Collins Judith: General Debate 
Collins Judith: General Debate 
[Volume:624;Page:19651] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It was very kind of Minister Maharey to prove once and for all for anyone listening that John Tamihere was right. I must say it is awfully nice when he hands us a freebie like that and admits that we will be the ones forming Cabinet after the next election not his lot. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: A motley crew! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes an absolute motley crew. 
On a more serious note what we heard from Mr Maharey—we know it is all smarmy and of no substance—is in fact what this Government is doing to the people of New Zealand. John Tamihere was right on a lot of points. One of the points he made that was absolutely right was that this Labour Government spends so much time pandering to a couple of its special interest groups—the unions gays and Maori rights people—that it completely ignores the very people who pay for all the services that the Government gets to hand out. Those people are the taxpayers of this country—the middle New Zealanders. For the benefit of those members over there who would not know an ordinary middle New Zealand person if they fell over him or her I point out that those middle New Zealanders are the people who pay their taxes go to work raise their own children look after their kids and put their kids first. 
John Tamihere said that Helen Clark and her very very staunchly feminist cabal would not know about taking the kids to sport on Saturday. We need look no further than the Families Commission which was of course brought about by United Future’s deal with Labour. United Future was duped into signing up to it—and to a definition of family that meant whatever one happens to think it might be. It could be a gang one’s mates or whatever. The Family Commission is having a big opening in Auckland for one of its big projects and it is having it on Saturday morning when ordinary New Zealanders take their kids to sport. That is what families do. 
What did Mr Tamihere say about this Government? He said: “I tell you what if I was on the other side mate I’d have cut the”—and he used a bad word—“Labour Party to pieces over moral issues. There’s a huge pendulum swing against what my leadership stands for.” That is what he said about Helen Clark and that is what he said about the Labour Party. The reason he said that is because as Mr John Carter said—and he is absolutely right—it is true. The Labour Party despises the very people who vote for it. If we need any confirmation of that let us hear some of the words of the honourable Minister Ruth Dyson. She talked in the House back in September 2002 about women going out to work and doing jobs like cleaning or what she called “degrading low-paid work” and “low-end dead jobs”. I said then and I will say it again to that Minister to that party and to the people who have never done a 3 o’clock shift in the morning with little babies who cannot sleep that the people who do that sort of work are not low-grade people and they do not do low-grade work. They are people who earn their right to vote in this country and they earn their right to be taken seriously. 
The Labour Government has Ministers like David Benson-Pope who would not know a hard day’s work if he fell over it. If Labour members actually took these ordinary people seriously they would stop pandering to the little special-interest groups that they think they have to win over. That is all Labour thinks about. It does not care about the people working in the factories. It does not care about the people who actually do the work. The only thing the Government cares about is sucking people into the unions and sucking them into thinking they have to vote Labour. Well they do not have to vote for Labour. Help is on the way and it is in the form of the National Party and they should be really pleased. The reason for that is that we value work and we value the people who actually do it. 
Darren Hughes 
: We want this woman on the television right through the campaign! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: We do not value people like Mr Hughes who spent all of yesterday looking like Santa would not come this year and looking like he had been crying all day into his little teacup. That is what we do not value.