Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Resignations

Dr Don Brash, New Zealand National

Madam SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from Dr Don Brash resigning his seat in the House with effect on 6 February 2007.

List Member Vacancy

List Member Vacancy

Madam SPEAKER: I have been advised by the Chief Electoral Officer that, pursuant to section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993, Katrina May Shanks has been declared to be elected a member of the House of Representatives in place of Donald Thomas Brash.

Member Sworn

Member Sworn

Madam Speaker administered the Oath of Allegiance to Katrina Shanks, who then took her seat in the House.

Obituaries

Helen Duncan

Madam SPEAKER: I regret to inform the House of the death on 6 February 2007 of Helen Duncan MNZM, a member of this House from 1998 to 2005. I desire on behalf of this House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect for her memory.

Honourable members stood as a mark of respect.

Professor Alan Graham MacDiarmid

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I move, That this House note with deep regret the death on 6 February 2007 of Professor Alan Graham MacDiarmid, a member of the Order of New Zealand and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry; that this House express its appreciation of the long and outstanding service given by Professor MacDiarmid to science, notably to molecular electronics and conductivity, and of his tremendous enthusiasm for promoting science in the community; and that it convey its deepest sympathy to his wife and family.

Motion agreed to.

Parliamentary Service Commission

Membership

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I move, That, pursuant to sections 15(1)(d) and 17(2)(a) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Anne Tolley be appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission in place of Lindsay Tisch.

Motion agreed to.

Prime Minister’s Statement

Prime Minister’s Statement

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): It is my privilege to present this annual statement to Parliament setting out the Government’s priorities for the year ahead. Last year’s statement set out an ambitious programme, and a great deal has been achieved. That has been due in no small part to the constructive working relationships that Labour and the Progressive party have with other parties in the House. New Zealand First and United Future as confidence and supply partners, and the Green Party and the Māori Party have been prepared to work through complex policy issues with the Government. I thank them all for their contribution.

There is no question that New Zealand today is a stronger, fairer, and more confident nation than it was 7 years ago. Many more people are in work, incomes are higher, educational achievement is up, and crime rates are lower. These results have been achieved across the society, lifting Māori and Pākehā, along with Pasifika, Asian, and other New Zealanders. But, substantial as these gains have been, the Government believes that New Zealand can do even better. As we reach each goal and target we set in economic and social policy, new ones must be identified and met.

Meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance, not slogans. New Zealand’s future is dependent on long-term sustainable strategies for our economy, our society, our environment, our culture, and our way of life. Those strategies have to be driven by strong leadership and sound policies. Our challenge is to build a sustainable economy based on innovation and quality in a world where high-volume, low-quality services and goods will always undercut us on price. Our challenge is to sustain family and community living standards in an open and competitive economy. Our challenge is to sustain our unique culture, values, and national identity in a world of globalised media and culture.

Building a sustainable nation requires smart active Government working with key stakeholders across the economy and society. The invisible hand of the market does not deliver a sustainable nation, as an earlier era of New Zealand politics showed only too well. Now the quest for sustainability has taken on a new urgency because of the scale of the environmental challenge the world faces. Traditional patterns of development and fast-growing populations have put an intolerable strain on the planet. The future economic costs of doing nothing are dire. That is why issues around sustainability and climate change have become the compelling issues of our times, dominating international forums and agendas. Two decades ago it was the threat of nuclear war destroying the world as we knew it that galvanised New Zealand to become nuclear-free and work for a more peaceful world. Our Nuclear Free Policy and the values that inspired it have become central to our national identity and how we project ourselves to the world.

And so it must be with this century’s environmental sustainability challenge. We have to make a stand—for our world, and for our own sake. Without a commitment to greater sustainability in our resource use and way of life, we risk not only damaging our own environment but also exposing our economy to significant risk. That is why I have called for boldness in our approach to these issues.

I believe that New Zealand can aim to be the first nation to be truly sustainable—across the four pillars of the economy, the society, the environment, and nationhood. I believe that we can aspire to be carbon neutral in our economy and way of life. I believe that, in the years to come, the pride we take in our quest for sustainability and carbon neutrality will define our nation—just as our quest for a nuclear-free world has over the past 23 years.

More than any other developed nation, New Zealand needs to go the extra mile to lower greenhouse gas emissions and increase sustainability. In our high-value markets in Europe, we face increasing pressure on our trade and tourism from competitors who are all too ready to use against us the distance our goods must travel to market and the distance tourists must travel to us.

By lowering our carbon footprint we strengthen our position against that sort of protectionism—and the Government is working to lower that footprint in many ways. Several years ago we rewrote the land transport legislation to put emphasis on sustainability, and, over seven Budgets, we have increased spending on public transport by around 750 percent. Now, the draft New Zealand Energy Strategy and National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy set out to take sustainability to new levels. They champion renewable energy across power generation and transport, and energy efficiency at home and at work. I believe that New Zealand has the potential to lead the world in its commitment to renewable energy.

On biofuels, the time has come to implement a sales obligation. Biofuels can replace diesel and petrol and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. With domestic production they can also be positive for the current account. The Government has decided that a biofuel sales obligation will be set at 3.4 percent of the annual energy content of total petrol and diesel sales by 2012. This initial target is considered sufficient to encourage the uptake of bio-diesel and the development of infrastructure for ethanol distribution. Further details about the biofuel sales obligation and other announcements relating to sustainability are being announced by Ministers later today. This measure complements decisions already made to see that cars imported into New Zealand in future meet higher emission standards and that consumers have proper information on the fuel efficiency of the cars they are purchasing. Last year, in recognition of the import contribution of forestry to climate-change mitigation strategies, the Government announced its Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. Already, an announcement has been made of a major investment to develop 30,000 hectares of permanent forest on Ngāti Porou land on the East Coast.

But there is potential to do much more. In the coming weeks consultations are being held on the wide-ranging proposals for sustainable land management in agriculture and forestry, released before Christmas. These major export sectors have much to gain from association with sustainability policies. In the future, business overall will need to be sustainable to make money, and there will be money to be made from being sustainable. In agriculture, part of the answer lies in changing farming practice now, while longer-term answers are also sought on how to reduce animal methane emissions. We should aim for world leadership in this area of science.

I am also announcing today new sustainability priorities for the Government this year. Firstly, the Government intends to lead by example by moving the public service towards carbon neutrality. This year the first group of six departments will commit to achieving carbon neutrality by 2012. By early next year the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Inland Revenue Department, the Department of Conservation, and Treasury will have reduced their carbon footprint significantly. Their objective will be to reduce their department’s emissions and then, at the point at which it is not feasible to reduce further, to offset them—for example, by supporting tree planting on Crown land, which also contributes to our sustainable land management policies. Over the next year all other departments will develop their plans. In 2012 all the public service departments will be on the path to carbon neutrality, and the wider State sector will also be encouraged to join the programme.

I want to say a word on the role of Government procurement in achieving sustainability. The Government sector is a significant purchaser of services within the economy. We intend to use that purchasing power to help drive innovation, cleaner production, and improved cost-effectiveness over the whole life cycle of goods and services.

So we will be developing a single procurement policy for the Government, requiring sustainably produced goods and services to be used wherever possible. We are announcing today that as the VIP car fleet of the Department of Internal Affairs is replaced, vehicles that are more fuel efficient and have lower emissions will be acquired. It is estimated that this move will lead to 550 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted, 400,000 fewer litres of fuel being used, and half a million dollars being saved over 3 years. We accept the responsibility to lead by example in these areas, but we also want to encourage and support others to reduce their carbon footprint.

A big priority this year will be to raise the awareness of our households about sustainable practice in energy, water use, transport, and waste disposal. Already the Government has many separate initiatives, ranging from EnergyWise grants for assisting with energy efficiency retrofits to solar water heating programmes and improving energy efficiency requirements within the review of the building code. These programmes need to be integrated so that our households can see that the initiatives are all part of a programme they can implement to achieve the overall objective of improved sustainability.

Then there is business sustainability. We believe that business has a big contribution to make in improving New Zealand’s overall sustainability performance and can take up the commercial opportunities that the worldwide interest in sustainability creates. Many businesses are involved already, and many more are interested. The new Government procurement policy will give companies an added incentive to be sustainable. Already, the Crown research institute Landcare Research has developed a CarboNZero programme, enabling businesses that meet its criteria to brand themselves credibly as carbon neutral.

The Government will work with leading business networks, like the Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Business Network, to promote awareness among companies of what they can do to improve both their sustainability and their profitability. Working together, we can ensure that standards are set that give businesses and customers confidence in the integrity of our sustainability programmes. We are also following closely the exciting work in the private sector on the development of carbon trading regimes, and we will be willing to consider what legislative and regulatory changes might be needed to put them into effect.

On waste management, during this year we will be advancing new proposals. They will include funding the construction of more recycling facilities for use in public places. Although household recycling is progressing well, we do need more facilities to encourage the recycling of waste when people are away from home. We want to continue to work with the Green Party on refinements to the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill that is currently before Parliament. We want effective legislation for some form of waste levy to help fund better waste minimisation infrastructure. Product stewardship will also be improved by measures in that legislation. Although voluntary initiatives have been useful, some form of regulatory back-up will be necessary for the environmental impacts of manufactured products to be minimised as much as possible.

So, overall, this year the Government has a huge and credible work programme to improve the country’s environmental sustainability credentials and to move our country towards the vision of carbon neutrality. This is the way the world will move, and we have the opportunity to be at the forefront. Sustainability and an identification with the vision for carbon neutrality can be central to our national identity and to the way the world perceives us—and that is to our overall benefit as a nation. The theme of sustainability is also central to our Government’s programme across all three key policy themes: economic transformation, families young and old, and strengthening national identity. We are committed to long-term sustainable strategies to take our country ahead.

On economic transformation, this year’s Budget will outline the Government’s decisions on new settings for business taxation, aimed at increasing innovation, investment, and growth. Business tax changes this year are made possible by solid economic and tax growth over 7 years, and by careful Government fiscal management. Export Year 2007 is under way, with extra funding for market development grants, more targeted trade missions, and business-Government collaboration around export-focused events and forums. I thank the many private sector agencies throughout New Zealand that are exporting Export Year. I salute Ken Stevens, Export Year’s business champion. He is a superb example of how to take Kiwi ingenuity to the world and grow a high-value export business.

The year 2007 is a big year for trade policy, with the Doha round of the World Trade Organization showing signs of life again, and our Minister of Trade and his officials are very actively engaged in that process. That round is our top trade policy priority. New Zealand negotiators have recently completed the eleventh round of talks with China on the free-trade agreement. The best possible access to China’s fast growing markets for goods and services is essential for our economy. Planning is beginning on how to make the most of the New Zealand pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, as one of many initiatives to lift our country’s profile in China. A study on the potential of a free-trade agreement with Korea will also be advanced this year.

Three regional trade initiatives are of keen interest to New Zealand: the ASEAN closer economic relationship free-trade agreement negotiations, which are expected to be completed this year; the proposal for a free-trade area of the Asia-Pacific region that is being developed for the APEC summit in September; and the study on the potential of a free-trade area, covering the 16 countries of the East Asia Summit. As a high proportion of New Zealand’s trade is now done with nations around the Asia-Pacific, the Government is an enthusiastic supporter of developments that could improve our access to those markets.

A highly educated and skilled workforce is critical to realising the opportunities for New Zealand in international markets and to developing a high-value economy. Over the past year the Government has undertaken a major review of tertiary education policies and funding, aimed at getting better value for the money from the investments we make. An Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill will be introduced this year. As well, we will continue to increase the numbers in work-based training and in the Gateway programme, which introduces high school students to industry. These programmes are well supported by business and union partners. We will continue to work with them to lift skill and productivity levels, and we will be strengthening the Skill New Zealand tripartite forum.

The development of Auckland as a world-class international city is critical for New Zealand’s overall growth and development. The Government is currently considering its response to the region’s proposals for strengthening its governance, and our investments in Auckland’s transport infrastructure are large and growing. It has become increasingly important to align central and regional strategies for Auckland transport, and joint working parties are progressing that. Time lines around rail electrification will need to be agreed on and new funding mechanisms for transport initiatives outside the current funding parameters need to be developed. The Government has also reviewed the public transport procurement legislation with the objective of enabling our regional councils to get better value for money in their public transport spend. Decisions will be made shortly on what changes will be advanced to the legislation.

Already this year there have been major developments in guaranteeing Auckland’s power supply. The Electricity Commission’s announcement on the upgraded transmission into Auckland is going through a formal consultation process. Its proposals are consistent with the Government’s priorities of ensuring security of supply and focusing on renewable sources of energy.

On digital matters, last year’s far-reaching reform of regulatory settings for telecommunications has ushered in a new era of competition in the market. Broadband is already cheaper and faster. The new settings are helping us to catch up with other countries that have enjoyed more competitive settings for longer. But there is still a long way to go. Now, to keep up and press ahead, we need to continue to challenge the telecommunications sector and our regions to lay down new, high-speed infrastructure to match our aspirations to be a knowledge economy and society.

This year the Government will be refreshing its strategies for broadband and high-speed connectivity. New Zealand needs a clear pathway to the roll-out of fibre infrastructure, and we will be working with business and local government on that. Specific decisions are pending this year on the three-way operational separation of Telecom New Zealand and on a range of mobile issues, including termination rates, collocation, roaming, and spectrum. The digital content strategy will be launched, as will the free-view digital TV platform. The Minister of Communications, who is also the Minister for Information Technology, will be convening an information and communications technology summit, aimed at refreshing the digital strategy and getting input from the sector itself on its future growth and development.

On families policy, the Government has major programmes rolling out and others are in development. In health, the success of the district health boards in meeting targets for big increases in joint replacement and cataract surgery has encouraged us to develop a similar approach in other areas of surgery. Elective services will increase across the board by about 10 percent this year, and nearly all district health boards are already eligible for the extra funding. In addition, we will be negotiating specific targets for delivery with district health boards in areas other than elective surgery where progress is both needed and is achievable.

On 1 July, 25 to 44-year-olds will be brought into the Primary Health Care Strategy, completing the coverage of all age groups. As with the earlier extensions to the scheme, doctors’ fees for this age group will reduce substantially and their prescription charges will drop from $15 to $3 an item. This is very helpful to family budgets. Health legislation this year will include the introduction of the new Public Health Bill, updating legislation that is half a century old. We are making big investment in the health of children and young people by moving to screen all new babies for hearing loss, increasing funding for dental health, and tackling obesity through the promotion of better nutrition and more physical exercise.

In housing, income-related and fair rents for State housing remain fundamental to the Labour Party. This year will see big moves to upgrade the social housing stock, moves to increase the supply of affordable housing—including through the integrated development at Hobsonville—and decisions about the shared equity scheme for first home owners. Homeownership has always been part of the Kiwi dream, and we believe that the State has a role to play in supporting modest-income families reaching that dream.

On 1 July the new KiwiSaver scheme will begin, encouraging savings for first home ownership as well as for retirement. This year the rates inquiry will look at the factors driving the steep rates increases that have been of such concern to superannuitants and others on fixed and modest incomes. Legislation for the SuperGold card for superannuitants and the Veterans card will be passed this year, with the cards becoming available from August.

In education, 1 July heralds the introduction of 20 hours of free early childhood education and care for 3 and 4-year-olds, with substantial uptake by the sector likely. This is a huge advance.

Hon Member: They hate it.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: They do hate it. The review of school operational funding is complete, and the Government will be considering its response this year. The new school curriculum will be published in September. New initiatives have been taken to ensure school attendance, with the district truancy services being strengthened. Parents whose children are not attending school regularly can expect to be prosecuted. New funding is being introduced this year to give more support to schools to manage disruptive behaviour.

Although New Zealand’s overall levels of attainment in the school system are high relative to those of other OECD countries, we do have a significant minority of young people who fail badly. That needs to be tackled at a number of levels. One of them is to engage those young people in education that is meaningful and relevant to their futures. We have already invested heavily in the Gateway programme and this year we will go further, with the development of a young apprenticeship scheme for schools. Overall, the Government is looking to personalise education so that it is tailored to meet the needs of every student. That requires effective teaching, strong professional leadership, engaged families, a strong grounding in the basics of literacy and numeracy, completion of secondary school, the setting of clear boundaries for students, and adequate resourcing. I have no doubt that the New Zealand education system can deliver the quality teaching that children and young people need in order to learn.

But capacity to learn is also heavily influenced by wider social factors. Labour in Government has focused on more affordable health-care, fair State house rentals for low-income families, and adequate incomes through rising employment levels and the family tax credits of Working for Families. There is no doubt that our policies have made a big difference, with the numbers of children living in households below the poverty line decreasing dramatically. At least 60,000 children were lifted out of income poverty between 2001 and 2004, and another 70,000 will have been lifted out with the full implementation of Working for Families after 1 April this year. On that date all families eligible for family support will receive another $10 a week per child. Can we do better and move to eradicate child poverty? That is certainly my dream—but let us not dismiss the huge progress that has been made in that direction.

Over the past 7 years the number of working-age beneficiaries has gone down by over 28 percent, or close to 115,000 people. That has been achieved by huge decreases in the numbers on the unemployment benefit, and now with decreases in the domestic purposes benefit numbers, too. The numbers of those on unemployment benefits for 2 years and over are down by 70 percent. We believe that the numbers on benefits can be reduced further by extending employment services to those on all categories of benefits and by setting stronger work expectations. Significant changes in legislation, policy, and services are being made this year so that we can support even more beneficiaries into work. Labour believes that the best form of social security is a job, underpinned by fair labour law, good public health-care and education, and affordable housing for people on low incomes. Good policies in these areas followed over the long term help to build a more sustainable society.

But we are also directly targeting the violent and destructive behaviour in the community that causes so much concern and grief. Late last year we launched a 26-point action plan aimed at young people at risk and those already causing mayhem in their communities through youth gangs. Seven Government departments were involved, working closely with local government, non-governmental organisations, schools, and communities, including supportive businesses backing good programmes. Across Auckland, where the youth gang issues are most prominent, the police are adopting a no-tolerance approach to offending by youth gang members and have increased their presence in areas known for gang violence. The message is clear: no part of our communities will be abandoned to gang influence. There must be no no-go areas.

Family violence is also being targeted, with new prevention and support services being rolled out this year. A major community campaign will begin, to reinforce the unacceptability of family violence and change attitudes towards it. High priority is being given to the SKIP programme, which teaches positive parenting and alternatives to physical discipline. I believe that the changes recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee to section 59 of the Crimes Act would also have a positive impact on violence in the home. It is my hope that Parliament will support them, to help make our children safer.

Last year the Government announced significant changes to law and practice in the criminal justice system. Legislation now before the House aims to deliver greater consistency in sentencing, greater truth in sentencing through reform to parole laws, and more effective community-based sentences for low-risk offenders. New drug and alcohol and special treatment units are being set up in prisons this year, and there will be many more opportunities for prison employment.

We want better results from the criminal justice system through a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and through more appropriate punishment for low-risk offenders. The recent violent offending by a prisoner on parole, leading to murder and the infliction of serious injury, has shocked our nation. Inquiries establishing exactly how this case was handled are ongoing, but the Government has already decided to give serious consideration to allowing the police to make a recall application to the Parole Board where they have serious concerns about a parolee’s behaviour. Where a recall application has been made on the basis that an offender is failing to comply with the conditions of his or her release, or is acting in a way that makes those conditions now inappropriate, it is proper that responsibility for applying for recall rests with the Community Probation Service, because the probation officer supervising the offender has first-hand knowledge of the information upon which the application is based.

However, where the application is based upon the fact that the offender is posing an undue risk to the safety of the community, or has committed an offence punishable by imprisonment, it is likely that the information on which the application is based will have been derived from police investigations or intelligence received by the police. In these circumstances, it can be argued that the police should have the power to make an application for recall, rather than the Community Probation Service determining whether to act on the information the police provide. This proposal for enhancing the ability to recall prisoners from parole is aimed at improving public safety and security.

Reinforcing and celebrating New Zealand’s unique national identity is very important to my Government. As I said in my Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament last year, there is an evolving New Zealand way of doing things and a stronger New Zealand identity is emerging. We pride ourselves on being a nation with a sense of fair play, on being clean and green, and on being nuclear-free. We do stand for decent values at home and abroad. We take pride in all those who put our country on the map, like Sir Edmund Hillary, whose exploits were celebrated in Antarctica last month, and like Professor Alan MacDiarmid, one of only three New Zealanders to win the Nobel Prize, who sadly passed away last week. Our sportspeople, artists and performers, and leaders across the community provide inspiration at many levels.

In Government we seek to support and strengthen what is fundamentally good and unique about New Zealand. In a globalised world we cannot take the preservation of our unique culture and our values for granted. In this globalised world we are determined that there is a place for a small, smart, inclusive, creative, and sustainable nation like ours.

Many of our values are played out through foreign and defence policies, and 2007 will be particularly busy in that sphere. Our defence deployments will continue at a high tempo, with New Zealand playing a critical role in peace building in the near neighbourhood and beyond. Supporting resolution of conflict and lowering tension in the Pacific is a top priority with particular attention being paid this year to the situation in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Tonga. Relationships with the nations of Asia are more important than ever, and we are now accepted as a partner in East Asian regionalism. In the Middle East we will be continuing our peacekeeping involvement, beginning negotiations on a trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and opening the new New Zealand embassy in Cairo. Our Latin American strategy has led to much more contact with that region across diplomatic, economic, cultural, and other relations. The Commonwealth Heads of Government summit, to be held in Uganda this year, reminds us of the traditional network of relationships we have in Africa. The new South Africa has emerged as a world opinion leader, and our relationship with it is also growing fast.

I do want to emphasise the very high value our Government places on its relationship with other Western nations. We are part of a community of shared values, with Australia, with the United States and Canada, and with Europe. These bedrock relationships must be continually nourished and refreshed. This year the Government will be hosting three major international conferences: the Commonwealth Local Government Conference; The World Heritage Committee of Unesco; and the Regional Interfaith Dialogue at Waitangi, and an associated symposium on the major Alliance of Civilizations report made to the United Nations.

Our international work on dialogue across civilisations and faiths is highly relevant to the nation we are building at home. New Zealand’s growing diversity is recorded in last year’s census. A commitment to social cohesion and the willingness to be inclusive across ethnicity, culture, and faith is more important here than ever before. It is critical that all New Zealand’s peoples benefit from the progress our country makes and have a stake in our society. The Human Rights Commission, Ministry of Social Development, Office of Ethnic Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other agencies are all contributing to work in this area. Reconciliation at home between Māori and the Crown matters too. The historical Treaty settlement process has considerable momentum. This year the Government will be working with over 20 claimant groups, each with a number of claims.

Major developments in culture and heritage this year will include the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, Government-funded road works to safeguard the Kerikeri mission station, and development of the plans for the New Zealand memorial park in Wellington. Government support for culture, in partnership with local government, the corporate sponsors, and philanthropy will continue to play an important part in the development of new productions across theatre, music, and dance. There continue to be exciting developments in film and contemporary music, which attract considerable international attention.

Major legislation before the House this year, and not already referred to, include: legislation for election law reform, to clean up campaign funding; the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill, establishing the trans-Tasman regulatory agency; the Terrorism Suppression Act, ensuring that New Zealand is fully compliant with its international obligations, the Property Law Bill, which rewrites the 1952 Act; Treaty settlements bills; and a major overhaul of immigration legislation.

My annual statement to Parliament this year has been a call to action on sustainability. Complacency will not do—[Interruption]. That is the other side. We have to secure our future. I believe that New Zealanders value our country’s clean and green, fair and inclusive status and our First World living standards. But none of that is a God-given right. Only strong leadership driving far-sighted and sustainable strategies can lock that in for future generations. And only this Labour-led Government offers the leadership, the vision, and the substance to do that. We look forward to 2007 and progressing our work with and for New Zealanders.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That this House has no confidence in the Government led by Helen Clark because it lacks any vision or purpose apart from getting re-elected, it refuses to be accountable or responsible for the public services it oversees, it is tired and bereft of ideas, and all it can offer New Zealand is a collection of empty slogans.

That speech from the Prime Minister may not have convinced many New Zealanders about climate change, but it will most certainly have convinced them it is time for a change. I feel sorry for those in the parliamentary press gallery, who have to write something about it. About the best they could say is that she used the word “sustainable” 33 times. That is the new buzzword from the Beehive.

Hon members: No slogans.

JOHN KEY: No slogans. The big idea was that Treasury officials will no longer be writing reports for Michael Cullen—which he ignores anyway—they will be out the back planting bonsai trees in front of the Beehive. That is the big idea from the speech. If ever I heard a speech from a Prime Minister that showed a Government that was out of touch, out of ideas, out of energy, and very rapidly running out of time, it was that speech from the Prime Minister.

It is no surprise that this Government has only 35 bills on the Order Paper—half what it had in 2002. As we saw yesterday its members cannot agree with each other, let alone agree what to do. What this Government needs is a reality check. Maybe if the Prime Minister spent a little bit more time in South Auckland and a little bit less time at the South Pole she would get it. She is a Prime Minister who is increasingly aloof and out of touch.

Members should just look at the way she responded to my Burnside speech by confidently standing up and telling New Zealanders that there is no underclass. Those were Helen Clark’s words: “There is no underclass.” That was the same Prime Minister who the next day was very silent indeed when Rowena Kōpara was found dead in a lay-by on State Highway 27, murdered as a result of a violent act. She was a prostitute from South Auckland, a P user, and a woman who had had three children in her teenage years. She was many things, but she will not be remembered as part of the underclass, a group of New Zealanders who have lost hope and who no longer see the rungs on the ladder of opportunity—because, according to Helen Clark, there is no underclass in New Zealand. What we do know from the Burnside speech is that it sent the Beehive’s little speech writers off to change the last half of the Prime Minister’s speech so she could look just a little more caring than she did on the day I delivered my speech.

This is the same Prime Minister who does not think children go to school hungry. On Saturday we learnt from the “Minister of Mortgage Levies” that she is a woman who is all over the detail. That is apparently the story; she knows everything. That is what Michael Cullen said in the New Zealand Herald. Maybe the Prime Minister would like to know that severe hardship is increasing under her watch, not declining. Maybe she would like to know that violent offences are going up under this Labour Government, not going down. Maybe she would like to know that tens of thousands of kids are going to school hungry every day in New Zealand. Maybe she would like to know that the charities trying to help them cannot cope with the demand. Maybe she would like to know—despite what she said in her speech—that police all around New Zealand know they cannot cope with the increase in Los Angeles - style violent youth gangs. Maybe she would like to know that drugs are rife in our community and that the use of them is rising. And maybe she would like to know that kids are not participating in sport the way she says they are.

This is a Prime Minister who is aloof and out of touch; she is happy in first class in an Air New Zealand jet, but is just not that happy wandering around New Zealand finding out what is going on. [Interruption] We will get to the Minister later. About the kindest thing one could say about Helen Clark’s performance—and it was not that great—is that it was marginally better than Steve Maharey’s. According to Steve Maharey, kids are not hungry; and, if they are hungry, they do not want Tory charity. That was the word used. The Prime Minister wants Tory charity for her arts—she said that in her speech—but, according to Steve Maharey, under Labour’s leadership she does not want it for kids. I have never thought of the Red Cross and Countdown as Tory charity, but if that is the way Mr Maharey views it, he is welcome to it.

We know that New Zealand children are going hungry; we know that communities are being terrorised; we know that violence is increasing; and we know that an increasing number of New Zealanders are on a pathway to the underclass. We will not wait around for a Labour Government to do something about it, because it has long since given up caring about those New Zealanders.

Today we learnt that the Prime Minister’s new little Beehive buzz word is “sustainability”—she used it 33 times in her speech. According to the Prime Minister, that word applies to almost everything except her own caucus. In case Labour members missed it, 2 weeks ago she put them on a dead-wood countdown. She said that the country should be reassured, and we in the Opposition should be trembling with fear, because the likes of Jill Pettis are going to be replaced by Phil Twyford. That is what is happening.

We actually agree with the Prime Minister. We do not think sustainability applies to the Labour Government. We think that “bereft of ability” is the correct term. The only thing we missed is that we did not realise until yesterday that she was talking about Michael Cullen being at the top of the list. What was very interesting about the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday—

Hon Phil Goff: This is real light stuff.

JOHN KEY: Well, we will get to Phil Goff in a minute. He does not need to worry; his turn is coming. What was very interesting about the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday is that she said she had so little confidence in her Minister of Finance that she no longer thinks he is competent enough to make a speech unassisted without putting his size nine foot in it. She then went on to tell the members of the press gallery that they should not report what a Minister in a Labour Government says; they should write it down only if they think it makes sense. Well, they will not be writing much down. If they followed that strategy we could have had months of not having to have a debate on the waterfront stadium that Trevor Mallard was promoting. It will be a very quiet year of reporting things from the Labour front bench if that is the benchmark the Prime Minister wants.

The Prime Minister told us in her speech that she wants substance, not slogans. I might add that that was very funny coming from a speech that was full of slogans.

Hon Maurice Williamson: It was nothing but slogans.

JOHN KEY: There were nothing but slogans in the speech. It was very funny, indeed.

