General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Today I want to debate the National Government’s decision to flog off to corporate and foreign investors the New Zealand - owned community assets that belong to all of us as Kiwis. I have noted that the National Government is desperate not to debate this issue. National members are desperate not to debate the issue, because every one of them, when they go back to their electorates, knows that New Zealanders and their constituents do not want those assets sold. Those members are so desperate to avoid the issue that they are building an elaborate deceit around what will happen. They say the Government will not sell all of the assets; it will sell only some of them.

But now along has come Dr Brash. Dr Brash has been manipulated into his position by Steven Joyce for the purpose of creating a smokescreen for National, so that after the election—if the country is so unfortunate that National wins the election—National will do what it will not tell New Zealanders before the election it intends to do. Members should mark my words: Don Brash, who is pulling the strings, says he wants the whole of the assets flogged off, and the advice from Mr English’s Treasury officials is to do just that. Bill English has not told that to the public. But I want to know why it would make any sense, at all, for any country, any business, or any individual to flog off the assets that are the most valuable ones they own.

The Prime Minister said a couple of months ago that the proceeds from the State-owned enterprises pay for our doctors and our hospitals, and he is right. We can take the three State-owned power companies. Between them, they return $700 million to Kiwis, and that offsets the taxation that the Government would otherwise need to pay for a whole lot of services. So I ask Mr English why he is so keen to bail out failed private enterprise finance companies, as he did in January of this year, entailing a liability of $1.7 billion. Why is Mr English so keen to bail out foreign-owned media companies that cannot pay what they should be paying for the use of the airwaves? Why is he picking up the duds from the private sector who want to socialise their losses at the same time as he wants to sell our assets that are the most valuable assets we have?

The other elaborate disguise is that the Government is saying this ownership will go to mum and dad investors. That is what Mr English told us when he privatised Contact Energy back in 1999. But what happened to Contact Energy? Does Mr English know that every year $100 million of money generated by the Clyde Dam, which New Zealanders built and paid for, goes out of this country to foreign investors? A billion dollars has been lost from New Zealand since National privatised Contact Energy in 1999.

What about the Bank of New Zealand? The Bank of New Zealand was also privatised by National. National sold it; what did it get for it? It was $1.5 billion. Do members know how much money the National Australia Bank has made out of the Bank of New Zealand, for that price of $1.5 billion?

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: How much?

It is $12.4 billion of New Zealand money that has gone out of this country and across the Tasman, yet the National Government wants to do more. The Government wants to flog off the rest of the banks. I say thank God for the last Labour Government. Far from selling any assets it set up Kiwibank, and provided some real competition in response to $2.5 billion of profit from the banks going out of the country and to the Aussies.

Now Mr English is saying “But we’ve got to sell to retire debt.” That man is borrowing $300 million a week. Do members know how long the proceeds from the assets of our State-owned power companies will last, at that rate? It is about 8 months. After 8 months we will still be borrowing $300 million a week, but we will have lost the assets, and we will have lost the dividend stream from them. How can that make sense? When will this National Government learn from history? The sale of the Bank of New Zealand, the sale of New Zealand Rail—all of those sales were duds, and all of them were failures. Let New Zealanders keep the assets they own now.

That member, Phil Goff, should be apologising for the damage the Labour Government did to the New Zealand economy, and in particular its legacy of record debt levels to foreigners. New Zealand owes foreigners $170 billion, and that debt ran up rapidly under the stewardship of that Government. The Labour Government promoted property speculation, debt-funded consumption, and Government transfer programmes that were very expensive, and it strangled our export sector. Under the Labour Government this country went on a debt-funded spending binge and strangled its earning capacity. That is why this Government has to focus on turning round the imbalances in our economy. In the new world, since the global financial crisis, no country can afford to be run in the way the Labour Government ran this country—no country.

The good news is that there are some small reasons for optimism that the process of undoing the damage the previous Labour Government did is making some progress. Not all of it, I would have to say, is this Government’s doing; not all of it is, because one of the things working for us, for instance, is that export prices are at record levels. What happened to exports under the Labour Government? When it came to office, exports represented 30 percent of the New Zealand economy. When it left office, exports represented a bit over 25 percent of the New Zealand economy. So we need the benefit of high commodity prices. That is where the growth of this economy will come from, and much of this Government’s policy framework, and the next steps that will be outlined in Budget 2011, are aimed at taking advantage of those high export prices, which are actually up 30 percent in the last year.

The other bit of good news is that mortgage interest rates are at 45-year lows. Can we recall when the first mortgage rates hit 10 percent in, I think, 2007 under the previous Government, wound up by a frenzy of speculation and rapidly rising Government spending? Now, floating mortgage rates are at 5.7 percent. They have halved since the Labour Government left office. Floating interest rates are half what they were when Labour was in power.

💬 Hon David Parker: Rubbish!

They are almost half.

