Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I move, That the Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2008/09) Bill be now read a second time. It was a former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who once famously said that “a week is a long time in politics”, and this week is proving a very long time in politics for the New Zealand National Party. Its members went out to their conference, all beautifully orchestrated and with not a hair out of place. Everything was perfect; every blow-wave was perfect on every National Party MP—not counting its president, actually, in that particular case—and then what happened? Suddenly the wheels fell off—summarised today by Mr English walking down the travelator, pushing and shoving with the media, having a shouting match with the media, trying to protect Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and hide him away from the media, because suddenly it had all gone wrong. And, of course, what was the answer? National puts up a paranoid conspiracy theory about the Labour Party! Unfortunately for National, two of its MPs had already told us their view as to who it was who was recorded in the conversation. One told us he was a National Party activist, and the other told us he was a person who held a joint ACT - National Party membership. I find the latter actually very credible in terms of the nature of the questions being asked.

Those theories were the dirty tricks of a party that, in 2005, had the Exclusive Brethren running a front campaign of a couple of million dollars on its behalf, and that had the Exclusive Brethren and other funny types having private detectives following around the Prime Minister, myself, and various other people, trying to find out an interesting life that could be exposed in the media. These were dirty tricks of a party that was very happy to use an illicit recording from the Labour Party conference for weeks on end. Mr English feasted off that with question after question every day. These were dirty tricks from a party that has 36 people working for Mr Key on the public tit, sucking away and working on behalf of a National Party hoping to be elected as Government. These were dirty tricks from a party that engages in any form of attack upon the incumbent Government—Mr McCully with his disgraceful little blog and its remarks about the Prime Minister and, indeed, any other woman within the Labour Party. Dirty tricks from us? What, compared with that? What is it all about? Well, what it is all about, Alfie, is that National members have been caught out telling the truth, which is the one thing the National Party can never forgive of its membership in the build-up to an election campaign. “Never be caught telling the truth” is the National Party slogan, because we know what the strategy has been.

Despite what we have just heard from one of the retiring members from the National Party—or he should be—the public like the major policies that this Government has put in place. They love KiwiSaver. They loved buying back KiwiRail. They love the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. They love Working for Families. They love the fact that we have the biggest investment in infrastructure that we have seen for 30 years within New Zealand. The public love all of that, so the National Party policy has been: “We’ll do all that. We believe in all of that. We believe in the Labour Party policies just like we believe in tax cuts.” That is the new holy writ from the National Party. But we will add a bit more. What Mr English calls the “Labour-plus voters”, the people who love Labour in terms of the policies, say: “I want a bit extra in my pocket.”, and that is what Mr Key promises them, but, no, of course he would never borrow. He is borrowing for everything else, but he would not borrow for tax cuts, even though he said that they had spent all the money in next year’s Budget. I have never been able to add that up. If National has spent all the money in next year’s Budget, how can we have tax cuts without borrowing for them on top when in fact we do not have cash surpluses any longer in this country?

We found out that the National Party does have beliefs, and it got caught out. One of its own activists engaged in conversation and said: “Why aren’t we saying National Party things, Bill? Why aren’t we standing up and saying ‘I’m proudly National Party and here’s National Party policy.’, instead of saying ‘I’m proudly National Party and here’s Labour Party policy.’?”, which is a pretty strange thing to be saying, really, when one thinks about it. If I went around saying “I’m proudly Labour, and I support the National Party policies.”, my colleagues would think I had gone stark raving bonkers. They would decide it is finally time to put the old stallion out to pasture, and hope he could still enjoy life in his retirement in that particular respect. But, no, Mr English was caught saying that, yes, he wants to sell Kiwibank eventually. Then he said: “I mis-spoke”, which I think is a loose interpretation of saying “I didn’t use my words carefully.” Well, either one believes in selling Kiwibank, or one does not, and Mr English believes in selling Kiwibank. He thinks Kiwibank—

Hon Member: He agrees with it.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, he does not. He totally opposed it. He said it was stupid to have—

Hon Bill English: It’s not worth anything.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Oh, it is not worth anything so we should not sell it. Well, if it is not worth anything, then why would not one get rid of it? After all, they got rid of Brian Connell. If that is the reason for not getting rid of people, why did Brian Connell have to get out of the caucus in that particular way? No; Mr English believes that the State should not be owning Kiwibank. He believes that the State should not be owning KiwiRail. He believes that the State should not be supporting private savings through KiwiSaver. But when he was caught saying it, he had to suddenly pretend: “I don’t believe this.” He had to do a humble apology. His face was like an entire series of dairy cows in Southland running around in little circles not knowing what to do. It was in such confusion. I mean, talk about body English; that was facial English. That particular one was the most extraordinary picture of a man sitting there, looking like a little boy in the dock saying: “I didn’t use my words very carefully when I said I thought Kiwibank should be sold eventually. I don’t think it should be sold.” If anybody believes that, then they really must be joking.

Bill English also said that National will sort out Working for Families eventually, when it gets the chance. National promised to touch it not at all but to sort it out at some point down the track, because when all the money has been blown on tax cuts and it has run out of options, it would have to start finding some other things to do. That is when, just like Mr English in 1998-99, those members opposite will discover they have to do some things—like cutting New Zealand superannuation, which they did in 1998-99, because Mr English has said that retirement income provision in New Zealand is too generous. Mr Key has said that the age of eligibility should be raised. Mr English and Mr Key have both attacked KiwiSaver. They should not tell us that they have had some sudden conversion. They have to go on the road to Damascus before they can have the conversion, and in this case neither of them has bothered to actually travel that road. They think all they need to do is to hire a publicity agent to draw a map of a road to Damascus, and that is sufficient to announce a conversion on that basis. Nobody believes in that rubbish.

People believe that Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith PhD and Bar did actually say that he thought they would want to adopt policies that were National Party policies. They know that in 1990 Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith promised to abolish the student tertiary fees, and he promised he would resign if they were not abolished. He promised to remove that toll gate on knowledge, and he built it higher and higher every year. They also know that National promised to remove the superannuation surcharge—“No ifs, no buts, no maybes; the surcharge will go.”—and National increased the New Zealand superannuation surcharge at the earliest opportunity. National promised to look after health care and tried to privatise it, unsuccessfully. It promised not to touch beneficiaries, and it cut benefits. It promised not to cut wages, and the Employment Contracts Act cut wages and conditions for many New Zealanders in 1991-92. National promised and promised and promised, and it broke and broke and broke those promises the last time that it ran from Opposition and became the Government. And if National ever got into Government again, it would break those promises again and revert to type, because it is in the National Party DNA.

Mr Key’s motto is: “Whatever it takes.”, and whatever it takes is any promise. Mr English thought he was writing the policy. He thought Mr Key was just a smiling front man. What he has now found out is that Mr Key is starting to get a bit worried about all those plans. It has all gone wrong. The wheels are falling off. Mr English is fighting the media in the corridors, Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith is being hidden away to gaze at his own photos of himself for next year’s calendar, and Mr English appears in front of the public to make some kind of Stalinist show trial confession about his errors. What a pitiful few days this has been for the National Party.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) : What is in the National Party’s DNA is sound and fair management of the New Zealand economy. That member, of course, should be slightly more humble about the enormous benefits he enjoyed from the extensive work National did in getting this economy into shape in 1990—work started by his party when Dr Cullen was a member of Cabinet, and continued by National. It was politically controversial work that led to a change in the electoral system. But Dr Cullen has been the person who has benefited most, as the Minister of Finance, from the hard work done turning this economy into one that could hack it in the global environment.

Of course, Dr Cullen needs to account for some of the things he has been saying. On Monday he was saying that John Key’s plan for more infrastructure was terrible because it meant increasing borrowing from foreigners. I thought that that sounded a bit odd. Dr Cullen actually figured out it was a bit odd, because today, when Standard and Poor’s put out its credit outlook for New Zealand, now the problem is that National is going to “flood the market with New Zealand denominated debt”. Well, they cannot both be right. On Monday the Minister of Finance in charge of this economy says that the big problem is borrowing from foreigners, then today the big problem is borrowing from New Zealanders. He cannot make up his mind. So I went and looked at his record on borrowing from foreigners, which apparently is really, really bad. Dr Cullen accuses other people of borrowing from foreigners while he is doing the same thing himself. Every year he has been the Minister of Finance, the portion of our debt borrowed from foreigners has gone up. Every year it has gone up. The one thing we know about Dr Cullen is that he will always accuse people of doing something that he is doing himself.

Here is a simple question for Dr Cullen. He has just told the House in question time that Labour has the biggest infrastructure investment programme the country has had in 30 years. In fact, he just mentioned it in his speech. He has spent the last week or so saying it is absolutely reckless to borrow for infrastructure. Here is a simple fact: the 2008 Budget shows that the New Zealand Government is short of cash. So how is Dr Cullen paying for his big infrastructure—

Jill Pettis: National’s borrowing for tax cuts.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I will come back to that. How is Dr Cullen paying for his big infrastructure projects if the Government has no spare cash? He is doing it in two ways. One is by borrowing and the other is by selling assets.

Dail Jones: Oh!

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member from New Zealand First does not realise what is happening. What Dr Cullen has been doing, and has not told anybody about, is this sequence of events. Labour has opposed tax cuts relentlessly for 7 years, because it said that anyone who cuts taxes is reckless. I think at one stage Dr Cullen said that people who make such suggestions should be taken out and drowned. When Dr Cullen was not cutting taxes, he had big surpluses. He had so much cash he did not know what to do with it. Then in the 2008 Budget he decided to cut taxes. Now a curious thing happened when he decided to cut taxes. It turned out that the Government was going to be short of cash and was going to have to borrow. Are these coincidences? I do not know. Dr Cullen said that taxes should not be cut in case we had to borrow. If we read the 2008 Budget, we see we are $12.8 billion short of cash over the next 3 years, and we are going to borrow half of that. So he had the tax cuts and now he is borrowing. Did Dr Cullen know that was happening, or does he just pretend he is not doing it when he says everyone else is borrowing for tax cuts?

Let us come to the other half of the story. He is selling assets. The Government is $12.5 billion short of cash. It is going out to borrow $6 billion of it. That is in the Budget. That is what Dr Cullen is doing—

Jill Pettis: We’ve just bought back the railways.

Hon BILL ENGLISH:—whether or not that member likes it. The other thing he has done is that during the times of large surpluses the Government accumulated short-term financial assets. Now it is selling them.

So let us get this clear. The Government has got a tax cut programme. That is in the Government’s books, and it says: “We are selling $6 billion worth of financial assets.” That is what the Budget says. It does not matter how moralistic and worked up Dr Cullen gets, it is pretty simple. The Government has a big tax cut. It has an infrastructure programme. It is $13 billion short. It is borrowing $6 billion of it, and it is selling $6 billion of assets. Dr Cullen had the choice of putting that spare cash into reducing debt and he did not. He did not do it; he chose to keep it as an asset because he knew that if he had tax cuts he would have to borrow a whole lot more money. So he hid it in the Government’s books.

Let us get it clear: there is an infrastructure programme and there are tax cuts under Labour. Labour is borrowing $6 billion and it is selling $6 billion of assets. That is the accounting reality; that is in the Budget. When Dr Cullen goes on about reckless borrowing, I just have to laugh. It is like the thief who goes around saying everyone else is a thief to make sure they are not looking at what he is stealing; that is what it is like.

Let us come to the next issue, which is prudent debt levels. The Labour members will, I hope, read the Standard and Poor’s outlook for New Zealand’s credit rating. We have had discussion with Standard and Poor’s—it is the responsible job of an Opposition party because it is an international credit-rating agency—and we have talked to it in general terms about the plans that National has. Its verdict for the outlook for New Zealand is that it does not matter whether the Government changes, the fiscal management will be responsible. I think that is very generous to Labour—very generous—because it is promising to live on a Budget of about a half, in fact, less than a half, of what it has lived on for the last 4 years. It makes it absolutely clear that the public debt levels in New Zealand, which are among the lowest in the developed world, are reasonable and prudent.

It does not matter how much the new, great economist, Helen Clark says, she is talking rubbish. I will tell her what her 2006 Budget said. I ask members to remember that John Key has advocated 22 percent of GDP as a prudent and conservative debt level. That will allow us to borrow a bit more money—in the middle of a recession, for Lord’s sake—to get a few things up and going, and unclog the arteries of this economy. He advocates 22 percent of GDP. In 2006, the debt level was 23 percent of GDP, and this is what the Government said: “Our assessment is that gross debt at 23 percent of GDP has now been reduced to prudent levels.” So in 2006 it was a triumph of fiscal management that our debt “has now been reduced to prudent levels”. Yesterday Helen Clark said it was hilariously reckless. Why would we believe her? What would she know? I bet she did not read the 2006 Budget. Then the Labour Government said this: “We came to this view because we believe that gross debt is no longer a constraint on the capacity of fiscal policy to ‘look through’ temporary economic shocks;”. What does that mean? It means that when debt was 23 percent, Labour thought it was sufficiently prudent that if we were hit by an economic shock, it would not be a problem.

Well, we have got a shock—it is called the recession. In Wanganui, it is a recession, in Hamilton it is a recession, and in Auckland it is a recession; that is Labour’s gift to New Zealand. That is why National has plans to get this economy up and running again. We believe that with prudent and conservative debt levels—

Jill Pettis: Why do you need to be borrowing more then?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is because it is at the level that Labour said was prudent. I ask the member to read the Budget—that is the problem—I ask her to read the damn thing. What it actually says is that a debt level of 23 percent of GDP is prudent and we can withstand an economic shock. National agrees. I agree with what Dr Cullen says about public debt in his official documents, not in his rants in the media. I agree 100 percent with what he says about public debt in his Budgets. National’s plans are prudent and reasonable, but, more important, they show a bit of vision when this country is plunged into recession.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : Earlier today there was a great deal of mention of what happened in 1984 under the Muldoon Government. When I was listening to the previous speaker, the Hon Bill English, he reminded me so much of Roger Douglas—in the sense that Roger Douglas would speak for 20 minutes and one never understood a word he said. That really goes for Mr English, who tends to confuse everything so dramatically that one is left totally floundering afterwards. There is one similarity, perhaps, as Mr English has already indicated: we all remember that Roger Douglas said before the 1984 election that he would not devalue, and straight afterwards he did. It seems to me that there are many things that National Party members are saying they will not do, but it is very clear that they will do. The main point, of course, is that they are now admitting before the election that they will break their promises even before the election has been held.