But let us have a look at what the Prime Minister said, because I guess she made an attempt in her speech, which was promised to be an hour long but which lasted about 35 minutes. The substance of the speech boiled down to about four things. The first was a minimum requirement for biofuels. I hate to tell the Prime Minister this, but National already announced that policy late last year. We had already looked at that strategy late last year. According to the Prime Minister’s strategy, it will not be implemented until 2012, long after the first commitment period of Kyoto has taken place. It will save 0.6 million tonnes in the first 5 years. If we look at deforestation in New Zealand last year, we see that we cut down about 11,000 hectares of forest, which cost us 1.2 million tonnes of carbon sequestration. It will take 5 years to save 0.6 million tonnes, but under Labour’s policies it is failing to sequester 1.2 million tonnes a year. That is what is happening under the Labour Government.

Then the Prime Minister told us that biofuels would fix the current account deficit. Maybe she needs to talk to the Minister of Finance, because with a 10 percent current account deficit it will take a lot more than a little bit of biofuel. The second thing the Prime Minister told us, in a great “motherhood and apple pie” statement, was that she was going to make the public service carbon neutral. What a gimmick. It will not include the whole public service—no one who is flying planes or doing things—just the pen pushers at Treasury and the Inland Revenue Department. They will become carbon neutral. If the Government was serious it would tackle its own generators and a few other things, but it has not mentioned that. The Prime Minister is now going around claiming victory. It is a little bit like going down to Comalco and making the accounts department carbon neutral but leaving everything else unchanged in the company. That is the scheme of this Government; that will not fix our problems.

Let us have a look at the third bit of substance from the Government—the introduction of a waste tax. About the best thing one can say about it is that it is the sort of tax Michael Cullen likes. It is going on and it will be going up; that is what sort of tax it is.

Hon Member: At least he can keep that one!

JOHN KEY: That one was not gone by the time the espresso machine was warmed up. What we do not know about the tax is what it will cost and how much the compliance will be. But we do know that the department that will be administering it—the Ministry of the Environment—has trebled its own waste output in the last 4 years. That is what has happened.

The last bit of the speech—the substance in the speech, theoretically—was a suggestion she might look at parole; it was not a policy and not an idea, despite all the things that have gone on, but a suggestion that she might look at parole. Nor did she tell the head of the Department of Corrections, because on Saturday he stated in the paper that there were no planned changes to parole in New Zealand.

We agree with the Prime Minister; it is definitely substance, not slogans. So let us add to that. We want record, not rhetoric. So let us have a look at what this dying Labour Government has been doing around slogans. Does anyone remember the 20 free hours policy? The Labour back bench clapped for it. It was the only time those members did clap, so obviously they did not issue enough instructions to the whips. But they gave a half-baked clap. Let us see whether the public of New Zealand will be clapping when they find out the facts. These are the facts: there is no chance of rolling it out, and the Government knows it. The Prime Minister said in her speech that there would be a widespread take-up. Well, that is not the case. The Early Childhood Council has run the survey and it has already proven that 22.7 percent—less than a quarter of centres—will be uptaking 20 free hours. What she did not say is that people who live on the North Shore, whom my colleague Dr Mapp represents, will get a 3.7 percent uptake. What she did not say is that if one has a 1-year-old or a 2-year-old, the cost of sending those children to preschool will be going up to subsidise the 3 and 4-year-olds. What she did not say is that that is another broken promise and another empty slogan by Labour. So if Labour wants substance, not slogans, I say “Bring it on.”

Let us talk about Labour’s other slogan, “the top half of the OECD”. Do members remember that one? Well, I have a little bit of news for the Prime Minister. When she came into office in 1999, New Zealand was 20th in the OECD. Today we are 21st. Under Labour we have gone down, not up, in the OECD. We are not in the top half. We are in the bottom third of the OECD. It has not changed under Labour and it will not.

Let us talk about “carbon neutral”. That is another slogan that, theoretically, the Labour Party is standing by. We heard all about it last year. Let us look at a few of the facts of the record of this Government. It is burning three times as much coal to produce electricity as it was in 1999.

Hon Member: How much?

JOHN KEY: Three times more. Eighty-five percent of our new electricity generation since 1999 has come from coal. Last year’s renewable and hydro activities—anything around Dobson and anything else—was stopped. The only thing the Government actually supported was the Marsden B power station and the EP3 Orions. One does not go carbon neutral when one supports Marsden B and EP3 Orions. We are chopping down more trees than we ever have in the history of this country. We have net deforestation. Our emissions are rising faster than Australia and three times faster than the US. So if the Prime Minister wants substance, not slogans, then let us bring it on with things like a carbon neutral policy.

What we do know is that the public really wants responsibility, because that is something they do not get from a Labour Government. That is something they have long since forgotten about getting. The Prime Minister had the audacity to come down to the House and make one minor mention of parole. What she did not talk about was the performance of that department and that Minister. She knows that that department is operating in a culture of denial with a catalogue of failure. That is what she knows.

She knows that if that department were doing its job properly, Liam Ashley would be alive. She knows if that department were doing its job properly, a New Zealander would not have died at the hands of Graeme Burton. She knows that. She knows that it is a department in which landscaping takes a higher priority than rehabilitation. She knows that it is a department that cannot control its costs. She knows that under that department, drugs are rife in those prisons. She has had nothing to say about that, and the Minister responsible has had nothing to say about that. New Zealanders have died, yet Damien O’Connor and Helen Clark have had nothing to say about that—not one word. The day Karl Kuchenbecker died at the hands of Graeme Burton we did not hear one word from Damien O’Connor, and the duty Minister on service that day refused to front up to an interview at TV3. So if the Prime Minister wants to be taken seriously then I suggest she come down to the House and start to resolve some of those issues, rather than waving around the slogans she used in her speech.

Talking of responsibility, I say that it would be nice if she took responsibility for Taito Phillip Field, because we have had 8 months of an inquiry that was designed by that Prime Minister to fail, so she could park him on the back bench and bring him back again. That inquiry has cost the taxpayers of New Zealand half a million dollars. It has asked more questions than it answered. Helen Clark said that Mr Field had been cleared emphatically of wrongdoing, yet before Christmas she was on the radio calling him unethical. When he told the New Zealand Police he would not cooperate, the Prime Minister had nothing to say about that. So the message is that law-abiding New Zealanders are expected by the Prime Minister to front up to the police, but if that person is a member of the Labour Party who is holding up the Government by a one-seat majority, he does not have to cooperate.

How about some responsibility when it comes that, I say to the Prime Minister. How about a bit of responsibility in paying back the money for the pledge card? We know that Helen Clark did not put any conditions on paying it back, but Mike Williams has not paid one cent back—and he will not, if he is given half a chance.

The phrase that was missing from the Prime Minister’s statement today was “tax cuts”. Watching Michael Cullen on the topic of tax cuts is like watching the longest striptease in New Zealand’s history. We have been waiting 8 years and he is still fully clothed. But what has been laid bare in the last few days is the war raging between Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. New Zealanders have seen a Labour Prime Minister and a Labour Minister of Finance fighting before. They have seen the movie and they know the way it ends. They know that Michael Cullen is taking more tax off them than he needs to. They know they are struggling. I say to New Zealanders today that a National Government will be cutting taxes, and they will not have to wait 9 years for it. It will not be cynically rolled out mysteriously a day before an election is due. We will be committed to tax cuts year after year, because that is the right thing to do in order to grow our economy.

We are witnessing the dying days of a Labour Government. The infighting is horrible. The arrogance is bad. They are uncaring. They are attacking the media. They are attacking the messenger. They are rapidly running out of time. New Zealanders will be pleased to see the back of Trevor Mallard, the uncaring Steve Maharey, the aloof Helen Clark, and the “Minister of Mortgage Levies”, Michael Cullen.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I seek leave to table a document in which Mr Key says he was very interested in discussion around alternatives on monetary policy, and, on 12 December in my office, outlined how a variable interest rate levy on mortgages could work, did not express any opposition to it, and agreed there should be further work done.

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): There are times, both in our country and in other countries, when one hears the address or speech of a new leader and it is elevating, exciting, stunning, and charismatic. [Interruption] I did not say I was about to deliver one, but thanks very much. There are times when a new leader rises on the scene and he is charismatic, he is exciting, he is elevating, and he makes stunning, coherent addresses, but, alas—

Hon Member: What’s the punchline?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —what we heard today—and this is the punchline—was not one of them.

Many members in this Parliament were happy to see the end of 2006, but New Zealand First was not one of those parties. After all, in 2006 we got a whole lot of things done, while some people just talked. Whilst they talked, we acted. We did for our supporters what we had promised to do. My challenge to those producing the cacophony of sound to my right is to tell me just what, in the last 7 years, they have done. I cannot hear them. They do not have to give 10 things, or even five things. [Interruption] Changing their leader four times and their deputy leader five times is not regarded as a public achievement, so I ask them again to name one thing. I cannot hear them. Some parties promise, and some deliver.

Madam SPEAKER: I know that this is a vigorous debate but some of us are missing the more witty bits of it. Would members please lower the interjections.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Last year was an enormously challenging year, but, sadly, one of the dirtiest politically in New Zealand’s history.

Pita Paraone: That’s for sure!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is for sure. If they look in the mirror they will know why. I want to make this very clear: petty politicking sank to a new low in New Zealand, and exhibited a divisive ugliness that was most unbecoming of both Parliament and parliamentarians—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Where did you get the emails from?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Where I got the emails from did not matter; it was what was in them and what they said. They screamed of venality, deceit, hollow men, and hollower women. Last year the politics was witless, often venal, self-ingratiating, and unparliamentary in the extreme. But we are back, ready to begin 2007 with renewed purpose and a sense of humour.

After all, it is tragic to see what I just saw, which was someone discover that New Zealand has some poor people—that New Zealand has an underclass. You know, when National first brought out that kind of rubbish circa December 1990, in Ruth Richardson’s mini-Budget, all its members were told that, but I see those members on the front bench right now. I even remember Bill English saying to me: “But, Winston, what if it all works?”. Well, such a policy could not work and never would work, and it will not work if it is tried again. That is what the hollow men disclosed as their venal, secret purpose.

Hon Maurice Williamson: You voted for that Budget!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Here we go. You see, leaving that party is a badge of honour—ask my friend from Ashburton. I mean, one guy who got a cigar and puffed smoke into a woman’s face received a right-hander, and is still where he is; the other guy got up in the National caucus and asked a simple question of the leader, and he is considered to have done something unforgivable. Why would that be, pray tell me? Why would somebody who asked an honest, straightforward, and, as it happens, correct question be so badly, sadly hounded by his party?

Ron Mark: It made John Key the leader, didn’t it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, it made John Key the leader, but is he saying thank you? Is he restoring the member? Come on!

Ron Mark: What sort of leadership is that?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: What sort of leadership is that? A guy raised the most serious of questions—

Hon Maurice Williamson: There’s an echo in here.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The member will find that that echo is legend by the time the next 2 years are out.

We have much to look forward to. Labour began the year talking about sustainability, and I am pleased about that. The National Party found a leader who woke up and discovered that New Zealand has an underclass. Where has he been these last 22 years? Where has he been these last 22 years of the great economic experiment begun by Douglas and finished by Richardson? He talks about turning the economy round merely by implementing tax cuts. How shallow is that? Which economist in the world believes that that will fix the economy? Which New Zealand economist, for a start, believes that that is the prescription for New Zealand’s economic solution? New Zealand First believes in climate change—economic climate change and social climate change. That is what we are asking this Parliament in 2007 to begin, for the first time in a long time, to deliver.

John Key’s biggest challenge is to restore some backbone to National and to leave the hollow men and women to fade away into history, where they belong.

Hon Annette King: He was one of them.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, I am going to give the guy a fair go. I always believe, when new leaders turn up, that no matter what their limitations they should be given a chance. They might just grow into the job. That is the approach of New Zealand First. We have always been that way—generous to a fault. But what worries me is that surrounding John Key are all the same old faces, in the same old places, bringing the same old tried and failed policies, with the same financial backers. I read, over Christmas, in The Hollow Men more information than I had had in my emails, and I was truly astonished. In fact, I had a very restless Christmas because of it. [Interruption] It is true.

Hon Maurice Williamson: You said you destroyed all your emails!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I did not destroy The Hollow Men, because it was more expansive than the emails I had had. Mind you, since then I have got new ones. Do members know what they tell me? They tell me that, sadly, in a political environment where a strong Opposition is necessary—which New Zealand First has tried to deliver year after year, and successfully—and where so many members are meant to provide that strong Opposition, National members are deeply riven and divided.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Oh no.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes, they are! Echoing sadly and reverberating out of those emails are the kinds of personal squabbles that we thought the National members might, with a new leader, have moved past. But, no, they have not. Let us take Mr Lockwood Smith. What do these emails say about Lockwood Smith and his political machinations? He is not saying too much now, is he—not a mutter, not a murmur, not a syllable, not a sound. He is not saying too much now. Murray McCully—where is he, and others? National probably has three teams now. It is not fair on the New Zealand public, because the New Zealand public need a strong, coherent Opposition. How can they possibly have that when Mr Key is surrounded by the same old names, like Ryall, Smith, Williamson, and McCully? They are neo-liberals of the past, who, after 22 years of economic failure—

Hon Maurice Williamson: I resemble that remark!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He resents it because he does not understand what it means. He resents it because he does not understand what the word “neo-liberal” means.

Hon Maurice Williamson: I said I resemble it!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know he resembles it, but he should not resent it. The plain fact is that when National has the same financial backers and the same puppeteers, it is very likely, unless it has an awfully strong, dynamic leader, that that is what the policy being secretly put together will finally reflect, if National ever gets into power. New Zealand deserves better than that.

We can see, after 22 years, that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act is a failure. Right now, we have some of the highest commodity prices of all time, yet that high dollar, which is being artificially propped up by the Governor of the Reserve Bank using inappropriate terms for a New Zealand economy, is seeing our exporters, in many cases, going to the wall. After 22 years, we might understand that.

For example, why are we facing the Governor of the Reserve Bank putting up interest rates again in April, to enhance the purses and the treasuries of foreign Governments and foreign investors? Why has that party over there not learnt, for example, that we need a much stronger savings strategy? Why is our economy awash with Australian money? Why have that country’s savings been doubled from something like $350 billion to $715 billion in recent years, while ours have actually fallen away—while New Zealand’s savings have dropped? The Leader of the Opposition talks about a bright future in the way that he does, but with that prescription there cannot be anything other than what we have now, which is not good enough.

New Zealand could be doing far better. If we want to rise up to the level of successful OECD countries, then some fundamental things to do with macroeconomics are fundamental to New Zealand’s possible survival. If we do not act on the Reserve Bank dollar, then this export-dependent economy will not succeed. If we do nothing about our savings, then we face the destiny of perpetually filling the coffers of other investing countries and other investment houses.

I support Kiwibank. I support, and my party, New Zealand First, supports, the savings initiatives that Dr Cullen has taken. But we have to go much, much further if we are to have any hope of having in the future the kind of economic recovery that, even after these wasted, wilted years, we still could have. That is what my party stands for, and that is what we will hammer in 2007—to get the economic and social climate change that New Zealand needs, and to get the fundamentals out there.

We know, in looking at the crime on our streets and at the failure of our penal policy, that the failure really starts in this Parliament. We have to be more firm, more certain, and more unforgiving of recidivist crime. At the same time we have to have a heart, and to understand that entry-level crime is where we as a country should focus our efforts—that we should put more effort and money into that area. But to run around saying we will lock criminals up and throw away the key is the kind of populist policy that we in New Zealand First have never found attractive, and never will. We want some real policies in 2007 for this country.

I have talked about savings, and I have talked about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act needing to change. That blunt, crude instrument whereby interest rates are put up just to dampen down house prices affecting the whole country will be catastrophically bad. And it will not happen that the Governor of the Reserve Bank does otherwise, unless we take a lead from here. Why do we not just increase savings before April 2007? The governor will then have no reason to whack interest rates up. New Zealanders will not be hurt in any way at all, if that happens.

But we have to make some fundamental and simple changes that many of us have advocated for decades now. We saw the flight to Erebus when Douglas turned up, we saw all the warning signs in October 1987, and here we are, 20 years later, and this Parliament has to rise, understand what it is rising for, understand what went wrong, and admit that maybe the economics of some people in this House were screwed and stewed, and that they will never help New Zealand.

Those economics, of course, have never worked in any nation, at any time in history. Why did we dream that they would work in this country? At least the Labour Party came to understand that. What is sad about The Hollow Men and all the emails and machinations is that the National Party still believes in it. That is why National lost: a number of New Zealanders had enough suspicion to believe that National would carry on doing the same old things if it were in power. After all, I found out—mind you, I always suspected it—that Ruth Richardson was right there in the middle of it. That hopelessly failed, mad economic scientist temporarily, like a dwarf of international statesmanship, got a job in this country as the Minister of Finance. Even Bolger fired her, yet National got her back.

Hon David Carter: He fired you, too.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, he did not fire me; he got me back. To get his job he got me back. Mind you, that might be the last time that happens, because I can tell members now that there is no sin like ingratitude.

I was talking about Australia’s savings. Since 1999 Australia’s savings have gone from $300 billion to $736 billion. Our savings have gone from $19.8 billion down to $19.3 billion. So savings, a change in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, and a real application of law and order policy are fundamental.

I was hoping to talk briefly about my foreign affairs portfolio, but I do not have the time to do so. I will say just one thing. We face problems in the Pacific that are worse than ever before. There are a whole lot of reasons for those problems, but the slide in the average age of people in Melanesia in particular means that the problems we confront are bigger, larger, more complex, and more serious than ever. So New Zealand First exhorts the Government to ensure that we put the effort, the support, the personnel, the bureaucracy, and, above all, the raised expenditure into trying to turn our neighbourhood round. After all, charity begins at home, and the Pacific is our home, the home of New Zealand.

I close this speech by saying that New Zealand First is looking forward to working with the Government in 2007 on the same constructive basis that we did in 2006. We do not give a darn about what the media say about certain things in respect of this party’s operations; it is a tight and cohesive operation. I issue the National Party with a closing challenge. If there was one thing that emerged from The Hollow Men, it was that National was still the same party of Richardson, Birch, and Brash—and possibly, because of the numbers, it still is. The National Party has a leader who can finance the organisation himself, so perhaps he should get rid of his financial backers who write and buy policy—something that I personally experienced and saw when I was a member of the National Party front bench. Let us hope he does so, but if he does not, then Victor Hugo’s classic tale of the underclass of another generation, Les Misérables, will apply equally to the National Party as it endures another 3 cold, sad, long years in Opposition.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I notice that the leader of New Zealand First could not quite last for 20 minutes. Perhaps those members would like to split that time with another one of their speakers for the next 2 minutes.

Madam SPEAKER: The member knows that that is out of order, and that the member is not the only one who did not take the whole time.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I sat down because I saw you raising your hand to the bell, Madam Speaker. Unlike Gerry Brownlee, I played in the backs, where one had to have a fast mind.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member also had to have a fast eye, and the ball was not coming for him.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please be seated. That is not a point of order.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green): The Prime Minister has announced a call to action on sustainability. She has called it the compelling issue of our time. She has said that it should define our national identity. And after 30 years of advocating for sustainability and warning of climate change and oil depletion, and after 10 years of pressing for those issues in this House and seeing those issues first ignored and then ridiculed and marginalised—as they have been by some members today—obviously the Greens welcome such a statement from the Prime Minister.

At this point I was going to say something about National’s call for action on climate change and sustainability, which I thought might be forthcoming, but I could not actually find anything to comment on, so I will carry on without it.

What we are looking for now from the Government is the action to back up the words, and, in the Prime Minister’s own words, we are looking for the substance, not just the slogans. So the Government can expect the Greens and, I believe, the public—and, I hope, the media—to measure its actions regularly against its goals.

The Prime Minister’s speech has taken some first steps, which I want to acknowledge. I have been saying for many years that the Government cannot expect anyone else to embrace sustainability if the Government does not do it in its own departments, and today’s announcements of actions made by Government departments to walk the talk are welcome. Last year I raised in the House the appalling performance of the ministerial car fleet, which is among the worst gas guzzlers in the country. So I welcome the news that when those cars are replaced, it will be with much more efficient cars—we wait to see how much more efficient.

I am glad to hear that six Government departments are to be carbon neutral. It is true, as John Key says, that they are mainly pen-pushing departments, and I look forward very much to the news that they will be joined, for example, by Landcorp, which has some appalling carbon behaviour.

I welcome the Government’s support for the Greens’ Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill and for adding some mandatory measures to the voluntary approach in the New Zealand waste strategy, which has not been particularly successful.

But this was a speech in two parts. The first part had—I am told by staff who have counted—something like 30 references to sustainability. Well, that is a first. Then the Prime Minister turned to the economy and we were back to business as usual; sustainability was absent, and there were no further references.

The Prime Minister says that business needs to be sustainable, and I want to talk particularly today about sustainable business, because if business is not sustainable, our economy cannot be sustainable, our way of life cannot be sustainable, and our nation cannot be sustainable. That is a given. But business is responsible to its shareholders and it cannot survive if it is not profitable. That is a given, too. Business will and must respond to the rules, the price signals, and the opportunities in the wider economic environment, and a Government’s role is to ensure that those signals encourage the behaviour it wants from business. It is Government’s role to ensure that business can profit from being sustainable—and it is not doing that.

We can look at the business tax review. It is billed as designed to transform the economy—but to what? Sustainability is never mentioned in any of the objectives of the business tax review. The aims are to increase productivity, competitiveness with Australia, exporting, and staff training. All of them are good objectives in themselves, but they are seriously inadequate for a Government that wants to blaze a trail to sustainability and carbon neutrality.

The trouble is that there is no joined-up thinking. The Government thinks in silos that are patterned on the departmental silos that make policy. Climate change and sustainability policy is made by the Ministry for the Environment, and it rarely connects with what Treasury, the Inland Revenue Department, or the Ministry of Economic Development do. That has to change.

The tax review proposes tax cuts, whether as accelerated depreciation or write-downs, for businesses that invest in productivity gains and export development. A sustainability policy would give tax incentives to businesses that invested in plant or processes that reduce energy use, that reduce pollution, that reduce the use of toxic materials, and that reduce waste. The taxpayer can afford to do that, because it reduces what we have to pay in 2012 for greenhouse gas emissions over and above our 1990 levels.

Tax concessions are also proposed for research and development. What sort of research and development? We want to see incentives to do research and development on less carbon-intensive production methods, less carbon-intensive food miles, alternatives to toxic materials, and ways of using less water. “Tax incentives for staff training”—in what? “Increased productivity”—fine, but what about training in cleaner production techniques, minimising spills of hazardous materials, and better plant maintenance to reduce energy waste? We used to train engineers in this country in advanced energy auditing. There are no such courses now that I can find. We simply do not have the people who can walk into a business and show it how to cut its energy use by 30 percent, which is usually possible if one knows how.

There is a proposal to reduce compliance costs for small-scale payers of fringe benefit tax, which is good, but again it is what is taxed that is ignored. What about removing fringe benefit tax for employers that give their employees public transport passes and cycle facilities rather than cars or car parks? The tax review is a huge missed opportunity to put some meat on the bones of the Prime Minister’s goal by making it profitable for businesses to be sustainable.

Probably the most unsustainable thing about our current way of life is the way we use motorcars. Transport emissions, which are mainly from motorcars, are 43 percent of our carbon dioxide emissions, and they are growing fast. Last year the rise in oil prices that took petrol to $1.70 a litre prompted people to look for alternatives. For the first time in years traffic volumes on the inner Auckland motorways decreased, and public transport trains and buses in Auckland and Wellington were full at rush hour. This is a golden opportunity for Government to build on that new awareness, and to put substantial money into new infrastructure for rail freight and passengers and into facilities for public transport generally.

What did Michael Cullen do? He gave money for more roads. The Prime Minister says that New Zealand needs to go the extra mile to lower greenhouse gas emissions. I want to suggest that not going the extra mile might be a smarter way of reaching the goal of sustainable transport. We already have an annual roading budget of $1.63 billion—it has virtually doubled over 5 years—but just before the last election our Minister of Finance “found” a spare half a billion dollars and threw it all into roads. Then, in the 2006 Budget, he “found” another billion and a half and threw that into roads, too. Now he has just announced that he intends to borrow money from our children to fund the largest roading programme New Zealand has ever seen. Well, it is well recognised in all the overseas literature that building new roads encourages people to drive more and further. This extra traffic soon fills up the road so it does not even reduce congestion for very long. And then more roads have to be built, so new roads mean more carbon emissions.

Our rail system is in a dire state, and now that we own it again are we seeing money found, suddenly, to fix it up? Unfortunately not. Many large towns have no public transport at all, and some cities have only a skeleton service. The Prime Minister says that we have increased our spend on public transport by seven and a half times what it was in 2000. That is good, but seven times almost nothing is still very little, I tell the Prime Minister.

The Government in its roading addiction has reached the stage of the alcoholic who, having spent what was in the bank on booze and then robbed the grocery money, is now borrowing from the kids’ piggy banks to fund the increasing addiction. Both the repayments of the infrastructure bonds the Government is issuing and the interest on that debt will be paid by our children at the same time as they try to cope with the effects of increasing climate change, the cost of an increasing price on carbon, and oil prices that will go through the roof. We have inherited a fully-paid-for system of roads from our ancestors, and we are charging our children for what we want to build. To change the words of an old Values Party song from many years ago, we did inherit the world from our fathers; now we are borrowing it from our children, and we are charging them the interest.

It is good to see the increased target for the sales obligation for biofuels. If that is to work, we will need to regulate vehicles coming into the country from now on in order to make sure they are capable of accepting at least 10 percent of biofuels in the mix, and preferably more. Otherwise, they will hold us back as we try to raise the level further.

I believe we should also have a statement of origin regarding any fuel that is imported. There is no certification system yet, but there is a real problem in that the worldwide rush to biofuels will lead to the extinction of the world’s remaining old forests and all the wildlife that lives in them—as is happening in Sarawak, where rainforests are being cut down for palm-oil plantations for bio-diesel—and there is also a worry that land will be taken from feeding the hungry into feeding the cars of those who have them. So a statement of origin is necessary to ensure the sustainability of biofuels.

I welcome the statement that we need to change our farming practices, and I hope that the Government will start with Landcorp, which is not exactly a model of sustainability in terms of its nitrogen use, riparian plantings, stocking rates, and methane and climate-change emissions. It is certainly not a model of sustainability policy in the way it is converting huge areas of land from forest to dairy farms, with the loss of carbon storage and the emission of large quantities of methane from animals.

We have to make sustainability part of our trade. The problem with free-trade deals, like the one being negotiated with China, is that giving preference to environmentally friendly or local production is seen as an impediment to trade, and destroying more of our manufacturing industry by opening it up to full competition with China does not enhance the sustainability of the New Zealand economy.

We need environmental education. The UK Government has just announced that education about climate change, energy, and the impact of people’s decisions as consumers will be part of the compulsory core curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds. It announced that in the last couple of weeks. But despite the Minister responsible for Climate Change issues and the Minister for the Environment both strongly supporting environmental education, despite the Green Party’s successful initiative in the last Budget for $13 million for that education, and despite the growing recognition by teachers and schools of its importance for our future sustainability, the Ministry of Education’s deputy secretary, Anne Jackson, has confirmed that it will not be part of the new curriculum, and that schools could, if they wish, incorporate it into various learning areas. There is, and will be, no compulsory environmental education, at all, in New Zealand. It is entirely up to schools whether they teach anything at all to prepare future citizens for the rigours of an environmentally damaged world.

The Prime Minister has devoted three whole lines of her speech to the relationship between the Crown and Māori. It is a relationship that has recently been returned to the darker days of New Zealand’s paternalistic attitudes. The refusal to support the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the imposition of a settlement deadline for Māori and not for the Crown, in just the last few months, displays an amazing arrogance. It is no surprise, then, that the draft education curriculum has omitted to prioritise the education of our children in the history of the Treaty. It is an absence that will continue to breed ignorance and that will entrench racism.

The Prime Minister has talked a lot about national identity, and it is extremely important for a small nation in a large world to know what it is that makes us New Zealanders, and to know that it is something that unites us and that we can be proud of. I strongly agree that sustainability as a goal should be part of our national identity. We already refer to ourselves as Kiwi; that is part of our unique biodiversity. Our biodiversity is under threat—more, perhaps, than that of any other nation because of the introduced pests and predators that are making extinctions occur very rapidly here. There is no reference in the Prime Minister’s speech to our unique biodiversity and the extent to which that can be part of our national identity and part of our sustainability.

The Greens have been working with Government to foster our national identity with the Buy Kiwi Made programme, where I believe we can show a lot more pride in our manufacturers, the products they make, and the people who work in those businesses. We intend to continue to promote that cause.