The other good news is that real after-tax wages have increased by 10 percent since September 2008. Despite the global financial crisis, and despite the Labour Government - induced recession New Zealand had experienced before that global financial crisis, real after-tax wages have increased by 10 percent since September 2008. In the 8 years before that they grew by 4 percent. Real wages are actually up by 10 percent. The other goods news is that forecasters are now expecting that economic growth will push above 4 percent next year, and be in the zone of 3 to 4 percent beyond that time. That is important, because as a result of the policies of the last Labour Government, and then the global recession, per capita incomes in New Zealand have still not yet reached the level they were at in 2004. They started dropping then, we started to turn them round, but per capita real incomes dropped so far under the Labour Government, at a time when we were meant to be enjoying a global boom, that in 2011 we have not got back to the levels they were at in 2004.

I will address for a moment the tumultuous events that have occurred in politics in recent days. For the first time, I suspect, in political history we have witnessed the corporate takeover of a political party, with Dr Brash taking over from Mr Hide. But I have to say that we should celebrate this fact as parliamentarians, as keepers of democracy, because the system works. The swamp is being drained, the political scum is being scraped off the top of the spot pond, and in 7 months’ time “Mr Rort-ney”—I am sorry, Mr Rodney Philip Hide will not be in this place.

I say to the Parliament that what has been, in Mr Hide’s own terms, Mr Hide’s journey of transition and reinvention has been a journey all right. It has been a journey from perk-buster, from a person who was a wrecker—not a builder or a person of ideas—in this place. He took great delight in tearing down not only members of this Parliament but those near and dear to them. What will be his ultimate act, his gift to the people of New Zealand, as he leaves this place? I say that his journey of reinvention concludes when a man like him gives up the leadership of his party, and even gives up his parliamentary seat, in order to cling by his fingernails to the baubles of office for 7 more months.

If my memory serves me correctly, he served up that accusation time and time again to a former member of this place. It actually reminds me of the film Dawn of the Dead. In that film, as I recall, on the stroke of midnight the zombies emerged from the ground and stalked around the parish and around the streets. These entities, I am told, eat each other and even eat the living dead—as Mr Hide, I think, will come to be known in this place. It reminds me of that movie.

I say to the House that someone left the crypt door open a crack. Someone left that crypt door open a crack for that energetic, youthful, dynamic team full of enthusiasm: Sir Roger Douglas, John Banks, John Boscawen, and Dr Don Brash. What a youthful and enthusiastic group!

What should we remember about Dr Brash? I can say this because he is no longer a member of this Parliament. Dr Brash, of course, has not changed. He is for total asset sales, as my leader said, and he lied to the New Zealand people. I can say that, because he did lie to the New Zealand people in 2005—

💬 Hon David Parker: And he was caught.

—and was caught, and he denied it. As late as last weekend, I think on Q+A or the TV programme The Nation, the question was put to him again and again as to why he had lied, and he denied it. So the question for Dr Brash, as he tries to re-enter this place and clean up his so-called party, is whether the leopard has changed his spots.

Then we come, of course, to the asset sales issue. Again, Dr Brash has not changed. The National members, of course, want to use Dr Brash as an alibi for doing everything that they really want do to and have always wanted to do in the last 2½ years but were afraid to do because they know deep down that the people of New Zealand are against the sale of assets. So it was a corporate takeover by National, or mates close to it.

We have a man who wishes to re-enter this place, a man who described his former leader as toxic. He has now suddenly and miraculously changed his mind and decided that Mr Hide should stay in the ministry. Again, he has been aided and abetted by the Prime Minister. This is the same Prime Minister who aided and abetted Mr Hide in some of his antics in this place in respect of Mr Garrett, and in respect of his rorting of the system and his misuse of taxpayer’ money—something that Mr Hide, of course, alleged against many, many members of this Parliament. But when his own feet were put to the fire, he denied it.

But a member who is described as toxic appears to be good enough to sit in the Cabinet of John Key. A member who says one thing and does another is apparently credible enough to be in the Cabinet of John Key. A person who wants to get into this place, and who lied to the New Zealand people repeatedly in 2005, appears to be good enough to re-enter this House and re-enter the Cabinet of John Key. We will see the real agenda in respect of asset sales. They will be gone by lunchtime.

We heard the Minister of Finance talk about some of the positives that the country can look forward to from an economic point of view as we move forward, having recovered, or as we try to recover, from the mismanagement of the 9 years of a Labour Government, and, of course, a recession. The fact is that the Minister of Finance has some positives, and the Budget will also look to put us into a Budget surplus in the next 2 or 3 years.

However, I am also pleased to say that on Monday I had the great pleasure and honour of releasing a document that was prepared by the Ministry of Social Development and the Office for Senior Citizens. The document is called The Business of Ageing: Realising the Economic Potential of Older People in New Zealand: 2011 - 2051. I commend this document to every member of the House and indeed to everyone in New Zealand, and for this reason: times are changing and some positives, which we will need to consider, will happen in respect of baby boomers. Some of us take deep interest in what is happening in this regard, because some of us are at the front end of the baby boomers.

