General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Mr Speaker, you regularly offend members of the House, and I know that you regard it as an important part of your job.

It is happy days in the Labour Party. Trevor Mallard lost his pills, Phil Goff lost his marbles, the caucus is losing its temper, David Caygill lost his respectable place in Labour Party history by being mixed up with David Cunliffe, and Kris Faafoi almost lost the unloseable seat. This is the Labour Party that set out with the “Axe the Tax” campaign, and in the Mana by-election it buried the axe in its own back. What was meant to be a referendum on the Government ended up with the people of middle New Zealand—and there is no seat more middle New Zealand than Mana—sending the Opposition a message. But Phil Goff did not get it. He did not get it, because he decided that rather than listen to the people of Mana, he would google the Labour Party in Britain. He came up with—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy Prime Minister, but I have just been made aware that he used a phrase at the beginning of his speech that made reference to a member having not taken his pills. That phrase has been ruled out at the request of National members, for reasons reasonably close to home, in that respect. If National members are to object to that phrase being used by Labour members about one of their members, then I do not think it is in order for them to use that phrase about one of our members. We take objection to the use of that phrase, in order for there to be consistency with regard to the sensitivities on that point.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Is the member asking that he withdraw—

💬 Hon Members: Withdraw and apologise.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: It is an unnecessarily gratuitous comment; I fully accept that. I ask the member to withdraw the comment. I do not think members should be using that comment.

I withdraw. Well, Labour will need some other explanation for Trevor’s extraordinary behaviour, which I suggest is that he did not attend his anger management course the other day.

How did Labour manage to almost lose the Mana by-election? I think the first reason is that no one is listening to Labour, and the reason that no one is listening to it is that 2 years on from the 2008 election, Labour still thinks the voters were wrong. It is highly unlikely that the voters of middle New Zealand, even in a recession, would listen to Labour telling them: “Mate, we were right. You were wrong.” That is why the voters are not listening.

The second reason is that if voters were to listen, then what they would hear would not make any sense. I will just use a couple of examples. [Interruption] Well, that is why they are saving themselves the trouble, because it would not make any sense. I will give a couple of examples. David Caygill—sorry, David Cunliffe—has said that he is against asset sales. He said that Labour’s policy now is that the Government will go into partnership with private shareholders and Government companies, as long as it does not dilute taxpayers’ ownership.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: How does that work?

The private owner is allowed to buy shares in the asset, but the Government still owns it, 100 percent.

💬 Hon Member: Socialism.

That is modern social democracy, I think. That is actually impossible. Labour members need to decide—well, actually, they have decided. They are in favour of partial privatisation. They are. Privatisation dilutes taxpayers’ ownership. If the Labour spokesman on finance does not understand that, then it is no wonder that Phil Goff wishes he had David Caygill in that spot—it is no wonder.

That is just a little example, but here is a better example. Labour has said in the last couple of weeks that it will pay down debt faster than the National-led Government.

💬 Hon Member: How are they going to do that?

A very good question. The answer is that it will spend more.

💬 Hon Members: Ah!

That is how Labour will do it. How do we know that? Well, because it will get rid of GST on food. Apparently, doing that will not cost anything. It will be of benefit to people who buy fruit and vegetables, but apparently it will not cost anything.

The other reason we know that Labour will spend more is that it opposes every single saving or reallocation this Government proposes—every single one of them. No one in New Zealand believes that Labour could run a Government without spending more and borrowing more. No one in New Zealand believes that.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: $500 million for sleepovers, they have promised.

Labour has promised $500 million for sleepovers, plus GST—that is $800 million—plus the $2.5 billion it will borrow to put into the Government savings account. That is $3.3 billion. Labour says that by adding more debt, it will bring down debt faster. Bring back David Caygill!

On 17 November 2008 the Prime Minister said: “I expect high standards from my Ministers. If they don’t meet the standards I set, then obviously I will take action if necessary.” It is interesting that Mr English is the first speaker in this debate from the other side of the House. He talked at length about what he thinks New Zealand people believe. I say this to Mr English: they believe that the Prime Minister has not lived up to the standards he set for himself and his Ministers. The New Zealand people believed it was not on when Mr English dodged, weaved, squirmed, and tried everything he could to get around the rules when he claimed for a house—I think it was in the order of $24,000. He claimed for a house, and rented it, through Ministerial Services, back to his trust. I say to that member that the people of New Zealand believed all too well that he dodged, weaved, behaved inappropriately, and cheated.

What was the Prime Minister’s response to that? Was it to admonish him? Was it to sack him? Was it to censure him? No, it was to change the rules—the ministerial rules—so that not only could he get $24,000, but he and every Minister, I think, could get in the order of $48,000 or thereabouts without producing a receipt. He did not get sacked—

💬 Hon Bill English: I seek leave to make a personal explanation relevant to what the member has just said.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

💬 Hon Bill English: The member has given the impression that under the new rules I claim a housing allowance. That is incorrect: I claim no housing allowance.

I endorse his statement, because he does so by choice. He could still claim the new housing allowance. If he did it is within the rules. But because the feet were put to the fire month after month, day after day because of his dodgy arrangements, he had no option but to say to the Prime Minister that even though he could claim under the new rules, which the Prime Minister rewrote to benefit him, he would not do so. That is the part of the explanation we did not hear. What was the new higher standard there? The rules were changed to suit him.

