General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Yesterday in Parliament the Prime Minister, in reply to a question, reluctantly admitted there was “a degree of inequality in New Zealand,”—a degree of inequality. But he does not believe we are a deeply unequal country, and he does not think we are as bad as others. Well, I have to say to the Prime Minister and the National Government that they are badly out of touch with what is going on in this country today. They have become blinkered. The Prime Minister is basking in the adoration he receives from people around New Zealand, Government members are believing their own propaganda, and together they are blinded by their own “brilliance”. But I have to tell them that inequality is growing in New Zealand at an alarming rate.

💬 Paul Quinn: Brilliance. That’s it—brilliance!

I suggest that Mr Quinn takes off the blinkers, stops looking at his own “brilliance”, and has a look at what is happening around New Zealand. There is an alarming rate of growth in inequality in this country. But do we think this Government will listen? Does it care? Will it do anything about it? The answer to those questions has to be “No”. Over the last 6 months I have taken time to go out and visit a few regions around New Zealand, and I come back to this House to report on what is happening. There are four regions I will talk about today. What is really happening, on the ground, to New Zealanders in this country that is only a little bit unequal?

I will first go to Invercargill. In Invercargill I visited the Salvation Army food bank and the budgeting services there. What did people tell me? The message I heard up and down New Zealand was that there has been a huge growth in people having to go to food banks. Are they our usual customers—the customers we would expect to see at food banks? No, they are not. Food banks are now facing a huge increase in the number of people we would call the working poor—those who are in jobs but who cannot afford to pay their bills. They cannot afford to pay a bill that comes out of the ordinary at the time they have to pay it. They have jobs; they have jobs that are low-income jobs, and many of them have two jobs, but they are amazed they have a Government that thinks giving $15 an hour to those on the lowest income would be a bad thing for this country. The Government talks about a loss of 6,000 jobs if we were to do that, but I have seen no evidence that that would be the case. It is a made-up figure; it is made up because it suits the Government to make it up and say it. But of course if the Government is going to create 170,000 new jobs over the next 4 years, then I suspect that if there were a loss of 6,000 jobs, the Government would be able to find jobs somewhere else, would it not? Of course, no one believes that 170,000 jobs will be created.

Then I went to Timaru and visited the food bank and the social service providers there. The story they told me was very alarming. In February this year 157 people received food parcels. By May the number had risen to 756—756. They have not seen the like of the increase in working families receiving assistance. We are not talking just of beneficiary families, but working families. This morning I went to the Newlands Community Centre with Charles Chauvel. They told us they have seen a 300 to 400 percent increase in people going to their food bank, every year for the last 2 years. Does that show us we have a country that is equal? Does that show us we have a country where people have an adequate income? No, it does not. The story these good people told me this morning—they are not Labour people; they are just good community people—was of a woman who came in last week. She has a job and so does her husband, but they are both on low incomes. She came in for a food parcel, for the first time in her life. Why? Because she had an abscessed tooth and she needed an extraction. It cost $300 and she could not afford it. Finally, I went to Whangarei and there I heard of the most appalling cases of health issues and of a lack of food. There is growing inequality in this country.

I want to talk about the Hon Phil Goff. He is a nice man, Phil Goff. I quite like him. He has been an effective Minister in his time, but his time is up. It is time for him to go. There are two reasons why I think it is time that Phil Goff was out of here. The first reason is that that lot sitting over there do not respect him. Watch their body language when they are with him. They do not respect him. In fact, they are so busy fighting one another that he is left out on his own. It was interesting to see when he appointed the new education spokesman, after the Darren Hughes debacle. Whom did Goff appoint? He appointed his friend David Shearer. He is a good friend. He brought him into Parliament. What did the Labour caucus do? They rolled him, and they put in Sue Moroney as the spokesperson on early childhood education.

Sue Moroney spent 70 percent of the time at the estimates hearing last week talking about early childhood education—the small part of preschool. What about the big compulsory sector? Where were the questions on that? Sue Moroney is so into education she cannot even read a Budget document. She believes that if there is a 5 percent increase in roll numbers, a 5 percent increase in the operations grant is needed. It is no wonder the New Zealand Educational Institute loves her.

