Mackey Moana: Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Mackey Moana: Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:633;Page:4576] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill. I thank all my supporters in the gallery for coming along for it. Often I put out a media advisory and no one turns up so this has given me renewed faith. On that note I welcome my very good friend Charles Chauvel into this House. Charles is another fine product of the Gisborne – East Coast education system. He has had perhaps a slightly more eminent career than my own but I am very very pleased to have Charles here as a good friend. I look forward to his speech which unfortunately members will have to wait a little longer for. 
I record in this House my embarrassment at the unbelievable display of arrogance and rudeness that we saw from National Party members prior to question time today. It is no wonder that people in this country hold politicians in such low regard when they see a carry-on like that on their television screens and hear it over the radio. Mr John Key spent most of his speech in this debate complaining about the Greens’ notice of motion which National did not support. He explained why National had declined to support the motion and why it was so important for democracy that National did that. But he did not explain why then Dr Don Brash rang our whips to tell them that National would allow the motion. I suggest that in the National Party the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. 
Nowhere was that highlighted more than in the speech that Dr Don Brash gave on immigration recently. He talked about New Zealand values. Those values were the acceptance of democracy of the rule of law of personal freedom and of the legal equality of the sexes. That is very interesting. I want to know why a man who believes that the equality of the sexes and democracy are the foremost qualities and values for a New Zealander to have took $1.5 million from the Exclusive Brethren in the last election campaign. Dr Brash took $1.5 million from a right-wing religious sect that oppresses women and whose members do not vote. Why would he stand up not 9 months later and claim that democracy and the equality of the sexes were the most important things to him? Dr Brash then said that maybe those things should be part of the oaths of New Zealand. Why then did the National Party state in its minority view on the Oaths Modernisation Bill that it was not appropriate to have those very values put into oaths in this country? 
I suggest that Dr Don Brash is on his last legs. If he is on his last legs then he can count on Gerry Brownlee to knock them out from underneath him as we saw before question time today. Dr Don Brash stood up to take a point of order and was shoved back into his seat by Gerry Brownlee. The Leader of the Opposition stood in this House to take a point of order after the Prime Minister had just suggested that we did not know who the real leader of the National Party was. Both Dr Brash and Gerry Brownlee stood up and who was shoved back into his seat? Dr Don Brash was shoved back by Gerry Brownlee who is one of the pretenders to the leadership of the National Party. 
Equality between the sexes and the rule of democracy are both very important. We in the Labour Party stand for those values very very firmly. I remember an incident when some female National Party members stormed out of a powhiri because they were very concerned about the status of women in Maoridom. Again I ask National members why they are so concerned about the status of women in Maoridom when they show no concern for the status of women in the Exclusive Brethren. We are talking about double standards over and over again. 
I will read out a line from Dr Brash’s speech. When talking about immigration and the countries from which we should accept immigrants he stated that many migrants to the West “… generally have come from cultures that don’t share the bedrock values that New Zealanders take for granted”. In this House I want Dr Don Brash to name the cultures that he thinks do not share the bedrock values of New Zealanders. I want him to absolutely name them in this House—to come clean. He should not hide behind weasel words and pretend that everyone will draw their own conclusions about whom he is talking about. Dr Don Brash should tell us that because when he goes flitting around all the ethnic groups and talking to all the ethnic organisations I think they will probably want to know which of them Dr Brash thinks do not share the bedrock values of New Zealanders. 
But probably the most bizarre thing in Dr Brash’s speech was his suggestion that the reason New Zealanders are leaving to go overseas is the Treaty of Waitangi and that they are sick of racial separatism in New Zealand. I think that any people who leave New Zealand because they think we have racial separatism here will get a really big shock when they go to just about anywhere else in the world. I think that perhaps one of the biggest problems we have in this country is that when we look at Parliaments around the world we see that although they disagree on issues they all agree on one thing: one does not run down one’s own country. We do not run down our own country in the eyes of people overseas who might want to invest here or who might want to live here and—most important—the people who were born here and who have chosen to make New Zealand their home. Until the National Party values New Zealanders far more than it has been shown to value them over the last 6 years—or in fact over the last few decades—it will never regain the Treasury benches. 
I am very proud to stand up in this debate and support the work the Government has been doing for all New Zealanders—and that is the difference between a Labour-led Government and a National-led Government. National governs for its mates; Labour governs for everyone. And it is not easy to govern for everyone because different people want different things. But that does not mean that we should fail to attempt to formulate policy and pass legislation that is in the best interests of all New Zealanders—even those who may not support us at the ballot box. 
I want to talk about the Working for Families package. It is a wonderful package which is putting more and more money directly into the pockets of working families who need it the most. National opposed that package philosophically because of the way the Inland Revenue Department administers the scheme. Apparently the fact that the department administers the scheme in a way that National is not comfortable with is a reason to tell working New Zealand families that they do not deserve to have the extra money this Labour-led Government is delivering for them. Well Labour thinks the most important thing is that the money goes where it is needed the most. 
We know that working families in this country with children need assistance. It is expensive to raise children nowadays and we want to make doing that as easy for them as possible so that many of the issues that can arise later on in life where a family does not have a lot of money will be circumvented by putting that money in and easing the financial burden. That will give parents more flexibility to decide how many hours they will work and they will make decisions in the best interests of their family not decisions made simply on the basis of what they can or cannot afford. If that means that members of Parliament have to go without the $100-per-week tax cut that National promised us at the last election then Labour is prepared to make that sacrifice. Labour is prepared to make that sacrifice. 
Labour is committed to providing a strong public education system. Since 1999 we have had over 2700 extra teachers beyond the number required for roll growth. We have increased the schools operations grant funding by more than 13 percent in real terms and we have guaranteed all kids the right to go their local school. But if I have to pick one area of education where Labour is making the most difference it is in the area of early childhood education. More and more of our preschool children are being brought into early childhood education and engaged in education developmentally and socially before they hit school. 
In housing income-related rents assistance for homeownership and modernisation Healthy Homes and rebuilding a housing stock decimated by the last National Government are making a big impact in this country. 
The reason I talk about those things is that this House has been very much focused on child abuse lately. All members and all parties in this House have stood up to deplore child abuse and have said that they want to do whatever they can to stop it. Well those policies will help to address many of the systemic problems that lead to child abuse. We now face a generation of young teenagers who grew up in households that faced the 1991 “mother of all Budgets”. They grew up in households that were forced into poverty by a National Government that told them their poverty was good for the country and it was essential that that happened. People at the top did not suffer; the people at the bottom did. We are dealing with the fall-out from those policies and this Labour Government over the last 6 years has pulled that situation back. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh look; those members laugh—it is funny to them. Poor people do not vote for them and that is why those members do not care about them. That is why they continue to support policies that would drive New Zealand families into poverty would give them less choice in education and would see unemployment rise. Those members think that a certain amount of unemployment is good for the country and they know it is not their voters who would be unemployed. 
I just want to congratulate the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and the Rt Hon Helen Clark. This country is on a path to prosperity because of this Labour-led Government. 
Debate interrupted.