The Prime Minister congratulates us on our nuclear-free status being part of our national identity, and I believe strongly that it is. That is all the more reason, then, to look at why it is that the rules for the Government’s New Zealand Superannuation Fund allow the guardians of that fund to invest our savings in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Either the guardians did not respect the criteria they were supposed to operate under or—much more likely—those criteria allow investment in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Michael Cullen remarked to the media that the guidelines for the guardians were consulted on with the Greens; that is true. They came to see us. They said: “What do you think?”. We gave them quite a lot of information, but none of it ever made it into the instructions that were given to the guardians. I think it is time they were rewritten. The Prime Minister is uncomfortable about our savings going into tobacco. I believe she should also be uncomfortable about our savings going into any other form of unsustainability, including Exxon Mobil Corporation, which funds most of the climate-change deniers in the world, and including anything related to nuclear weapons. So we look forward to working with the Government to progress legislation that will make sure that, like Norway’s superannuation funds, which have achieved a very good financial return for their future pensioners, ours are also invested in the things that we want to promote, rather than in the things that we shun.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā tātou te Whare. On Waitangi Day the highest rank of Order of New Zealand was placed upon a man of Te Ātiawa whakapapa, the Rt Rev. and the honourable Sir Paul Reeves. Sir Paul, one of an elite group of highly distinguished citizens, warned that despite the seeming calm of Waitangi there are many issues simmering for tangata whenua that will rise to the surface again unless given a proper airing. It is a warning the Māori Party assumed would be considered in the Prime Minister’s address—highlighting these issues as critical matters for the State.

Her address asked us to make a stand, called for boldness in our approach, and directed us to be truly sustainable, and indeed to be all this we must invest in he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. So we expected the address to identify how Māori have fallen behind other New Zealanders in just about every indicator in health—cancer, heart disease, child mortality, obesity, diabetes, and life expectancy. But there was no mention of this. This debate might have raised the fact that anything less than a statutory obligation to improve those figures would be failing Māori. We expected that the debate might have looked at the $758 million Māori pay as an apportionment of tax for health services, posing the question: was this value for money? The debate might have reviewed the study by Professor Peter Davis in The Lancet, which revealed that 14 percent of Māori admissions to some 13 hospitals were associated with health-care mistakes. The study concluded that Māori were more likely to receive suboptimal care than any other groups. In particular, the debate would have given us a chance for the hard questions to be put to the Ministry of Health. Again, there was no mention of these matters.

Earlier this year a major review was released by the Director-General of Health, Stephen McKernan, concluding that the Ministry of Health needed to introduce significant changes because it is risk-averse and slow to make decisions—“risk-averse and slow to make decisions”, when there is literally a fine line between life and death being experienced in too many communities. That review called for greater efficiency and stronger leadership to ensure that the $10 billion health spend was going to make a difference, and the Māori Party will be watching for this to happen.

In making a difference, there can be no more stark reminder of the urgent need for action than in the education sector. Research from the Child Poverty Action Group suggests that more than 10 percent of the 125,000 children in the poorest schools are malnourished and need food to improve their ability to learn—malnourished: vitamin D deficient, leading to rickets. Yes, that is happening here in Aotearoa. Who is most affected? Respectively, Pasifika and Māori children are 10 times and three times more likely to suffer from chest infections than European children. Poor nutrition has a significant impact on how well children can learn. How can we reasonably expect anyone to learn when he or she is unable to focus on anything other than the hunger that comes from inadequate income?

But it is also vital that we look at the nature of the hunger in our schools. Which children are being short-changed, receiving an education that still leaves them hungry because the menu they are served has not nourished their unique and special character? If we are truly to be bold in our approach we must name the problems before we can ever make progress. The crisis facing this nation cannot be glossed over by referring to a significant minority of young people who fail badly. This minority is called Māori and Pasifika. If we are to be bold, let us be brave enough to face the truth.

The Education Review study should be reviewed by every member of this House. To recap, 53 percent of Māori boys who left school in 2005 did not have any of the three levels of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, compared with 26 percent of Pākehā boys. Forty percent of 16-year-old Māori boys left school in 2005, many of them by means of special exemptions that allowed them to leave before that age. School-leaver qualification figures show that only 9 percent of the Māori boys who left school in 2005 had university entrance.

As a grandmother and great-grandmother, these figures leave me gasping in utter frustration. How many years do Māori need to wait to receive a basic education? How can any business continue to be supported by the State when over half the clients of a particular group are being failed by that service? What difference is there between 2007 and 1960, when J K Hunn reported that the state of Māori education left much to be desired?

The new Pro Vice-Chancellor Māori of Waikato University, Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, has pointed out that perhaps the one difference is that schools are more explicitly racist now. In her analysis of an international study of reading, mathematical, and scientific skills of 15-year-olds, Professor Smith highlighted enormous underachievement of Māori and Pasifika pupils, identifying that the strategy is one of containment, as opposed to education; except that the crisis fast approaching our nation has exploded out of its container and no amount of subterfuge by the Minister of Education—no excuses that the mass of underachievement is really just another way of looking at high employment—will wash with New Zealanders who are sick of waiting for the system’s non-compliance to be addressed. The reality they are telling us is that bureaucracies and Ministers alike always appear to have a new spin to dress up the situation of shambles, when all they want is a straight answer.

A straight answer is also what those in the fisheries sector want, as a response to the shared fisheries proposals. These are proposals that serve to erode the individual transferable quota that was agreed to as the currency for commercial fisheries rights in the Treaty settlement. The rights guaranteed under article 2 of the Treaty stipulated that tangata whenua have exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries. Indeed, one would be struggling to find a more explicit statement of property rights existing under English law. But it is clear that many in this House prefer to jump from article 1 to article 3, and ignore article 2. Yet this Government has announced that it intends to transfer part of the commercial share of the total allowable catch to the recreational sector; in effect eroding the value of that settlement, instead of encouraging the customary recreational and commercial sector to try to find a solution between themselves. It gets worse. Inequalities are worsening, disparities intensifying, and entitlements to basic health, educational, and social justice are being denied to tangata whenua, and now the writing is on the wall for a massive counter-attack on the fisheries allocation.

Analysis from a senior United Nations economist, released yesterday, confirms all our worst fears. The evidence places New Zealand in the context of “a significant and disturbing increase of inequality.” In the book Flat World, Big Gaps: Economic liberalization, globalization, poverty, and inequality, author Jomo Sundaram concludes: “The question of economic growth is not simply a matter of increasing the aggregate of income, but is a matter of the kind of growth, the composition of it and whom it has benefited.” These issues must be central to any legislative and policy intentions to come before this House. The Māori Party has been speaking of the need for a genuine progress index—a progress that measures the inequalities and takes into account whom is benefiting from any growth.

Finally, I want to commend the Prime Minister for saving the best to last and mentioning reconciliation in the final section of her address. We must be bold in all aspects of reconciliation. The restoration of justice must be at all levels—economic, social, environmental, and cultural. We must restore hope and pride in our nation. We must address the truths that have not been told. We are at a critical junction in the advancement of our nation. How can we talk of growth and GDP, when over half the population are missing out, or their potential curbed, as a result of culturally biased and inadequate policy provision?

We must do all that we can to achieve the optimal conditions for success for all peoples. We cannot hide behind the smokescreen of public relations spin that is masking the desperate disparities that afflict our communities. It is time to get real and to get even in our commitment to acquit equitable outcomes for all New Zealanders. We need to hear from our constituencies about their ideas to achieve the growth of healthy, resilient, independent people, and we must work together to take the great leap forward that is required to advance Aotearoa. The Māori Party for one is ready to step up to that challenge.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I begin by expressing my congratulations to Katrina Shanks, the fourth of the candidates who stood in the Ohariu-Belmont electorate at the last election to make it to Parliament. I wish her well for her time here.

United Future is a modern, centre party that is committed to strong families and vibrant communities. As such, we are far more interested in the substance of the delivery of politics and policy rather than in the rhetoric that sometimes surrounds it. In that regard I want to comment on some of the matters contained in the Prime Minister’s statement.

We support the initiatives that were outlined in a general sense with regard to climate change policy and the promotion of sustainability. But stating them today is one thing; implementing them will be something else. That will require the support of two key elements: firstly, this Parliament as a whole—because Governments may come and go, but the impact of climate change will be with us forever—and, secondly, the business community, which is going to be at the forefront of a number of the changes that have been proposed. That is why I repeat the call that I have made previously, which I gather the Prime Minister is not unsympathetic to, for there to be a summit meeting of political parties—I now think supplemented by the business community as well—to build a broad and lasting consensus on what is achievable in terms of New Zealand’s climate change policy response. The last thing we can afford as a nation is to implement policies in the life of one Parliament, only to have them overturned in the life of the next. A long-term sustainable response to climate change comes down to long-term sustainable policy commitments, and those will come through involving as many people as possible in the build-up to the agreements and the decisions that will flow from them.

Over the next year, as a result of a number of the initiatives in the supply and confidence agreement that United Future has with the current Government, a number of major tax changes will take place. Reference has already been made to the business tax review, which will deliver significant changes in business taxation arrangements from 1 April next year. That will affect the way a number of businesses are able to operate. It will certainly boost productivity and competitiveness. But it will also open the opportunities for businesses to have relationships across the Tasman, and it will be encouraging to many of our smaller businesses in terms of their ongoing development. We have acknowledged that there may well be consequential impacts for personal taxation rates and systems at that time as well.

In addition to those issues, which have been flagged for some time, I anticipate that at the beginning of April next year we will also see a new charitable donations taxation regime put in place, arising out of the review that has just been conducted. That will recognise the contribution that many New Zealanders make to supporting charitable and voluntary organisations in New Zealand and the contribution, in turn, that those organisations make to the fabric and vibrancy of our society as a whole.

Early next year, as Minister of Revenue, I will be releasing a Government discussion paper on income splitting—a policy long dear to the heart of United Future, and one that has the capacity to revolutionise the way we treat household income in New Zealand and to break through a lot of the issues that we have talked about, and come up against for too long as being too hard, about how to deliver a measure of support that recognises fairly the contribution of both parents to the upbringing of their children.

In July this year, once the KiwiSaver scheme is introduced, a whole new dynamic will be in place in the savings sector in this country. What will come very much into play at that point will be the debate about savings, compulsory savings, national savings levels, and the steps that we may need to take in order to lock in those changes for the future. I think there is a shift under way in the public mind in New Zealand. I am not yet convinced that there is an overwhelming public consensus in favour of compulsion—although I think it is building—but I want to make this point. We have had two false starts so far: in 1974 under the Kirk Government, and in 1997 during the National - New Zealand First Government. If we are to embark down that path, we cannot afford to get it wrong for a third time. There needs to be a lasting political consensus that change of that type is in order and can be made—that a system can be implemented to give effect to that policy.

Turning KiwiSaver into a compulsory savings scheme for all would not be a very difficult transition. The mechanisms are largely there. At that point we would then be able to look to future tax reform based on trading off contributions to superannuation saving against rates of taxation. I think that at that stage a lot of the issues that have been spoken of by the leader of New Zealand First already this afternoon, about the New Zealand savings rate and about how we provide for our future, could start to be addressed on a sustainable basis.

The issue that the co-leader of the Green Party referred to, about intergenerational borrowing for infrastructure development, could also be addressed. We support the Government’s moves in respect of infrastructure bonds. Although we do not think they have gone far enough in the first tranche, we support the initiative. But a dedicated fund arising out of a comprehensive superannuation scheme would enable us to go much further than we have gone. It would also enable us to look at infrastructure in far broader terms than we have to date. We have tended, to date, to view infrastructure in terms of physical assets: roads, buildings; those sorts of things. Many of our services are also infrastructural—those in health, in education, and in dealing with disadvantage and the underclass that it has become so fashionable of late to have been part of, at one stage, or to now ascribe to caring about. We can help to address those issues if we have the pool of capital available that such a scheme would provide. I think the changes that will be unleashed later this year will start to take us down that path.

United Future is proud to be associated with other initiatives during the course of this year that will also make life better for New Zealanders. We will complete the development work on a national medicines strategy relating to the quality usage of pharmaceuticals. Every day, as we hear of new medicines becoming available and new conditions that require treatment, the demand for such a policy increases. The other issue that we have to start to tackle with much greater vigour than has been the case to date—brought home by figures last week about the level of surgery now being conducted in the private hospital sector—is the interface between public and private. We cannot go on running, essentially, two parallel systems in New Zealand. We have the resources. We need to integrate public and private, and I say to the House—[Interruption]—and to the member opposite, who I know is genuinely interested in this area, that this year we will be placing a priority upon a provision in our agreement with regard to that. One of the great fallacies in the whole debate is that New Zealand lacks health resources. We do not. The issue is the way we configure them between both sectors; we have more resources than we need.

This promises to be an exciting year. It promises to be a challenging year. I echo the sentiment that the leader of New Zealand First began his address with. Many would prefer to forget the 2006 political year. The level of behaviour and the reputation of this Parliament sank, I think, to new lows. The challenge now confronting all of us—as we are into what is really the business year of the parliamentary term—is to start to see the implementation and delivery of policies that will make a real difference for the people we all claim to serve. United Future stands unrelentingly in terms of its commitment to families and stronger communities. The initiatives that I have talked about this afternoon, which we will support, promote, and work with other parties on during the year, will all be geared towards making this a better place for New Zealanders, and making this a better place for people to take the best of the opportunities that are available and to prosper as a result of that. If we are able to do that—working collaboratively, working constructively—then I think we can look back at the end of 2007 and say it was a far better year than 2006.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT): We have just listened to a Prime Minister’s speech that epitomises everything that is chronically and terminally wrong with this Government. I move, That all the words after the word “That” be omitted and the following substituted: “this House has no confidence in the Government, which is in denial about the real issues confronting New Zealanders, keeping families dependent on government, and stands between our people and prosperity.”

Let us first remind ourselves that this is a Government born of desperation and self-interest, primarily between the Labour Party and “Winston First”. This Government conspires to deliver a society ever to be remembered as “Helengrad”. It follows its leader in a state of collective denial of the carnage it is creating. Denial is evident throughout the Prime Minister’s speech today. Can there be a greater manifestation of this desperation to cling to power than the latest act of denial? It was proof positive that 80,000 Kiwi kids attend school with no breakfast—and no lunch either. But do their empty stomachs keep the Prime Minister awake at night? Not at all. She denies their very existence. The alternative, of course, would be to admit the abject failure of this Government. But there was no admission of that in the speech we have just heard. The Prime Minister and her deputy, sitting over there laughing at the prospect of 80,000 children being hungry, are the masters of the art of denial.

We witness the crumbling health service creaking under its own bureaucratic weight. Countless thousands of Kiwis are waiting for lifesaving and life-changing treatment. The Government’s solution is simple: to deny it. The Government had them wiped from the waiting list. What problem? See, it has gone!

Unemployment is no problem; one just manipulates the figures. People are not unemployed; they are invalids and they are sick. They are sick, all right—sick of being denied by this Government. It is the Prime Minister who should feel sick—sick with shame. But no, the Government has convinced itself that anything is justified—any slick twisting of the facts and any spinning of the truth. Anything is justified in the pursuit of power. Let the children go hungry. Let the sick suffer. Let the jobless wither away—generation after generation of them. There is denial after denial, because the solution would be to deny the crazy ideology that drives this Government. The Prime Minister is in denial that the answer lies in creating a truly fair society—a society where hard work and enterprise are rewarded, a society where the disadvantaged are given a hand up not a handout, and a society where people can depend on the Government to create an environment in which they can all prosper.

When the economy did pick up, the Government read the signs that a burgeoning middle class was emerging. More and more Kiwis were actually in danger of taking charge of their own destiny and being less dependent on the Government—a Government awash with cash. Did the Government welcome this transformation? Did it embrace the opportunity? Did it do what any responsible Government would do and return the money to the people who earned it in the first place—a move that would have empowered hard-working Kiwis and innovative companies? No, it panicked. It did not see a nation set free from the chains of excessive taxation; it did not see families with choice; it saw its voter base eroded. For this is a Government that depends on people being dependent on it. So what did it do? It fell into a bout of chronic denial and set about turning middle New Zealand into a land of beneficiaries.

That is the Labour way. That is the “Winston First” way. It is not the Māori Party way. The Māori Party knows the perils of intergenerational dependence and is sick of Māori being just another statistic for Labour to lie about. It is not the Green way. It knows that only a well-educated, healthy, invigorated workforce can support the vulnerable and truly needy. The time has come for everyone on the right side of this House—whatever our differences—to end the denial. The more I talk to our friends and colleagues in other parties the more I am encouraged by how we are united in our desire to create a prosperous nation.

The Prime Minister knows that the answer is to repair the infrastructure, education system, justice system, and health service, and that the people will take care of the rest. But instead she stays in denial, locking as many people as possible into a lifetime of dependence on the State, on Government, and on Labour, pretending all will be well. It is clear from her speech what the Prime Minister seeks. More than anything else it is another term—another 3 years at the helm. To achieve that she is prepared to practise the cruellest of hoaxes: she will use the money that hard-working Kiwis pay in tax to turn them into dependants in the fervent hope that they will reward her with their vote.

Such is this state of denial that some of the Labour members chipping up over there have even managed to convince themselves that this is somehow a manifestation of socialism. They insult their own heritage if they think that. Labour Prime Ministers, who once stood for reform and new ideas, were never afraid to address the social and economic issues of their day. If this Prime Minister believes she lives up to their reputation, then she is in denial about that, too. This country could once lay claim to being a model of social democracy. ACT recognises, respects, and believes in just that. I long for a day when a Prime Minister stands in this House to return power and self-respect to the people, for a Prime Minister leading a Government that puts in place the building blocks for a fair and just society, and for a Government that encourages success and recognises that its duty is to lead and aspire.

The speech we have just heard was a classic twist on the Mark Twain gag. Yes, the Prime Minister has principles, and if people do not like those then she has others. It is not good enough. Those 80,000 hungry children do not live in some far-off land, to be pitied over chardonnay then denied by breakfast; they are our future. They are our fellow New Zealanders. The tens of thousands of sick and suffering wiped from hospital waiting lists are not a tear-jerking statistic from a World Vision commercial; they are our fellow New Zealanders. The victims of avoidable crime do not live in some far-off ghetto; they are our fellow New Zealanders. The hard-working men and women supporting others dependent on the State do not live in some Third World country; they too are our fellow New Zealanders. They all deserve better. They deserve a Government that will not deny them.

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive): I had prepared, I thought, a reasonably far-sighted, visionary piece to say, but I listened to the speech made by John Key, the Leader of the Opposition, and I had to revise my view. Over Christmas I too read the book The Hollow Men. It is a sad book for anyone who has a deep regard for the democratic process in New Zealand, because of the actions of senior members of the National Party who aspire to lead the country. The actions of those MPs bring New Zealand politics into disrepute—that is the truth of it, and one cannot read it without coming to that conclusion.

That description—“hollow”—accurately describes the speech made by John Key this afternoon. Here is a critical reason to support that view. John Key talks about the underclass in New Zealand and proclaims himself deeply concerned about it. Anyone would be concerned about the no-wage and low-wage families. Certainly, I and, according to him, John Key too, came from one of those families. We are all concerned about that group because we have experienced some of the problems those families face.

His prescription to help them—the only prescription, actually, that he gave today—was to reduce taxes. Will that prescription help them? I do not know whether John Key understands that the lower one’s income, the less effect that tax cuts have. I do not think John Key is unintelligent, but anyone who thinks that lower taxes help low-income families is either stupid or deliberately misrepresenting the truth. There are only two possibilities. Do I think John Key is stupid? No, I do not. He is not stupid. So he is deliberately misrepresenting the fact that lower taxes will help underclass families in New Zealand—because they will not. How do I know that? I know that because I lived through it and was in this House—I do not know where John Key was; he might have been in futures trading somewhere—when a Government I was once a member of actually reduced taxes by far more than John Key has ever dreamt about.

The top marginal rate of 66c in the dollar was reduced to 33c in the dollar. Now, there is a tax cut for you! But, of course, the poorest families in New Zealand had their taxes reduced only from 20c in the dollar to 15c in the dollar. So the richest people like John Key, and even middle-class people like myself now, got the biggest tax cuts and the best opportunities in terms of increased income, and the poorest families got the worst deal.

What is different about what John Key is proposing? Nothing is different. I ask myself whether John Key or his National Party has learnt anything from that era, and the answer has to be no, they have not, except that they suggest they want more than they were given then. That was a licence to print money for the affluent of New Zealand. It is no wonder some people want more of it, but in my view that is completely counterproductive if John Key is to be taken at his word and he really cares one single iota for the poorest families in New Zealand.

I believe that if that is his prescription, he does not care about them. He does not, and he is a hollow man. He is representing hollow men and women in what he says, because tax cuts cannot fix the problems of the underclass. What happens when we want a decent health system and we have tax cuts coming out of the pockets of the poorest people in the country? Who pays for their own health care? The people who have the tax cuts can pay for it, but the people who have not get a poorer health system and less accessibility to it. I went through that period. But, furthermore, just to rub insult into injury, having given, through one Government, the biggest tax cuts in New Zealand’s history as far as I know, and having had that fail, the Ruth Richardson - led financial move was not only to sheet that in with surcharges for superannuitants, but also to reduce the income of even poorer people than those on low wages—beneficiaries—by 24 percent.

I was here when it happened. I could not believe it. I was gobsmacked by the audacity of it. We had just been through this period of the richest people getting the most by a country mile, then the even poorer people than the low-wage people had their income slashed by nearly 25 percent. Has anyone noticed what actually happened? What happened was that we had an underclass squared. Those people were the poorest of the poor. They were the people whose kids, in many ways, we have inherited as parents and we are now dealing with that trouble. The inheritance of now is from then. Everyone asks why we have all these problems with drugs and alcohol. It is an inheritance from the past. I would hope that people like John Key, if he had any kind of integrity at all, would be looking to the future and saying that the inheritance for the future must be better than what we have inherited from the past.

Surely full employment would be one of those things. Do we have full employment now in comparison with what we had then? We had 265,000 jobless people when we had the biggest tax cuts in New Zealand’s history. How did that work? We are told now that tax cuts will fix everything. Did the biggest tax cuts we have ever had fix everything? If they did, why are National members complaining that we have not made as much progress as they had hoped? If tax cuts would have fixed it, they would have fixed it forever. How can one do any better than halving the tax rate? Is John Key suggesting that he would halve the tax rate? Well, we did, and what happened? It was a disaster and an inequality.

Hon Bill English: So are you going to put them back?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: If we want not to make the same mistakes, we should learn something from history. The record will show, if anyone is remotely interested in the facts, that the gap between the richest New Zealanders and the poorest New Zealanders opened during that period at an exponential rate never known in the history of this country. The gap between rich and poor was escalated by an extraordinary degree by tax cuts on the one hand, and cuts in the income of beneficiaries on the other hand, and the underclass has never really recovered from that. That is the truth of it and we are struggling with that. I know that, and I know for sure we do not fix health, education, employment opportunities, and regional opportunities for New Zealand simply by cutting the tax rate, but that is what we are told. I watched New Zealand’s assets being sold. We were told that when we sold them it would be all hunky-dory.

Gerry Brownlee: Who sold them?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: As a matter of fact some of my colleagues who are still here will realise that I did not vote for their sale. In fact, I exited my caucus as a result of it, so do not give me that! But what I see this Government doing is rebuilding New Zealand’s infrastructure, whether it is regional economies or whether it is having to buy back the very tracks that the National Government sold for less than the price of the sleepers on the ground. This Government is now having to pick up the tab for that.

There is now Kiwibank. We sold all the banks in New Zealand and restarted another one. What I heard from people like Mr English, Mr Hide, and everyone else, including Dr Brash, was that it would be a disaster and people would lose all their money if they put it into Kiwibank. Well, it is the best-selling bank in town. I want National members to come clean and say whether they will be true to their record and sell Kiwibank. Just tell that to the 500,000 account holders who now think Kiwibank is the best thing since sliced bread.

I know what the National Party’s record is, because I have seen it in this House longer than most people here. John Key clearly has not. It is just a joke for him to come here today and give that great state of the nation speech in response to a Prime Minister who has overseen the biggest and best growth period, both socially and economically, in New Zealand history, almost certainly since the Second World War—and the Minister of Finance who is sitting here has overseen it as well—and tell us that he will fix the whole lot by cutting taxes. It is a joke. National members say they are now ready to govern the country; they are ready to govern nothing.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence): This debate started this afternoon with two speeches, one of substance by the Prime Minister and one totally lacking in substance by the Leader of the Opposition. I listened closely to what John Key had to say. I cannot criticise his enthusiasm. He addressed the topic with all the enthusiasm of a secondhand-car dealer and about the same level of sincerity. When one analyses it what does one find that speech said? It was shallow, it was without substance, and it was a veneer—like the person who delivered it. The Nats’ body language during that speech was really interesting. They cheered as though they were on a drug-induced high. Then at the end of that speech, as Winston got up to speak, suddenly that high turned into a post-high depression, and they sat there with glumness as they contemplated what John Key had actually said, which, of course, was nothing.

Leadership is about substance. It is about depth; it is about experience. It is about reliability, trustworthiness, and sincerity. What we got in the Prime Minister’s speech today was a speech of substance—a programme for how this Labour-led Government is going to take the country forward this year—setting out principles, setting out directions, and setting out priorities. It focused on areas that, I think, are really important: a sustainable economy, both environmentally and in terms of transforming that economy to address the needs of the 21st century. It also focused on sustaining our families and our communities and their social needs, and, last but not least, it focused on enhancing our national identity—on what we want to be as a small but smart, creative, inclusive, sustainable nation that plays an important and a positive role in the world. I am proud of that New Zealand. I would have liked to see some sincerity on the part of the Leader of the Opposition in picking up those points and adding his voice to them.

I would like to record just a couple of the points of progress made under this Government and alluded to by the Prime Minister. Between 2000 and 2004, 60,000 kids were lifted out of poverty. That is not rhetoric but is substance; we actually did that.

Hon Bill English: The economy did it.

Hon PHIL GOFF: I tell Mr English that another 70,000 will be lifted out of poverty by the time this Government has completed the Working for Families programme in April of this year. I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance on that achievement—130,000 kids in this country have been lifted out of poverty during the term of this Government, yet the Leader of the Opposition presumes to lecture us on why we are not doing more for the disadvantaged!

Let me tell him about unemployment and beneficiary numbers. They are down by, I think, 110,000. In my electorate, in terms of the 18 to 24-year-olds, the ones who might otherwise be vulnerable to joining youth gangs, the unemployment figure for the Mount Roskill area at the start of 2004 was that 641 kids in that age group were on the dole and out of work. Today it is 144—a 77 percent reduction in unemployment. That result is replicated right across the country; that is about transforming New Zealand. That is about building a decent economic base and delivering socially to our people, and I am proud of it. I am proud of it but I am not satisfied with it, because we need to continue to strive to find new ways to create a society where every individual is able to reach his or her potential, every individual is able to have a good life, and every individual is able and encouraged to contribute as much as he or she can to the community. That vision of a centre-left social democratic party is not replicated by any vision that the National Party has ever shown in this country, and National is absolutely bereft of vision now.

Let us talk about the National Party. I, like others, read The Hollow Men. I read it when travelling between Auckland and Singapore, and what a revelation it was. It did not rely on Nicky Hager’s interpretation. The National Party condemned itself in its own words—by its own emails—as being dishonest, shallow, manipulative, lacking in principle, and lacking in integrity. Gerry Brownlee, as well as the rest of his colleagues, ought to be deeply ashamed of what has been revealed. The effect was devastating. National dumped its former leader and now it is trying to re-image itself as a caring, centrist party. If there were a Tui billboard on that subject, it would read: “Yeah, right!”. John Key is still on his political honeymoon, and I say good luck to him. That is always the case with a new leader, but the cracks are showing already. Let us take the New Zealand Herald this morning and what Colin James stated. He has been around for a while. He has been watching John Key, and he asked whether John Key has the look and feel of veneer rather than of solid wood. That is interesting. Colin James was probably not thinking about The Hollow Men, but it is the same allusion as that in that book. The Hollow Men exposed the National Party as being a party that is all about spin and not about substance. That is the truly devastating thing about it.

I will come to Bill English in a moment. How does John Key measure up against the qualities of leadership? Well, one of the qualities I mentioned before was trustworthiness. I ask Bill English whether John Key can be trusted. What does Bill English think about that? Well, in 2003 Bill English will remember John Key coming to see him at home, on the eve of the leadership coup against Bill English when Don Brash was put in in his place. John Key said to Bill English: “You’ve got my vote, Bill.” He said that with all the sincerity he could muster, and the next day he turned up in the caucus room of the National Party and his was the vote that turned Bill English out and put Don Brash in in his place. That was an act of double-crossing and treachery that you, Bill English, will never forget and will look to avenge. I say that John Key should fear that.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That member is a longstanding member of this House, and he knows that he cannot use the second person to address members in this Chamber.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Yes.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker. He can say “you” because although “you” by itself refers to you, “you, Bill English” refers only to Bill English.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member is right. Mr Goff has identified the context in which he is using the word “you”.

Hon Bill English: So in that case—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Well, a lot of members do exactly that.

Hon Bill English: I am not asking whether a lot of members do it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): It is quite right within the context of what the member is doing.