The point is that up until now the debate about the ageing population has been a negative debate. But there are lots of positives that need to be considered, and this document lays them out before the House so we can begin the discussion on the positive impact the baby boomers, going forward, will have on this country and this economy. I want to quote one or two things from this document, and at the end of my speech I intend to seek leave to table it for the House to consider. One of the things I will quote is from the beginning of the document. It is a quote from John Beard, the director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Ageing and Life Course. He said: “Governments around the world need to invent a new future to tackle the needs and possibilities of an ageing population. Business as usual is just not an option. A 70-year-old of today expects a very different role to what their parents experienced. We need to be brave enough to invent a future that is not simply a different shade of the past.”

Let us look at some of the facts that have come out and are seriously interesting. The report states: “the number of New Zealanders turning 65 in the 12-month period June 2011 to June 2012 is expected to be 18 per cent higher than in the preceding 12-month period”—that is 18 percent higher. “By 2031, the number of New Zealanders aged 65 and over is expected to exceed one million, almost double the current number; an increase in the labour force participation rate of older people from 16 per cent in 2010 to 26 per cent by 2030 could offset the growing demands for funding New Zealand Superannuation over this period.” There are positives happening, and the point is this: no one will force this to happen; it will happen. We as a nation need to start thinking about how we adapt and adopt the changes that the baby boomer generation will put before this nation.

We have expectations. We have always, as a group, a generation, been leaders in this nation. We will be a quarter of the population by 2050. We will have a huge impact on what happens in that time, and the nation needs to start to understand the different dynamics that this will bring. Seven to 10 percent of the labour force could be aged 65 or over by 2051. Their earnings from employment could rise from $1 billion to $10 billion in that time. Tax paid on earnings from employment could increase from $200 million to about $1.8 billion. We as a nation need to start understanding what that means. We need to have a discussion about the impact that the baby boomer generation will have. There will be lots of positives for this nation. We will make a huge contribution to the skills shortages that are coming up behind us, and that will have a huge impact on productivity and a huge impact on the way in which the workforce responds.

I commend this document to the House. It is worth reading and considering, and, most important, it is worth discussing. I seek leave to table the document entitled The Business of Ageing.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection?

💬 Hon David Parker: Yes, it’s already available.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: There is objection.

The two earthquakes that we have experienced in Christchurch have led me to read a lot of the international literature about something called recovery. Reading the lessons about that has taught me that the lessons are just as relevant to economic recovery post recession as they are to disaster recovery post the disaster that we have had in Christchurch. We need a plan, we need milestones, and we need key performance indicators. All the literature says that about recovery, and that is what we should have in New Zealand for economic recovery post recession. In fact, I would have thought that John Key would want key performance indicators, unless they would highlight to those who are not mesmerised by the smile that never quite reaches the eyes that there is no plan, and there never has been.

Never from day one, since that Government was elected to office, has there been a plan for our economic recovery. In fact, I remember the Job Summit. Does anyone remember the Job Summit? What came out of the Job Summit? I remember. A cycleway! And what went into the Job Summit? Yes, a cycleway. It was a predetermined agenda from National. John Key was to lead New Zealand into recovery with a cycleway. I will not get on that particular bike. The man who has come to politics from the very profession that gave us the global financial crisis thinks that a smile and wave can substitute for a genuine economic recovery plan. I say it cannot. A genuine economic recovery plan must be sustainable, and it must make us more resilient as an economy and a country in the long term.

John Key is the man who promised to turbocharge the economy, yet all he has managed to do is to kick the tyres. Now he is kicking the tyres of New Zealand’s assets. We know that when we kick the tyres of something, it is because we are checking to see whether it is something that we want to buy. The tragedy is that John Key is using the Christchurch earthquakes as an additional excuse to sell our country’s family silver. His friends in the international financial markets are delighted to see that New Zealand is back in business, but actually they are much more delighted to see that it is now up for sale. National campaigned at the last election that it was saying no to asset sales in its first term and would seek a mandate for that at this election. That is what this election is all about. I think we should name this election for what it is. It is a referendum on the sale of our assets—nothing more, and nothing less. A vote for National is a vote to sell our assets; a vote for Labour is a vote to ensure that they are not sold.

On this side of the House we believe that we will win this referendum. We will win this argument, and we will win this referendum, because I have not met anyone—not one person—who thinks it is sensible to sell an asset for a short-term benefit, and ruin the long-term gain that it represents for the economy. This is right across the political spectrum. These are National voters and Labour voters. It does not matter where they sit on the political spectrum, apart from the—

💬 Kevin Hague: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I really regret interrupting my colleague, but the interjections from Paul Quinn mean it is impossible to actually hear what my colleague Lianne Dalziel, who is located a mere 10 metres away from me, is actually saying.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I think that is a fair point of order. I ask Paul Quinn to be more reasonable with his interjections.