Then we had Richard Worth. We will not go down that track too much. Another standard was breached. There was another dodgy deal overseas by a member who is now not in this place. The Prime Minister stood by Richard Worth day after day, month after month until the inevitable happened.

Then we come to Rodney Hide, the great perk-buster. The ACT members “Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber” over there stand up for him every day. He is the man who railed, destroyed careers, and attacked families because he viewed MPs’ use of travel allowances as perks and inappropriate. He was then unzipped—I will not say from where—and was found to be using travel allowances for his own purposes. That was the height of—there is a word that you will not let me use, Mr Speaker, and I accept that. We know what the word is. What was the high standard? What did the Prime Minister do then? He did nothing.

Then there was strike two on Mr Hide. He stood by and aided and abetted a former member who covered up a suppression order. He knew about a former member of this House who stole a dead child’s identity. What did the Prime Minister do then? He said that that was in a private capacity and was nothing to do with him.

Then we had Phil Heatley. Do members remember the old limousine or self-drive car following the train all the way to Nelson so that he could drive back? I do not know whether it was full of flowers or presents—who knows? Then there were the half-dozen bottles of wine at the National Party conference on the ministerial credit card. What was the Prime Minister’s response then? It was to take him out to relax and bring him back. Where were the high standards and where was the action there?

Then, of course, we had Mr Finlayson—“Mr Grumpy”, all right—who for 4 years never declared among his pecuniary interests that he had a directorship. Dame Margaret Bazley said that that was incorrect and a false return. No action was taken; it was a mistake!

Then, of course, we come to the doozy: Pansy Wong. I put to members that the investigation carried out on Pansy Wong is a cover-up. It is a cover-up because, to my knowledge, no one in history who has pleaded guilty to the accusations and said that funds were misused is then investigated in the following way. She was asked to produce a few diaries, and asked whether she has done it again. The answer was no. She was asked whether Sammy had done it again, and she said no. The investigator then said: “OK, fine. I believe you. End of story.” The investigator did not check one fact or piece of corroborating evidence. That investigation would not stand up in a court. We know that a former member of this House was charged and found guilty of a similar offence. But what is the action here? She is out of Cabinet.

The Prime Minister says that if you plead guilty once you are cleared. It is OK, just do not plead guilty too many times! That is the higher standard of National and that, I say to Mr English, is what the New Zealand people believe.

Two years into being in Opposition, in its second year in Opposition, and Labour is exactly where it was 2 years ago. It is roughly where it was in the polls. Phil Goff’s ratings are about the same as they were. In fact, Phil Goff is now in competition with the CPI index in terms of his popularity rating—no one knows the man. Labour’s factions are deeper, though; that has changed. The various factions are trying to work out who will be the next leader. As Mr English just noted, nothing has changed in that Labour members still think the voters were wrong in 2008. That is what they are saying. Well, voodoo Labour Party is here. Voodoo Labour Party is back. Members over there in the various factions are putting pins in their various voodoo dolls of each other. The Hon Chris Carter is right: the gentleman over there is probably a nice guy, according to him, but he will not win the next election.

Voodoo economic policy has arrived with a couple of speeches in the last couple of weeks from the Labour finance spokesman and from the Leader of the Opposition. Voodoo economics is here. There are flip flops, the “Axe the Tax” bus races around the country, but there is no commitment. Voodoo taxes are on the way if the Labour Party ever gets back into Government. Labour seems to be promoting voodoo tax increases across the board. Voodoo gift duty would come back under a Labour Government, even though the Crown collects $1.5 million a year and it costs the economy $70 million. That is voodoo economics. Voodoo GST changes are coming according to Labour. It might take GST off fruit and veges but we are still not sure whether it will reverse the whole lot. And there is the voodoo inbound transactions tax. That is what Labour is promoting, and I will come back to it in a moment because it is voodoo stuff. There are voodoo spending promises from the Labour Party; it is up to about $7 billion right now. It has a voodoo leader who is now copying and pasting speeches from the United Kingdom Labour Party. Labour is promoting a voodoo monetary policy. It is actually doing the exact reverse of what every central bank and every Government around the world is doing to try to address the global financial crisis. Labour is trying to weaken, essentially, the parameters that the Reserve Bank must operate under.

Labour has a voodoo accounting policy now. I bring members a quote from the person who would like to one day be the next Minister of Finance. Just listen to this quote from his recent speech: “If the Government invests in growing an asset like a forest, that asset appears on both sides of the Crown balance sheet”—no, assets appear only on one side of the Crown’s balance sheet—“and need not increase net debt, but does increase net worth.” What on earth is that about? A third- form economics student would be failed and sent to the back of the class if they put that kind of stuff in an essay. I have no idea what it is about. It is voodoo accounting coming from the voodoo Labour Party. It has a voodoo finance spokesman—we are not sure whether it is Mr Caygill resurrected or Mr Cunliffe, and even Mr Goff is not too sure. It has a voodoo investing policy: it wants to borrow from foreign markets to give to the Superannuation Fund to invest in foreign markets. I cannot work that one out.