Speaking of which, the New Zealand Educational Institute sent out postcards. It had a postcard campaign: “Early Childhood Education sets the scene for life”. Turn it over and it says: “Dear Prime Minister”. This is a postcard to the Prime Minister. It says: “Add your personal message to the Prime Minister and we will deliver it.” The post, note here, is free: “ECE Campaign”. If you filled in this postcard, who do you think would get it? The New Zealand Educational Institute. And who would they give it to? It would be the Prime Minister, because that is what it says.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It might be a valid question, but I really do not think that you would have filled in a postcard to be sent to the Prime Minister.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I accept the member’s point but I do not like interrupting speeches. The member could have raised that point at the end of the speech.

Mr Speaker, I am sure you did not fill in a postcard. But if you had filled in a postcard, would you not think that it would go to the Prime Minister? Who do we think received these postcards? The Prime Minister? No. The Minister of Education? No. The Minister of Finance, who controls the Budget? No.

💬 Hon Member: Who got them?

It was Sue Moroney. The New Zealand Educational Institute ran a campaign, and who ended up with the campaign database? Sue Moroney. Poor old Phil Goff said: “Actually, we were just going to write to these people to tell them what was happening with the postcards.”

Our friend Whale Oil Beef Hooked has been trawling through Labour emails for a long time. The blogger from Whale Oil Beef Hooked has to be the email friend of the world. He said he found an email sitting there, ready to go out from Sue Moroney, which said things like “Last year, you filled in a postcard for the New Zealand Educational Institute.” It talked about how Labour was fighting hard to stop the early childhood education cuts: “Our focus will be quality … We need your support. … Please like our Facebook page”, and share it with your friends. “Please feel welcome to email me any time with your views. Kind regards Sue Moroney”. Where is the Prime Minister in all of this? Who has the postcards? Does the Prime Minister have the postcards? No. Sue Moroney has the postcards.

We know that Phil Goff does not know what is going on in his caucus; he has no idea. Sue Moroney is working with the New Zealand Educational Institute, which is supposed to be a union representing teachers. Maybe Sue Moroney is mounting a campaign with the New Zealand Educational Institute for the leadership of Labour after the next election. The New Zealand Educational Institute has, by the way, launched on its website a very active election campaign, so maybe Phil Goff does not even know what is happening to the election campaign. The New Zealand Educational Institute has it all laid out, with all the targeted electorates for the election campaign, and scripts for conversations to have with people. It would be interesting to see whether Sue Moroney is going out and talking to people in the context of early childhood education, saying “Please think about signing our early childhood education petition here.”, and saying things in the school context about children being able to learn at their own rate.

I seek leave to table two letters from the office of the Hon Phil Goff to the Prime Minister, John Key, asking him to accept the 20,000 New Zealand Educational Institute postcards—with no response from the Prime Minister.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a letter from the Hon Phil Goff to the Prime Minister, pointing out that the reason the postcards were presented to me was that the Prime Minister made himself unavailable.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that—

💬 Paul Quinn: What’s the date of the letter?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Members cannot stand up and yell stuff out. If the Speaker has not recognised the member, he must not do that. The House will come to some order. Leave has been sought to table a letter from the honourable Leader of the Opposition to the right honourable Prime Minister. Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There is no objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

We have a saying in Samoa: e maua loa, kafiki loa, which means that when someone is caught doing something wrong, they begin to attack. That is what we have heard from the Minister of Education. If the National leader had the cojones to accept those postcards, then they would not have gone to Sue Moroney.

About this time in 2008 Mr John Key, the then Leader of the Opposition, turned up in my electorate flanked by two known Pacific former sports stars. There was a big splash and a big ado about what they would do for the people of Māngere, the people of Manukau, and the Pacific community. It was splashed in the paper that $6 million would be invested in a trade academy at the Southern Cross Campus. Today that school is still wondering where the rest of that money has gone. They are still wondering. The two former sports stars who flanked the Prime Minister at that time are nowhere to be seen. They are not receiving answers to the questions about where that money has gone.

At that time, too, we told the community of Māngere that with National in Government we would have to fight to protect ourselves; we would have to fight to protect early childhood education; we would have to fight to protect housing, our public health system, and our assets; and we would have to fight to protect the working community of New Zealand. That is exactly what has transpired in the past 3 years under a National Government. The first thing it did was cut the budget for adult community education, which served that community well. It continued to cut money that went into early childhood education, which is significant for a population of generally young people. Now we are hearing that it will again be looking to undermine the rights of workers not only through the 90-day bill that it introduced right off the bat but also by undermining the ability of trade unions and workers’ representatives to be able to negotiate with employers.