Hon PHIL GOFF: The really interesting thing about that point of order was that Bill English stood up not to deny what I said but to raise a technical point. Bill English, by failing to deny it, has confirmed that as a fact. Why do I say that John Key should fear Bill English? Because I put up Bill English, the co-leader of the National Party, for National Party politician of the year last year. Why do I do that? Because Bill English and other caucus colleagues and people close to him were responsible for the leaking of the emails on which The Hollow Men was based. Bill English got his utu. Bill English and those very close to him got their revenge on Don Brash. It is a case of one down, one to go, because the next target in Bill English’s mind is John Key, the man who double-crossed him and the treacherous man whose vote brought him down as leader in 2003.

If we are to talk about treachery maybe we should think about how the Māori Party regards John Key, the man who led it to believe that National would support the foreshore and seabed legislation, and then reversed that policy. Pita Sharples had plenty to say about that and John Key’s trustworthiness.

Of course, there are other examples. The Leader of the House tabled in the House the minutes of a meeting that John Key had about a variable mortgage interest rate proposal put forward by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. In private, in the room he was in, he was enthusiastic about it. Yesterday, or on Friday, he dumped the idea. What about climate change, one of the big issues that the Prime Minister brought up this afternoon? In May 2005 John Key said that climate change was “a complete and utter hoax”. But what was he saying in November 2006? “I firmly believe in climate change and always have.” Now that is trustworthiness! What about sincerity? John Key claims to have a concern about the disadvantaged. He condemned a street in my electorate as representing an underclass when 80 percent of those people are working, when all those people benefit from having income-related rents, and when all those people benefit from the Working for Families programme.

John Key told Wesley Primary School that it needed muesli bars, without even asking it whether that was the case. He did not know we have a Fruit in Schools programme. Mr Key did that simply for political capital. When the principal of that school decried John Key’s attempts to exploit the school for shallow political ends, he alleged that she had been put up to it by the Labour Party. I say that is a lie and Mr Key should apologise for maligning that principal’s integrity and ability to see through the hollow man that he is.

If members opposite are really sincere in their concern about disadvantaged people—and of course we have disadvantaged people in our society—will they reverse National’s policy of pushing Housing New Zealand Corporation rents up to market levels, which is what the previous National Government did? Will they? Will they reverse their policy of selling off State housing, so that those houses are not available as stable and secure homes for disadvantaged kids?

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): That was a “come follow me” speech made by the angry young man in the Labour Party, Phil Goff. He has worked out that the rudder has dropped off Helen Clark’s ship. He knows that she and Michael Cullen are at loggerheads and that it is all over for both of them. He is putting his hand up and saying: “Come follow me; I am the saviour!”. Well, at least he talked about some things that Labour has done. It has not done them well—he did not talk about that—but he did talk about what it had done. Helen Clark did not talk about those things, because no social indicator in this country is heading in the right direction. It does not matter how many times Helen Clark says things are good, because the statistics show the truth. The Government is in severe trouble.

In recent times Michael Cullen wanted to go out and tell all New Zealanders who pay an average mortgage that the Government would be sorting out its own problems by charging those people $80 a week for the privilege of holding that average mortgage. And he wants to say that our leader, John Key, was in favour of that idea! Let me tell members the true story. When John Key went up to Michael Cullen's office he thought he would be hearing some massive solution to one or two issues that exist in the economy, and he was unbelievably excited that a finance Minister in a Labour Government could think the solution was to tax people $80 a week, on average, to sort out one of his Government’s problems. I tell Mr Cullen that the reason Mr Key was excited was that he simply could not believe his luck. We know that, despite the Prime Minister’s denials, that idea still lurks in the background, and that that is what Labour would do if it got half a chance and thought it would get away with it.

We should look closely at Labour’s record. We have heard some interesting comments this afternoon by Mr Peters, the great upholder of the current Government. Mr Peters thinks it would be a good idea to fix New Zealand’s savings rate by impoverishing us as a nation through currency deflation. Members should work that out! With the strike of a pen he wants to lower our exchange rate—that is, cut the value out of the New Zealand economy. Apparently, that would help us save money!

Hon Members: What?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Work it out! I could make similar comments about Mr Anderton, but most people have worked out that he is not going anywhere, and therefore he is not worth wasting any time on.

Helen Clark did not talk about the social dislocation in our society. She did not talk about low education standards in our society. She did not talk about the appalling state of our health system. She did not comment on the fact that at present every second Māori male leaving school does so without a qualification of any sort. There was no concern shown about those issues. In her mind she somehow believes that everything she has done in the last 3 years has fixed all those problems.

Why do I say that? About 3 years ago I asked her whether she had done a U-turn on her policies and whether she stuck by the comments she made in her Prime Minister’s statement that year, whereby she said: “I have no second thoughts about the policy approach designed to pit white against brown, and rich against poor, in New Zealand. I will fight that to my last breath.” When I asked that question she responded: “I happen to have a vision for society where we go forward together and do not see policies based on privilege for the rich, leaving a large, marginalised, brown underclass in their wake.” Apparently, the underclass has disappeared in 3 short years!

Let me tell Helen Clark that that is not the case, and I certainly commend John Key for having the courage to say that something needs to be done about the parlous state of so many young children in this country. It is not only those 80,000-odd children who currently go to school every day hungry who miss out on educational opportunity. We know that their performance in the classroom, sadly, affects far too many others at the same time. But according to Helen Clark that problem is all gone, it is all fixed, and now we just have to be a bit sustainable about where we are heading.

I think there is a little bit of a joke in all of that, as well. We have heard from the Prime Minister that the big centrepiece of her Government over the next short while will not be to get better health services, or to deal with educational failure, or to do anything about the extremely large number of working-age New Zealanders who are being transferred from the unemployment benefit and on to the sickness and invalids benefit. Now, let me give a statistic there. The Prime Minister is saying that there is no problem and that more working-age New Zealanders are in work now than ever before. But our population over the last 7 years has increased by about 500,000, so we might expect that. However, the number of people going on to the invalids benefit or the sickness benefit last year, increased by 3,171 to a staggering 125,500 New Zealanders. Yet the Government wants to say that everything is OK. The Prime Minister did not mention that fact today.

The big centrepiece now is climate change. What are we going to do in that regard? We are going to have a biofuel target, whereby 3.5 percent of our liquid fuels will be biofuels in about 5 or 6 years’ time. Let me tell the House that in 5 or 6 years’ time, if that target is met, then we would be contributing to a reduction of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, on today’s measure, by about one five-thousandth. That target is the centrepiece of the Prime Minister’s statement. She told the House there would a whole lot more permanent forests planted, and that Ngāti Porou would plant 30,000 hectares of trees. Let us look at that figure. If they were planted today—and let us be fair; it would take some months, possibly years to plant that acreage—it would be 10 years before there was enough carbon sequestered in that forest to meet 1 year of our current deforestation. So 11,000 hectares are cut down a year—a large percentage of which is owned by the Government—and the Prime Minister says the Government is going to fix things with this permanent forest planting. The Government has its head in the clouds.

A great deal more could be done on this issue—and it has to be. The National Party heads into this year with a programme that John Key has outlined. The Labour Party hates that our programme focuses fairly and squarely on the failure of Helen Clark and her Ministers. What else would one expect? The reality is that Labour has well and truly lost its way. It does not have a programme that looks anything like what New Zealanders expect of a Government. We have heard the idea that it will apparently improve all of our circumstances by introducing a waste tax. But that will not do anything for a child who is sent to school hungry. We heard much earlier in Helen Clark’s speech that there are no slogans that will fix anything. I wish she had said the same thing at the end of her speech, because there was little else in it. There was scant mention of economic transformation, for example. That is because Labour has given up on that issue. There was barely a reference to law and order.

Hon Phil Goff: Come on! There were pages of it.

GERRY BROWNLEE: There we have the soft Mr Goff, who is the man holding up the Government actually allowing the police to have the authority to do something about the Graeme Burtons of this world. The Prime Minister, rather than saying that Labour will give the police the authority to get these guys off the street, has said the Government will enter into negotiations with the Public Service Association to see whether probation officers are prepared to work more closely with the police, while we hold the hands of these violent criminals who, at any moment, might cut someone’s hands off, so they can run off and stab, shoot, or do anything else violent. Mr Goff sits over there with a grin on his face, knowing that he can stand up in his electorate and say that Labour has been tough on crime, and not mean one damn part of it. It is very, very sad.

Members know of McGehen Close, do they not? I heard the other day that when John Key went there—he went there in a car with his name on the side of it, so that people would know who he was, and they had seen him on TV—he got out of the car, shook people’s hands, and had a talk with them. Apparently, Phil Goff had been there the day before. He pulled into McGehen Close, wound down his car window, tooted the horn until a few people came out, then said that he was sorry he could not get out because it was raining. He showed no care whatsoever. That attitude typifies the Labour Government’s attitude toward New Zealanders who are suffering at the present time.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services): I begin by welcoming everybody back and wishing them a happy new year. I am looking forward to a positive and productive year. I start by commenting on Gerry Brownlee’s speech. He is a man who smiles on the outside but is a seething mass of hurt and disappointment. He has a strong sense of betrayal. That is how he really feels. He may be smiling now, but that is not what is inside him. He has every right to feel like that. In fact, I would have made Gerry Brownlee the National politician of the year 2006. That man carried the National Party through a pretty rough year and through a very poor performance in Opposition. In fact, he stood out as the Opposition. He was the Opposition. Day in and day out, from his seat as deputy leader of the Opposition, he stood up and did the bizzo while the rest of the National members, I am sorry to tell Mr Brownlee, were busy plotting the leadership. While Mr Brownlee was doing the business, they were busy doing the bizzo on the new leader.

I agree with Winston Peters, who said there is no sin worse than ingratitude in politics. There was no gratitude for the role Gerry Brownlee played. Where is he now? He is on the way out—demoted. I tell Gerry Brownlee not to give up. He will rise again; he will be back.

I hope that this year in Parliament we will put aside the personal attacks and the sleaze, and concentrate on the issues. This country wants us to concentrate on the issues. It wants a good Government and a constructive Opposition. I say to the members of this House that we owe the people of New Zealand a good Government and a constructive Opposition.

I looked at recent polling and it shows that New Zealanders believe that this Government is doing a good job. New Zealanders continue to support the leadership of this country. They support, in large numbers, the leadership of this country. Even more important, they continue to support the direction this country is going in. A good Government does not just rest on achievements but looks continuously to see how it can improve the lot of New Zealanders. That is exactly what this good Government is doing. The Government has done a lot in a short time. In fact, Gerry Brownlee made a mistake in his speech. He said the Prime Minister gave no examples of what this Government has done. Well, he was wrong. Let me just run over some of the examples the Prime Minister gave. In education, she pointed out the 20 hours per week of free early childhood education that will start from 1 July.

Gerry Brownlee: It’s not happening!

Hon ANNETTE KING: I would like to put a little wager on that with Mr Brownlee. We will see what happens in terms of the figures.

In housing, the income-related rents policy has been very important to this Government and to low-income New Zealanders. It has helped thousands of New Zealanders. We will continue to implement that policy. As my colleague Phil Goff asked, will John Key reverse that policy? That is what we want to know. Where is the answer? When John Key was asked about that on television the other day, he said: “We are not talking about housing today.” That reminded me of Mr Brash. Mr Brash often said: “We are not talking about this today.”, because he did not know the answer. That was the problem for John Key.

Let us look at health. Affordable primary health care will finally be rolled out to every New Zealander when the 25 to 44-year-olds are included this year. I tell the members of this House and the listening public that once upon a time we did have subsidised primary health care for all New Zealanders. It was removed in 1991 by Ruth Richardson; it was taken away from New Zealanders. They were given the poor card, so if they needed affordable primary health care, they had to provide a card. This Government has brought back affordable health care, and I believe that it has helped many, many New Zealanders. I have had letters from people who said thank you for the $3 prescriptions; they have made a difference, particularly for older New Zealanders. The Working for Families package has resulted in a huge increase in income for those families who have children and are working. I am very proud of that. It was interesting to see on television at the end of last year the family from Waihī who were highlighted a few years ago when they said they were struggling and did not have enough income. They are now saying what a difference Working for Families has made for them.

Let us look at infrastructure. The sum of $24 billion is being invested into transport over the next 10 years. We have put money into infrastructure. We had to play catch-up after a National Government, now in Opposition, failed to invest in our infrastructure. Let us consider safety in the community. With the help of New Zealand First, there are 1,250 new police staff. We are seeing, as was stated in the New Zealand police magazine, a thickening of the blue line, because we have more police going on to the streets. We have one of the lowest levels of attrition—at 4.2 percent—that we have seen in many years. So that is what we are seeing from this Government.

Let us look at the Opposition. I thought that with a change of leadership there would be a change in style and, more important, substance. Well, to date, we have seen National members go from being “hollow men” to “shallow men”. I agree with Colin James, who said we need to see the wood, not the veneer. Today we saw the veneer. John Key stood there for the cameras, waved his hands, looked at his back bench, and waited for the applause and adulation he hoped he would get.

I have to say that there has been a change in style. It has changed from the black business suits that Don Brash wore to every event, whether he was walking a plank on to a ship, or at a rugby match. John Key turned up to Waitangi in a T-shirt with a tiki on it. He thought that that is what Māori people wear when they go to Waitangi. Then, of course, he turned up at the Big Gay Out. What did he wear at the Big Gay Out on Sunday? He turned up in a pink shirt. You see, he thinks all gay people wear pink shirts. I have to tell him that not all gay people wear pink shirts; in fact, some heterosexual people wear pink shirts. I do wonder, however, what he will wear when he turns up to a Plunket meeting. I suppose he will wear nappies and have a dummy in his mouth.

An effective political party needs good leadership, as my colleague said. I know that National members have their fingers crossed about this leader. After all, in the past 7 years they have gone through four leaders: Mrs Shipley, Mr English, Mr Brash, and now John Key. National members have all their eggs in this basket. Or have they? Do they have all their eggs in this basket? Mr English reminds me of that smiling crocodile, just watching and waiting, ready to devour his prey. Let me tell Mr Key that he will be devoured at some stage, mark my words. Mr English knows that he would be a better leader than John Key is.

What we have in the National Party now is dual leadership. We have two leaders—the leader who is the front man, and the real leader who is Mr English. Mr English is pulling the strings. We know that that is the case. We know that Bill English drove a hard bargain to get rid of Gerry Brownlee. He is now the de facto leader behind the scenes. It will not be long before he pulls those strings in such a way that Mr Key will fall over.

I also have to say that Mr English will never forgive John Key for that one vote that tossed him out of the leadership. I would never forget it, and I am sure Gerry Brownlee has not forgotten what it did to him—and I have to say that neither has Bill English. Mr Key was called “the smiling assassin” in his last job, and I say to New Zealanders that they should watch out—he is smiling now.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty): New Zealanders listening on their radios today will be laughing at the irony of Annette King talking about loyalty. It was 11 years ago this year that Annette King waited on Helen Clark to tell her to leave the Labour Party leadership before the 1996 election. She wheeled herself up there with Mr Cullen, Phil Goff, and Jim Sutton, and they called on Helen Clark to go. They said: “You can’t do it, Helen. Go!”. They were right. She led Labour to its worst election result in 70 years. But Annette King is not a woman of good judgment. She displayed that 11 years ago, and she has displayed it again in this House today.

The Prime Minister’s speech today was a triumph of sloganeering—out with economic transformation, in with sustainability! How many times could the Prime Minister say “sustainability” in the space of 35 minutes? Her speech should be recorded as one that demonstrates how out of touch New Zealand’s Prime Minister has become after 7 years of first class. This Prime Minister has become incredibly out of touch with what is happening in the reality of New Zealand today. In her speech the Prime Minister implied that there could be no criticism of Labour’s record, because there had been record investment in this and record investment in that. But record investment is not matched by record achievement when it comes to this Labour Government.

In education Helen Clark boasts about the school buildings. Those buildings do look good, but many children inside those shiny schools that the Prime Minister opens are not teachable, because they are hungry. Too many of those kids are leaving these bright shiny schools without a decent education to equip them in the world ahead.

In respect of health the Prime Minister boasted this afternoon about big increases in health spending and so many new hospitals. Four billion dollars is a lot, and the new hospitals do look good, but no one can get in them. Spending is up by $4 billion but fewer people are having operations.

The Prime Minister boasted in her speech about more State housing. But inside some of those homes, families are falling apart. Those families are under pressure trying to make ends meet on welfare, and this Prime Minister says there is no underclass in New Zealand.

I read recently that 50 years ago the economist J K Galbraith spoke of “private affluence and public squalor”. It was said that our problem today is the opposite. We have more public affluence than ever before. The Government’s coffers are overflowing. Public services are funded at levels unimaginable even 7 years ago. But in private, in families and communities, there is greater “squalor” or hardship than ever before.

The market is booming, the State is booming, but so many of our families are running into trouble. And Helen Clark says there is no underclass! This Prime Minister has become so infatuated with the mantra of more money for this and more money for that, that she is not realising that more money is not making the difference. The kids are turning up hungry to the nice shiny schools that she skites about, and they cannot get an education. The public cannot get into the nice new hospitals that she is talking about; and in the State houses that she likes to skite about, so many families are under real pressure and falling apart. This Prime Minister is so completely out of touch because she continues to allow in her Cabinet incompetents who are undermining First World quality public services in this country.

The greatest incompetent of all in this Labour Government is the Minister of Health. This Minister of Health fails to address any of the really important issues in health today. He has 42 reports on how to get more doctors, nurses, and workforce for our health services, and he is not doing anything about it. He is on record denying any problems with midwife crises, yet he now says there is one. He is on record as saying there is no problem with general practitioner shortages, yet he now says there is one. This Minister is in denial and never prepared to accept the big issues he faces. He says nothing about the financial sustainability of health, nothing about ageing and what we will do to make sure that our health services prepare for the ageing population, and nothing about dealing with the torment of the waiting, waiting, and waiting to get services from our public health system.

This Minister will stand up in the House this year and say that waiting lists are not a problem and that they are way down. Well, of course waiting lists are way down when people cannot get on them. We should ask how many patients face long waiting times for surgery or hospital care. Eighty-five percent of New Zealand general practitioners said their patients often face long delays—the highest in any of the Western World countries surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund.

I will share with the House a chart that has four lines on it. The top line represents the number of first specialist appointments that the public health service has offered in the last 7 years. It is a flat line. The second line, in green, represents the number of surgeries performed in public hospitals in the last 7 years. It is a flat line. The third line represents the number of people who have received elective surgery in the last 7 years. It is a flat line. Only one line is going up in this chart—and it is going up dramatically—and that line represents how much money the Government has put into Vote Health.

Gerry Brownlee: Less for more!

Hon TONY RYALL: What this shows us is that we can get less for more. The Government has put $4 billion into the public health system, and fewer people are getting care. In fact, doctors are telling their patients to mortgage their homes to pay for—[Interruption] The Minister for Social Development and Employment is giggling away over there. This is what happens. After spending a few years in first class, those members are completely out of touch with where New Zealand is at. I say to that Minister that Dunedin is one of the worst parts of the country for people getting access to health services. His own orthopaedic surgeons in Dunedin say that people have to be crippled, on crutches, or in constant pain before they will get a joint replacement there. That is what they say in Dunedin, and what does that member do? He just laughs.

Hon Member: He’s got insurance.

Hon TONY RYALL: Has he got health insurance? We have not heard. But I say to that Minister that he should listen to what doctors are saying to their patients. They are telling them to mortgage their homes to get an operation. That is what is being said in Dunedin. Even the public hospital specialists in Dunedin say people have to be crippled and in constant pain to get an orthopaedic operation in Dunedin.

The Prime Minister has said today in this House that we have had great success with joint replacements, but in Dunedin one has to be hobbled and in constant pain before one can get an operation—and the local MP laughs. The speech from the Prime Minister showed how completely out of touch she is with this country. It was full of slogans, buzzwords, and focus group - tested messages—none of which count for anything, because this Prime Minister has no vision for New Zealand. She has been there for 7 years. She is tired. She now wants to be the Minister of Finance, because Dr Cullen has been well and truly sidelined because of his role as the “Minister of Mortgage Levy”. And the two people who are rubbing their hands the most at Dr Cullen’s downfall are Trevor Mallard and Phil Goff, because they both see themselves as taking the Treasury Minister’s role within a few weeks of Dr Michael Cullen’s last Budget—a Budget that will be devoid of vision and will be a message of “Good riddance!” from the people of New Zealand.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Well, after that tale of doom and gloom it is not hard for anyone in the House, or for anyone listening to this speech or, in due course, reading it, to understand why members of the National Party are walking around the halls of this place with such long faces, looking so depressed. I guess it is the same formula that we have seen coming out of the United States and out of the grubby little political regime that the National Party brought to us last year, together with their friends—that is, the politics of doom and gloom, and the politics where one turns one’s greatest weakness into one’s greatest strength. Who would have thought that Mr Bush would be able to convince, some time ago, the Americans that Iraq was his greatest strength, and who would have thought, at a time when unemployment remains at record-breaking lows in this country, that Tony Ryall or any other brat-pack member or not front-bencher from the National Party could stand up and make such an extraordinary speech?

The facts of the matter speak pretty clearly for themselves. I will tell the members of the party that tells the half-story rather too often—and I will come back to that in a moment—and other members of the House some of those facts. In 1999, when National was last in power, unemployment was at 161,000. Let us make that really clear, for the benefit of people who are listening to this debate as they drive home in newer vehicles than they had previously, thanks to the economic growth we have seen in this country. In 1999, when National was last in power, unemployment was at 161,000. Later on I will talk in more detail about the unemployment figures, but what is the unemployment rate now? Most New Zealanders know that unemployment has trended down consistently since that time, and last month the figure passed through to fewer than 40,000. Later I will also talk about the issues where we have had such great success, thanks to the work of our really good and dedicated professional staff at Work and Income. We have had great success with sickness beneficiaries, invalids beneficiaries, people who need support in our community, and also recipients of the support called the domestic purposes benefit.

But let me come back to the half-story comment I made earlier. Mr Key, in his half-speech, talked about the Ministry for the Environment and its waste production. What he did not tell the House—or, indeed, did not tell the public of this nation—either by design or by accident, was that he knows only too well why the Ministry for the Environment figures do not at first look as good as they might. It is really simple. Since the comparative figures were produced, the ministry has introduced a creche. The member might not know this, but one of the by-products of childcare facilities, especially for younger people, is quite a lot of waste, including—dare I say it—nappy waste. Although we may hope that one day the ministry will move to the use of washed cloth nappies of the sort that Ms Rich and I used with our children historically, which we are very proud of and with which we now polish our fuel-efficient vehicles, the ministry has not been able to do that just yet. The volume of waste from the creche is why the ministry has had an increase in its waste. It is working on it, but it is not the sort of rubbish that Mr Key represented it as being.

And while I am talking about half-stories, let us look at the wonderful half-story that we saw in the Dominion Post for 2 consecutive days. It is the story of the wonderful pizza parlour—and it does make good pizzas; it is just a pity its other policies do not match up with that—and the story of a young woman who went to Work and Income for assistance. What did National members say about that? They did not mention that that was night-time work, part-time work, or broken work, and I am not sure whether they mentioned that the young woman concerned had a 10-month-old baby, either. And they certainly did not tell the public of this country that the young woman went to Work and Income because she had already told her employer in Hastings of the difficulty she had with regard to childcare. She went to Work and Income to ask for both assistance with full-time work and support for childcare—and that is what Work and Income is providing her with. As long as the National Party continues to peddle the tired, partial facts around whatever issue it happens to stumble across or drag out of the gutter, the people of this country will not support that party. The people of this country deserve to know the facts, and that is what I plan to help to convey to them this evening.

I spoke earlier about the household labour force survey. I am delighted that the survey shows that the unemployment rate has been under 4 percent for 10 consecutive quarters—it is down again, at 3.7 percent. We have extraordinarily low levels of unemployment in this country. We also have very high numbers of people in actual employment. Annual employment increased by 30,000 people—30,000 individuals—between December 2005 and December 2006, which is the last calendar year in which it was measured. In the past 7 years the total number of people receiving a main benefit has dropped from around 400,000 to fewer than 290,000. That is equivalent to the population of a city like Tauranga coming off benefits. I talked a little while ago about the change between 1999 and now, but what people will not be as clear on is this extraordinary fact. There are now nearly 63,000 fewer children living in households that are getting benefit support than was the case in December 1999. So let us add a little reality to the horror stories, the scare stories, and the fantasy that we have heard in the last little while.

Between December 1999 and December of last year, the number of working-aged people receiving the unemployment benefit for more than a year reduced by 80 percent. We have heard a lot of loose talk in the last little while about long-term beneficiaries. Let me share this fact with the House. When National was in power in 1999, the number of beneficiaries who had been receiving a benefit for longer than 2 years was 27,000. There were 27,000 on the benefit for 2-plus years under National, and what is the figure now? It is 8,000, and that figure is trending downwards. So let us focus on the real issues; let us not do the beneficiary-bashing stuff. Let members opposite not continue, as an Opposition, to scratch at a sore that they think might be yielding some political good for them, because that does not do anything for this country or for its people. Let us focus on the real issues and on providing support for New Zealanders in a way that they require, in a way that they request, and in a way that they deserve.

It is appropriate that I move to another matter, having talked about the support in our community and the way we provide it to people when they need it for as long as they need it, of the way we raise their skills, and of the way we encourage people into jobs and support them there. That record is hard to dispute with any rationality. But I think it is important to focus on another part of the State provision: State housing, which is so key to the reality of what it is to be a New Zealander. We have heard a great deal about Mr Key having been a boy who grew up in a State house. Well, how does this work? That same person is now the leader of a party that sold 13,500 State houses. How does that work? And when will we hear about the National Party’s policy on housing? We have heard a great deal about the Mr Key who grew up in a State house, but that person is now the leader of a party that has not said it will abandon its policy on market rentals. So it would be great if, instead of the flimflam and the blather we heard in his speech earlier, we could hear some policy from that party.

I would like to contribute Mr Key’s own words, as I close my time allocation in this debate. Readers and listeners will be fascinated to hear this comment. Mr Key, in an extraordinary interview with his friend, the dual leader of the party, Mr English—the real puppeteer behind the throne—recently made the following statement: “… while I’ve used a slightly softer tone in the last few weeks than maybe Don did … fundamentally we”—the National Party—“are still going in exactly the same direction with values that line up with where we think New Zealand is heading.” Well, I am pleased to say that most New Zealanders do not think that New Zealand is heading in the way the National Party would have it head, and that is why the Working for Families package has been so extraordinarily successful. Unlike National with the tax cuts we heard of again today, which will be instituted if this country is ever unfortunate enough to return National to Government, this Government is putting in huge amounts of money. As 1 April hits, $1.6 billion will be put annually into families’ pockets, and the bulk of that money is going into working and lower-income families—not people like Mr Key or the other people who sit in this Chamber and earn extraordinarily large salaries. I think that that focus is clear, and I am sure that the flip-flops, the lack of substance, the triviality, and the ego that drips as we watch it in this House are not lost on the people of New Zealand.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): First, I start by thanking the National Party whips for giving me this wonderful timeslot at 10 past 5. It is peak drive time in Auckland, my home city. But I want to point out to the National Party whips that they could give me a slot any time from about 3.30 in the afternoon till around 8.30 at night and it would still be a peak drive time slot back in Auckland, because of the congestion issues.

Secondly, I say that it is a great time to be a member of the National Party in this House, because for the first time in a long, long time I saw a leader come to this House and heard that leader give a speech not from a written cue card, or from something prepared by spin doctors along the way, but from the heart. John Key got up and gave a speech from the heart about the things he believed in. What I thought was more incredible about that than anything else was that there was more substance to the speech from the Leader of the Opposition—given that we are still 2 years out from an election and that one thing we must not do is give out too much policy or substance yet; that would be really silly, in the timing of it—than in the speech from the Prime Minister.

As we watch Labour members enact a sort of combination of TV survival programmes—a combination of Lost, Big Brother, and Celebrity Treasure Island, or “Survival Labour Party Caucus”—it becomes quite clear that their whole process is based on slogans. Last year Helen Clark’s speeches used the words “economic transformation” over and over again. In fact, she could hardly go through a sentence without “economic transformation” being the key words. But that is so last year! Now “economic transformation” hardly gets a look in. The new design, the new word, is “sustainable”. In the speech today I think it was used 33 times—sustainable, sustainability, and so on. Helen Clark had some crackers in that speech, and I must say that I have never seen Government members look so bored and so flat. I was hoping to be able to say that she did not get a single clap, but, to be fair, I must say that when the 20 hours was mentioned a faint ripple—the “snickometer” they use in cricket would have picked it up—did go through a couple of members, but that was it.

Helen Clark said: “Meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance, not slogans.” Yeah, right! Then I saw some of what she had to say: “Building a sustainable nation requires smart, active Government working with key stakeholders across the economy and society.” Well, what the hell does that mean? Is there any substance to that? Anyone can get up and say that they are going to do that. She said: “That is why I have called for boldness in our approach to these issues.”—and then she said nothing.