However, as far as New Zealand First is concerned, I could refer to the many things that New Zealand First has done. I could refer to the tremendous amount of infrastructure, especially in roading, that has been brought about as a result of New Zealand First’s intervention—especially, for example, in John Key’s own electorate of Helensville. As a person who used to live in Helensville and who uses the Upper Harbour Highway, I am very pleased that so much money has been spent to build a second Upper Harbour Bridge.

I could talk about the increase in police numbers. I was very pleased to read today that Mr Broad, the Commissioner of Police, has stated that in so far as support for key operational parts of the police service are concerned, it has reflected the growth in staff numbers rising “from 9,874 three years ago to a projected 11,800 by the end of the current financial year.” That is an increase of almost 2,000 in police numbers. So if anyone says there will be a further increase of 1,000, then that appears to have already been done, although that figure is obviously for police and support staff. Thanks to New Zealand First’s intervention in working with the Labour Government, police numbers have risen dramatically.

I could talk about New Zealand First’s support for KiwiSaver, Kiwibank, and suchlike, which we will want to keep and see expanded. There has been an increase in New Zealand superannuation, to 66.2 percent of the net annual wage for married couples. I could also talk about what we want to see in the future by way of an increase in New Zealand superannuation, to 68 percent. We want to see a decline in GST and in tax rates.

However, what I really want to talk about today might be a terribly boring subject for all of us in the House, as we continue along with our comfortable salaries and comfortable way of life, but tens of thousands of New Zealanders are in dire straits today because of the problem arising in the finance sector, which this Parliament has failed to address. I am not aware of any other party that has been willing to discuss this issue, but thousands of New Zealanders out there are in trouble—superannuitants, students, families—

John Hayes: Give them a donation from your trust fund.

DAIL JONES:—and all the National Party can say is “Give the superannuitants and the students who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars a donation.” That is from the National Party. Mr Hayes from Masterton said: “Give them a donation.” He said that we should give all those people who have lost their money a donation. That is a cynical National Party interjection.

I tell Mr Hayes from Masterton that these people cannot pay their medical bills, they are struggling with their rent, they cannot pay for groceries, they are struggling to clothe their children, and they are struggling to clothe themselves. Often they get no interest from finance companies to make a contribution to their grandchildren’s upbringing. They are having to pay for leaky homes with money that they thought they had put safely in a finance company, and they are not getting that money back. Many of them are struggling to survive, and the National Party says: “Give them a donation.” Gosh, even Marie Antoinette would have been embarrassed with that type of statement.

These finance companies and mortgage funds are getting away with daylight robbery, in my view, and all that Mr Hayes and the National Party can say is: “Give the people a donation.” What absolute rubbish! How uncaring can the National Party be? How can we describe the actions of people who are holding on to people’s funds as anything other than daylight robbery?

The National Business Review, as far as I can see, is the only magazine that has tried to look into this issue to any great extent. It stated quite clearly in the recent issue: “Panic is destroying the country’s financial structure. At last count, 27 finance companies have ceased to function. The destruction of wealth is high—some $4.5 billion”—I say to Mr Hayes—“has been lost or frozen.”

What are we doing about it in this Parliament? I have sat here from the beginning of this debate today and I have heard a couple of speeches that were confused totally by Mr English, and Dr Cullen has quite clearly set out the Government’s position in so far as recent events are concerned. But I would ask members to think in this debate about those people out there, including students and people across all age groups, who thought they had a good nest egg but who cannot get their hands on their money. What will we do?

New Zealand First has suggested—and the Rt Hon Winston Peters suggested this at the New Zealand First conference—that we should be setting up some sort of a Government fund. The National Business Review makes the point that it is a question of liquidity. The country has been very liquid, with all of the money that has been floating around. I say at the outset too that I congratulate the major trading banks on the way that they have been dealing with the situation. They are clearly sound. Of course, all those people who put their money into these borderline activities must realise that they have to take some responsibility for trying to get just an extra 2 percent. But it is still a problem that this country, this Government, and this House must consider. After all, we are talking about $4.5 billion. It is no wonder that the National Business Review says it is a liquidity problem. It is no wonder that we are heading into recession. It is all very well for the National Party to say that we are heading into a recession, but what will we in this Parliament do about it?

A total sum of $4.5 billion is tied up. Probably $1.5 billion has been lost, but $3 billion is tied up. Who are the people who have tied up this money? We know that some people have borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from these companies, and that millions of dollars, even tens of millions of dollars, have been taken by some of the directors and shareholders of these companies. So what is being done about it? What is being done visibly about it?

I suspect that something might be done about it behind the scenes in terms of various legislation, but this House should be doing more about it. We should be talking more about it and offering solutions. The obvious solution would be to set up a select committee urgently next week to consider what should be done to save people who are struggling to survive and to pay for their medical bills, their children’s modest schooling charges, and suchlike. But it seems that no other party in this House except New Zealand First is interested in this issue. It is a vital issue.

As a student in the 1960s I saw crises when our company law was changed because of Australian problems. As a lawyer I saw problems in the 1970s and in the late 1980s. Fortunately, the 1990s were not too bad, but now we have probably one of the worst crises in the financial sector ever known to New Zealand. I ask what this Parliament is doing about it. [Interruption] I am sure that Mr Hayes will get the chance to repeat to everyone that these people who are struggling should get a donation. We should be doing more about it, instead of making some of the comments that have been made in the House tonight, and the Rt Hon Winston Peters has already made a suggestion.

Well, I say to those companies that stand up blandly now and say—it seems to be an excuse today—that their company is in trouble, that their fund is in trouble, and that they will have a moratorium, and all we seem to do is to stand around and clap, that is pretty useless. Are those people business people? They all get well paid, and they are using the money of poor struggling New Zealanders. Some of them are very well off and might have a lot of money, but the country deserves better than that from these businessmen.

Those businessmen should front up and at least pay the interest that is due to people from the mortgage funds—and we are talking about the second sector; not the finance sector, but the mortgage fund sector—so that they can pay their medical bills and suchlike. If those business people will not do that, then we have a responsibility in this Parliament to do something about it. Otherwise, we are shirking our responsibility, and New Zealand First says that something needs to be done. We should at least set up a select committee to look at the issue and try to come up with a solution.

Of course, people have to realise that if they go for extra percentages, then they will always have a problem. In the old days we used to have solicitors’ mortgage funds and suchlike, which never really failed unless a solicitor did a bunk with some money, in which case all of us had to shell in and people were protected. That sort of protection does not exist today, and we may have to see the establishment of a special fund, where a certain amount of the money deposited in these accounts is put aside to at least cover interest for a certain amount of time. New Zealand First says to the members of the House: let us face up to this issue, and let us do something about it.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) : What a difference a week in politics makes! A week ago National Party members were swaggering up and down New Zealand telling anybody who would listen to them that they had the election in the bag, and that “Everyone loved that nice man, John Key.”, to quote Bill English. Some of them were so arrogant as to ask what sort of self-drive ministerial car they could have and where the ministerial houses were. I have no doubt that some of them have already bought the smart new ministerial suits, and that those suits are hanging in the wardrobes right now.

National Party members have felt very bitter about their long wait to get into power. They are the ones I call the “ageing-in-place members”—the Tony Ryalls, the Bill Englishes, the Nick Smiths, the Murray McCullys. Well, they have put many New Zealanders on notice. They have said it is payback time if they get into power. They have said: “Look out, public servants, because you are for the chop.” They have said they will not sack those people, but there will not be any jobs for them. They have said they will lower the lid on public servants. They will not replace them when they leave. So when a social worker leaves, that person will not be replaced. When a prison officer leaves, that person will not be replaced. But those jobs will not be cut out. They have said to their opponents, to students, to workers, to beneficiaries, to tenants of Housing New Zealand, to outspoken elderly, and to Labour-friendly businesses: “Look out!” They have said: “Look out!”, to all those who have slighted them over the past 9 long years. They have said they will soon be in power and they intend to use it.

Well, something went horribly wrong at the staged National Party conference, and we are seeing the continuing fall-out from it. I could have predicted that something was going to happen, because I got a taste of it on Friday. I was walking past the Wellington Town Hall when I was stopped by two beautifully dressed, blue-rinse National Party delegates. They stopped, smiled at me, and said “Hello. Are you going to register? Could you show us where to go?”. I asked them what they were registering for and they said “The National Party conference.” I said it was the wrong conference for me. I said I was a Labour member of Parliament. So I suspect that they were still trying to work out who people like Craig Foss were, because they had no idea, although they certainly knew then that I was a member of Parliament.

It was written on the wall that it was going to be a conference where there would be problems. This was the conference where delegates were told when to smile, when to clap, and when to give standing ovations, and, most of all, when to keep their mouths shut. They were told it was not a conference where they could speak out. They were told they were there to look pretty and to smile when they were told to. But the minders—the Steven Joyces, the Crosby/Textors, the Murray McCullys—did one thing wrong. They forgot to tell the loose-lipped caucus members that they had to button up. They forgot to tell them that they ought not to be saying anything; they were told to leave it to that nice Mr Key.

They forgot to tell delegates to turn off their tapes, as well. And they forgot to tell the deputy leader, Bill English, not to disclose the real agenda. They forgot to tell Bill English not to tell the truth. That is what they forgot to tell Bill English. I have a message for the National Party and Bill English: they cannot unscramble this egg. They cannot put those words back in their mouths. They cannot apologise their way out of this. Bill English does believe in selling Kiwibank. He said that National would sell Kiwibank eventually. I want to remind Bill English of something. He was in this House week after week, asking questions of me about a secret tape recording of Mike Williams at our Labour Party conference. He said that Mike Williams should resign. A secret tape was disclosed in the media, and Bill English said that Mike Williams, the president of the Labour Party, should resign. But I am saying to Bill English that he should resign. If he has standards, and if he believes in what he said, he should resign. The truth is that he did not believe in what he said when he apologised yesterday. He did not believe in that apology, because he does believe in selling State assets. He got caught out; he had loose lips. In fact, in my view, it was a candid moment when Bill English told a delegate he thought he could trust what he intended to do.

Now we have John Key, the leader of the National Party and the would-be Prime Minister, running around New Zealand, having press conferences and telling the media that the Labour Party is to blame for taping National members’ conversations at their conference. Let me put this scenario to members: Labour Party members were so clever that they were able to evade tight security and the cordon around the National Party conference; get themselves dressed up in twinsets and pearls; get the blue rinses, the invitations, the passes, and the delegate credentials; pay the money to go to the conference; get through the door; and get up close and personal with National members of Parliament at their cocktail party. Labour Party members were able to grill those innocent National members of Parliament about National policy, but all the while nobody had noticed those Labour Party infiltrators who had managed to get into the National Party conference, who had shown their credentials and passes, and who had paid their way in. Not a soul had noticed it. They were able to smuggle out those secret tapes and give them to the media.

I suppose that we can take it from that that Labour Party members had secretly taped the Labour Party conference, and then had gone out and given the tape to the media so the media could beat up on Labour, as well! That shows members how ridiculous John Key was, out there in the media today, when he said it was dirty tricks from the Labour Party. I say to John Key that he should listen to himself—just listen to himself! Why is it that when things go wrong with John Key it is everybody else’s fault—his indecisiveness, his flip-flops, his lack of principles, his memory loss, his confused statements, his insecurity, his secret dealings with the Exclusive Brethren, and his own comment about the stealing of emails from Don Brash’s office, which he tried to blame on the Labour Party? The police said the theft was not by the Labour Party, and Diane Foreman—who should know—said it was much closer to home than that. But now Mr Key is blaming the Labour Party for exposing the truth about what National’s agenda will do. He is lashing out at absolutely everybody.

I believe that the exposé actually came from the National Party’s own supporters. They are appalled. They are appalled at National’s retreat, at the double, to traditional Labour Party policy. They are appalled at a party with a proud, long history giving up everything it believes in to get into power, and, to quote John Key, “doing whatever it takes”. It does not matter whether it is principled and whether it is good or bad; National will do whatever it takes to get into power.

We are now told that the comments of Bill English and Lockwood Smith do not reflect what the National Party intends to do. Perhaps we could have believed that if there had been only one person and only one occasion. But wait, there is more. Some of us remember, earlier this year, that Maurice Williamson made it clear, at the Automobile Association conference at Mount Cook, that climate change was a hoax as far as he was concerned. A few days later Lockwood Smith said the same thing. Both of them were told to close their mouths, and their denials floated through the air like confetti. There is a pattern there. The National Party’s policy is to lull the public into believing that nothing will change under that nice Mr Key.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: You just made that up.

Hon ANNETTE KING: Lockwood Smith is interjecting. Well, I suppose I made it up that he said: “But wait. We wait until we’ve swallowed a few of those bloody dead fish.”

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Those are not my words, either.

Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh yes, those are the words on the tape. I suppose the tape was doctored by the Labour Party! But that is what he said. This whole debate around the issues that have been raised by Mr Key and Mr English is nothing but a smokescreen, because we know that National will sell State assets the minute it gets the chance.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) : This is supposed to be the appropriations debate, where senior Government Ministers stand up and defend the record they bring to this Parliament. It is a little bit rich for Annette King to stand up in this House and talk about National’s plan to sell State assets. What about her sale of State assets when she was a senior Minister in the previous Labour Government? She is the Minister who sold Telecom, the Shipping Corporation, the Government Printing Office, and Government Computing Services. She can leave the Chamber, but the list of 17 State assets that Annette King wanted to sell—

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member knows that it is out of order to mention a member’s presence or absence in the Chamber.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, actually, he mentioned neither. He said you could leave the Chamber.

Hon Annette King: He did not say that. He said I was leaving the Chamber.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, he did not. He said you could leave the Chamber.

Hon TONY RYALL: Is the member disagreeing with the Speaker? Is she denying his ruling?

Hon Annette King: Yes, I heard what you said.