This is right across the political spectrum—these are National voters and Labour voters—except for the extreme right. Of course, those on the extreme right are now positioning Don Brash to come back in order to finish off what he started in 2005, and was unable to finish because of the wisdom of the electorate. That is why I believe this year’s election is a referendum we will win.

The tragedy now for Christchurch is that we will be blamed for the sale of these assets. We will be told that there is no alternative. What has happened in Christchurch is a disaster of huge proportions, but it presents us with a chance to become a more resilient city. Actually, if we play this right, it could make us more resilient as a country, as well. Rather than see Christchurch be blamed for the reimposition of the failed economic prescription we have seen from that party over and over again, and for the sale of our country and now, potentially, our city’s assets as well, I ask why Christchurch’s legacy cannot serve as a symbol of how we can turn disaster into opportunity, sustainably secure our economic recovery as a nation, and own our future once more.

The previous speaker, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, spoke at some length about the Christchurch earthquakes, and I want to start on that same point. I want to point out that today marks 8 months since the first earthquake ripped through Canterbury and began what has been, without question, the toughest period ever, I believe, for our region, and it will continue to be so for some time. In fact, the rebuilding of Canterbury is, quite rightly, one of the most important priorities for this Government, not only for this year but also for many years to come. It was heartening to hear the Minister of Finance, Bill English, talk today about the $5.5 billion we will see allocated to the job of rebuilding my province of Canterbury in this year’s Budget. That $5.5 billion covers off things like our contribution to the rebuilding of local infrastructure and insurance excesses on schools, hospitals, and other Government buildings within the region. It deals with things like land remediation costs as identified after the September quake, temporary housing, demolition costs, ACC costs, income support, and business support.

One of the things I think is most interesting—and, in a way, one would never want to have to learn it—is that these earthquakes have really brought into sharp focus how important it is to have a strong and resilient economy. In the days immediately following those earthquakes, both in September and on 22 February, the one thing we needed to be able to do as a Government—and we did do—was to say to people straight away that we were there to support them, that we would provide the housing they needed, and that we could provide business support. Immediately after both earthquakes there was a package available, which anyone could access, that ensured that their incomes would not be lost. Any employer could ensure that they could put wages in their employees’ bank accounts in the weeks ahead. I can tell members that that is the sort of comfort and support Cantabrians needed. That sort of thing costs a Government greatly, but it is a cost we are happy to pay. It tells us how important it is to get this economy back on track, to rebuild the strength of our economy, to get Government finances under control, to get away from the excessive orgy of consumption and debt that we saw through the early 2000s, and to get the economy on to a footing that can sustain these darkest of times.

The earthquakes will put back the path to surplus a little, but it is a path we are very much on. I for one would never trade the support and the rebuilding of Christchurch for a slightly quicker path. But we must get Canterbury rebuilt and we must get this economy back on track. That is exactly what the Budget on 19 May will deliver. It will focus on growth and it will focus on growth that is meaningful, not Government spending, policy analysts, and more handouts from the Government. It will build on growth that comes from the productive sector: the farmers, the manufacturers, the small businesses, and the people who actually pay taxes in this country. Remember them—the ones who pay for all the stuff the crowd opposite wants to spend? Members opposite are really good at standing up and spending. They are really good at that. Every opportunity Labour gets to kick the people who pay taxes, it takes it. Well, not us.

National understands that real growth means supporting people who pay tax. That is what it means, and that is what this Budget will be focused on. It will mean getting Government spending under control. Any party that thinks we can fix an economy by spending more and more, and borrowing more and more, is in “loony land”. That is no surprise, given that that is pretty much where Phil Goff lives. We have to get this economy focused on growth, wages, and sustainable jobs. We have to get in behind the people of this country who pay taxes every week, and we have to make sure we can look them in the eye and say that every single dollar of tax they have paid will be spent as if it was our own money. We will make sure we get the best outcomes for that spend. That is what this Government is focused on. We will get back to surplus. It was interesting to hear Phil Goff complain bitterly this afternoon that we are borrowing $300 million a week, when he has already committed, were he to be re-elected—not that it will happen—to spending billions and billions of dollars more. We know where that money will come from. It will come from debt.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: He’s going to take the GST off carrots.

He will take the GST off blackcurrants, and that will fix it. No, he will borrow more, and he will put this economy back into recession, and that is why New Zealand will reject him, once more, in November.

Over the last couple of days I have questioned the Minister of Defence about revelations that our SAS has been taking prisoners in Afghanistan and handing them over to agencies that either have tortured them or might well have tortured them. As a result of journalist Jon Stephenson’s interviews with Afghans whom our SAS has handed over to US forces in 2002, we know that they were, in effect, tortured and that some of them were sent to Guantanamo Bay. I think an apology from us as a country is due, and possibly some compensation. I do not accept the Minister’s view that this is purely a US problem, because when the prisoners were handed over by us in 2002, our forces knew for certain that they were likely to be tortured in Kandahar. By then there had been plenty of reports of torture at the US detention centre at Kandahar.

