He has bailed out. He is gone.

So perhaps we have to take it seriously. Labour members have called for the nationwide barbecues. They are going to change the leader, so where do they turn? Well, there is Annette King. I want to say what a competent person Annette King is. She is perfectly capable of doing the job. Any old time they want to replace Phil Goff with Annette King, that would be brilliant. Then, of course, there are the up-and-comers. We know David Cunliffe is not ready yet. He has to wait a little bit, but I tell members that right across the blog sites they are confirming that David Cunliffe has one vote in the Labour caucus. We have spoken of Annette King. Then there is the extraordinary range of other people whom they are talking about. There is, of course, David Shearer, the new man in the team. He has now asked one question in Parliament and has given one speech in Parliament, and he has the same poll rating as Phil Goff. I say congratulations to David Shearer on doing a brilliant job.

The other thing, of course, is that Laila Harré is out there as a potential leader. She is not even part of the Labour Party. She is one of the Alliance people who almost brought Labour down in 2002, but now Labour wants her back as leader. Then there is Andrew Little. He is not in Parliament yet. The sad thing is that Clayton Cosgrove is not there. I ask what is wrong with Clayton Cosgrove. But I have to say that I am not the first person to ask what is wrong with Clayton Cosgrove. He has said that the great thing now is that there is no factionalism in the Labour Party these days. He would know. In fact, he is so committed to this “no factionalism in the Labour Party” that he has insisted the barbecues have a vegetarian option so that the lefties do not feel left out.

This party is completely failing to get under the skin of the Government and to represent the people of New Zealand who would like a little bit of opposition to their Government. It is clinging to the idea that Phil Goff will somehow lift himself out of the fire he is currently in. I look forward to the barbecue season.

In April this year a journalist sought a copy of the report into the first investigation into allegations against Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. This request was granted, without reference to Minister Coleman, and I am told that an official is in trouble for that. The subsequent story, printed on 15 May, did not add up for me. I therefore began a series of meetings with Baljinder Singh of Tauranga and Mr Darshan Singh Saran, usually of the Punjab. I have a sworn document from the latter that tells precisely why the first investigation failed. The reason is that the original complainant, Kuldip Singh, was silenced. So was Baljinder Singh. They are no longer silent.

Darshan Singh Saran swears as follows: “In November 2008 my friend Baljinder Singh telephoned me from New Zealand. He told me that Superintendent of Police in Jagwaran Punjab, Mr Pritam Singh, [was] harassing and threatening Kuldip Singh of his village. Superintendent Pritam Singh had asked Kuldip Singh to come to the Police Station.

… Kuldip … told me that in 2003 he paid for a job offer for his wife from Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. Payment was made through an agent Mr Darshan Singh Bains. The job offer was not genuine so the residence application was declined.

Over the next two years, Kuldip Singh advised me that Mr Darshan Singh Bains kept promising to return the money … Then suddenly he could not contact [him]. He seemed to have gone underground.

During this time Kuldip spoke twice with Mr Bakshi and told him about the money he had paid for the job. Mr Bakshi told Kuldip not to worry about the money as he would solve the problem …

However, as time passed and nothing happened Kuldip became annoyed with Mr Bakshi as well. …

Kuldip then told me that … he spoke with his friend Baljinder Singh by telephone in New Zealand … he … asked Baljinder if he could not get help from them. …

When Kuldip’s story was published many political people started to contact him. At first they asked very politely to stop what he was saying. When he refused to do that they started to threaten him. …

In order to help Kuldip Singh I took him to meet Superintendent of Police Pritam Singh at Jagwaran.

Superintendent Pritam Singh told Kuldip and me that he had had a great deal of pressure from the highest authorities. When we explained Kuldip’s story in depth to him Superintendent Pritam Singh telephoned Mr Rajinder Singh in Chandigarh. …

Mr Rajinder Singh asked me to ask Kuldip Singh not to speak against Mr Bakshi because he was going to be the first Sikh MP in New Zealand. Mr Rajinder Singh also assured me that he would try to resolve Kuldip’s matter with Mr Bakshi …

A few days later I received a call from Bhavdeep Singh Dhillon. … He made quite a few calls … Every time he would say that I should ask Kuldip to speak in favour of Mr Bakshi otherwise he should be ready to pay the price. He also threatened to harm Baljinder Singh in New Zealand as we doubted that this was only happening because of Baljinder. …

After this, I was in hospital and a number of people who are politically influential pressurised Kuldip to get his signature on a blank piece of paper. Baljinder Singh in New Zealand also advised me that a few people had threatened him and told him that they were friends of Mr Bakshi.

I am very worried about what has happened with Kuldip Singh. I want the authorities to go into this case. Those who are willing to come forward need an assurance that nothing will happen to them or against them. They need protection.”