Hon TONY RYALL: Oh, OK. One thing she cannot deny is that she was a Minister in a Government that sold billions and billions of dollars of State assets. She does not want to participate in this debate any more. What about the $4 billion of Telecom sales? What about the Government Printing Office? What about the Shipping Corporation of New Zealand? What else was there? When that Minister was last in Government she sold 17 other businesses, and she was also the architect of the shameful Electoral Finance Act.

This is the appropriations debate. It is all about the role of the Government in the New Zealand economy next year, and I would like to spend my contribution focusing on the things that matter to New Zealanders. Whereas the Minister opposite could have taken the opportunity to talk about this Government’s plan of action for the next year, which is in this document, she instead decided to focus on things that are irrelevant to the importance of living in New Zealand today. There was not a word from the Minister about the Government’s plan to deal with the economic pressures that ordinary New Zealand families are facing.

I would like to share with members a quote from a maiden speech that I think is quite apposite for this debate. “For most people in my electorate the past few years have brought falling living standards. Although gross incomes may have kept up more or less with inflation, real wages have not. Taxation slices heavily into average and below-average income today. Then out of that reduced net income our people must pay even more for their daily needs. Rents are up, mortgage interest rates are up, and so are food prices and Government charges across the board. Free quality public education is fast becoming one of those memories of the good old Labour days, as is adequate public health care.” Does that sound familiar? That was Helen Clark in 1982. This leader spent her whole history campaigning to try to improve the lot of working people, and there is not one difference from what she said in her maiden speech in 1982.

Families are still under pressure in New Zealand today, mortgage interest rates are higher, and the cost of living has gone up. Does the Prime Minister even know the price of a loaf of bread or a pound of butter? Does she know the cost of a block of cheese? Does she know that ordinary families are struggling in this country today? Does she know the difficulty of trying to make ends meet, with high mortgage interest rates? Does she know the difficulty that families are finding with high petrol prices? Those are things that she was concerned about in 1982 when she was a new member of this House, but 26 long years later she is very much out of touch with the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders. She does not focus on the things that matter any more. For example, instead of her Government dealing with the concerns of ordinary families about making ends meet, what is she going to do? She has instructed Work and Income staff that they are now no longer able to refer to benefits by name. How will having benefits that dare not speak their name, like the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit, help anybody get off a benefit? Judith Collins asked an excellent question today. What happens if someone comes in and says that he or she wants to apply for a sickness benefit? Well, Work and Income staff cannot actually say “Yes, I can give you the forms for the sickness benefit.” All they can say is “I can give you the forms for income support.” Is this not ridiculous? How politically correct a nanny State is it?

Sue Moroney: It’s Tony Ryall’s fairy tale.

Hon TONY RYALL: Sue Moroney says that it is ridiculous. Well, it is actually happening in Work and Income offices today. Staff are not allowed to mention the name of the benefits.

What about the “Wassup!” badges? Instead of trying to encourage young Māori to do well and to admire the great leaders that they have, the Ministry of Education gets them walking around with badges that say “Wassup!”. That is not important; that is not focusing on the things that matter. What about this other thing the Government is doing, with the Public Health Bill? That is nanny State on steroids. Do members know what it is doing now? Ministry of Health officials came before the Health Committee and said that this bill will allow them to set up codes of practice for what parents should put in their children’s school lunch boxes. The Government will set up codes of practice for what parents can put in their children’s school lunch boxes. I think Mrs Turia was there when the officials said that they were the sorts of things that codes of practice could be set up for. Do members know what will happen? If the Ministry of Health does not think that parents are obeying a code of practice, it can regulate to make parents obey their code of practice.

This Government does not focus on the things that matter. One thing that matters is rewarding hard-working New Zealanders through lower personal taxes, giving people the opportunity to get ahead by keeping more of their pay in their pocket every week. This Government said for 8½ years that New Zealanders could not have tax cuts because it would mean cuts to health and education. Well, what has happened? Dr Cullen has all of a sudden said that there are tax cuts. We ask where the cuts to health and education are. The fact is that New Zealanders can have tax cuts—they can have more tax cuts—without diminishing our important public services.

What about educational standards in New Zealand? Is the Government happy that so many young New Zealanders leave school without being able to read and write to their chronological age? One in five young New Zealanders are leaving primary school without being able to read and write to their chronological age. That is the thing that matters. There is nothing in this appropriation bill about national standards or about supporting families to help their kids get more skills in reading, writing, and maths. There is nothing in this that does anything about that—there is nothing about national standards.

What about Helen Clark’s speech, where she talked about inadequate public health care? Does anybody in this House really think that the New Zealand public health service is all that it could be? Does anyone think that the public health service is all that it could be? I am not one of these people who stands up and says that the health service is as good as it gets, like that Minister of Health there and the Ministers in the failed Health Ministers’ graveyard do all the time. Our health service could be doing a lot better, because we have fantastic medical staff and fantastic health staff who need to be released from the huge shackle of bureaucracy that has grown up around the health service so that they can care for patients. We heard in Parliament today that since the middle of 2001 over 2,000 new district health board managers and administrators have been employed. We will find in the House tomorrow—when the Minister of Health comes down and admits that he was comparing numbers that cannot be compared to try to say that we have more doctors in New Zealand—that we actually have fewer new doctors in our hospitals than managers and administrators who have been employed over this time.

These are the matters that really make a difference to ordinary New Zealanders: the chance to get ahead, lower taxes, making sure that kids have a good education, and making sure that there is a good quality health service so that they do not have to go the emergency department and wait 3 days on end. Will people being treated on hospital trolleys in corridors actually become the standard of care in New Zealand hospitals? That is what is happening today. What about the code black at Dunedin Hospital? Staff were simply unable to deal with people coming in the door. There was a code purple in Auckland, where staff were unable to deal with patients walking through the door. Is that the sort of public health service that New Zealanders want? What is in the appropriations bill about that? What has been in the speeches of members opposite about providing for New Zealanders the quality health services and the quality education service that they need, and the chance for their families to get ahead through lower taxes?

Helen Clark spoke about those in her maiden speech in 1982. She talked about the fact that ordinary people were struggling to make ends meet in the face of higher charges and higher prices. She cared about it then—what does she think 26 years later? Is she focusing on the things that matter? Is she focusing on what will help families get ahead? No. She is too busy focusing on getting re-elected solely for the purpose of having a fourth term—solely for the purpose of being able to say “Been there, done that.” She is not focusing on what she could achieve for the people of New Zealand, and that is the failure in this appropriation bill.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) : I start by thanking the taxpayers of New Zealand. None of what is proposed in this Budget—or in any of these Budgets—would be possible without the taxpayers of New Zealand actually paying their taxes. I think it is forgotten that we are spending money that they give over—admittedly forcibly—but nevertheless they are contributing in order to make this country a better place. It is important to remember that taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society. There is nothing ideologically wrong with taxes. Sometimes when I listen to members, particularly National and ACT members, talk about taxes, it sounds as though they think there is something evil about taxes. There is nothing wrong with taxes in principle. I think it is more a question of how we use taxes. Obviously we can use taxes better or worse, we can be more efficient or less efficient, and we can waste them or we can use them well. But it is important to remember that the idea of taxes and the idea of a civilised society are really at the core of what is in this Budget and of trying to achieve what is in this Budget.

One of the problems with this Budget from the Green Party point of view is that sometimes, when listening to Labour and National members and looking at the Budget, I feel it is like watching someone run into the future while facing backwards—rushing rapidly into a maelstrom while looking backwards the whole time at what has already passed. Building a roading programme on the basis of oil being $60 a barrel—or whatever the latest low figure that Transit is using is—is rushing rapidly into the future while facing backwards and imagining the future will be like the past. The future will not be like the past. We live on a finite planet, and on our finite planet we are running into real issues of resource depletion and limits to the ability of the planet to absorb our pollution and wastes. That, if nothing else, is really the defining reality of our age. As we go into the 21st century the defining question is how we, as a species that is completely addicted to exponential growth of resources and pollution, change our behaviour so that we live within the ability of the planet to continue to support us.

In the Green Party’s view, this Budget fails to tackle that fundamental problem and that fundamental challenge facing reality. Many manifestations of that challenge are already starting to occur. It is extraordinary but true that we are now living in the era when resource depletion is already starting to be seen. It is obvious in the price of oil—the era of cheap oil is over; we will never go back to cheap oil. The price of oil will go up and down, but the long-term trend is only up. In our view, this Budget still fails to come to terms with that reality. When we look at the price of food, we see that it is heavily influenced by the price of oil, and is also heavily influenced by the amount of agricultural land and what other competing uses that land is used for—obviously biofuel production is one of the problems. But also we have a global problem whereby we have an exponential growth in population, but not an exponential growth in arable land. In fact, the amount of arable land is declining, so it is not surprising that the price of food should go up.

Water is probably the defining environmental issue of our country. We have only a limited amount of clean, fresh water. There is not an infinite amount of it, yet we have an agricultural sector—in particular, but other sectors as well—with exponential growth in its demands for that water. The result is enormous competition for that water, and declining quality of water. Water is a finite resource; there is not an infinite amount of fresh water in New Zealand. Yet, the way our economic system is behaving, it pretends that there is, and we are running into resource depletions. We have the same problem with fisheries. New Zealand’s quota management system is often lauded. Obviously, there are worse systems, but we know that the quota management system has resulted in the collapse of fish stocks. It has not worked as a sustainable way of managing fish. Of course, the final and global issue we face in all of this is the global problem of climate change. The planet has a finite ability to absorb our greenhouse emissions without fundamentally altering the climate.

Those are the key challenges we think this Budget fails to address. It makes progress in some areas, yet things are getting worse in others. There are a couple of issues I want to pick up on. One is public transport.

Peter Brown: Say something positive.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: There are some positive initiatives about public transport coming out of this Budget. However, the truth is that the average figures coming out of the strategy projections released yesterday show there is a 5:1 spend on roads versus alternatives to roads being projected into the future, which seems to me not really to be coming to terms with the fact that the era of cheap oil is over. We have been pushing for some time to change the balance in spending between roads and alternatives to roads such as public transport, walking, and cycling. That seems to me to be the key thing.

The next thing we need to do in terms of future-proofing our society and economy, and one of the things there has been some progress on in the Budget, relates to insulating houses. We think we probably have about 300,000 uninsulated or very poorly insulated houses in New Zealand, which has tremendous impacts on health, as well as energy use. One of the key things we want to see is much greater investment in retrofitting and insulating houses. We think that would make quite a big difference to people’s quality of life and cost of living, and have environmental benefits in terms of increasing energy efficiency. Tied into this, in terms of the rising cost of living, is that if we invest in alternatives to road use and private motorcars, that is one way to reduce people’s cost of living and make it much more affordable as the price of oil continues to go up. It saddens me that both sides of the House propose investing in roading infrastructure, which seems to be locking in a dependence on a commodity whose price can only go up. So those people who are on the edges of our big cities and towns are going to be dependent on cars, with ever-rising oil prices, to get themselves to work and back. That is a fundamental mistake.

One of the things that is not in the Budget but would be good to have in is a levy on water, particularly on commercial water use. The Greens think we have to transform our tax system so that it moves away from taxing wages and towards taxing resources and pollution. We want to use a tax system that actually improves things, rather than one that taxes the things we want more of, like work and productivity.

I would also like to mention health, because there have been some very odd comments about health. The comments that keep coming about the nanny State and health are ridiculous. Is National proposing that we start smoking in our offices again? National would say it is because of the nanny State that right now in this House we are not allowed to light up a cigarette. That is clearly the nanny State. We are not allowed to have a cigarette in our offices, or a cigarette in a restaurant, because of the evil nanny State! It seems to me that those are all really positive measures. I cannot believe that when National gets into Government it is proposing to reintroduce cigarette smoking into restaurants and bars. Is National proposing to put cigarette smoking back in restaurants and bars because it is the nanny State that stops us from smoking there? I think that is ridiculous. They were excellent health measures.

If, in the long term, we want to reduce the price of our health system, we have to invest in primary and preventative health. Public health is the best investment we can make in the long term, in terms of reducing the cost of health. Why would we oppose measures that reduce the long-term costs on our health system, such as measures to try to reduce smoking, which National calls nanny State, but which I think are really good public health measures? I will be very interested to see National’s response to that.

In this Budget the Greens have about $100 million over 5 years for a number of packages, and I would like to talk a little bit about those packages. First we have about $50 million over 5 years to retrofit insulation into State housing. That is another 21,000 uninsulated State houses that we will be able to retrofit with insulation. We are extremely proud of that. It is only a tiny drop in the bucket of what we need to do, but it is a real gain and it is one the Greens fought hard for. We got about $10 million over 4 years for the Community Organisations Grants Scheme, which can give financial support to not-for-profit voluntary and community-based organisations. This is a devolved funding scheme to community groups and non-governmental organisations, and we think it is tremendously important that we support the community sector.

We also have about $4 million to look at a citizens’ jury to consider the funding of elections. The Greens have always taken the view that the best body to look at the funding of elections and all the rules around them are actually not the people in this House. It should be away from political parties and away from all the vested interests that are making donations to goodness knows who. A citizens’ jury, which has been used in Canada, would be a much better way to go. We also got about $8 million over 4 years to support five major research projects on climate change and conservation land, and we think they are really important. We got the National Community Biodiversity Fund, which is $4 million over 2 years to fund restoration projects to protect indigenous biodiversity on public land. The national antibiotic resistance surveillance scheme is the last of our projects that I would like to mention. There is a heap of others, but this scheme is a classic preventive health measure. If we can stop antibiotic resistance developing we can reduce the long-term costs to the health system.

The Greens will be abstaining on this Budget, as we do, but we take credit for those particular measures and we encourage members on both sides of the House to look at the long term, to look into the future, and at the impact of a finite planet on their Budgets.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of State Services) : I begin by acknowledging some of the comments made by the previous speaker, Russel Norman of the Greens. I agree with him that we need to spend more money on public transport, and I thank him and his party for the support they have given to those measures. I think it is true that the Greens have been influential in ensuring that more of the land transport budget is spent on public transport. Although it might not be as much as the member wants, it is a fifteenfold increase on where it was 9 years ago. It is a very substantial increase, and we are starting to see results from that in Auckland in particular, where improvements to the bus service on the Northern Busway and rail improvements are starting to bear fruit with increasing passenger numbers. This is good for people because it gives them affordable choices for getting to work, and it also reduces the environmental impact on the planet.