In respect of the SAS deployment since 2009, the Minister and the New Zealand Defence Force have long claimed that they have not been taking prisoners. When pushed, they have responded by saying that, yes, the SAS soldiers had been “in the vicinity” on 22 occasions in operations the SAS did with the Crisis Response Unit. Yesterday the Minister said that the SAS was “in support” of the Crisis Response Unit on 24 occasions. It stretches credibility to claim that in all the detaining that was done in those joint operations, it was always done by the Crisis Response Unit, on 24 separate occasions. Clearly that is just a legal deception, so that our Government can say that however badly those prisoners were subsequently tortured, we bear none of the responsibility and that we had none of the responsibility for following up the fate of those prisoners, because the Crisis Response Unit was the “detaining authority”. I am afraid that legal sleight of hand will not wash with the International Criminal Court if New Zealand is brought before it in relation to the torture of any of those prisoners.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is right now looking at the role of US-led forces in prisoner abuse. In fact, it is likely that our SAS took the lead in a number of raids with the Afghan Crisis Response Unit, as it did in the raid last Christmas on the Kabul offices of Tiger International Armor. When interviewed by Jon Stephenson, the Tiger International Armor people said it was the SAS that entered their building and detained them at gunpoint, and the Minister today has confirmed that. Later those prisoners—and they were prisoners—were handed over to the National Directorate of Security, which on this occasion let them go because it found they had nothing to do with the Taliban. Instead, they were just innocent contractors for the United States.

The Minister mentioned yesterday a case in which one prisoner was taken on 31 January this year, which could not be avoided because it was not a joint operation with the Crisis Response Unit, and he claimed that the proper post-arrest monitoring had been done by the Defence Force. That may be so, but there is no guarantee or evidence of proper monitoring on other occasions from 2002 to the present, including the 24 joint operations of the SAS and the Crisis Response Unit, when prisoners were taken and our SAS was only “in the vicinity”.

Torture continues in Afghan prisons. Jon Stephenson’s on-the-spot interviews have brought out the extent of torture that took place following the SAS’s handing over prisoners in 2002 to the US authorities. He has shown that prisoners were taken and handed over by our SAS at Tiger International Armor. He has challenged the credibility of many of the New Zealand Defence Force denials made over the years that prisoners were taken, and the credibility of its claims that they were properly followed up if they were taken. What we clearly need is an independent inquiry, where Jon Stephenson and the New Zealand Defence Force can put all the evidence on the table, so that we as a nation can go forward, absolutely sure that our troops will not be handing over Afghan prisoners to torture. If we are simply unable to guarantee that the prisoners whom our forces take and hand over are not mistreated, then that is another reason why our SAS should not be in Afghanistan.

I could not disagree more with that man who has just resumed his seat, Keith Locke. I reflect on his associations previously, through his family, with Pol Pot and, before that, through his parents, with Stalin, and when I think about the torture and things that those people got into, it is astonishing to hear those views expressed by him in the House this afternoon.

Last week it poured, in the region from Cape Kidnappers south to Porangahau. More than half a metre of rain fell in 48 hours. When the ground was absolutely saturated, there was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake about 10 kilometres offshore. Those two events have caused huge damage to about 100 to 150 farms in my electorate and, just north, in Craig Foss’ electorate in Tukituki. Large sections of the hillside have absolutely fallen away and been stripped, to expose underlying papa. It is a really serious problem now. Some farms have lost up to 60 percent of their pasture. It is a really distressing situation, because those farmers have already endured three back-to-back droughts over the last 2½ years, and just as summer and autumn had been quite kind and because of the Government’s policies, prices for wool, beef, sheepmeat, and dairy products were all restoring farmer confidence, this event occurred. It was really bad timing, because farmers were repaying debt and getting themselves reorganised, and this destructive storm has seriously damaged between 100 and 150 farms.

I particularly want to record my thanks, the thanks of the farmers involved, and the thanks of the Mayor of Central Hawke’s Bay District, Peter Butler, for the excellent work done by David Carter, Minister of Agriculture, in rearranging his programme last weekend, so that on Saturday he was able to come and view the area and meet 35-odd farmers at Blackhead. That visit enabled us to establish, first of all, the farmers’ priorities. First, we have to get stock out of the region; secondly, we have to get grass seed and clover seed resown while that soil is really wet; and, thirdly, we have to get into things such as securing fencing, getting Taskforce Green workers out there, organising tax relief, and organising other services provided by the rural support trust. The visit enabled me to establish direct communication lines with affected farmers. Having asked questions earlier today about rural broadband, I now have a system set up so that I can communicate from here with those farmers back into the Minister’s office. It really highlighted for me, and I am sure for the farmers involved, the importance of rural broadband, and of getting it up and running in rural New Zealand.