Anyone watching question time today would wonder why the Opposition asks questions about things that people are not concerned about. What they are concerned about is a Government that is actually delivering on things that matter to people. For instance, the other day my colleague Gerry Brownlee announced the huge uptake in the number of people opting for the home insulation package. For 9 years we heard from the previous Labour Government that it purported to represent the people of New Zealand who needed a fair deal. Did it deliver that deal in terms of home insulation? No, it did not. This Government, in working with the Green Party, has delivered on time and more than we ever thought we would in terms of the number of people adopting the home insulation measures.

With my colleague Paula Bennett we have been able to do something about creating job and youth opportunities for the people who are most at risk in the very tough economic times we inherited. We have also seen jobs created by the increased infrastructure spending on roading and State houses. After years of talking about roads and public transport, the previous Labour Government never quite worked out that buses run on roads and that we just cannot have a public transport system without roads, because they go together.

Here we see an Opposition that is so worried about leadership. I think it is just amazing that David Shearer, who has been in Parliament for a matter of weeks, already has a poll rating that is at least the same as Phil Goff’s, who has been in Parliament “since Adam was a cowboy”, to quote the Prime Minister. That tells us that even those people who will always vote Labour because their parents and grandparents did, and they have not worked out that they do not need to, want to see some fresh faces in Labour. Of course, we like to see Phil Goff and Annette King over there in the Opposition benches. They are very nice people and they should be given a fair go. They have been in Parliament for only about 30 years, so it is really too soon to tell!

We find that the Labour Party is all at sixes and sevens. Its members are running around trying to find out who will be the next leader when they should be backing Phil Goff, who we heard from Claire Curran is “a real man”, whatever that means in the Labour Party. I thought that was quite an interesting comment. We also heard from Clayton Cosgrove that there is no factional infighting in the Labour Party. I have another suggestion to add to my colleague Mr Brownlee’s comments: maybe Clayton Cosgrove is not part of any faction, and no one has told him yet. Perhaps he has not been put in touch with the barbecue—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Me, too! I’m on the outside as well!

Mr Mallard says that he is not part of any faction, too; we can understand that he would not want to be part of any faction, because no faction would want him. We heard from Phil Twyford, Labour’s Auckland spokesperson, that Labour was punished in Auckland because “The city wasn’t working properly, with traffic problems, crappy infrastructure”—“crappy” is not a word we would normally use in the National Party—“and a downtown that looks like a bomb site.” He concludes: “I think our Government was very late in coming to the party and doing something about it.” Well, I say to Mr Twyford that never a truer word has been spoken.

Labour wasted 9 years of some of the best overseas economic conditions we have seen. One of the awful things about being in the National Opposition was watching the previous Labour Government spend money hand over fist. We watched it pay out money, buy off groups, and get people happy for a few dollars, and for that entire time the economy was tanking. Labour knew it but refused to do anything about it. All we heard, time and time again, was “No, no, we’ll just pay out more money. Let’s tax the rich.” Labour said all those sorts of things. Yet under the previous Labour Government, any ordinary Kiwi earning $60,000 per year was considered to be rich. That shows the extent of its meanness and its absolute politics of envy that it wanted to promote. Many ordinary Kiwis, the working people, ended up having to take the Working for Families package because the tax system was so rorted against them. Unfortunately, the Labour Government never quite understood that people—the very people Labour wanted to keep dependent on the Government—would eventually realise what was going on because they simply could not get ahead.

Under this National Government, despite the tough economic times, we are seeing action. That is what people like. They voted National in to do things, and, boy, we really are doing things. We have a Prime Minister who is relentlessly positive and is the best we have ever seen.

I rise to address the decision of the Government last week to commit the SAS to Afghanistan. The decision to commit our armed forces has both a political and a legal dimension. The Government’s political explanation is that if Afghanistan remains a haven for terrorists, the US-led operation is essential to contain the spread and we must play our part. In respect of the legal dimension, the Government is coy. We are told that New Zealand always makes decisions consistent with international law, so we must trust in that. Such bland patronisation of members of this House conveys a contempt that I am sure is not intended.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs tells us the decision is in the national interest. But in formulating its policy, the Government accords undue importance to political considerations, and insufficient weight to the legal basis on which it rests. It therefore sees through a glass darkly, unable to draw the subtle distinctions required in contemporary national security policy. The difference in approach is clear. The Government first formulates its political case, and then dresses it in loose legal garb as a fashion statement. The Green Party judges the legal basis as a necessary condition, and if that is met, it considers the political wisdom of deployment. The difference reflects contrasting world views. We believe ours to be relevant to the 21st century.

Afghanistan generates special confusion because it involves the vexed relationship between terrorism and armed conflict. In the 20th century terrorism was correctly perceived as a matter of criminality. But following 9/11, the world has been led to agree that it is matter of international security. Terrorism and security thus conflate into a single composite issue, causing a loss of clarity and strategic vision by the superpower, and, therefore, by the rest of us.