With the high cost of living that we now have, prices are running up to 20 percent. They are rising above more than what people are earning. I ask this Government what it will do for the working population the length and breadth of New Zealand when it has given significant money to the wealthy few. What will the Government do to enable ordinary working families with children, who are struggling to make ends meet, to meet the regular cost of living?

Let me give the House a couple of examples so that that side of the House understands the struggles of working communities. There is a family in the south side of Māngere who are currently living with two children in a Housing New Zealand Corporation house. They have had to leave that house because it leaks and was not fixed up by the Housing New Zealand Corporation. That family have to live with their parents in a crammed-up situation. The promise that was given to the community of Māngere in those days was that the Minister of Housing would fix up the stock. Today many families are still waiting for that housing stock to be fixed up.

A young man with a family of two children was sick in hospital in April. He had an operation for cancer. He applied early, just prior to leaving hospital to go home, to Work and Income New Zealand, and he was told he was eligible for a sickness benefit. Today that family is still waiting to see whether they will receive a hand up to help them with their normal day-to-day expenses, including mortgage payments. They risk losing their house because the culture of Government departments under this Government has changed significantly.

Labour recognises the hardship that families are working through. We promise the working population of our communities and the rest of New Zealand that we will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Under this Government we have had only a $1 rise in the minimum wage after 3 years.

Like many members in the House, I am always intrigued by what other political parties are up to. It is fair to say that I have been looking on at the Labour Party in the last 12 months, and the last 6 months in particular, to see exactly what its strategy is. It has been difficult for me to untangle. Sometimes strategies are difficult to untangle because they are complicated and clever, and one simply cannot see something coming. Sometimes strategies are obvious to all and the team is proud of putting them forward and out there.

It has been difficult with the Labour Party. I must say that in recent times I have actually identified a pattern. There is definitely a pattern when it comes to the Labour Party’s strategy. That pattern is about carving out Labour’s core support. It is essentially setting aside those people who will not vote for Labour and targeting those who will vote for it.

Labour made a conscious decision. We know what it is. Labour said it did not want the hobbit vote. Clearly, Labour does not want hobbits to vote for it. Labour does not want the New Zealand film industry to vote for it. Labour does not think it is important to bring that sort of income into New Zealand. Labour does not want the hobbit vote. Labour does not support John Key making those advances to international film organisations to ensure that the Hobbit movies are filmed here. Labour opposed that. Labour is against hobbits. That was one sector that the Labour Party decided it did not want supporting it.

Labour then moved to the agriculture and farming sector, where we saw a tirade from members over there saying that farmers do not pay tax, they do not contribute to the economy, they are essentially avoiding tax, and the Labour Party does not support them. Furthermore, to really kick it to farmers, the Labour Party decided to bring the emissions trading scheme forward, put unknown costs on farmers, and make sure that as soon as Labour is in Government after the next election—and that is Labour’s dream—it will bring farmers into the emissions trading scheme. Labour has set aside the farmers of New Zealand, and the farmers say that Labour is making agriculture the whipping boy. Federated Farmers said of Stuarts Nash’s tirade about farmers not paying tax and the emissions trading scheme: “It’s all designed to discredit the farmers of New Zealand.” There is a strategy.

Labour does not want the farmers to vote for it, it does not want the hobbits to vote for it, and, interestingly enough, it has decided to insult the Rātana Church. An article titled “Labour list insults Ratana Church” said: “Senior Ratana minister Kereama Pene has launched a stinging Facebook campaign against what he sees as Labour’s list insult. He said on the social networking site: ‘Every Ratana should show their total disgust and abandon Labour forever.’ ” Labour has decided, in carving out its core support, that it does not want farmers, it does not want hobbits, and it does not want the Rātana Church.

Labour does not want homeowners; it is going to introduce a capital gains tax. The minute it is in Government, it will introduce a capital gains tax for all homeowners. Labour does not want homeowners at all.