Oh, actually, no—we should not be unkind to the Prime Minister; she did have some substance. She is going to make the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Health—remember, that is not the hospitals where all the big stuff goes on—the Ministry of Economic Development, the Inland Revenue Department, and Treasury significantly cut their carbon footprint. What does that mean? Does it mean that they will not use double ribbons in their laser printers, or something? Oh, hang on! And if they do not cut their carbon footprint, they will have to go out to support some tree planting on Crown land. I can just see the Secretary to the Treasury getting in his four-wheel-drive each morning and saying “Bugger! We didn’t meet our targets last week, so we’re off to the East Coast and we’re going to plant some more trees to try to meet them.” What a joke—what an absolute joke!

And she says that they do not run on slogans. Well, anyone who is masochistic enough to sit down and read this speech will find sentence after sentence of nothing but slogans. Can members guess what the Prime Minister says? “I believe we can aspire to be carbon neutral in our economy and way of life.” She did not say that we will be, or that we will have policies that will achieve it, but she said “I believe we can aspire …”. Who does not believe that we could aspire to anything? We could aspire to be the richest nation in the world, but what does that do if there is no substance?

Then I read—and I think this one is probably my personal favourite—“As we reach each goal and target we set in economic and social policy, new ones must be identified and met.” Targets—well, let us go through them. Two sentences before, she had said: “Many more people are in work, incomes are higher,”. Well, I challenge the Prime Minister to find any year, other than possibly the Depression years of the 1920s, when incomes have not gone up. Incomes go up every year, no matter what. That is always so.

She said that “educational achievement is up,”. How does she know that? When you talk to parents about their National Certificate of Educational Achievement stuff, they do not have a clue what their kids are achieving. Parents in my electorate sit there scratching their heads and asking: “What does this mean? There’s pages and pages, but I don’t know. Did Johnny get a pass, or did he not?”.

And “…crime rates are lower.”, she says. Is that not great? Well, is that true, or is it a slogan? [Interruption] Hang on—let me give members the facts. Over the past 12 months crime has increased by 6.9 percent. How can the Prime Minister say, as a slogan, that crime rates are lower when crime has gone up by 6.9 percent. Violent crime is up by 10.2 percent. Grievous assaults are up by 19 percent. Homicides are up by 31 percent. The public do not need to be told all these numbers; they see them every day as they watch the television screen.

But the Prime Minister, so out of touch, is playing her “Survival Labour Party Caucus” show. Members know it: “The tribal council has spoken, Jill Pettis; you’re gone.”, or “The tribal council has spoken, Ann Hartley.” Actually, tribal councillors had spoken with regard to Taito Phillip Field, but he was just not around to hear it when they spoke. But I have to say that there are nothing but slogans.

The purler was when this Government first started off—I love this one. It said—and I thought that this was a superb target—“We will get New Zealand into the top half of the OECD for GDP per capita.” For those who are not really economically literate, that means, basically, the wealth created per person. It measures our ability to buy things. We hear the debate about Herceptin for breast cancer, and the arguments. We debate things like that all the time because we are not a wealthy nation. Those nations who have the wealth can afford to just go out and buy that drug. So Helen Clark set us a goal, do we remember—it was at the very beginning of the term when Labour came in—that we would be in the top half of the OECD within a decade. “That is the goal of my Government.” Do we remember what she said? Now she says that as we set goals and achieve them we move on to the next ones.

Well, how did we go? Labour has been in power since last century—since 1999. Oh, this is not good; this cannot be right. It says to me here that when Labour came to power we were 20th in the OECD for our GDP per capita; now, we are 21st. So rather than getting into the top half of the OECD, we have fallen now into the bottom third. How can that be a goal that was set and measured? And the Labour Party has done this on a regular basis.

If anyone is, again, masochistic enough to go and get a copy of the glorious coloured brochure put out by David Cunliffe, called The Digital Strategy, they will find that it is motherhood and apple pie to everybody. They should go and have a look at it. It would have cost half of a Kaingaroa forest in terms of carbon credits to produce, and it set a goal for broadband penetration: “We will be in the top part of the OECD by 2007.” I do not know whether anybody has noticed—it is probably on a calendar somewhere—but we are there; we are in 2007. But I have forgotten to tell the House that that all changed last year when the broadband paper got leaked and all things turned to custard. One of the things that no one spotted was that that goal had gone out to 2010, and the goal to be in the top quartile had gone out to 2015. So the Prime Minister talks about slogans. Her speech was nothing but slogans, and there was no substance to it.

I finish with one last thing. Phil Goff talked about three things of this Government. He talked about trust, sincerity, and integrity. I want to go on record as saying that I think the behaviour of Taito Phillip Field as a constituent MP has brought the entire profession of politics to an all-time low. What has made it even worse is the fact that not one Labour MP will say publicly—and I do not know whether they believe it, but if they do they should have some guts to say it—that they think his behaviour has been so disgraceful that he should go from the Labour caucus right now. [Interruption] That is right. Let us do a quiz. How many members of the Labour Party think his behaviour has been so unethical that he should go from Labour today? Not one hand is raised.

I have to say that Helen Clark built her reputation around dealing to people. She dealt to Marian Hobbs when she was not sure what house she lived in. She dealt to Ruth Dyson when she was caught drink-driving. She dealt to Lianne Dalziel when she was caught telling lies. But, suddenly, when her skin depends on one vote, she has let a man who has brought the entire integrity of this Parliament down badly go on gardening leave. He is still on full pay, and even his trips to Samoa are subsidised by the taxpayer.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs): I find that the National speakers seem to be suffering from a deep illness. It is the worst case of collective amnesia I have ever seen. Maurice Williamson talks proudly in Auckland drive time, whilst entirely forgetting the fact that he put no investment into that infrastructure in all the time he was Minister of Transport; nor did he put another dollar into public transport. He capped public transport spending at $40 million. What is this Government now spending? It is spending $450 million just on public transport.

I am proud to be part of a Government that remembers the record of that party, unlike John Key, who could not remember what he thought about the Springbok Tour. Obviously he was not here when Ruth Richardson brought in the “mother of all Budgets”. The children who starved then—the children who were forced out of decent homes and out of schools because their parents had to shift, and shift, and shift when benefits were slashed and when health services were slashed—are now the ones whom this Government is putting into training and into work, and whom it is providing family support to so that they can feed their children. How dare those amnesiacs across there talk about an underclass? They are the underclass. They are the people who betrayed New Zealand’s values at every level through the 1990s, which this Government is putting back together.

I am appalled at the dishonesty of people who stand up and talk about an underclass, when they gleefully said, during the 1990s, that only failures live in State houses. John Luxton said that only failures live in State houses. Tell that to John Key as he goes around, beating his breast about what a hard childhood he had. His childhood may have been hard; so are the childhoods of many New Zealanders. But the great gift New Zealand has had since the 1930s is hope, and that is what Ruth Richardson took away. That is what this Government has put back, along with trust. We have carried out our promises, along with sincerity. We are New Zealanders who stay here and believe in every New Zealander being able to contribute, and who have integrity—unlike those hollow men who lied through the last election campaign because they were going to do a Ruth Richardson Mark II. The “mother-in-law of all Budgets” is what we would have been dealing with now. It would have been an appalling state of social services. That is what Don Brash would have done if he had won the last election. They are so under-democratic. They could not accept that their lies were not accepted, and that all that money they put out was not accepted, nor all the nonsense they put on billboards. New Zealanders were not sucked in. Was not that sad? It was. And they are still whimpering. [Interruption] There is Gerry Brownlee, tragically—

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member is saying we have lied. I would like you to rule on that, because my understanding of Speakers’ Rulings and the Standing Orders is that members cannot come into the House and say that members have lied.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD: I withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to the member that members can never allege that another member personally has lied. That is absolutely out of order, and the member is quite correct. If a member does not like what another member says in debate, the matter can be referred to Madam Speaker as a breach of privilege. All members are honourable members, and their word is accepted unreservedly. They all have a fair and equitable opportunity to address the business of the House, within the Standing Orders that govern this institution.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD: I am very proud to be part of a Government where the Prime Minister talks about economic transformation, and implements policies that will transform New Zealand. The member for Pakuranga appears to have forgotten that many of the problems New Zealand has with the lack of roll-out of broadband go straight back to his decisions about Telecom. I am proud to talk about security and prosperity for families, young and old. I was delighted to have spent the summer with family, friends, and total strangers, who told me that family support has transformed their families. Young working mothers are delighted to be able to stay home with their babies, because of the money that the Government is giving in tax cuts for families. I was delighted to go up to Mitimiti last week to meet a group of lovely young Māori people who are on an elementary construction course. They are being trained in their communities to build those communities. Those are the sorts of policies I am proud to see rolling out in New Zealand, as well as hearing Auckland University declared one of the top 50 universities in the world.

I am delighted to be part of a Government that talks about national identity, and to see some great New Zealand films and hear some great New Zealand music. But even more than that, New Zealanders all around this country on Waitangi Day were talking about their values and what matters to them and their families. I am absolutely delighted to be part of a Government that is working to turn Auckland into New Zealand’s major international city—a city with the infrastructure we need to be the leading trading city in New Zealand and to become a major hub for trade for the economy, as well as continuing to be a good place to live.

I am absolutely delighted to rise and support the statement of the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, to Parliament today. She talked about New Zealand being a stronger, fairer, more confident country where people are included and where gay, lesbian, and transgender New Zealanders do not need John Key turning up in a pink shirt, having voted against every issue of that kind that has been raised in this Parliament in the few years he has been here. We do not need John Key to take one small girl to Waitangi because, presumably, that will stop her from being a glue-sniffer and stop her tagging the street with the underclass that he says live in her street.

Let me tell members about my going out to Panmure, my own old electorate where I grew up. A man who is the manager of a major construction firm said: “Judith, I grew up in Te Koa Road, in a State house. Is that man saying I’m underclass? Is he saying that I’m not a New Zealander who is making a contribution? I grew up in a State house and I did a bit of tagging in my youth. We didn’t have spray cans, but I did a few ratbag things, but I am now a taxpayer, an employer, and a contributing New Zealander.” He said that if John Key wants to tag people who live in State houses as an underclass, he feels deeply resentful—as deeply as he felt when Don Brash said that Helen Clark was not mainstream. That is the reality of what those people think.

I am very proud to be part of a Government that opened a huge new extension on Auckland’s “Spaghetti Junction” so that finally, after Rob Muldoon cut that funding in the 1970s and 1980s, Aucklanders who come from the North Shore can go on to the western motorway. It has been waiting 30 years, because the National Government, of course, slashed all that funding, and certainly did not put it back in the 1990s.

This is a country that has good health services. Indeed, when I was up in Mitimiti the woman from the health service there, who had been brought up the beach to look after the people who were isolated, was delighted because she had a satellite phone. The nurses in the north have all been given satellite phones so that they can communicate. So in an emergency she is able to get information in and out. We have good health services in this country and they are getting better. There are fewer children going to hospital because of asthma. There are fewer children going to school hungry. There are more children not living in houses where benefits are the main source of income.

I am proud of that economic transformation, security, and prosperity for all New Zealand families, young and old, and of our unique national values, which include respecting the contribution of every New Zealander, the rights of every New Zealander, and the hope of every New Zealander. This is a Government that has kept its promises, that goes to elections saying what it will do and then does it, that cares about New Zealanders, and that believes in the promise of our forefathers and foremothers. Walter Nash and Michael Joseph Savage said in the 1930s that the test of a society is not how it treats the people with their hands out for tax cuts and not how it treats the people who stand in the sunshine of life but how it treats those at the edges. Georgina Beyer will say, just as that man who grew up in a State house in Panmure said, that New Zealand is a great country and that under this Government it will continue to be.

KATHERINE RICH (National): That demented rant was from Judith Tizard, a member whose key achievements have been to sip champagne at the various functions she attends, consume vast quantities of smoked salmon canapés, and carry the Prime Minister’s handbag. She wants to talk about collective amnesia. I ask her to turn her attention to the discussion about the underclass. Three years ago the Prime Minister stood in this House and spoke about the underclass. Something has happened. Someone has removed that word from her rhetoric. Somehow those people have all disappeared; they no longer exist and that word is out of bounds. How come it is OK for the Prime Minister to talk about the underclass but if John Key talks about the underclass, that is not OK? How come Steve Maharey stood in this House 4 years ago and talked about the underclass but somehow that word is not part of Labour’s rhetoric any longer?

The Prime Minister’s speech to the House today was disappointing. It was boring, it was delivered with all the enthusiasm of a laboratory rat, it contained nothing new, and it was so full of vacuous statements—motherhood and apple pie—that most people who heard that speech, if they stayed awake, would have been disappointed by its lack of content. The only miraculous achievement that the Prime Minister managed to complete was mentioning the word “sustainable” 33 times. I think she should go back and shoot her speech-writer, because he has made her look like a fool. She stood in the House repeating the word “sustainable”—she even said it twice in one sentence. When the country wants to talk about hungry children she wants to make that the key part of her speech. I ask members to guess which one New Zealanders will be interested in. It was disappointing, to say the least. First she stands up and says we want substance, not slogans, and then she has the gall to unravel the longest list of slogans I have heard in a 45-minute speech.

Do any members remember “closing the gaps”? What was that if not a slogan? Last year “economic transformation” were the words in every second sentence. That slogan was mentioned only once this year. “Sustainability”, “sustainable”, and various other “sustaining” words were mentioned nearly 40 times. I think the country was aiming to get more out of the speech than just repetition. There was nothing new.

As National’s education spokeswoman, I was sitting here with my education team, listening with ears pricked to hear of changes in education. We got rosy reports about how the education sector was doing but the Prime Minister had nothing to say about poor achievement in schools. The Prime Minister had nothing to say—no solution—about what she is going to do about poor performing schools in this country. There was no mention of Waverley High School, where last year those kids who sat National Certificate of Educational Achievement are left with a CV worth very little now that the credibility of their marks has been undermined. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Education Review Office have known about those problems since 2002.

She talked about personalised learning plans for students. I hate to break it to the Prime Minister, but that is not a new idea. It has been raised on many occasions, but what we did not hear today was the detail of how it is going to be achieved. There was nothing about teachers’ workloads and how they will be addressed, or ratios of students to teachers. There was nothing about how that kind of idea could be brought to reality. Most teachers I know would love to have personalised plans for each and every student in their schools, but it is a matter of resources and the ability to do that. That was probably one of the most glib slogans that the Prime Minister trotted out today, but, once again, there was nothing to back it up.

She mentioned the 20 free hours. My colleague Maurice Williamson is right. There was a sort of communal grunt, whimper, and whisper, and nobody knew what to say, because what is that, if not a slogan? The Prime Minister knows there is no way that is going to be rolled out. Today she said she hopes there will be major uptake. That is the first confirmation from the Prime Minister that the policy is not going to be the same. When it was rolled out, all guns blazing, it was going to be a policy that, from 1 July, touched on the lives of every 3 and 4-year-old in this country. I think we have seen that that is not going to happen. It is a hoax, and members will hear more from Paula Bennett on that point.

The Prime Minister had nothing to say today about how she is going to deal with the truancy issue. There was some flippant comment about increasing the resource there. It is no surprise that she has mentioned truancy because under the cover of darkness—the Christmas period—the Government released a report about truancy that stated that, on a given Monday, 30,000 New Zealand kids are not at school for no good reason. Truancy figures have gone up under the Labour Government, not down. In fact, every statistic relating to education has deteriorated—not improved—under the Labour Government. Helen Clark knows that but she just glossed over it today in the House.

The number of school-leavers without qualifications is predicted to go up. The Government’s own officials—and they have probably told Helen Clark; they have certainly told Steve Maharey—have predicted that the number of school-leavers without qualifications will increase steadily over the next 20 years, not decline. So much for all the glowing comments about education we had previously from Judith Tizard in her speech. The rhetoric does not match the reality.

The Prime Minister had nothing to say about increasing teacher numbers, because this is the year—supposedly—they are going to increase the ratio of teachers to students in new-entrant classes. That was another bright idea of Trevor Mallard’s that has not come to fruition in any tangible form.

She said nothing about some of the lame Teachers Council decisions that have been made this year. This year the council said that they were happy that a teacher who had hit children, force-fed children until the point of vomiting, and ignored children in an early childhood centre could go back to work. Not one parent in the country would think that was OK. The Minister of Education would not name the early childhood centre; nobody was going to be responsible. The Teachers Council said that that decision had to be seen in context. I would like the Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, to say what context that kind of behaviour can be put in that makes it OK. Over on the Labour benches members think that an early childhood teacher who force-feeds kids to the point of vomiting and ignores kids is OK. Well, on this side of the House we say that someone who thinks that kind of behaviour is OK should be out.

In her speech today, the Prime Minister glossed over most of the education issues. Labour has been on the back foot this year. John Key has run Labour’s political agenda right throughout January by identifying and talking about a problem of a growing underclass. It is a problem Labour will not talk about. In the first instance we saw the Prime Minister deny that the underclass existed. That is funny, when only 3 years earlier she had used the word herself. Then we got into the debate about schoolchildren going hungry at school. We know one thing on this side of the House: if children are hungry and do not have any breakfast in their tummies, they are not going to learn. Teachers tell us that they can identify by about 9.30 kids who have not had breakfast. What was the Prime Minister’s answer? “No problem.” The problem has supposedly improved over the years. Steve Maharey said that 15,000 as a number was wrong. He said it was a guesstimate. He would have just about eaten his words, I think, when the figure came out just after that as 83,000.

This Government had an opportunity today to come up with some new ideas and talk about a new direction in education and a new direction for the country. All we got was the word “sustainable” mentioned 33 times, a speech that would put even the most avid political listener to sleep, and a demonstration that this Government is really suffering from “third term – itis”. We had an opportunity today to hear some answers about how we are going to improve the lives of New Zealanders. From that side of the House the Prime Minister basically delivered a speech that showed she does not have any answers. She is just looking for political points for poll-driven policies that will hopefully get her out of the mire.

On this side of the House we are invigorated. We are looking forward to this year. We have started off this year well, determining the political agenda of this country. We are going to do that—and continue doing that all year—until we win in 2008.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy): We have heard from the National Party members in recent weeks that they have discovered an underclass. They have discovered that there are disadvantaged people in society. Do they really think that every other political party in this Parliament has not known that? There have always been those less well off in society. There always will be. The difference between us and National is that our record shows that we do something about it.

What have we done about it? Obviously, we have reduced unemployment very substantially to the second-lowest levels of unemployment in the world, and the lowest that this country has experienced for decades. We have much lower taxes for families with children, so that those families have more money in their pockets to pay for food, rent, clothes, entertainment, and their lives—and for the raising of their children. We have more support for early childhood education and after-school care. We know there will always be more to be done, but to suggest that we do not know about and address the problems of those who are less fortunate in society is rubbish. All those who look at the substance of policies will know that that is true. It is yet another example of the National Party trying to scratch an itch.

In the last 6 months we have already seen John Key try to pretend that he is something he is not. On the subject of climate change, in 2005 in this very Parliament he said in respect of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, which the National Party subsequently supported unchanged, that it was a load of rubbish and the National Party would not be supporting it for very, very good reasons. Given National’s subsequent change of heart, that seems rather an exaggerated comment on his part. But perhaps of more concern was what he said next: “This is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—”

Hon Damien O'Connor: Who said that?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The member asked who said that. John Key, the leader of the National Party, in this House in May 2005 said: “even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—”. He said that. He said “I”. He said, in the first person, that he did not believe in climate change. What did he say more recently? In November last year he said on National Radio: “I firmly believe in climate change …”. He is entitled to change his view. If he had stopped there it would have been fine, but he said: “I firmly believe in climate change and always have.” One of those two statements cannot be correct. Those two statements are irreconcilable. This is another example of another hollow man in National changing his tune and saying what he thinks the voters want to hear when he believes something different and when his underlying agenda is different.

This is a pattern in National that we have seen thoroughly exposed by Nicky Hager in that book The Hollow Men. We have seen time and again the National Party exposed for saying one thing when it has a different agenda. It used to be a secret agenda; it is now an available agenda and we know that the agenda is different. We know that its last leader, Don Brash, lied. He lied repeatedly. He lied to the electorate publicly. He lied time and time again. He lied. He was a liar. He was exposed by The Hollow Men to be a liar. Finally, his party found that because he was a liar, it could no longer keep him and it ditched him. He was exposed for being a liar. The National Party should be ashamed of the fact that it was led—

David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I know what the member is going to say. I have listened for some time, and the member is continuing too much down that particular line.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Speaking to the point of order, I say that this man is not a member of the House. He resigned because he was caught lying. Saying that is not in breach of the Standing Orders, and I think I am in order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): He was not actually caught doing what you said he had done. That was not the reason he resigned. That is not the public reason. I am cautioning the member because it could lead to disorder if we go too much down that track.

Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a debate, and my colleague the Hon David Parker was making a point in that debate. There is nothing inside the Standing Orders that prevents him from doing that. He is not talking about a member of the House. There are some quite clear rules on that. He is talking about some events that took place over the last 2 or 3 years in politics and his views on them. He is accountable for those views. I happen to share them, but they are not outside the Standing Orders or the Speakers’ rulings.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am just asking the member to be careful.

Hon DAVID PARKER: We know that during the election Dr Brash denied links with the Exclusive Brethren. That was found out to be an untrue statement, even during the election. He recanted to a certain extent but still covered up his links with the Exclusive Brethren. Those links were exposed in the Nicky Hager book The Hollow Men, as were various other planned policy changes that were hidden from the electorate. We now have the new leader of the National Party asserting that he believes in climate change “and [I] always have”. It is that second statement that I take issue with, because I find that impossible to reconcile with his earlier statements in the House.

Similar inconsistencies have been shown by the new leader of the National Party in respect of his stance in Iraq. I spoke at forums where he said that New Zealand should be part of the war in Iraq. He also made similar statements in this Parliament when he was talking on the marine security legislation and again made reference to the fact that New Zealand should be in Iraq. He is now saying that he never thought it should be. I found those two statements difficult to reconcile.

I turn to an area where this Government is making real progress, and that is in respect of sustainability. Climate change responses are growing around the world. The popularity of those responses is changing, and we are seeing now a coming together in this Parliament of different parties that want to cooperate with the Government on these initiatives. I thank them for the increasing support for those initiatives.

I want to clarify some of the things that we are in the process of achieving. Since industrialisation began in New Zealand, New Zealand’s energy-related emissions—other than the occasional war or recession—have always grown. Were we to continue under business as usual our transport emissions are forecast to grow by 35 percent over the next 30 years. Plainly, that would be undesirable for the planet and also the economy, because it would put a load on our future economy that would be costly to avoid in the future. So the Government has had a look again at our energy and climate change policy, and we have divided our responses into transport, power generation and other stationary energy, the forestry sector, and the agricultural sector. Our strategies were put out before Christmas for consultation and have had considerable support from within many sectors of the community.

In the electricity sphere we have two main planks. We say that we should, as a point of principle, have all our new electricity generation coming from renewable sources except to the extent necessary for security of supply. This is an affordable option for New Zealand because we have affordable renewables, particularly in the form of geothermal and wind. We also need to do more to make our electricity go further by being more efficient in the way we use energy. The Electricity Commission, which is an arm of the Government, has been successful in rolling out about 1.5 million of those fluorescent bulbs that help New Zealanders reduce their own emissions and their own power bills while helping the environment.

In transport we are proposing more investment in modes of transport that are efficient. The Government has bought back the rail line. It has increased funding for public transport from $40 million in 1999 to $450 million this year, which is a very big increase, and we are improving the efficiency of the vehicle fleet, starting with some leadership in the Government fleet and the ministerial fleet. I am no paragon of virtue here; I am one of those who will have to change for the better. These are the sorts of things that New Zealanders can do and that the Government is leading. Finally, in transport we are introducing a renewable fuel proportion in the form of biofuels, and those announcements are being made today.

In forestry we do need to curb deforestation. Rates of forest planting decreased most under National but they have decreased under our Government as well, as a consequence of the decline in the profitability of forestry compared with other agricultural land uses. We have policies to reverse that but we also need to control deforestation of land. Deforestation accounts for about one-quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Wholesale deforestation is no better in New Zealand than it is in Brazil. We have some trading mechanisms that we think will work in that space.

I look forward to consideration by other parties of these important policies.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National): It was very interesting watching the Government benches this afternoon while the Prime Minister read her statement, or, one might say, while she “monotoned” through her lengthy statement. Her colleagues’ faces showed that they were tired, uninterested, and bored. Many of them had their faces down in their papers. This was the Prime Minister’s statement for the start of the year and all Government members could do was look even more lifeless than I have seen them look before.

Perhaps they were hypnotised by the use of the word “sustainable”, which was used 33 times, as our leader John Key pointed out. That must be a record for the use of one word in a 45-minute speech. One wonders why she had to use it so much. Perhaps she had to convince herself that what she was proposing for the 2 years ahead before the 2008 election were sustainable policies. She certainly did not seem to convince her colleagues, who seemed to realise that she was presenting a statement only when she finished it. They were obviously nudged into standing to clap for it.

I am not surprised and National is not surprised. That Government is not sustainable. It is not sustainable past 2008. In fact, it does not deserve to be there now. Its days are numbered, and members opposite know it. They have a 7-year record of regular stuff-ups. Sacked Ministers have flouted the law and put themselves above it. The public, slowly but surely—or quickly, in the case of some people—are beginning to realise that the days of the minority Labour Government are numbered. We know that and we are ready to take the Government benches just as soon as it is ready to fall. If it does not fall before 2008, it will do so then.

I also watched Parekura Horomia, who is normally pretty much challenged in the House anyway to keep his attention on what is being said. He seemed to be hugely challenged today by the Prime Minister’s speech. There was hardly the flicker of an eyelid, which probably characterises the tenure of his portfolio. Now and again there is a little bit of a burst, but not much else. Yes, he can and does rattle on about more Māori in employment, and that has certainly been a feature of the last 7 years, but none of that is thanks to anything the Government has done. That has come about through the hard yards done in the late 1980s and the 1990s in turning our economy around into a growth economy, and, of course, employment and jobs fall out of that.

However, Māori unemployment is still a scandal. General unemployment has been reduced to 2 to 3 percent, but Māori unemployment is still far too high. The stock reply of the Minister of Māori Affairs that unemployment for Māori has been reduced, therefore everything is fine, is total rubbish. Parekura Horomia does not have any other answer to the failures characterising Labour’s tenure other than that more Māori are in jobs. He has no answer whatsoever for the appalling state of Māori education achievement after 7 years of Labour Government. That was highlighted by the report that came out earlier this week, which stated that 53 percent of Māori boys and 45 percent of Māori girls are leaving school without level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), compared with a national average of 27 percent. That is an appalling waste of human capacity. Any speeches that the Minister of Māori Affairs or the Prime Minister give in relation to lifting the futures of all New Zealanders must be measured in the light of those appalling statistics.

We have a Ministry of Māori Development, although most of us on the Māori Affairs Committee struggle to see what it does—certainly the National members do. Māori development is about the development of a people and their assets. When 53 percent of Māori boys are leaving school without level 1 NCEA it is trite to talk, as the Prime Minister did this afternoon, about increasing the numbers in work-based training. A significant number of young people fail badly, but there was no mention of those statistics that came out earlier this week. The Prime Minister wants to engage teenagers in education that is meaningful and relevant to their futures. What has she been doing for the future of those 53 percent of Māori boys who do not seem to be engaged at all, let alone engaged in something meaningful? It is not just their future, it is our future—our future as Māori and our future as New Zealanders.

It is an appalling record for a Labour Party that for so long enjoyed the widespread support of Māori people. Labour members took their vote for granted, and they bore the brunt of that at the last election. They will bear the brunt of it again in the coming election because ultimately there comes a time when they cannot take people for granted and treat them in the way that the Labour Government has done. Labour will lose more of that support in 2008, and I say that it serves the Government right.

When I listen to the Prime Minister talking about how we need to lift our education achievement to participate in the global economy, blah, blah, blah, I say to myself that perhaps Māori children are not included in her statement. I do not know how she can talk about that sort of aspiration and not give at least some idea of what she plans to do to lift the achievement of, first, Māori boys, and then of Māori girls. Māori development is about the development of people. He aha te mea nui o te ao? What is the greatest thing in the world? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It is people, it is people, it is people. This Government pays scant regard to those people who are not within its sphere of operation.

It was interesting listening to the previous speaker, the Hon David Parker, when he said it was as if we had just discovered the underclass. In fact, one would not be surprised if someone had just discovered it because, frankly, it does not seem to have existed in this Government’s sphere of operation. The Prime Minister says that she does not know where John Key has been and that there is no underclass—give me a break. If people live in areas where there is underachievement in all areas of social policy—in housing, health, and education—they know exactly where their future lies. Unless those people are brave enough, courageous enough, and strong enough to lift themselves out of it, there is no use looking to this Government for help to do so.

The other part of development, of course, is the development of assets.

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

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: In relation to the development of assets, Māori, like all other New Zealanders, seek an environment that supports their development aspirations, which encourages them to make investment to create wealth. Māori want to do this, just like all others who have assets that they want to manage and utilise for the benefit of the New Zealand economy. The last 20 years have seen Māori expend much time and energy in securing their rights: their rights in forestry, their rights in fisheries, and their rights across the board. They have done that in the legal way. The rights that they have secured have been rights in the law. They have duly followed that process. Now, when they are on the cusp of starting to realise the potential of those assets, we have, as typical, the Labour Government, which has an aversion to property rights any way—it thinks property rights should be distributed to everybody—raising proposals that have the potential, both in fisheries and forestry, to threaten the Treaty settlements that have been arrived at in both those areas and also to threaten full Māori management of their assets.

