General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. So the party that is mired in splits and divisions calls a snap debate on splits and divisions. Now, that is a great strategy, in the same way as the party that is responsible for all the damage to the New Zealand economy is trying to front-end the economic policy as its strongest point! It is a bit like Trevor Mallard saying that other people are unbalanced. That is the strategy of a party that is still struggling, and understandably so, with the challenges of being in Opposition. The one hurdle that members opposite must get over—there are a lot of hurdles in Opposition, and we know a bit about that—is to admit the voters were right.

💬 Hon Members: Ah!

They have to admit the voters were right. How close do we think the Labour Party is to admitting that the voters of west Auckland were right to throw Labour out? It is no closer than it was a week before the last election—no closer. With all the other machinations—all the little tactics, all the very odd strategies such as we have seen today—that is the one hurdle members opposite are nowhere near getting over. I think that will happen in about year 4 or year 5, probably, which is a long way to go.

The interesting thing is that the voters know when a party has got over that hurdle. It does not matter how clever a party is, or whether it is the most cohesive and smartest political machine that was ever invented—and still run from New York by the sound of it—the voters know that the Labour Party still thinks the voters were wrong. Guess what? The voters think they are right, I have found. The voters have not changed their mind. Actually they think they are in charge. I know the Labour Party does not understand that, yet. It still thinks that Darren Hughes is in charge. It still thinks that Phil Goff is in charge. Actually, Chris Carter is in charge. He is the one who is really telling the voters what the voters believe—that Labour cannot win, there are splits and divisions, and they cannot make up their mind about their policy.

The Government, fortunately, has the opportunity—given to us by those same voters—to grasp the challenges, and particularly the long-term challenges for the economy. Those are considerable. They have always been a bit of a challenge in this small, open economy at the end of the world but they have been made much larger, much more challenging by the actions of the last Government, particularly since 2005, where its policies effectively wrecked the tradable sector of a trading nation. If a Government is going to damage a trading economy, it could not have done more than the last Government did. There has been a 5-year recession in our export sector, in the best economic conditions—that decade was called the “great moderation”—where other countries grew very strongly. Just by way of example, in the 4 years to March 2010 the Australian economy grew 11.6 percent; we grew 2 percent. Then we found out in recent days that if one takes the statistics that Governments use to calculate national superannuation—that is, the average wage series that is used to calculate national superannuation—and one adjusts it, takes the after-tax numbers, which the Government takes when it is adjusting national superannuation, which is the after-tax average wage, and adjusts it for inflation, guess how much New Zealand incomes grew on that series—which is used for national superannuation, so it is not one randomly selected? For 9 years it grew by 0.3 percent. [Interruption] It grew by 0.3 percent. I thought that meant 0.3 percent a year, but it does not. No, most of that growth happened while Labour was still enjoying the benefits of the previous National Government’s policies. From 2004 on it was almost zero. I think 0.3 percent was the actual result. From 2005 on, real after-tax incomes, as measured by Statistics New Zealand with the tool it uses for calculating national superannuation, had almost zero growth.

The previous speaker, the Hon Bill English, sat down in a hurry, and well he might. On the subject of splits and divisions, let us call to mind the record of John Key and Bill English. Let us think about policies that matter to real New Zealanders. Here is the top of the list. Bill English said that the Overseas Investment Office should be open slather, that we should bring in the buyers for Crafar farms and let Sammy Wong and the others have their way with it. Guess what? John Key said no, we would be tenants in our own country. He said that Mr English could not do that.

Let us talk about KiwiSaver, shall we? Bill English said that KiwiSaver was a rotten system that was not working. Bill English has been doing some polling and he now says it is time we had a policy. After 2 years the Government has set up a committee, but Government members cannot agree amongst themselves. On tax policy, John Key said we should make tax better and we would not increase GST. Bill English said that we would—we are putting up GST on 1 October. Every New Zealander will suffer.

In his speech Bill English said that the voters were right. I do not know about that, but I know that voters gave National a chance. Kiwis are fair-minded people. They said that Labour had had three terms and they should give National a chance to see what it could do. Do members know what the voters have found out? National promised them we would catch up with Australia. We went backwards by 50 bucks a week for the average worker, and we are falling further behind. National said it would stop the brain drain across the Tasman. What have we got? The June-on-June number—the number of Kiwis leaving—has doubled from a year ago.

National said it had a plan—wrong. A plan is not a goal. A goal is not a strategy. A plan has a map: we know where to start, we know where we want to get to, we work out the milestones, and we have a compass to get us along the way. Is that what this National Government has given New Zealand? It does not have a plan. It does not have any more than a series of slogans, and it is running from poll-driven fruitcakes to flip-flops—flip-flops.