When I think about the comments from Mr Goff today, and the comments of some of his colleagues in the Labour caucus, I think back to 2008 and the election, when the Labour Government, not being concerned about farmers, decided that it would fork out $40 million to buy back St James Station in the South Island. Why would a Government spend $40 million on buying a farm that it already owned? The farm was a leasehold property. That was the sort of waste—absolute waste—that that Government engaged in, which was why we inherited an economy that was in deep trouble. If we think about Helen Clark when she left this House, we remember that she said that for her, “the jewels in the crown” were the transfers of Molesworth Station and St James Station to the Department of Conservation. She talked about purchasing the pastoral lease. Well, the pastoral lease we already owned. She was actually buying back the improvements, and they were not worth $40 million.

I have to say that the past 2½ years contrast very strongly with Labour’s previous track record going back many years, even before the global recession hit, of borrow and spend—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: And tax—don’t forget tax.

—oh, borrow, spend, and tax. Quite right! Our current forecasts show that New Zealand’s external liabilities—that is, what we owe to foreign leaders—have jumped to almost $250 billion. Why? Because of poor decision-making on the part of that Government.

We heard Bill English decrying the fact that New Zealand has debt. I will read to members what Bill English said on 18 December 2008, shortly after he took over. The quote is from the New Zealand Herald. Bill English said: “I want to stress that New Zealand starts from a reasonable position in dealing with the uncertainty of our economic outlook. In New Zealand we have room to respond. This is the rainy day the Government has been saving up for.”

That was the reality of what the incoming National Government inherited. It inherited eight consecutive Budget surpluses, each of which was opposed by members opposite when in Opposition. Bill English and John Key—and Don Brash at the time—all, at different times, opposed every surplus that Labour ran. Had we not run those surpluses, New Zealand’s situation would be even more dire than it is. The fact that it is dire now is not because of the actions of the previous Labour Government; it is because of the mismanagement of the economy by National and its allies ACT and the Māori Party since then.

While we are talking about that little sideshow, I ask why there is so much interest in what is happening with ACT at the moment. National likes to pretend that we are under first past the post, and that because it is ahead in the polls it will win an MMP election. Of course, National’s actions belie the fact that it knows that is not the truth. That is why we have seen a National takeover of ACT through Don Brash and John Banks, both former members of National in this House.

They have taken over the ACT Party because they know that HorizonPoll in the Sunday Star-Times a week and a half ago showed that the gap between the left and the right was only 6 percent. A 3 percent swing against National to Labour would see Labour’s MMP side of this House being bigger than National’s side. That is why there has been a coup in the ACT Party; National members knew they needed to do something. The sad reality for National members is that they are being predatory on their own vote, because everyone knows that Don Brash stands for asset sales 100 percent of the way. That is not the fiction that National is taking to the election at the moment—that it will sell only 25 percent.

The National Government inherited low debt. We also heard from Bill English that average wages after tax have increased. But that is only the case if one includes the top 10 percent of wage earners, who got all the benefit of the tax cuts. The wages for more than half of people in New Zealand who earn a living have gone down, in real terms. It is only if the figures are manipulated to include the top 10 percent of wage earners, for whom this Government so plainly governs, that those other people appear to be getting ahead. The 10 percent of people are the same 10 percent who will benefit from the sale of the State-owned enterprises that the Government is trying to push through.

Those people do not care whether electricity prices go up much—and they will go up if the Government sells the electricity State-owned enterprises. We all know that electricity prices would go up further. But why do those people—that small 10 percent of the population—not care? They do not care because they get so much under this Government, and would from any future National Government. Forty percent will stay about the same overall, but the bottom 50 percent will go backwards.

In this coming election, electors will have a choice. Do they want a country that tries to fill the gap left by unaffordable tax cuts by selling State-owned enterprises? As Phil Goff said today, the sale of State-owned enterprises would not fund even 1 year of the Government’s deficit. That is the terrible situation that this Government has got us into. The Government has given up on its promise to close the wage gap with Australia, to lead New Zealand to a brighter future, and to have a step change in the economy. Do members remember those three promises at the last election? They have disappeared from National’s language, because it is failing. It has no adequate plan to grow this economy.

Increasing numbers of New Zealanders are going to Australia to earn a living—so much so that when Julia Gillard was recently here she said she views New Zealand as a source of well-trained, good people who add to the growth of the Australian economy. They are a loss to our economy, but a gain for the Australian economy. That is another broken promise of the National Government.

The Black nationalist leader Malcolm X once said that “Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on the plate.” It made me think about the unique and independent Māori voice that the Māori Party brings to the table every hour, every day, here in Parliament. What we bring to the table is the opportunity for Māori to participate at the highest level and for voices to be heard. We bring, in our kete, whakatauākī, pepeha, and kōrero tawhito, if you like, the cultural capital of tangata whenua.

💬 Hon David Parker: Sold out!