The distinction still needs to be drawn between the International Security Assistance Force and Operation Enduring Freedom. For reasons I set out on 17 June, we judge the International Security Assistance Force, which is a peace-building mission authorised by the United Nations Security Council, to be legal in international law; Operation Enduring Freedom, which is a counter-terrorism campaign, is not. The UN has never explicitly authorised Operation Enduring Freedom. The Minister of Defence cited Resolution 1368 and Resolution 1373. But once the question of restoring peace to Afghanistan came under the operational purview of the Security Council, as it did in December 2001, the right to continue military action in self-defence lapsed. Yet Operation Enduring Freedom continues to be prosecuted today by NATO, beyond the strategic direction of the UN, increasingly veiled in the twilight world between law and power.

The trend of the last decade away from multilateral to hegemonic control of global security is evidenced in the fact that this latest request to New Zealand came not from the UN Secretary-General but the US Secretary of State. Yet New Zealand obediently responds to this 19th century call to arms. So where is the legal validation from the United Nations of this latest New Zealand deployment? Is an American request to deploy anywhere on the planet sufficient? Operation Enduring Freedom has recently been brought under the single hat of the US commander in Afghanistan, along with the International Security Assistance Force. So in the name of peace-building, we are now engaging in counter-insurgency, and sliding into what is now a civil war, retaining counter-terrorism to justify it. It is no wonder this Government is confused.

I advance these comments more in sorrow than anger. I wish our SAS well, and may they return home safely. The decision has been made. But let us draw a lesson for the future. The executive is obliged to show greater respect to this House. I therefore request the Government to confirm that henceforth all decisions of this kind will be prefaced with a legal advisory opinion that is tabled in this House. The executive, no matter which party is in power, owes the legislature this much.

Here we are in the worst global recession since the 1930s with a Government working hard to ensure the most effective use of taxpayers’ money, and what do Opposition members do? They hop on a bus and, just like the polls, head south. All 30-plus members headed out to the masses for a series of “love-ins”. If the Otago Daily Times is anything to go by, the “love-ins” were essentially with themselves, because barely anybody turned up. One has only to look at the article where it states that a community forum in the evening in Wanganui ended up being largely dominated by Labour Party members. One of the Labour Party stalwarts said: “I did hope to hear more definite decisions from the Labour Party,” but it couldn’t do it in Government so it is hardly going to do it in Opposition. In fact, the Labour Party even had a bit of an identity crisis, because the colour of the bus was green. Oh my goodness me, the bus was green!

The Opposition leader, Goff, says how conscious Labour is of cost at this time. What a pity Labour did not think about that while it was in Government. What else did Goff say? He said: “The great thing about New Zealand politics is it can be intimate, you can get to talk to your elected representatives in a way that’s not possible in many other countries.” No wonder he said that; he had to go on a bus trip with 30-plus colleagues just so he could have a conversation with them. Nobody else was turning up to the meetings. What did the blog say? Danyl McLauchlan, a left-wing blogger, I might add, has made some criticisms of “some half-witted re-branding exercise with pictures of Goff riding around on horseback and a bus trip to Whanganui.” And of course the bus was green. Mr Martin Kay says about Mr Goff: “The normal boyish, chatty style is replaced with a grave monotone that would make a promise of free icecream and lollies sound like a robot reading a telephone book.” The bloggers were also saying that the wheels had actually fallen off the bus before it had even left Auckland. That is what the bloggers are saying.

Meanwhile, back in the engine room, Ministers continue to work for efficient and effective outcomes for all New Zealanders. We have had a huge uptake for our voluntary bonding scheme, which will see more health professionals working in our rural and provincial communities. A number of jobs have been created through increased infrastructure spending on roading and State houses.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Except in Wanganui. You can’t get doctors in Wanganui. And why not? Ask Chester.

Members should listen to that member. She is raving on about Wanganui. Clearly, it did not happen for her on the bus. Even more jobs have been created through the youth opportunities package and the assistance being given through the Restart package. There is also the huge uptake in people taking advantage of our home insulation package. Of all the initiatives, the home insulation package was a huge winner. I have to say, we were swamped with young professional doctors wanting to take advantage of the voluntary bonding scheme. One has only to read today’s Dominion Post editorial to see an excellent example of the leadership of the Ministers of this National Government. One has only to read New Zealand Herald articles to see that it is quite clear that there is leadership throughout this Government. There certainly was not leadership in the previous Labour Government for 9 long years. We just cannot get over the duration of that period under the nanny State. Old Mother Hubbard emptied the cupboard. There was nothing left in the coffers. I would not put those people in charge of a piggy bank.

