Mr SPEAKER: I have been advised by the Chief Electoral Officer that pursuant to section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993, Gareth Thomas Llewelyn Hughes has been declared to be elected a member of the House of Representative in place of Jeanette Mary Fitzsimons. I understand that Gareth Hughes is present and wishes to affirm. Would he please come forward to the Chair on my right.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) : Thank goodness for John Key! Just over a week ago, the Prime Minister rolled out his statement to the House. It was a big, bold vision for New Zealand to get our economy moving again. The Leader of the Opposition, Phil Goff, thinks that now is an appropriate time to say that he does not support GST. But we know—we have trolled back through the archives and the Hansard records—that he supported a GST rise when he was in Cabinet during the 1980s.

I have sat through five of these addresses, addresses by the previous Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and by our very good Prime Minister, John Key. Three of them were made by Helen Clark, and they were very sleepy, dreary affairs. They struggled to make any traction on the 6 o’clock news. In 2006, the first time I heard Helen Clark’s statement, she was using the buzzword “economic transformation”, which delivered nothing. Then, in 2007, Helen Clark’s catchphrases were “sustainability” and “carbon neutrality”, which struggled to deliver anything. In 2008 Helen Clark’s statement was all about lifting living standards, but in that year the Labour Government upped spending and increased debt. Also, we should not forget to mention the Electoral Finance Act.

But now we have a very bold Prime Minister’s statement, which was delivered just over a week ago by the Prime Minister, the Hon John Key. It creates incentives for people to work hard, improve their skills, and get ahead. It encourages savings to boost our productivity, and it is fair to all New Zealanders.

Another important thing is that a big part of the Prime Minister’s statement focused on boosting infrastructure, and the Government has a big work programme this year as we carry on delivering that.

One of the roads of national significance was the road from Wellington to Levin, which, of course, was significant to my electorate of Ōtaki. A sum of $2.2 billion was invested there. Transmission Gully is part of that package, which was met with a huge amount of applause from my constituents in Kapiti and Horowhenua.

The Government will also be focusing on putting ultra-fast broadband into New Zealand homes—$1.5 billion will be rolled out.

For those who are interested and who are listening today, I point out that a big part of the statement was about water storage and food innovation. There will be more investment in research and development, and in science.

Let us think back to what we have heard from the Opposition leader since the Prime Minister delivered his speech. We heard Phil Goff, the leader of the Labour Party, criticise the National Government for sitting on the sidelines during the period of recession last year. The prudent management of the Prime Minister, John Key, and his Minister of Finance, Bill English, means that we have managed to come through that period with some certainty and confidence.

We know that Labour would have wanted to spend more if it had been in power. We know that Labour members would have wanted to borrow more, which would have racked up debt. We know now, having sat through Mr Goff’s speech, that those members have very few ideas and no policy. We know full well that under the leadership of Phil Goff, it would have been a case of “Just put it on the bill, Phil, and we will go down to the pixie at the bottom of the garden to see whether we can print some more money.”

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You may well have been distracted when an unparliamentary expression was used.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I do recall that the member used a term that has been ruled out. All members are honourable members, and proper names will be used.

Hon NATHAN GUY: If we think about proper names, we see that the Labour Party has a bit of an issue with trying to rebrand the image of its leader. Labour members have tried to ramp up their leader as “bikie Phil”, “freezing worker Phil”—I have seen the brochure —“blokey Phil”, and, of course, “robotic Phil”. At times we have seen “angry Phil”, but nothing really works.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Do I need to—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): Well, I did miss it.

Hon Trevor Mallard: About seven times, I think, in the last couple of sentences, the member has breached your ruling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): The member will desist from using terminology that has been ruled out of order previously.

Hon NATHAN GUY: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think it is worthwhile focusing now on the GST debate, which is very, very important. We will reincentivise the economy and give more of people’s hard-working money to get the wheels turning on the economy.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Hard-working money?

Hon NATHAN GUY: It is interesting that Mr Mallard wants to pull me up about criticising Phil Goff. I know that Labour struggles to take the medicine, but if we think about—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the member used to be a senior whip. He knows that members cannot refer to a ruling you have made or to a matter on which you have ruled.

Hon NATHAN GUY: I am not referring to a ruling you have just made, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a very robust debate. It is the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, and I should be allowed to continue.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I did not pick up the comment that the Hon Trevor Mallard made reference to. I have now attended to the matter that occupied me, and I will be paying greater attention to the member.

Hon NATHAN GUY: I was alluding to the debate on GST. When we think back to 1986, when Phil delivered a speech in the House about GST, we recall that he stated: “Every New Zealander will be better off under the proposals announced last night. It introduces a fairer system for New Zealanders. … It reduces the burden of personal taxes, which wage and salary earners have to pay.” It was a great little speech by Phil Goff, but I think that he has forgotten that message, so we will be reminding him that he was part of the Cabinet that raised GST in 1989 with no compensation for workers or beneficiaries. I am proud that the National-led Government will not be carrying out those sorts of dirty tactics.

Also, Phil Goff, the leader of the Labour Party, has some kind of amnesia over chief executives’ pay, does he not? He wants to pay our top public servants less, but he was part of the Cabinet that gave them huge pay increases. Maybe he was asleep at that particular part of the Cabinet meeting.

Labour members have resentment towards members on this side of the House. They resent effort and success. We need only look at the issue of national standards.

When Helen Clark was in Opposition in 1999 she rallied against the fact that there were poorly performing students. She said it was shocking that 20 percent of our kids leave school being unable to read and write to a decent standard. Of course, she is right; it is shocking. But the previous Labour Government had 9 years in which to sort that out. What happened over that period of 9 years? Lo and behold, kids were still failing—and 20 percent of kids are still failing.

That is why I am publicly supporting Anne Tolley and the great work she is doing towards the introduction of national standards. She has the support of the Prime Minister and the whole of the caucus. We cannot afford to have our kids slip through the cracks. If we want a modern economy, then we want our children to perform and get a job. If we do not incentivise those kids to ensure that they can read and write to a decent standard, then they will continue to slip through the cracks.

It is also worth commenting on the bold programme we have. The Prime Minister delivered a very, very bold statement. I alluded before to the fact that I have sat through five Prime Minister’s statements now. Two have been fantastic, and I particularly applaud this one, which outlines the massive work programme that the Government has laid out for this year. All the work is sitting in the pipeline. There are already 44 bills on the Order Paper. We have a Prime Minister and a Minister of Finance who will deliver a step change for our economy. We have a vision for New Zealand and a vision for our country. So I say let us bring on the Budget, in a little over 90 days, on 20 May, for a brighter future.

Over the next few months we can bet that Labour will be trolling around the countryside and trying to ramp up the GST debate, but we know that those members are a very pathetic Opposition. We know that the phone is off the hook as Labour members go up and down the country trying to ramp up opposition to the increase in GST. We know that the Labour caucus is split. We know that those members have all sorts of leadership issues in their caucus. I believe that there is a four-way split currently.

It was interesting to hear Simon Power allude to the fact that the only Labour member licking his chops after Phil Goff’s speech was Shane Jones, the honourable member across the House. I believe he is another aspirant lining up behind Phil Goff to challenge him sometime between now and the election. We also know that many other candidates are lining up. There is the Cunliffe camp and the Parker camp.

The Prime Minister’s statement was a bold statement that will deliver a step change for every New Zealand household. I stand here in support of that today.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) : The previous speaker, Nathan Guy, was supposedly a great shearer. He made a whole lot of outlandish statements about the leader of the Labour Party, and his speech stunk like the shitty dags that we have in the—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): We have just spent some time on establishing with the previous speaker some protocols about what is acceptable in this House, and that kind of terminology is not.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: I apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker. I thought that as a farmer, you would appreciate that. That is what the member’s speech was. It was outrageous, outlandish, and full of statements that represented a warped and bent speech. It was not a speech for this time. How dare he talk about the leadership of the Labour Party, when we know that he is trying to unseat John Key, and that he wants to have my relation Hekia Parata as the deputy? That is one thing I do agree with the National Party on; that would be wonderful. We know about that, because we are watching the situation.

We ask Mr Guy what he is going to do about the people at Carter Holt Harvey in Ōtaki who are being put off. He is silent. He is not saying anything, and he will not do anything. This is the same person who used to mistreat fleece-oes and give the workers in the shed a hard time, and that is what he has continued to do on coming to Parliament.

Hon Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at that, and I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I will determine what the appropriate course of action is. I had difficulty in picking up the exact diction, so I cannot recollect exactly what was said. Let us all just have a breath and attempt to be a little more courteous on both side of the House in our conduct towards members across the House.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. E mihi kau ana ki a koe mō tōku tū ki te maka kōrero atu mō te tangata rā.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I really commend you in respect of my standing up and casting aspersions at that person over there.]

I thought I would go into Māori so that it could be translated well for you, Mr Assistant Speaker, though I have learnt the English language reasonably well. But the member opposite, along with other members, has continued to bastardise the opportunities of workers in this country. He has done that. He has ignored workers.

National members have flip-flopped around and puffed about their GST change and what the increased rate will do for people. We do know that 70 percent of the benefit of changing the tax system will go to 3 percent of those who are paying tax. National’s mates at the top end will certainly get away with the benefits of that, while the working class is being punished. I suppose that at the end of the day, when National says it is trying to increase employment, we have to ask why youth unemployment has doubled on National’s watch. There is an uncanny practice continuing that was prevalent when you were last in Government—when National was last in Government.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): The member knows what his error is. He is not to do it again.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: My apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker. When National was last in Government, it put the minimum wage up by 37c. The benefit to Māori taxpayers, 204,000 of whom are on an income of under $38,000, of the latest change will be between 33c and $1.31. What a laugh! What a crock! But that is what the Prime Minister is trying to sell to the working class in this country. National increased the minimum wage by 37c last time it was in Government. Labour increased it eight or nine times, and we ensured that the economy was strong and surviving, and that people were employed.

I ask this question quite bluntly: what will the Government do about the 550 Māori in Hastings who have lost their employment over the last 9 months? What will Chris Tremain do about that? You know about it, you see it, and you were at the Motown Event on Saturday night—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): Can the member be just a little more careful in his use of pronouns. He is including the Speaker in his speech.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Mr Tremain was at the Motown Event, trying to imitate the indigenous people. What has come out of the Prime Minister’s speeches is platitudes, and a patronising of the indigenous people, the tangata whenua. Tariana Turia knows full well that she has a battle on her hands. The Prime Minister preached about providing $1.2 billion, but Tariana Turia knows she will be lucky if she gets a couple of a million. He starts talking about pressing waterbeds, and he gets the notion that he is so sexy that when he smiles everybody falls over. What a crock he is. Is the Prime Minister aware that over 240,000 Māori earn less than $30,000 a year; if so, why is he not doing something about it, and why is there objection to a rise in the minimum wage to $15?

I tell Georgina te Heuheu that this GST programme will put more people into hardship. The National members should be ashamed of themselves, and Paula Bennett knows that.

John Hayes: Wrong!

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: It is not wrong, and the member knows that in the Wairarapa it is time. Here is a person who has been siding with Bill English. Bill English has alleged that all of the problems are someone else’s. That is what he started off by saying. He was blaming us, but the previous Labour Government left the books in the strongest position ever. In his first year in office, he hid behind the global economic crisis. Everything was the fault of everybody else offshore. He did nothing to respond to the crisis, other than cutting superannuation pre-funding.

Bill English bleats that the situation is all Labour’s fault, but the facts are that under Labour, gross Government debt was cut in half. That is what happened, and Chris Tremain knows that. Under Labour, net debt was reduced to zero, and members opposite know full well about that. Under Labour, New Zealand achieved the lowest unemployment rate in the Western World; at 3.4 percent it was outstanding. When we came into office, Māori unemployment was tracking at between 21 percent and 24 percent. We took it down to 7 percent. That is the best performance for a long time. Now, I say to Mr Tremain, in Wairoa, in your area, it is 38 percent. What are you going to do about that? That is in your area. You should not just go for a ride in the flash truck that you are using as free advertising in the airport parking lot; you should visit the Māoris, and do something about that. You know full well—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): Order!

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: —it is a disgrace; it is a real disgrace.

Under Labour, economic growth was about 1 percent per year, and that was healthy. That was outstanding. It was good for families, it was good for the economy, and everybody got there. People were getting educated; there was lifelong education. That shearer was talking about education. Do members know that half of the providers of community programmes have now signed off or been pushed out? So communities do not matter, in the sense of the things that people go to: night classes and whatever else. I tell members not to huff and puff about education when the youth unemployment rate has nearly doubled. Does that mean that there are no real challenges today? No, it does not. What it means is that Labour has a proud record that Bill English wishes was his.

We do not see enough in relation to research and development. What has happened with regard to research and development? There has been a lot of preaching about innovation, yet one of the things National did was to cut back research and development. It was like what happened to Te Waka Toi. I ask all of those Māoris over there on the other side of the Chamber why they are cutting back Te Waka Toi. Why are they knocking it over? I thought we were proud of our culture, our arts, and whatever else. I ask those members to tell me why that cut has been made. They are getting desperate when they are pulling funds from areas that do not really matter.

Hard-working Kiwis deserve to be treated better than they are being treated by National, and we know that. It is really important to understand that everybody has seen through this GST trick. You know, there was a whole lot of ranting and raving about the gap between wages in Australia and those in New Zealand. But the last time that the National Government was in power it created a gap of nearly 15 percent, and the same thing is starting to happen now. The gap held steady at that percentage. That is what happened then; there was an increase in the wage gap.