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I gave the gentleman the right to have a clear run in his speech. I do not mind a bit of heckling, but can we just tone it down, please, if that is all right?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I ask members to be reasonable. I do not think they are being too bad, I have to confess, but I ask members to be a little bit reasonable.

Really? Kia ora mai.

We look to our tikanga—not like some people—and our kaupapa to guide us in our responses. In short, we recognise our indigeneity, and the indigeneity of others, as the strength of the many peoples who live in this land.

The question that is being debated right now is whether the Māori Party should sit at the table. I say “Hell, yeah!”. Do we have something to offer? Absolutely. It is about being clear about our purpose and our unique branding—Māori. Of course, there are options at the table: the Greens, the blues, and the reds. Over the last week other options have appeared to the far right and to the far left of the spectrum, bringing with them the interests of corporates, socialists, unionists, and others simply looking for a home.

For us, the Māori Party, there has never been any doubt. Our reason for being is to advance the solutions of our people, tangata whenua. Those are the solutions they have shared with us. It is about promoting Māori enterprise and entrepreneurship for the unique difference that they have made to our nation’s economy, and encouraging the Government to learn from that legacy. I think that was summed up best by Dr Apirana Māhuika last night, in a pretty powerful kōrero he was having with the Prime Minister. He reminded politicians and political parties that although they are here for the now and then, iwi are here for ever. Iwi have no other place to go; Aotearoa is our natural home, and our history is the history of this nation. That is just like mana. Mana can rise and fall, and indeed be lost, but Māori are here for ever. The greatest task ahead of us as the Māori Party, therefore, is to persuade Ministers of the powerful presence and potential of having tangata whenua at the table.

The question might be asked about whether it is better to be on the outside, throwing stones and otherwise, and pointing out the inevitable, or putting our hands up to say we are here for the long haul, working on solutions and crafting a positive future? I say the latter. The Māori Party has always said that we exist to defend Māori rights and advance Māori interests, for the betterment of all New Zealanders in this land. In doing so, we are proud of the benchmark for progress that we believe is established in kaupapa Māori.

In his book written in 2003, Professor Mason Durie explained this approach. He said “Māori progress, whether in commerce, education, or science, could not be accomplished without taking cognisance of Māori values and the realities of modern Māori experience. In other words, Māori development was not solely about making economic progress or reducing state obligations towards Māori; it was also about being able to retain a Māori identity and formulate development according to Māori aspirations.” So we continue to see every issue discussed in this House as a Māori issue.

We will demand that the call of the people to determine their own answers is responded to, as we have seen with Whānau Ora. We will ensure that in areas where Māori have not been able to access the opportunities they are entitled to, there is strength in numbers to bring the Māori world view to the debate. We saw that yesterday with the establishment of Ngā Pū Waea, a working-group to advise on Māori interests and development opportunities in broadband.

Despite the desire of some in this House to relegate Te Tiriti o Waitangi to history, we embrace it as the founding document of the nation, which we see with the work on the constitutional review. When the Crown has not treated mana whenua with the respect it should, we will not stop until that is addressed and a pathway forward is traversed. We hope we will see that appearing now in relation to the interface between Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, the Crown, and Petrobras.

We are here for change, we are here to keep our word, and we are here for the long haul. To make the difference that is needed, we will work constructively with any major party. We will sit at the table. We will always work hard in the best interests of our people. Our challenge as the Māori Party is to open the door. As long as we are in this place, it is a challenge that we will work very hard to live up to in every which way we can.

In the last few years this country has had its fair share of natural and economic disasters. Those disasters, both economic and natural, bring a clear focus on the need for a strong, robust economy going forward, an economy that Kiwis can rely on to provide support in those times when things get a bit tough.

During the adjournment I had the very good fortune to host a couple from Christchurch, who came up as part of the offer of the Napier City Council and the Hasting District Council to host people from Christchurch in Hawke’s Bay. A wonderful couple, Henk and Marijke Lups, came up to join us. They arrived for Easter and had a great Easter, but then on the Tuesday morning it started to rain in Hawke’s Bay. It rained, and it rained. I think that poor couple thought that disasters were following them. They were staying at Waipātiki Beach. There was a slip, and they got stuck out at the beach. It created a real difficulty for them. But they went back to Christchurch having had a break and enjoyed themselves.

Then we had another disaster in Napier. On the Napier hill itself a couple of major slips took out the underside of the hill from a couple of properties. In the wider Napier area it was not so bad, but further south the Maraetōtara River flooded Te Awanga and Haumoana and wiped out some of that area. It got progressively worse going down the coast. From Ocean Beach all the way down to Porangahau the flood stretched for 5 kilometres inland, as John Hayes has pointed out to me. Some of the farms, such as Te Āpiti Station, lost up to 80 percent—80 percent—of the hill cover. When we look at the photographs, we can see that the slippage is terrible. There are about 340,000 stock units down there. In the area around those big stations all of the fences have gone, and much of the stock is wandering around.

