te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18263] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am amazed at the effrontery with which the previous speaker lauds himself and this Government on their achievements for Maori. At the very first sign of trouble last year when it got hot in the kitchen what did the Government do? It appointed a Coordinating Minister Race Relations and it turned and left Maori flat on the ground. So it is no wonder that the Prime Minister turned up at Ratana with 27 MPs in her wake. She had better do something because Maori are probably turning to the Maori Party and New Zealand First in large numbers. 
Ahead of the Prime Minister’s address yesterday she built up big expectations that she would paint an economic vision for New Zealand. So we sat for 20 minutes and we waited and waited for that economic vision. We did not get it. We would have appreciated even a grand social vision but we did not get that either. Instead what we got was an itemised list of all the mostly irrelevant initiatives that this Government has spent taxpayers’ hard-earned wages on in the last 6 years and also a list of how it will spend the hard-earned wages and salaries of ordinary New Zealanders over the coming years. Of course I suppose when members think about it they will realise this is an election year and what we saw yesterday was good old pork barrel politics in full cry. 
This is a typical socialist Government. There was no grand vision as such but there was an agenda. The agenda that sits in behind the economic centre-left language that Helen Clark Michael Cullen and others are so wont to use is the good old socialist agenda. They can talk of innovation of prosperity and of lifting the living standards of ordinary New Zealanders but the good old socialist agenda sits in at the back of that—the cradle-to-grave approach of the last century. It is the “State will provide all” approach and the “State knows best” approach. I believe that New Zealanders are entitled to something far grander and far better than that. They did not get it yesterday and they will never get it under a socialist Government because that kind of Government does not change its colours no matter what language it employs. 
The Government’s socialist agenda is on display everywhere for everyone to see. The Government takes hard-earned money out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders and doles it out—some here some there and some over there. The Government doles money out as if it belonged to the Government as if it earned it as if it were responsible for the surpluses that the economy is now running and as if it alone had the right to tell New Zealanders what is best for them. That is a cruel cruel hoax. It is on display in the Working for Families package the second part of which will roll out in a couple of months. It is on display in the way Jim Anderton takes hard-earned taxes and doles them out to the likes of Dick Hubbard and in the previous term to Sovereign Yachts. The latter funding all went down the drain. What a cruel hoax it is to play on hard-working New Zealanders that this Government thinks it can take money out of their pockets and spend it in ways that it thinks it ought to be spent. 
I say and National says that the Government should leave those hard-earned dollars with the people who earn them. New Zealanders are already taxed too highly. We should let hard-working New Zealanders decide how best to use the extra dollars that they alone have earned. We should let them determine their own lives and let them make their own choices with their own money. That is not an unreasonable thing to ask for in the 21st century. One might see that it was easy enough for a socialist Government to take money from taxpayers in the last century but not in the 21st century when supposedly we are more enlightened not just in New Zealand but worldwide—internationally. We should let ordinary people who work hard day in and day out but who have seen no visible increase in their pay packets during the time of this Government decide how to spend their money. That is the only fair thing to do. 
Funnily enough I do not believe that members of the New Zealand public are fooled. They are sick of the socialist agenda of this Government—they really are. But understandably people probably go along with it because they appreciate the ability to work and to provide for their families even if it is hard-yards activity. People probably go along with what the Government is doing because the economy is trucking along. That is where the electoral focus of most New Zealanders would be—that is understandable. Why is the economy trucking along? Why is it buoyant? Why are there surpluses? Why are there jobs available? There is only one reason why— 
Georgina Beyer 
: Labour that’s why! 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: It is not because of anything this Government has done either in this term or the previous term. It is the fact that the economic fundamentals from which New Zealand is now benefiting were laid down in the late 1980s and particularly in the 1990s. 
Georgina Beyer 
: The Labour Party. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: But Helen Clark denies the Labour Governments of the 1980s; she will not have a bar of them. Half the members of that party’s caucus will not have a bar of them. They do not want to own the late 1980s but that is the reality. The economic fundamentals from which this country is benefiting now were laid down in the late 1980s and 1990s. 
The Prime Minister referred to the harsh Governments of the 1990s but this Labour Government has not removed any of those fundamentals. It has had 6 years in which to do that but it has not done it. Why has it not done so? It is because the Government knows but will not admit that indeed one had to have those fundamentals put in place in order to get the buoyant economy we have now. That buoyancy is not because of anything at all that this current Labour Government has done either in this term or the last term. The benefits that we are now reaping from the economy flow from the fundamentals put in place in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Michael Cullen knows that. Members of the New Zealand public are not fooled by his professor-like glasses and the grey suit. They too know that the hard yards of that decade have now resulted in an economy that is buoyant. 
I want to make some comments in relation to thethat is coming up. That Hui Taumata will celebrate 20 years of progress for Maori. Let us not forget that National was in Government for 9 of those 20 years. I know that in a whole lot of places in Maori communities Maori are looking forward. Despite the harshness of some of the years past and despite the way they were spat on by this current Government last year they are looking forward with optimism and with great hope. We have a trust on the shores of Lake Taupo which has had a significant farming operation for a number of years. Five or 6 years ago the trust opened a geothermal power station that caters for the power demands of about 23000 New Zealanders. This year the second stage of that geothermal power generation will be opened. The trust is also growing capsicums and tomatoes for the New Zealand and Australian markets in a glasshouse development. The trust is currently looking to bring broadband to rural areas. Those advances have been made not because of anything this Government has done. When the Hui Taumata is celebrated let Maori take the credit themselves for what they have achieved. This Government should not think that it is responsible for the advances made by Maori people because it is not. The way that the Government turned on Maori last year and left them in the dust proves that it does not give a jot about Maori people.