It is pleasing to see that other parties, like New Zealand First, are increasingly recognising the importance of public transport, as evidenced by its support for these measures. Indeed, the introduction of off-peak free travel for senior citizens who are using public transport was at the behest of New Zealand First. I think there is a growing consensus across the Government and within the Greens. I also note that the Māori Party is supportive of measures that reduce our reliance on fossil fuel modes of travel.

I would like to talk more generally about infrastructure. There has been a lot of debate about infrastructure in the papers in the last week because National has proposed as one of its election planks the idea that we spend more on infrastructure. National members say that that is the reason why New Zealand should increase its borrowings as a percentage of GDP. National members pretend that the need to fund infrastructure would cause them to borrow more money, but we know they would be borrowing for tax cuts.

I thought I would illustrate why that is true, but before doing so I thought we should remind ourselves of the lessons of history—lessons that most of us in the House remember. It was in fact a National Government, under Sir Robert Muldoon, that left this country on its knees, virtually bankrupt. We had the highest Government debt to GDP ratio in the OECD. It was 60 percent of GDP. This meant that in those days $1 in $5 that was collected in tax was spent in interest. If the ship had not turned within a year or two, it would have risen to $1 in $4 of all tax being collected being spent on interest. The predecessor to this Labour Government, the previous Labour Government, started to get that under control—

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: No, it increased debt hugely.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No; as a percentage of GDP, it got debt down. There was a short period, following taking over from Mr Muldoon, when of course it was impossible to turn that round overnight because we were left with the settings from the previous National Government, which included an $8 billion Government deficit. An $8 billion deficit way back then was absolutely enormous; I think it was 6 percent of GDP in the last year of the Muldoon Government. It was just enormous. Subsequent Governments have brought that under control, and we now have debt down to 18 percent of GDP. This Government has an ambition to keep it at 20 percent of GDP or below. National is going into the election campaign saying it will increase the debt, and its excuse is that it will do so in order to pay for infrastructure.

I thought I would give the House some information as to what, in this Budget—and in recent Budgets—is going into infrastructure. We know there has been an unprecedented school building programme, and it is about more that just new schools—and there have been plenty of those. Capital infrastructure in existing schools has had more spent on it in the last 10 years than has been spent on it for many decades, and in this Budget it is projected to continue.

In respect of hospitals it is the same. We have built new hospitals from Invercargill to Kaitāia, and in many towns and cities in between. That has been funded while we have been reducing debt.

Peter Brown: What about roads?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Mr Brown asks about roads. In addition to having a fifteenfold increase in spending on public transport, much of which has been spent on new infrastructure, roading has had a significant increase in spending. I think there has been a doubling of the amount spent on new roads, and there has been a very significant increase in spending on capital works generally in respect of roading. Again, that has been funded without increasing debt.

On the energy front, transmission expenditure was running at an average of less than $50 million per annum under the National Government in the 1990s. It is now, this year, $450 million. It increases over the next couple of years to about $750 million in a year before dropping off a little bit, but, going forward, it levels off at about $250 million to $300 million per annum. Again, that is being done without increasing New Zealand’s debt levels.

If we look at power generation, we see that last year more than 500 megawatts of electricity were added to the system. That is more than 3 years’ demand growth. This year 400 megawatts of renewables alone are being built, against demand growth of around 130 megawatts per annum, and we are on our way to achieving our target of 90 percent renewals by 2025. There is an estimated 1,400 megawatts of new capacity coming onto the system in the next 5 years, and more than half of that is geothermal and just about all of it is renewables. Again, the point is that all this extra infrastructure is being built without increasing Government debt.

So I have covered education, I have covered health, I have covered transport, and I have covered energy. In all those areas unprecedented new infrastructure is being built. and we are not increasing debt to do it. That proves, beyond any doubt, that a National Government would not be borrowing for infrastructure; it would be borrowing for tax cuts. In the process, in order to achieve that, it has to increase Government debt. Why a Government would do that at any time, I do not know. It is not a good idea. Why a Government would do that now is particularly silly, given the international financial situation and also given the high levels of private debt in New Zealand. We have high levels of private debt, so why we would take a risk and add to that higher level of Government debt, I do not know.

An interesting question was raised in the House today by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He asked what other conservative Government in the world would be talking about increasing debt levels at the moment. I thought about that question, and I thought about the prime comparison I would make between Mr Key and the National Party, and overseas conservative Governments. Who is doing that overseas? President George Bush in the United States is doing that. That is a country that has rapidly escalating differences between the rich and the poor, and deteriorating social services for those who are most in need, yet that is the model a National Government would adopt for New Zealand. It would borrow for tax cuts. It does not need to borrow for infrastructure; we are doing really well on infrastructure.

What else would National do? It would have to stop putting away money for the superannuation fund that we need in order to fund superannuation for the increasing number of people who are reaching retirement age. The OECD has said that what we are doing now is the best practice in the world and that we should continue to do it. The National Government would stop putting sufficient money into that fund. Does it care about that? No, the Opposition spokesman on finance was a Minister of Finance under the previous National Government when it cut the baseline for superannuation from 65 percent of the average wage for a married couple to 60 percent. It was letting the rate go down. National increased the rate of superannuation only three times in its 9 years in Government, so the amount went back every year by the rate of inflation in those other years. That same person, Mr Bill English, is on the record a couple of years ago as saying that New Zealand’s superannuation is too generous—that we are too generous to our older people. He is on the record as saying that; there is no doubt that he said it.

We need to be contesting the sincerity of people’s comments, as we go into an election, by judging what they have told people in recent years and what they did last time they were in Government. There is no need to borrow for tax cuts as National is proposing. It makes no economic sense. We do not need to do it for infrastructure reasons. The final comment I would make is we hear National saying it would change the Resource Management Act in its first 100 days in office. That entire infrastructure that I talked about has been built under the Resource Management Act and consented to under that Act—every bit of it! It either did not need a consent or it got one. I will leave the issue there.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) : In speaking to this appropriations debate in 2008, I would like to quote from a very important Labour Government document, which states: “This year the Government is budgeting for a financial surplus of $89 million. In cash terms we are budgeting for a surplus of almost $5 billion. This cash surplus includes the revenue from the sale of Telecom and the Crown’s commercial forests.” That document is the Labour Government’s Budget in 1990 when Helen Clark was Deputy Prime Minister; when Michael Cullen, a former Associate Minister of Finance, was Minister of Social Welfare; David Caygill was Minister of Finance; and Phil Goff was Minister of Education. After the election when the books were opened, this Government document was shown to be a lie. One of the reasons why this Budget document in 1990 was a lie, when Helen Clark was Deputy Prime Minister and Phil Goff was Minister of Education, is that Phil Goff—and I know about this personally—and Michael Cullen for that matter, spent money unlawfully leading up to the 1990 election, for which there was no appropriation in this Budget at all. Phil Goff was Minister of Education at the time and the Ministry of Education was having palpitations. It was being directed to spend money, leading up to the 1990 election, to try to save Helen Clark’s skin.

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: Before the dinner break I was reading from Labour’s Budget document of 1990, when Helen Clark was Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen was Minister of Social Welfare, and Phil Goff was Minister of Education. The Prime Minister and those key Labour Ministers of today were absolutely at the heart of the 1990 Budget. I quoted from that Budget: “This year the Government is budgeting for a financial surplus of $89 million. In cash terms we are budgeting for a surplus of almost $5 billion. This cash surplus includes the revenue”—listen to this—“from the sale of Telecom and the Crown’s commercial forests.” When Helen Clark was Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen, a former Associate Minister of Finance, was Minister of Social Welfare, and Phil Goff was Minister of Education, Labour was selling $5 billion worth of State assets and claiming an $89 million surplus. As I said before the dinner break, that Budget was a lie—an absolute lie.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to make two points. One relates to the unparliamentary language that has just been spoken. I do not think that calling people liars is parliamentary. The main point I raise is that, as far as I am aware, this is the imprest supply and appropriations debate for this year, not for 1990. But I think my substantive point has been usurped by the language the member used. He used a very, very unparliamentary term. I cannot find a Standing Order that says we can call other people liars.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): With all due respect to the member, I think I heard the member say that the Budget was a lie. I do accept that this is a debate on the current Budget.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I will not spend a lot of time on this, but it is important. The 1990 Budget was a lie because when the books were opened, the claimed $89 million surplus was proven to be a deficit of more than $1 billion. It was a deficit of something like $1.5 billion, which would climb to $3 billion and then $5 billion if nothing was done about it.

One reason why that Budget was a lie was that key Ministers, particularly the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and the Hon Phil Goff, spent unappropriated money in the period leading up to the 1990 election. I know that because I followed Phil Goff as Minister of Education, and the Ministry of Education was having palpitations about the illegal spending that Phil Goff had ordered it to make. I will repeat that to get it absolutely on the record of this House: Phil Goff, the Minister of Education in 1990, ordered his Ministry of Education to spend money to try to win votes in the lead-up to the 1990 election. When the skids were under that Labour Government, Phil Goff ordered the Ministry of Education to spend money unlawfully. Phil Goff knew that it was unlawful, but still he ordered it to be spent. How do I know that? Because when I became the Minister of Education, I had to make legal the unlawful spending that Phil Goff had ordered while trying to win votes in 1990, when the skids were under Labour.

Those were the kinds of dirty tricks that Labour played then. Labour just ignored the law and spent money unlawfully. Ask Jenny Shipley, who followed Michael Cullen as Minister of Social Welfare. She can give chapter and verse on making lawful Michael Cullen’s illegal spending, and I can give chapter and verse on making Phil Goff’s unlawful spending legal. That is what Labour members did when the skids were under them. That was their dirty tricks campaign in 1990. They spent taxpayers’ money to try to win votes. It did not matter whether there was any appropriation in the Budget for that money—it did not matter a damn. But Phil Goff never had to account for it, because he was thrown out in 1990. He never had to face up to the fact that he had spent tens of millions of dollars—more—unlawfully; money for which there was no appropriation.

This time, when Labour is on the skids again, Labour Party members who claimed to be Young Nats entered a private function and illegally recorded private conversations. Labour members think that that was good. If that is the standard they think is acceptable, they should just say so. If they think that it is acceptable for a person to pretend to be a delegate at a private conference and to record private conversations unlawfully, then let us hear it. If Labour members think that that is OK, let them condone it—because the public of New Zealand think that it is disgraceful. That the Government of our country has sunk to that level shows just why this Government has lost any idea of what New Zealanders think as they look ahead.

I see Clayton Cosgrove sitting opposite. I want to talk a bit about this Labour Government’s performance in immigration. In April last year, the chief executive officer of the Department of Labour, James Buwalda, discovered that unlawful decision-making had been going on in his department. He briefed the Hon David Cunliffe in April last year that he suspected that unlawful decision-making had been going on. He established an inquiry into that unlawful decision-making. By the time the inquiry was completed, Graham Fortune had taken over as acting chief executive officer of the Department of Labour. He briefed the Hon David Cunliffe again in August last year.

The Hon David Cunliffe knew that unlawful decision-making had been going on at Immigration New Zealand and he covered it up. He uncovered it then covered it up. Again, Labour was trying to play dirty tricks. He covered up the fact that his department was making unlawful decisions. When the media heard about this in December last year, they sought information under the Official Information Act. Immigration New Zealand and the Department of Labour, under this Labour Government, fought for 4 months to keep it covered up. They tried to keep it covered up from December last year until April this year, and were finally forced to release the information on the Thursday evening before Easter weekend.

The cat was let out of the bag that the Hon David Cunliffe had willingly and knowingly covered up seriously unlawful decision-making at Immigration New Zealand. Government policy was being breached and unlawful decisions were being made. We know that David Cunliffe knew that. Labour Ministers know that David Cunliffe knew that. There has been a cover-up, and the Auditor-General will uncover that. Finally, the public will get the truth on this. This is just more from a Labour Government where anything goes. Illegal or not, it does not matter; it will cover it up if it can get away with it.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : I will focus tonight on what the Māori Party believes that the Government has not done so well. We acknowledge that the Government can get out and tell the public what it does well, so my job is to point out what things I think have not gone so well.

Treasury tells us that we are in a recession. July was bleak not only in terms of the weather—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Would members from the major parties—the noisy parties—let the member from a third party speak.

Hon TARIANA TURIA: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. The monthly overview of the July economic indicators was also dreary. Two quarters of GDP contraction are considered a technical recession, but there are other signs that shaped the June quarter: business activity declined, consumer confidence deteriorated, retail sales were soft, the housing market remains weak, exports fell, and the only thing that rose was the consumer price inflation.

However, the droopy economy is not evident just in Treasury statistics. Indeed, the appropriations for the 2008-09 estimates were crammed full of doom and gloom. It is not just the economic indicators that are declining. According to the report of the Local Government and Environment Committee on Vote Climate Change, in the last 8 years the proportion of electricity generated from renewable resources actually declined, from 72 percent in 1999 to 66 percent in 2007. There was not much of a transformation. Yet, while the Government has invested $10.4 million in the public sector in its efforts to inspire leadership on climate change, the emissions of the Ministry for the Environment have risen by 22 percent in the past year.

Other areas of the 2008-09 estimates are equally dismal. Vote Education sang the praises of Schools Plus, the new flagship policy that will kick in in 2011, but for those of us who are worrying about the ongoing issues of systemic failure today, 3 years is a long time to wait. For Māori students, even the Ministry of Education’s own research tells us that the educational system of 2008 is more aligned with “schools minus”. “Schools minus” can be seen in the kotahitanga project in terms of the experiences of year 9 and year 10 Māori students in mainstream classrooms, which identified that “deficit theorising by teachers is the major impediment to Māori students’ educational achievement for it results in teachers having low expectations of Māori students. This in turn creates a downward spiralling, self-fulfilling prophecy of Māori student achievement and failure.”

