Barker Rick: General Debates 
Barker Rick: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6561] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I want to state right from the outset that the Opposition is a failure an abysmal failure. The Opposition has failed in its basic reason for being which is to oppose—not just to oppose by voting against motions but to oppose by actions ideas and alternatives; in other words to oppose with some policy. But more important the Opposition has to show some leadership. 
Just recently Bill English was overseas and I have to ask—who noticed? It was really interesting before he left. Mr English was taunted by Matt Robson who said: “When the leader is out of town you’d better be worried if Mr McCully is in town and your polls are about half the level of the Labour Party.” We had a flurry of press releases from the National Party saying that there was no coup and there would be no coup. This is very ironic because when Jenny Shipley was at 37 percent in the polls the National Party acted. Here we have the leader of the National Party at 27 percent which seems to be good enough for the brat pack and the National Party is saying that it is good enough. This shows a remarkable turn-round by the National Party. I would have thought that members of the National Party would be saying that 27 percent was not good enough for them and they would have a coup because they want to do better. Instead the National Party is saying it is good enough. They are saying they are ahead of New Zealand First and ahead of ACT and that is where they want to be—a niche party. Members of the brat pack who have control of the National Party see their own interests in holding on to the leadership positions in the National Party as being more important than the interests of that once-great once-proud party—the National Party. 
One of the reasons the National Party has such problems is that it confuses activity with direction. As long as the paddles of the waka are splashing around and making a bit of noise the National Party is happy. It has no sense of direction. The National Party is becalmed and it is becalmed in its most important part of New Zealand—Auckland. In Auckland the National Party is down to about 20 percent in the polls. In Wellington it is down to 16 percent and it is failing everywhere. It is failing in policy. The first piece of policy we have had from the National Party recently was released by Katherine Rich who stands here in the House with “Dunedin” emblazoned upon her chest and this serves two purposes: it shows to those who are disbelieving that she comes from this planet but also when people find her walking around airports lost bewildered and confused they know which plane to put her on. All that Katherine Rich has done is recycle the old policy of the National Party and re-churn out the old words about growing national welfare dependency and so on. 
The National Party has ignored the facts. When the National Party left office after 9 years of misery unemployment beneficiaries numbered 164530. That was in 1999. In May 2003 the number on the unemployment benefit was 109757. This Labour Government has created 123000 new jobs in 3 years. I just want to repeat the figures: when Nick Smith was booted out of office for incompetence the unemployment beneficiary numbers were 164000 and 3½ years later they are 109000. There is another very good figure and Mr Nick Smith will like the facts behind this one. In answer to a question from an ACT MP relating to the number of persons dependent on a benefit excluding superannuation we found that in 3 years the total number had declined by 14.2 percent. 
Darren Hughes 
: How much? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: There was a decline of 14.2 percent in the number. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Rubbish! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Mr Nick Smith says that is rubbish. He ignores the facts and that is what gets him into trouble through the years. We offered to show Mr Brash and Katherine Rich around a modern Work and Income New Zealand office to show them what is happening but they cancelled out. There are none so blind as those who do not want to see. The National Party does not want to let the facts get in the way of a good argument. We do have declining numbers on benefits in this country. 
This Government is doing a great deal to ensure that New Zealand is working yet again. It is sad to hear the ACT party repeating the same mantra about benefit dependency. We know what the ACT party stands for—it at least has some policy. Its members are market fundamentalists. The market will answer everything—slash tax slash Government services and leave everybody to their own devices. At least the neo-Darwinists over there know what they are but the scary part of this Parliament is that they are getting the point about— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member’s time has expired.