Copeland Gordon: General Debate 
Copeland Gordon: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2295] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 Your mailbag Mr Assistant Speaker like those of many other members will I know be full of letters from New Zealanders appealing to this House to get away from malicious personalised attacks and to debate instead the many serious issues that confront our nation its families and its people. United Future wholeheartedly agrees with those sentiments. 
Today I want to utilise my time to talk about a number of those important issues. Following 21 consecutive quarters of economic expansion the New Zealand economy contracted by 0.1 percent in the quarter ended December 2005. That news coincided with the announcement that our balance of payments deficit was no less than $13.7 billion for the year ended December 2005 8.9 percent of GDP and coincidentally also the worst December year result since 1984 exactly 21 years previously. These figures should act as a wake-up call to every single party and every single member of this Parliament. We should be collectively applying our minds to work constructively and together towards the goal of improving and improving rapidly the strength of the New Zealand economy. 
I want to turn to a couple of specific examples. Last week a group of wool growers called by my office to report that in real terms the price of wool is now at an historic low. In addition the existing industry structures are they believe dysfunctional and beyond the point of no return. Indeed returns to growers are now so bad that they told me some wool growers have decided to change their farming practices because it no longer pays to worry about wool quality. Rather sheep are being farmed simply for their meat. 
I well remember that the meat industry was in a similar perilous state in the early 1980s. I was one of a number of consultants taken on at that stage by the Hon Bill Birch in his capacity as Minister of National Development to find a new pathway forward for the meat industry. Our conclusion was that it needed nothing short of a reformation. We called for that reformation action was taken and that industry has gone on to success. Nothing short of a reformation for the wool industry is now necessary. So today I call on the Minister for Economic Development the Hon Trevor Mallard to emulate Bill Birch’s example call together the best brains in the nation and build a cross-party consensus to undertake a total reformation of the wool industry in this country. It is tragic. We produce wool and our wool growers get less than 1 percent normally of the retail price of carpets or wool at the other end of the scale. It is simply still in the colonial era and needs to come out of it. 
Forestry is similarly in a slump. The current problems are again acute serious and urgent. We have a stand-off between the New Zealand Forest Owners Association and the Government at a time when the industry is already under pressure because of international wood prices. The stand-off is specifically about the Government’s Kyoto Protocol - driven deforestation cap which aims to hugely penalise forest growers if the cap is broken but steadfastly refuses to contemplate providing any incentive at all for replanting following harvest or indeed for new greenfields planting. That needs to change and change fast. 
In December 2005 the Hon Nick Smith wrote to the Hon David Parker then the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues offering National’s cooperation in a bipartisan approach to this issue. I am disappointed to learn that to date that letter has not even been acknowledged. That is simply not good enough. Today United Future appeals to both Labour and National to park politicking for a bit and agree to cooperate in a bipartisan and indeed a multiparty attempt to resolve the serious issues. 
In the late 1950s early 1960s in the United States of America Lyndon Johnson became very popular and subsequently became Vice-President because when he was leader of the Democratic Party he said: “We have some serious problems. I’m prepared to put party politics aside for a while and work with the Republicans for the good of our country.” It was immensely popular. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I hate to interrupt the member’s speech and this is not aimed at the member but there is a very strong Standing Order to the effect that there must be a Minister in the House at all times. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There is. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: There is? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Mahara Okeroa is here. He is a Minister. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: That proves that cooperation in the national interest can also be good politics. I think that there may be people in the National Party who aspire to lead their party and become Prime Minister and I say to them that it will do their political careers no harm at all if at this point in history given those sad economic statistics they decide to cooperate with the Government on the sorts of issues— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just say to the two members who are interjecting on one another that the rules permitting interjections are predicated on the assumption that the person being interjected on has the floor. Neither of those members has the floor. Interjections are not permitted when they are directed at a member who does not have the call. I am sorry Mr Copeland but there was a criss-cross going on and it was disrespectful to you. Please continue. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I very much appreciate that intervention because I was trying to get this House to concentrate on the serious issues confronting this country. I was saying that if National is prepared to work with Labour then my appeal would be also to Labour members to get off their high horse. Sometimes humility is a virtue to take a nation forward. Sometimes parties need to decide to put their party political differences aside so they can begin to work constructively to take this nation forward. That is what the people of New Zealand are asking of us and I for one am listening.