The inbound transactions tax is a voodoo tax. That is what Labour is now promoting. What would it mean? Higher interest rates for New Zealand. That is a tax on exports. Every receipt that comes into New Zealand under a Labour Government would be caught up by this new thing called the inbound transactions tax. Any money sent home by New Zealanders—our kids overseas or friends overseas wanting to send money home—will be subject to Labour’s new voodoo inbound transactions tax. I am very, very fearful of what it might do. Labour essentially wants our kids to stay away and stay away for longer. Why does it hate success so much?

Labour has a voodoo asset management policy. Labour wants to take a more active role in the economy. Not one of its members has spent more than 5 minutes in the real sector—not one. Mr Goff wants to put on his shorts, socks, and sandals, get his clipboard, put his pens in his pocket, and go around various State-owned enterprises and tell them how to run the show. That is what the new voodoo asset management policy of the Labour Opposition is promoting. It wants to unleash State-owned enterprises and their subsidiaries—or not their subsidiaries. Essentially, it wants to sell Kiwibank, according to a speech from Mr Cunliffe the other day. He forgot, I guess, that Kiwibank is a subsidiary of New Zealand Post, but subsidiaries are the things that Labour wants to dilute the equity of.

This National-led Government is doing an awesome job. We have a challenging economic programme. We are delivering better, smarter public services. We are reforming regulation, education and skills, and business innovation, and are investing in productive infrastructure. This country does not need voodoo economics or voodoo Labour policies.

Today I will talk very briefly about the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations—talks that have been under way in Auckland. Most people think that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is about trade; in fact, very little of it is about trade. Most of it is about trying to restrict the ability of Governments to make regulations.

When we look at some of the issues that are on the table in the negotiations around the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we see that they are issues like restricting the ability to control foreign investment. When Australia negotiated its trade deal with the United States, it gave away the right to have any restrictions on incoming investment from the United States into Australia up to a level of A$800 million, which effectively gutted Australia’s entire foreign investment review process for US investment. That is one of the issues that the United States has put on the table.

A second issue it has put on the table is our GE food labelling laws. Biotech companies in the United States do not like our GE food labelling laws, or the Australian ones, and they are trying to get them removed as part of the trade negotiations.

Another part of the negotiations that I think is critically important is the investor-State disputes mechanism. As part of these free-trade deals, a disputes mechanism is established whereby corporations can sue Governments in international tribunals. These tribunals are generally set up at the World Bank. They are three-person tribunals that make binding decisions on Governments. These tribunals have in the past required Canada to allow a toxic additive into its petrol. Canada tried to remove a toxic additive from its petrol, but was sued by Ethyl Corporation, which was the producer. Ethyl Corporation argued that Canada had expropriated Ethyl Corporation by banning the toxic additive, and it was able to win its case.

Recently, Argentina lost a case when it tried to intervene to protect water supply. Argentina argued that it had to intervene because water is a basic human necessity. The tribunal established at the World Bank said that just because something was a human right did not mean that it overrode trade rules. Trade rules actually trump the human right to water.

Labour and National are very keen for us to sign up to these agreements. Investor-State disputes resolution provisions were in the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement that the former Labour Government negotiated. These kinds of issues are on the table.

How does the New Zealand public find out what is part of these negotiations? We know that the New Zealand Government has produced a series of position papers outlining the position of the New Zealand Government, and they have been given to all the other negotiating countries. For example, the Sultan of Brunei knows what the New Zealand Government’s position is on, let us say, intellectual property. But the New Zealand people do not know what the New Zealand Government’s position is on intellectual property, because the New Zealand Government has not released the position papers that it has given to the other negotiating parties.

When we asked the Government about this, it said it could not release the position papers, because it would undermine our negotiating position. That is not a rational argument. The other countries already know New Zealand’s negotiating position because we have given them the position papers outlining our negotiating position. The only people who do not know New Zealand’s negotiating position are the people of New Zealand. The other countries are entirely aware of our negotiating position because we have given them our position papers. It is a matter of public record that our Government has presented these position papers to the other Governments in the negotiations, but has not publicly released them.

The Government cannot argue that it would undermine the negotiating strategy when New Zealand’s position is already known to the other negotiating parties. How can it be right that the New Zealand public is not told what New Zealand is telling the other Governments in these negotiations? There needs to be greater transparency so that we, the public—and even members of this Parliament—have a right to see what New Zealand is telling the other parties to the negotiations.

I argue that the reason the New Zealand public is not being told is that what the New Zealand Government is offering would be very unpopular. If the New Zealand Government was offering to establish investor-State disputes mechanisms whereby other corporations can sue our Government in international tribunals, that would be very unpopular amongst the New Zealand public. If the New Zealand Government was offering to get rid of our GE food labelling laws, that would be very unpopular. If the New Zealand Government was offering to get rid of our investment rules, that would be very unpopular. That is why the Government is not releasing the position papers to the New Zealand public. It should. These negotiations need transparency.

How comfortable it must be on the other side of the House to be in Opposition, to make all the promises those members want to make, and to never have to address the question of where the money will be found. This morning on Radio New Zealand we heard the Leader of the Opposition complain about money not being put into the so-called Cullen fund, obviously implying that a Labour Government would put money into that fund if it happened to have the privilege of being in Government right now, but he never explained where it would find that money. Labour has taken slap after slap, yet it never ever has to cough up. That is the privilege of being in Opposition: those members can stand there and pick whatever fights they want to take on; they can promise everything, knowing they will never have to deliver; and before they would ever have to deliver anything, they will remove it. We saw them all on the bus singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, longing for the fatherland, etc.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: “Slip Sliding Away”, I think.