The Hon Judith Collins is a fine example of outstanding leadership, engendering confidence and support from people throughout New Zealand. I exhort those members of Parliament opposite to read those editorials and they actually might learn something. They need to listen to the Minister of Education, who said they need some literacy and numeracy training. By crikey! They could not manage a piggy bank. If there is one thing the Opposition members are in desperate need of it is some expertise. They need to go back to school. They need to learn how to do their sums. They need to know what they are doing, in terms of what they are reading. In actual fact, they need to start listening and start doing some homework.

I will continue on the theme of what is happening on the blog sites. The name Bob Buckle rarely featured in the bloggers’ forums until a mere 3 months ago, when the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and the Minister of Revenue, Peter Dunne, named him as the chair of the Tax Working Group, charged with the simple task of guiding the fiscal outlook over the medium term. This week Bob Buckle is the name on every website, as the debate intensifies about the relationship between GST and the drive to increase the efficiency of the economy.

The figures all look pretty seductive. Lifting GST to 15 percent would raise an extra $2.1 billion a year. If the tax was set at 20 percent, the figure would jump to $6.2 billion. That sure looks fine until we see the fine print. Bob Buckle’s panel of 14 private sector and academic experts noted that there may be fairness issues: “Increasing the rate could impact on lower-income or vulnerable households, especially in the short run,”. Those are probably the same lower-income or vulnerable households who featured in the Ministry of Social Development households report that reported in 2008 that one in six New Zealand children still lived in a household below the very lowest poverty levels. They are probably the same lower-income or vulnerable households who have caused the cost of emergency food grants to jump by a massive 75 percent since the maximum limits were doubled a year ago. They will be the same households that the Salvation Army has seen reporting in greater numbers than before for food parcels. In the 3 months to June there was a colossal jump in the supply of food parcels—a 40 percent leap to an average of over 4,000 parcels a month. Within that group will be the beneficiary families with children who missed out on the in-work tax credit.

It was fascinating to read the reflections of former Minister Annette King about the policy crisis that emerged in the previous Government regarding Working for Families. In a Listener article she said “We’ve got another group of kids who haven’t benefited from that at all. And that’s people who are on benefits. We’ve got to rethink our policy in terms of how do we have an element of universality for our children in the way we give it to our old people. It’s unfinished business.” That is a very important concession by the former Minister, and I think we must pay attention to it. I want to commend Mrs King for taking note of the policy priorities we have been promoting within the Māori Party, including the proposal of universal tax cuts for very low-income families and a universal benefit for parents who are raising children. The question is one of how we look after our lower-income or vulnerable households, not when we should do so. The urgency is surely obvious to all in this House; we must do it now. The issue is about meeting the basic needs of New Zealand families: food on the table, a roof over their head, warm clothes, security, stability, and, hopefully, even happiness.

One solution I have been considering is to put before the House a bill to remove the GST on food. We know that such a move would mean cost savings on food, at a time when food costs have increased exponentially and are continuing to do so. Although all consumers would benefit from lower food costs, people on lower incomes tend to spend a greater share of their income on food, so they would reap a greater benefit as a portion of their income. In putting this bill forward, the Māori Party is conscious that neither Australia nor the United Kingdom charges GST on food. The approach of those countries has been to exempt most foods from GST, except for restaurant and take-out foods in Australia, and lollies, chips, ice cream, and chocolate biscuits in the UK. There is another agenda: although we are saving the pennies, we are also saving lives by promoting healthy eating with food choices such as fresh fruit and vegetables.

Finally, I acknowledge the efforts of the people’s procession to Parliament that resulted in a 23,000-strong petition being presented to my colleague Hone Harawira and me last October. The Māori Party has taken up the call of those people, and we will do our utmost to remind everyone in this House that a responsible Parliament is also a caring Parliament. The taking of GST off food would provide us with a golden opportunity to make the difference. Thank you.

Before the last election John Key and Tony Ryall paraded around the country, listening to what people said they wanted in their health system and then telling people what they wanted to hear—the Steven Joyce model of connecting with the public. They said they would give New Zealanders better, sooner, more convenient health care. They promised no restructuring and they promised reduced bureaucracy—I beg your pardon; their exact term was “less bureaucrats”. Let us leave aside the grammatical error, but note that they promised there would be no restructuring, and they categorically promised there would be no cuts to front-line health services. Yet now, on an almost daily basis, we see those promises being broken. In town after town and in city after city all across our country, we see Tony Ryall’s and John Key’s broken promises.

There is now proposed a massive restructuring, the biggest restructuring in health, in fact, since Crown health enterprises were introduced by the then National Government. Under National we used to have a huge bureaucratic structure with 23 Crown health enterprises. I remember that when we went into the 1999 election we said we did not want to keep the 23 Crown health enterprises, which by then had been renamed hospital and health services. We wanted to devolve decision making and funding to district health boards; Tony Ryall said it was an outrage that we were threatening to gut the then health and hospital services. Now, he is doing exactly what he railed against. He is threatening to gut the Ministry of Health, to set up a new, very strong bureaucracy called the National Health Board, and to take all local decision-making and innovation away from district health boards. We will see more bureaucracy rather than less, we will see massive restructuring, and we are already seeing cuts to front-line health services. The core promises that John Key and Tony Ryall made to the New Zealand public have been shown to be lies. Their promises are broken and their reputations are in tatters.

