Brash Don: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Brash Don: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10789] 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That this House has no confidence in the Labour-led Government 
because that Government has no policies to raise New Zealand’s living standards back to the mid part of the OECD; it complacently accepts more than 300000 working-age adults being dependent on benefits and it continues down the dangerous road of promoting policies that treat New Zealanders differently on the basis of their race. 
When I entered politics I made it clear that I was not interested in trading insults with the Prime Minister. I was not interested in trading sarcasm with either the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister and I intend to stick with that. Let me say that the Prime Minister’s speech was strong on how the bounty of a buoyant economy could be distributed as bribes to voters who might be inclined to vote for the Government. It was strong on slogans. It was strong on social policies that diminish the distinction between work and welfare. It was strong on entrenching racial divisions within the institutions of our society. This is a Government that taxes New Zealanders rapaciously and then rather belatedly gives them a little back. If this is all the Prime Minister is offering New Zealand then our future is surely bleak indeed. 
There was no sign in the speech of any awareness that New Zealand’s future is threatened by the gap between our living standards and those in Australia and other developed countries. Thirty years back New Zealand and Australia had similar standards of living. Today Australia’s living standard is about 30 percent higher than that of New Zealand. The consequence is that in each of the last 5 years on average 30000 more New Zealanders have left these shores than have come back. That is a net loss of 30000 New Zealanders a year in each of the last 5 years. 
Just last month we saw a front-page headline that pointed out that New Zealand was losing on average 400 doctors a year overseas. That compares with about 250 doctors a year trained in New Zealand. We are getting an exodus amounting to a flood of competent New Zealanders going abroad because of that gap in living standards. 
There was no recognition in the speech either that the good growth the Prime Minister spoke about had nothing whatsoever to do with the policies of her Government. The good growth we have seen in the last 10 years—which was in per capita terms about three times faster than the growth we had in the 1970s and 1980s—was a consequence partly as the OECD pointed out just a month or two back of the policies put in place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was partly a consequence of the fall in the exchange rate which began I think in early 1997—Mr Peters is not here but he was Treasurer—and continued through 1997 1998 1999 and 2000. It had nothing to do with the present Government at all but hugely benefited provincial New Zealand. That growth had quite a bit to do with the fact that people from countries poorer than New Zealand thought it worthwhile moving here so we have had a domestic housing boom. 
Modesty prevents me from commenting on monetary policy 18 months back but the growth we have had bears no relationship to anything that this Government has done. Indeed there is no awareness that almost every policy relevant to the economy that this Government has put in place has slowed the economy’s growth. We look at compliance costs. Business New Zealand held a survey about August last year which showed that of the 760 firms surveyed 746 firms or 98 percent felt that compliance costs had gone up during the previous 12-month period 11 thought they had remained about the same and four felt they had gone down. 
We had an amendment to the Resource Management Act last year. It totally failed to deal with the problems in that legislation. The Government made a big song and dance about roading in its package in December. It was said that there would be an extra $162 million a year for Auckland but of course that money does not start going to Auckland until next year. Even added to the money that is already committed for Auckland the Automobile Association estimates that at the moment only about half the funds required to fix the Auckland transport problem have been spoken for. Half the funds required are at this point allocated and none of it starts going there until next year. 
The Government has left the company tax rate at one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region and in particular higher than the Australian rate. The Government has sat quietly by as our closest trading partners—the United States and Australia—signed the heads of agreement on a free-trade agreement. It is hugely serious for New Zealand’s future that we are outside that deal. There is no apparent concern on the part of the Government. 
We had to feel virtuous vis-à-vis the rest of the world in ratifying the Kyoto agreement and we see the consequences. This morning’s  
Dominion Post  
points out that we have enough coal in New Zealand to keep our energy costs amongst the lowest in the world for the next 300 or 400 years—if we are willing to use coal. But of course the Government says no we cannot do that. 
We know that the Holidays Act will hugely increase costs for many businesses. I was talking to one business person just the other day who told me that because his workers have to work on statutory holidays the cost per worker has risen from $408 a day to $658 a day. It is a cost to that business of $600000 a year. The Government cries crocodile tears about the effect of the exchange rate on export businesses and dumps additional costs all over them. Now of course we have the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill which will add substantially to the risks that small businesses face in running their businesses. We propose to oppose that with everything we have. 
The Government used to profess a concern to raise our living standards to the average of developed countries. The speech from the Prime Minister was remarkably silent about that. She mentions that objective only once and a bit more Government-funded childcare is the way in which she proposes to raise our living standards to the mid-point of the OECD. Apart from that there is no reference to anything constructive that might help. 