John Hayes: 15 percent of what?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: The member knows full well what the gap is. It is the difference between the income per week of every household here, measured against that of every household in Australia. National is sticking it to working-class people. It is ignoring them, and it is playing footsie with all its well-off mates at the top end. That is a disgrace. That is outlandish.

Paul Quinn: Who owns a farm?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: That is right. I own a farm because I worked hard for it; that is why I own it. I have been to cut scrub on the side of the hill and fenced in the rain to make sure I could get there. Our people do not even get that chance any more, because National has denied them that through its slippery GST programme. That is what it has done. And Mr Tremain knows that that is outrageous. The Speaker did what I did. He worked in the rain; that is why he has a farm. That is why the fellow who has disappeared out there has a farm. But we had a chance, and because we had successive great Labour Governments we had the opportunity.

It is a sad day when we start to hear a Prime Minister’s speech like that one. He said today that if people are 100 percent without income, that is communism. Is that what has happened to beneficiaries? That is what he said—

Hon Member: He didn’t say that.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: That is what he said. He said he was sexy; he said that too. Paula Bennett was looking at me, because she knew he had slipped up. For a change it was John Key doing that, and not her. [Interruption] That is right. She was looking at me, and she knew that he was really up the pole.

I want to mention Hone Harawira. You know, Hone Harawira and I worked together for a long, long time, and he has been chastised—

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

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēna koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Hoi nō me mihi atu ki a koe e Parekura mō ēnā kōrero rangatira hei manaaki i wā tātou nei iwi, wā tātou whānau e noho mai nā i te pōhara i tēnei wā. Nō reira, tēnā koe. Hākoa rere kē ana taku kōrero i tēnei wā, hoi nō, he mihi tonu rā ki a koe.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but I must commend Parekura for those noble words about caring for our people and families who are living in poverty at this time. Well done. While my talk has changed somewhat at this point in time, I really acknowledge you.]

The Prime Minister did not talk too much about the foreshore and seabed in his speech last week, so I am glad that my bro Te Ururoa raised that matter in his reply. Te Ururoa’s line was basically that the Māori Party is happy to allow this matter to be settled by the Iwi Leadership Group as the best group to represent Māori in negotiations, given that every member is an elected member of his or her own iwi. There is undoubtedly considerable support for that point of view, but if I can be so bold, I suggest that that is not necessarily the view held by the tens of thousands of people who have voted for the Māori Party over the past 5 years. In fact, going back to when the Māori Party was still just a twinkle in somebody’s eye, I bet that if I had asked the 40,000 people who marched on Parliament back in 2004 whether they thought the foreshore and seabed debate should be settled by the iwi leaders, 39,500 of them would have probably said no.

You see, the march on Parliament was not exactly loaded down with iwi leaders. In fact, quite a few stayed away: some because they had plans to do their own deal regardless of what it might mean for other iwi, some because they were offered a sweetheart deal by Labour to break ranks, some because they were genuinely scared that being seen on the march might mean their iwi contracts got the chop, and some because they were not sure whether their mana might be compromised by hanging out with the marchers. Certainly there were those who were not there but did their bit by helping out with the cost of transport for their people and organising trains, buses, etc. But given the fact that every man and his dog knew what day the hīkoi was going to be marching on Parliament, the absence of iwi leaders at Parliament was noticeable—and I know that because I know most of them personally and I saw very few of them there on the day.

One who was there, and prominently so, was Sir Tīpene O’Regan, who told me that he had come up with his people from Te Wai Pounamu and that he was “bloody proud” to be there. Undoubtedly others were there as well.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I want you to consider the sort of adjectives you are using, because they are out of order.

HONE HARAWIRA: That was a direct quote.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I am on my feet. Please sit. It is not a matter of whether you are quoting something or any other situation. In this House those sorts of words are not acceptable.

HONE HARAWIRA: Speaking to the point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I have ruled on it.

HONE HARAWIRA: Hoi nā nō, hākoa tāu nei whakaturengia, e tika ana kia kōrero ahau i ngā kōrero o ngā tāngata i kōrero mai i wā rātou whakaaro ki a mātou i aua wā.

[However, regardless of what you have ruled, it is right that I convey what the people said back then when they expressed their views to us.]

Undoubtedly others were there as well but, in fact, the leaders of the march itself were not the iwi leaders at all; they were mainly the hardened activists of the past 20 years who understood immediately the racism inherent in the foreshore and seabed legislation and made a snap commitment to be part of a national team stitched together at the last minute to organise the march and to ensure that as many people as possible were aware of the potential threat to our status as tangata whenua and our rights to our takutai moana.

Yet for all the commitment made by the activist brigade, the march would still have been a total flop if the people themselves had not stepped forward, and they did—in their hundreds, in their thousands, and, indeed, in their tens of thousands. They came from everywhere: from the backblocks, from the small towns, from the streets of our cities, and from Māori homes throughout Aotearoa—men, women, teenagers, kids, mokopuna, kaumātua, and kuia. Everyone was there. Regardless of what iwi or hapū they came from, thousands marched to Wellington who had not even read the legislation and did not understand all of its technicalities; they probably did not even know what iwi they were. But they knew that something was wrong, they knew that they were getting shafted, they knew that their tūpuna’s rights to the foreshore and seabed were about to get torn up, and they wanted to do something about it. They did not wait for the iwi leaders or the activists to give them the nod; they jumped in and marched for their rights to the foreshore and seabed because they knew it was the right thing to do.

The Māori Party has a commitment to respect those people, because they are the people who helped us ride a wave of freedom and independence all the way into Parliament on a promise to be true to our kaupapa by taking major decisions back to them. I have always tried to include them in the dream that they have asked us to realise. They are the people who pin their hopes on the Māori Party getting the Foreshore and Seabed Act repealed, and they want us to do our best to get a good result for everyone. We know who they are: they are the kaumātua and kuia who have known decades of deceit and dishonesty, and who voted for the Māori Party because they wanted something fresh, something honest, and something Māori. They are our generation—a generation made cynical by stories handed down of politicians who talk up a storm but never deliver. They are the kids who want anything but te rōpū teka rawa atu [the most untruthful party]of yesteryear. And they have chosen us to carry this kaupapa. It is we, the Māori Party members of Parliament, who have been asked to carry this battle. It is we who have the honour of speaking up for our people on this take, and, in my view, we do our people a grave disservice by passing it on to someone else to handle. I have no intention of treating my people with such disrespect.

So what exactly does the Māori Party want to see after the repeal? Well, folks, I am happy to say that the kaupapa that I have been touting all around the place over the past few months was approved by our caucus last week as the basis for a new deal on the foreshore and seabed. It is based on a paper written for us by Moana Jackson, which proposes the notion of tūpuna title. That paper basically says that if the whole world already knows that Māori people were here first, then let us stop being ridiculous by making Māori go to court to prove it. Let us simply accept it is true, and build on it. It is also based on discussions I have had with a number of other people, both Māori and Pākehā, who agree with the Māori Party that we need a solution that shows we are serious in our intention, comfortable with justice, and mature enough to act with hope and with optimism.

So here it is: three simple steps. The first is Māori title. If the Government can assume ownership of the foreshore and seabed with one Act, they just as easily give it back to Māori with another. That step will put an immediate end to all the anxiety, angst, and anguish from the past, and the decades of discord that will surely await us in the future if we do not act honourably now. The second is inalienability. In the same legislation we should include a clause ensuring that Māori can never sell the foreshore and seabed. That step fits with the Māori world view that we do not own land as a commodity but, rather, we hold it as a taonga for future generations. It will also put an end to all the rubbish about Māori only wanting it so we can sell it. The third is full access. Again, in the same legislation we should guarantee full access to all New Zealanders because, in the same way that Māori do not want it to keep it for ourselves, neither do we want it to keep Pākehā out. As kaitiaki, we must be able to set limits on access in order to protect seafood stocks, promote conservation, and control behaviour, but granting access to Kiwis is an easy deal.

There you have it: it ain’t rocket science, but it will work. The technocrats have already pointed out some problems, but they are not insurmountable. The vision is the important thing, and if we can buy into that, the rest will be easy. We are planning to take it out on the road, because with a kaupapa as big as this, we need to know that our people understand it, that they agree with it, and that they believe in it.

In closing, I thank the Iwi Leadership Group for its efforts and for the really positive outcomes that it has been striving to achieve. It has played an important role in bringing a different perspective to the whole debate. Although I say this very rarely, I also thank the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Mr Chris Finlayson, for his sincerity and his commitment in trying to achieve a result that comes close to realising our people’s expectations. On Waitangi Day the Prime Minister asked the following question: why can this not be the generation of New Zealanders who open the next chapter in our history? Well, I say to the Prime Minister that the Māori Party is ready to take up the challenge. All we ask is that he and his Government be bold enough to take it up, as well. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : We have a Prime Minister who knows what matters, a Prime Minister who is about getting the incentives right, recognising hard work, and getting the best out of New Zealand and New Zealanders. What is Labour focusing on? Well, the salaries of 16 chief executives. I tell my colleagues that I have here a written question addressed to me recently. It asks about how many Pākehā Work and Income employs. There was a written question about who pays my coffee account over the road. I mean, is Chris Hipkins so ridiculous that he hears me ordering a cup of coffee and putting it on an account, and then decides that that should be a written question? He wanted to know whether we had been throwing lavish parties. I am happy to inform him and anyone else who wants to know that “SingStar and bring your own casserole” night was quite a success at my apartment, and my staff and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Let us get this straight: last year, in a bid to freeze my office and stop us from getting on and doing the job that we wanted to do, Labour addressed literally thousands of written questions to my office—thousands; more than to any other Minister. You would think that would make Labour members sound hard-working, but I ask how many stories they actually got out of it. How much traction did they get from all of those thousands of questions?

There were the questions about how much money my office spends on stationery. Did they hope that would be the great paper scandal of 2009? How many stories did they get out of that? They have to do the follow-up work. They have to actually read the answers. The Opposition has to read the reports to make a difference. What Labour members did not know, and what they were not used to, was that they did not have all those people to read them for them; they have to do the hard work and they have to do the grind to make a real difference.

Take last week in the House, for example. Annette King said that I snuck the January benefit figures through, and she stood up in question time, all indignant. No, I say to Mrs King, I released them in a press statement that went to everyone the week before. Yes, I did release them early, because I thought they were relevant to the discussion that was being had around the household labour force survey, and I asked the department to fast track the analysis, but they were released. Quite simply, Mrs King had not done her homework, or read the news about the department that she is Labour spokesperson for.

Labour members have set off on their attacks again this year. Members have to ask themselves what it is with Labour women and their hatred of National women. Do they set the girls on because they think it might look a bit bullying—

Hon Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at that remark, as I am sure other Labour women do. We have never expressed a hatred, at all, of National women. I do not want that on the record.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I know that the member has taken offence, but the question is whether an offence has been committed. I am trying just to work through the context in which that was said. It was a collective statement, and not levelled at any individuals. I think the safest thing is if the member Paula Bennett ceases to make those inference in the future. Is that OK?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: My point was, though, that we get a real sense of bitterness. That was an example of it. Members know it—the venom is sort of crying out, and they are getting themselves so worked up about it—

Dr Rajen Prasad: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I also, as a man, took offence at the earlier statement. I respect your ruling. I think the member is persisting with exactly the same message, couched in different words, and I suggest that you advise her to desist.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I am not sure that I agree that the two terms that have been used rank in the same category. I have cautioned the member; I will be listening carefully to what she says.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: My point is that what we get is a certain level of venom that is coming across from the Opposition, and I just wondered whether it was sort of a gender thing, that they did not want it to look like the boys were bullying, or something. Well, I say they should bring on the blokes, man! First, they are not going to be any better, and, second, they might actually do some homework—they might actually read press statements, and they might actually stick with the issues that matter to New Zealanders.

Let us get to the real crux with a recent story that shows just how off the mark Labour can get. It is about Ivan from Nelson. Labour sees him as a victim; I see him as an awesome survivor. Ivan was working without pay at a brewery in Nelson after volunteering in the hope of getting a job there. He applied and he never heard back, so he just marched on down there and offered to work for free to show what he could do. Well, Phil Goff said it hurt poor Ivan’s confidence to get knocked back, but I say, good on Ivan. I say good on him for getting off his backside, for taking some initiative, and for not giving up at the first hurdle. Labour sees him as a victim—we can hear Labour members yelling it out as I speak—but I see him as one of life’s real heroes, and a young man who will go far.

When times were good we settled for below-average results for Māori and Pacific Islanders in our schools, and now the Opposition wonders why they are hardest hit by a weak labour market. After 9 years of a Labour Government, 49 percent of Māori children left school without level 2 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, the minimum requirement for Modern Apprenticeships. There is a lot to turn round, but where Labour gets it wrong is that our people have courage, our people have aspirations. They do not sit around waiting for answers from the Government; they themselves get out and seek them, and drive solutions that meet their own needs. This Government will support them in that.

I ask why the whole Whānau Ora thing is so hard for Labour to understand. For years we have seen that Labour’s solution is “Let’s throw more money, throw more programmes. Let us just chuck that at the problem and hope that it goes away—goodness help us if we actually stand up for accountability!”. Labour would micro-manage and get picky on ticking those boxes, but not actually trust iwi or organisations to know what was best for them, to see their own problem in all its totality, and to get on with the job that really needed to be done.