What is worse, though, is that revealed to us now is the documentation behind the Horn report that Tony Ryall refuses to release. He would not even answer a question in the House today about what information he has received, what instructions he has given to doctor that information, and what he will allow to be released as the draft report. The documentation that accompanies the Horn report talks about wage freezes for doctors and nurses, and we know that in the current economic climate a wage freeze is a wage cut. That is from the party that promised to narrow the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia, and promised to support our front-line health workers. That party is now hiding documentation that says we will have wage freezes for nurses and doctors.

The report says that in order to make more money out of our health system, we should import a few foreign people, put them in our beds in public hospitals, and charge them big money. How will that give New Zealanders better, sooner, more convenient health services? How will that help the people in my electorate who have been told that their home support services are being cut? What will happen when an elderly woman from my electorate wants to go to Christchurch Hospital for an urgently needed surgical procedure and finds that someone from Holland is paying very good money for the bed she wants? Unless that woman is prepared to top and tail, she will miss out. Low-income people, and New Zealanders who have worked hard all their lives paying taxes and raising their families, will have to wait, while somebody from overseas, who has never done a day’s work in our country but who has a lot of money, can buy our public health services. That is a disgrace.

And the big secret—and I am not at all surprised that Bill English wanted to hide this—is the increase in the age of superannuation. That is on the secret agenda.

Talk about parading around the countryside! We had the spectacle of Labour members taking a bus trip. They flew into Wellington from all around the country, and then climbed on a bus so that they would look as though they were trying to conserve carbon. What happened? They headed west. From the time they left, they were going downhill. What was their first port of call on this big reconnect with their electorate? Their first point of a call was with a business. When has a business been Labour’s traditional electorate? In fact, when National came back into Government, business confidence went up! So Labour did not even start by reconnecting with its own electorate. When we look at that business and at what it was—

💬 Chris Auchinvole: What was it?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY:—we see that it was a family business of one of the Labour members. It was the business of Darren Hughes’ uncle. It was not any random business; no one else would have them. There was some strange sort of business with stuffed animals on the wall, which had remarkably similar smiles to Labour leader Phil Goff. But that is another question. This first stop tells us that Labour members are so offside with the public of New Zealand that they have to convince their own family members to host them on their tour to reconnect with the electorate. Quite frankly, by the looks of Darren Hughes’ uncle, he was not too pleased about it, either—so there we go.

I say to Labour members sitting over there on the Opposition benches that the days are getting longer. Have they not noticed it? The days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter. That tells us that spring is coming. What happens in spring? Well, there is Labour weekend. Guess what! This Labour weekend the Labour Party is hosting a variety of BBQs, I hear. It cannot use taxpayers’ money to fund its pledge cards any more so its members have had to dip into their own pockets and try to convince family members, probably, to host parties to raise funds for the Labour Party. Apparently if they hold one of these BBQs, Labour will send them a party pack. In the party pack there will be pre-printed invitations and envelopes—

💬 Hon Member: That’s exciting!

That is exciting! Also in the party pack there will be menu ideas for BBQ sausages, and probably a few chops. There will also be Labour Day fridge magnets. I suggest to Labour members that there are probably a few “Wassup!” badges lying around schools that they could go round and gather up to wear, instead of giving out fridge magnets—it could save a bit of money. There will also be balloons, serviettes, etc. The pièce de résistance is a DVD of Phil Goff. I can tell members that recent reviews suggest that the DVD is best described as a C-grade horror, and Phil Goff is killing off support faster than “Norman Bates”.

I want to talk about why it is that Labour has to reconnect. Why is it? Let us remind ourselves. Why did Labour members lose touch? When we talk about KiwiSport, what do these guys say? I ask that member with the red hair who is sitting up there in the front seat: what did he say about giving money to schools so that they would help kids into sport? He said “You can’t trust schools. How do you know they will spend the money on the right things?”. Well, members on this side of the House understand these people are professionals. We trust schools because we know that they will use the money wisely to get more kids into schools.

What else did the previous Government do? It regulated school tuck shops. It was absolutely oblivious to the fact that dairies across the road from schools were ordering in hundreds of pies a day for the kids, who were eating more pies than if they had been able to have them as a Friday treat. That is why Labour lost touch with its electorate. Labour had expensive advertising campaigns telling parents to make sure their children eat vegetables, among other things. That is how Labour addressed obesity.