The Māori Party has brought to the House week after week the evidence around “schools minus” as it impacts on Māori: the high rates of exclusions, early leaving exemptions, and the national tragedy that only one in every two Māori boys leaves school with a National Certificate of Educational Achievement qualification. But there are other aspects of “schools minus”, over and above the achievement and participation crisis. Last week a worried father approached me, to tell us of the shameful life that his boy is enduring as a result of bullying at school. According to the Youth 2000 survey of 10,000 secondary school students, one in three students are bullied at least once during the school year and 3 percent of all students stay away from school at least once a month because they are afraid of being bullied. The father whom I spoke to was insistent that he not be named, his son having implored him not to make it worse for him.

We must ask ourselves the hard questions. Why are our Māori students leaving in such high numbers? Why is school such a hard place to be, and what can we do about it? We need to bring back meaning to what is fast becoming a myth—that school days are the best days of our life. The Māori Party believes that our young are the fresh hope of our future. We must invest in them, we must protect them from harm, and together we must work with them to plan a strong future. The estimates describe Schools Plus as a transformation of secondary schooling, and that is all good. But no matter how flash the systems are to monitor truancy, it is more than a matter of keeping children in school; it is about having a vision and belief now that inspires every student to aim for success.

During this debate we in the Māori Party have consistently raised the issues around poverty. We have brought attention to the issues around price hikes in fuel, food, and power, while at the same time exposing the huge holes appearing in our safety net. But there is a particular edge to our understanding of child poverty that must take us past what the former Commissioner for Children Dr Ian Hassall calls the “sterile self-centredness and acquisitiveness” of a society that disregards the interests of children. Every day we are reminded of the links between poverty, poor nutrition, overcrowded and damp housing, and preventable infectious diseases. These are the families whose lives are always lived in a recession.

We now have one of the highest rates in the developed world of children admitted to hospital, yet according to the Minister of Health, health expenditure has doubled in the past 9 years and New Zealand is beginning to see results from this investment. If that is the case, then let us see who the beneficiaries of this expenditure are. Are the beneficiaries of the increased expenditure the disproportionately high numbers of Māori and Pasifika children who are struck down by respiratory diseases and pneumonia? Are the beneficiaries of the increased expenditure those patients who are being charged up to $250 to see a doctor after hours? A recent survey revealed that more than 40 clinics were charging high fees of more than $45 for children aged 6 to 17.

Health and well-being have been significantly eroded by a Government content to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents being in paid work. As our communities know only too well, 150,000 of the poorest children in our land have been left behind, and the most affected of this group are Māori and children from the Pacific. How can it be said that they are the beneficiaries of increased expenditure?

Are the beneficiaries of the increased expenditure the numbers of sleepers on the streets—those people having difficulty finding appropriate and affordable accommodation? We heard this morning that the number of homeless who sleep within a radius of 3 kilometres of Auckland’s Sky Tower has jumped from 65 last year to 91 this year, and, unfortunately, over half of those people are Māori. No matter how generous the cash surplus or how affluent the wealthy, no one can describe New Zealand as a prosperous nation when still so many suffer severe and significant hardship.

There are some immediate and tangible steps that the Māori Party would want to see brought to the nation. We are seeking to extend the formula applied to the in-work tax credit to ensure that all families with children can benefit from support, to provide a universal child benefit, to set a deadline to eliminate child poverty so that progress can be achieved, to exempt from income tax those who earn up to $25,000—we do not believe it is important that those on high incomes should have any tax exemption—to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and to remove GST from food.

We believe that opportunities must be provided for every person in this land to achieve to the highest levels of his or her potential, regardless of the person’s ability to pay. Opportunities must be provided to ensure we give full regard and respect to the well-being of all people as a priority for our social and economic planning. We are tired of the false dichotomies that perpetuate inequality—rich versus poor, Schools Plus and “schools minus”, the well and the unwell, and those in work and out of work. The welfare of each person is bound up in the welfare of us all. This is not a choice that we can opt out of. Kia ora.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance) : I have a lot of pleasure in speaking in this debate, and in following Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith. He gave us a very interesting history lesson about the 1990 Budget. I will make an observation: the National Party has switched. First, its members attacked us. They did not want to talk about any policy, because they do not have any. Then, after the last 48 hours, they are so desperate that they have to go back to 1990 and wheel out an old Budget document—which I think has faded from red to orange because it is so old—and talk about that.

I want to give Dr Smith a history lesson. He talked about integrity, broken promises, and all those things. I just say that over on that side of the Chamber sits a man who broke his word, in writing, to every tertiary student in the country. Do members know what he said? He pledged to get rid of tertiary fees. He pledged to resign—we have heard those words from someone else; I think it was Mr Key—if he did not keep his word. He said he would resign because people need to have trust in politicians. He broke his word. That member was chased out of a room—I think he leapt out of a toilet window. He did not go out the front door like a man. He was chased out like a scared child, and leapt out of a toilet window because he could not face the people whom he had broken his word to. Yet that member has the temerity to get up in this House—

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. One is faced with a dilemma. I know you will say this is just a debating point, but if I raise a privilege issue it will get nowhere. The member just claimed that I climbed out of a toilet window. I actually went through a French door that the students themselves in the engineering department use continually to go in and out.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): That is not a point of order. I tell Dr Smith that that is a point of debate.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I did sign a pledge in 1990, and my dilemma is that if I raise an issue of privilege, it will not go anywhere. One has to defend one’s rights.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): The member has raised two debating points, not points of privilege. A lot of things are said in this House that either side wants to debate. This is a robust debate. I heard you in your speech make points that could have been debated against, and the member is taking them up. We will continue the debate. I am sorry, but that is not a point of order.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Speaking to the point of order, I ask whether my time is being adjusted for the points of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Yes, it is.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Let me correct the record, because I would hate to get it wrong. Dr Smith has told us that it was not a dunny window; he ran like a scared child out of a French door—

Hon David Benson-Pope: Up high.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Up high. It was a French door on a window ledge up high. He ran like a scared child from a bunch of university students because he had broken his word. I remember that great show Dad’s Army; remember that? Was it Private Frazer who said “They don’t like it up ’em.”—the old cold steel? Well, that describes that member. He does not like it when his own history is reported back to him.

Now we get to the good bit. Dr Smith tonight talked about dirty tricks. I will say that I am against people taping other people’s conversations—as is every member of this Government. It is not right. That member got up, of course, with a smokescreen. What was the first thing he and his leader did? They blamed the Labour Party. We heard it tonight. That member over there said the man was a Young Labour or a Labour Party member, and that it was a disgrace—he blamed the Labour Party. Of course, he never addressed the fact that he had been caught with the proverbials around the political ankles. That is why he blamed the Labour Party.

But Dr Smith has a problem tonight: I invite him to go and look at tonight’s episode of Close Up. That learned journalist, Mr Hosking, did a sort of political rotisserie—to quote Paul Keating, “did him slowly”—on his leader, Mr Key. I wrote this bit down because I thought it was a classic. Mr Hosking said to Mr Key that he knew that it was not Labour. “You’re flying a kite.” Mr Key’s answer: “Ah, yeah, OK.” He said: “Ah, yeah, OK.” He admitted tonight that he knows that it was not a Labour Party member. He admitted that tonight because at 6.05 p.m. on TV3 Duncan Garner confirmed that he had gone back to his source and asked: “Are you a Labour member? Are you a National member? Are you a member of any political party?”, and the answers were “No.” Dr Smith does not like that, but I will quote the words again. “You’re flying a kite.” The answer: “Ah, yeah, OK.” So I say to Dr Smith—

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: So what?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: “So what?”, he asks. Well, I invite him to go to his leader’s office and say to his leader “So what?”, because he does not believe his leader.

The truth is that nobody accepts dirty tricks, but today we have seen the ultimate depth of dirty tricks. John Key, without a shred of evidence—he now admits he did not have any—tried to protect “Dumb and Dumber” over there, Bill English and Dr Smith, and Nick Smith too, who has been caught out again now that he has got out of the clinic. John Key immediately blamed the Government and accused it of dirty tricks. That is what he did. The reason he did that—and now he has had to retract it, and we will probably read that in the papers tomorrow—is those members got caught out.

I want to read a quote from a member of Parliament who occasionally resides in my electorate called Kate Wilkinson. Here is what she said about National Party principles on 25 January 2007 in the New Zealand Herald: “We’ve got core National Party principles and philosophies and that’s what we were founded on and I don’t think we should depart from those principles. Having said that we also have to have policies that are wanted by the voters, so it’s important to get that balance right without departing from those core principles.” Well, my word, have we seen a departure! They are in the departure lounge, all right. They have departed from every core principle they ever had.

When Mike Williams was taped—it happened to us, and we did not accuse National—National demanded his resignation. As Hosking said on TV tonight, the National Party ate off every headline. Well, I ask which of Huey, Dewey, and Louie over there will resign for the comments they made. Will Mr Key get up and sack one of them? Which one will resign? They called every day for Mike Williams to resign. He had done nothing except make a statement.

Well, those people, of course, made statements. On Close Up tonight Hosking asked Mr Key: “You will not sell Kiwibank, full stop?”. Mr Key could not get the answer out; he could not confirm it. Mr Hosking on Close Up even said this: “See, this is where it gets slippery.” Those are the words he used. Then at the end of the show—[Interruption] Oh, they do not like it. The old tumbleweed over there does not like it, does he? The old cold steel is moving vertically. He does not like it. Then at the end of the Hosking show, when he could not get an answer out of Mr Key about Kiwibank, and Mr Hosking—

Chris Tremain: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I refer to Standing Order 107, “Relevancy”, in the debate tonight. This is an experienced member of the Labour Party and a Minister in the Cabinet. This is a significant debate on appropriations, and there are a lot of pages in the bill that the member can refer to and a lot of policy that he would be able to talk to about in terms of taking his party forward. He is 5 minutes into his speech and so far we have heard nothing relevant to the appropriations debate.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: This is the second reading of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2008/09) Bill and the third reading of the Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill. Either of those debates is as wide as any general debate before the House. All topics can be considered, and unfortunately for the National Party that includes the National Party.

Chris Tremain: Our speakers have been pulled up. In fact, on that note, Madam Assistant Speaker, you pulled up Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and asked him to be tighter in the debate. That is in conflict with what the Leader of the House has said.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): I am sorry, but I did not ask Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith to be tighter. I made the comment that he had been speaking about another Budget, and I was trying to be even-handed between the two members at that stage. That was a 1990 Budget.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Part of the appropriations is to pay these geniuses’ wages, so that is what we have to hold them accountable for. That was the rearguard action of the National Party. That is the best those members can do. The best they can do is send out that young fella—a nice chap; I thought his dad was a magnificent rugby player—to defend Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith.

The problem they have, apart from his breaking his word, is that he got caught. But to give him credit, because we cannot say that someone is speaking an untruth—and I would never say that—it was his speaking the truth. Mr English did as well, and we caught them. I was on radio with Gerry Brownlee this morning and this issue was debated, as one can imagine. Did Gerry refute any of the allegations? Did he try to defend his mates? He did not refute one allegation, because he knows they are completely indefensible. I invite Dr Smith, as he recounts history, to recall the history of no ifs, no buts, no maybes on the pension, when he broke his word again; of the student fees, when he broke his word again; and of the Apprenticeship Act, which he abolished, breaking his word again. He stands up in this House as a man of credibility!

Well, I want to know from Dr Lockwood Smith—and Nick Smith admitted on his sort of Larry King Live show that Crosby/Textor is used by these people—first, whether Crosby/Textor faxed over the lines for that speech from Australia. If so, he should ask for his money back. Secondly, who paid for it? Was it the taxpayer or the National Party? Those members would not talk to us about Crosby/Textor. There was denial after denial and they would not tell us. Well, Nick Smith has done it for us.

I think we should give Dr Lockwood Smith another call. I reckon we should get him on his feet again, because that member has absolutely no credibility. The only thing of relevance that he said tonight was that it was not a dunny window but a French door. He ran through a French door like a scared little possum, away from those terrible university students—threatening as they were. I remember being on the Finance and Expenditure Committee when they brought him in a cake. Mark Peck was the chair at the time. They brought that member a cake to mark the debt that he had put upon students, and he ran like a little boy. He scuttled out of the room because he did not want to take the cake. So that member has no credibility.

The real dirty trick that we are into now is that the member John Key, on no evidence, accused the Government. He admitted that. I call on him to apologise. This will be a test of his mettle and this will be a test of his leadership, because we know he has a hollowed-out group that stand behind him.

TIM GROSER (National) : Madam Assistant Speaker, putting aside your own ruling on the relevancy of the speech we have just heard from Mr Cosgrove, I want to tell you that I personally enjoyed it. I enjoyed it in spite of the fact that in the brief time I have been in Parliament I must have heard that speech about the student riot—a speech attacking the member who 18 years ago was a National Minister of Education—about six times.

It is understandable if people are mistaken, but what we are meant to be debating is the Budget strategy of a Government that is into its eighth year. Let me say this: I have decided to look at this positively. I am no longer going to refer to this Government as being of 8 years’ standing; instead, I am going to put my glass down on the table and declare it to be half full, and I am going to start referring to the fact that there are only 100 days left of this Government. For Mr Cosgrove, the member who was speaking about the National Minister of Education of 18 years ago, there is actually some good news about this. I predict that although some of the Ministers may be shattered by what happens when the New Zealand electorate is finally given its head to talk about, and deliver a judgment on, this Government, I think Mr Cosgrove will be one of those Ministers who will take to being in Opposition like a duck to water. I think he will actually find himself in hog’s heaven, because he will have a real, live, actual Minister of Education to attack, instead of having to drag through this eternal story. It is a story that I have heard only about six times, but God knows how many times other members who have been here longer than me have heard it. He will come in here with his little finger wagging in the air, with his phoney sense of outrage, and he will be in hog’s heaven as an Opposition MP. We can see it very clearly. So I think that for Mr Cosgrove it is not all bad news.

