Chadwick Steve: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Chadwick Steve: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18267] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am delighted to speak on the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech which we all heard yesterday. This is an incredibly important year for envisaging our country’s future not confusing the public and not disenfranchising women voters. It is not a time for the doom and gloom and divisive mean-spirited approach that the Opposition showed yesterday. 
This Government has a proud record. Economic growth for the year is at 4.6 percent. More than a quarter of a million people in jobs have been added to the economy since 1999. The crime rate is down we have announced the Working for Families package there are more than 7000 people on the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and there have been significant boosts to health spending. It is a proud and positive record and it is one that we know the voters will look to very very closely this year as they look back and compare it with the decade of mean-spirited so-called reform of the 1990s. 
I want to point to the way in which we are moving forward through investing in education. Why are we doing this? Because we want every individual to fulfil his or her potential—every individual across the board throughout society—and that includes those poor disenfranchised beneficiaries who have been so meanly attacked. Our dream is for every family and every child in this country. 
 Our leader’s speech showed vision. It was not carping. Our leader also showed what a good neighbour we are to our Pacific neighbours. I shall report here a response I received as chair of the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development from Mr Brash about being a good neighbour and the National Party’s contribution to overseas development. He said in a letter in 2002 that he had given up pushing for a sharp increase in official development assistance overseas. Yet he had the cheek to come back from holiday and carp about the Government’s response to the tsunami disaster. That was very very sad. 
I want to refer now to health. Spending on health care has gone up 40 percent in 5 years and we are investing in keeping New Zealand well. We focus on waiting times not waiting lists and the previous spokesperson on health never got that right. She never got her head around that role and that is why she has gone. She was absolutely hopeless. 
Of course the Leader of the Opposition talked about the “minor reassignment” that happened yesterday. It was a bit of a surgical reassignment. He needs a few more women on the front bench—that might be what he means by reassignment. He got rid of Lynda Scott the only person in his whole ranks who knew health. She was great and fearsome to us. She is gone; she is out of the position. Judith Collins was hopeless and never got her head around the role. She came to score big king hits against the Minister of Health but never once got a rating. In fact she upset all the senior health professionals in the country with the few words that she did say. She then got confused with Paul Hutchison. I welcome Paul Hutchison. I think that he will enjoy the poisoned chalice from his leader. It is an incredible indictment on the Opposition that the health spokesman still languishes on the very back benches. The National Opposition does not see health as a priority and this country knows that and it will show that in the election. 
Let us look at the role of National’s spokesperson on health and at what has happened. The public is absolutely confused with a leader who is shuffling things around. This morning he said that he would not stoop to the lowest common denominator. That is what he thought Katherine Rich’s opposition to his leadership was. She has had a sound spanking. That woman with integrity shows that she understands this Government’s approach to beneficiaries and welfare reform. She is very intelligent aligning herself to the new more progressive and compassionate conservatives who will emerge once Mr Brash has gone. Georgina te Heuheu has gone—she challenged Orewa I—and the leader thought he might find her a nice little job. He really did not understand how he disenfranchised the tribes of Tuwharetoa and Te Arawa in my area not only with his pathetic stance on the ownership of lakes but also with what he did to his Maori spokeswoman. We welcome Katherine Rich; this beatified Katherine Rich among womanhood in New Zealand. National will not have much effect on the Minister of Health leading up to the election because it really does not have a clue about that portfolio. It is a complicated issue and it is extremely important to this Government. 
The public response to the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has treated women shows that people think it has been absolutely lousy. However I did enjoy hearing Winston Peters yesterday. I say thank you but no thank you to Mr Peters for his love and compassion for motherhood and apple pie. We have 16 Labour women MPs. That is 31 percent of our caucus. We have pushed for 4 weeks’ holiday for work-life balance for parental leave provisions for after-school care for the Working for Families package for workplace friendly initiatives and more childcare centre funding and that is just absolutely fantastic. We remember the Opposition spokesperson actually voting against the parental leave legislation—against current world trends. Do members believe that? 
We will have fun during this election as we go out and about. People need to remember as does the current Opposition spokesperson on social welfare what was said in the past when she voted against paid parental leave and when she was going to get rid of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. I vaguely recall—and we have mentioned this before—that she thought that scrubbing floors at home was a good option for women. She should remember what she says as it will come back to bite her in the mouth probably. That person is politically ruthless opportunistic and very hungry for power and women in this country do not like women to work like that. What is this about adoption as an option? It is no option. It is an option that has always been there. It is not a new idea. It has hurt in the past—and whom has it hurt? It has hurt those young women who are having babies and it hurts the children themselves and research shows that. That idea has gone down very badly. 
I shall finish by talking about the School for Young Parents in Rotorua. Dr Brash has put the signature of death on National in Rotorua. He took a photo opportunity in the school that I set up while I was on the district council with the support of this Government. He dangled children on his lap and looked like the father of the nation. When he left the young mothers asked who he was. That is absolutely amazing. Under that mean-spirited Opposition those 18 to 24-year-olds would have their dole cut. Let us talk about them. Last year 17 of 23 went back to finish their qualifications two were going to university and four were going to polytech. Is that not wonderful? Without that school to carry on their education and without the benefit those people could not do that and that Opposition would cut their benefit. That record will stand against that Opposition. 
I am very very confident that women in the country will know that the National Opposition has no policy—noting at all to support women and families other than a mean-spirited approach. In my book and in our party’s book that is not about building a strong confident and proud nation.