The previous Prime Minister launched the Mission-On website that was supposed to get kids active. It had a game called Cool Moves. Do members remember that? Six keys moved a character around the screen, through a series of hip-hop moves, while the kids sat in their chairs. That is why Labour lost touch with the electorate.

Before the election, National pledged to look after the most vulnerable people. It is a great pleasure to follow that Minister, Anne Tolley, who talked about nothing to do with her education portfolio. Last week the Government spent $2.5 million reinstating conductive education funding—why? It was not because it thought it had done the wrong thing; it was done to get it off the front page of the newspapers.

I want to talk about—as the Minister of Education scuttles somewhere within this Chamber—Julie Baker and Brittany Graham. I know there are some members over there who do not like us talking about them, but a very interesting thing happened last week. A few minutes before the funding was reinstated, Julie Baker got a phone call. She received the call a few minutes before the announcement was made publicly. It was from a person whom she had never met, whom she had never spoken to, and who up until that time had never bothered to get in touch with her to try to help her or plead her case with the Minister, even though it was in most newspapers around the country and in the local news. It was from a person called Kate Wilkinson—a Cabinet Minister who occasionally resides in my electorate. In the ultimate act of political cynicism Ms Wilkinson rang up Julie Baker and said “Good news!” in a self-congratulatory tone, as if she had done it herself. She told Julie Baker that the Government had done a U-turn and reinstated $2.5 million of funding that it was going to steal from her daughter and other kids who have intensive special needs. She did not apologise for putting Julie Baker through hell over the last few months or stressing out her daughter as she worried she might not get the therapy. She did not apologise, because she was like a scared possum, scared of the electorate in which she occasionally resides—my electorate. When she was challenged last week—

💬 Hon Kate Wilkinson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member knows very well that he is not allowed to accuse another member of a lack of courage.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I apologise to the honourable member. I was listening quite carefully to the member and I did not pick that up.

💬 Hon Kate Wilkinson: “Scared possum”, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I ask members to be a little careful in making such accusations.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask if my time was stopped for that interjection.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: It was stopped for that point of order.

Let me put it this way. She ran like a brave possum with huge courage, the courage of her convictions! She had the courage not to ring Julie Baker; she had the courage not to do anything for her! She had the courage not to make one representation to the Minister! She put that woman through hell. Yet she stands up at every election and says that she wants to be the member for Waimakariri because she wants to help people. I say to that Minister that she ran like a brave possum. But she never said to Julie Baker that she would explain what her Government was not going to do. She never said to Julie Baker that if her child moves to another school—because perhaps the family have to move for employment reasons, or whatever—Brittany Graham loses her funding. If her parents have to take her out of Addington School—her family might be transferred to do a job somewhere else—she loses the funding. Is her cerebral palsy cured? No. Is it cured because she moves schools? I doubt it. The brave Cabinet Minister never said that to Julie Baker.

She also never said to Julie Baker that a letter that Anne Tolley never referred to in her speech to Trudy Heath, the principal of Addington School, stated that if there is a 4-year-old in Waimakariri who has cerebral palsy or intensive special needs and he or she is about to enter school, that child will get nothing. Oh no, that brave member never explained that! Yet in the ultimate act of political cynicism, Ms Wilkinson rang Julie Baker just before the public announcement. I know that because I rang Julie after the public announcement to tell her the so-called good news.

I say to Kate Wilkinson she should get off her chuff and do her job. She purports to be a Cabinet Minister so she should front up and show that courage and that intense bravery that she says she has, and maybe try to help the most vulnerable people. These kids will keep coming. To quote from Trudy Heath, the principal of Addington School: “These children are still coming. There are lots at preschool on our site, and their parents are saying, ‘What happens when they arrive at school?’ With all the medical technology available these children are being saved at birth. They will keep coming.” Oh, no! Did she say that? In response to the great U-turn, which Kate Wilkinson takes credit for, I have here an article that quotes Julie Baker: “Ms Baker said that her heart went out to parents of children who had not been guaranteed funding”—members opposite laugh—“but they had time to fight it, and they should keep the issue on the public agenda.” I say to Paul Quinn, and other members opposite, who laughed—we have it in Hansard—at my colleague Ruth Dyson when she was explaining the stress that Brittany Graham has been under that they can laugh, but the laugh is on them.

It is good to follow the previous speaker, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, who clearly has been to the “Trevor Mallard School of Anger Management”. It is very good, indeed. I want to say how good it is—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I need to ask an unusual question and I would be indebted if you would provide the answer. Is it possible to ask a member to send his Hansard to Julie Baker, given he belittled her in that way?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

How good is it to be part of a National Government that—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The member has the Gerry Brownlee collar attached.

I do; I am missing the wing-collar, I am sorry. I tried to find some at lunchtime, and could not.