Sliding around in that big red bus that said “Axe the Tax”. Funnily enough, tax seems to have gone off the agenda at the moment. In spite of all the promises about no GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, Labour is not saying what it would do with the 15 percent GST. It is not making any comment about it whatsoever. It is strangely silent right now.

Labour knows that it has to keep its constituents disgruntled and disenchanted—that is code for poor and pissed off—so that it can maintain a constituency come the next election. When we look at the smacks Labour members had around the House today in question time—for instance, having a go at good old Paula Bennett—we heard them saying: “There are no jobs, there are no jobs.” In fact, Labour criticised the Minister for Social Development and Employment for expecting people to make applications for jobs so they continue receiving an unemployment benefit. Is that not what a Minister for Social Development and Employment is supposed to do? Is it shallow to just stand back and say: “There are no jobs, there are no jobs.”? Would we not expect a person with their hand out in receipt of a benefit from the taxpayers of New Zealand to at least be trying to look for work? Then we had the Leader of the Opposition stand up and complain to the Minister for Social Development and Employment because of a situation where 2,500 people who are unemployed wanted to apply for a job, as if that was some terrible thing. National believes that people should be trying to look for work, and so did those 2,500 people who were in that queue looking for work.

Those people are actually on our side and they are actually supporting what we are saying, just as people in Mana did a couple of weeks ago. Phil Goff stood up and said that that by-election would be run on the Government’s performance, and we agreed. We put our record on the line, and we know that Labour got an absolute caning in Mana. Its 6,300 vote majority in that electorate at the last election went through the floor to 1,080 on the night and ended up at about 1,400.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Mana said “Hell no!” to Hekia.

Carmel Sepuloni knows exactly that, and she hates it. The fact is that the Prime Minister, John Key, is the most popular Prime Minister since Adam was a cowboy, and Labour hates it. The public of New Zealand is repeating time and time again that it is happy with the performance of this Government. Even in a pretty crappy week, the public is prepared to cut us some slack. Given the terrible times that this Government has had to endure and defend in order to support the country of New Zealand, the public of New Zealand is prepared to give us the benefit of the doubt and cut us some slack because they know better than anything else that they do not want that lot back any time soon.

Today is a really auspicious day for the Māori Party. It is an auspicious day for Māori and it is an auspicious day for the country. I am really disappointed that none of the other speakers in this debate so far have even mentioned the fact that this morning our co-leader Pita Sharples stood alongside the Deputy Prime Minister and announced a new phase of public debate to be generated around New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

This is the day we have been leading up to since the agreement was signed with National, and we note that other political parties said they have been looking towards this day, asking that they be part of this debate. Well, today is it. This is the day when our constitutional review is starting, and it is a fantastic day.

In his book The Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand’s Law and Constitution, Matthew Palmer expresses his view that Te Tiriti o Waitangi contributes greatly to the objective of healthy relationships between the Crown, Māori, and other New Zealanders. Mr Palmer concludes that in order to better achieve that objective, change is desirable. Change is good—change that stabilises the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand’s law and constitution. Today the drive to stabilise the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand’s law and constitution enters new terrain.

I wish that other members of the House were as excited as our party is about this, because this is the day that we have been looking forward to for so long and that Māori have been working towards for decades. As a first-term MP and a lawyer by trade and by inclination, it is almost beyond my wildest dreams that in such a short time we, the Māori Party, have been able to place the constitutional significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi firmly on the agenda.

The second anniversary of my maiden statement in this Parliament is just days away. In that speech I referred to the many hours I had spent in the Court of Appeal being educated in the practice and impact of constitutional law. I will remind members of the challenge this Parliament has until now failed to live up to. I am referring, of course, to the ruling of the Court of Appeal in New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General. In his summary the President of the Court of Appeal, Sir Robin Cooke, stated: “We have reached two major conclusions. First, that the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi overrides everything else in the State Owned Enterprises Act. Second, that those principles require the Pakeha and Maori partners to act towards each other reasonably and with the utmost good faith.”

Those words are pivotal in our pathway to nationhood. For too long our nation has suffered the injustice of being one of only three countries in the entire world to have no written constitution. We are one of three in the whole world with no written constitution. Commentators refer to a veritable patchwork quilt of significant legislation, several legal documents, common law derived from court decisions, and established constitutional practices known as conventions.

A vital thread running through all these documents has been the status of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a founding document of government in New Zealand. Today in this House we appreciate that article 1 of the Treaty is in itself the basis for the current government structures in New Zealand, expressing the right of the Crown to govern. We know that article 2 of the Treaty guarantees to Māori te tino rangatiratanga over our lands, estates, forests, fisheries, and taonga—the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of all that we treasure as the ultimate expression of our identity. Article 3 of the Treaty affirms the equal citizenship rights of all New Zealanders, including Māori. Article 3 also promises the Queen’s royal protection to Māori. A measure of this protection would be the well-being of Māori.