In the last 3 months 19,000 more New Zealanders have lost their jobs and the number of unemployed has risen to 159,000. I want to talk about just two of those New Zealanders, both from my electorate, whom I have seen recently. “Mrs U” worked for 14 years in a rest home in Epsom—14 years. She was sacked without notice. She was rung up and told not to come to work, because her employer had ended up hiring a younger, newer person on a lower wage rate. “Mrs U” got a reference after 14 years that had four lines in it—after 14 years of hard work. That is one example.

I will give members another example. “Mr E” lives in Kelston. He is a Polynesian worker at a factory in Penrose. He is an honest man. He has four children and a wife. He lost his job in the recession because this Government did not have a plan for jobs. Now he cannot afford a State house, and he and his family have moved in with his brother. There are eight kids and four adults in one 2½-bedroom house. That Government has no plan. There are 19,000 more New Zealanders like those 12. “Mrs U” was sacked at will because this Government’s latest fad is firing workers and cranking down employment conditions.

The list of National’s reversals and short-term flip-flops has got so long that it is a joke. Those members called it a rolling maul, but it looks to me like a ruck up. Catching up with Australia? The 2025 Taskforce was dead on arrival. The Job Summit and the national cycleway were both scaled back. The 9-day working fortnight was cancelled in the middle of a recession. Budget 2009 deferred pre-funding superannuation and lied to New Zealanders about it. It created a $50 billion fiscal hole. It reduced stimulus and it raised unemployment. Budget 2010 broke a promise by raising the rate of GST. Most New Zealanders will be worse off next year when they face 5.9 percent inflation.

Who knows where the review of the Overseas Investment Office will come out? Bill English wants to liberalise it and John Key wants to tighten it. What about the latest random walks on their map: mining national parks, firing at will, so-called compulsory superannuation, and—here is the newest stuff—savings?

Well, I am absolutely astounded. I am absolutely amazed to hear in this House that after 9 years of Labour, in the best years—in fact they were described as the best years of a generation—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: The golden years.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY:—the golden years—of Government surpluses that we could only dream of, everything going for it, that under a Labour Government the real after-tax increase in wages was 3 percent. It was 3 percent after 9 years, and that happened in the first 4 years—

💬 Hon Members: Rubbish!

Members opposite say that that is rubbish. Well, we know that they did not listen to advice. We know that they never listened to any of the advice. They did not help New Zealand. They did not help ordinary New Zealanders with all that. They did not help ordinary New Zealanders by reducing taxes, until right up to the last when they thought they would lose an election. In fact, they drove up Government spending. They did what Labour Governments have done every time they get into Government and they get a bit of money: they spray it round like confetti. Anyone who had a little programme, who had a little itch, it was scratched by Labour dishing out heaps of money. They had programmes, plans, strategies, and initiatives, but what did that achieve? It achieved a real increase in wages of 3 percent over 9 years. That is pathetic—absolutely pathetic. Then when the previous Labour Government was kicked out by the public, who knew it was pathetic, it left the incoming National Government with an economic mess. It left a Government absolutely riddled with promises for expenditure.

I came into the tertiary education sector as the Minister for Tertiary Education and found half a billion dollars—half a billion dollars—promised but not funded. That was half a billion dollars. It was right throughout the sector. Young people were out of jobs, out of school, and with no literacy and numeracy skills. That is the most outrageous thing that the previous Labour Government did. It failed the young people of New Zealand.

💬 Grant Robertson: So last century.

Labour members knew what they needed to do. In fact Trevor Mallard, as Opposition spokesperson on education, said in 1998 that a national system of benchmark testing was needed so that principals and teachers could significantly raise standards in schools and help New Zealand to regain its status as a world leader in education. He knew that in 1998. Those members knew from research that was undertaken, like the Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis and Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara, what needed to be done to lift the numeracy and literacy skills of young children in our schools. But what did those members do? They ignored that, and let those kids fail. For 10 years they stood by and watched as the unions stopped them—the unions stopped them—from implementing what Trevor Mallard knew had to be done: setting benchmarks so that we clearly understand what children need to know and by when.

So what was the first thing that this National Government did? It introduced the national standards that Trevor Mallard talked about. “So last century.”, the member said. What about the kids who are suffering in this century because they did not get that help from the so-last-century Labour Government? Well, this Government has acted, and, quite frankly, the previous Labour Government should hang its head in shame for failing up to one in five New Zealand children in our schools—up to one in five. That is 150,000-odd kids. How many of them have been cast out on to the streets in this recession not only with no skills or qualifications but not able to read, write, or do maths at anywhere near the level they need to get an apprenticeship or even a semi-skilled job? When we talk to some of the employers they shake their heads. They ask how a compulsory education system could allow kids to go through school for 8 or 9 years and come out unable to write a sentence or fill in a simple employment form. They ask how that could happen. The previous Government knew what to do. There was good research put out on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study of 2001.