There are only 100 days left before we deliver Mr Cosgrove into the Opposition, and I am afraid that I think those 100 days will be pretty ugly. This Appropriation Bill is a statement about the Government’s overall economic strategy, and we have to look at this in the context of where we have been during this period. It strikes me that it has been a bit like a long school holiday as we remember it in our youth. The first 5 years were like those glorious first 6 weeks when we as children could look forever into the endless summer holiday, and we thought that time would stand still. In fact, we realised as we grew a little bit older that we would sit up one day and find: “My God, time has passed by. We have only a few weeks left.” This Government spent the first 5 years of its time in office, having walked in—with all the arrogance that the famous, or infamous, phrase “We won. You Lost.” implies—in golden sunny weather. We had the best terms of trade for a quarter of a century, inflation was at 2 percent, unemployment was falling, and there were low interest rates for mortgage holders. Everything was looking great and those members opposite had the opportunity to pick up the ball, run with it, and take this country forward. But, no, that was not their political choice, for reasons that anyone who is familiar with the internal political history of the Labour Party from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s understands. They set about building a coalition. That was their priority.

Labour made its choices, and now in the autumn of this Government we can see what the real situation is. Violent crime is out of control in what Labour members would have considered to be a Labour Party stronghold in South Auckland. They have the second-highest interest rates in the developed world. The rubber has hit the political road out there in the mortgage belt of New Zealand, as New Zealanders struggle with these realities. We have the financial companies collapsing around our ears. We have productivity that has tanked. Inflation has gone well out of control. We have had a situation where inflation in the non-tradable sector has been out of control throughout the life of this Government. Absolutely nothing has been done about it. Fortunately for this Government, until recently the tradable sector, aided by a high exchange rate and a cost-reduction process—coming in primarily from China—has kept the headline rate under reasonable control. What has happened now is that the chickens have come home to roost. What has happened now is that, on top of a problem that was never addressed in any serious way by this Government, we have inflation coming in from the external world, and we are now looking at inflation of nearly 5 percent. We are looking at a situation where our people are struggling out there. And what has been the Government’s response? Well, we will not find it inside its Budget strategy. It has been politics pure and simple: first, rort the electoral laws of this country; second, try to attack the personality of the Leader of the Opposition, and as soon as these attacks are launched they evaporate within an hour.

The third step, which we have seen in a very ugly way, is to start engaging in dirty tricks. This is the Labour Party political elevator: “Come in. We are going down. This is going to get ugly.” In contrast, National has put forward a programme that actually identifies what the real issues are. We will tackle violent crime. We will tackle the underperforming sector of our education that produces 150,000 kids who are barely literate and barely numerate after years of compulsory education. We will not shy away from these tough problems. We will attack the taxation structure with a determination and an understanding of how crucial it is to reincentivise middle New Zealand. We will put controls over Government spending while maintaining the actual frontline services that New Zealanders want absolutely intact. We have given an unconditional guarantee to our superannuitants that we will maintain all the entitlements and all the rules. Nothing could be stronger than an explicit statement by our leader that he would personally resign as Prime Minister and from Parliament if there is any going back on that promise. You cannot get a clearer political commitment than that.

National will reform the electoral finance rules. Although some people—and I might be one of those people—would want to put the Labour Party on the political naughty mat for a time, once we have repealed that Act we will get together all the political parties and try to forge a multi-partisan understanding of how we can have a fair contest. The next leg in this double is that we will ask New Zealanders, finally, what type of electoral system they want so that people will have a choice going forward.

National will deal with our infrastructure issues. We all know what the problem is for New Zealand: it is a lack of productivity and a growth problem. That is why 80,000 New Zealanders are leaving our shores every year—80 percent of whom are under 40, the people this country can least afford to lose. That is the problem; debt at 20 percent is not the problem. We will address the real issues. This will be a welcome contrast to what is set out in the Appropriation Bill by this Government.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) : Tuatahi e te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. E te Kaihautū o te Whare i tēnei pō, tēnā koe. E taku hoa Lockwood Smith, ka aroha ki a koe. Kia ora tātou katoa.

[Firstly, greetings to you all, the House. Greetings to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, this evening. To you, my fellow colleague Lockwood Smith, I pity you. Greetings to us all.]

I give greetings to members and to my fellow Northlander Dr Lockwood Smith. I never thought I would see or hear a proud man of the Kaipara say he had to scurry through a French opening. I never thought I would have to go back to Whangarei, Dargaville, Kaitāia, Kaikohe, and Kerikeri, and confuse—or join—the notion of Northland manhood and the concept of French. I ask Dr Lockwood to please spare me and all our people of the north from hearing any more of those references.

But of course I have followed Mr Tim Groser, with his burlesque-like performance that is a gross imitation of being a politician. Every time the man stands he reminds us that he has not yet made the transition from being a paid, talking, protracted rhetorician in the issues of trade. I tell him that this is a debate that lies at the heart of why Labour will continue governing, and why the crowd that he is a part of is definitely losing its way.

Let us just look for a start at what we enjoyed last week. We were forced to suffer the spirit of triumphalism around this House. We saw Mr Key, followed by the sight of Mr English quietly sticking a dagger—if not verbally, then figuratively, and possibly physically—into the back of his leader. They were promenading on their way to victory but fell at their own party conference. National members found that even amongst themselves they could not tell the truth. No, they had to remain with one surface reality in this House, and then try to destroy, dislocate, and distract the fresh minds of young people, as per Bill English. I ask those members not to come to this House to promise that they will simply keep the policy mix of Labour going, while at the same time they are telling the Australians and other corporate backers that as soon as they get in here, after they have consumed smoked fish, dried fish, rotten fish, fish heads, fish guts—

Dr Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Am I wrong in this? This is the third reading of the Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill. What is the focus that the member is bringing to bear on the title or content of the bill?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): All right, I think I will settle this debate. We have looked at a variety of things reported from Mr McGee, but I will read to members from Speaker’s Ruling 120/5: “Whilst the second reading debate”—and one presumes a third reading debate—“on the Appropriation Bill containing supplementary estimates may be quite wide-ranging, it is not another Budget debate. As far as possible the debate should be relevant … However, it is the winding-up debate of the financial year and may therefore cover an overview of the policies for which the Government has sought …”. That is a reference to appropriations, and this is the third reading of the Appropriations Bill and the second reading of the Imprest Supply Bill. There is a further reference, other than the one we have taken out, from McGee’s Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, page 476: “As is the case with the Address in Reply and Budget debates, in practice there are virtually no limitations to this debate on the grounds of relevancy.”

Dr Richard Worth: I would seize on that word “relevancy”. From an earlier comment you made, it seems to me—and I am sure the member is going to come to this—that relevancy will dominate the remaining comments he makes.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): I think I have almost made the point.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I agree with you absolutely, and I do not challenge your ruling, but—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Is this a new point of order?

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: It is indeed. I would say that we have had, on not less than three or four occasions, members of the National side of the House deliberately raising the same point that you have been good enough to rule on. It is a deliberate attempt. We had another one there from the “member for Monaco”, in a deliberate attempt—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Oh—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: —a deliberate attempt—to break up members’ speeches. That has not been reciprocated, but it can be if they continue to cause disorder. I invite you to advise them on the appropriate course of action, because it is not appropriate to break up people’s speeches after you have ruled.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you. I have heard the points of order. I think we have clarified the situation, by reference to McGee—and there are further quotes that say that the field is virtually wide open and that it would not be proper for me to intervene. These are other quotes from previous Speakers.

Dr Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am honoured to be called “the member for Monaco”, but it is inappropriate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Totally.

Dr Richard Worth: —and it is wrong, and the member should desist from that. These are childish games played by a childish person.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you—be seated. I ask the member to desist.

Hon SHANE JONES: Far be it for me to suggest what that contribution had to do with the price of fish! But if we are to come back to the content of the Budget and the appropriations, I must repeat what the man from Waimakariri had to say: that it covers the wages, the costs, and the expenses incurred to pay for Australian experts, etc. Of course there is one sitting not very far from the member, but that matter is for another time; that is why it is totally relevant.

In the course of today we have had Mr Bill English stand and talk about Kiwibank, and about a host of other issues. If National members are going to sell those, if they are going to privatise them and corporatise them, I ask them just to own up. Then we will get into the campaign—and frankly I cannot wait for it to start. Then we will debate the merits, the vices, and the virtues. Of course, Bob will not be with us. Bob—sorry, Mr Clarkson—will not be with us.

Winston Peters most certainly will be. Winston Peters does not have the word “quit” in his name. Winston Peters realises that far too many of his erstwhile colleagues are now in what was once a proud organisation but is now one that has fallen into disrepute as a consequence of finding it a strange experience to be accurate and to be faithful to its original tenets. At least if National members had stood and fought in the way Winston did when he was a part of that party—perish the thought—then they would have stood very firmly for unfettered private gain and unfettered bouts of capitalism. But they are fearful of doing that. What they hope to do is slowly but surely blend together what they have with what we represent. But of course Winston Peters can see through that. He knows that their agenda is to drive him out of this House, and, mistakenly, they think they are going to end up with all his votes.

Let us come back to a couple of key things. In the context of this appropriations debate, I say that National hopes in the future to waste money when it enrages every iwi in the country by wiping out the Māori seats. Unfortunately for Māori voters, now and again our friends from the Māori Party, in what must be the cream of jests, decide to acquiesce with that. But the Māori seats will never disappear until the voters on the Māori roll determine that it is time for them to go. They will never disappear as a consequence of Don Brash, Muldoon’s mokopuna, Bill English, or anyone else vainly thinking that an edict can be issued from the National Party and the seats will disappear. Not only will disharmony and discord flow but those members will be permanently on the benches of their tūrangawaewae—the Opposition.

Let us continue on the subject of MMP. In an attempt to decrease the number of women—of course it is possibly not a bad idea on that side of the House—and to decrease the number of Māori, National is now going to try to liquidate MMP, an additional cost. MMP exists on the spirit, the strength, and the belief of our young people. Our young people want to see a House of pluralism. They want to see a House of diversity. They do not want to see the monolithic social studies teaching of Rangitoto College, and that sort of homogeneity. No, no! They want to see some tangata whenua and some greenies—irrespective of whether we agree with them all the time. Pasifika people do not want to see the milk-reared kids of the 1950s.

Bob Clarkson: You’re only here because of MMP.

Hon SHANE JONES: I say to Mr Clarkson that that is why the members are all clapping! Mr Clarkson is going home. He will drive over the bridge that Winston Peters developed and paid for through taxpayers as a consequence of his parliamentary advocacy.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Back to the rest home.

Hon SHANE JONES: No, I cannot say that Mr Clarkson is going back to develop rest homes or to occupy a rest home, but I wish him well, because during the time that Mr Clarkson has been here, not a single workable suggestion has been put on the floor of the House as to how to fix the Building Act. I unwisely invited him to bring me suggestions. I unwisely suggested that he meet with officials. I unwisely told him to write and distil what he thought could be done.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Bit of a stretch—bit of a stretch!

Hon SHANE JONES: No, no. Apparently he even approached my colleague Clayton Cosgrove at one stage, who realised that unfortunately Mr Clarkson came not only with a little scribbling pad but with instructions: “Come here, turituri te māngai; say nothing—say nothing!” So I say “Bring your not inconsiderable wealth, and kia kaha, Mr Clarkson. You have been a successful man in that wealth and you will be going back to it.” I tell Mr Clarkson that his political wealth here is zero. His political wealth here is in very, very bad territory.

Bob Clarkson: Who pays you?

Hon SHANE JONES: No, no—I tell Mr Clarkson to go home and enjoy that.

The other thing that our friends from the other side of the House are proposing, and quietly hoping to do, is not only to come into the House without admitting one single new idea but to ape everything while preparing for more privatisation in education, proposing more privatisation in health, and proposing to strip away Mr Peters’ new foreign affairs budget—and shame on Mr Hayes for wanting to strip that away; that is dreadful! The budget is set at $600-700 million as a part of our geo-political international beachhead to burnish our credentials and ensure that our status ranks with the highest and most fine nations in the OECD. But the penny pinchers—the Micawber-like penny pinchers on that side of the House—are sitting there, ready with the shaving knife, thinking they will find money by reducing the endowment and the fine works of Mr Winston Peters. But that will not happen—no, no, that will not happen.

Not only is National hoping to shrink the size of the budget, but it is hoping now to disembowel school teachers. We know what Mr Peachey is up to, which is why that man will never be given anything to do with education other than an old strap and a cane for self-application. National members know that not only will there be riots but we will have the vast, worsening problem of our rangatahi, our young people, fleeing from school the moment that Bill English and John Key are possessed with the notion that their policies can be accurate, faithful, and lucid to the people of Aotearoa. Kia ora tātou katoa.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) :Tihei mauri ora. Whakataka te hau ki te uru, whakataka te hau ki te tonga, kia mākinakina ki uta, kia mātaratara ki tai. Kia hī ake ana te atakura, he tio, he huka, he hau hū.

Let me tell the members what that whakatauākī means: cease the winds from the west, cease the winds from the south, let the breezes blow over the land, let the red-tipped dawn come with a sharpened air, a touch of frost, a promise of a glorious new day. The reason I began with that whakatauākī is that it is about time that this country experienced a glorious new day in politics.

Tonight we have sat here listening to Mr Cosgrove and to Mr Jones. Both have stood up in the appropriation debate, and they have had the opportunity to speak loud and proud about the policies of their Labour Government, to speak to New Zealand about where they are taking this nation forward, and to tell New Zealand what they stand for and where they are going. And what have we heard tonight? We have heard personal accusations, and personal attacks, day after day. They have been hitting our guys and not coming through with their policies. Tonight I would like to take the opportunity to share with the House some of the key policies that New Zealand will have the option of choosing within 100 days as we come to the next general election. If National is fortunate enough to be the next Government, then in 365 days’ time National members could be standing here in an appropriation debate putting our policies into action. It is those polices that I want to focus on today.