You know, Whānau Ora has been developed by the Māori Party via the taskforce that went out, and by all those other means—for example, by going out and speaking at hui—but the concept is one that can apply to all New Zealanders. It is about seeing them in all of their individuality, seeing them as they fit in with a family, and seeing how that family fits in with a community in addressing all of those needs. It ain’t rocket science to know that it is about putting the strength back with the people—it is about putting that back with the people. It is a new, innovative approach, and one that this Government is very excited about.

The welfare changes that the Prime Minister indicated as coming up are about fairness. The Prime Minister outlined some of the changes we are looking at, and I cannot help but have a particular bias towards the work we will be doing with sole parents. We are backing them to back themselves, knowing that a lifetime on welfare is one of dependency and limited income. But, more than that, I think that, over time, long periods on welfare erode one’s own spirit. If we ask what prevents beneficiaries from going back into work, and what stops them from taking that step forward and finding out how they can get there, they may not tell us directly. But they often will, and if we take the time with them they will tell us that it is about fear—about putting themselves out there to employers and telling those employers that they are worth something. It is about trying to juggle kids and a household, and the demands of running everything else around that and a job. It is no easy feat, but it is one that these women are really capable of doing, and one that I back them to do. I will not see them as victims, and I will not see them as intergenerational welfare dependants; I will back them to back themselves every time, and I believe that they can make a fundamental difference both to themselves and to their families and children.

What will happen over a long period of time? We will see the changes coming incrementally, as that work happens. We have heard concerns about how long it will take, but by the time a bill is actually introduced, goes through its select committee process, and comes back to the House, we will see some quite major changes in that, and they are changes we absolutely believe in.

In relation to the unemployment benefit after 1 year, I think that it is often forgotten by the Opposition that that benefit is there for those who are temporarily unable to find work. There is the assistance there to help them back into work—seminars are going on, access to training is there when they need it, and there is assistance with CV writing, interview skills, and the right sorts of skills to get them back to employment. But the financial assistance is for those who are temporarily unable to find work; it is not for those who want to live a lifetime on welfare over long, long periods of time, and we will be addressing that. It is about getting tough on those who do not respect the fact that this is taxpayers’ money, and that there is a whole bunch of people out there working really, really hard to hand over their dollars to this Government, in order for the Government to distribute them fairly. That is what these welfare changes are about—they are about getting it right.

What the House heard the other day from the Prime Minister was a message about how we grow that pie, not just about how we should divide it up. The argument for so many years has been about who should get which piece, and how, and how big that piece should be. We want to see New Zealand prosper, we want to see it going ahead, and that is what the Prime Minister’s statement tells us.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : That was the Minister for Social Development and Employment—unbelievable! Under her watch, unemployment has increased. Under her watch, one in three Māori and Pacific young people are unemployed. Under her watch, the community social services sector has been gutted, because she has done away with Pathways to Partnership funding, which was aimed at strengthening the whole sector. That was not a contestable fund from which only a few providers could get funding. Under her watch, she operates under the dictum that more must mean more: the more she talks, then the more she believes what she says. But that just does not wash in many communities, because in terms of Māori and Pacific youth, one in three young people are unemployed. What will she do about that?

That Minister has introduced Community Max into communities that know that for only 6 months, at best, they will be able to provide an opportunity for young people. And now she has walked out, because she knows that what people are saying to her is absolutely true—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): The member cannot refer to the absence of a member from the House.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The Minister might wish to turn away from what I am saying. However she understands that what I and the community are saying to her is true about a 6-month opportunity for young people to be employed. Yes, it is an opportunity, but it is not a sustainable one. So she backs those people who volunteer and work in community organisations, but does she look for sustainable opportunities for those young people? No. One in three Māori and Pacific young people are unemployed right now. I tell the Minister that, and I ask what she is going to do about it. Unemployment has increased under her watch; what will she do about it?

The Minister for Social Development and Employment points to the Prime Minister’s statement as being a great statement of hope and opportunity, and of aspiration, but what did the Prime Minister say? He said the Government will increase the GST rate and revamp the tax system, but all the while there is no detail provided to low, modest, and fixed-income New Zealanders about just how that will increase job opportunities for people out there who want to work. This party here, the Labour Party in Opposition, believes that people want to work—yes, we do—but we also believe that the Government should take a proactive role in ensuring that jobs are out there to be got. When we see 3,500-odd people turn up in South Auckland for jobs at a supermarket there, we know that people want to work, but nowhere in the Prime Minister’s statement has he spelt out very clearly how this Government will create extra jobs.

I say “Shame on the Minister for Social Development and Employment!”. One in three Māori and Pacific young people are unemployed, as we speak. What is the plan there? Raising the GST rate certainly will not help them or their families, but increasing the minimum wage to one that they could live on would help. Yet that Minister has the gall to say to this House that what she is doing is working. I say to her that clearly it is not. She should listen to people in the sector, because they do have solutions out there. They want to work in a collaborative way; they know that by working together, they can provide better opportunities, but that those opportunities have to be sustainable. Those people are not into short-term fixes, and they are not into glossy plans or marketing speeches from that Minister.

I will also comment on the kōrero from Hone Harawira. I tēnei wā ka mihi atu ki a koe, Hone, ahakoa “Kei runga te kōrero, kei raro te rahurahu”. Ko tēnei Whare he wāhi hei taupatupatu i ngā tino kaupapa o te wā. Nō reira, ka nui te mihi atu ki a koe.

[At this point I acknowledge you, Hone, despite the saying “Words above but mischief underneath”. This House is a place where the really great issues of the day are debated. So I commend you greatly.]

In many of Hone Harawira’s kōrero, and on a number of other topics, Hone has raised the fact that it is time to put away the past and that we need to look forward. I say that is indeed right, because Māori deserve to have that type of leadership in this House. However, when we come to the foreshore and seabed, that is a difficult issue. No matter how much members of the Māori Party may continue to raise the issues of the foreshore and seabed in this House, the political reality is very simple: they will not be able to deliver on the expectations they have raised out there in many Māori communities, amongst iwi, that Māori will own the foreshore and seabed outright. So the Māori Party members should just call a spade a spade, and say their coalition arrangement with National will not deliver on that. But then that gets the Māori Party back to the point, the very hard rub, the position that it is in right now: how do its members deliver something better than what is already there?

I acknowledge that the process that was undertaken to get what we have now regarding the foreshore and seabed was an imperfect process, but let us look at the outcome. Māori have an avenue for iwi now to go into direct negotiations with the Crown to be able to strengthen their claim to, and interest in, the foreshore and seabed. They have an avenue now for iwi to be able to go to the Māori Land Court to get a range of customary rights recognised. They have an avenue now for Treaty claims that have foreshore and seabed issues as a component within them to be protected from that legislation, if it is the wish of iwi. Māori have an avenue now that protects access to our beaches for everybody. They have an avenue right now, under the existing legislation, to protect and preserve existing Māori reserves that go into foreshore and seabed areas.

So I ask the Māori Party members, in a very serious way, what they will do that is better and stronger than the position that we have now. They need to come clean and tell the truth to many of the iwi out there, who have been led to believe from leadership within the Māori Party that Māori will own the foreshore and seabed outright, no matter whether in the past it was sold or confiscated, or whether for some reason or other, they lost their mana over their particular area. That foreshore and seabed will be a very interesting landscape to observe, and Labour will be happy to do so. But I tell the Māori Party members that they have to come clean with iwi about the expectations the party has raised that absolute title and confirmation of ownership will be given to iwi in terms of their foreshore and seabed spaces. I tell Hone Harawira that if he comes into my area and promises that, he had damn well better deliver on it. People there will not take anything less than that, and they certainly will not be happy if raised expectations are not delivered on.

Let us go to the other issues, because some very important issues were raised in the Prime Minister’s speech. At the heart of my kōrero I will focus on where the issues hinge together for the Māori Party. Prior to the election, the Māori Party said it did not agree with GST being imposed on food costs. In fact, it made a lot of comments about the fact that it did not agree with raising the rate of GST, at all. I think raising the GST rate will be a coalition deal-beaker. In the electorate, when I campaigned against my Māori Party counterpart, that issue got a lot of attention from my constituents, because in my electorate an average of 70 percent earn $40,000 a year or less. They knew that if GST was increased, they would have less discretionary money to spend on consumable items. It is simple. So a raise in GST will be a big issue for my constituents. I think it is a coalition deal-breaker, but the Māori Party is saying right now that it is not. Well, the simple fact is that even though that party has a member’s bill in the ballot that would remove GST from food, the party can just deny support to the Government and squash the proposed GST increase there. But, no, the party’s co-leader said it is not a coalition deal-breaker. I say that issue will come back to haunt the Māori Party.

The Māori Party members have not delivered on the issue of GST. They have not delivered on a policy of no tax for people on incomes of under $23,000 a year. They have not delivered on a one-off payment of $500 at Christmas time for kaumātua. They will not be able to deliver on a repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act and deliver absolute title to Māori in that area. They are not allowed to introduce legislation to entrench the Māori seats. They are not able to achieve a rise in the minimum wage to $15. In fact, our member Darien Fenton has vociferously advocated for that pathway, not the Māori Party. Nobody seems to know what the Māori Party’s flagship policy, Whānau Ora, means. There is one definition from Paula Bennett, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, but that is totally different from the version of her colleague outside Cabinet. I am sure it is also totally different from the definition used by other Ministers around the Cabinet table.

This is an interesting horizon. It is not one that offers the opportunity in jobs and growth that the Prime Minister outlined at the opening of Parliament. A simple rejigging of taxation does not deliver to low, fixed, and modest-income earners in New Zealand—most of all, it does not deliver to young people. More important, where are the jobs for the one in three Māori and Pacific young people who are unemployed in our country? This Government should be ashamed of itself.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Minister for Courts) : First of all, I pay tribute to Jeanette Fitzsimons. I think she and I came into Parliament at the same time—1996. Over all the years that she has been here—and I think she will be a loss to the Parliament and a loss to the Green Party—I want to commend her for her integrity, her absolute focus on the issues, never a focus on personalities or politics in the sense that that sometimes goes on in this Chamber, and her absolute belief in the things the Green Party stands for. I am not a supporter of many of its beliefs but I did always admire the way that she was clear, she was consistent, she was thorough, and she worked hard. I think her contribution to this House has been pretty amazing.

I also make a comment about a colleague of ours, the Hon Parekura Horomia, who came into the House in, I think, 1999. I was a little disappointed in the offering he gave this afternoon. He is better than that, but he seemed intent on using unacceptably bad language, and I know he has probably apologised for that. He still commands respect, obviously, from those who originally put him into Parliament. He still is an electorate MP and I am sure those people can rightly expect better of him as well.

I am very proud to stand in the House this afternoon and support the Prime Minister as part of the National Government that he leads. I am very proud to be part of it and to speak in support of the statement he delivered to the House last week. In listening to the contributions made by the two previous speakers on the Labour side, it is very easy to pick out bits and pieces that might suit one’s argument but, in the end, the wisest thing to do is to focus on the package that the Prime Minister outlined last week. Just to repeat what he said, and he said it many times before that and has said it many times since: “In 2010 we will have a firm focus on growing the economy.”

Hon Steve Chadwick: How?

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: I will come back to that. That reminds me of what happened in the decade that the Labour Government was in power and ran up huge surpluses; when the National Government took over we certainly faced a global turndown, but, in fact, the recession had started to set in before that time. Labour should be ashamed of itself about the surpluses that its Government was running in a buoyant economy, because it did not lay up for the bad times ahead. A very good example is the fact that we inherited a number of legacies and ones that were not at all advantageous to the New Zealand public. But one of the things that was there when we came into Government was that over half of young Māori girls and boys were not achieving level 1 in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. That is an indictment on a Government, on a party—

Hon Steve Chadwick: That’s not true.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: That is absolutely correct. That is an indictment on a Government that had every opportunity to make sure that young people were trained, were educated, and were skilled. We now have to deal with that legacy—

Moana Mackey: Unemployment has gone up.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: They are right: unemployment has risen in the last 12 months, but I do not know whether Labour has noticed that there was a global recession. Ultimately, if a Government does not lay up, educate, support, and nurture its young people, then they will be the ones who will be hard hit when a global downturn comes. That is what happened. The members on the other side need to think seriously about what they did not do when the times were good and be a little bit more analytical about what it is we intend to do in this year and the years going forward.

As part of our plan that was announced last week, the Prime Minister laid out the following: a world-class tax system—

Hon Steve Chadwick: There was no plan.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: We have signalled some of the things that we are going to do, that we are thinking about. That is good. Going around New Zealand, up at the Big Gay Out on Sunday moving around the grounds with the Prime Minister, there was no one who said that they did not agree, for instance, with the Government raising GST. Nobody said that. They said they could see what we are trying to do and they were open to it, because, by gosh, we have to do better with the New Zealand economy. That is what New Zealanders are saying. That is what they know. That is what they know needs to be done.

We wanted a better Public Service when we came into Government. The previous Labour Government had built up the Public Service. Services were not necessarily the best. The people in Wellington—those numbers were just huge. We want a better-performing Public Service. We have put a huge emphasis on education and skills, investing in infrastructure, taking away regulation—red tape that was absolutely built up during the time of that Labour Government—and investing in science and innovation. There is a package. Members should look at the package. Members need to wait until the Budget and then they will see how this package comes together. People are at the heart of that economic plan—there is no doubt about it.