We heard the Prime Minister today admit, under questioning from Phil Goff, that the Government is struggling to make progress. Those were his words—struggling to make progress. He said it was because the Government had inherited a mess from the previous Labour Government. Let us just reflect on that. National inherited zero net debt, gross Government debt that had come down from 38 percent to 17 percent of GDP, and an unemployment rate that was amongst the lowest in the world. So let us park that mantra from National to the side.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Minor details.

Yes, minor details. John Key said the Government is struggling to make progress. I was amazed to hear that acknowledgment today. The Government is struggling to make progress. I think we might hear more about that in Parliament over the next few days. That was an incredible admission from a Government that has already been labelled by the media as lacking a plan.

The Government is struggling to make progress because its members do not know what to do. Look, I am not the only person who thinks that.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: No.

I tell Mr Joyce that after the little gaffe of making a mistake about whether the gap was widening between New Zealand and Australia, and after Mr Key followed Mr Brownlee down that slope, Mr Key was accused by TV3 of being too selective and slippery. For the Prime Minister to be called slippery is not very good. The New Zealand Herald said “This provided its own commentary on the Government’s attempt to close the gap,”—and this is the New Zealand Herald—“which has so far encompassed little more than tinkering with the Resource Management Act and suchlike.” The same editorial stated, in respect of the Government’s economic performance, “when relatively little is done, relatively little happens. Things can even go backwards.” What did Bernard Hickey say? He said: “We are losing a whole generation of workers before our eyes and our government appears to be sitting on its hands hoping the problem will go away.”

What did the National Government say earlier in the year? Earlier in the year it was promising a step change. This was its thing for the economy in February 2010: “Our 2010 priorities. National seeks a step change in economic performance.” What is its latest version? Edition two of the same document came out a week ago. There is no talk of a step change. Three things have dropped out of the plan between then and now. The Government has stopped promising a step change, it has abandoned its attempts to extend the areas open to mining, and it has dropped its plan to investigate a hub for financial services. There is nothing new in the August plan; it is just that the Government has dropped out some of the things that were in the February plan.

National members’ latest acknowledgment is that they have been wrong about savings. Having tipped over the Kirk scheme, having opposed the Peters superannuation scheme at the end of the 1990s, having undermined KiwiSaver, and having stopped contributions to Government saving via the Cullen fund, they now say the big problem relates to savings. We have news for National members: we have been saying that for years. That is why we developed the KiwiSaver plan, that is why we started contributions to the Cullen fund, and that is why, since the election, we have been saying National has got it wrong. The big difference between New Zealand and Australia is in the level of savings, and National members have just agreed with us about that. They have just agreed with us, but will they deliver in that area? No, they still have no vision; all that they are planning is to establish a committee. After two Budgets, 2 years into this National Government, its big announcement and its big plan last week, when it was on the ropes in respect of the gap with Australia widening instead of narrowing, was to establish a committee. The Government does not even have members for a committee and it has no terms of reference for it yet, but its plan is to establish a committee.

It continues to be amateur hour on the National Government benches, at a time when the economy is tanking. We have more and more people going overseas—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Ha, ha!

Steven Joyce laughs, but Bernard Hickey says “We are losing a whole generation of workers before our eyes”. I say to Mr Joyce that if he wanted to do something about that, he could have done something at the Hillside railway workshops. He had the justification for doing so in an independent report from Business and Economic Research Ltd, and he has ignored it. As a consequence there will be 300 fewer jobs in Dunedin.

Let us be clear about what this Government inherited. It inherited a recession before the rest of the world. This country was in recession before the global financial crisis. It also had a pathetically poor level of increase in after-tax wages. That was caused by the previous Government not handing back the hard-earned income of New Zealanders. We also inherited a projected decade of deficits, because when the recession arrived and the tide went out the high levels of Government expenditure were projecting a decade of deficits. That is what we inherited. We also inherited—just so that we are clear—a record number of New Zealand graduates living overseas. There were massive numbers. So if we are talking about the flight of New Zealanders, it was done under the Labour Government over the 9 years it was in office.

There are others things. Labour members criticise us about corrections. The record pipeline of incoming prisoners into the corrections service was created by Labour in its 9 years in Government. Further, it tipped a whole lot of money into a whole range of areas—even one I happen to know a little bit about called tertiary education. It slipped a massive amount of money in there, but over that period it did not increase the number of graduates per year coming out of our universities at all. Over the whole 9-year period that was flat and it was the most ludicrous waste of public money that that administration oversaw.

We have a plan, which is a serious, considered range of things that will lift the growth path of this country. I thought, given that Mr Cunliffe does not understand it, I would take him through it briefly. First is personal tax reform, which is hugely important. The biggest personal tax reform that this country has seen in 20 years will put more money in people’s pockets and encourage them to work hard and get ahead. The second thing we are doing is cutting a lot of red tape right across the public sector, including, of course, in the much-talked-about Resource Management Act reforms, but also in a whole range of areas. We are putting investment into science. We are putting the country’s money where its mouth is in science and that is very important.