As in Christchurch, we are seeing people coming forward and supporting those affected. Not only is the Government able to help, as David Carter has done in issuing a statement declaring a medium-scale disaster, but we have seen the local community step up. Federated Farmers are adopting stock, which is absolutely fantastic, and also establishing another Farmy Army that can get out there, help to put perimeter fences around those farms, and get them up and running, which is excellent. This weekend we are launching a “Magpie Army” to go out to Waimārama to help those people whose properties were inundated. They do not have the structural integrity issues that people have down in Christchurch, but, certainly, the water was over 8 feet deep in some areas—in Gillies Crescent in Waimārama. Those guys need the support of the community, which needs to get in there and help bring those Waimārama residents back home.

It brings into sharp focus the need for a strong economy and a strong nation that can provide support in times of disaster. That is what this Government is delivering—it really is. We have had a strong plan in action right from day one. We had those first 100 days of action, rolling out legislation, delivering on the promises of a six-prong strategy, which we are continuing to drive and will take through to the election and beyond. That strategy started with building a better tax system, and we have done that. We have delivered on that particular promise. We have been building infrastructure: roads, rail, and fibre. The investment in rail throughout the country has been fantastic. We have been building better trade opportunities and innovation, which is a wonderful strategy that we are rolling out. The work that Tim Groser, Murray McCully, and John Key are doing around the world is absolutely fantastic. We are out there reducing compliance costs for businesses. That is the fourth prong to the strategy. We are building Government services for fewer taxpayer dollars. We are delivering on that all the time. It is absolutely fantastic.

Today we saw another part of the sixth prong of the strategy, which is to build skills and educational standards. We saw Minister Bennett with John Key out in Trentham, announcing $55.2 million to help advance the skills of young people who are unemployed. That is another wonderful initiative to get young people employed and taking our economy forward, so that we can provide the robust economy we need in times of economic and climatic disasters. Thank you.

Here is a question for members of the Government: if the economy is doing so well, then why is unemployment up? If the economy is doing so well, then why, every day, are people complaining about the cost of living, the cost of petrol, the cost of food, increased GST, and the cost of getting food from the supermarket? If the economy is doing so well, why are more Māori and Pacific young people unemployed now under National than there were under the last Labour Government? I have to question the Government’s assertion about the economy, because in making it National is further compounding the confusion with a short-term solution of selling State assets. That is all for what? Because the Government says that in selling State assets, Kiwi families will get a better chance, and—wait for it—perhaps power prices will go down. I think not.

We are approaching winter. Families will feel the cold, but more families in many places will feel winter in ways we cannot comprehend—yes, because of the recession, and families are already feeling the effects of a tough and constrained economy, but also because families in Christchurch will feel winter more than others, as many are still waiting for their needs to be addressed. But in many other communities families will feel winter, because they will have to make choices such as whether to turn on the heater.

I am concerned about that, so I will move to the real issues affecting families, and say why selling State assets is not a long-term solution that will help them. The Government wants to sell Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy—

💬 David Bennett: Oh, rubbish!

That member may say “rubbish”, but we have heard the Prime Minister say: “Not in this term.” My colleague Lianne Dalziel has made the very good point that the next election will be a referendum on selling State assets. That is very clear—very clear. But we have to ask whether selling State assets will actually deliver what National is saying to those households who will feel winter this year. It will not lower their power prices. It may not guarantee, actually, that the dividends coming off the State-owned energy companies can be reinvested into some very good schemes that are helping households, like the Warm Homes initiative, under which many homes can be insulated so that they can be warm and healthy for children. There is no guarantee that the dividends taken from selling State assets will be reinvested in those types of initiatives, or reinvested in the community. Some communities have put roofs over their pools, others have got a lot of community development projects off the ground, and there has been some Modern Apprenticeships training through the reinvestment of dividends from many of those State-owned enterprises. But there are no guarantees if those assets are to be sold.

I am concerned about that, because if we look at the $732 million that comes off those State-owned assets, what could we fund back to Kiwis? We could fund 10,300 teachers, which would lower the student-teacher ratio in our classrooms and give many more of our kids a better opportunity in the classroom environment to learn, succeed, and do better. What else could those dividends be put back into? They could be put back into 12,600 new police officers, 33,000 extra hip replacements, 69,700 university placements, and 91,500 polytech placements. That would increase the number of our kids who could stay in education, go into higher education, and get better skills in order to get a better job. If those dividends do not come back into the Government coffers but are lost as a result of the sale of State-owned assets, then what? It is simple: those kids will have to pay for their education, and pay more.

Who are the kids who will miss out, in the event that that type of revenue is not reinvested in opportunities like that? I will tell members. It will be Māori and Pacific kids, and kids who come from modest and low-income families. It will be difficult for them to pay for a higher education. So what are they consigned to under a National Government that will sell State-owned assets, ripping out those dividends from the public purse? They are consigned to a lack of opportunity. This Government should not be selling State assets and it should not be signalling—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): The member’s time has expired. The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.