I am talking about the proposed shared fisheries process, which Jim Anderton is seeking to put in place. There are three areas of fisheries: customary, commercial, and recreational. Māori are present in all those. So it is not the Māori leaders, who met last week about this issue, wanting to cut anybody out. They are seeking a proper information basis from the Government for interfering with their commercial property rights in favour of recreational fisheries. That is all they ask. It is a decent and wise thing to ask for. This Government has no idea. It has proved that it is not interested in protecting property rights. Māori deserve that protection.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua): The Prime Minister’s statement today in which she called for sustainability was as visionary for New Zealanders as Norm Kirk’s nuclear-free status two decades ago, and it met with a cynical and hysterical response from the “boys’ own” - type Leader of the Opposition, who was surrounded by men, other than the senior whip. It was a response that was hollow, rhetorical, and lacking in substance. We did not see any policy.

All aspects of this Government’s business will be involved in this long-term strategy that is both compelling and timely. There will be economic management, society will be involved in environment and nationhood, and the three planks of this Government policy—economic transformation, families young and old, and the New Zealand identity—will respond. The carbon footprint reduction will be stamped on our Government policy development, and I find this incredibly exciting and visionary. It is hardly the vision of a worn-out and tired old Government.

The invisible hand of the market did not deliver a sustainable nation in the 1990s, and tax cuts will not deliver a sustainable nation in the 2000s. The Leader of the Opposition was a little too fast and furious today with his reaction, especially at our deputy leader’s tabling of a statement on the mortgage levy discussion held by the co-leaders in his office.

Let us look at other flip-flops of the Leader of the Opposition: on the Department of Corrections, climate change, the Employment Relations Act, Iraq, nukes, and civil unions. It goes on and on. Can this smiling assassin be trusted? It will not be long before we see his true spots and the true colour and cut of his cloth.

I am going to speak on two aspects of this visionary statement from the Prime Minister today: economic transformation and families young and old. In our community we will see Scion in Rotorua, a Crown research institute, pick up the challenge of the biofuels target in looking at alternative fuels. I think it is really exciting. That company will be in there for the research funding that David Parker encouraged Richard Branson to commit to this country. I have been involved in land-use change meetings right through summer with the lakes residents in our community. They are accepting the need to change land use, and they are also confronting the need to retire farms around the lake margins in our community. They are committed to this difference.

Young people and domestic users of electricity will also appreciate the commitment here to energy-wise retrofitting of homes, solar water heating subsidies, etc. It goes on and on. We accept in Government that a highly skilled and educated workforce is the goal with our tertiary education strategy. Our community is mobilising with the Waiariki Institute of Technology and introducing trade training and partnerships with industry training organisations and the previous old private training establishments, which are tired and worn out. I saw in Kawerau just yesterday at the Norske Skog mill a MaintainNZ engineering apprenticeship involving Fonterra, the enterprise agency, and Kawerau College, and it is so exciting. Every boy and girl who has gone through the engineering apprenticeship at this institution has graduated and gone on to jobs—a great new story.

But we accept that the best form of social security is a job, and figures show that these jobs need to be underpinned by fair labour law, increased wages, good public health-care and education, and affordable housing. We are doing all of that and we have more to do—not just tax cuts and muesli bars seen as candyfloss to the masses by the Opposition.

Charity begins at home, and that leads me to the families young and old. We are investing in young children, making healthy young children, building resilience, and not stigmatising an underclass, which is the terrible cant that the Leader of the Opposition has come out with. We are investing in newborn hearing screening, extended dental care, and obesity prevention. The Leader of the Opposition says that we have a hunger problem. I would suggest that the problem we have is one of eating patterns rather than hunger, especially when we have an obesity epidemic in this country. We need to change the behaviour of eating patterns. From July this year every child in a family on a benefit will be at least a packet of Weet-Bix better off—$10 a week better off—and this Government is aiming to sort out the intrinsic things that make families strong and healthy.

Our Working for Families package will reduce child poverty by 70 percent, and has already helped over 61,000 children. We do not stigmatise those children and those families as being part of an underclass. The women’s caucus of Labour visited Miller Avenue School, a decile 1 school in Paeroa, just last week. The principal there said: “Our kids deserve the best and they’re getting it in terms of standards of education. And thank you for the Fruit in Schools project. It’s fabulous. The kids aren’t chucking their lunches out, they are eating the lot, and toilet paper consumption’s gone up in the school as a measure of how well these children are beginning to eat.”

I just want to close on the issue of family violence, because this is a joined-up approach of this Government. We set up a ministerial taskforce after a 1-day hearing on domestic violence, which no members of the Opposition attended. We are now going to launch a community campaign saying that there is no tolerance of domestic violence. We have SKIP programmes, which help all parents—including grandparents, solo parents, and new parents—to manage their children and suggest strategies to use. We have the police responding more hastily to domestic violence call-outs, and that helps in getting those women moved through benefits and out of dependency. Last Thursday we went to the Bay of Plenty District Health Board and heard that it is one of two boards that are training staff to screen for domestic violence.

Those examples are not rhetoric or hollow promises. They are actions on the ground. The Prime Minister’s statement today about supporting section 59 of the Crimes Act was a wonderful statement for us and for those who believe in ridding this country of domestic violence.

We know that we have a huge work programme ahead of us but we are delivering on the ground, and we are delivering policies of substance, not just hollow rhetoric. I cannot wait to hear the Leader of the Opposition come out with one statement that gives anybody any aspirational help to believe that National intends to really make a difference on the ground for those at the grassroots who build the backbone of this country.

I am proud to be in this Labour Government. The Prime Minister’s statement was aspirational and lofty, and we are going to get on with the policies that will deliver those goals.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Members are advised that New Zealand First will split its 10-minute speech between two members, and for the benefit of members the bell will ring when 1 minute remains.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): The good news is that John Key has identified there is an underclass. That is very, very good news. He is setting himself up to be the champion of the underclass, and that is also good news. But it would pay for Mr Key, and, indeed, his National Party colleagues, to stick to the facts. First of all—and I am not here to defend the Prime Minister—at no time did she deny there was an underclass. She actually said it was getting smaller. I am not in a position to argue about that, but she did not deny there was an underclass. Members opposite have a conscience and are quite interested in the issue, so I ask them who created the underclass. I would not go so far as to say that National created it but I will go so far as to say that the Employment Contracts Act certainly created a significant amount of hardship. It removed security for low-paid people and put downward pressure on wages for unskilled and low-paid people.

Dr Wayne Mapp: That is rubbish and the member knows it.

PETER BROWN: The member can argue till the cows come home, but that is the result of the Employment Contracts Act. I see that members opposite are listening intently, and I remind them that the Act allowed the development of wide-scale casualised employment.

Let me give the Labour Government a little bit of credit because it cut down unemployment. It has gone down markedly. I am pleased to say that Labour listened intently to New Zealand First, and there will be a review, an inquiry, call it what one likes, into casualised employment in this country. That will be the first time ever. That is not a request we did not put to National when we were in coalition with it. We did, on several occasions. I see that the member now acknowledges that. But National members dismissed it. They did not recognise that people were living in conditions of hardship. At one time they said to me, and I will never forget it, that after the Employment Contracts Act had been in existence 10 or 12 years, society would get used to it.

Well, the underclass never got used to it. I pleaded with the Minister at that time to modify the Act and make it a little bit fairer. But, no, my request was pooh-poohed. Then, of course, Labour came into office and replaced that legislation. This Labour Government is now prepared to look at an inquiry into casualised employment. I am delighted that it is prepared to do that, because some people in this country have suffered for a very, very long time when it comes to unemployment.

As a result of the growth in the underclass—which is now shrinking—crime went up, markedly. If we look back to the 1960s and 1970s and compare that with the situation today, it has gone up hugely. What was the response of National when it was last in Government? It thought that its cardboard cut-outs would help solve crime. That is something John Cleese would have promoted on Fawlty Towers. National used cardboard cut-outs and a “cube” computer—an INCIS computer. It spent about $100 million on INCIS in an effort to solve crime. I am proud to be part of a party that insisted, when we were in coalition with National, that the police force be increased. I think we got 500 more at that time, and now we have reached an agreement with Labour to increase the police force by 1,000 in this term, and bring it up to the Australian ratio per head of population by the end of next term.

I heard Maurice Williamson speak earlier. I always listen to him because one is almost best to listen to what he says about transport, and do the exact opposite, but he is gradually listening to us. He is now saying, as, indeed, the National Party is saying, that all the petrol tax should be going into roading. National has had two attempts at it: the first when Winston Peter produced a bill in about 1995 but National said was a silly bill to address that issue in that way. That was said, and I have the Hansard.

The second attempt was in 1998 when in the Budget we started transferring the money across when Winston Peters was Treasurer. But the National Government stopped it dead in the water when it dispensed with us and governed on its own.

I just close by saying that several thousand people have died on the roads in this country because the roads have not kept pace with vehicle usage.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First): The Prime Minister commenced her speech this afternoon with reference to the solid achievements made by her administration in 2006. What was notable about her statement, however, was that she gave full credit to the constructive working relationships of her administration with its confidence and supply partners, as well as with the Greens and the Māori Party, for the successful outcomes of 2006. This demonstrated a Prime Minister in touch with MMP. When the people of New Zealand voted for MMP, one of the results they were hoping for was better cross-party working relationships. The current administration has grasped this point, and I would therefore say to John Key that if he ever wishes to sit in the Prime Minister’s chair, not only must he come to grips with the realities of MMP but he must ensure that those who surround him do so, also. In 1996 the likes of Jim Bolger and Wyatt Creech intuitively grasped what MMP was about. Bill Birch, Jenny Shipley, Tony Ryall, and many others never did.

Over the last year the farmers of New Zealand have once again outclassed themselves. However, yet again they have been hamstrung in the potential benefits they could have provided for the nation as a whole, because of the artificially high dollar. It is all very well celebrating Export Year, but if we cannot create an export-friendly financial environment, it will all be for nothing. If New Zealand does not export, we will wither and atrophy, and the vast majority of what is exported will be based on what we produce off the land—hopefully, with higher and higher levels of value added.

It is wonderful that Mr Key has finally discovered, on behalf of the National Party, something that I personally have known to be a reality in New Zealand for more than 25 years—children who come to school without breakfast. I would like to point out that there are also large numbers who come without lunch. It is also exhilarating to know that the leader of the party that brought in savage benefit cuts in the early 1990s has publicly recognised that hungry children find it hard to settle in class, to the detriment not only of their own learning but also to that of others.

I have to say to Mr Key that no MP in this House grew up closer to Wesley School than I did, as we grew up in a State house virtually straight across the road from the school. The father, uncle and aunties, and grandparents of Toa Fraser, who directed the film No. 2, were actually in No. 55, right next door.

If I were principal of a school and some political leader announced to the nation that he had organised, with his mates, to produce a whole pile of muesli bars to be delivered to my school and the kids were going to have to eat them, I can tell him where I would be telling him to shove his muesli bars. That approach is nothing short of fascist. So I support the response of the principal of Wesley School, and I do not believe for a moment that there was any political heavying. This is where John Key got it all wrong. If he had been genuinely interested in the children’s well-being, he would have talked to the principal and the chair of the board outside the public domain, put forward his proposal, accepted counter-proposals that would better meet the needs of the children, then quietly put the programme in place.

Feedback I have received tells me that the Fruit in Schools project is showing positive benefits in terms of children’s concentration spans. I ran breakfast clubs in my own school in the 1990s and know the positive benefits. John Key was not off track with his intention; he was way off track with the manner in which he attempted to implement his initiatives, which came to look like a political stunt.

The Prime Minister made some telling points in her speech, but on two issues I believe that her speechwriters let her down. The first was the reference to 20 free hours of early childhood care. This may have been good election rhetoric, but any attempt to apply the slogan to the for-profit early childhood sector is doomed to failure. Indeed, this whole policy amounts simply to a hospital pass from the previous Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, to the new Minister, Steve Maharey.

The second issue is the reference to the Young Apprenticeships scheme, the idea of which is very worthy—but I have to mention that we are about 5 years behind the Australians in this regard. Those at-risk students—the tail—do not make it through to years 12 and 13, where they would be able to take up this initiative. In fact, more students every year are getting early leaving approval. The challenge for our system is to ensure that these students can be kept in the system so that they are able to benefit from initiatives such as the Young Apprenticeships scheme. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato): A singularly strange phenomenon occurred in Parliament this afternoon. As we, Her Majesty’s most loyal Opposition, filed in, re-energised, enthusiastic, and ready to take it to the Government, there was an expectation that Helen Clark and her somewhat tawdry followers would also be re-energised. Instead, there they were, looking tired, disenchanted, and singularly sick. There was a tirade from the Prime Minister—a 35-minute diatribe—and, after that, the Government members continued to look tired, disenchanted, and sick. We now have one glimpse of knowledge as to why they looked so forlorn: finally, after 18 months, they have made up their minds to expel Taito Phillip Field.

Just 8 months ago Helen Clark released the half-million-dollar Ingram report, which had serious allegations about her former Minister Taito Phillip Field. At that time she emphatically stated that no wrong had been done by Mr Field. She actually explicitly stated that no wrong had been done by Mr Field. This afternoon the credibility of the Prime Minister and the credibility of the Government have, literally, gone out of the windows and doors of this Parliament.

Hon David Carter: There was never much to go, was there?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: There was not much to go, at all.

In the Prime Minister’s opening remarks she said that educational achievement is up. Yet only this week we learnt that 50 percent or more of young Māori males leave school without having achieved even National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 1.

The Prime Minister went on to say: “Meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance, not slogans.” But what was the slogan she used some years ago? It was “closing the gaps”. Here we have, after 7 years of a Labour Government, over 50 percent of young Māori males not achieving anything from their State-funded education.

This afternoon I had a session with members of the Industry Training Federation. They said that a major problem for them is that a substantial number of their 160,000 trainees are illiterate and innumerate. So, after 7 years of a Labour Government, not only are school-leavers illiterate and innumerate but if they are lucky enough to get into skills training—which this Prime Minister says is so important—there are not even facilities to fund them to learn to write or read. This is a major problem for this country, and it is a major indictment on this Government after 7 years. Over the last 5 or 6 years we have had one of the greatest scandals in New Zealand—the misspending of $1 billion in tertiary education. We have all heard about Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, homeopathy for pets, and twilight golf. Yet we have a situation where money cannot be directed into the simple things of numeracy and literacy so that our young men and women can actually learn to read the notices in workplaces they might go to—and that might make all the difference to them.

It is no wonder that Michael Cullen has decided to have a review of tertiary education and no wonder that he has decided to concentrate on, of all things, standards and quality. There is no doubt that over the last 4 to 5 years we have witnessed a scandal in this country of misspending of vital education dollars.

The Prime Minister went on to say: “Our challenge is to build a sustainable economy based on innovation and quality in a world where high-volume, low-quality services and goods will always undercut us on price.” I agree with that, but we must recall that only 18 months ago, after the last election, the Prime Minister also said that science and innovation were critical to driving the New Zealand economy. She went on to deliver a Budget in which, of the new money, $1 billion went into interest-free tertiary loans and $1.5 billion went into the Working for Families package—situations that would cement tens of thousands of New Zealanders into welfare dependency.

This afternoon the Prime Minister went on to talk about taking significant numbers of children out of poverty. She might have done that, but she has put them right into dependency. This is one of the great problems with this interfering Labour Government. It has spent billions of dollars on programmes that have caused and cemented in welfare dependency in this country. In that same Budget, only $19.4 million of new money was spent on scientific research and development, the area that she said was critical to driving our economy.

She went on to say: “I believe that New Zealand can aim to be the first nation to be truly sustainable”—and she said that word 33 times—

Hon Member: Thirty-six times.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON:—36 times, as my colleague said—“across the four pillars of the economy, the society, the environment, and nationhood.” Here is the next Labour slogan: “economic transformation”. The facts are that in 1999, when this Labour Government came into power, economic growth was 4.9 percent. It is now approximately between 2 and 3 percent, and predicted by Treasury to ease to about 2 percent in the long term.

Much more worrying than that is the fact that the average Australian wage back in 1999 was in the order of 26 percent more than the average New Zealander’s wage, but now that figure is 35 percent. Back in 1999 we were 20th in the OECD out of 30 countries, and we are now 21st in the OECD. This is not economic transformation; it is economic transformation going backwards. That is a hugely serious concern for our country.

The last slogan I will talk about is this extraordinary claim from the Prime Minister that “we can aspire to be carbon neutral in our economy and way of life.” Back when this Labour Government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it said it would show leadership. Pete Hodgson, the then Minister of Research, Science and Technology and environment Minister, said there would be a cheque for $1 billion for New Zealand because of carbon credits. He was over 100 percent wrong; instead, it was the billion-dollar mistake made by Pete Hodgson.

In that bill he also suggested that carbon police would be going on to every farm in New Zealand to check his carbon tax. This was described by a professor of law from Canterbury University as State-sanctioned trespass.

This Labour Government has got to go.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs): Tēnā koe. Ngā mihi nui mō te tau hōu.

[Greetings to you and for the new year.]

If ever there was any evidence of a tired Opposition, we have just heard it. There was no vision and no direction in that speech. In fact, most of that speech—sadly, for the constituents of Port Waikato—was spent criticising but not offering any direction. That is a sad indictment of what we are faced with: an Opposition that spends most of its time criticising but not offering direction. The people of New Zealand really need the opportunity to hear what the Opposition thinks, what policies it has, what ideas it has, and how it will make things better. Did we hear that in the House today? No, we did not. We heard 8 minutes of criticism but no direction.

On the contrary, the Government, through the Prime Minister’s statement, has given a very clear, decisive, strong vision for the future of this country and for all people here in New Zealand. It is about substance; it is about standing on a track record of achievement—7 years of it—unlike the Opposition, which has spent 7 years in Opposition. Opposition members are looking tired. We are only at the beginning of the year, and they have not offered any way forward.

What did the Prime Minister say in her statement? Clearly, a vision for New Zealand must take account of how we are doing as a country in terms of our economic performance. Economic transformation is a critical theme, and it is a work programme for this Government. The other priority area is in terms of our families, young and old, and ensuring that every family has a stake in the future of this country, ensuring that those families are cared for, and ensuring that they can make a contribution to this society. More important, this priority concerns national identity—making sure that every individual in New Zealand contributes to a society that is inclusive, and that every individual respects one another and values the contribution we all make. Today we heard from the Prime Minister that underpinning all of those key themes that the Government has actively worked upon over the last term is the theme of a sustainable future. That is important, because when we look at substance we have to look at the track record of this Government, which has continued to make gains.

Let us look at a couple of those gains and see just how much of an impact we have made. In respect of cheaper doctors’ visits, we started off by making a difference for the under 5s, then we moved to the over-65s, then to the under-18s, then to the over-45s, and this year there will be cheaper doctors’ visits for all people in New Zealand. That is really important, because when people have the ability to have low-cost visits to the doctor, they will go to the doctor when they need to, not when they have to. People will pay only $3 for a prescription, and will go to the doctor because they need to, not to the hospital because they have to. That is the kind of difference that this Government makes. Primary health care is a key strategy in terms of having a sustainable future and a healthy nation. That is what this Government believes in.

Let us take another policy—income-related rentals. The National Party would have had market rentals that would see a whole lot of people spending most of their wages on rent, not being able to pay for food and power. Members can bet their bottom dollar that a lot of our constituency offices, when we were in Opposition, were overwhelmed by the number of people coming for support because they could not pay their power bill. Is that happening now? It is happening less, because income-related rentals have meant that low to moderate income families have been able to pay no more than 25 percent of their wages on rents, so they can buy food, they can pay their power bills, and they can send their kids to school with shoes on their feet. That is the kind of difference that this Government has made.

More than that, it is not just about stopping there but going further and ensuring that New Zealanders have an opportunity to buy their own homes. We are certainly making gains in this area. More can be done—more will be done—but the signal quite clearly here is that the State has a role to play in ensuring that all people have access to affordable housing and can afford to purchase their own homes. That is the kind of difference that a Labour-led Government is making. We have more people in work. In fact, I was quite heartened by the fact that in my own electorate of Tainui, going into the last quarter of last year, the Te Kūiti Work and Income office was able to say that no young people were on the unemployment benefit in Te Kūiti. What a great story that was.

Shane Ardern: Hell, yes!

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Everybody got together. Shane Ardern will agree with me because people said that things were happening within their district and that there was a future for young people. For a community to stand up and say that no young person is on the unemployment benefit in Te Kūiti is certainly a credit to a lot of activity within the region. There has been a lot of regional economic development and a lot of partnerships, so more young people are going into work.

A lot of young people are in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme—we are up to about 9,000 people—a whole lot of people are in industry training, and the Prime Minister in her statement today indicated that we will move towards student apprenticeships. That will enable the young Māori boys who have been talked about by the Opposition—a lot of whom want to do apprenticeship training—to train in mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, and gasfitting. So this kind of initiative will help those young people. Gateway is another example. A lot of our low-decile schools throughout the country, and certainly within the Tainui electorate, have Gateway. That has enabled young people to look at what the workforce has to offer.

Hon Member: It is a very good scheme.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: It is excellent. Anybody who bothers to visit his or her local high school—and I am sure the Opposition will not be too familiar with this—will see that where Gateway exists, it works for a lot of young people. Why? Because businesses want to partner with schools. They want to be able to provide a sustainable future of employment for young people in their areas and keep them there. Why? Because young people see that it is not just about a one-size-fits-all education system. A lot of people learn by doing, and there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, the biggest advocate for trade training in our country is someone like Dale Williams, Mayor of Ōtorohanga District. He came through trade training, owned his own business, and now is the Mayor of Ōtorohanga. He is a great promoter of trade training, Modern Apprenticeships, and what that has to offer. More important, in members’ communities, like mine, lots of young people see a pathway beyond school that can help them to make a valuable contribution. It is not a case of some people fitting and some people not fitting—all people can fit under that kind of initiative.

Another initiative introduced by the Government that has made a difference—and members of communities where this exists can attest to it—is Fruit in Schools. There are endless examples of teachers and parents who certainly give feedback to me when I ask about the success of this and how it has made a difference. Attention spans of young people in the class last longer because they are getting fruit. If we go to Huntly West, down in my neck of the woods, attention rates have increased. The ability of young people to sit and listen increases; therefore, their ability to learn for a longer period increases. So it all has an impact. Fruit in Schools and a Labour-led Government actually helps kids to be healthy, to learn, and to stay in class.

But what we all want really is to keep our kids in school. A lot of time has been spent on the issue of educational achievement, but can I just say this one thing. It was under a Labour Government that the Russell Bishop study started, out of Waikato University. One thing to remember, if we are to remember anything about his study, is that teachers make a difference. Te Kotahitanga, which is an initiative targeted at a lot of our schools where underachievement is an issue, has expanded under Russell Bishop. Teachers are now engaged to make a difference for all these groups of people who may not have achieved in our schools. I will talk about one school in my area. Fraser High School has just gone in, and Fairfield College is in it already. The marked difference in terms of applying the research and development knowledge from Russell Bishop’s study in schools, and how that is starting to extrapolate in terms of achievement, is starting to make a difference—watch that space.

Under a Labour-led Government there is vision, there is direction, and there is leadership. But, more important, there is an opportunity for all New Zealanders in our country to have a better go at it, to have a better shot, to lift their aspirations, and to make a better lot for themselves and for their families. Kia ora.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country): That was a very good call. I wish you a happy New Year, Mr Assistant Speaker; this is my first opportunity to say that to you at the beginning of the new sitting.

Last year’s statement from our Prime Minister was all about economic transformation, and we know how that went; we know which way we have been transformed economically. This year is all about sustainability—another slogan. Well, I say: “Yeah, right!”. Just like last year, there was no substance, no depth, and—like the Government—absolutely no sustainability in the speech. The Prime Minister needs to understand what sustainability is about. I can tell members what it is not about. It is not about cutting down more trees than we are planting. For the first time in living memory we are now cutting down more trees than we are planting. It is not about slamming the door shut on our forestry industry.

The Kyoto Forestry Association—which, people will remember, was set up under this Labour Government—when describing this Labour Government, stated: “Imposing massive retrospective taxes on the one industry capable of sequestering carbon is sheer idiocy,”. Who could not agree with that? The work done with this Government has been totally ignored by an arrogant, incompetent Government. As a result, it will have more deforestation, thereby taking us farther away from the Prime Minister’s vision of carbon neutrality.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: Who wrote this?

SHANE ARDERN: It is interesting to note that the member for New Plymouth is in the House tonight. That was written by the Kyoto Forestry Association, which was set up under the Labour Government. The Minister may not have known that. Existing forest owners are likely to decide that it is better to bulldoze, spray, and burn down their trees than to allow this socialist, thieving Government to take more tax from them. How does that help? The Prime Minister has had her chance today to put that right, but still, no—the arrogance carries on. There is no resolution.

What the socialists forget—they always do; this is not new, and it happens around the world whenever we have a socialist Government—is that no matter what the industry is, unless we have a sustainable bottom line of profitable industries we cannot have sustainability. “Profit” is the word that socialist Governments hate most of all. It is called a triple bottom line.

Russell Fairbrother: Wake up!

SHANE ARDERN: Actually, that member, who is one of the members on the Prime Minister’s hit list, is certainly not sustainable; I can tell people that. What he needs to know is that a triple bottom line stands for most of the things that his Government stands for, but it misses the profitability bit. It imposes taxes on industry like zealots, with an environmental programme that will never succeed, and the evidence shows that that is the case.

We should just look at what is happening in Australia. We have afforestation going on in Australia. This will surprise the Minister. In Australia they market their timber into the same markets as we do, yet they are growing more trees and we are chopping them down. How is that? Why is that happening? The Kyoto Forestry Association described the Government’s process as a manipulative sham—just like the Prime Minister’s speech today, which was yet another sham. It had more words, more slogans, and nothing of any substance. So we can talk about gas emissions and about fixing the environment, but when the very industry that needs to be given a leg up has been kicked about, then none of that stands up to scrutiny.

It was a Labour Prime Minister who described agriculture in the 1980s as a sunset industry.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Who was that?

SHANE ARDERN: The Prime Minister the Rt Hon David Lange described agriculture in the 1980s as a sunset industry. And what do we have today? We have a Labour Prime Minister who has appointed a sunset Minister from the 1980s—Jim Anderton—as the Minister for Biosecurity and the Minister of Agriculture. There was not one mention of biosecurity or agriculture in the Prime Minister’s speech today.

I will talk about biosecurity for a moment, because we have seen 229 new incursions in the last 5 years under this Government. It has totally changed; it is a totally failed policy. With that number of incursions and that amount of biosecurity risk, neither the economy nor the environment is sustainable—the new cliché. So it is time that this Prime Minister did something about replacing her good friend and colleague from the 1980s Jim Anderton, because he clearly is an incompetent Minister.

I just say to the Prime Minister that her good colleague is up to his neck in didymo, in varroa bee mite, and in GE corn. He is up to his neck in it. His ignorance of the biosecurity portfolio is costing us, and it is a cost that this country will have to pay over many years to come. There are both financial costs and environmental costs, and they are not sustainable. Yet the Prime Minister refuses to take action and sack someone who is clearly an incompetent old friend, who is in his twilight days, and who is clearly a sunset Minister on his way out. When the Minister was asked about didymo, he stated that he did not agree that didymo was a threat. Can people believe that? That is why didymo is now in 30 rivers in the South Island, and it is only by good luck, not by good management, that it has not spread to the North Island by now. I guess that the question we must ask tonight is how long it will be before didymo will spread to the North Island.

The Minister ignored advice from Biosecurity New Zealand officials to eradicate the varroa bee mite from the South Island, even though they said there was a very high probability that eradication could be successful. Further, he said that he would set up an industry programme and run it through the Beekeepers Association. But he then forgot that the insecticide recommended by Biosecurity New Zealand was not available. Words absolutely fail me! “Incompetent” is not a very good way to describe him, because the word is not strong enough. I cannot think of a word to describe such a Minister—certainly not “sustainable”; that is the one word I would not use. This Minister is not sustainable, and this Government must go.

To those who support this crippled Government, I say “Shame on them!”, because there are a number of people in this House who do that. Those people have no right at all to come into this Parliament and talk about the environment, the economy, and the issues of education and health, because it is they who keep this Government in power. Those people need to think about what they are doing. The only true message on sustainability is that we can take on board that this Government is unsustainable. There is no question that the public will not allow it to stay much longer. The Prime Minister has completed her agenda. She has run out of ideas. The only recycling that is going on in this Government right now concerns the Ministers, and certainly there are a lot of retreads over there. They are coming around and around. There is a lot of recycling of Ministers going on in that Government.