We are reforming employment law, which this Opposition does not want us to do. It does not want us to encourage people into jobs. We are putting more money into industries like tourism. We are lowering company taxes down to a rate of 28 cents in the dollar, which will give us a lift over the Australians. We are sorting out Canterbury irrigation, something that members on the other side of the House admitted that they should have done over their period in office—only 9 years, one should understand; it is hard to get around to doing things when one has only 9 years. It did not sort it out. We have sorted it out; we have grasped the nettle.

Speaking of which, Auckland governance reforms took the previous Government ages. It had a royal commission, which we inherited because it did not have time to do it over the 9 years that it was in office. We inherited the Auckland governance reforms. We took the issue and we ran with it. Now Labour members are turning around to say that it should not happen and that if it is going to happen it should not happen until 2014. That was classic of Labour in office—to kick everything off. We have also taken off Labour’s moratorium on aquaculture—the handbrake it had on the aquaculture sector over 9 years.

We are putting a huge effort into trade negotiations by sending our friends Mr Groser and Mr McCully offshore as often as possible. We have the Primary Growth Partnership. We are encouraging responsible mining. Export education—how is that going? That has grown under the 2 years of this National Government very, very significantly; it was flat and declining under the previous Labour administration.

I come now to infrastructure. In infrastructure, a massive investment is being made by this Government in such areas as roading, first of all. That is a big investment, $10.7 billion over 10 years by reprioritising expenditure. That is a big lift to the construction and contracting industry and to the productivity of the New Zealand economy. We are also investing in KiwiRail. We inherited an incredibly expensive option—nearly a billion dollars was paid for something worth around $350 million—but we have said that we will invest in it and turn it round. We have a turn-round plan that can work. It is a challenging plan, it is a big plan, and it will cost around $4.5 billion over 10 years. We are putting three-quarters of a billion dollars into it, and that is a big investment. Ultra-fast broadband is about to have partners chosen for it—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: That’s an oxymoron.

I say to Mr Cunliffe that he has no record on that; 9 years in office and in the last 2 years he managed something. That is the history of Labour.

For the last year or so it has become increasingly apparent to all who watch that the Government has no plan for jobs and growth in New Zealand. The only consistent theme in the Government’s activities has been an inability to join any dots, an inability to recognise how one policy might impact on another, and how a cohesive plan might get New Zealand out of where we are now and into growth, job creation, higher skills, and higher wages as a result.

Connecting those dots seems to be beyond this Government Let me give a couple of examples. Let us consider the portfolio of the member who has just resumed his seat, Steven Joyce. The failure to increase the negotiated caps on student numbers at universities and polytechnics impacts on the pathway towards a high-skill, high-wage, high-productivity New Zealand. If we want a high-skill economy we need highly skilled workers.

I say to Mr Joyce that there are no new students. Mr Joyce is funding only the ones who are already there. There are no new places. So there is no plan, there are no skills, and there are no more places for students. Turning students away means there will be no improvement in skills. Let me join the dots for the Minister for Tertiary Education. No improvement in skills means that there are no improvements in productivity. No improvement in productivity means that there are no improvements in profits, and no improvement in profits means that there are no improvements in wages. So can that Minister not simply join that series of dots and call it a plan?

There is no skills strategy. The Minister of Education celebrated the fact that nine trades academies will open across this country, but, with a bit more vision and a bit more sense of a plan, there could have been the equivalent in every high school and polytech in this country. So what has the Minister got? She has a saving of $13 million in adult and community education, and that is what she has to celebrate—cuts to second-chance education and the chance of upskilling.

Another example of where the Government does not have a plan is the idea—a very old idea of the National Party—that we whip anybody who is on a benefit and we tell them they have to get back into work. That is fine for an old-fashioned Tory party mantra, but how does it work when there are no jobs? How does it work when nearly 20,000 more people have become unemployed in the last quarter? When 2,700 people queue up for 150 jobs it is patently obvious that this Government has no plan to create jobs, no plan to upskill the workforce, and no plan to improve this economy.

The mining fiasco was meant to be the cure-all, the Shangri-La. The nirvana of economic policies was to mine the innards out of this country and dig a hole. Yet somehow the Minister of Tourism, who also happens to be the Prime Minister, could not join the dots between tourism and a cycleway on Dun Mountain in Nelson and prospecting for silver on Dun Mountain. That man could not even join the dots within his own head, let alone join the dots between Cabinet portfolios.

There is no plan. There is no way to join any of the critical elements into a plan that could develop this country, provide jobs, and move the economy forward. We have lost the language of step change. In fact, exporters said that it was not a step change that was needed; it was a quantum leap in this economy’s performance by adding value to our exports. So one of the great initiatives in this six-point plan is to improve free-trade agreements—not the Government’s idea, but Labour’s

Goodness me! Nine years in Government, 18 months in Opposition, and that is all the socialist Labour Party has to show. That is the best that that party can do. Labour had 9 years in Government, 18 months in Opposition—I almost said 18 years, but let us not get too far ahead of ourselves—and that is the best that it can offer.