I shall refer, if I may, to the emphasis on Māori and Pacific young people. The House will have heard many times already the Prime Minister’s absolute commitment to young Māori and Pacific children and young people—[Interruption] Yes, they have been hard hit by the recession, but, as I said, that is what happens when we fail to nurture and educate them, which is what happened in the period of the previous Labour Government.

Hon Steve Chadwick: The creative industries are where they thrive.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: The member can say that, but she knows very well that there is a legacy of underachievement, uneducated and unskilled young people. Our emphasis will be on them. That is why national standards are so important. Those members should be ashamed that they would be happy to continue to see that one out of every five young people in New Zealand leaves school without literacy and numeracy sufficient to enable him or her to contribute to the economy. That is what members on that side are saying when they criticise national standards, when they criticise what we are intending to do.

We need all of our young children going through early childhood education. We need to make sure that young people leave school with qualifications. We need to ensure that the skills they need to help us grow the economy are theirs to be had. Labour would do well to encourage the schools, the teachers, or their colleagues and associates out in the public arena to support what this Government is doing. There is no point in raising—

Moana Mackey: No, we listen to them. We don’t treat them like idiots. They know what they’re talking about. We don’t treat them like they’re idiots.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: We do not. That is the problem: a Labour Government does. We do not treat them like they are idiots. People want better from our economy, they want better from New Zealand, and they deserve better. Our ability to engage with them is important. The ability of the Prime Minister to listen and engage with them is hugely important. They appreciate that. That side would do well to encourage the same. Thank you.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatū) : I am not ashamed that the previous Labour Government ran surpluses, because it used that money wisely to invest in the future of our country. Unlike the existing Government, we had a plan. Under Labour we had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. That was part of our plan. It was by means of active engagement on the part of the Government that that was achieved. Was that not an amazing achievement in today’s world? Under the previous Labour Government we had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. We had a lower unemployment rate than Australia’s. Today, after 15 months of the National Government, we have a higher percentage of people unemployed than Australia does. I am not ashamed that we in the previous Labour Government used that surplus to pay off our Government debt. We had, by the time we left office, the lowest per capita Government debt in the developed world.

I am not ashamed that we doubled education spending. We put it into everything, ranging from an enormous boost of $1 billion that went into early childhood education developments over 9 years to interest-free student loans. I think something like 22 schools were built in the last year that I was the Minister of Education. It was an astonishing investment in education, which I will talk a little more about in a minute. We doubled health spending. We focused it at the grassroots. Primary health care was a major focus of the doubling of that money from the surplus, about which we were just criticised by the previous speaker, Georgina te Heuheu, for running up under the Labour Government. That surplus was used and invested for the benefit of our country. I am not ashamed that an extra $1 billion went into State housing. It went into income-related rents—

John Hayes: Not in my electorate.

Hon CHRIS CARTER: Oh, did I hear that it did not go into that member’s electorate? That simply would not be true, I say to Mr Hayes. Everywhere the State housing stock, the largest asset that the Government owns, was expanded and modernised. Most important of all, we provided affordable rents to the poorest New Zealanders, which lifted up the quality of their lives, and the quality of their children’s lives. That had direct impacts on their health as well as their lifestyles.

Those are things that I am very proud of. No Government would be ashamed of having made that sort of investment in the future of our country.

The member Georgina te Heuheu kept making reference to Māori. Indeed, it was under the previous Labour Government that Māori Television was set up, and a whole host of other culturally and practically related things: employment, education, health, and income-related rents for State houses, 60 percent of whose tenants are Māori. Those things had a direct and positive impact on the lives of Māori people.

We heard a lot in the Prime Minister’s statement about national standards. What a joke! I was the Minister of Education before the election, and I think the National members came up with a slogan: national standards. They did not know what it meant. They have done no work on national standards, at all. That is obvious, because we are still going through the process of trying to discover what they are and how we are to implement them. National came up with a slogan; it sounded very attractive to parents, did it not? It said we should make sure that someone’s 5-year-old, 7-year-old, or 9-year-old had reached a literacy and numeracy standard. Of course if National had bothered to do a bit of investigation, it would have found that, as the Ministry of Education told it straight after the election, we actually already had those standards. They were called the Literacy Learning Progressions and the Numeracy Development Projects. They established a benchmark that each child was measured against. They did not establish league tables. League tables happened in the UK and the USA, where schools’ achievement rates were set one against the other.

All of the experts around the so-called national standards will tell us that they are the wrong way to go in measuring students’ success. We can put aside the whole debunked and ridiculous idea, because, as I said, we already have a record in schools that is available to parents. Under the National Education Guidelines, all schools have to report in simple language to parents. That is the other thing National members talked a lot about, but actually it was already required to be done, and the Education Review Office checked on it. That is interesting.

One of the interesting things that National seems to love to do is to liberate accountability. One of the first steps it took in its new administration of education was to reduce the amount of checking that went on at schools. Now many primary schools will have children going right through the school without any review by the Education Review Office taking place. So parents actually will now have less ability to find out whether their child is being well educated than they did prior to the election. Under the Labour Government all schools were required to undergo a review by the Education Review Office every 3 years, so that the community as well as the teachers could know what sort of job the schools were doing. They could get advice about doing things better, and there were better educational outcomes.

It seems to me that slogans have been used to sabotage what is a world-class education system. You know, our education system is not failing; it is succeeding. By any international comparison, New Zealand students have the highest, the best, scores overall in literacy, numeracy, and science in the whole English-speaking world. There are only a couple of countries, Finland and Singapore, that beat us in numeracy and literacy. We came best in the world in science. Out of the whole OECD scores, those of New Zealand students at age 15 were the best in the world in science. Do members know what this Government has done? It did not want to put any more resources into education, so it cut science, music, and art advisers. They were chucked out; they were all sacked so that the Government could employ a few more literacy and numeracy advisers. Our students are the best in the world in science at 15 years of age, but now our schools do not have science advisers, and 15 months after the election we still do not know what national standards are or how they will be implemented.

Schools and principals have asked whether we could have a trial, so we could have an evidence-based process to see whether national standards would work. For everything else that we do, we have an evidence-based process. We have experts work out a programme, and we test it to see whether it is working. We leave that in the hands of specialists. But is that good enough for the current National-ACT Government? Oh no, it is not. National came up with a slogan during the election campaign. It did not know what it meant. All that it wanted to do was to push some buttons. I think it is called dog whistling politics, whereby it was said that if people voted for National, there would be national standards against which children could be measured, and the schools would have to tell parents all about that.

Of course, as I said, we have an education system that is among the best in the world. People come from all over the world to look at the work we do in literacy and numeracy in this country, as well as at that in science and in the creative arts. I constantly dealt with delegations of educational experts who came from overseas to New Zealand. Indeed, when I was at the education Ministers’ conference 2 years ago in London, the education secretary, the top civil servant in Finland, the country that came top in literacy and numeracy in the OECD scores, said to me that we were doing great things in New Zealand, and she wanted to come and have a look. I asked her how things were going in Finland, and she said they were not going as well as previously. She told me Finland had just elected a new conservative Government, and it was starting to erode the processes. Is that not interesting? The chief bureaucrat, not a politician but the top expert, in education in Finland told me 2 years ago in London that she was really worried about where Finland’s new conservative Government was going in education. Sadly, I am afraid we will have to repeat that advice to Finland now, because our standards too will be eroded by the divisive process of so-called national standards.

I heard the Prime Minister speak the other day. He said we need to get the students at the other end of the school, those who are leaving school without sufficient achievement, into apprenticeships and trades training—alternative paths for education. Then an amazing flash of déjà vu came to me. I thought of Schools Plus, the programme that Labour came up with in its last year in Government. We developed it with the education sector, with business, with trade unions, and with industry. Under that programme students staying at school were to explore different paths of learning, and every high school in New Zealand was to expand on its Gateway programme, which is its taster programme for work. Students were to have the opportunity to be based at a school and supervised by it, but to be out working for maybe 3 or 4 days a week, and the very able students were to go into tertiary education but be supervised by the school. Schools Plus was a comprehensive plan that was designed to deal with the tail end of underachievement, which every developed country has. We have a smaller rate of underachievement than most other countries, but we came up with that plan.

What happened to the Schools Plus plan? It was ditched in the first month. Silly old Anne Tolley is a total embarrassment to the Government. She has recently been demoted and lost the tertiary education portfolio, thank goodness. I cannot wait until she loses the rest of the education portfolio, because then education might have a chance. Anne Tolley ditched Schools Plus straight away. She ditched another thing right at the beginning of the process. Labour had done an audit to find sites for new early childhood centres in Auckland, as land is very expensive there. Twenty-seven schools put up their hands and said they would like to have an early childhood education centre on their land, and the centre could have the land for free. But she cut that, as well.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : Some have said that the Government had a relaxed first year, free of fundamental reforms, and that the real work begins now. I would like to at least partially dispute that. In my specialist area of law and order, the change in Government has brought with it a major change of attitude. In the past year there has been a renewed focus on getting tough on our worst offenders, on cracking down on criminal gangs, and on looking after victims rather than paying lip-service to their rights. The ACT Party has played a key role in this. Without our input and support, much of this could not have happened.

The Prime Minister, in his speech, talked about the need for sensible Government spending to help grow the economy. The key to growing the economy and catching up to Australia is to allow the private sector to get on with the job, free of excessively high taxation, free of senseless red tape, and free of crime. A firm law and order policy is not just sensible social policy; it is good economic policy, too. If we practise zero tolerance on crime, we reduce the cost of crime. A safer society is more productive and everyone will be better off. Locking up some people for longer will cost the Government a bit more, but this is more than offset by the reduced cost to the private sector.

A Treasury report, Estimating the Costs of Crime in New Zealand2003/04, is an excellent piece of research, and I wish such research were produced more often. The first few sentences of the abstract to that article are most revealing: “We estimate that the total costs of crime in New Zealand in 2003/04 amounted to $9.1 billion. Of this, the private sector incurred $7 billion in costs, and the public sector $2.1 billion.” It is easy to see that the costs of crime fall primarily on the private sector. The cost of dealing with offenders—processing them, sentencing them, and locking them up—is a fraction, in fact, about a quarter, of what it costs the private sector.

Crime costs the private sector $7 billion a year, and 80 percent of the cost, Treasury calculates, is the physical and emotional effect of crime on the victims. It comes in their health costs, their emotional costs, and the impact on their way of life and also on lost output. I am not talking about burglary or theft; I am talking about serious violent crime. I quote again from the abstract: “Offences against private property are the most common crimes, but offences against the person are the most costly, accounting for 45% of the total estimated costs of crime.” Crimes against the person include serious violence, sexual offences, and aggravated robbery—all soon to be covered by the “three strikes” law recently announced.

It is crucial that we continue to reduce crime in all its forms. The social and economic costs of not doing so are painfully obvious. If we go soft on crime, the nation loses at least $74 million a year that could be better spent elsewhere. Is it, economically speaking, worth raising the costs of the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice a little, to reduce the burden on the productive sector? Absolutely! Morally speaking, is it worth spending more to punish the worst offenders and prevent them from creating more victims? There is no question. The “three strikes” legislation will lock our worst criminals away for much longer. When they are in prison, they are not out on the streets, reoffending. Meanwhile the deterrent effect of the policy will stop others from committing more crimes. Some claim that crime is an irrational behaviour. Well, overseas experience shows that a law like this causes people to think before they act.

The Government has increased the number of police on the beat and is paying greater attention to both ends of the offending scale. It has got tough on gangs and drug dealers, and made common-sense decisions regarding double-bunking and prison management. Keeping our citizens safe is the most important function that a Government can undertake. ACT has always recognised this. It is in our constitution very prominently. No better example of our impact in this Parliament can be found than in the “three strikes” policy. [Interruption] Sir Roger pointed that out to me, I say to that member over there. ACT campaigned for “three strikes” for many years, and I am pleased to say that I could play a part in making this policy a reality. For too long, successive Governments have given our worst criminals too easy a ride. That ride is shortly to be abruptly closed. Gone are the days of countless chances. We owe the victims of violent crime a far better deal than we have provided them up until now.

However, criminal apologists are spreading myths about the “three strikes” policy. Peter Williams QC has been painting a world for us where scores of mentally ill and homeless people are filling our prisons beyond overflowing. If he spent more time reading the legislation and less time reading Charles Dickens, he would realise, as most people already do, that the “three strikes” policy targets the worst of the worst. Loitering or pickpocketing will not be found anywhere in the list of 36 offences that constitute a strike. I challenge Mr Williams and his ilk to explain why a three-time violent offender should not get 14 years for kidnapping, 20 years for rape, or life without parole for the most serious cases of murder. I wish him luck; he will need it.

Meanwhile, the eternally confused Mr Kim Workman first claimed that the “three strikes” policy would cause the prison population to triple. Similarly outlandish claims were made in California. When challenged, Mr Workman quickly revised his claim and said the increase would be 3,000, not a tripling. The reality is that in the first 5 years an estimated 56 of our worst criminals would be affected by the “three strikes” policy. This rises to 142 after 10 years, 288 after 20 years, and 433 after 30 years, which is just over 10 percent of Mr Workman’s revised figure. One can expect the actual figures to be lower. If results from overseas are anything to go by, we can expect a substantial deterrent effect.