The Prime Minister speaks of biofuels as an answer to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, and she mentioned them again today. Yet in my own electorate right now—and the member for New Plymouth will be interested in this—there is a constituent who has set up a biofuel plant. When he was doing so, he went to the Minister for Industry and Regional Development, and the Minister said: “No, sorry. No can do. Can’t help; you don’t fit the criteria that is set down by us.” So the constituent said that he would do it himself—that he would carry on. This is a guy whom this Prime Minister has had a lot to do with, because he set up a major tourist venture in the electorate. So they know all about him and they know his track record. He then said he would do it himself, but what did he find? He found that the Government required a standard that had to be tested in Australia. It would not provide the services here, even after he had approached them on numerous occasions to do so. But the cost of those tests has been so prohibitive that that business will probably not be sustainable. So I say to the Minister that he should have a look at that.

The Prime Minister needs to back up her rhetoric with some action. This entrepreneur is well known to the Labour Government, and he is a Māori descendant as well—he fits all the criteria the Government would like. But he probably will not be able to stay in business producing biofuel in the King Country, because this Government’s costs are so high. So the Prime Minister, to quote herself, is a victim of her own success, but there is no question in my mind that Labour does not understand the triple bottom line. This Government is not sustainable.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour): I first of all thank the member who has just resumed his seat for giving us one of the more brilliant summaries of National Party policy. Mr Ardern said: “I can tell you what it’s not about.” That really absolutely summarises the National Party position on everything. National members cannot tell us what their policies are about; they can only whinge about what they are not about.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I wish you a happy New Year and welcome you back to Parliament. I hope we all have a very, very successful year. I particularly acknowledge our new member, Katrina Shanks, and say that I hope she enjoys her time in our House.

This afternoon we heard two very different speeches delivered in our opening session. The first one was from the Rt Hon Helen Clark. The Prime Minister outlined her strong and determined leadership and very sound policies in moving New Zealand forward. She outlined the role that our Government needs to play in order to meet the challenges our country faces in the 21st century—substance, not slogans. She talked about our future being dependent on long-term sustainable strategies for our economy, our society, our environment, our culture, and our way of life. That is the sort of leadership this country wants, this country deserves, and this country needs.

Then John Key took his call. I have to say that when he first took his call I was very surprised. My first surprise came when the Speaker did not inform the House that the speaking time would be divided between the two co-leaders of the National Party, Bill English and John Key. I assumed they would divide the time allocated for the leader, but even though the time was not divided between the co-leaders, it was very clear that the leadership is divided.

Then came the second surprise—the speech itself. It was 15 minutes of personal denigration, followed by 5 minutes of self-congratulation: “As I said in the Burnside address …”, as if anyone took any notice of the Burnside address. He referred to it more often than he referred to a single policy. There was not one single policy in the current co-leader’s opening address to Parliament for his first year as leader. There was no substance, no policy, and no wood beneath what is increasingly a stained veneer. The speech was hollow, shallow, and surprisingly nasty.

That was the alternative vision that John Key provided to the House and to the country. So where does he stand on the key issues facing our country? Where does National stand? Helen Clark outlined the key challenges, and provided not only a vision of how to tackle those issues but a substantial programme of action, as well. Where does the current co-leader of the National Party stand on climate change? Well, just 18 months ago John Key said: “This is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so.” He went on to say: “The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured in to fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem.”

That was John Key on climate change. He was not reported and possibly misinterpreted in a newspaper report. No, the comments were made in this very House, put on tape, recorded by our extraordinarily accurate Hansard reporters, and signed off as correct. But by the end of last year the very same John Key said: “I firmly believe in climate change, and I always have.” Short-term memory loss is not a good attribute for a leader of any political party.

Steve Chadwick: Flip-flop.

Hon RUTH DYSON: To not remember what one has said on the record in the House is a very bad look, and it is by no means the only issue that John Key has flipped on.

Aspiring and current leaders of political parties cannot afford to do flip-flops on any, let alone every, policy issue. People want and deserve to know what we as politicians, on putting ourselves up for election in our country, believe in. With regard to John Key’s policy position, it is, frankly, like picking up mercury with chopsticks. We just think we have a handle on it and have it, and it slides around to the other end of the bowl. It just depends who the audience is, and who he thinks will be most impressed by the comments he makes. A divided leadership presiding over a very divided caucus cannot expect to have any credibility, and that is exactly what the English-Key nightmare team is delivering to New Zealand.

I return to the Prime Minister’s address. We were given clear and strong leadership. We were given not only the big picture, a vision of where New Zealand needs to be in the future, but also a detailed understanding of the challenges that are facing us now and in the future. We heard from the Prime Minister an unequivocal commitment to fair and inclusive policies in our country. We saw demonstrated by the Prime Minister a pride in our country and a belief in our ability not only to continue to improve the lives of all New Zealanders but also to lead the world. Our Prime Minister knows we can, and she shows that pride and commitment. She gave us our nuclear free policy as an example, where for over 20 years we have held our heads high and led the change in world opinion on nuclear issues. And we can do the same on building a sustainable nation. But that will not happen without a vision, without clear goals, or without Government leadership—or, as the Prime Minister said in the House this afternoon: “The invisible hand of the market does not deliver a sustainable nation,”.

It is clear from the response of the co-leader of the National Party that he does not have even a basic understanding of sustainability. Sure, it is about the environment, but it is also about our economy, it is about our society, it is about New Zealand culture, and it is about our way of life. It is about our nation and New Zealand citizens—their quality of life, their opportunity, and their security. It is about their ability to get a job and to be secure in that employment, to have a chance to improve their lives, to have a home, whether owned or rented, and to be a contributing part of their community—to be a valued citizen in a fair and inclusive society.

That is the vision that the Labour-Progressive Government, working with New Zealand First, working with United Future, working with the Greens, working with the Māori Party, will continue to deliver. Every single New Zealand citizen will have an opportunity to contribute, whether or not he or she is picked up in the back of a Crown limo, or whether or not he or she was born into a low-income family. Our aim is a replica of the aims of the first Labour Government, where the primary form of security for every New Zealand citizen was having the right to a job. Thousands and thousands more New Zealanders are now in a job than ever before in our nation’s history, and more of those New Zealanders are in jobs with security.

Every year since we became the Government we have increased the minimum wage. Those people who start off in low-income employment at least now have the opportunity to see their wages increase as they go through that annual cycle. This is unlike the Government led by Dr Mapp’s party, where for the whole of its 9 years in Government it increased the minimum wage in total by $1. The minimum wage increase in the total 9 years of the National Government was one single dollar! That is a disgrace. At the same time National ensured that State houses up and down the country were sold off, and people who were in the remaining State houses were moved on to market rents. People on lower incomes were paying a higher and higher percentage of their wages in rent. That is what Shane Ardern was talking about. That is what is not sustainable in New Zealand. That is what the National Party offers. That is what New Zealand citizens were delivered in the 1990s, and that is what our Government seeks to continue to address—that every citizen is valued, and that we do have a truly fair and inclusive society.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National): We have just listened to a speech of personal denigration from a Labour member who earlier eschewed that as an appropriate approach. I deplore it. We have an opportunity in this part of the parliamentary process to make a reasoned contribution to issues of concern to the country. I would also like to join with others in welcoming Katrina Shanks to this Parliament. I am certain that by her unstinting loyalty, her diligence, and her contribution this Parliament will be enormously enriched.

Last year the Government told us about “economic transformation”. It is a great phrase, and at first blush the rhetoric is compelling. But the objective has been hollowed out by the abject failure of the Government to develop the strategies to implement the objective. It remains one of the Government’s three key priority areas identified by Cabinet for the next decade. But economic transformation has now gone, it seems, from the Government’s agenda, to be replaced by “sustainability”.

As the media have commented, and others have drawn attention to the fact, the word “sustainability” was used apparently 33 times in the Prime Minister’s speech today, and sometimes in a meaningless way. The Prime Minister said this at one point in her speech, which I think is well illustrative of what I am saying: “In the future, business overall will need to be sustainable to make money …”. What does that mean? That is a nonsense. Clearly, to continue in business one needs to make a profit, but now we are confusing a concept instead of focusing on what sustainability is truly about. In fact, the phrase “economic transformation” is used only once in her speech in its scripted form as a heading to a section that includes that particular comment. It is to the topic of that comment that I wish to devote the balance of my speaking time.

Under the heading “Economic Transformation” the Prime Minister said: “Export Year 2007 is under way, with extra funding for market development grants, more targeted trade missions, and business-Government collaboration around export focused events and forums.” Of course, we are in Export Year this year. Collectively, our export endeavours trail dismally behind those of other OECD countries, including smaller players such as Finland or Ireland. A discussion paper has recently been produced by the New Zealand Institute, entitled The Flight of the Kiwi: Going global from the end of the world. It is noted that our exports to GDP ratio are now 28 percent, compared with a small OECD country average of 54 percent. The level of our foreign direct investment is equally unimpressive. It is sitting at about 10 percent of GDP ratio, compared with a developed country average of 27 percent. These are bad statistics. Although the rest of the world has been engaged more vigorously in increasingly globalised markets, New Zealand seems very dangerously stuck in a commodity rut.

A later paper by the New Zealand Institute—this follow-up report is called Competing to Win: An external strategy for a changed world—found that there has been little change in New Zealand’s export composition. Unlike countries such as Finland, which has shifted its export mix from trees to telephony—electronics—we have not developed any substantial new strengths over the past couple of decades. The report states: Bluntly put, New Zealand is not participating in the globalisation process to the same extent as most other developed countries.”

If we are to be a world-class economy and if we are to enjoy First World status, we have to earn it internationally. A relatively small number of New Zealand companies are heavily engaged in international trade. The latest tallies show that just 151 firms are responsible for 78 percent of our exports, and just one company, Fonterra, accounts for about a fifth of our export total. Only 590 firms export more than $5 million per annum, and in the past financial year just 17 percent of New Zealand businesses had export sales. So the focus in Export Year has to be one that has as its genesis a long-term commitment. It is about Government and private industry representatives working together to find lasting solutions so that we can build a sustainable way to feed the export drive, because we need to catch up. I believe that the balance within the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise group is flawed. We should be looking at extending market help for exporters.

It is a sadness that on 30 November 2006, Export Year, the Government announced its initiatives, and 18 identified initiatives were announced on that day. If we look at those specific initiatives, we see that mentoring was one, but no details have been provided as yet; exporter education—no details as yet; the tertiary export diploma plan—no details as yet; the exporters documentation online portal—no details yet; a bigger presence for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in Asia—no details yet; the path to the market, Australia—no details yet; international education—no details yet; and then, trade strategy, post-Doha World Trade Organization talks—no details yet. And this is the much heralded and much trumpeted Export Year 2007!

I believe we have gone seriously astray in an initiative that could have been so successful. We need to ask New Zealand Trade and Enterprise some hard questions. The sorts of questions I believe we need to ask are: has the dollar value of New Zealand manufactured exports grown? Is it right that the Manufacturing Plus vision has been dumped? How many clients does New Zealand Trade and Enterprise have? Has the client base grown? How many New Zealand residents have asked for help from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s offshore offices? Has the number grown? What have the outcomes been?

Dianne Yates: It’s in the annual report.

Dr RICHARD WORTH: To correct what Dianne Yates has just said, it is not in the annual report. These are looming gaps that have been identified by the chief executive of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

But there are other questions. How many international companies have asked New Zealand Trade and Enterprise for help? How many have visited New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s website? How many have been converted to clients? Another question is whether New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has undertaken customer satisfaction surveys. What are the results, say, in 2005 versus a future date? None of these questions is in the public domain, yet we must be certain that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—in respect of which substantial sums of money have been pumped—is doing what it should be doing for the good of New Zealand.

I express huge disappointment, on behalf of the National Party, for the grand plan of economic transformation, which has clearly gone awry. That is well illustrated by where Export Year currently is. I hope the word “sustainability” will actually be a call to action, not—as it seems to be—an oft-repeated slogan word without any true meaning at all.

SUE BRADFORD (Green): In responding to the Prime Minister’s statement earlier today I first of all echo the words of our co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons in congratulating Labour on putting sustainability at the top of its political agenda for 2007. I also reiterate that sustainability needs to be in the middle and at the end of the agenda as well.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister when she states: “Meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance, not slogans.” Certainly, the challenges require a lot more substance than we saw in John Key’s first big speech a couple of weeks ago. I also agree with the Prime Minister that the invisible hand of the market does not deliver a sustainable nation. However, I would also note that the market does not deliver a just or an equitable nation either. This is why democracy has evolved, and why an important part of democracy is not only the parliamentary process but also the ability of Governments to intervene in society, the economy, and the environment to bring about a just, equitable, and sustainable future for all.

The Prime Minister says: “Can we do better and move to eradicate child poverty? That is certainly my dream—but let us not dismiss the huge progress which has been made in that direction.” I agree with the Prime Minister that we should not dismiss the progress that has been made, but at the same time it is incumbent on all parties in the House to acknowledge that child and adult poverty, debt, and housing insecurity are still a reality for far too many people in this country. The eradication of poverty in this country does not need to be a dream. It can be addressed through “substance, not slogans”, and through political will and determination.

From National and ACT I would like to see a genuine acknowledgment that the genesis of the growth of poverty and inequity in this country in this generation occurred in the period when the ACT party actually controlled the Labour Government, from 1984 to 1989, followed by the even more socially destructive policies of the Bolger, Birch, Shipley, and Richardson National-led Government. I find it ironic that the National Party has only recently discovered that New Zealand has a so-called underclass. This underclass will be dissolved not through Tory charity but through full employment, decent wages, and adequate benefits for those who are unable to work.

I see nothing in the National Party industrial relations and welfare policies that will bring this about. In fact, I see the opposite, in so far as current National Party policies in these areas can be identified at all. Returning to failed work-for-the-dole programmes would simply further oppress and marginalise those who are already most disenfranchised. Getting business to provide school lunches and access to sports for some low-income kids will not deal with the fundamental structural issues, at all.

However, Labour also has a long way to go. The latest amendments to the Social Security Act make frightening changes to the very purpose of our welfare system. Working for Families continues to discriminate against the children of beneficiaries. The loss of the discretion contained in the special benefit continues to be felt hard in low-income families around the country. In their rush to make access to paid employment the only worthy thing to aspire to in life, neither Labour nor National seem to have any sense left that caring for children at home or working as a volunteer in the community while on a benefit are actually worthwhile occupations in themselves. Both parties appear driven to continue with an income support system whose administration is, in places, rife with an ethos of harassment, inequity between regions and offices, and structural racial discrimination.

The Labour Government is to be congratulated on regulating for the biggest increases ever in the minimum wage. However, the minimum wage is still not high enough. We still have a large number of working poor in this country—an irony after 7 years of Labour-led Governments. I am alarmed at the recent hysteria from the Reserve Bank and some other bank economists that wage rises of 3.2 percent over the last year are somehow economically unsustainable. If New Zealand has a goal of incomes being in the top half of the OECD, wage increases of 30 percent—not 3 percent—would be needed, especially for the lowest paid. I would hate to think that our goal to move up the OECD was simply a slogan without substance. How will we move up the OECD ladder if the Reserve Bank chokes the economy every time that wages move? I am very glad to see that the Reserve Bank and Treasury suggestion floated last week—to put a levy on mortgages—has died a remarkably quick death, a death it so richly deserved.

On another topic altogether, I was also pleased to note that the Prime Minister supports strengthening the SKIP programme, which teaches positive parenting and alternatives to the physical discipline of children, and that she hopes Parliament will repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act as proposed in my member’s bill currently before this House. I sincerely hope this sentiment expressed by the Prime Minister today will go beyond words and transform into the reality of Labour votes when the second reading and what I hope will be subsequent debates on section 59 take place in the House over the next couple of months.

I now turn to one of the two areas where the Green Party is part of the Government: to Buy Kiwi Made, where I have the honour of being Government spokesperson. After a somewhat testy and testing beginning, the Green and Labour Parties are now working very cooperatively on Buy Kiwi Made initiatives within the Government. Although not specifically mentioned today, Buy Kiwi Made sits firmly within two of the Government’s priorities highlighted in the Prime Minister’s speech: economic transformation and national identity. There will be some tensions between global and local responses to issues such as employment, trade, balance of payments, sustainability, and carbon emissions. However, if these tensions are creative and not destructive, then we will go a long way to addressing the challenges that this country faces.

Some members of the House will have attended the first New Zealand Made Showcase, which was held in the Banquet Hall of Parliament at the beginning of November last year. Similar showcases will be held in Dunedin, Christchurch, Napier, New Plymouth, Hamilton, and Auckland over the next few months. At the present time the first round of applications are open to groups of firms or organisations to access the $3 million sector and regional fund to promote New Zealand - made products. In early March the Ministry of Economic Development will launch the Buy Kiwi Made website. Together with the Minister for Economic Development, Trevor Mallard, I hope within the next month to announce the timetable for the centrepiece of the Buy Kiwi Made programme: the media marketing campaign.

The other part of the Buy Kiwi Made programme that connects to today’s Prime Minister’s statement is in the area of Government procurement. The Buy Kiwi Made vote has already allocated $500,000 to help establish a Government Procurement Development Group within the Ministry of Economic Development. I have been working closely on Government procurement issues with the Minister of Commerce, Lianne Dalziel. Within a month we will announce a new strategic approach to Government procurement that will both address the sustainability issues raised by the Prime Minister today and ensure that Government procurement can be improved to make a greater contribution to economic development, particularly in supporting small and medium enterprises and innovation—in short, to give New Zealand firms and products a fair go. I am hopeful that once the Government Procurement Development Group is fully functional we will hear far fewer stories of disgruntled New Zealand manufacturers who feel let down by Government procurement decisions. For example, it would be good if we could honour war veterans with badges made here, not overseas.

Finally, I would like to just mention an area that is critical to the Government’s sustainability goals but has been ignored for far too long. I am referring to coastal shipping. Shipping is the most environmentally friendly form of transporting goods around the globe and around New Zealand. Since the abolition of cabotage, the New Zealand coastal shipping industry has been almost destroyed. However, a few brave participants remain. Now that we have to care about our carbon footprint, and now that the multinational shippers who nearly destroyed our coastal shipping have announced they are going to visit fewer and fewer ports, coastal shipping is back on the agenda. I commend the New Zealand Shipping Federation for its report Roadways to Waterways, and I commend the Maritime Union of New Zealand for its unswerving advocacy on behalf of workers in the industry. I am also pleased to see that the Minister of Transport, Annette King, is taking this issue seriously. There need to be some major Budget announcements to kick-start the coastal shipping industry. I hope I am not disappointed in this when the Budget is read in this House in a few months’ time. Nurturing our home-grown coastal shipping industry is absolutely critical if the Government is really serious about dealing with the impacts of peak oil and climate change.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce): In her statement the Prime Minister said that meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance, not slogans. That was followed by John Key’s first major parliamentary address as the Leader of the Opposition—and I looked for the substance. I listened really hard for the substance, but I could not hear any substance from that member, at all, despite the fact that by convention he was given the Prime Minister’s speech 4 hours before she even delivered it in the House. He obviously had not even read it by the time he got to the House.

The bottom line is that this was another test for John Key, and he has failed that test, along with every other test he has faced since becoming the Leader of the Opposition. And I have to say that he has failed another test, because there have been a few he has failed. Let me suggest a few rules for the new Leader of the Opposition. Rule number one: he should not condemn the Government without having a policy proposition to address the issue he is condemning. Would that not be a good idea? If we had heard one policy from the Opposition today I would have felt relieved. I would have thought that changing the leader of the National Party might have brought some good, but, no, there was nothing—not a sausage, not one single policy. Rule number two: he should not condemn the Government for something that occurred when his own party was in Government, because, actually, we know the truth about what has been going on in terms of some of the things that have been said recently. I will come to that in a minute.

Rule number three—and this should actually be rule number one, because I think this is the most important rule of all—he should not appoint as his deputy the person he promised to vote for as a leader but then did not, which cost that person his job. I do not think that is a very good idea, because guess who he has for a deputy if he does that? He has his biggest enemy sitting right beside him. I can say that I know that Bill English despises John Key and that he will do unto John Key what was done unto him by John Key. Mark my words! The bottom line is that Bill English is already running around telling everyone that he wrote the Burnside speech. He is telling people that he wrote that speech because he did not trust his leader to get it right.

I do not want to spend any time on the Burnside speech, but I do want to make the following points. I was born and bred in Christchurch, as well, in the next suburb over from Bryndwr. In fact, I went to primary school in Bryndwr. Bryndwr was never a poor suburb. In fact, more State houses were sold in Bryndwr by the last National Government than were sold in any other Christchurch suburb. Why? Because Bryndwr has never been a poor suburb. Labour has always had a policy of putting State houses in different parts of the community so as not to build up areas where people are trapped in poverty. But, oh no! What we see is this person trading off a reputation of coming from this poor suburb. Bryndwr was never poor.

Bryndwr should be contrasted with another suburb of Christchurch, and I want to contrast it with Aranui. Aranui is in my electorate of Christchurch East, and I am very proud of what that suburb has achieved in the last 7 years. I became the MP for Christchurch East in 1999 as Labour formed a Government after 9 long years of a National Government. The suburb of Aranui was in a parlous state when Labour became the Government. There had been years of neglect by a National Government. It had imposed market rents on a suburb that could not generate market incomes from its position of bargaining, having suffered the worst consequences of the Employment Contracts Act and the failure of the National Government to increase the minimum wage every year, as we have done since we took office. Members should look at what the suburb was like in that time. It was overwhelmed by unemployment. It had a poor health status and it had a low standard of educational achievement. The problems that the suburb of Aranui was being expected to confront seemed insurmountable in 1999.

Today, in 2007, Aranui is totally unrecognisable in terms of that description. It is so far ahead of where it was 7 years ago. I am surprised we have achieved so much in those 7 years. The suburb of Aranui has been completely transformed. This is not something that the Government did to Aranui; it is something that Aranui did with the Government, in partnership. A partnership was formed, signed, and agreed between the community of Aranui as a partner with the Christchurch City Council and the Government through Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development. This has really shown the strength of partnership in community renewal that has been extraordinary in its breadth and depth.

I remember meeting with the Aranui community in the year 2000, telling it that the new Government wanted to try something completely new and that it wanted to work with the community to help it to rebuild itself. I remember the cynicism of the people in that community. They did not believe me. They did not think there would be any change, at all, because they remembered what other politicians had told them. Bill Birch had said that the Employment Contracts Act would give them freedom of choice and the ability to negotiate better wages and conditions with their employers. I remember Ruth Richardson cutting their benefits. I remember Simon Upton putting cash registers in hospitals. I remember John Luxton and the market rents that drove the price of State housing out of the reach of ordinary New Zealanders. Housing New Zealand is the biggest single landlord in Aranui. The market rents did not just cripple the individual tenants, they crippled the entire community.

Less than 7 years later, the Aranui community is no longer cynical about what a Government can do when it listens to what a community needs, when it listens to a community’s own priorities, and when it sets about to systematically rebuild a community, in partnership with that community. Aranui is living proof that this Government is doing everything that needs to be done to make a dramatic difference. I can say that the difference is dramatic and we will keep doing it. Many more people in Aranui are now working, both in part-time and full-time jobs. The introduction of the Employment Relations Act has made a difference to many of the wages and conditions of employment. The significant increases in the minimum wage every year make a difference in Aranui.

The new houses being built by Housing New Zealand are both warm and safe. They have been built to energy efficiency standards that simply were not around in the days when the original buildings were built. The park has been redeveloped by the community. A new road has been put in behind the park to make sure it is opened up and safe for everyone to use—driving down Hampshire Street and into Ben Rārere Road. Ben Rārere Road never existed under a National Government. It has been built only now. No one would think this was a community that had suffered the deprivation it suffered from during the 1990s.

I wonder whether John Key has ever been to Aranui. I am sure that he has not, because he could not have said what he did in his Burnside speech if he had. A pilot project with the Canterbury District Health Board in the electorate where Aranui is has come to an end. That community is now so strong that it went out and got a private sector partner to fund the nursing project at the same time as trialling new diagnostic technology. It is absolutely extraordinary. This community, which had nothing going for it, now has everything going for it.

I listened to John Key in the House today and did not hear him resile himself from any of the policies of the 1990s that drove communities like Aranui to the brink. If National had won the last election we would have seen the restoration of market rents for State house tenants, we would have seen further sales of State houses, and we would have seen a return to a minimum wage that was not increased every year. If National had won the last election we would have seen the extra $10 per week per child that comes in on 1 April this year scrapped. That is the truth of it. John Key has said nothing in this House that gives us any confidence that anything would change.

Hon TAU HENARE (National): First, I offer my condolences to Helen Duncan’s whānau for their loss and this House’s loss. I also congratulate my colleague Katrina Shanks on entering Parliament—somewhat late, but better late than never.

After listening to the last speech people would have thought that for the last 7 years we have not had a Labour Government. It is as if the Government last year was the Government of Jim Bolger or Jenny Shipley. What has happened in the last 7 years? Let me tell the House what has happened in that great suburb of Aranui. It has got a road! According to the last speaker, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, it has got a road.

I was born in 1960 in a place called Ōtara.

Pita Paraone: It’s a great place Ōtara.

Hon TAU HENARE: My colleague and relation Mr Pita Paraone, who did some sterling work there when there was a Department of Māori Affairs, would know that Ōtara was a poverty-stricken area. There were State houses for miles. Let us come forward to 2007. In fact, let us look at the last 7 years of this Government and, my goodness me, Ōtara still has State houses as far as one can see. The people in Ōtara are still as poor as church mice. They are still as poor as they were back in the 1960s. In fact, more people in Ōtara had jobs in the 1960s than they do now.

What we have heard all day, from the Prime Minister down, is a pack of old you-know-what. I am talking about how Labour members have been able to spin their way out of all the rubbish that has been put forward today by the Prime Minister.

She mentioned the word “sustainability” 33 times today. What does that mean? Let me tell the House what it means. It means keeping people in poverty. It means keeping people in the trap of State housing, so they cannot get out and so they become voting fodder for the Labour Party and its socialist mates. That is all. They are voting fodder for Labour’s mates from the union and its mates in the Socialist Unity Party, for goodness’ sake—that is, if that party is still going. The Green member shakes her head but I ask her to tell me how many of the people who were living in Ōtara and Porirua in the 1960s are any better off today under this lot—not one of them. They are in a poverty trap and they are just voting fodder for the likes of the Labour Party.

We have heard nothing but slogans, slogans, and more slogans—

Sue Bradford: What are your policies?

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, so it is up to the Opposition now to run the country. We are being blamed by that member, who is asking where our policies are and what we are going to do. This is what we are going to do: we are going to kick out that lot and bring prosperity back to this nation. That is what this country needs. In the last 7 years the economic indicators have all been going in the right way, except this Government has put on the brakes. It has put the brakes on going downhill. In fact, it has put the brakes on going uphill, if one can believe that.

I congratulate the Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia. In the 35 to 40-minute speech made by the Prime Minister today I heard the word Māori once and I heard of a great developmental scheme for Māori. It is planting bloody forests, again! Let us turn our heads back to the 1970s to the Ngāti Hine area where there was a great scheme called the Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust. The people gave up their land—although some of them did not give up their land; it was sort of sequestered a wee bit—and now, 35 years later, they are going to cut the forests. Do our people have to wait another 35 years just to get some money or something out of Ngāti Porou forests? Is that all the Government has in terms of Māori development?

What about the poor statistics in education that were released yesterday by researcher Professor Bishop? There was not a mention of the 2,779 Māori boys who fail at National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 1, then leave without a qualification. There was not a murmur, not a mutter. Nothing was said about those poor kids. Government members sit there looking like stunned mullets. In 7 years what have they done for those boys? They have done absolutely nothing. Fifty-three percent of Māori boys leave school—

Sue Moroney: Better than it was!

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, so 53 percent of Māori boys leave school without a qualification and Sue Moroney says that it is better than it was under National. Actually, she is wrong. All the statistics say that when National was the Government 7 years ago more people—more Māori boys—were leaving school with a qualification than now.

Why has that happened? It is because Labour members do not care. All they care about is getting a new fan-dangled car from Ministerial Services. Who cares whether it is a Ford Fairlane, or whatever. What I care about, and what I am sure the Māori Party and New Zealand First care about, are the 2,779 kids who leave school without a qualification. What are we going to do about that? It is all right making excuses and going back to the time of Shipley, Bolger, and whoever else was in the House 9 or 10 years ago, but what about last year? What happened in the last 7 years? Let me tell members that nothing has happened in the last 7 years.

If we were to have asked the man in the street about the Prime Minister’s speech today he would have replied: “Who? What was it about?”. He would not have understood what language that woman was talking in today. She talked about national identity, for goodness’ sake. What did she say about national identity? She talked about national identity and linked it up with sustainability, global warning and all that tommyrot—not what we are inside, not the cultures that make up this nation. She did not have a word to say about that. She mentioned the tangata whenua once, for goodness’ sake! I am bowled over by the speech of the Prime Minister.

But let me tell all members this. At 2.30 this afternoon during the Prime Minister’s speech the Minister of Māori Affairs nodded off for at least 10 minutes. That is the sort of riveting speech that the Prime Minister gave; one of her top Ministers—and if he is one of her top Ministers, boy, we are all in trouble—nodded off for at least 10 minutes.

Phil Goff came into the House and he said he was proud that thousands of New Zealanders are on part-time work. He said thousands of people are actually doing casual work. He was proud that hundreds and hundreds of people have been shifted from the unemployment benefit over to the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit. That is what Phil Goff is proud of.