There has been a bit of talk in this debate as to whether this Government inherited a mess. I would have thought that was a non-debatable point. Obviously, the Government inherited a mess—a big mess—but a mess can be fixed. With discipline, application, and good policies, a mess can be fixed.

What can never ever be recovered from, though, is 9 years of lost opportunity. New Zealand will never get those years back. The people of New Zealand will never ever recover the lost opportunities that they experienced as a result of 9 years of the previous Labour Government. There is that simple, telling figure: real after-tax wages grew by only 3 percent over the 9 years of that Government—only 3 percent. What is worse is that the bulk of that growth occurred in the early years of that Labour Government, on the back of disciplined economic policies from the 1990s. Rather than squawking across the floor at me, I suggest that members like Mr Cunliffe, Ms Street, and the others over there get out into the streets of the working-class parts of my electorate of Tāmaki and tell that to the people who used to vote for Labour in the past.

💬 Carol Beaumont: We do. We get out on those streets.

I look forward to Miss Beaumont actually being out there doing that and explaining to those good people why, over 9 years, the real growth in their incomes, their wages—

💬 Chris Tremain: People they were representing.

—was a miserable 3 percent, I say to Mr Tremain.

There will be more explaining for the Labour party and its members to do as well. They can begin to explain not only why the real salaries of those good people did not grow under that Labour Government but also why that Government required those people to pay so much more in tax than needed to be paid. I ask why that Labour Government, year after year after year, took so much money in the form of taxation from the good working-class people of New Zealand. Labour members should get out on to the streets in places like Glen Innes and similar areas around New Zealand and explain that. They must explain to people how can it be that in 18 months of a National Government, somebody on the average wage can have their income tax effectively cut by a half. How can it be that through good government the income tax of a person on the average wage can be cut in half?

💬 Carol Beaumont: Tell those people in Tāmaki why you did a deal with the issue of loan sharks—the huge issue in that community.

Then go a step further, I say to Ms Beaumont: explain to those people why that Labour Government had to take so much of their money from them, and then apologise. Labour members should apologise for the way that money was squandered.

While Labour members are at it, they might also like to explain to the parents in communities like that why Labour’s investment in the schools in those communities was so poor. I ask them to explain that. Why was it, despite the fact that New Zealanders were being taxed to a greater extent than ever before, their schools were allowed to become run down? How can it then be that, in just 18 months, this Government can produce a Budget that allows for $12 billion of spending in education—$12 billion in 18 short months? That is more money than has ever been spent on schooling and education in New Zealand in the past.

Last week the Labour Party held its caucus in Whangarei. It is a beautiful city. The people are wondering where their member for Parliament is, but it is a beautiful city. When we were there we spoke with people in a number of different businesses, and those that I was talking to there, in particular, were in the boatbuilding industry, which is an industry that Whangarei has been trying to grow. When we went there we discovered that that boatbuilding industry was looking for a Government that could provide some leadership. The boatbuilding industry was looking for a plan. What we have seen from this Government is the complete absence of a plan, and a plan is what the boatbuilding industry wanted. People in the industry said to us that there were people there who wanted to work, there were people there who were skilled, and all those in the industry wanted from the Government was some support. All they wanted from the Government was some interest in their industries, and they have seen nothing whatsoever. All we have seen is a set of half-baked ideas and slogans—the cycleway, the mining, the financial services hub. They are all slogans and all ideas, but there is nothing in practice that makes up a plan. A list of goals and a list of slogans is not a plan.

This Government is poll driven; this Government is without a plan. Steven Joyce talked before about savings. Nothing is off the table; nothing is on the table. In fact, Steven Joyce is polling to see whether there should be a table. The Government is not sure whether there is anything on it or off it, but, of course, we still have to pay. Tony Ryall does not even have a plan to get his shirt and tie to match, let alone the Government having a plan for the public sector. The best thing we have heard from the Government in terms of a plan for the public sector was Bill English telling us that within the next 2 or 3 years the Department of Corrections will be the biggest department in this country. That will be this Government’s ambition. This Government’s legacy will be that it will put more New Zealanders into prison. Judith Collins is proud. Judith Collins says that it will be the economic leader—that building more prisons is the thing to give us growth. That is the extent of the image and the ambition of this Government.