For those who blindly claim there is no such thing from laws like this, there is plenty of material out there to prove otherwise. I draw attention to two of those, the first being the summer 2007 Journal of the Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice. It states: “The number of third strikers in California declined every year from 1997 to 2003.” Members should note those dates. In 1997 there was a plummet in the numbers, 3 years after the law was introduced. A 1999 FBI study also shows that since the “three strikes” policy was implemented in 1994, overall crime in California decreased by 27 percent, and violent crime decreased by more than 50 percent. It is true that the “three strikes” policy will imprison more people and the costs to the Government will modestly increase, but because of deterrents this initial cost has been shown to be temporary.

I am proud, as my ACT colleagues are, to have played a key part in this renewed focus on making and keeping New Zealand safe. It has been a good first year for this Government, but there is much more left to do.

Moana Mackey: What about the link with unemployment and crime?

DAVID GARRETT: I tell the member that we had low unemployment under the previous Labour Government. Did violent crime decrease, as the theory would have it? No, it kept rising.

We most certainly can create a low-tax, high-growth economy that leaves no one behind. Our next target, zero tolerance on crime, has a crucial role to play in that, and I look forward to playing my part in this process. Thank you.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) : I am pleased to take a call in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. It is the first time I have responded to a plan from the Prime Minister.

A few speeches ago we heard from the Minister for Social Development and Employment. I would have expected the Hon Paula Bennett to take the opportunity available to her to take the social development content of the Prime Minister’s statement further. It certainly was a glorious opportunity—a set piece, if you like. We expected Paula Bennett to explain her social policy and social development direction a little further. That would have given us a sense of what the Government is trying to achieve in its social development programme as reflected in the statement.

She could have at least taken the opportunity to explain her own philosophy about where she wants social development to go. A great opportunity was made available to the Minister. Perhaps she could have shared with us some of her own doubts and ambivalences about what her Government is trying to do and the problems it is trying to address in this country in terms of social development. I would have respected such a speech. I would have listened to it very carefully, probably very quietly, and even respectfully. That opportunity was there, but it was missed. In its absence, my women friends from this side of the House were railed against, for no good reason at all. I would have thought that the opportunity might be taken, but it was an opportunity lost.

One looks for certain things in the Prime Minister’s statement. I would have thought the Hon Paula Bennett would have told us about the markers she was looking for. For me, I looked for some kind of balance in the statement, some kind of measure of fairness, and also for solutions to the pressing social and economic needs of our society. I especially looked for comments on solutions to the needs of the most vulnerable in our community. This Parliament stands as their champions—and everybody else’s. For me, there are two primary components that one looks for. They are the two components of national development, and the core business of this House: the economy, and the people without whom the economy would not exist. Those are the two components. Put another way, one would have looked for the statement to address national development, which is a result of the combination of economic development and social development. That is what I was looking for in the statement.

I was also looking for solutions that benefit the many, not the few. Let me take two examples. One is the policy framework for GST. The plan is to raise GST to 15 percent, and colleague after colleague from this side has got up to demonstrate what the effects of that will be on a particular section of our society. The idea is to increase GST, to provide some tax relief, and at the same time to use a significant amount of that money to decrease tax at the upper end. In that statement and subsequent statements we are also promised that no one will be worse off. Well, I think we should interrogate that proposition in some detail. Others have done it, but I am trying to gauge for myself whether there is balance in that particular statement, and I will use that proposition as an example.

For those on low incomes, the increase in GST, even with some compensating tax relief, means their situation gets no better. I do not understand how the Prime Minister can say that their situation will get somewhat better. It is not possible to see that occurring. However, [Interruption]—I will explain to the member how that is so and I invite him to do this exercise in his own electorate with people who fall into this particular category—for the other end of the spectrum, for those earning above $70,000, the benefits will be enormous compared with the benefits for those who are on a limited income. For an individual or a family on a low income, for low-income people who work hard for their wages, any increase in GST, in the cost of food, clothing, petrol, rates, etc., raises enormous burdens.

After paying for the basics, those families end up—

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: Haven’t you heard about the compensation provisions? Don’t you listen?

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: The member may not want to listen to the analysis. There are not many people of that nature in his electorate, but there are in an electorate not far from his. For them the benefits will be nil, but for many in his electorate there will be significant benefits, and perhaps that is where his interest lies. My interest is in seeing a balance between the two. After paying for the basics, families on low incomes will end up with no spare cash at all. Even with tax breaks, there will be no benefit to them at all. They spend 100 percent of their income—the member knows that—on just living day by day. Is that the step change we have been promised in the statement? It is not a step change. It actually is a continuation of the kinds of policies that National Governments have pursued for generations—privilege the rich and punish the poor, in one form or another, despite the rhetoric. For those on high incomes, a smaller percentage of their income goes on the basics, and the tax cuts will give them quite good relief. So GST increases will be a huge burden for low-income households.

If we deconstruct the proposals on GST in the Prime Minister’s statement, we cannot be satisfied with them. If members opposite were intellectually honest and applied their minds to the exercise, they could not be satisfied that that policy is fair to the human input into national development. Therefore, it is a policy that is not balanced. Therefore, it is not fair. It is to the contrary; families at the lower-income level will still struggle. It is really a shift of resources from the poor to the rich.

There is another matter that I want to raise. A lot is said in the statement about social services. It purports to address the emerging underclass. The Prime Minister plans to improve social services. We do not know where Whānau Ora will lie. I hope it will lie in a place where it does improve social services beyond where they are today. I will not bag the social services of today, because the people who do that work, day in and day out, go out and do work that nobody else in our society wants to do.

Te Hurihanga was a programme that was actually working and working successfully.

Hon Member: Aw!

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: If that member would like to identify himself and say that it was not, I would question that. It was not social engineering, I say to my good friend. That programme was working, and working for the most difficult 20 cases or so. Last week Mr Power challenged us that we do not know what we are talking about. Well, I challenge Simon Power to take a call and tell us the real background, to tell us what it is that Judge Caroline Henwood does not understand. The newspapers report daily that that was a stupid decision. Somehow Paula Bennett turned it round, in a perverse, cynical kind of way. Her argument today was that by closing down that facility, those resources can be used for the many, not for the few. That is what she said three speeches ago. That is very cynical, because that programme’s clients were the very people whom those on the other side say they are concerned about. They are the ones who create a lot of difficulty.

By my two factors by which I judge the Prime Minister’s statement, it is not balanced and it is not fair. It will not work in the long run.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : What a debate on the Prime Minister’s statement this has been! It is significant because of what it tells us about the state of the Opposition. During the Prime Minister’s address it was interesting to watch the way the Labour members reacted. There were the usual shrill, squawking, squeaking members who, as we all know, speak up and shout out without putting their minds into gear and without thinking. But the great bulk of the Labour members spent their time looking down and shuffling their shoes, because, finally, some of them have come to the realisation—and that speech last Tuesday by the Prime Minister really brought it home to them—that this country has had 9 wasted years.

The Labour Party came into office during the best of times and was kicked out in the worst of times. New Zealanders understand that New Zealand was well into recession as a result of the Labour Government’s policies long before the international financial crisis set in. In 2000, Dr Cullen and Miss Clark could not wait to put up taxation—they could not wait. What was it all about? It was all about driving initiative out of the New Zealand economy. It was all about punishing people who were successful. That is the fundamental tenet of socialism: people must not be allowed to succeed.

Socialism thrives only when mediocrity is imposed upon the people. Dr Cullen and the Labour Party were saying to New Zealanders: “We know how to spend your money better than you do.” I wonder how many New Zealanders were denied the opportunity to pay a little bit more off their mortgages and to do a little bit more for their children because the previous Government drove up taxation.

The Prime Minister’s statement foresees significant adjustments in the way that taxation is paid. It comes down to one word that the socialists hate: “choice”. Socialists dislike any form of choice, whether it is about how people spend the money they earn, whether it is about where people get their medical treatment, or whether it is what school people send their children to. Above all else Labour denies our citizens choice.

The Prime Minister’s statement begins to open up choice for New Zealanders. I welcome the prospect of more New Zealanders having more control over the money they earn. On this side of the House we believe that the person who earns the money is the person in the best position to decide how it is best spent in their interests and in the interests of their family. I look forward to New Zealanders soon having greater choice and a greater opportunity to do what is best for them and their families. I look forward to reducing the ability of big Government—the big Government that the last Government created; the big bureaucracies—to control the lives of ordinary citizens.

I must also comment on the contribution of the Green Party in this debate. It occurs to me that to describe that party as a green party is a major misnomer. Any elements of any sort of constructive environmental policy have gone—that is now the domain of this side, the governing side, of the House. I humbly suggest that it is time we rename the Green Party the deepest, dirtiest “Red Party”, which is, in effect, what the Green Party has turned itself into. It has turned into the extreme left-wing of the Opposition. Let me tell Labour members that New Zealanders have got it worked out. New Zealanders see no future at all in the sort of mediocrity, “do as you’re told”, no-choice policies that are advocated by that party.

Let us for a moment, very briefly, turn to education. Why have Mr Mallard and other Labour members been so timid in their opposition to national standards? Let me tell the House why. It is because the teachers’ union does not like and do not want accountability. We know that when the teachers’ union speaks, Labour jumps. It has happened so many times. When the leadership of the teachers’ union speaks—it does not matter what is good for the country, the economy, the parents, or the children—Labour jumps.

We know that Mr Mallard is committed to standards in education. In 2002 he said: “We need to keep the focus on high expectations for all students.” The problem was, of course, that teacher unions did not allow him to deliver on that statement. Well, I can tell the House this afternoon that National will deliver on those statements.

I will look now at another aspect of Labour’s desire to control the people of this country. It wants to control the people who create the wealth and the jobs, who make the economy work, and who generate wealth for our people. In 2005 Labour signed off on salary increases of 5 percent a year for 5 years for the chief executives of the Government ministries. It signed off on salary increases of 5 percent a year for 5 years for some of the highest-paid people in New Zealand.

I invite any Labour member opposite, particularly the member who is yawning, to visit my electorate of Tāmaki and tell the people of Glen Innes that the Labour Party cares for them. The good people of Glen Innes—who supported me so strongly in the 2008 election, and I thank them for that—are sick and tired of having academics and union organisers telling them what is best for them and their families. All those people want is to live their lives, make things a bit better for their families, and be responsible.

I repeat the invitation. Any member on that side of the House is welcome to visit Glen Innes and talk to the people about their aspirations and about the fact that they have moved beyond the socialist control of the previous Labour Government. In fact, I will go further; I will escort them. I will escort any Labour members. I will put them in my car, I will take them around, and I will introduce them to the people whom the Labour Party has stopped meeting: the ordinary man and woman on the street, trying to make a go of it and trying to support their families.

What about the huge increase in the Wellington-based bureaucracy? One of the great difficulties that this Government has foreshadowed it has to deal with is how to shift the backroom bureaucrats into front-line services. There have been huge increases in the size of the health bureaucracy—huge increases—and they have in no way been commensurate with increases in the number of front-line health professionals. It is the same in the education sector. Huge increases have occurred in all the ministries here in Wellington, but we have very few extra teachers. There have been huge pay increases for the bureaucrats, but not a lot for the people working at the front line.

I summarise by saying that this is a very simple matter in the eyes of the New Zealand electorate. The National Party—the governing party—and its coalition partners want a better New Zealand. National has a vision for a better New Zealand and it is delivering on that vision. The Labour Party, the deepest, dirtiest “Red Party”, wants to hold New Zealand back. It wants to strangle and stifle economic growth and the initiative of the individual.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) : It gives me great pleasure to rise and follow Allan Peachey’s speech. I think that he hit it on the head when he said Labour is the party that is trying to hold New Zealanders back. The New Zealand public have been held back for 9 long years and now they are finally getting some leadership. They are getting some direction, they are getting a path forward, and they are getting a Prime Minister who actually delivers and listens to what they want. This Prime Minister has taken on board the concerns of New Zealanders and has addressed them in a way that New Zealanders feel they have some support and empathy with. New Zealanders now feel that they have a part in the future and that they have a Government that listens to and delivers on their needs, that has a purpose and direction, and that is willing to make decisions for the benefit of this country.

Before we look forward to what the Prime Minister said, let us look back at the last year. It was a very difficult year for New Zealand, as most economic indicators show, with the change in the world’s circumstances because of the recession. But the National Government led the New Zealand economy through those difficult times. We took an approach that listened to the people and delivered a system and structure that meant New Zealand could sustain itself through the most difficult times. That is in contrast to what the previous Government would have done. It would not have been able to portray that or build New Zealand through a very difficult time. We need to give a lot of credit to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet and to the political parties that supported the Government through that time. It was difficult, but now we have to make some more and bigger choices as we move forward to build a stronger country in, hopefully, better times in the next decade or so. The Prime Minister’s statement sets out the plan for how we intend to do that.

National wants to build a New Zealand that emphasises the ability of people and our communities to succeed and prosper. We want to make sure that there is an attitude out there whereby people want to go for it and take advantage of their opportunities. We want to see New Zealanders have faith in their future and see the reward to be gained from taking the risks and doing the hard work that is necessary to make that future a reality. That is what the National Government is doing in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament. It is sending a message to New Zealanders that the time has come for them to follow their destiny and take advantage of what this great country can be. We will give New Zealanders the tools so that they can become what they deserve to be. We will not hold our people back, we will not hold our country back, and we will not tell people that we know everything. We are letting New Zealanders build their own future.

That is why we have concentrated on many economic issues in the statement to Parliament, and we have also focused on some other issues that are of a more social nature with regard to education and social well-being that are fundamental to building that attitude change. If we look at some of the economic issues that the Government has focused on, we see that a big one is with regard to taxation changes. Most people out there are quite aware of the situation in the property market. New Zealanders have made an investment in that market that could be quite detrimental to the growth of this country. New Zealanders have not had the incentives to go out there and look for higher-income earning jobs or to get the skills and attributes that would give them higher incomes. Instead, they have looked upon property as an investment vehicle.