Such a rudimentary summary of ideals and aspirations emerging from our foundation document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is not, regrettably, something that all New Zealanders feel equipped to express. Surveys have been carried out over the years. One survey that was carried out 5 years ago by UMR Research found that levels of awareness varied: 71 percent of Māori are aware of the document, but only 51 percent of Pākehā are aware of it. This needs to change. It will change through this constitutional review. Thank you.

It is clear that the Government is on a slide in terms of its popularity with the voters of New Zealand. That is now abundantly clear.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Here we go—National members continue to deny the reality of the numbers. The trend has been clear for 2 years. In fairness, in 18 months the gap is narrowing, and narrowing substantially. Phil Heatley is cackling in the background like he has completely lost the plot.

Actually, the first person to pick the significance of the narrowing gap was a former employee of the National Party. It was a former employee of the Speaker, Matthew Hooton. Matthew Hooton picked this about a year ago. He said that the gap was narrowing and that National should not rest on its laurels. But it has.

The latest poll, which is of most concern to the National Party, was on the front page of the Sunday Star-Times on the weekend. It had National on 34 percent and Labour on 28 percent—a 6 percent gap. It is now a 6 percent gap, whereas a year and a half ago it was a 20 percent gap. It is down from 20 percent to 6 percent.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: And who’s got the 6 points?

Winston Peters fills that gap at the moment, together with the Greens. But a two-party swing of only 3 percent would see Labour ahead of National. No wonder National is starting to get worried. Those members are getting so worried, what do they do in respect of these polls? The first thing that politicians who are worried about polls do is rubbish them. What happened here? The headline is “Key rubbishes NZ First results”.

Those members are so worried about Winston Peters. He turned up to the Māori Affairs Committee today and panned their legislation on the foreshore and seabed. I ask whether members can guess how many questions the National majority asked of Winston Peters at the select committee, despite his strident criticism of what they are doing. How many?

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: A dozen or so?

No, less. How many?

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Five?

None. They did not have the courage to take on the Rt Hon Winston Peters with even one question at the select committee in support of their bill.

What lies behind the slide of popularity for National is people’s concern about a lack of integrity. That integrity has two aspects to it. The first is personal integrity. People are disappointed in the Hon Phil Heatley, in Bill English, and in Pansy Wong. Overall, they are disappointed with the lack of standards enforced by the Prime Minister, notwithstanding that he promised to hold higher standards than his predecessors. People are disappointed with the lack of integrity around ministerial performance, but also they are disappointed with broken promises. They have stopped trusting National. There has been broken promise after broken promise. National said it would not increase GST, but it did. National members said they would not increase GST, but they did. They said they would bridge the wage gap with Australia—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Oh, they’ve given up on that.

—and they have given up on that. Their rhetoric on that has disappeared. They were going to close the wage gap by 2025. They had all sorts of weird and wonderful plans that they said would do it, like mining in national parks, which they abandoned.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: A cycleway.

A cycleway would not make much difference. They have no credible plan. They will not even agree on milestones between now and 2025, which is their target date. We all know that the gap is growing larger rather than narrowing.

Another area of failed policy is in respect of the major settings of the economy. National said it would not borrow for tax cuts; it borrowed for tax cuts. The amount of that borrowing is increasing by the month. In the last quarter alone the Government has had to acknowledge an extra $2 billion of Government deficit—that is, cumulatively, New Zealanders owe $2 billion more to overseas banks through the Government’s indebtedness than was predicted by the Government in its Budget. Why? It was in part to fund tax cuts, 42 percent of which went to the top 10 percent of income earners. That is another broken promise by National. It promised a fair tax system, not a tax system that delivered the majority of tax cuts to those who already earn the most.

That is why the Government’s popularity is sliding. That is why the two-party gap is less than 6.5 percent.

It was the weeks leading up to Christmas and all through Welling-town,

Not a Labour MP was happy; they all had a big frown,

Conditions in the Labour Party were all looking so sullen,

Calls were made out of Te Atatū to call back “Auntie Helen”.

With Phil in a mess, not knowing where to turn, he has even decided to recite a fable,

And bring back in the finance role a dinosaur called Caygill.

It was no surprise, given the announcement of their plans to float off SOEs, bring back free fishing classes, and GST-free rates for fruit,

Pity no one in Labour has thought about how to pay for it.

Labour is working on the economic theory of pixies at the bottom of the garden,

While National’s numbers continue to harden.

“No worries, Labour’s plan will work.” says Nash with a grin. Everyone in Labour smiles inanely,

Despite no one in caucus understanding how to calculate GST, even badly.

“Do not worry, Andrew Little has a plan. He holds his tarot cards closely, which only goes to show

Labour has no idea in 2011 where it should go.

You see, David Cunliffe suffers from a split personality;

The public do not believe he has a solution for their malady.

But still daily he stands on a platform, preaching with gusto, and preens like a proud peacock with a chest full of puff,

But when questioned on his economic voodoo, it is all a load of fluff.

Cunliffe does not know his Krugman from his Samuelson,

But “Don’t panic!” thinks Goff; “We will bring back Labour’s son

Caygill, deep from the past. He’ll solve it, I am sure.”, Phil crows. Meanwhile the economy slowly and surely continues under National, and grows.

Labour—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Did Cam Calder write this speech?

It gets better, I tell Mr Hughes.

Labour stands and promises that the world is flat and simple like some tricky game of monopoly,

But the socialists’ policy, puffery, and PR will not solve the economy.