It was not enough to decide that it wanted to carve off sector interest groups, so Labour decided to go regional. It said to Northlanders that the highway from Auckland to Northland is a “Holiday Highway” and that Labour would can it. Labour does not want trucks, cars, and buses going to Northland, and it certainly does not want those Northlanders coming south to Auckland. Labour has decided it does not want the Northland vote, so it went regional.

As if regional was not enough, Labour decided to go international. On the eve of and during the royal wedding, which we all enjoyed—not only New Zealanders but the whole world—Phil Goff suggested that dropping the monarchy should be up for discussion. This happened during the royal wedding, which we all celebrated. Phil Goff decided that Labour had already set aside and isolated sectors and regions, particularly Northland, so he went international. Do members know who Phil Goff is? He is the little guy at the back of the church who stands up and puts up his hand when the priest asks whether anyone objects to this couple getting married. That is who Phil Goff is. He is the little guy who puts up his hand and objects when the pastor asks whether those royals should get married. What is Phil Goff doing?

I do not participate very often in these general debates, and in just the last couple of minutes I remembered why. What a waste of space that speech by Phil Heatley was.

Yesterday in question time I asked the Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne what he had to say about the fact that nearly 3,000 young New Zealanders under 5 years of age are admitted to public hospitals to have their teeth removed under general anaesthetic. He said he was very pleased with the fact that they had access to public hospitals to have that done. It really stunned me that an Associate Minister of Health in charge of dental policy would be pleased by that. It almost blew my mind away. He should be deeply concerned about the fact that 3,000 children are going to hospital to have their teeth removed. They are the lucky ones, I tell members, because the others who cannot get in are on waiting lists of between 6 to 12 months. Dr Beaglehole knows a bit about this. He is the senior dental surgeon at the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board. He says that on Tuesdays and Fridays he spends mornings knocking out children with a general anaesthetic so he can fix their rotting teeth. The toddlers and preschoolers are so young they are too little to hold open their mouths long enough to have it done in the regular way, and their baby teeth are so decayed that nothing but filling or extraction can save them. This is the procedure that Peter Dunne is pleased is available to these kids.

We should be asking ourselves what is doing all this. Well, members should ask themselves this question: what is the most popular and most sold item in the supermarkets of New Zealand? The answer is a 2½ litre bottle of Coca-Cola. What is the second most popular item in the supermarkets of New Zealand? It is a 1½ litre bottle of Coca-Cola. If one goes into the supermarkets now, one sees that they have a promotion for the drinks that make All Blacks—these Powerade drinks. There are 16 teaspoons of sugar in every single bottle. The kids are told to drink it as quickly as they can, then they will become All Blacks. No, they will not; by age 10 to 18 they will join the 500 type 2 diabetes sufferers that we have at the moment who are between the ages of 10 and 18. As we speak, we have about 350,000 overweight New Zealanders who are type 2 diabetes sufferers. We have another 90,000—roughly a third—who are undiagnosed, and we have an epidemic of dental decay that is coming on us like a tsunami because all of the people who are at retirement age now who kept their teeth, when years ago parents used to have their children’s teeth taken out for their birthday at age 15 or 16, have to have their teeth looked after. We are making no provision for that.

Today I launched a dental policy to try to do something about it. In the few minutes I have here I cannot detail it all, but I will say just one or two things. I looked at the Australian situation with regard to, for example, fluoride, which in water supply gives over 32 percent more protection to children’s teeth than not having fluoride. If one thinks about what that does in terms of the kinds of operations that Dr Beaglehole is doing, one would be inclined to think that it should be a matter for public debate. Eighty percent of all Australians have access to fluoridated water. Even the Queensland state Government, which I have never thought of as being overly enlightened, had a meeting in Parliament a year ago where the overwhelming majority voted in favour of extending fluoridation from 54 percent of the state to the whole state. They voted for it practically unanimously. They join the states of New South Wales, which supplies fluoridated water to 92 percent of the state; South Australia, which supplies fluoridated water to 94 percent of the state; and Victoria, which supplies fluoridated water to, I think, 80 percent of the state.

Here, fluoridated water is supplied to 60 percent of the whole of New Zealand. In the mainland of the South Island, we have very little fluoridation. So the teeth of the children of the most affluent families in Merivale and so on are much worse than those of the children in South Auckland, where they have access to fluoridated water. Are we proud of all this? Do we think something should be done about it? We should have a national policy on fluoridation. We should have it as a national health measure, not at a local body level where it is far too easy for local body politicians to hide. In Christchurch recently we had chlorine added to our water, which was quite proper because if we had not then we might be suffering from all kinds of endemic diseases as we speak.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: What now?