I wanted to say how good it is to be part of the National Government, which is incredibly popular. It has a fantastic Prime Minister in John Key, a great Deputy Prime Minister in Bill English, and from tomorrow at 4 p.m. it will have a wonderful Acting Prime Minister from Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty—the Hon Tony Ryall. He is a safe pair of hands and, I say to Mr Darren Hughes, could he be the best-dressed Acting Prime Minister we have ever had. It is just possible.

Of course, in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty we do have some safe pairs of hands, and we are lucky to have popular members of Parliament who are incredibly liked by the people. So things are going well for National in the provinces, but how many seats did Labour get at the last election between the area of Auckland and Wellington? Could we hazard a guess? Labour won one seat. It won Palmerston North by the thinnest of majorities, and because of that Labour members put down their lattes—in the case of Chris Hipkins, I think it was a Pepsi Max or something; he likes his Pepsi Max—and went out into the provinces.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: A fluffy!

That is a good point; he had a fluffy. His mum paid. Actually it was free, because she bought a coffee and a slice of cake—it was ginger crunch, I hear.

Labour members put down their lattes and their Pepsi Max and they went out into the provinces, because, as we know, they hold one seat in the provinces. Annette King commented on the ginger crunch, and they went to Wanganui and New Plymouth. I want to know why they did not come to Tauranga. We would have loved to have them in Tauranga. You see, by my count at election time I had a majority of something like 11,700, and I reckon the bus tour will make it 12,700. So I ask Labour members to please come to Tauranga. It will be the impetus I need. It would remind the good people of the provinces just what they were voting against. Perhaps they did not realise at that time, but they will this time.

The people of Wanganui said they thought Pete Hodgson had gone. They thought they had got rid of him. People also thought they had got rid of Trevor Mallard, but those members are still here. People have been asking what those members are doing still here. So I am very confident that the bus tour, if it continues, will remind people of just what they left behind. Of course, there will be some good things about the bus tour. It will mean that the Labour Party members will not have to meet in a phone box. That was Darren Hughes and his uncle in the phone box, but they have the bus now.

National, by way of distinction, has the health reviews, and we have just put out an excellent and comprehensive transport discussion document. But there is something that the transport document should have had but did not have, and I will take up this point with Steven Joyce. It is quite clear that he should have made the practice of singing in buses illegal. I do not know why that was not on the list. Singing in buses should have been made illegal. What were those Labour members singing? They were singing: “Take me home to the place I belong.” Well, it is quite clear that they do not belong in the provinces. It is quite clear they do not belong in Wanganui or New Plymouth, and it is certainly clear that they do not belong in Tauranga.

As I said, it is good to be in the National Party. It is good to be in a party that is popular, a party that people like, and a party that was voted for by people in the provinces. They voted for us and will continue to vote for us, and from Thursday at 4 p.m. the party will be in the safe hands of Tony Ryall. Labour members’ bus-singing is interesting, because they could have sung other songs. “Slip Sliding Away” would have been a good one, as the words include: “Slip out the back, Jack; make a new plan, Stan”.

It is a pleasure to follow the modest member from Tauranga, Simon Bridges. Members on this side of the House have heard that when he goes home each night, the song that he sings on the bus is: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. We have seen him playing squash, and we know that he greatly enjoys being in Tauranga. After he had been thinking about Christine Rankin he said: “I know the place I want to run in—it’s Tauranga.” Tauranga is populated by older women; that is where Simon Bridges wants to be.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Cougar territory!

Yes, it is cougar territory in Tauranga. The other member from the Bay of Plenty who has already been mentioned today is Tony Ryall, and on 12 May 2009, to some fanfare and a blaze of tangerine shirts and orange ties, he announced a redeployment pool for jobless public servants. He said that this redeployment pool would be “established to retain and redistribute talent. … It will also look after the taxpayers’ interests by reducing the cost of redundancy payments.” Well, we have seen a large number of job losses in the Public Service.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: How many?

There have been 1,500, and up to 2,000 in the wider State sector. Forty-five thousand public servants—a lot of people—need to be redeployed, so Tony Ryall has put in place a redeployment scheme and has set the Public Service in motion, clear in his instruction that there will be redeployment. But I ask my colleagues how many people they think have been redeployed under Tony Ryall’s scheme.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: 500?

Ruth Dyson says “500?”. Do we have any others?

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: 1,000?

A thousand from Darren Hughes—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: 1,500?

There is 1,500 from Lianne Dalziel, but—sadly—no, my colleagues are wrong. Two people have been redeployed through Tony Ryall’s public servant redeployment pool.

💬 Hon Members: What!

No, only two public servants across the entire Public Service have been redeployed as a result of Tony Ryall’s redeployment scheme, and it has to be said that Tony Ryall, in his tangerine shirt, is not a happy camper. He is very upset that only two public servants, across the whole of the Public Service, have been redeployed as a result of his scheme. That is a sad indictment on a Government that said that jobs was its priority, and that that was where it would be, but only two public servants, across the whole Public Service, have been redeployed.

