Hide Rodney: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hide Rodney: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1079] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 Mr Dunne whom I follow in speaking is quite right in that we are here to debate the big issues of New Zealand. As representatives we are concerned about the families of New Zealand and their futures and as Tariana Turia mentioned we are concerned about underdevelopment of the Maori people in our country. I also take Jeanette Fitzsimons’ point about her grandson Jasper. We do want the next generation to grow up in a world that is free in a society that is open and in a world that is prosperous. We should always remember when human beings are brought into the world that yes they come with a mouth and they need to be fed but they also come with two arms two legs and a mind to produce to create and to develop their full God-given potential. We should be striving in this House and in this Parliament to create a world where all New Zealanders whatever their race and whatever their culture can develop their full God-given potential. 
There is another reason why Jasper can be considered lucky. That is because his grandmother did not burn down the Coromandel over the summer break when contrary to the fire ban she lit a fire which could have burnt down the entire Coromandel and then made the lame excuse that she did not know that a fire ban was in place. It is very very hard to drive around the Coromandel—or anywhere in New Zealand—and not to know that a fire ban is in place. 
That is one of the troubles that I have with our Green colleagues. They are all very keen to tell each and every New Zealander what to do but they are not so good at looking after the environment themselves. The leader of the Green Party lit a fire in the height of summer in the Coromandel bush and I say shame on Jeannette Fitzsimons. I am amazed that she has not come down to this House to apologise for what was potentially a huge act of environmental vandalism. 
I read Helen Clark’s speech— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You’re the only one. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I thought it was so boring and tedious and then I came down and heard it. I have never heard in this House a leader fresh from overseas trips and parading herself on the world stage looking for the next job give a more tired a more despondent and a more visionless speech during my time in Parliament. It was so bad that the new and rising star of the Labour Party Shane Jones who was sitting up the back there was fast asleep through the entire speech of the Prime Minister. That is right. He was woken up only when his colleagues tried to manage a clap. Shane Jones being new to the Labour caucus has not learnt that trick that we could see on the face of everyone in the Labour caucus. They had that glassy-eyed look they have when the Prime Minister speaks—their eyes were open but they were fast asleep rack-ruined with boredom and pious statement. 
 There was no vision for New Zealand in that speech. There was no ambition for New Zealanders. There was no programme for this Government—nothing. [ 
Interruption 
] Sue Bradford calls out: “Where’s the ACT party?”. We stand up in this House with our whole caucus. We are proud to stand up to outline to Sue Bradford our vision ambition and programme for New Zealand. Our vision is for a free and prosperous New Zealand. We cannot prosper when we are laden down with regulations that stop young Jasper from getting ahead in the world. We need that freedom as a right and we need that freedom to prosper. 
Our ambition is for New Zealanders to stand tall and proud as Kiwis in the world. How can we stand tall and proud with Helen Clark as Prime Minister? That woman is an embarrassment as the laws that apply to everyone else in New Zealand do not apply to her. Now we find that the laws that apply to every MP and every political party do not apply to her or the Labour Party and she has dragged in the good office of the Speaker to what is a corrupt practice in New Zealand—that is the misappropriation of taxpayers’ money. 
Our ambition for New Zealand is for it to perform at the top of the OECD ladder not to middle around the middle and falling but at the top by having—I tell Judith Tizard—a small and limited Government that does the proper functions of government properly and recognises that the engine of growth and prosperity is the free-enterprise system in this country. We should have a New Zealand that is clean and green that recognises and upholds private property rights and a New Zealand that is safe. In fact New Zealand should be the safest country in the world to visit and to live in. We should have a police force and a justice system that stands up for the law and for law-abiding citizens not a police force that is run ragged by the Prime Minister and cannot perform its proper function. 
We should have an education system that is the envy of the world. Why? Because children should be funded to a school of their parents’ choice. Children should not be restricted to a State school. Every New Zealander should have a real choice not only the rich and favoured. Why can we not have choice and competition in our education system when we have it everywhere else and it works to our benefit? 
We should have a welfare system that delivers to the 5 percent who are needy and enables the 95 percent who can cope and manage to get on with their lives not a welfare system that Helen Clark has created where even MPs become entitled to welfare from the State—that is paying tax and getting it back and where even businesses under Jim Anderton’s policies get welfare. That is not our ambition for this country. We cannot stand tall and proud if we are living for a handout. We stand for a diverse and tolerant New Zealand where everyone is equal before the law notwithstanding their race creed or religious beliefs. Helen Clark should pay back now. The money that she used to fund the tax cuts—and let me be clear about these words—was stolen from the taxpayer. Because that money in the leader’s fund was intended to be spent on parliamentary business and it is plain in the handbook which all parties adhere to that it is used to pay for parliamentary business—and those credit cards in an election campaign are not parliamentary business. I potted Jim Anderton for using the parliamentary frank to put a letter out advertising Kiwibank. He put his hand up and he paid the money back. When Marian Hobbs was caught fiddling her expenses she put her hand up and paid the money back. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: She was not. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Well if she was not caught why did she pay the money back? She was caught red-handed. In this case Helen Clark was caught red-handed using taxpayers’ money—money they pay for a police force for an education system for a health system not to fund the crooked Labour Party. The majority of taxpayers do not support Labour yet under Helen Clark their money was taken that was given to her for parliamentary business. She took their money and put it towards funding her pledge card under her fake photo and her real signature. She should be held accountable and she should pay that money back.