The Government also shows no signs at all of backing off its racially divisive policies. There are no signs at all of it being willing to deal with New Zealanders on the basis of need and not on the basis of race. There is no sign at all of ending the patronising and condescending attitude to Maori New Zealanders that has the Government treating them differently from the rest of the community and the Local Government Act is the best example of that that I have seen. Members will recall that that Act requires local governments to deal with their communities consult with their communities and with Maori—as if somehow Maori were not part of the community. 
There is no sign either of an end to the Government’s duplicity in saying one thing to Maori New Zealanders and a different thing to non-Maori New Zealanders. Members will recall that we first saw that last year when the Government put out a pamphlet in Maori dealing with the Local Government Act and a rather different pamphlet in English dealing with that Act and had every intention of distributing those pamphlets until we pointed out that they were different. 
Of course the Solicitor-General has now revealed that the Government has been telling less than the full truth to non-Maori New Zealanders about the veto power it is proposing to give to Maori New Zealanders over the use of the seabed and the foreshore. It is interesting that the Prime Minister’s speech has only two short sentences dealing with that very important issue. 
So what would I have wanted to see in the Prime Minister’s statement? First I would have liked to see a commitment to policies that would accelerate our growth rate and not allow a deceleration of our growth rate—as Treasury is now projecting for the next 10 years. I would have liked to see a serious commitment to reduce compliance costs and to getting our corporate tax rate down to at least on a par with the Australian company tax rate. I would have liked to see the scrapping of the proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act that will certainly be a major nightmare for the business sector. I would have liked to see measures to fix the roading problems so that the whole country from Auckland down south and indeed up north—having been to Whangarei last week—can get moving again. I would have liked to see some serious commitment made to fixing the Resource Management Act.I would have liked to see some serious attempt to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States. 
Secondly I would have liked to see a commitment to fixing the education system so that we do not have children coming out of school unable to read write or do basic arithmetic. Every child deserves the right to get the best education of which he or she is capable. I would certainly not be wanting to see the promotion of the highly centralised education system where schools are closed at the whim of the Minister. Within the last 2 weeks the Minister of Education has marked 68 schools for closure. 
Thirdly I would have liked to see a commitment to fix the welfare system so that it becomes impossible for able-bodied people to sit at home idle indefinitely. Today despite the fact that apple orchardists cannot get people to pick their crops and foresters cannot get people to prune their trees more than 300000 adults of working age sit at home on a benefit costing the taxpayer $20 million a day or nearly $1 million an hour. 
Fourthly I would have liked to see a commitment to take vigorous steps to make New Zealanders safe in their homes and a serious attempt to deal with drugs. I want to see the Proceeds of Crime Act changed so that convicted drug dealers will have to prove where they got their assets from and if they cannot prove that those assets were obtained legally they should lose them. They should forfeit them with the proceeds used to educate young people about the dangers of drugs. 
Fifthly I would like to see a commitment to ensure that all New Zealanders are equal under the law and are treated by the Government on the basis of need not race. I want every person to have equal civil and political rights and I will be undertaking a series of speeches around provincial New Zealand over the next few weeks to make that point strongly. 
After 5 years in office the Prime Minister herself must accept responsibility for the failings of her Government. She cannot blame individual Ministers; she has to accept responsibility herself for the continued welfare dependency despite the buoyancy of the economy she alluded to in her speech; for the continued failure of our school system to get to grips with illiteracy and innumeracy; for the rapid escalation of drug-related crime and for the increase in racial tension that we see in New Zealand. Maori New Zealanders are being led to believe that they have different rights from other New Zealanders. Non-Maori New Zealanders are beginning to resent that and that is a hugely dangerous situation. 
The Prime Minister should also take responsibility after 5 year’s office for the fact that we have failed to see any lift in our growth-rate trend with Treasury as I indicated a moment ago predicting a slow-down in that growth. The lift we got in the 1990s was a result of policies put in place by the last National Government. We are not seeing any advances made to improve growth for the future. 
I want a New Zealand where every child grows up loved in a two-parent family where every child has the best possible education and where everybody who wants to work can get a job. I want a New Zealand where everybody can get access to the health care they need; where everybody in need gets support from his or her fellow citizens; where everybody can feel safe in his or her home; where the standard of living is equal to that of Australians and where all New Zealanders regardless of race are treated equally under the law. With National New Zealand can be the best country in the world.