“Spend more on the masses!”, the left squeals;

“Billions of dollars are required.”, they say. Shower billions on the poor for the wounds of the 90s to heal.

“Soak the rich!” says Labour, “They have plenty.”

Ignoring the fact under Labour the middle class’s piggy banks were all empty.

It seems Mr Cunliffe has forgotten his team, 9 years in charge, are responsible for our being in recession

So much so there has been a procession

Of experts and advisers telling New Zealand “Save more! You must change!”.

But Labour is like an ostrich with its head in the sand; everyone who does not agree with them is just a capitalist and strange.

The year 2010, to be fair, has not been the best,

With earthquakes ruining my home town of Christchurch, plane crashes, and mine disasters—lest we forget.

But the people of New Zealand are wise and they are smart,

Because 2 years ago they elected a Key Government, which has delivered and given them a pleasant surprise.

John Key has provided them with economic leadership,

The economy is growing money in people’s back pockets, and they continue to enjoy healthy fellowship.

With our programme of infrastructure investment, innovation, smarter public services, education standards, and tax reform,

The voters understand it, and the Labour Party sits there looking forlorn.

With seemingly the wisdom of Charlie’s Angels on our team,

Good ideas and the confidence of the people of New Zealand keep flowing to National in a rapid stream.

So come Cunliffe, come Parker, come Mallard and King, come Hughes and come Goff,

The public thinks they have no economic idea and just want to switch them off.

As their policies are all voodoo, and their people are leaving in masses,

Bring on election 2011, as our John Key - led Government will leave them all in tatters.

Aaron Gilmore has just given us verse, not cleverly done and certainly not terse. The joke is on him, for today’s speaking list are Cabinet wannabes who regrettably missed.

The Prime Minister must refer the Pansy Wong issue to the Auditor-General for investigation, and must do so soon. That is what the Prime Minister did with Phil Heatley, it is what happened in the case of Bill English—after a period of delay, I acknowledge—and it should happen in the case of Pansy Wong. Should the Prime Minister do that, an investigation into an area of possible misuse of public moneys can be conducted by an office that is respected and exists to look into the use and misuse of public moneys.

That is why we have an Auditor-General’s office. It is an office capable of measured judgments. In the case of Phil Heatley, for example, it was capable of giving him a rapid re-entry straight back into Cabinet. In the case of Pansy Wong, that door was closed by the appointment earlier this week of Hekia Parata. But it does not close the door for ever.

Indeed, I think Pansy Wong would welcome an investigation for a couple of different reasons. The first is that she might find herself getting the Phil Heatley treatment, where the matter was found to be minor. No instances beyond it were found in the McPhail report. There was nothing more to discover. It was a $500 job. The money has been paid back. It was not deliberate, systemic, systematic, or anything like that. That is a possibility.

Another reason she might be pleased for the Auditor-General to look at her case is that the information flow to us—certainly, to me—will stop. It stopped when the McPhail report got under way. For 2 or 3 weeks, the information that had been flowing in to me and that I had been putting into the public arena as it came to pass stopped. I stopped putting anything into the public arena; there was nothing to put in.

On Friday the McPhail report came out, and it was panned by Friday evening as being an inadequate report. It does not mean that it is wrong, but it does not draw a line under the case, because it does not have credibility. There is no significant certainty of its being right—so say the media, and so say I. I do not think it is a thorough report. So, of course, as Friday evening turned into the weekend, the information started to flow again. It just comes, and it is time-consuming. Much of it has to be translated from Mandarin. I continue to put it in the public arena, as I have done today, and I may well do tomorrow. Who knows? I may well do it next week. Again, who knows? Pansy Wong has to put up with that, and I do not think it is fair on her.

Of course, I could stop, but I am not going to, because my job and my duty—there is no need to grin about it, Mr Assistant Speaker Roy—is to hold the Government to account. That is the job of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. People can call me a muckraker, but that is the reason why the Westminster system is set up as it is. I will continue to put this information into the public arena, as long as I can prove using written evidence that it is true. I get an awful lot of rumour, which does not go any further, because I do not know whether it is true. But when I can show that something is true or very likely to be true, I will put it into the public arena. I will continue to do so.

It is not good for Pansy Wong. I think she would want it stopped, and I think the Prime Minister can stop it by taking her case and ringing up the Auditor-General and asking, just like with the Phil Heatley case, that she please look at it.

Sitting here and listening to some of the members of the Opposition talking about higher moral grounds reminds me of a time when the previous Labour Government was in power, and David Parker was quoted as saying something about the higher standards of the Prime Minister’s predecessor. I just mention Taito Phillip Field and “paintergate”. I also say that at least our Prime Minister, John Key, paints his own pictures. Mr Parker—or is he Mr Caygill or Mr Cunliffe, as I cannot remember—must have polled his own lounge room, because that is the only way he would get that kind of a result. Money does not grow on trees and cannot be found at the bottom of the garden where pixies live, but that is exactly what Labour members seem to believe. Or maybe they believe that the fairy godmother will return to give them some ideas on how they will finance their policies, as they certainly do not seem to have any answers.

