Dalziel Lianne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Dalziel Lianne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7304] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 In her statement the Prime Minister said that meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance not slogans. That was followed by John Key’s first major parliamentary address as the Leader of the Opposition—and I looked for the substance. I listened really hard for the substance but I could not hear any substance from that member at all despite the fact that by convention he was given the Prime Minister’s speech 4 hours before she even delivered it in the House. He obviously had not even read it by the time he got to the House. 
The bottom line is that this was another test for John Key and he has failed that test along with every other test he has faced since becoming the Leader of the Opposition. And I have to say that he has failed another test because there have been a few he has failed. Let me suggest a few rules for the new Leader of the Opposition. Rule number one: he should not condemn the Government without having a policy proposition to address the issue he is condemning. Would that not be a good idea? If we had heard one policy from the Opposition today I would have felt relieved. I would have thought that changing the leader of the National Party might have brought some good but no there was nothing—not a sausage not one single policy. Rule number two: he should not condemn the Government for something that occurred when his own party was in Government because actually we know the truth about what has been going on in terms of some of the things that have been said recently. I will come to that in a minute. 
Rule number three—and this should actually be rule number one because I think this is the most important rule of all—he should not appoint as his deputy the person he promised to vote for as a leader but then did not which cost that person his job. I do not think that is a very good idea because guess who he has for a deputy if he does that? He has his biggest enemy sitting right beside him. I can say that I know that Bill English despises John Key and that he will do unto John Key what was done unto him by John Key. Mark my words! The bottom line is that Bill English is already running around telling everyone that he wrote the Burnside speech. He is telling people that he wrote that speech because he did not trust his leader to get it right. 
I do not want to spend any time on the Burnside speech but I do want to make the following points. I was born and bred in Christchurch as well in the next suburb over from Bryndwr. In fact I went to primary school in Bryndwr. Bryndwr was never a poor suburb. In fact more State houses were sold in Bryndwr by the last National Government than were sold in any other Christchurch suburb. Why? Because Bryndwr has never been a poor suburb. Labour has always had a policy of putting State houses in different parts of the community so as not to build up areas where people are trapped in poverty. But oh no! What we see is this person trading off a reputation of coming from this poor suburb. Bryndwr was never poor. 
Bryndwr should be contrasted with another suburb of Christchurch and I want to contrast it with Aranui. Aranui is in my electorate of Christchurch East and I am very proud of what that suburb has achieved in the last 7 years. I became the MP for Christchurch East in 1999 as Labour formed a Government after 9 long years of a National Government. The suburb of Aranui was in a parlous state when Labour became the Government. There had been years of neglect by a National Government. It had imposed market rents on a suburb that could not generate market incomes from its position of bargaining having suffered the worst consequences of the Employment Contracts Act and the failure of the National Government to increase the minimum wage every year as we have done since we took office. Members should look at what the suburb was like in that time. It was overwhelmed by unemployment. It had a poor health status and it had a low standard of educational achievement. The problems that the suburb of Aranui was being expected to confront seemed insurmountable in 1999. 
Today in 2007 Aranui is totally unrecognisable in terms of that description. It is so far ahead of where it was 7 years ago. I am surprised we have achieved so much in those 7 years. The suburb of Aranui has been completely transformed. This is not something that the Government did to Aranui; it is something that Aranui did with the Government in partnership. A partnership was formed signed and agreed between the community of Aranui as a partner with the Christchurch City Council and the Government through Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development. This has really shown the strength of partnership in community renewal that has been extraordinary in its breadth and depth. 
I remember meeting with the Aranui community in the year 2000 telling it that the new Government wanted to try something completely new and that it wanted to work with the community to help it to rebuild itself. I remember the cynicism of the people in that community. They did not believe me. They did not think there would be any change at all because they remembered what other politicians had told them. Bill Birch had said that the Employment Contracts Act would give them freedom of choice and the ability to negotiate better wages and conditions with their employers. I remember Ruth Richardson cutting their benefits. I remember Simon Upton putting cash registers in hospitals. I remember John Luxton and the market rents that drove the price of State housing out of the reach of ordinary New Zealanders. Housing New Zealand is the biggest single landlord in Aranui. The market rents did not just cripple the individual tenants they crippled the entire community. 
Less than 7 years later the Aranui community is no longer cynical about what a Government can do when it listens to what a community needs when it listens to a community’s own priorities and when it sets about to systematically rebuild a community in partnership with that community. Aranui is living proof that this Government is doing everything that needs to be done to make a dramatic difference. I can say that the difference is dramatic and we will keep doing it. Many more people in Aranui are now working both in part-time and full-time jobs. The introduction of the Employment Relations Act has made a difference to many of the wages and conditions of employment. The significant increases in the minimum wage every year make a difference in Aranui. 
The new houses being built by Housing New Zealand are both warm and safe. They have been built to energy efficiency standards that simply were not around in the days when the original buildings were built. The park has been redeveloped by the community. A new road has been put in behind the park to make sure it is opened up and safe for everyone to use—driving down Hampshire Street and into Ben Rarere Road. Ben Rarere Road never existed under a National Government. It has been built only now. No one would think this was a community that had suffered the deprivation it suffered from during the 1990s. 
I wonder whether John Key has ever been to Aranui. I am sure that he has not because he could not have said what he did in his Burnside speech if he had. A pilot project with the Canterbury District Health Board in the electorate where Aranui is has come to an end. That community is now so strong that it went out and got a private sector partner to fund the nursing project at the same time as trialling new diagnostic technology. It is absolutely extraordinary. This community which had nothing going for it now has everything going for it. 
I listened to John Key in the House today and did not hear him resile himself from any of the policies of the 1990s that drove communities like Aranui to the brink. If National had won the last election we would have seen the restoration of market rents for State house tenants we would have seen further sales of State houses and we would have seen a return to a minimum wage that was not increased every year. If National had won the last election we would have seen the extra $10 per week per child that comes in on 1 April this year scrapped. That is the truth of it. John Key has said nothing in this House that gives us any confidence that anything would change.