When did Mr Goff, the member of Parliament for the area, go to McGehan Close? When did he go there? Oh, that is right—it was the day before John Key went into that street. Why did he go there? He got the wobblies because he was a bit afraid that he had never been there in his whole time of being a member of Parliament. That is why. He was scared. He was embarrassed. He was shown up in no uncertain terms by John Key, the Leader of the National Party—and well done to John Key. There is an underclass in this country and members ignore it at their peril. Its people still live in the areas of Ōtara, the Flaxmeres, and the Poriruas, and we had better do something about it before it is too late.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): Well, today has been all about leadership. It has been no contest really, because the woman who does not need to prove that she is a world leader, a leader of world quality, Helen Clark, just proved it yet again with her speech to the House today. Helen Clark continues to lead from the front. She leads from the front because she does it decisively and she does it with principle. Once again that was proven. She talked about the substantial gains that New Zealand has already made, but is she resting on her laurels? Is this Government resting on its laurels because substantial gains have been made? No way, because we are setting our sights on new goals. We have new targets to set.

One of those targets is about environmental sustainability. That is right, it is about environmental sustainability. If we talk to anyone out on the streets in New Zealand they will say that that is a key issue for them. The Government, of course, will lead by example. Yes, it is the public service that will, in a world-leading move, ensure that the 39 core public service departments will begin immediate work to achieve carbon neutrality. That is part of a Labour-led Government’s push towards sustainability. The Government will also lead in buying eco-friendly goods and services. Businesses that provide sustainable goods and services will be the winners in this campaign. And yes, the Government will lead by example in ensuring that ministerial cars will meet tougher emission standards. So the Government is leading from the front—that is, leading by example.

Helen Clark outlined two other key areas today—challenges that we have to ensure we can sustain family and community living standards. An example of that was the announcement we have coming up on 1 July that will ensure all 25 to 44-year-olds will have lower doctors’ fees. It will complete the coverage of lower doctors’ fees for all age groups in New Zealand. The third area Helen Clark outlined was a programme to sustain our unique culture, our values, and, yes, our national identity.

Here is why only Labour can deliver on these goals. Helen Clark said that delivering on these goals requires “smart, active Government working with key stakeholders across the economy and society”. Labour has proven time and time again that it is the Labour Government that can actually do that. If one is looking for smart, active Government, then one must look to this side of the House.

We are looking at leadership today. By contrast, what was the swaggering best-man-at-the-wedding-type speech about from John Key? Would anyone buy a second-hand car from that man, let alone let him run our precious country? He talked about stripteases in his speech. He treated climate change with derision. Then he showed his contempt for New Zealand families, and this is how he showed that contempt.

This year Labour introduces 20 hours of free early childhood education for all 3 and 4-year-olds. What was John Key’s response to this policy in his speech? Well, there was a kind of gloating response where he hoped that the providers would not buy into that scheme. He was egging on providers to reject the 20 hours of free early childhood education. So what does he have against women? What does he have against hard-working families? What he was trying to bring on with that speech was to ensure that hard-working families do not get 20 hours of free early childhood education. Lots of people came up to me over the summer adjournment and talked about how important that 20 hours of free early childhood education will be to them. Families have told me that it will improve their income by $120 or $150 a week—and these are people with just one child for whom those 20 hours will be available.

I welcome the new member for the National Party, Katrina Shanks. She adds to the number of women in this Parliament. But please, could she do something with her leader, because the other women in her caucus have not been able to. She should talk to him about why he should not be using language like “striptease” in his speech, and why he should not egg on providers to not give women 20 hours of free early childhood education. These are some of the issues that the women in the National Party really need to start talking to their leader about, because it is not working. New Zealand families will come to understand very quickly how much John Key wants to ensure that they do not get those benefits.

Then there was the strange debacle with Mr Key and the Māori Party earlier this year, whereby Māori Party members seemed genuinely to understand that John Key had told them that National would keep the Māori seats intact. Well, they were wrong. When Mr Key was asked by the media why he had flip-flopped on his position on this matter, he said simply that he was trying to be polite when he talked with Māori Party members. Perhaps that is why they got the wrong impression of what he really meant to say—because he was just being polite. New Zealand voters should remember this. When they hear what they think Mr Key is telling them he wants to deliver, perhaps that is just John Key being polite. Perhaps he is telling that audience what he thinks it wants to hear.

It is interesting; my colleague Lianne Dalziel was talking about the aspirations of the deputy leader, Bill English. I had the opportunity, again over the summer adjournment, to share a platform with the Hon Bill English. It was at the Parachute festival at Hamilton in the Waikato. We were on a platform in front of about 3,000 people—a huge number of people to whom I thought Mr English could have espoused the treasures of his new leader. He should have been promoting his new leader. I was looking forward to hearing what he would be saying about Mr Key. Not one word did he utter to that audience of 3,000 people about the new leader, John Key. He never mentioned Mr Key’s name once. What he did talk to them about was his own member’s bill. He thought that bill was the best thing he could promote to that audience of 3,000—not his own new leader.

There are no policies coming out from the National Party, and again, with Mr Key’s speech, that was clearly obvious—not one policy. Anyone reading The Hollow Men over the summer adjournment will understand why. Clearly, with the rifts and divisions in the National Party caucus, those members simply cannot agree on any policy. So their strategy is to have as little policy as possible and no discussion, because that would expose the rifts. In any case, they know that if the New Zealand public knew what they really wanted to deliver, they would be unelectable. So their strategy is: “Please, say anything, but no policy.”

I will finish with a story that I think shows the key differences between the Labour Government and what the National Party wants to offer this country.

Chris Tremain: Is it about racehorses?

SUE MORONEY: No, it is not about racehorses, but that is a good story in itself, because the Labour Government has done much more for the racing industry than the National Government ever did. But this story is about Waharoa, a mainly Māori community just north of Matamata. During the reign of the last National Government, I was part of a group of people who formed a human ring of protection around State houses there to stop them being picked up in the middle of the night, as was happening, and being shipped up to properties in Auckland—they were State houses—so the Government could charge higher market rents for them. State houses were being taken out of poor communities and shipped up to Auckland, in order to make money at market rates.

But here is the good news. Under this Labour Government, new State houses are being built on those same bare sections where National got away with lifting State houses and taking them to Auckland. That is the difference between the two parties in Government. That is a story of success and it is making a real difference in this country.

Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote): Firstly, I would like to welcome my new colleague, Katrina Shanks, to the Chamber. It would have been a bit disappointing for her to have to sit through that pretty average Prime Minister’s statement earlier today. I assure her that on some days speeches can be a lot better, but those speeches always come from this side of the House.

The Prime Minister stated this afternoon that meeting the challenges our country faces requires substance, not slogans. But all that the Prime Minister’s statement really gave New Zealanders this afternoon was the Government’s latest fatuous slogan for 2007—sustainability. She mentioned that slogan 33 times, and, frankly, it was dispersed throughout the most downbeat, slow-paced speech I have yet heard her deliver. It was delivered to a subdued caucus, and it was quite noticeable that the Minister of Māori Affairs was failing to sustain consciousness throughout the whole effort.

The only sustainable thing about this Government is its desire to stay in power, and it wants to hang on to power at all costs. But tonight the sustainability of this very Government must be in doubt, with the news that Taito Phillip Field has forced Helen Clark’s hand, and Labour, finally, against all the odds, is preparing to cut him adrift. After all the months of defending him, all the months of saying he was innocent until proven guilty, and even after setting up an inquiry that the Prime Minister knew was never going to yield a transparent result, the Prime Minister has finally admitted that Mr Field’s behaviour was immoral, unethical, and unacceptable. But even after that admission on radio yesterday, the Prime Minister was prepared to hang on to his vote and cynically cling to power. She was prepared to do so until Taito Phillip Field did the simply unsustainable: he criticised the Labour Party and, by implication, the Prime Minister herself. After doing that, he simply had to go.

Bob Clarkson: He told the truth.

Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: He did.

This Government is out of ideas. There are only 35 items on the Order Paper, and at the rate this Parliament is going to get through them I would say we could well be out of here for the year by June. The Prime Minister herself had an hour allotted for her speech today, and she took up only 35 minutes. If that is not an indication of a Government that is out of ideas and out of puff, I do not know what is.

We heard that slogan of sustainability, but what about all the slogans of the past? Last year the slogan of the day was “economic transformation”. One could not go anywhere where a Labour Minister was speaking without hearing about economic transformation. It was being linked to all sorts of spurious things like health policy and occupational health and safety legislation, but why do we not hear that any more? The simple fact is Labour knows that it cannot deliver on that economic transformation. It is a bit like the goal of getting New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD. We do not hear about that any more, because we are in the bottom third of the OECD. That does not make quite such a good sound bite. It is a faded aspiration. Labour has given up on that goal of getting this country back into the top half of the OECD. The reality is that the gap in earnings between people in this country and people in Australia is growing all the time. It has become worse in the past 7 years, so Labour knows that it has failed in that concrete goal it set itself at the beginning of this term of Government.

The Government’s promise of 20 hours of free childcare will be a harder slogan to bury, but clearly the promise is not catching on. In the Northcote electorate, which I represent, only 3 percent of early childhood centres are going to take up the Government’s offer, because the people of those centres can see through it. They know that it is not the deal that it appeared to be. They know it is a Labour broken promise. It will be low-cost, low-quality childcare, so sensible childhood centres are not prepared to take the punt and offer that service.

What about closing the gaps? No one in the Labour caucus would dare to utter that slogan any more. Do members remember that? It has now become an unmentionable. Why? Because it was a failed policy; it was nothing more than a slogan. What about Mr Maharey’s favourite word, “investment”? Investment was a term that covered all sorts of wasteful Government spending. It covered the increasing number of people going on to sickness benefits. It covered the increasing bureaucracy in the public service. We were told this was not Government spending; it was “investment”. But was there any sign of a dividend? There was not. Are we hearing about investment now? No, because people know that it is failing and reflects poorly on the Government.

But this Government is hoping that sustainability might just work as a slogan; it might just work as a concept. The reason for that is that it is a sort of nebulous concept. It is not easy to pin down. We cannot really measure sustainability, and it is a goal that is so far out that the Government will never be held to account.

I guess one could add to this list of slogans the latest trendy Labour catchphrase, “carbon neutrality”. The Government says it is aiming for carbon neutrality but, quite frankly, it is neglecting to put the facts before the people. The reality is that we are now burning three times more coal to produce electricity than we were in 1999, and 85 percent of our new electricity generation since 1999 has come from coal. How will the Government turn that into a carbon neutral situation? Well, that will be pretty interesting to see. Even worse, we are now chopping down more trees in New Zealand than we are planting each year, and our emission rates are growing faster than those of Australia and the United States. The reality is that carbon neutrality in a Government department or ministry might sound all very well, but unless this Government is serious about bringing India and China into line, it is just going to be a joke of a campaign. It sounds good on the surface, but carbon neutrality in a Government ministry means absolutely nothing.

The point is that all this spin doctor jargon, and the language that this Government has used in the Prime Minister’s statement today, just reflects a Government that is increasingly out of touch with the grassroots. We get a headline demonstration of the extent of that probably about twice a week these days. Helen Clark is prepared to try to deny the existence of an underclass. She denies that kids in New Zealand are going to school without enough food to eat. She denies that they are going to school without breakfast and going to school without lunches. Yet the experts are saying that 80,000 children every day are going to school in exactly that state. If that is not an embarrassment for those Labour members, I do not know what is. I would say it would be an embarrassment to traditional Labour supporters, and they are going to desert that party in droves at the next election.

Interestingly, when Labour members were talking about this—[Interruption] I say to Mr Barker that he does not look very hungry. I am sure he gets breakfast every day. When Labour members were talking last week on breakfast television about the cause of this situation, John Minto—who would have to be described as no friend of the right—when asked why this was happening, said that it was because incomes were so low in this country. What is this Government going to do to try to raise incomes? The answer is nothing, because the incomes of people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale have not increased after 9 years of a Labour Government.

The second example of the Labour public relations disaster is the mortgage levy hash. If there were anything that displayed how out of touch these Ministers and this Prime Minister are with the average person working away on the average income of $42,000, it would be the mortgage levy debacle. When one is Helen Clark and living in a mortgage-free Mt Eden villa, a mortgage must seem like something from years ago. No doubt she is totally freehold. No doubt it is a levy she would never have to pay. No doubt, of course, it is a levy that Dr Cullen would not be paying, either.

But one thing that is clearly sustainable is the growing rift between Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. Michael Cullen is getting ready to give his last Budget.

Russell Fairbrother: Ha, ha!

Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mr Fairbrother may laugh, but he saw how quickly his leader slammed down the Minister of Finance straight after he made that mess-up on the mortgage levy stuff, just like she had to slam down Mike Williams last week when he said Labour might not pay the money back, after all.

The reality is that Helen Clark is having to take control of portfolios all over the place because there is a big rift between Government Ministers and the leader. We are going to see a lot more of that developing over the next 18 months as this Labour Government struggles through on its last legs.

So the situation we have is that of a Government that today sent out a pretty empty statement of its intentions for the year ahead. There are 35 pieces of legislation on the Order Paper, and we heard a speech that lasted for 35 minutes instead of an hour. It showed a Government that is completely out of touch. It is resorting to a slogan that people will see through. Sustainability: what does it mean? It means absolutely nothing. The other slogans that Labour has tried to hoist off as policy in the past—closing the gaps, getting us into the top half of the OECD—have been seen for what they are. Now, Cabinet is at odds, Cullen is on the ropes, and, as a last gasp, this Prime Minister has moved the goalposts once again from hard economic targets to the nebulous, abstract concept of sustainability. The public will not be fooled.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): If anything has run out of puff, it is the previous speaker. Obviously, there has been one great thing about the need to change electoral funding in terms of sources of donations, and that member, given his well-known, strong, and affectionate friendship with the tobacco industry, will be watching that change with great interest. The member represents a lovely part of New Zealand—the North Shore and Northcote. Quite frankly, bring back Ann Hartley. I acknowledge the wonderful work that Ann Hartley continues to do. We can certainly see that she will have to be very, very hard-working, in view of the contribution made by the previous speaker. I am very, very proud.

The real problem that Opposition members have had this afternoon and tonight is that it is really hard to be negative when things are going so well in this country. We have only to look at the statistics in terms of the growth rate, the record low unemployment, and all the figures over the last few years. New Zealand is absolutely on a roll. It must be very, very depressing to have to come into this Chamber and paint the proverbial negative picture.

I am very proud and very, very happy to represent Hamilton West and the Waikato region. I think the Prime Minister’s statement that was delivered this afternoon gives me an opportunity to reflect on the wonderful success of the Waikato region under this Labour-led Government. I have to say what a huge contrast it is, and what a wonderful journey we have taken in the last 7 years, when we compare the situation today with what things were like back in the early 1990s, at the time of the “mother of all Budgets”. In spite of the speeches made by Opposition members around the admitted problems of the so-called underclass, and in spite of those members now claiming to be the friends of those in need, we are still waiting for the repudiation of the ingredients that helped to create many of the problems in this country.

I just say to Opposition members that if they are going to talk about those issues, they should come clean on where they stand on school funding and on what they intend to do with regard to the funding of our decile 1, 2, and 3 schools. The Opposition spokesperson on education, the Hon Bill English, has been crystal clear on what he intends to do in terms of funding for those schools and their communities. Those members should come clean in terms of their situation with regard to State house rentals. It is absolutely incredible—and, I have to say, I am incredulous and a little disappointed in terms of the media analysis in this country—that in my own city, under the previous National-led Government, State houses were sold off. The stock of State houses was reduced. This Government, of course, is increasing the number of State houses.

Phil Heatley: Surely not!

MARTIN GALLAGHER: The member for Whangarei knows that to be true. He himself, in his private moments, will hang his head in shame, because even he will read history. He knows what happened to the State housing stock under the previous National-led Government, and he knows the mega “h” word that is being used in this Chamber by the party opposite, which now claims to have concern about the state of housing in this country after the sell-off of State housing at the time.

National members should also come clean about what they intend to do in terms of industrial relations in this country. Although National may be trying to put forward the appearance of the nicer, softer face—the image of the National Party in the halcyon days of Holyoake and Marshall—it is very clear, in terms of industrial legislation, that a modified version of the Employment Contracts Act will be dusted off. It is time for the National Party to come clean on all of those things. As my colleague Sue Moroney from the Waikato and other speakers have said, they are hollow men and hollow women. The agenda is still there. I tell people listening tonight to look past the rhetoric and to look at the real agenda of that party.

Turning back to the Waikato, and again in the context of the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon, I report to this House that we in the Waikato are enjoying excellent economic growth, which is illustrated in terms of record low unemployment. We are also enjoying the fruits of record investment in terms of our infrastructure.

In terms of transport, I remind members of the record spending vote through Transit, the record spending announced in last year’s Budget in terms of transport funding, and the record in terms of the special Joint Officials Group package for the Hamilton-Waikato area. What did those members opposite do, including the member for Coromandel? They were asleep in the 1990s. What did they do? As I have said previously, I know that Mr Bennett, the member for Hamilton East, was shocked at just how somnolent and in hibernation his colleagues were at the time. There was only one good National Minister of Transport, and that was the Waikato member—those members opposite may not remember him—the Hon Rob Storey. Of course, what did National do? It removed him. I also take this opportunity, as this is my first contribution to the House this year, to pay tribute to the Hon Rob Storey and to warmly congratulate him on his being recognised in the New Year’s Day Honours List.

I also want to look at other excellent investments in infrastructure that have been prompted under this Government. There has been investment by this Government in the aviation cluster and around Hamilton Airport, apart from the terminal upgrade and the obvious improvement of passenger transport infrastructure. Of course, we have the CTC Aviation Group flying school, Alpha Aviation, etc., and we have an aviation industry cluster developing around that airport precinct. I acknowledge the wonderful partnership that we see in terms of the five central Waikato local authorities—including, of course, the Waipā District, which the airport is located in—in terms of contributing to the development of the airport.

Other areas of investment in industry and infrastructure include the excellent science and technology park at Ruakura, the kickstart investment that the Government undertook to encourage that science cluster, and the wonderful growth of the life science industries in the Waikato area. I have to admit, as the member for Hamilton West, that every day I keep falling over new companies that are out there, and that, again, is wonderful news. But that cannot happen in isolation; it has to happen as a result of a Government that is investing in infrastructure and being very positive.

On this side of the House we have a positive story to tell and a positive future to look forward to. We will not allow ourselves the deeply cynical, abiding negativity that we witness on the opposite side of the House. I again take this opportunity in the time left to me to warmly congratulate the Prime Minister on what was an excellent statement this afternoon, and to congratulate local government leadership, health leadership, industry leadership, and social services leadership in the Waikato region, which I believe is poised to take, and will continue to take, the key signals from this Labour-led Government in terms of the wonderful social and economic growth of the Waikato region. I am so proud to be an advocate for this Government and to be a member for the great Waikato region. Thank you.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I would like to address upfront Martin Gallagher’s challenge to the National Party about State house sales. I put it on the record right now that the National Party will not be selling any State houses to Taito Phillip Field. He has bought enough, and the Labour Party has done enough deals, with Taito Phillip Field buying State houses, that the National Party certainly does not have to help that good Labour member any more.

Interestingly enough, that member Martin Gallagher, in his speech tonight, did not indicate that Labour has sold State houses—about 100 to 150 each year—in the time it has been in Government. I acknowledge to the Minister Chris Carter that Labour has also bought State houses and leased State houses, but that is beside the point. Labour has sold about 100 to 150 State houses each year since it has been in Government. There are reasons for that, and many of them are good reasons, but I wish that the member Martin Gallagher, who is a relatively new member—or, should I say, a late performer in this Parliament—would do his homework. But I put it on the record this evening that that good Labour Party loyalist Taito Phillip Field will not be purchasing any State houses off the National Party when it is in Government.

I was intrigued by the good Prime Minister Helen Clark, from those Labour Party roots of caring for the poor, when over the Christmas break she informed the nation that there was no poverty in New Zealand, that there was no underclass, and that she had done such a very, very good job in this country that she could down tools because there was no underclass or poverty.

Christopher Finlayson: Well, that lasted 24 hours.

PHIL HEATLEY: That lasted 24 hours, because the scales from her eyes fell off and she recognised that so long had she been speeding in her car, so long had she been drawing her $350,000 salary, and so long had she had 10 or 15 minions doing her dishes for her and cleaning her shoes that she had lost touch with real, grassroots New Zealand and had not recognised that there is poverty and an underclass in this country. Not only is there poverty and an underclass in this country but there is a growing underclass.

I would like to turn the House’s mind to the Housing New Zealand Corporation, using State housing as an example. Did members know that 2 years after the Labour Government came into office, the waiting list for State housing was about 10,000 people? These are the figures the Minister of Housing gave me.

Hon Chris Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member has failed to remind the House that his party sold 13,000 State houses.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You should not do that, Mr Carter.

PHIL HEATLEY: Two years after this Government came to power there were about 10,000 people on the State housing waiting list. Today, 7 years after Labour came into Government, there are 11,500 people on the waiting list. In the time that Labour has been in Government the waiting list has grown by 1,500 needy families. The Minister may say that National sold houses in the 1990s, but that is irrelevant. In the time that the Minister has been Minister of Housing, the waiting list has grown from 10,000 to 11,500.

There can be only two explanations for this. Either the Minister is poorly managing the housing stock in New Zealand or—and consider this, I say to members—poverty is increasing in New Zealand.

Hon David Carter: Or both.

PHIL HEATLEY: Or both. So which one is it? Clearly, if the waiting list has grown by 1,500 families in the last 5 or 6 years, then poverty, need, and the underclass are growing in this country. Who has been in Government in that time? No one has been at the wheel. We do know that, in the old days, the Labour Party traditionally stood up for those who were poorer, those who were in need, and those who needed housing. In those days Labour would have fixed this problem, but it appears from the Minister’s own statistics that Labour has exacerbated the problem. How is it that the waiting list under this Government has grown by 1,500 families?

Dr Wayne Mapp: The Minister is very quiet.

PHIL HEATLEY: The Minister is very quiet about that. He is content to say what happened in the 1990s, but I want to know what has happened in this millennium—in the last 6 years. Why has the waiting list grown? Why also, while the waiting list has grown by 1,500, are there a couple of hundred State house tenants in this country who have three or more boarders boarding in their houses? Why is that? Why are there about 200 State house tenants who have incomes over $65,000 per annum—the average household income? Why are there about 100 State houses worth over half a million dollars? And why are there many, many State houses with five bedrooms that are occupied by two people or by a single person, and have been so occupied for 20 years? All this can happen—boarders, high incomes, half-million-dollar and million-dollar State houses, and houses not being matched to the number of people in them—while we have 1,500 extra people on the waiting list who, I presume, have become poor over the last 6 years, and who are now waiting in line. That is an excellent question for the Minister to answer.

I would also like to know whether Dr Cullen, when he proposed the mortgage tax a couple of days ago, consulted the Minister of Housing. The Minister of Housing has been very concerned about housing affordability and about the fact that young people today are locked out of housing ownership—when the Minister is doing up his bach on Waiheke Island and skiting about it on Radio New Zealand. Did the Minister of Finance come to the Minister and say: “You may be concerned about housing affordability, but”—

Hon Member: We’re going to make it harder.

PHIL HEATLEY: —“we are going to make it harder because we are going to add an extra 1 percent to everybody’s mortgage.”? I suppose the Minister of Housing said: “Look, I will have to go away and think about that.”, because I know that that Minister is not interested in releasing more land in order to drive down land prices. I know that that Minister is not interested in tax cuts so that people with young families can take home more money and spend it on housing, as they always have. I know that that Minister is not interested in fixing the Resource Management Act in order to clip $20,000 off every new home in this country. I know that that Minister is interested in putting an extra 1 percent on every mortgage in this country, so that he can pull in more tax, drive around in a flasher ministerial car, and have more minions answer his questions through press releases than he does in the House today. I am ashamed of the Minister of Housing, Chris Carter. Like the Prime Minister he ignores poverty in this country; he does not acknowledge an underclass at all, as his forefathers used to. I challenge the Minister to get to his feet and tell us why the State house waiting list is growing, and why he did not put to death Michael Cullen’s mortgage levy—his new tax. Why did the Minister of Housing not put that idea to death?

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour): I have just listened to a suicide speech from a man who had hoped to be Minister of Housing if the National Party had ever come close to the Treasury benches. We have just heard the reason why that man will be demoted from the lowly position of spokesman on housing: he is a man who does not know how to use figures. He is a man who ignores totally the 13,000 State houses sold by National the last time it was in Government. He is a man who does not understand waiting list figures. He is a man who has not bothered to inquire why 40 percent of the people on the waiting list want to change their State house accommodation. Before he gets up here and waves figures around, he should have some dependence upon accuracy. That man’s speech shows why he will not remain the spokesman on housing.

He also went into the mortgage levy debate—a very, very silly step indeed. If he had bothered to read a document that was tabled today by the Minister of Finance, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen—and tabled without objection; obviously, its contents were accepted as correct by that man’s leader—then he would have discovered that the debate about mortgage levies was put on the table by John Key himself. The issue first arose in April 2006 when the Reserve Bank and Treasury published Supplementary Stabilisation Instruments. It was there that such an initiative was mentioned. It was next raised at the Finance and Expenditure Committee on 8 November 2006, when John Key opened the discussions about problems with monetary policy by asking Dr Cullen: “Are you frustrated with 82 percent of mortgages fixed? The bank is really struggling to have their impact.” Dr Cullen responded by calling for a cross-party conversation on alternative monetary policy instruments. John Key said he was “very happy to have that discussion. We actually concur with that view that there is a substantial issue now.”

But that is not all. John Key then followed it up 8 days later by writing to Dr Cullen to say he would be very interested in meeting to discuss options. On 12 December 2006 the meeting took place, with Dr Cullen, Trevor Mallard, John Key, and Bill English present.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Chatham House Rules of course.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Oh no, not Chatham House Rules, because that document has been tabled with National’s consent.

During that conversation Mr Key took the floor to outline how a variable interest rate levy on mortgages could work. He did it so enthusiastically that he gave no impression of opposition to it. He certainly expressed no opposition to it, and there was no demur from Mr English. So the mortgage levy debate was put on the table by National and its leader, John Key.

How does this affect Napier? On this same Finance and Expenditure Committee was the current member for Napier, and he did not demur from the excitement of John Key for a mortgage levy debate. But, of course, when he returned to Napier he did not advocate that, because his website advertises that his business is the largest real estate company in Hawke’s Bay. It is so large, in fact, that when one of his staff complained that money had been taken from his account illegally, and got no truck from management, he went to the local MP, only to be told, lo and behold: “We can do that because I’m part of management.” So that very disheartened former employee, who feels that several thousand dollars were wrongly taken from his account, is frustrated and angry in the extreme. The end of it has not yet been heard.

The speech of the Prime Minister today, which we are debating—as well as responding to a no-confidence motion—is a speech of leadership and values, of values that are intrinsically linked to the concept of leadership, and to the leadership provided by the Prime Minister in this country. That is a pattern of leadership that this Labour Party has shown. As the Prime Minister pointed out, we can follow the strength of that leadership from the nuclear issue that was destroying the world two decades ago. Labour led in this country on that, and in just the last few months the National Party has finally, timidly, come in behind. So the leadership of this Prime Minister has been acknowledged by the actions of the National Party.

But let us get to the issues of values and leadership. This is a country where we do have people who are earning low incomes and are struggling to survive—there is no issue about that. The Prime Minister acknowledged that in her speech when she said: “Can we do better and move to eradicate child poverty? That is certainly my dream—but let us not dismiss the huge progress that has been made in that direction.”

That progress is not made by the rampant capitalism of some of the National Party backbench MPs. Their existentialist policy on social issues is bereft of any value judgment, as was shown just in the past week by, again, the current member for Napier. A young solo mother with a 10-month- old baby had employment that required her to work casual hours at night-time, when no childcare facilities were available, so she was forced to leave her 10-month-old child with flatmates, somewhat transient flatmates. If there had been any misfortune at all, she would have been heavily criticised and possibly faced criminal charges. When she went to Work and Income to describe the difficulty, they explained that she was better off being a full-time mother, because she would receive adequate payment from the benefit and would have certainty of income, which casual work in a pizza parlour could not provide.

So what did the current MP for Napier say? This is from his press statement headed “Small business hit by benefit message”. “We all know working is about more than just take-home pay. It’s about building a work history, getting into good work habits, developing confidence, and getting ahead under your own steam. Taxpayers will be shocked by the message Work and Income is sending.” So, too, will Katherine Rich. So, too, will Judith Collins. So, too, will those who care for the children of our country. The current member for Napier concluded by saying: “This”—this care and concern for a 10-month-old child—“is simply unacceptable. The Minister should put an immediate stop to this kind of advice coming from his department. It’s no way to deal with the skills shortage.” It is certainly the proper way, I say to that member, to deal with raising children of 10 months of age. It is certainly the proper way to deal with the needs of bringing up our young children so that they can enjoy the benefits of an education in this country.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.