Their leader, Mr Goff, talked about lowering GST at the cost of $3 billion—not $3 million; $3 billion. The finance spokesperson, Mr Cunliffe—or shall I call him Mr Caygill—promised that Labour will not go on a spending binge. It would be good to know how Labour would conjure up the extra money—and that is exactly what it will be doing: conjuring. Labour’s financial management, or rather mismanagement, has left us facing a decade of deficits. It was hoping for some magic to get us through these difficult times, but the New Zealand public saw through the magic tricks and wanted the safe and sound economic management of a National Government to get us out of the rut and to move this country forward.

I ask about Labour’s promise to use KiwiSaver to help Kiwis save more without increasing the squeeze on their income today. Who will pay for that? It is probably the same story from that side of the House: “Just slap it on the bill, Mr Phil Goff.” Maybe Mr Goff mistaking Mr Cunliffe for Mr Caygill speaks louder about the inner workings of Mr Goff’s mind. Perhaps he is yearning for the old days when Labour privatised everything, or perhaps it is a reaction to the undermining nature of the factional currents, which are apparently strong currents. Did we not hear about the 17 friends of the Te Atatū member, Chris Carter, who were working against—

💬 Tim Macindoe: I think there are more now.

Are there more now? Maybe that is the problem—strong currents for a leadership coup, but maybe the prince is not quite ready to rock the boat just yet.

Another magic show that Labour is relying on is that the New Zealand public will forget that savings fell under the long 9 years of the Labour Government. Inflation soared, spending increased, and many Kiwis left New Zealand. It is not a good sign when Kiwis leave our country, when they do not want to be Kiwis and they want to live elsewhere. We are trying to attract them back to this country so that we can grow the country as a nation. Labour members say that they want to reduce our debt faster, but at the same time they promise to take GST off fruit and vegetables, to immediately resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, to increase the number of Wellington-based bureaucrats—my goodness, they will be hated—to require smaller dividends from State-owned enterprises, to establish a raft of new grants for handpicked businesses, and to extend the paid parental leave scheme. New Zealanders should watch out. The only way in which Labour can do that is to raise taxes and spend less as a Government. Labour members are delusional if they think they can achieve that without raising taxes, and that is surely the way they are headed.

The National Government has built its economic plan around six policy drivers, including strengthening our tax system. National has delivered—

💬 Brendon Burns: Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.

I say to Mr Burns that, yes, we have delivered on the tax cuts that we promised. For 9 long years while Labour was in power, when did New Zealanders get a tax cut? Oh, that is right! It was just before the election. My goodness!

I wonder whether Jonathan Coleman wrote Melissa Lee’s speech, as well. I suggest to her that she might want to cut the ties with the political maestro Jonathan Coleman because it is certainly not doing her any favours. Basically, she outlined all the great policies that Labour has already announced—policies that the New Zealand public like, such as paid parental leave—and said that National opposes every single one of them.

I want to clear up something before I get into my speech, and that is Labour’s record in Government. I can tell Miss Lee that under Labour we had the lowest unemployment in the OECD. We were asset-positive for the first time. When the National Opposition was telling us to squander our surpluses on tax cuts, we paid off debt. The debt problems New Zealand has are largely with the private sector, because the Labour Government did such a good job paying off Government debt. In fact, it did such a good job that the IMF—which is not a left-wing, wonky kind of organisation—said that New Zealand was one of the best-placed countries in the world to weather the global financial crisis because of the position that Michael Cullen and the last Labour Government left us in. Let us get those facts straight before National spins itself out and gets so dizzy that it cannot stand up any more with all its Crosby/Textor lines.

The legacy of this National Government after 2 years is broken promises. John Key promised higher standards for Ministers and higher standards for MPs. What have we had in 2 years? We have had Bill English, Richard Worth, Phil Heatley, Rodney Hide, David Garrett, Chris Finlayson, and Pansy Wong all falling short of those standards, with many of them having to step down from ministerial positions or resign from Parliament. Also, Paula Bennett breached the Privacy Act when she viciously and cold-heartedly released the details of welfare beneficiaries who dared to stand up in public and question the cuts she was putting in place, and the untruths she was telling about those women. There was also the Pacific Economic Development Agency—an agency closely linked to the National Party—which was going to get a whole whack of money in the Budget that was not going out for tender to anyone else, until members on this side of the House raised enough questions about the shonkiness of that arrangement that the Government had to back down and put that proposal out to tender.

I will talk about another issue that has not been raised much, and that is the issue of MPs’ spouses being appointed to political positions. Under the Labour Government we were quite clear that this would not happen—that it was not appropriate for MPs’ spouses to be put into top political jobs. So far we have seen a number of such appointments by the National Government. I congratulate Hekia Parata, who is being sworn in as a Minister today—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Right now.

—right now, and I wish her all the very best. Of course, her husband has been appointed to a major political position as the head of the Tertiary Education Commission.

The reason I raise this matter is that a number of people at home have raised concerns with me about the regional panels for the Government’s Community Response Fund. This fund has been set up for money to go to social service agencies to help them deal with the recession. I cannot find anywhere in the public domain the names of the people who have been appointed to the panels that hand out this money. It is not on the website. It is nowhere to be found. We have put in questions; we have not had answers to those questions. I had a query from a member of the public who asked me whether it was true that the husband of our local MP, Anne Tolley, had been appointed to the regional panel of the Community Response Fund for the Gisborne area. Is that true? I do not know. I sincerely hope that it is not true. I think that would be horribly inappropriate.