We hear from Government members that they are a blank sheet, they are going to kick the tyres, and nothing is off the table. This Government is all map and no compass. It is all about what the polls are telling it and not about what it actually wants to do. It has no plan and no principles. There is no point being a Government if all that it is going to do is kick the tyres; if all that it will do is come to the House and say that it has to rely on what has happened over the last 9 years because it is too difficult to come back. I tell Mr Joyce that the people in Whangarei told us that they are not interested in a Government that is looking backwards for someone to blame. They are looking for a Government that will invest in people. Mr Joyce says that he has put money in for more places in tertiary education. If that is the case, why are the universities locking the doors? Why are universities locking the doors if the Government has put so much more money into New Zealand? We know from the Department of Labour that by 2018 the demand for degree-qualified people will exceed supply. The supply of people with vocational qualifications will be insufficient. That is what the Department of Labour is telling the Government, yet Mr Joyce is locking the doors on universities and polytechs. There is no plan from this Government other than a plan to read the next poll, to look into the future, and to ask whether Steven Joyce and John Key will be able to continue to enjoy their ministerial salaries.

This country is looking for some investment in skills, in training, and in jobs. The Government proudly brought out a paper on its six new goals. The word “jobs” features once in that paper. The Government’s goals, which do not make a plan, include the word “jobs” once. That is simply not good enough. Shouting slogans at unemployed people telling them to get off welfare is not a plan. The way to get people off welfare is not to shout slogans and abuse at them, it is to help create jobs. This Government has done very, very little since it came into office about actually creating jobs, about sitting down with people with businesses like those boatbuilders in Whangarei and asking them how it can support them and ensure that they have a skilled workforce. I ask Mr Joyce about supporting the Kiwi jobs bill. That is what the boatbuilders told us in Whangarei. They said: “Why has the contract to refurbish the Tangaroa gone to Singapore?”. That is what they asked us. They want investment in New Zealand.

Members on this side of the House have a plan, unlike members opposite who think that if they keep repeating their rhetoric that there is no plan, somehow that makes it true, but it does not. This side of the House is committed to delivering action, and people from Porirua to Paraparaumu understand that plan.

This very morning I was at the Porirua Chamber of Commerce. They cannot wait for 1 October. They want to see personal tax rates go down. They welcome the fact that the lowest two tax brackets will get the most out of that. The people of Porirua welcome the fact that they get to keep more in their pockets, and that they have a Government that understands that they need incentives to get out there and work. Businesses out there are absolutely delighted that the company tax rate is going down, because it gives them the opportunity to have confidence in themselves to expand their businesses and employ people.

Let me tell members another thing. Last weekend I was at a business in Tawa. It welcomed the 90-day hire-at-will bill that we have brought in, because it gives businesses the opportunity to take a risk on young people. Members opposite want to wallow in unemployment and spread gloom and doom, but let me tell them that businesses in Tawa and Raumati welcome the opportunity to take a risk on young people in the Mana electorate. Those businesses are committed to giving young people the opportunity for work, and they get that opportunity because this Government backs them. We are also lowering personal tax rates and company tax rates.

We recognise that lifting education is part and parcel of this opportunity. In the Mana electorate we have a much lower achievement rate than that of the nationwide average. Nationally, four out of five secondary schools are succeeding. Two of our secondary schools, Tawa College and Kapiti College, are above the national average, but four of them are not quite there. They understand that this Government is serious about lifting educational achievement, instead of wringing its hands, printing more reports, and feeling anxious about the lack of achievement that a decade of the previous Labour Government’s administration delivered to New Zealand students.

We are investing $91.8 million in early childhood education, as announced in the Budget. We recognise that participation rates for Māori and Pacific Island students have to be lifted, and Porirua and the Mana electorate will benefit from that investment.

We recognise that national standards will catch early the fact that primary school students are not achieving the literacy and numeracy competence level they need to in order to ensure that when they arrive at high school they have the best possible chance to leave with National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. They can then go on to tertiary education or a trade, and have a real opportunity at a career, unlike the myths perpetuated by Opposition members.

We understand that better, smarter public services have to be available and we are passing a work-ready welfare reform. Unlike members opposite, we do not want to consign people to a lifelong dependence on benefits. We understand that people want to take responsibility for their own lives. We are putting in place reasonable welfare reforms to ensure that people get ready for work but will not be punished if they are unable to find it. It is scurrilous that members opposite say that somehow this Government does not care about those who are least able to look after themselves. That is utter rubbish.

We understand that boosting infrastructure is part of our plan to get this country on to a long-term sustainable future. We have just heard the Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, talk about the significant investment we are making in roading. We welcome that a decision was made about Transmission Gully. It was another example of members opposite wringing their hands and saying “Oh, my goodness! We need another 20 years of reports.” This Government was in office for something like 9 months when it made a decision on Transmission Gully and allocated the money, and plans are roaring ahead.

We understand that broadband is the platform on which not only education but also the economy swoop into the 21st century, and the people of Mana welcome that, as well.

We understand that cutting red tape and regulation will facilitate businesses to grow. We understand that, and we have put in place reviews to ensure that the complicated red tape and bureaucracy that members opposite absolutely adored is unnecessary.