Sadly, we have seen time and time again from this Government the wrong choices and the wrong priorities. We have seen it with tax cuts, where 3 percent of income earners received 30 percent of the benefit of tax cuts. We have seen that happen time and time again, and now we hear of it with the GST proposals coming through. Those are the wrong choices and the wrong priorities.

But the place where we have seen it the most is in education. I was appalled to be in the House today and hear Anne Tolley deliver a speech but not mention once her portfolio of education. Not once did she mention the number of people who have contacted her to say: “Turn around those cuts to night classes.” How many postcards has Anne Tolley received? How many members of her own caucus have come to her and said: “Turn around these cuts.”? Night classes are part of the fabric of our education system; they are part of lifelong learning. Dozens of constituents in my electorate have come to me to tell me how night classes have changed their lives. People have been able to set up small businesses as a result of getting back into learning. People have been able to improve their life skills. For example, when they have lost a partner and have not known how to cook, they have gone to night school to learn, and that has given them social interaction. There are also the new migrants to New Zealand who have been looking to learn English, meet people, and have social interaction. But those opportunities have been taken away by Anne Tolley. That was a choice. It was a priority for National; National had an option. Thirty five million dollars has gone into private schools. That has been a choice by the National Government. It has chosen not to fund adult and community education. Mrs Tolley must now listen to the people of New Zealand; she must now turn round those cuts. We have seen a partial turn-round on the cuts to funding for people with physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy, and so on. We now need a full turn-round on adult and community education.

It is time for this Government to start listening. We have had a lot of bullying behaviour and put-downs from this Government. Now is the time to get rid of the wrong choices and wrong priorities in adult and community education and to turn round and start listening to the people of New Zealand. We have seen broken promises, a lack of listening, and cuts throughout the education sector. Today primary school students from my electorate came to the forecourt of Parliament to say “We don’t want Enviroschools cut.” The Enviroschools programme, the Artists in Schools programme, and professional development for teachers have all been cut by this Government. It is time the Government started listening and changed its priorities.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to take this call from the whips’ office. I want to reflect on what we have heard during the adjournment, and that is that the highlight for Labour members was their magical mystery bus tour to nowhere. I take this opportunity to share with members my highlight during the adjournment.

My highlight was when I was invited by the Mayor of Hutt City, Mayor Ogden, to attend a meeting of local community leaders in his office to talk about local issues on Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock. I duly turned up in response to his very polite invitation. Everyone else was there, but we had to wait for the last two stragglers to turn up—namely, Trevor Mallard and Chris Hipkins. What happened? The Hon Trevor Mallard walked in and went straight up to Mayor Ogden and asked what I was doing there. Mayor Ogden said it was because he had invited me. What did the Hon Trevor Mallard say to Mayor Ogden? He said that if I was at the next meeting he would not be coming, as that meeting was not for me. That member is so self-indulgent that he puts his own self-importance ahead of the interests of the community. I was asked to attend the meeting to discuss progressing the interests of the community, but Trevor Mallard got his nose out of joint.

He does not realise, of course, that Labour is no longer in Government, and that if the community is to make progress it needs to speak to the Government. That is why Mayor Ogden wants Government members to attend these meetings. But it has not got through to Trevor Mallard that he is no longer in Government. We can now see why, as a retread, he will not be the next leader of the Labour Party. It is simply because he is interested only in himself and not in the wider interests of the community.

Who else might we consider as an alternative leader? Perhaps we could have Shane Jones. He is a chap who purports to represent good, decent, hard-working New Zealanders and to champion workers as the backbone of the economy. The only problem with Shane Jones is that he does not know what hard work is. His other problem is that he is fighting with David Cunliffe for the right-hand side of the scrum, and at the moment they cannot select between them who gets to go forward. Unfortunately, they could not sort that out on the bus.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: If this member was 2 inches taller he would have been an All Black.

We are now hearing from someone who is an expert on the All Blacks. As a result of his inferiority complex he never got anywhere in rugby past liniment rubbing in the changing sheds. Unfortunately, he has never been good enough at sport. He sits there and pontificates on everything. The best he ever did was go around and pick the gear up off the floor and put it into the laundry bags. That is the closest he ever got to anything.

Let us look at Darren Hughes. I have always thought that Darren Hughes shows good leadership potential. He is reasonably bright. He lost his constituency, so there may be a bit of a problem because the next time round he may not be high enough on the list to get back into Parliament. The problem with Darren Hughes is that he is such a good talker that not only does he talk himself into the job but also he talks himself back out of the job. Of course, he has had an opportunity in the publicly announced position of shadow Leader of the House, but unfortunately one would never know it, because Trevor Mallard keeps overriding him.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.