New Zealanders are faced with a clear choice at the moment, as they get nearer to the next election. They are faced with a choice, against the background, officially announced by the Reserve Bank yesterday, of a recession. Interest rates are up. They are some of the highest in the developed world. We have some of the highest food prices, domestically, rammed up by 5 percent inflation. Mortgage rates are going up and people are going onto higher fixed interest rates. House values are dropping, equity is coming out of people’s homes, and many are faced with mortgagee sales. Many of their hardworking mates are fleeing to Australia—80,000 last year. Investment funds are closing up here. Kiwis are now concerned about strong brands such as AXA New Zealand, Guardian Trust, and AMP. Business confidence is at its lowest ever. Kiwis are faced with a big decision at this election. They will look at that background and they will consider the policies of the two major parties. There was an opportunity for the two Ministers to get up tonight and tell New Zealand what they stand for. But all we heard were personal attacks. It is these things that the New Zealand public will decide on. The reason those Ministers did not use this opportunity to speak on policy is that they know the New Zealand public have stopped listening to them on policy.

At the weekend, National’s leader stood up and laid out a programme, a plan to go forward, which New Zealanders can buy into and follow. It was a five-point economic plan, which begins with reining in Government spending. Hardworking Kiwis are faced with that very issue right now. They have to look at their own budgets line by line. They have to look at the cost of their petrol, their food, and their mortgages, and on every line they are having to make decisions about what they can keep and what they cannot keep. John Key will take into Government the sorts of policies that can deal with those issues. That is what National will be fighting this election on. National will keep control of that spending and make sure that every dollar counts. That is what is happening in small business too. If we walk around my Napier constituency and talk to small businesses, we will see that they are finding it tough. They are going through every line, every item—whether it be photocopying or stationery, they are having to make tough decisions about spending. That is the type of Government that National will bring.

Secondly, in terms of bureaucracy, John made it clear that we will cap the bureaucracy and not allow profligate growth in that area. The members opposite who are in constituency seats will know that small businesses are struggling out there. Motor vehicle sales are down by 19 percent, furniture sales are down by 18 percent, speciality food sales are down by 13 percent, and appliance sales are down by 6 percent. It is tough out there. Small businesses, over the last 7 or 8 years, with bureaucracy of their own are looking at ways to reduce internal costs. My own businesses back home have had to look at customer services and marketing hard and clear, because it is damn tough. Unfortunately, we have had to try to take some of the fat out of the equation, and that means hard yards. So National has a policy around capping that bureaucracy and making sure that every job in the bureaucracy is focused on something that is going to deliver a result for this country. That is why John’s focus is on front-line services, on nurses, on doctors, and on police.

The third area that we spoke about was education. There is a raft of policy that has been rolled out already that I can talk about tonight. For example, National has a clear policy on national standards in education that will help the 25 percent of kids in our country who are not making the grade. It is a fantastic policy. National also has a youth guarantee that will keep 16 and 17-year-olds in education. That focus may not be on mainstream education, because those kids may not be focused on that, but it is about keeping them in education and off the dole, and giving them a future. It is another great policy to take this country forward. Our trades in schools policy is another fantastic policy that was delivered months ago. New Zealanders are turning on and listening to our policies, which—if we are lucky enough in 365 days’ time—we will be appropriating for at the next appropriation debate, going into the next Government.

Our leader spoke about our taxation package. I added up the billions of dollars of surpluses that this Government has had in the last 8 years. It has had $48 billion of surpluses. It has taken this side of the House to push this Government to the taxation-cut altar and push it to start giving hard-working Kiwis some incentives to get them back up on their feet, working hard, and trying to take this country out of the recession that it is in now. Our policies are about progressive, long-term taxation cuts that will give hard-working Kiwis the incentive to get out there and work harder. That is absolutely fantastic, and I am proud of that.

The last thing I want to talk about is our policy on infrastructure. Did we hear anything in the appropriation debate from two of the key Ministers over there, Shane Jones and Clayton Cosgrove, on their infrastructure policy and where their vision on that will take them into the future? Our leader, John Key, announced a major policy platform: a $1.5 billion roll-out of fibre-optics. There was a further roll-out of infrastructure policy over the weekend. Mr Key quite transparently agreed that we will need to borrow to achieve it, and that we will need to increase the borrowing as a percentage of GDP from 20 percent to 22 percent. Yet we have a document from the 2006 Budget that states that 23 percent of borrowing against GDP was considered prudent. The Government signed off the document saying that that was a prudent level of debt. But here we have a Government that thinks our vision of a ratio of 22 percent debt to GDP is profligate and not prudent. Well, that is ridiculous. The National Party has a fantastic policy on infrastructure. It is something that will help to grow the economy and to get New Zealand out of the recession. I know from being in business that when the times get tough, one actually needs to invest in the future and have a vision for the future, and to get out there, spend a little money, and borrow it too. We are talking about borrowing that money off Kiwis and having infrastructure bonds in there to make that happen.

All up, I am proud of the policies we have put out there into the New Zealand market place. I think the New Zealand public will be voting on the policies of this Government, and I am looking forward to the election. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) : Of course, Chris Tremain would like everybody to think and believe what he said. That might have been quite a good speech prior to the release of certain damning information coming out of the National Party conference—

Jacqui Dean: That’s not true.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Well, it is true, actually. If the member would like to watch television news she would see that the things that were said were true. Do members know who said those things? National Party members said them. Those things are not made up; they are direct quotes from National.

The problem the National Party now has is that a message is going directly back to its caucus that basically says: “Houston, we have a problem.” What happened is that National launched a brand new rocket ship on the weekend. It was going to be National’s big rocket ship that would lead them off into the election [Interruption]. No, this was the great launch. The great new idea was that National would borrow for infrastructure. It would not borrow for tax cuts, because that would be really, really bad. But it could borrow for infrastructure, because that would be really, really good. No one really explained during the conference why borrowing for infrastructure is really, really good and why borrowing for tax cuts is really, really bad.

I have a little message for the National Party, having been the Minister of Transport. The industry will not thank the National Party for coming out with plans that are not specific, when it has no idea where the money will go. When I was the Minister of Transport the industry told me two things. First of all, I was to make sure the funding was done in stages as part of a proper plan, so that if the industry had to buy expensive equipment it could finance it over a certain number of projects. The industry also said it was really important that we did not exacerbate the supply problem, particularly the skills supply problem of the construction industry.

Now we have this waffly policy from the National Party that says it will somehow borrow for this infrastructure. No one knows how much it will borrow, no one knows where the money will go, and no one knows whether there has been any consultation with the industry itself. That was not the critical point, of course, because what has happened since the conference is that the rocket got into trouble. It is like someone had a balloon and suddenly let it go. The balloon floated around in the air and dropped to the ground. People are saying things that are a complete and utter embarrassment to the party.

We will unpick the issues in a minute, but the really big issue National has when it tries to talk to the public now is that the public cannot trust what it says. That is the big issue. The public cannot trust what National says. On the weekend a number of leaks came out. That is contrary to National Party strategy, which was to say as little as possible, say nothing controversial, pinch Labour’s major policies in order to cauterise them, or, as Lockwood Smith said, swallow dead fish.

Darien Fenton: Inoculate.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: National will inoculate, and then pledge a $50 tax cut on top of that. In other words, people will get everything that Labour has done for them—all those good things—and National will put a 50 buck tax cut on top. That sounds attractive, but the issue now is whether people can believe what National says. John Key has been on record as saying that National will say and do whatever it takes to get into Government—whatever it takes. We saw that on the weekend. The problem National has is that the public, instead of weaselling around and trying to attack people who leaked the document, want to hear what National actually believes.

The National Party I knew, and the National Party I grew up with, was there for private wealth. It supported low taxes. It was very much in favour of privatisation—handing public good over to private wealth. And it was very much in favour of user-pays. Those were the basic things the National Party stood for. Apart from tax cuts, do members ever hear those things mentioned now? No, they do not. But we know that National still believes in those things. We know that National is desperate to talk about them. We know that National’s supporters are desperate to hear about them, but National is too afraid to speak about those things, because it knows that if it does so, people will not vote for it, and it will be in Opposition again. “Whatever it takes”, said John Key.

Now we have a situation with Bill English, who, when asked about selling Kiwibank, says no, but that National will sell it “eventually”. On Close Up tonight John Key was asked what the National Party’s policy is. He said of the National Party’s policy: “We are not selling assets.” Actually, that is not the policy. I remember what the National Party policy is. When I was in an election battle against a National Party candidate I always read the National Party policy, because I knew that in a tight spot the National Party candidates would always agree, whatever the question was, and I was able to stand up and say: “Actually, that is not the policy. I have it here and this is what it says.” The National Party policy on State assets—

David Bennett: You sound like New Zealand First.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: No. The National Party policy on State assets is not that they will not sell them; it is that they will not sell them in the first term. Do members remember that? It was only in the first term. So already tonight John Key is saying that the National Party policy is actually not the National Party policy any more. He is saying they will not sell State assets, but we all know what the policy actually is—he said they will not sell them in the first term.

Tim Barnett: Can you believe that?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Of course, we cannot believe that, because Bill English knows deep down that Kiwibank, for example, should be sold. He knows that deep down, and I think a lot of people over in the National Party do not think the State should be involved in a bank. I absolutely believe that—I believe they do not think this is an appropriate function for the State; they believe that it is private sector organisation that should be involved in banking. They are desperate to get rid of it. This is one of the basic philosophies, principles, and tenets of the National Party, but can National members bring themselves to say it? No, they cannot, because they know that if they do, because Kiwibank is so popular, they will not get voted into power. So what they do is tell people in private, when they think no one is listening, what the policy really is. As so many people have said, the National Party has been caught out telling the truth—caught out telling the truth again.

You see, the fundamental problem is that people are now not clear, when they hear something from the National Party, whether they should believe it. The events of the last few days have shown that, in fact, they cannot. I think we should just look at a couple of things as far as superannuation is concerned. John Key made a pledge: “Today let me make a pledge: National will retain all the superannuation entitlements and eligibility rules that our senior citizens currently enjoy. We will keep this pledge and I will resign as Prime Minister, and as a member of our Parliament, rather than break it.” It sounds strong and it sounds good. Compare that to Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith in 1990: “I, Lockwood Smith, hereby pledge to tender my resignation as Minister of Education if National, having become the Government in 1990, has not implemented most of National Party policy as stated in 1990. In particular, I pledge to tender my resignation if the $1,250 tertiary tuition fee has not been abolished by this time.” What happened? Well, of course, the tuition fee was not abolished—not abolished!

Hon Ruth Dyson: So he must have resigned.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: One would think—as my colleague Ruth Dyson said—that Lockwood Smith would have resigned. Well, here it is—it is signed “Hon Dr Lockwood Smith” and it is witnessed by Chris Thornborough, the president of the Waikato Student Union in 1990. The problem the public has is that these pledges are not worth the paper they are written on.

The difficulty National members have is that they desperately want to say what they want to do. But if they said that, if they were honest, if they were open, and if they stuck to the old principles of their great leaders before the present ones, and said what the National Party stands for and that they will do those things because they are National Party principles and philosophies, the public would say “Good on you—because now we know what you stand for, and now let’s have the proper debate between National and Labour.”

But the problem is that National members say one thing but believe another, and the problem the public has is that they have now found them out. That is the reason why this election will be very, very good for the Labour-led Government.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Before I take the next call, can I clarify whether you are doing a 5-minute call?

David Bennett: Yes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): You are doing a 5-minute call. Thank you.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : It is a great pleasure to take a call in this debate. It was a special day yesterday, because two people shared their birthdays: the great leader of the National Party, John Key, shared his birthday with Barack Obama. Both of those people represent the new leadership of this world. They represent the great leadership that will come to this region. They will bring change to a region. They represent the new vision for the world. Barack and John—they are the new leadership team that members will see, which will drive the growth of this world.

What do they have in common? They are both taking over economies that are in trouble. The New Zealand economy is in deep trouble. It has had 9 years of a Government that does not know how to make money, does not know how to support its people, and does not know how to give opportunity to New Zealanders to grow and progress. The Labour-led Government has suffocated the New Zealand people for far too long, it has suffocated the New Zealand economy for far too long, and change is coming. Change will come before the end of the year, because John Key will lead a progressive Government that will deliver change, a Government that will believe in New Zealanders, a Government that will give New Zealanders the hope and aspiration to achieve their goals, and a Government that will provide the resources for New Zealanders to go out there and be successful players in the world.

That leadership has been shown over the weekend. John announced some great policies in regard to infrastructure, and development of the New Zealand economy—growth that will come through the kick-start given by Government investment in infrastructure. For far too long we have seen a Government that wishes just to spend money on creating and buying votes at election time. We need to see a Government that will actually invest in assets that will build this country stronger—the assets of education for our people, and the assets of infrastructure so that our economy can grow. Those are the kinds of investment attitudes that John Key brings to this country, brings to this Parliament, and brings to the people of New Zealand. They are yearning for that kind of leadership. They do not want to see a Prime Minister who dips her head at question time when she is told about all the State assets she sold when she was in Government.

Jacqui Dean: 17!

DAVID BENNETT: She sold 17 assets. They want to see a Prime Minister who stands up there with a vision for the future, a vision that will provide a great difference to this world. He will be known as one of the great leaders of our generation. As a leader he will provide inspiration, and that inspiration will come through investment. Whenever the world has been in tough economic times it has not got out of those tough economic times by sitting back and looking at what has happened in history. If we look at the history of the world—in the 1930s, what got the major economies out of the Depression? It was investment in infrastructure, building dams in America, and doing those major infrastructural projects that provided jobs and security for the people of that country.

This country will face high unemployment because of the policies of this Government. There will be at least 6 percent unemployment by the end of next year, according to the Reserve Bank projections. That is simply not good enough in an economy based around an Asian growth hub that delivers some of the best growth prospects in the world. The National Party wants to set up this economy and set up our people so that we take advantage of that potential. We are positioned in the right place in the world. We need the right leadership so that our people can take advantage of those opportunities, and John Key will provide that leadership. He will provide that leadership economically, socially, and morally. Voters will not see the gutter tactics of the Labour Party in the National Party—they will not—because we will fight on policies and we will fight for what people want. The people out there have had enough of a Government that does not care about them. They want change, they want aspiration, they want inspiration, and they want leadership; and they will get that at the end of the year, just as we have seen throughout the career of John Key.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Associate Minister of Finance) : I am told that that was the third speech David Bennett has made in the House. I understand he comes from Hamilton, which means Hamilton East, which means Sue Moroney is going to beat him come election day. That member has made three speeches in 3 years in Parliament. The people of Hamilton have a proud record going back to Tony Steel and Bill Dillon and other members with integrity, members who were not afraid to stand up in this House and debate every now and again. What do we have now? We have someone who, we can tell, thought there was an outside chance of National winning the election, and he greased up to John Key in an attempt to be allowed to shine his car, because that would be about the only job that member would ever get within any Government.