Chlorine—to clean up the water and make sure it is drinkable. Yet if we suggest adding fluoride, which cannot be smelt, seen, or tasted, there is an uproar. I wonder at the double standards of that.

My Labour colleagues have been good enough to accept this policy as something they will look at seriously for their health policy in the coming election. because I am retiring at the end of this year. I am glad they are doing it and I wish them well.

I do not know what the Hon Jim Anderton was talking about, but I can tell from even this distance that that member needs to brush his teeth.

We in this party, unlike the party on the other side, are focused on the things that matter: on the economy, on educational standards, and on doing something about crime, which Labour has ignored. What is Labour focused on? Let us look at what Labour is focused on. It is focused on voluntary student membership, or “VSM”. It is absolutely focused on voluntary student membership. Labour members are filibustering—that is not a world I like—other members’ bills—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Just wait and see.

—sorry, I can hear something—so that we do not get to the voluntary student membership bill. I can tell members that the people of Tauranga, the people of Rotorua, and the people of West Coast - Tasman do not even know what “VSM” is.

💬 Todd McClay: No, they’ll tell them to go to the doctor.

That is right. Some of them think it is a contagious disease they could get from members on the other side of the House. They do not know what it is, but, somehow, that is where all the energy on the other side of the House goes. Why is Labour putting all of its efforts into that bill? If we were generous, we could ask whether it is doing it on principle. Well, no, because the principles at stake in that bill are freedom and choice, which are actually National Party values. That is why we are putting that bill ahead.

I have concluded that Labour’s reason is purely and solely politics. We know on this side of the House that it does not take much thinking to see that for members opposite their main training ground—some would say their only training ground—is in the universities. Student politics is base camp, training camp, for Labour Party politicians. We could go through them. Grant Robertson is probably the main one we can think of. In his time he was the student union president of one Michael Woodhouse. Student politics is a Labour Party training ground.

Labour members do not want to stand up for freedom and choice; they are filibustering on that bill purely because of politics. If I have learnt anything in 2½ years in this House, it is that the Labour Party only ever focuses on politics. In fact, that was “Helen Clark 101”—politics is all. Everything is about the politics, and we see it in that bill.

We also know that the member opposite Trevor Mallard is interested in sports. He is in a cycling competition. I understand that in his spare time he is also meant to be campaign manager for the Labour Party, but why worry about that when he has a sports competition to worry about. As one Cameron Slater has said: “Duck really needs some anger management courses so he can concentrate on the campaign rather than fighting an asymmetrical war with a right-wing blogger he can’t win.” Yet that is where the Labour Party is at the moment: voluntary student membership bills that people do not understand, cycling races that are asymmetrical and they cannot win, and political stunts. I think John Carter called them cunning stunts, and that is what we are seeing on the other side of the House.

With the State-owned enterprises referendum legislation we have already established that because of Labour’s filibustering, that bill has absolutely no chance of coming before this House. As John Armstrong said in, I think, yesterday’s newspaper, Labour’s member’s bill has about much chance of becoming law as that famous rugby-playing country Namibia has of lifting the Rugby World Cup, or probably even less. But unlike the New Zealand Labour Party, Namibia’s Labour Party has at least some chance—and members can check this on the internet—of winning the next general election in that country.

Why is it that Labour is putting forward the cheap politics of that bill? Why is that? If we look at the Prime Minister, he has never sold a State asset, but if we put him head to head with the leader of the Labour Party, he has the best track record in this House of selling State assets in this country.

💬 Michael Woodhouse: How many has he sold?

It is a pretty solid record. In his career he has sold 17 State assets, worth $9.49 billion.

💬 Todd McClay: Who did that?

That $9.49 billion worth of assets was sold by one Phil Goff. Maybe we should go through them. There was New Zealand Steel, Petrocorp, Health Computing Services, Development Finance Corporation, the Post Office, the Shipping Corporation, Air New Zealand, Land Corporation, Rural Banking and Finance Corporation, and Government Printing—the list goes on.

Debate interrupted.