I rise to challenge the Government to maintain the dignity and honour of the Crown in respect of the actions of the SAS in Afghanistan. Reports that the SAS may be witnessing the handing over of detainees to the Afghan National Directorate of Security raised serious concerns as to whether New Zealand is violating its obligations in international law.

This matter goes beyond purely State responsibility. If those legal obligations are violated, and if they have been translated into New Zealand domestic law—and they have—our individual soldiers may be guilty of criminal misconduct in our courts as a result of their action in Afghanistan. Because of our adherence to the International Criminal Court statute and the Geneva conventions, New Zealand nationals are subject to criminal liability for any acts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and inhumane treatment of prisoners. As a party to the Geneva conventions—in particular, to Common Article 3—New Zealanders must apply humane treatment to all persons in enemy hands. We are specifically prohibited from murder, mutilation, torture, and cruel, humiliating, or degrading treatment. There may be prima facie evidence that our SAS soldiers are violating these obligations, and they may be individually accountable in New Zealand criminal law.

This is not the first time such suspicions have been raised. In 2002 our SAS troops were involved in actions where over 50 individuals were detained in order to capture Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects believed to be among them. The previous Government addressed these concerns in 2007. According to the then foreign Minister, Phil Goff, “The NZDF understands that no person who has been held, even temporarily, in New Zealand custody is currently in the hands of the United States or other nations represented in the international forces.” That statement is characteristic of Government statements on such morally and legally sensitive issues. Its significance lies more in what it does not say than in what it does say. It did not identify the dates on which such detentions occurred, and it did not discount the possibility of coalition forces having held such detainees at any time before February 2007, or provide information on the manner of treatment during any such detention.

The Minister also said: “The Chief of Defence has put in place procedures for the notification of the International Committee of the Red Cross of the fact that persons have been captured and/or transferred to another power … New Zealand has, from an early stage, made clear our expectation that all detainees would be treated humanely and in accordance with international law.” That statement is almost meaningless. Conveying an expectation does not constitute a verifiable assurance that an illegal action has not occurred or may not occur in the future. Statements of expectation of another party’s behaviour do not absolve one of criminal responsibility.

Three years later this National Government is also dissembling. Yesterday the Minister of Defence acknowledged that the SAS worked with the Afghan Crisis Response Unit to capture insurgents, and that it was likely they were being transferred to the National Directorate of Security. At question time yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs assured this country that “appropriate steps” will be taken, and “relevant inquiries” will be made in respect of SAS operations in which detainees have been handed to the National Directorate of Security. Yet, true to form, the Prime Minister blandly assured the public not to worry. The SAS, he said yesterday, was not involved in the torture of prisoners, and where the SAS worked alongside the Afghan unit, it was not the detaining force. In that instance, he said, it was not our responsibility when it came to those people who were detained.

I tell him that that is completely wrong. It is astonishing that the Prime Minister has such an erroneous knowledge of the international obligations of the country he purports to lead. I say to the Prime Minister that if our troops jointly capture people, we are not absolved of responsibility for their humane treatment simply because our soldiers do not lay hands directly upon them. The Prime Minister has the obligation under the Geneva conventions to ensure that those who do the act of detaining do not torture. An international act can consist of actions, but also of omission—the recognised doctrine of positive obligation. If we do not take steps to ensure that, we can be criminally liable in international law, and in New Zealand domestic law. We have not done those things, and the Prime Minister has the temerity to say that we are not responsible.

I call on the Prime Minister to get his knowledge of the law right, and on his Government to immediately suspend operations with any military units in Afghanistan that hand over detainees to the National Directorate of Security.

Firstly, I thank Dr Kennedy Graham, the honourable member who has just taken his seat, for his contribution.

I will now return to the theme of the debate, which has really been about the economy and the fantastic work this Government is doing to take this country forward after the mess that was left by the previous administration. Those members now have the audacity to sit on that side and hope that by throwing mud and calling out “They have no plan.” people will listen. Well, I have news for them: people are sick of them. That is why they are sitting on that side of the House.

In fact, I have been reflecting on the debate as it has moved through the hour, and I have tried to think of some words that might capture the different approach this Government shows compared with the approach of that side of the House. When I reflect on the 9 years those members were in Government, I can best sum it up by saying that their approach was to dispense and consume, whereas members on this side of the House focus on investing and producing. I think that those two phrases sum up the difference in approach between the two major parties.

We have come in, and whether or not the Opposition likes it, we do have a plan. We have a plan to shift the focus of what happened over the last 9 years of a consumption binge, with no productivity increases, no capital investment—[Interruption]—no capital investment—none.

💬 Hon Annette King: What? $350 million into hospitals—

Ms King should read the statistics—read the statistics. There had been no investment. The tradable sector had gone downhill. It was absolutely going downhill in all the economic growth statistics. But we came in and had to pick up this country by the bootlaces, in a recession, and turn it round. We are doing that under the great leadership of the Prime Minister and his team, and we are focused on a plan that starts off by introducing a whole new tax regime—

💬 Chris Tremain: Which happens on 1 October.