What we know, of course, is that John Key is about the hollowest man who has ever held the position of Leader of the Opposition. If we talk about strength, and strong Leaders of the Opposition, even his mentor Jim McLay was seen as—no, he was not seen as being strong. I agree with Colin King, who indicates that John Key is not as strong as McLay, and that it is an unfair comparison to make on Jim McLay. It is an unfair comparison, because Jim had a good history in Government, and he stood up to Muldoon in those times.

What I know is that John Key would not stand up to Muldoon in the way that McLay did. John Key would never stand up for New Zealand in an international situation. When it came to Iraq, he would have said: “How many troops do you want, President Bush?”. “Where America goes, we go.”, is what the front bench of the National Party says, and we know that Crosby/Textor will not let National members say it now, because Crosby/Textor is dictating and scripting every speech that National members are meant to give.

But the trouble is that every now and again there is an outbreak of the truth from the National Party. We got it from Kate Wilkinson on KiwiSaver. Oh, National was going to release employers from their contributions! But now we know, from the leaks coming out, that that is exactly what National is planning to do. Releasing employers and stopping the Government contribution to KiwiSaver is how National proposes to finance tax cuts. That is the National Party’s proposal, and it is a clear proposal. But members on the Opposition benches are all asking themselves which member of Parliament was recorded saying that? They are all looking at each other. They are all wondering who is on the tape with that particular bit of policy. Who was honest enough, amongst the National Party—

David Bennett: Why aren’t you on the front bench?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member knows particularly well why I am not on the front bench, and the member also knows that I am a Minister in a Government and I intend to continue to be a Minister in a Government, which is something that he will never be in his entire lifetime, because he is a clown.

Let us go back to John Key. John Key is now suffering from a group of honest members in his caucus. Lockwood Smith is an honest member, Bill English is an honest member, Kate Wilkinson is an honest member, and Shane Arden is an honest member. What we are seeing is a group of people who say: “We just can’t continue telling lies. We want to tell the truth, at least occasionally, at least in the privacy of the National Party conference.” They think they should be allowed to tell the truth every now and again, even if John Key says it is the wrong thing to do.

I understand that Richard Worth has been very forthright in an area of policy. I welcome the fact that Richard Worth is being open in an area of policy related to State-owned enterprises. I think it is good that Richard Worth, the “Earl of Monaco”, who is Monaco’s representative in New Zealand, is being straightforward in these matters. I also think it is great that John Key was full and frank when he briefed Merrill Lynch. I think it is a pity that he could not do this in New Zealand, that he could not do it openly, and that he could not put out his speech notes to the New Zealand media, even though he gave the speech in Sydney. But at least he was honest with Merrill Lynch about accident compensation.

So all of the National members are leaking. There are outbreaks of honesty all over the place, but what we are asking for is a bit more consistency.

Bob Clarkson: You can talk!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member says that we can talk. The one thing the New Zealand public says about this Government is that we under-promise and we over-deliver—and we do not tell lies! We do not go around saying in public that we will not sell Kiwibank but saying in private that we will. We do not go around saying in public that we will not sell the Accident Compensation Corporation but saying in private that we will.

Hon Mark Burton: Bob told the truth.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: What did Bob say? [Interruption] I actually quite like Bob, because he cannot help being honest. He cannot help being straightforward. It is a wonderful contrast with many of his colleagues.

Bob Clarkson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just wanted to mention that it is no wonder I am leaving this place if I have to listen to this bunch of crap.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I do not want to refer to a point of order that you have dismissed, Mr Deputy Speaker, but by way of response to what I will regard as an interjection, I have to say I have never heard a member of Parliament who, on being described as honest, says it is crap, but that is what the member has done.

But I commend the member. He may have caught the Tauranga lawyer for perjury. I think Winston Peters could well be right. If someone says something under oath when it was untrue, and the person he was acting for knows it was untrue and did not intervene—and did not tell the truth at the time—

David Bennett: Why didn’t you stay in Hamilton? Why didn’t you represent the people?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I lost an election. I had two terms. That member will have only one term as a member of Parliament.

Bob Clarkson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This gentleman—I would not call him a gentleman, actually—is insinuating that I have perjured myself in the High Court. I do not think I am very happy about that.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I make it absolutely clear that I certainly did not intend to do that. I think the member caused someone else to perjure, and he did not put his hand up. The dishonest thing is that at the time Bob Clarkson did not put up his hand and say: “My lawyer has lied in court.”

Dr Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It must also be exceptionable that the member is suggesting that someone has been a party to perjurious dealing. The member should withdraw and apologise.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: If a member suggested that someone was a party to it, or was the principal perpetrator or offender, then you would be quite right. But that is not what he said.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I certainly was not saying that, but what I am saying is that an honest person, a person with integrity, would put up his or her hand and say—

David Bennett: You lost! They threw you out of town, and that’s what they’re going to do again!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Richard Worth lost his seat, too. If David Bennett wants to talk about people who lost their seats, he should look one place to his left. If he wants to talk about people who cannot take the heat, he should look one place to his right. If he wants to look at someone who is going to lose this time, he should look in the mirror, because Sue Moroney has got that member’s number. She is knocking on doors, and people are saying they wish they had Dianne Yates back. I tell those members that retaining the seat of Hamilton East could be a bit of a stretch for the member, and he knows he will have particular problems retaining it. I know that seat well, and the people of Hamilton East are doing very well.

To get back to the point, why is John Key using the salaries of 38 staff members who comprise his personal public relations team in the way that he is? Why do the media not get the point that he has 38 people in his office working on his image? Those people are so bad that I would sack them.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is a matter of appropriation. It is very clear that in this appropriations legislation we are financing a pack of lies from John Key’s office.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) : It will not be lost on the people of New Zealand who are listening in tonight and who are watching on television that we are debating the Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill. This evening the people of New Zealand have heard three Cabinet Ministers of the current Government, and one former Cabinet Minister of the current Government, stand up in the House and not defend their party’s policies or public spending plans, and show no respect at all for the taxpayers of New Zealand, because every dollar in this bill is taken from another hard-working New Zealander who could better spend it than the Government can. All we have had from Mr Cosgrove, Mr Jones, less so Mr Swain, but certainly from Mr Mallard is a string of vituperation. We have heard bitter, poisonous, sour vituperation aimed at this side of the House, and I have sat here during the debate asking myself why.

I will tell this House and the people of New Zealand why. It is because the Government, which has been in office all but 9 years, has finally come to the realisation that it will be leaving New Zealand in a far worse condition than it found it in 1999, and it has come to the realisation that it has been strangled by Labour’s own failed ideology. It is incumbent on this House—and I call on the minor parties—to vote this Appropriation Bill down to take away from the Government its legal authority to spend taxpayers’ money. Let us go to an election now. That is what the New Zealand people want. They do not want to see more taxpayers’ money being wasted by that profligate crowd on the other side of the House. So let us do it. Let us vote this bill down and go straight to a general election.

I was very interested to listen to Mr Mallard talking about under-promising and over-delivering. When he said that, did he mean that after 9 long years of he and others being in Cabinet, New Zealand has squandered the best terms of trade it has had in a quarter-century? Is that what he meant by saying the Government under-promised and over-delivered? Let us look at interest rates. Under-promised and over-delivered. Interest rates are higher now than they have been for many, many years. It is harder now for a young family to get their first home than it has been in 50 or 60 years. Is that what Mr Mallard calls under-promising and over-delivering? Unemployment is on the rise.

Darien Fenton: It is not.

ALLAN PEACHEY: It is now official; New Zealand is in a recession. Is that what those Ministers opposite mean when they talk about under-promising and over-delivering?

The very least the people of New Zealand could have expected from this House tonight, and from that Government, is an open, wide-ranging debate on the Government’s policies and the alternative policies that other parties in this House have to offer. But, no, we got policy from just one side. We heard very fine speeches from this side of the House. All we heard from the Government, as I have said before and will repeat again, was bitter, personal, poisonous vituperation. If the best that Mr Shane Jones can do is throw personal insults across the floor of this House at people like myself, then I am happy to let the electorate, the people listening in and watching, to form their own judgment and ask themselves whether they want people of that type of character in control of taxpayers’ money.

When I spoke in the Committee stage, I put three questions to the Minister of Education. I invited him to agree with me on three points. I invited him to agree with me that it is wrong that we have some of the least fortunate children in this country on waiting lists for special schools; being on that waiting list means waiting for another parent’s child to pass away. I asked him to agree with me that it is wrong that parents go round on a merry-go-round looking for a school to accept their child. I asked him to agree with me that it is wrong that children with special needs are too often being told to stay home from school. He chose not to do that. He chose instead—no doubt learning from his Cabinet colleagues on the other side tonight, or maybe they learnt from him—to get into a belittling, personality-based response. Millions and millions of dollars are being spent, every year by the Government, supposedly on the education of our children.

Let us leave aside special education for a moment, and look more broadly. One of the most significant, far-reaching policies that will be introduced by the next National Government is national standards in reading, writing, and mathematics. We have to end this cycle of the failure of a quarter of our children to learn. I wonder whether that is what Mr Mallard meant when he talked about under-promising and over-delivering, because this Government is certainly over-delivering on the failure of our children in our schools.

The point about national standards is that it is not about testing. A lot of testing goes on in schools at the moment. The problem is that the Government says: “Tick the box that you have tested, and you have done your job.”, whereas National members, when we get into Government, will look at education policy in New Zealand, and at what we do with the information we have gathered to ensure that a greater percentage of our children are actually learning. That is the key to national standards. That is the significance of the great step forward the New Zealand schooling system will be led towards by the National Government that will shortly be elected to office.

I come back, in my remaining moments, to where I started. [Interruption] The Minister of Finance can rabbit away as much as he likes, but the fact is that he will very, very soon be a former Minister of Finance, because the people out there understand that this House, this week, has the opportunity to vote down this Appropriation Bill and take the country to an immediate general election.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) : I understand that I have a few minutes with which to conclude the debate, and it is a privilege to be able to do that. I will talk a little bit about superannuation. Everybody is very clear about this Government’s position on superannuation. Everybody remembers that we have restored a decent level of superannuation payment to ageing New Zealanders so that they can live in dignity, and that is something we can be very, very proud of. Mr Peachey may not be grateful for that particular pledge being fulfilled, but he really ought to be. Through the Cullen fund and through KiwiSaver we have also taken steps to deliver a sustainable retirement income to New Zealanders in the future. Those are achievements that I am incredibly proud of.

On the other hand, National has no credibility whatsoever on superannuation. We remember that in 1999 National cut superannuation and blamed economic conditions. Just 3 days ago, what did Mr Key say at the National Party conference? He said: “Today let me make a pledge: National will retain all the superannuation entitlements and eligibility rules that our senior citizens currently enjoy. We will keep that pledge and I will resign as Prime Minister, and as a member of our Parliament, rather than break it.” Well, he will never have a chance to deliver on that promise.

We all know what promises from the National Party are like, because we remember Lockwood Smith’s promise in 1990 to resign over student fees. Well, what happened then, and what was that promise worth? It is just the same as the promise Mr Key made at the National Party conference.

Of course, Mr Key is trying to allay concerns about National’s position on superannuation after Mr English threatened it only a year ago. Let us remember what Mr English stated in July 2007: “If you compare ourselves with Australia—and it’s not too much different with any other developed country—we are starting to look pretty heavily committed to retirement income.” Then he stated: “The Australian pension is tightly income- and asset-tested and at a lower income … Ours is the highest level of the public pension that you will find anywhere, and paid to everybody … There are a few other pensions that are pre-funded, but none as generously as us.” Then he stated: “We are looking at a more balanced approach that focuses on growth prospects for our economy in the next five to 10 years, not solely on saving.”, and: “Savings are good but they are not the only thing, and we can’t win the hearts and minds of 20-year-olds by telling them that the best thing about New Zealand is retiring into a plush rest home.” So Mr Key was trying to quarantine the National Party from those words of Mr English only a year ago.

But were Mr English’s comments just a little too close to the real National Party policy? Let us remember what Mr Key stated in September 2004: “It is likely that there will be a modest increase in the age of super eligibility.” A year earlier he stated: “I don’t think there is any doubt that the single biggest way to reduce that liability is to raise the age of eligibility. I don’t think it is an impossible ask to look at doing that gradually and gently over time.”

Well, we all know Labour’s policy on superannuation and on all the other matters about which National is trying to talk out of both sides of its mouth. Superannuation is just one; fiscal policy is another, as are tax cuts, monetary policy, interest rates, exchange rate intervention, broadband—the list goes on. But the people of New Zealand deserve to know the National Party’s policy on these matters, if National even knows what it is.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

CHRIS TREMAIN (Junior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been following this debate very closely tonight. Things got a little confusing when ACT and United Future did not turn up to take their 5-minute calls. We took the opportunity to take those 5-minute calls; I spoke with the Assistant Speaker at the time about taking those calls, and it was allowed. I have been following this debate very closely and there is still a 10-minute slot available for Maurice Williamson. I am very sure about that; I have been following the debate very closely.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : There have been points of order during the debate, and this is not a debate with a set number of speeches. It is a debate of a set time, which is 3 hours, and the time for the debate has elapsed.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank Mr Tremain and Dr Cullen for raising that issue.

CHRIS TREMAIN (Junior Whip—National) : I seek the leave of the House to have another 10-minute speech.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member can do that in a moment, but I just want to say that Dr Cullen is absolutely right, and I was right—the 3 hours has expired. But you may seek leave for anything at any time.

CHRIS TREMAIN: I seek the leave of the House to have a 10-minute speech, which I believe we had arranged for. I seek the leave of the House for that extra 10-minute speech for Maurice Williamson.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) : I seek leave, following the conclusion of this debate, to proceed directly to the third reading of the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill and for there to be a further 10-minute speech on this debate.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is.