Parker David: General Debate 
Parker David: General Debate 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 It is clear that the Government is on a slide in terms of its popularity with the voters of New Zealand. That is now abundantly clear. 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Here we go—National members continue to deny the reality of the numbers. The trend has been clear for 2 years. In fairness in 18 months the gap is narrowing and narrowing substantially. Phil Heatley is cackling in the background like he has completely lost the plot. 
Actually the first person to pick the significance of the narrowing gap was a former employee of the National Party. It was a former employee of the Speaker Matthew Hooton. Matthew Hooton picked this about a year ago. He said that the gap was narrowing and that National should not rest on its laurels. But it has. 
The latest poll which is of most concern to the National Party was on the front page of the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 on the weekend. It had National on 34 percent and Labour on 28 percent—a 6 percent gap. It is now a 6 percent gap whereas a year and a half ago it was a 20 percent gap. It is down from 20 percent to 6 percent. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And who’s got the 6 points? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Winston Peters fills that gap at the moment together with the Greens. But a two-party swing of only 3 percent would see Labour ahead of National. No wonder National is starting to get worried. Those members are getting so worried what do they do in respect of these polls? The first thing that politicians who are worried about polls do is rubbish them. What happened here? The headline is “Key rubbishes NZ First results”. 
Those members are so worried about Winston Peters. He turned up to the Maori Affairs Committee today and panned their legislation on the foreshore and seabed. I ask whether members can guess how many questions the National majority asked of Winston Peters at the select committee despite his strident criticism of what they are doing. How many? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: A dozen or so? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No less. How many? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Five? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: None. They did not have the courage to take on the Rt Hon Winston Peters with even one question at the select committee in support of their bill. 
What lies behind the slide of popularity for National is people’s concern about a lack of integrity. That integrity has two aspects to it. The first is personal integrity. People are disappointed in the Hon Phil Heatley in Bill English and in Pansy Wong. Overall they are disappointed with the lack of standards enforced by the Prime Minister notwithstanding that he promised to hold higher standards than his predecessors. People are disappointed with the lack of integrity around ministerial performance but also they are disappointed with broken promises. They have stopped trusting National. There has been broken promise after broken promise. National said it would not increase GST but it did. National members said they would not increase GST but they did. They said they would bridge the wage gap with Australia— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Oh they’ve given up on that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —and they have given up on that. Their rhetoric on that has disappeared. They were going to close the wage gap by 2025. They had all sorts of weird and wonderful plans that they said would do it like mining in national parks which they abandoned. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: A cycleway. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: A cycleway would not make much difference. They have no credible plan. They will not even agree on milestones between now and 2025 which is their target date. We all know that the gap is growing larger rather than narrowing. 
Another area of failed policy is in respect of the major settings of the economy. National said it would not borrow for tax cuts; it borrowed for tax cuts. The amount of that borrowing is increasing by the month. In the last quarter alone the Government has had to acknowledge an extra $2 billion of Government deficit—that is cumulatively New Zealanders owe $2 billion more to overseas banks through the Government’s indebtedness than was predicted by the Government in its Budget. Why? It was in part to fund tax cuts 42 percent of which went to the top 10 percent of income earners. That is another broken promise by National. It promised a fair tax system not a tax system that delivered the majority of tax cuts to those who already earn the most. 
That is why the Government’s popularity is sliding. That is why the two-party gap is less than 6.5 percent.