We want to change that attitude. We want to show New Zealanders that the attitude that people need in order to succeed in this world is one where people get the skills and they go into high-income earning jobs where they build not only their own personal wealth but also the wealth of this country. That is what we are looking at doing. We want to send the right incentives out there so that people make those choices. We are not trying to get people to make choices on the basis of what they see as tax incentives in the system. We want people to make the right choice on the basis of education and an understanding that they can build a career and find success.

That is important when we see that the previous Government had the opportunity to do that for 9 years and it did nothing. All it did was to keep those incentives there so that people would invest in other structures rather than investing in themselves and in this economy. National is not afraid to make the hard decisions in order to change that investment philosophy so that people invest in their education and skills. When we look at the skills of New Zealanders, we see that it is a very important part of what we need to have a fundamental change in attitude.

We need to see that New Zealanders have the fundamental skills in their schooling system that will give them the opportunity to take advantage of the modern world. That is what we are doing with the national standards approach. It brings about a fundamental look at what we need in our schools for our young people, so that they can achieve at school. Once again the National Government has shown itself as not being afraid to make the tough decisions and to go out there and provide leadership, so that parents, students, and our schools will understand that we have a desire to see people attain their full potential. So just in those two elements of taxation and education we can see the philosophy that this Government is portraying through this statement to the public. [Interruption]

Labour members are trying to change the subject. They do not want to hear about education or tax cuts. What they want to hear about is how the top 16 executives in our Government departments should have their wages cut, reduced, or held. That would be the step change for the Labour Party. Labour members are now very quiet, because they have no vision and no direction. The public saw that for 9 years and the public did not want it. It wanted to see direction, a step change, and some choices. The public wanted to see some decisions and to see the Government move ahead, and that is what they are getting with this statement.

What pleases me the most about this statement, though, is that it takes New Zealanders along on that journey. It does not force New Zealanders into one camp or another. We give New Zealanders the option of taking advantage of the process the Government will set up. We are not being dogmatic and saying that this is the be-all and end-all of all things. We are giving New Zealanders the tools to make that future for themselves. John Key will go down as one of the great Prime Ministers of New Zealand and as the leader of his generation, because he has taken the people along with him. He has understood the psyche of the New Zealand public and has managed to incorporate that in his future delivery of a vision for this country. Bringing together a vision that people are part of means that one can actually have success, because the ownership of that vision is not with the National Party or this Government. Far be it for the 120-odd people in this room to tell New Zealanders how they should live their lives. The vision and the purpose are owned by the people of New Zealand, and that is the leadership John Key is providing.

He is taking everybody together so that we can deliver a system and a structure that will enable New Zealanders to achieve. I think that is something that many of the politicians on the Opposition side need to take a good, hard, long look at, because unless we can drive a country through itself rather than trying to drive it out of Wellington we cannot achieve what we want to achieve in Government. I think the key to what New Zealand is doing through this new National Government is that change is being driven through New Zealanders and their vision of what they can achieve, and not necessarily the vision of this room. I think that is an important part of the step change that will come to New Zealand.

We are giving faith to New Zealanders. It is about building the attitude of a new generation so that New Zealanders have faith in their ability, in their Government, in their institutions, and also in their future. We are giving New Zealanders the brighter future that they sought at election time 2 years ago, and the way to do it is by delivering not only specifics but also a future and a policy that people can buy into, accept, and have ownership of.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to support this statement to Parliament. It is a very important start in the process of delivering that new vision and attitude for New Zealanders as we go forward. If we look at the statement we will see that it also includes a couple of comments that are very relevant to the Waikato that we need to be supportive of, and they are around our Crown research institutes and our infrastructure developments. They are very pleasing for our region, as well. Thank you.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : Thank you for the opportunity to support the Prime Minister’s speech and his vision for this country. I bring a message from the Wairarapa electorate and provincial New Zealand, because the message was given to me very clearly over Christmas. The message was: “We got rid of those Labour jokers because we want change.” So I stand here tonight as a very strong supporter of the visionary statement of our Prime Minister.

John Key and his Government are trying to do something very ambitious. He is trying to be more ambitious than Sir Roger Douglas or Ruth Richardson. His vision and aim for this country are to engage in economic reform, but in such a way that the whole country comes with him. In contrast, let me say that Labour lost office because it spent its last 9 years locked in the tail of the 20th century. It had no forward vision; it had no ambition.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Instead of bouncing on a waterbed.

JOHN HAYES: Contrary to those who would prefer to spend their life cushioned in a waterbed, the key to New Zealand becoming wealthier lies in enticing all New Zealanders, not just the elite and the well-off, to think about a common future and working together.

I listened to the words of the past Minister of Education, Chris Carter, and the wonderful things he had done for the people of New Zealand and why we do not need national standards. I would like to tell the former Minister that I was in Dannevirke on Saturday afternoon, tracking back to Greytown from the 150th birthday celebrations in Waipawa, and I ran into a couple of young boys on the street in Dannevirke—actually, they were in a small cafe—and I asked one of them: “What’s 6 multiplied by 6?”.

Moana Mackey: Oh, you didn’t.

JOHN HAYES: I did.

Hon Chris Carter: Oh, I bet you did! Ha!

JOHN HAYES: Does Chris Carter know what his answer was? Fifty! This was from a boy who will be 12 next month and he does not know 6 times 6. But it gets worse. I then said to them: “Well, we don’t know 6 times 6, how about 2 multiplied by 3?”. They could not answer that question. I tried to make it even easier. I said to them: “Look, what is 2 multiplied by 2?”, and I got a wrong answer. This is the legacy that the Labour Government has left us to sweep up. The dismal truth in this country is that those boys and their parents have been living in a fool’s paradise for the last 9 years. They have been protected by the spending patterns of Helen Clark and Mr Michael Cullen, who increased Government spending over those 9 years by 45 percent.

Let us not talk just in percentages. I heard on the weekend from a recently retired public servant, and I do not want to embarrass this person by mentioning his name, that over the 5 years of his tenure—

Moana Mackey: Which means that they are made up as well!

Iain Lees-Galloway: Is this person real as well?

JOHN HAYES: OK, that person was from NZAID. Over the past 5 years its staff numbers have gone from 250 to 500. My constituents in the Wairarapa—and Parekura Horomia’s constituents in the Wairarapa—are picking up the bill for this nonsense. It is Government spending out of control. The result is that we have bled our skill base to Australia and to other countries.

Prime Minister Key has enunciated ambitious, measurable, long-term goals for all New Zealanders to strive for. All of us are crucial to achieving those goals, but each of us must help paddle the waka until we reach the targets of John Key’s aspiration.

His vision has six drivers: first, a world-class tax system; second, better public services; third, improved education skills; fourth, investment in infrastructure, as we are seeing on the Rimutaka Hill road at the moment; fifth, regulatory reform to get rid of red tape; and, sixth, innovation. We need a tax system that creates incentives for people to work hard to improve themselves, that encourages their saving, and that boosts the productivity of investments. The aims of John Key’s tax reform will, first of all, create incentives for people to work hard to improve their skills and to get ahead. It will encourage them to save, because we borrow far too much money outside New Zealand. The tax system needs to be fair to all New Zealanders. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister ruled out a land tax, a comprehensive capital gains tax, or a risk-free return method for taxing residential investment properties. We are committed to changing the way property is taxed. We are committed to reducing personal income tax.

There will be no major changes to Working for Families. Iwill say again, for the benefit of all beneficiaries, that there will be no major changes to Working for Families. I have heard a lot this afternoon from various Labour speakers who are trying to put petrol on a fire that does not exist by saying that GST will put costs on all of us. Let me say loud and clear that people on low incomes will be compensated for any GST increases, if that compensation is required. There is no fairer tax. I was told all weekend out in my electorate that this is the fairest thing we can do, and people were supportive.

Moana Mackey: You were not told that.

JOHN HAYES: Yes, I was. I was told in Waipukurau, I was told in Waipawa, I was told in Dannevirke, and I was told in Pahīatua, not to mention Greytown.

The public service will continue to require savings, because we are spending 45 percent more on public services than we were spending 9 years ago. We want to see stronger performance from Government agencies and we want to see an improvement in the way Crown assets are being managed. When I see the people without business skills whom Labour stacked on the boards of Crown entities I say that there is a very fast way of improving the return on those assets, and that is by putting in new boards.

I remember when Labour signed off a formal policy in 2005 to increase chief executive officers’ salaries in the public service by 5 percent each year for 5 years. Well, let me tell the House that we cancelled that arrangement in 2009. By 2007, the second year I spent in this Parliament, there was a 375 percent increase in the number of public servants earning $100,000 or more since Labour came to power in 1999, and the constituents in my electorate found this absolutely abhorrent; they did not understand. The Labour Government let bureaucracy get out of control in this country in the 9 years that it was in office, and the public service grew by 50 percent, or by 30,702 people in 1999 to 45,934 in June 2008.

Our focus this year will be on science and technology, and on research grants. In the context of my work in the foreign affairs, trade, and defence area I am very pleased that we will be signing trade agreements this year with Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Gulf Cooperation Council States, while working on trade agreements with Korea, India, and, I hope, America.

We have a vision for this country. The Prime Minister has articulated it and I am absolutely confident that not only members of Labour but the whole country will get behind his programme and will pursue that vision with its breadth and its very, very wide base. I am quite sure this country will achieve Australia’s levels of income within the next 10 to 15 years, and I look forward to being a part of the process that creates a step change in this country that moves us in that direction. Thank you.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) : As I rise to speak, I begin by wondering about the purpose of the Prime Minister’s statement. We have heard a lot of rhetoric from Government members on the other side of the House about vision and so on. Perhaps naively, I thought that the statement would contain some sort of vision, and, perhaps, a work programme aligned to that vision. But instead, typically from that Prime Minister, we have had a lot of political opportunism, political rhetoric, and the usual spin, which has probably been tested on focus groups. And the statement lacks vision, it lacks specifics, it lacks empathy, and it certainly lacks ambition. I thought that, given the appallingly high level of unemployment in this country, which continues to rise and disproportionately affects some groups—Māori, Pasifika, and young people—there would perhaps be some acknowledgment of the human cost of unemployment. In fact, I think it behoves the Prime Minister to actually recognise that unemployment is about people. It is about people being without jobs; it is about people struggling to make ends meet. There was no empathy from Mr Key, and there were no concrete plans in that speech to assist unemployed New Zealanders.

I compare that with President Obama’s state of the nation speech, which I will quote from: “If you haven’t been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has—a friend; a neighbour; a member of your family. You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost; the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread; the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope. The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.” President Obama went on to state that his agenda starts with jobs. There was nothing like that in the speech of the New Zealand Prime Minister. Unlike countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, where there has been a real focus on stimulus packages that create and save jobs, investment in people through skills, and other training opportunities, there is nothing like that here.

I work in the Maungakiekie electorate in Auckland, and I talk to people all the time. In fact, I talk to people in Glen Innes—the people Mr Peachey was referring to earlier. I talk to people in the Panmure market, on the streets of Onehunga, and in my office. People are struggling. They have lost their jobs, and they have lost hours of work. They have had small or no pay increases; 56 percent of people last year did not have a pay increase. This Government, of course, responded very generously by lifting the minimum wage by 25c an hour. Members should ask Aucklanders about that.

Hon George Hawkins: How much?

CAROL BEAUMONT: It was 25c. Even the poll in the New Zealand Herald overwhelmingly showed that Aucklanders believe the minimum wage needs to be $15 an hour; people know that one cannot live on the minimum wage. People are struggling, and what do they have to look forward to? There are rises in accident compensation levies, of course. Very likely there will be an increase in the GST rate, which will disproportionately hit those on low incomes. To the members across the other side of the House who maybe do not bother to do this, I suggest that they talk to budget advisers in their area. I suggest they talk to the good volunteers at the citizens advice bureaus, and to some church ministers. They will reinforce that everything I have just said is true.

The Prime Minister’s speech talked about the gap between income in Australia and New Zealand. When was that gap created? That gap in wages, in GDP per capita, was actually created under the last National Government. In fact, interesting enough, that Government over there is paying Dr Brash to come back with the same tired old policies that created that gap. Government members say they will not bother to use those policies, but they are still paying him to keep trolling them out.

Phil Twyford: What a waste of money that is.

CAROL BEAUMONT: Absolutely! I can think of better things to use it for; that is for sure.

We need to focus on other gaps, as well. First and foremost is the gap between rich and poor in New Zealand. I was lucky enough the other day to be at the launch of the Salvation Army’s state of the nation report, A Road to Recovery, in Royal Oak in the Maungakiekie electorate. In that report, this comment was made: “But there is no denying that the recession is taking a social toll. Unemployment is at a five-year high, gains made over the past five years in reducing child poverty have probably been lost, and there are signs of a widening income gap between the well paid and the poorly paid.” Is there any recognition of that in the Prime Minister’s speech? The answer is, none at all.

Increasingly, there is recognition globally that fairer societies are more successful societies. In the past New Zealand has been held up as a model of a fair society. Unfair societies are not sustainable; there is the cost of the health system, of the prison system, and to the victims of crime. Recently—in fact, today—the Human Rights Commission was quoted about the costs of the very high unemployment rate faced by young Māori and Pasifika people. Instead of addressing inequality, this Government is building on the inequalities that it has already put in place: the cuts to adult and community education while funding private schools; and tax cuts for the rich, which are soon to be followed by more tax cuts for the rich.

