Peck Mark: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peck Mark: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6114. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: How does that work? 
MARK PECK 
: I say to the member that it happened because it is my turn. I am actually going to say some nice things about Crown-owned enterprises because— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Tell us about the lockout of the staff in Invercargill. 
MARK PECK 
: The member goes on about a lockout in Invercargill. That member would not know a lockout if he fell over one. He used to be a teacher at St Bede’s and they tell me he was not much good at that either. So they pensioned him off north to bloody Wellington and now he is in the House as an honourable carpenter can I say. But I must say that my father says very nice things about Mr Brownlee. He said that Mr Brownlee was the only person who would turn up to a campaign meeting and publicly say to the people present: “Look I am a privileged person and the rest of you aren’t. Too bad because you are going to vote for me anyway. I am going to be returned to this place.” 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Stop talking rubbish. 
MARK PECK 
: I say to the member that he really enjoyed the campaign meetings. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Speaker knows full well that the member must stick to the topic in front of him. In this event for the member to bring his father into the conversation—a reverend father of the Anglican church I might say; a man who has never told a lie in his life—and to perpetrate the sort of myth and rubbish that he is at the moment is an absolute disgrace not only to this House but also to his own family. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is a debatable matter and there is always leeway given with a speech—Speaker’s ruling 38/1. 
MARK PECK 
: I say to the member opposite that if I have misquoted my father I sincerely apologise to him—that is to my father. Otherwise my allowance will not be paid on time. 
I do want to say some nice things about State-owned enterprises. I want to start with my airport Invercargill Airport Ltd. What a successful company that airport has been. I do not know whether members of the House know it but it was the first of the regional airports that was going to declare itself an international airport. Now as Mr Shadbolt would say “Yes we went and did it. We declared ourselves an international airport and yes there has not been a plane in yet but there are great hopes that one day it might happen.” But great things have happened. Members who come down to Invercargill now will be delighted to know that they no longer have to wait out in the rain to pick up their baggage. We now have a covered baggage area and I congratulate the airport staff on the work they have done. I certainly want to congratulate the very good appointments to that board on the work they have been doing. 
It was fascinating tonight that the very first speaker for the National Party was Lynda Scott. Here we are with a financial debate—an opportunity for the finance spokesperson from the National Party to make a hard-hitting speech to the House about the general direction a National Government would take—and they missed the bus. 
Darren Hughes 
: He’s a part-time member. 
MARK PECK 
: He could be a part-time member but it was his opportunity to be in the House to make those comments. Now what did we get from Lynda Scott? Well surprise surprise—[ 
Interruption 
] That is probably right. I think there might have been a few more members opposite as well at that particular time. We got a very interesting speech about health well ostensibly about health. But what was the ambit of her speech? The ambit of her speech was that a particular gentleman with a health problem had that problem because the Government had not contracted the private health system to do the surgery. We asked Lynda Scott which hospital she was going to sell. We had a very interesting revelation this afternoon when the Hon Roger Sowry was speaking about Tranz Rail and New Zealand railways. When he was asked the very direct question of whether he would sell railways he went on to say: “Wait and see.” I say to Lynda Scott that she should not worry about waiting and seeing. The best way to find out what the National Party is going to do to health and education is to pick up the speech made by Don Brash— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Tea leaves. 
MARK PECK 
: No not tea leaves—we can never accuse Don Brash of reading tea leaves. He drinks coffee so we cannot accuse him of that. But I say to members that they should pick up the speech that Don Brash made to the Knowledge Wave conference—back in 2001 I tell Dr Cullen I think it was. That speech is the National Party policy. That is its policy because no other member opposite— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: But Bill English doesn’t agree with it. 
MARK PECK 
: He might not agree with it but I have seen Mr English quoted in newspapers as saying that as part of a caucus one has to abide by the decisions of the caucus. And he does not win all the debates; he probably does not win many of them frankly. I have seen him on several occasions having to defend things that he obviously disagrees with. There is an extremely good article in the Christchurch  
Press 
 today about Bill English that I am quite certain Gerry Brownlee has read in which he was actually called a “decent man”. It said— 
Darren Hughes 
: It can’t have been written by Mr Brownlee. 
MARK PECK 
: No no. The article called Bill English a decent man and asked him whether it would not really have been a good idea on some issues like Iraq just to bide a while—that is an old Scottish saying as I understand it—see what happened and so on and so forth. That is the point if ever he is going to aspire to be a Prime Minister. I suppose he is young enough. Ronald Reagan became President at 70 and I suppose Bill English at 40 has a few years to go before he reaches that hallowed age. But I have to say that he has missed his opportunity to have his finance spokesperson up tonight to speak about State-owned enterprises and to speak about what the National Party would do with them. 
What was even more fascinating about Lynda Scott’s speech was that we were berated about the fact that there are 22 district health services. 
Steve Chadwick 
: 21. 
MARK PECK 
: Well there used to be 22 Crown health enterprises and the number is now down to 21. But what Lynda Scott has conveniently forgotten in her speech is that prior to the Crown health enterprises that preceded the district health services being established we had 14 area health boards. The National Party in those days promised not to get rid of the area health boards. It was National’s policy to continue with them because they were starting to get the sort of efficiency gains that we needed in health if we were serious about delivering health care within the dollars available. Everybody knows that with a service like that there does come a limit. It is the sort of service whereby it would not matter how much was spent the demand would not be satisfied. So there is a limit but what did National members do? Overnight in the “mother of all Budgets” they sacked them all put in commissioners and they set up a competitive Crown health enterprise system. Yet here Lynda Scott was in the House tonight bemoaning the fact that we have 21 district health services when the whole competitive model of health was set up by the National Party. If we read that in conjunction with Don Brash’s speech we can see that the prescription for selling off health is right there. It is right there because health as far as Mr Brash is concerned is just another market. 
Steve Chadwick 
: She said it tonight. 
MARK PECK 
: She did say it tonight—it does not matter that people rely on hospitals for a service what matters is that if one runs a hospital service that is inflationary inflation is bad and we have to get inflation out of the system. That is why National would also flog off the schools and the Accident Compensation Corporation. That is why National would sell New Zealand Post and why it would sell New Zealand rail again. 
This Government says to its State-owned enterprises that it is about adding value to the Government and to the services that we deliver to the people of New Zealand. It is about contributing to our society. We have encouraged those State-owned enterprises to get on and do that. They are contributing quite well in terms of returning profits to this country. One company in particular I think it is Genesis or it might be Meridian has invested in wind power in Australia. That is about maximising returns to New Zealand and it is about getting New Zealand access to wind power generation at a reasonable rate. It is the old Woolworths concept—the more one buys the cheaper it is—and I say good on them. They have been given the commercial focus to get stuck in and they are doing good work. 
I congratulate Dr Cullen and the Government on the work they have done. State-owned enterprises are an important part of our economy now and will remain so. The one thing the people of New Zealand will not stand ever again is the sort of social experiment we went through when Ruth Richardson was the Minister. They will not stand for that again. They know what is decent they know what is right and core public services are part of the social contract that Governments have with the people.