—that happens on 1 October. When we think about it, we know that we are going to give $4 billion—I say $4 billion—back to the people. They have earned it; it is their money. There will be $4 billion to allow them to spend, invest, and save in the way they desire.

💬 Hon Member: How much goes to the top 5 percent?

Of GST? It will be $2 billion. So there will be a net outflow to the people, there will be a net outflow to wage and salary earners, and there will be a net outflow to consumers. There will be a net outflow to the people of $2 billion to enable them to do with it what they want.

We hear from the Opposition the fact that people on higher incomes get more of the tax cuts. Well, of course they do; they earn more. But I have not heard one Opposition member offer to give his or her tax cut back to someone else. Oh, no. Have we heard any of them?

💬 Hon Tau Henare: No.

No—no. But in terms of fiscal issues, tax is just one.

Let us focus on education. I would be ashamed if I sat there and had said to me that under the previous administration 56 percent of Māori school kids left school without the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at level 2—56 percent. Look at those members—shamed! Then they criticise us for holding teachers accountable in order to lift standards, but only 18 percent of Māori leave school with NCEA at level 3 and above—only 18 percent. I call that shameful.

💬 Hon Annette King: Simplistic rubbish.

I say that Ms King should be ashamed of herself.

I wish to speak today about the detail of the new foreshore and seabed legislation—at least, I would if I could. Despite the Government’s intention—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Have you seen it?

No, I have not seen it, I tell Mr Henare. Despite the Government’s intention to pass the legislation by Christmas, as of today there is no draft bill in the public arena that I can speak on. It is, however, likely to be a law that will give billions of dollars worth of minerals to a few select iwi. It is a bill that could quite likely limit free public access to beaches. I note that despite many invitations to do so, neither the Prime Minister nor the Attorney-General will confirm in this House the fact that the legislation will forbid charging for access to a beach. This bill will be upon us just in time for summer, if National and the Māori Party have their way.

It is incorrect to claim, as the Government does, that the bill will restore the right to go to court to claim customary rights. Such rights were preserved in the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004. It is more correct to say that the proposed bill allows claims to the courts for greater ownership rights than were available under the 2004 legislation. The bill will also say, however, that iwi will be able to negotiate customary title with the Government. That is why many, many New Zealanders are gravely concerned. Just today the Coastal Coalition, representing over 8,000 Kiwis, has started a billboard campaign highlighting its real fears of having a New Zealand where people are excluded from the foreshore because they are not Māori or, for that matter, they are not from the right iwi.

Looking at this Government’s record of giving away rights to Māori covertly, it is no wonder that people are frightened. There have been veto rights over the Waikato River, and we had a Minister sneak off to New York to sign a taxpayer-funded separate Māori governance that even Miss Clark’s Government would not sign. The ACT Party shares those people’s concerns. Once again, one group of New Zealanders is getting special rights over the rest. This is not what the Treaty of Waitangi intended, as can be seen by anyone reading it without a vested interest in distorting its meaning. In fact, it is not even what the decision in Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa, the case that started all this, said. Herein lies the problem with letting Governments do a job that is properly the role of the judiciary. Despite the claims of many, including my colleagues in the Māori Party, the Ngāti Apa verdict did not give Māori the foreshore. It merely gave the iwi the right to have their case heard in the Māori Land Court.

The judges stated in that case that the chances were slim. They stated: “any customary property in the areas vested seem unlikely to survive.” That is a direct quote from the Ngāti Apa decision. We can contrast that with what the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson, has been saying. He said that 10 percent of the foreshore and seabed is likely to end up in exclusively Māori hands—2,000 kilometres of the coastline. He even touts the direct negotiation route as the better option, and why would iwi not go for the direct option? Mr Finlayson says that it will “negotiate a settlement outside the courts to eliminate excessive cost or uncertainty”. Well, if I was an iwi leader who wanted to get my hands on a whole lot of foreshore and minerals, I would be a moron to go through the courts when I can negotiate with such an accommodating Minister.

If Mr Finlayson concludes that giving large tracts of Ninety Mile Beach to the five iwi that make up the Te Hiku Forum will keep the Māori Party onside, then no legal precedent will stop him from doing so. If the Prime Minister decides that it will be less strife to give Te Ātiawa the 20 kilometres of foreshore and seabed in Taranaki that they are after, then what the courts say is immaterial. If they succeed, who would blame the other six iwi with coastal boundaries in the region from having a go themselves? Successive Governments, both National and Labour, have shown that political expediency is far more important than doing what is right. Labour did this when it overreacted in 2004 to the Ngāti Apa decision, and National is doing it again now. The only place to determine those property rights is the High Court.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.