Mr Key, in his speech, did make a number of comments about lifting our economic performance. This Government is good at mentioning the word “productivity”, but it is very poor at doing anything about it. Where is the plan around industry and regional economic development? Where is the recognition of the need to lift the quality of our workplaces: the wage rates, the work conditions, the quality of interaction, and the opportunity for people to have a say? Productive employment relations—where are they? This Government sees workers and their rights as costs to be reduced. We have only to look at the double-speak in the Prime Minister’s statement. Under the heading “Better regulation” it reads: “… look at whether labour laws are imposing excessive costs on the country, and holding back opportunities to create jobs.” Holidays and personal grievances are, of course, specifically mentioned. We also know that the Minister of Labour is looking at things like union access to workplaces and collective bargaining. I ask the people of New Zealand to remember what all of that kind of double-speak meant last time there was a National Government in place—the very same time that the gap in income between Australia and New Zealand grew so dramatically.

The thing that I find very, very upsetting and disheartening for our country is that skills are only mentioned once, in passing, in the Prime Minister’s speech, and twice in his statement. That is one of the most appalling aspects of this Government’s performance. It does not understand the importance of lifelong learning, that 80 percent of the workforce we will have 10 years from now is already in the workforce, and that investing in skills is critical to lifting productivity and innovation. Investing in skills can be used to lift literacy, an issue the Government is supposedly very concerned about, and that can also help parents with their children’s literacy and learning needs. It is appalling. The lack of concentration on this issue is just mind-boggling. We cannot afford not to invest in our people, our children or communities, and in our economy.

We have major skills deficits; technical and literacy skills are two of the key areas. A Government with some vision would invest substantial resources in training people in order to upskill our workforce. We should consider ideas like paying unemployed people to train, and working with businesses to help them retain workers while they are being upskilled. By doing things like that, we would be positioned to transform our economy at a time when we are perhaps coming out of the recession. The benefits would apply to individuals, to their families, to their communities, to their workplaces, to our society, and to our economy, yet this Government sits on its hands. It is just unbelievable that we have fallen so far behind the rest of the world in that regard.

In this area the Government is not only lacking in ambition and vision but also very arrogant. Some very good work was indeed done by the previous Labour Government. There was Schools Plus. There was the Skills Strategy, a comprehensive strategy agreed to by unions, business, the Government, and the Industry Training Federation—by everybody. The National Government failed to pick it up, because it was something from Labour. Well, that is just arrogance, in my opinion. There was the retraining allowance for those who have been made redundant after having been in their job for 5 years or more—I could go on.

I will talk about listening to people, though. Mr Bennett said this Government listens to people. I say he needs to come to Auckland and tell that to the people of Auckland. One of the areas in the Prime Minister’s statement was about Auckland’s governance. What a shambles! Everybody I speak to, from every walk of life, is angry, worried, and concerned about what is going to happen in respect of the Auckland super-city. We have had meetings across Auckland, and I tell members that people are concerned about the lies—the fact that they were told that the powers of the local boards—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but her time has expired.

NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) : I am delighted to rise and speak today. First I want to focus on the state of the nation that this Government was left. It is really important. When I get around the electorate one of the key things people say to me is that they are realistic—they understand what we inherited, and they know that we will not be able to turn round the boat from day one.

One of the key points I will raise today was highlighted in the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech. That speech highlighted the state of the economy we inherited. We found out today that in the 3 years to September 2008, spanning Labour’s term, the economy grew by less than 1 percent a year. So, despite all the rhetoric from the other side, the previous Government did not deliver an economy that was healthy. That fact is really important, because it demonstrates what we have had to turn round in terms of the economy. It is demonstrated by the fact that our economy grew by less than half the growth rate of the Western world, and by less than one-third of the rate of Australia. I think that demonstrates, from an economic perspective, the state of the economy that we inherited.

The second point I want to make is in relation to the bloated and inefficient public sector we inherited. I have a couple of statistics here. We have heard a lot from the Opposition—from Phil Goff, actually—about what chief executives in the Public Service should or should not be paid. A report in 2008 stated that in just 2 years there was a 43 percent increase in the number of Public Service staff earning six-figure incomes—not including chief executives.

Between June 1999 and June 2008 the Public Service grew by 50 percent, and that was not due to a whole lot of front-line doctors and nurses—we know that. We know that between 2000 and 2008 we gained 28 percent more frontline doctors and nurses, but 51 percent more people were working in the Ministry of Health. So we inherited a very bloated and inefficient public sector, and we have had to do a number of things to turn that round. I am proud of the work that each of the Ministers is doing in that area.

We inherited from the last Government a very soft law and order system. I see the effects of that in my electorate, particularly in the central business district. Many people across the political spectrum—poor people and people who are on higher incomes—are disgusted with the level of crime they have been subjected to. So I will reiterate some of the things we have done—which the Prime Minister mentioned in his speech—and some of our achievements in law and order by the fantastic team led by Judith Collins and Simon Power and supported in that effort by many other members of Parliament and Ministers.

We have clamped down on the gangs and on P. We have taken action on violent crime, including tougher sentences for crimes against children. We gave police the power to DNA test offenders arrested for imprisonable offences, and we put in place stronger bail laws. That is a really important point, because the previous Government really softened bail laws. A number of the situations I have experienced through my electorate office related to people who have been affected by the changes made by the previous Government. I am very proud of the fact—and my electorate has benefited from this—that we have put $200 million into putting 600 extra police on our streets.

We have had to turn round what I would call a soft law and order system. We are also doing a heck of a lot in the area of justice and youth crime. That is a really important area, and it is an area that is close to my heart. As someone who has a family member who has been involved in that area and has been through our prison system, I can say that we have many issues in that area. There are many young people in New Zealand who have felt they have no other choice but to end up down that road.

This Government will be vigilant about giving young people other options. We will do so through reform of the criminal justice system, improving legal aid, improving court processes, and improving the treatment of victims, and through actually saying to these young people that there is another way. We will give them other options, including education and having real role models in their lives. We will actually be doing something to assist those young people.

Moana Mackey: But not a job.

NIKKI KAYE: I heard a little bit of a heckle from Ms Mackey about jobs. I will mention at this point some of the schemes that people in my electorate have benefited from.

I wrote to 4,000 young people in my electorate to let them know about the Job Ops and Community Max schemes that we have put in place. I know personally of people who have benefited from those schemes. Yes, youth unemployment is an issue in New Zealand at the moment, but I stress again what a young person said to me in my office. That person told me the people understand what we are up against, that we inherited a very difficult economic situation, and that we inherited an economy that was growing at less than 1 percent. People understand the economic conditions that we have been under.

The other area I will talk about is education. There has been a lot of discussion about national standards but, again, what really strikes me is the number of parents who come into my office and tell me it is their right as parents to know how their children are doing in reading, writing, and maths. It is the right of parents in New Zealand—and I will fight for that right—to understand, in plain English, how their kids are doing in reading, writing, and maths.

The polls show that parents absolutely support the national standards policy when it is explained. However, I do understand that the challenge for us is to ensure that we can get people within the school system to support the policy. But I will fight for the fact that it is not acceptable in this country to allow one in five children to leave school without skills and qualifications.

At this point I would like to reflect on many of the speeches made by Opposition members. Often we hear speeches that do not even lock into or debate particular issues, but one core point of difference between members on this side of the House and members on the other side is that we will fight for the right for parents to be able to understand how their kids are doing in terms of reading, writing, and maths. It is a point of difference, and I am proud to be a member on this side of the House who will fight for that right.

In summary, I stress that the challenge we have is that we inherited a bloated and inefficient Public Service and a soft law and order system. We inherited a country where one in five children are not, in my view, in a position to get a decent job when they leave school because they did not get the education to do that. I will fight for everything that we are doing to turn that round, and to turn round the good ship that is New Zealand.

I think we are at a really important point in New Zealand’s history. National has done a lot in the last year, as I said, to stop the ship from going over the waterfall, but now we have to make the boat go faster. The Prime Minister has identified six key areas that we will focus on to make the boat go faster: a world-class tax system, better public services, education and skills, investment in infrastructure, and regulatory reform.

A key point is that of tax. The Prime Minister has been very clear, and many people have discussed the issue of GST. Again, I make the point that some of these proposals will be announced in the Budget, so we will hear an amount of scaremongering from the Opposition. We have heard that already today; it has made various assumptions. But one thing is very clear: we are committed to ensuring that if there are tax changes, our most disadvantaged will not be worse off. We are trying to ensure that we create a tax system that gives incentives for people to work hard and improve their skills. We need a tax system that is fairer. The current tax system is not fair enough.

I am proud to be part of the Prime Minister’s Government; I am proud to be a National MP. We are fighting for some very important policies. We are fighting to ensure that kids are able to leave school and get a job. We are fighting to give them a better education. We are fighting to ensure that the money that goes into public services goes into front-line services. We are fighting to ensure that victims of crime get a decent deal, and we are fighting to ensure that our justice system is not weighted towards the offender rather than the victim. I am proud to be part of Prime Minister John Key’s Government.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) : As we sat in this House a week ago and listened to the Prime Minister mangle his reading of his speech to the House, we could hear another sound, apart from the mangling of those words. It was the sound of rushing air, as New Zealanders’ expectations and hopes were deflated.

This year was to be the year of governing boldly. The Prime Minister spent the days leading up to the Christmas holidays going out and briefing journalists about how this year was to be the year where he would shake off the shackles. He was going to do something, he was going to be bold, and he was going to unveil a plan for New Zealand. I think that “Governing Boldly” was part of a headline in North and South magazine. He was finally going to silence his right-wing critics—journalists like Fran O’Sullivan who had just got sick and tired of that do-nothing Prime Minister. He was going to show them that he was not in this job just for the fun of meeting Barack Obama. Well, what a cruel deception! What did he deliver 1 week ago? It was a “non-plan”, a medley of reheated old announcements and broken promises.

Let us talk about unemployment. It is at levels not seen in this country for 16 years, and record numbers of young people are in the dole queues. Our unemployment rate is 2 percent higher than that of our neighbours across the Tasman, and the number of unemployed is growing at the fastest rate in a decade. But what does Paula Bennett say? She says we should not panic; there are jobs out there, so we should not panic. I call that the Dad’s Army approach to fighting unemployment: “Don’t panic, Captain Mainwaring! Don’t panic!”. What did Paula Bennett say when the latest figures came out that showed there had been a huge increase in the number of young job seekers? She blamed it on a growing population. Whoops! She did not see that one coming. Well, that is Paula Bennett; that is our Minister for Social Development and Employment.

Mr Key talked about encouraging innovation, skills, and employment. Let us see what Mr Key said. He said: “I have also asked Ministers to look closely at … where we could do more to encourage innovation, skills and employment.” Well, how about not cutting the research and development tax credits? That would be a really good policy. How about not cutting teacher professional development in important areas like science? Yes, that would be worth considering. We could also consider not gutting the Fast Forward scheme, and not cutting tertiary scholarships like bonded merit, Step Up, and Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships.

Mr Key also said in his statement: “Science and innovation are therefore key elements of the Government’s economic agenda, both this year and into the future.” Well, how is this Government demonstrating its commitment to science and innovation? It has dumped $700 million in funding for innovation in the primary sector, and has cut $300 million out of the research and development tax credits. That is how it is showing its commitment to innovation and economic development.

This Government is very keen on the idea of three strikes, but I think that the three strikes we should be thinking about are jobs, strike one; innovation, strike two; and tax, strike three. Tax shows this Government’s absolute poverty of ideas. It promised an economic plan, a strategy for growth, but what did it deliver? It delivered the longest Dear John note in history, addressed to the New Zealand public: “Tax cuts for the rich, and the rest of you can go hang.” You see, National knows only one tune; it sang it in Opposition and now it is singing it in Government. National cannot tell the difference between tax cuts for the rich and a growth plan for the New Zealand economy, or else it thinks that New Zealanders are really dumb. Either way, it will not work.

If the Government raises GST it hits everybody, but proportionately it hits low-income New Zealand workers and New Zealand families harder. Then the Government cuts income tax rates, especially at the top end, in such a way as to put $500 into the pocket of the Prime Minister every week, and $2,500 into the pocket of Paul Reynolds at Telecom, but virtually nothing for anyone earning less than $48,000 a year. Why would a Government inflict that on New Zealanders? Why would it push up the price of bread and milk, when ordinary Kiwi families are struggling, as it is, to get through to the end of the week and have something left over? Why would it increase the power bills of Kiwis, when an approaching winter will make it even harder for people to stay warm during those months? Why would a Government make it even harder for New Zealand families to fill up the car with petrol so that they can get to work every day?

When we look at the Government’s plans on GST, and take into account the calculations of the Tax Working Group, we see that there is a projected net saving of only $200 million when the compensations that the Tax Working Group recommended are factored in. That shows that the GST increase is a sideshow; it will be destructive to Kiwi families. But that is not where the action is in this plan; the real action is to be found in the Government’s plan to cut the top tax rates and deliver a dividend to the wealthiest New Zealanders. Mr Key thinks that high-income earners pay an unfair share of income tax in this country.