A number of social service agencies in Tai Rāwhiti have been heavily criticising this Government and Anne Tolley for the decisions they have been making. What happens now if an organisation criticises our local MP, then she goes home and complains to her husband about it, and suddenly that organisation is on a blacklist for the Community Response Fund and any funding that comes from it? I would like clarification from the next National member to speak in this debate to guarantee that our local MP’s husband has not been appointed to a board that is handing out money locally, because I think all New Zealanders would deem that to be inappropriate. I look forward to that matter being clarified. As I said, I do not know whether it is true, but I have had it from a very reliable source. In fact, I have heard it from a number of sources who say they got it straight from the Ministry of Social Development, from people who also thought that it was very inappropriate.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: It should be public information.

It should be public information, and we should not have to troll through the Ministry of Social Development website finding every reference to regional panels where it is vaguely stated that there will be some community representation. That is not good enough. We deserve to know who is on these panels.

We have had 2 years of broken promises from this Government. It promised that it would not increase GST. The Prime Minister stared down the barrel of a TV camera when he was asked whether he would increase GST after the election, and he said that he would not. He is now saying that he said he would not do it to fund a deficit Budget. Well, guess what! He did. We have a deficit Budget and a GST increase to help fund it. It is another broken promise. The Government promised that it would not borrow to fund tax cuts—another broken promise. We have had broken promise after broken promise.

It has been fascinating to witness the Labour Opposition’s rudderless and insipid performance during the general debate this afternoon. It will not surprise many people who have followed Labour members’ confused and contradictory announcements of recent times that they were so reluctant to engage with Government members over current policies, or to defend their own irresponsible economic record when they were in Government, which contributed so significantly to New Zealand’s slide into recession.

Labour’s record in Government is now roundly and rightly condemned by economists, commentators, and the electorate at large. Yet what has Labour learnt? It has learnt that Ed Miliband writes better speeches than Phil Goff. Labour members have learnt from their embattled leader that David Caygill has more credibility than their current spokesman on finance, presumably because Mr Caygill played no role in the economic recklessness that Labour inflicted upon New Zealand for 9 long years. They do not seem to have learnt that Trevor Mallard should behave himself during question time on days when he is expected to lead Labour’s “Charge of the Ultra-light Brigade” in two measures on the same day’s Order Paper. And, on the day when we welcome to the House the new member for the marginal seat of Mana, they have recently learnt that even their previously strongest supporters are deserting them.

They are probably learning that their commitment to voodoo economics is about as popular as their recent opposition to the package to save the Hobbit movies. It is as credible as their commitment to higher taxes, uncontrolled Government spending, and welfare for millionaires.

Members on this side of the House and members of the public have learnt a great deal from Labour’s sorry and embarrassing performance both in this debate and during today’s question time, which preceded it. We have learnt that less than a year out from a general election Labour is in freefall. We have learnt that Labour members lack confidence in their leadership, their philosophical direction, and in one another. They are not just working on the basis that pixies at the bottom of the garden will jump up and finance their policies—as our new Poet Laureate, Aaron Gilmore, observed earlier—but also they are increasingly turning to the pixies to write their policies. Judging by how many people turn up to any of their public meetings nowadays, or take seriously any of their utterances, it can be only a matter of time before their front bench is replaced by five pixies, three goblins, and an orc. Actually, I think the orc has already joined them, which may explain why there are so many headless chooks on their middle and backbenches.

I am looking forward to campaigning in Hamilton West next year on the importance of National’s six-point plan to growing the economy, especially when it is contrasted with Labour’s six-point plan to, one, change their leader; two, lose the few electorates they hold at the moment; and, three, increase Government borrowing to levels that will reduce New Zealand to a banana-less republic. One has to wonder what they are going to feed to the poor pixies and goblins, but I digress. The fourth point is to tax anything that moves, which means their Mana campaign team will be all right but everyone else is in big trouble; the fifth is to bring back David Caygill, Fraser Colman, and Arnold Nordmeyer; and the sixth is to hope that endless treks around the country on the magical mystery tour, with Phil playing the ukulele and Annette warbling “As Long as He Needs Me”, will at least keep them away from any gathering where they might be expected to say something credible and remotely compelling.

How ironic that David Parker should want to highlight a recent poll that put Labour on 28 percent. How fascinating that Labour is starting to hope that if it adds its support to the support for New Zealand First, the Greens, Jim Anderton, and the Monster Raving Loony Party, it might just cobble together sufficient votes to get across the 5 percent MMP threshold next year. How insightful that Mr Parker spoke of losing the plot. If I had dug a hole as deep and wide as the one he and his mates are still digging, I would want to lose it too.

This is the last general debate of the year. In my usual humble fashion and in the manner to which I have become accustomed, I am its final speaker. So it falls to me to perform the last rites for the lacklustre, leaderless, limp, and lamentable Labour Party. I take the responsibility seriously, knowing that as Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser, and Norman Kirk have spun in their graves in recent times at the shambolic efforts of their modern day successors, the kindest act we can all perform is to find Mr Parker’s lost plot, ease the whole Labour caucus into it gently, and wait for some decent opposition from the pixies, fairies, and goblins who will so surely have replaced them by this time next year. Merry Christmas.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.