Well, news flash! They pay a large proportion of income tax because they earn a larger proportion of income. The basic, fundamental principles of progressive taxation have been the foundation of Government in New Zealand for 80 years, yet this Government is intent on whittling it away. The top 3 percent of income earners pay approximately one-quarter of all income tax but they earn, according to the Tax Working Group, approximately one-fifth of all income. The cost of living is the issue that is preying on the minds of New Zealand families up and down the country, and an increase in GST will hardly make their lives better.

But spare a thought for Aucklanders, who are staring down the barrel of a super-city that is likely to significantly increase their cost of living. A New Zealand Herald poll taken a couple of weeks ago showed that nearly two-thirds of Aucklanders believed that the super-city would lead to a substantial increase in their rates, and some of them said it would probably lead to rates increases of up to 30 percent. It is hard to say, with any certainty, whether that will happen, and the reason is that the Government has not given the people of Auckland any estimate of the costs of the transition process or any estimate of the likely cost of the new super-city or the rates burden. All they have told Aucklanders is that Auckland ratepayers will be picking up the tab.

Mr Hide, the self-styled “Minister for Ratepayers”, does not talk too much these days about the cost savings of the Auckland super-city. We do not hear him saying much these days. But it is not just the rates that Aucklanders worry about in relation to the cost of living in the super-city. They would not be so grumpy about the super-city if they thought they were getting value for money, but they know that when the super-city rolls out volumetric pricing for water across the city, they will be getting a pig in a poke. Our analysis of comparative water pricing across Auckland indicates that if Metro Water pricing rates are applied across the city, a family of four in west Auckland or South Auckland will pay an extra $700 a year for their water.

Carol Beaumont: That’s on top of increased GST and increased accident compensation levies.

PHIL TWYFORD: That is right. Michael Barnett, the head of the Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, came out today with some stinging criticisms of the Government’s super-city plan. He is not alone, and we will hear more in the coming days as the submissions to the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee are published. Is it any wonder that Aucklanders fear that their rates will go up, while they watch local democracy go down the gurgler?

I think Aucklanders would feel less grumpy if it was not for the fact that they see their local communities losing their voice and losing a say in local democracy. They see gerrymandered boundaries right across the city, which is blatantly unfair. They see that the number of elected representatives in Auckland City has been cut in half, at a time when local government unelected officials have grown by 30 percent in the last 5 years. They see the business of local government being wrapped up in corporate entities and their assets being readied for privatisation. That is no reassurance to Aucklanders that they are getting value for money.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) : I am very proud to take a call this afternoon in support of the Prime Minister’s statement and to be a member of a Government that is facing up to the major challenges that our country faces. I commend our Prime Minister for delivering such a comprehensive statement of intent.

Carol Beaumont: Really?

TIM MACINDOE: This Prime Minister leads by conviction and with integrity, and I tell Ms Beaumont that the public are right behind him.

His statement last week struck an excellent balance between having the courage to make some tough choices in the face of a very serious set of economic hurdles, and a pragmatic and compassionate approach that reflects the very best principles of caring conservatism. Let us not forget that we are borrowing $240 million per week just to meet existing Government expenditure commitments. That is $12 billion of borrowing per year in a country of just over 4 million people. That is $12 billion without having one extra dollar to spend on new projects or to meet new demands. Every decision that we make as a Government must bear that grim reality in mind. So we must grow the economic cake. Not for the National-led Government, unfortunately, the luxury of sailing with a strong following wind. Labour members conveniently overlook the fact that they squandered the best economic conditions of a generation.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Oh, for God’s sake!

TIM MACINDOE: I tell Ms Chadwick that Labour’s record in office was irresponsible in the extreme and its legacy is hurting the ordinary New Zealanders the Labour Party used to claim it represented. What was that record? Government spending was out of control, and bureaucracy was the country’s fastest-growing industry. The causes of crime were ignored. The consequences of crime are felt ever more seriously in every town and city the length and breadth of this country. Education statistics, which the Labour leader described as “shocking” when she came into office, were worse when she left it. Labour’s 9 years of record surpluses were squandered, lost, and gone for ever.

So I am very proud to support our Prime Minister’s vision and ambition for our country. It is not enough simply to lament the lost opportunities of Labour’s 9 years in office, and I am certainly not prepared to accept, as the members opposite clearly do, that this is as good as it gets. Our goal as a Government must be, and is, to lift the long-term performance of our economy. Without creating the right incentives for the private sector to create jobs and enabling them to produce goods and market them profitably and affordably, we will never rise up the OECD rankings, never shorten our dole queues, never again boast world-class health and education opportunities, and never provide the world-class social services that New Zealanders want and deserve.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Who wrote this?

TIM MACINDOE: I tell Ms Chadwick that I wrote this speech, and I am very proud of it. I bet the member is wishing she was delivering it, because it is good, and on our side of the House we know that the message is right. I tell Ms Chadwick that it is the message I get every day from my fine constituents in the Hamilton West electorate. Back in Hamilton West we are not greedy. We are not selfish, as members opposite always want to infer whenever they are confronted by people who do not share their own ostrich political philosophy. The people of Hamilton West just want a fair go not just for themselves but for their families, their neighbours, and their friends. They know that we have to make New Zealand a more prosperous country that is capable of providing well-paid jobs and a better standard of living across the board. They know that John Key and the National-led Government, with the important support of our minor party support partners, are the team to lead us in that direction. We are facing up to the challenges and we are getting on with the job. We will not shirk from it, and I am very proud to be a part of it.

The people know that the six main policy drivers that our Prime Minister identified in his speech in this House just 1 week ago are the right priorities for us to focus on as we battle through the headwinds into calmer winds and better conditions. One of those drivers is a growth-enhancing tax system—one that is fair and rewards honest endeavour and encourages savings. The members opposite groan when they hear that, which just demonstrates their economic illiteracy and, frankly, their cruelty, as they condemn New Zealanders to more of the same—more of the dross that Labour delivered, more of what we on this side of the House say cannot continue and will not continue.

The programme includes better public services that meet our expectations, especially when we send our children to school or face time in hospital, and that will ensure that the vulnerable, the frail, and the elderly in our communities can live in dignity and with security. The programme supports science, innovation, and trade to ensure that we maximise the opportunities provided by our natural resources and the entrepreneurial gifts of the great New Zealand people. And what a gift we have as a people, with our get-up-and-go attitude, our Kiwi know-how, can-do approach! We need to liberate, enhance, and encourage that gift, and that is what the Prime Minister’s statement is all about.

The programme also includes better regulation instead of more and more red tape, which stifles every creative endeavour, as we saw under the last Government. The regulations will give the right incentives and encouragements, and protect our natural resources to ensure that the best decisions are made and that the conditions are created for sound development and best business practice. We had not heard of that for a long time under Labour, but it is now, fortunately, coming back into vogue in this country.

This programme is about investment in infrastructure. What a fine job the Minister for Infrastructure and his associate are doing for us! It is one of the real success stories of the first year in office. The people of New Zealand are delighted by it and they know that we are on the right path. We have to ensure that we can move around our regions, our cities, and our country safely and in an environmentally friendly and efficient way. That is good for the economy, it is good for health, it is good for safety, and it will ensure that our economy is liberated and able to grow.

We have to rebuild the schools that were falling down while Labour members looked the other way. What an appalling record they had in their school maintenance programme! It was absolutely shocking. They should all hang their heads in shame.

Moana Mackey: What a load of rubbish!

TIM MACINDOE: Miss Mackey knows that it was true. She absolutely knows that it was true. It was happening in the electorate that she one day wants to represent but, because of that record, probably never will.

We need the best broadband and other technological services available to help us to meet the challenges of the modern economy. We want improved education and skills, without which no real progress will be possible. I congratulate and thank the many fine teachers in the Hamilton West electorate who are working with the Government to achieve those outcomes. They are a vital link in the chain—

Moana Mackey: Listen to them on national standards, then.

TIM MACINDOE: I can promise Miss Mackey that they are very happy with national standards. I have met with them, they support them, and they are working hard to implement them. I tell Miss Mackey that I will be working alongside them to ensure they are given the support and the tools they need to do the job that 73 percent of New Zealanders agree with. New Zealanders recently urged them to make those standards and the raising of our educational achievements in schools a top priority.

Kelvin Davis: Teachers teach kids, not standards.

TIM MACINDOE: Mr Davis is chipping in. What a shame he is not back leading a school! I acknowledge he did it well. We know that he would be one of the most enthusiastic people to embrace the national standards. He would give good leadership in his school. It is a great shame he is not there doing just that.

In the time remaining to me I will briefly endorse the Government’s intention to reform our welfare system in line with the commitment that we made to New Zealanders at the last election. This year alone New Zealand taxpayers will fund an estimated $7.6 billion of benefits and income support. That figure quite rightly does not include our ever-growing number of pensioners drawing superannuation.

Moana Mackey: Do something about unemployment.

TIM MACINDOE: I tell Miss Mackey that that figure amounts to $20.8 million spent on welfare a day in a country of just over 4 million people. Typically, whenever this subject is raised, members opposite—as they are doing now—resort to tired slogans and empty rhetoric. I urge them to consider the consequences of continuing in the direction that they took us down over the past decade. We have to be able to tell hard-working New Zealanders that an honest day’s work is an important and admirable objective. We have to instil the work ethic. We have to reward all those young and not-so-young people who are out looking for a job. We have to assure them that if they are genuinely in need of income support we will provide it. The welfare system will be there for those who need it. That is what caring conservatism is all about, and I will fight for that throughout my career. But equally we have to structure our welfare system to encourage self-reliance and to not encourage and trap people in long-term dependency.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) : When the Prime Minister delivered his speech last Tuesday he was at great pains to insist and to convince us that he had a plan. Every Government member who has got up and spoken since then in this debate has insisted to us that they have a plan, and that John Key has a plan.

Tim Macindoe: We do have a plan.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, where is this plan? Where is the plan? This plan is more secret than the activities of the SAS. We know more about what Willie Apiata is doing in Kabul than what the Prime Minister is doing for New Zealanders. There is no plan. That is becoming more and more apparent. If there was a plan, if the Government was serious about doing something for this country, then the plan would be about relieving unemployment. A few weeks ago we saw some stunning statistics. I think John Key and the Government were actually quite taken aback at just how much the unemployment rate has gone up in this country since they came to Government.

Kelvin Davis: That’s 15.4 percent of Māori.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: That is right. In my electorate of Palmerston North the unemployment rate is now at 8.2 percent. That does not sound an awful lot next to 15 percent of Māori but it is very high for our region. It is higher than the national average, and it is very unusual for our region to pop up above the national average. So where was John Key when the unemployment rate was rising? Where was his plan? What was he doing? Well he was probably talking to himself in the mirror, congratulating himself on being voted the sexiest politician by a condom company. But that is kind of appropriate is it not? Because he was not brought in to lead; he was brought in to be the smiling, waving, acceptable face of the National Party. He smiles and he waves as jobs get cut—jobs like frontline services at MidCentral District Health Board in my electorate, and jobs like delivering diabetes intervention and support services.

When it comes to health care this Government does not have a clue. There is an old saying—it is common sense, it is a bit clichéd, but a lot of common sense sayings are—that prevention is better than cure. But prevention is well and truly out of fashion with this Government. Any programme that teaches people to take control of their health and to take control of their lives has been cut. Healthy Eating - Healthy Action has been cut. Fruit is out; pies are in. Targets to reduce obesity, to maintain good oral health, and to vigilantly monitor the mental health of our communities were all cut—every single one. Prevention is out of fashion with this Government. What do we get instead? Surgery is what the Government is focused on. When it comes to obesity, what is the latest plan? Stomach stapling, gastric bands, gastric bypass, whatever we want to call it, the answer is the same, and that is basically to take no personal responsibility. The Government is not going to help people take any personal responsibility, it is not going to help people out, but maybe, if they are lucky, it might offer surgery further down the track.

Why is the Government so obsessed with surgery and this curative instead of preventative approach to healthcare? Well, it is easy to measure. That is why. It is not looking for ways to improve New Zealand’s health, it is not looking to improve population health, but it is looking for things that are easy to measure—waiting times, for example. I have not met a single clinician who thinks that emergency department waiting times are what we should be focusing on, but they are easy to measure. Immunisation is actually quite a good thing. Thank goodness immunisation is easy to measure, because the Government has stuck with it. Smoking cessation, again, is easy to measure. It is not the best approach; we should be preventing people from taking up smoking. But with smoking cessation we can tick the box, give an extra piece of paper to the nurses, doctors, and the front-line healthcare workers, and say they have done their bit on smoking cessation.

The House knows that I have an interest in preventive strategies on tobacco. One of those areas that I have an interest in is tobacco displays. Scotland has recently banned tobacco displays, the UK has banned tobacco displays, Canada has banned tobacco displays, and yet for some reason we continue to drag our feet in this country. Why? Because it is a difficult-to-measure, preventive measure for trying to deal with long-term health issues. It is actually Tariana Turia’s preferred approach. She is the Minister responsible for tobacco control in this Government, who does not get a say, obviously; her preferred approach is down the gurgler as long as Tony Ryall is in charge.

The other area we have been talking a lot about in trying to prevent people from taking up smoking is tax. Now would it not be ironic if this Government’s first move to try and curb smoking rates in this country was to increase tax? This from the Government that absolutely rock-solid promised not to increase GST before the election. Whoops, there is another broken promise. But hang on; the Government did say that it would not have to increase GST if it was doing a half-decent job. So, finally, an admission from John Key that he is not actually doing a half-decent job. I think we should actually explore the issue of taxation as a tobacco-control method.

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

• Debate interrupted.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) : I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

• Motion agreed to.