Moroney Sue: General Debate 
Moroney Sue: General Debate 
[Volume:652;Page:1857] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Dr Paul Hutchison is I think the very embodiment of what we are seeing with this National Government. It is reverting to type and going back to the old ways that it has always used. It is serendipitous that National’s response to the economic downturn happens to look exactly like its programme in the 1990s. How serendipitous! 
Actually it is not serendipity at all; it is planning. The National Government has a planned approach to going back to the 1990s. Cuts to accident compensation provisions the privatisation of accident compensation and the underfunding of superannuation are all coming back as happened in the 1990s under a National Government. But it goes on from there. Tax cuts that favour the rich over the poor—does that sound at all familiar from a National Government? Yes I remember that. National did that in the 1990s as well. And what about bringing back titles for knights and dames in this time of economic downturn? If that is not elitism and a case of National at its best then I do not know what is. 
But it goes further than that. We are already starting to see apprenticeships disappear under this National Government just like they did in the 1990s. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Come on! 
SUE MORONEY 
: Well Gerry Brownlee should wait to see the figures because I think he will find that under this National Government apprenticeships will be on the decline just as they were in the 1990s. National’s mask is slipping and it is not very pretty underneath there. We know that the National Government is definitely reverting to type. I have many more examples. What about reducing workers’ rights so that they do not have any in the first 90 days of their employment? If that is not the National Government reverting to type then I do not know what is. 
I will spend a little time talking about another area where National members really have shown their true colours and where they really have shown exactly the ideology that we have always known was there. They have tried to hide and they have perhaps got away with it for about 100 days but now the mask is slipping and they cannot get away with it. I am talking about pay equity. In 1990 when National last came to power what was the very first piece of legislation it got rid of? It was the Employment Equity Act 1990. Within weeks of taking office National abolished it. Well those members are back and guess what? Pay equity is off the drawing board again. 
Just 2 weeks ago the Hon Tony Ryall made an announcement. This time there was a different excuse but the same outcome. The Hon Tony Ryall said that the National Government was scrapping pay equity for school support workers—those people who are teacher-aides and administrators in our very important education sector—and for social workers. Yes that is right folks: for front-line staff working for Child Youth and Family there is no fairness and no pay equity. These things are now completely off the agenda after a decade of making progress towards achieving those things. In comes a National Government and guess what? Pay equity goes again. 
I have to agree with the Chief Human Rights Commissioner on this one when she asked the other day at a breakfast meeting here in Wellington what it was with the National Government. It is OK for it to say that it might use taxpayer funds to bail out Fisher and Paykel Appliances that it might use taxpayer funds for a whole range of private business entities and that it will bring back titles for knights and dames but will it honour a commitment to fair pay for women in the workplace and in the Public Service? No way not under a National Government. To use taxpayer money for all sorts of other ventures is acceptable but not for fairness at work for women. It is the same old National Party. 
Paul Quinn 
: Read the  
Dominion Post 
 Sue. You lost that one yesterday. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Paul Quinn comes in here and says: “So it should be.” He does not believe that there should be fairness for anyone at work because he voted for the 90-day bill. Paul Quinn also supports Tony Ryall’s cutting out those workers’ right to have a fair pay investigation so that they might take that forward and argue for that in a good employer relationship in a collective employment negotiation. But no the National Government has had to scuttle that investigation and it has scuttled it straight away. 
National is reverting to type and the mask is slipping. What do we find underneath that mask? It might be John Key up there with his nice smile and his affable way of not quite pronouncing his words properly and looking a bit goofy. People think they will give him the benefit of the doubt because he is kind of nice and a little bit cuddly. But John Key is out there smiling away while Bill English Tony Ryall and Nick Smith are all doing the policy work that is taking us straight back to the 1990s. They are privatising accident compensation and privatising the prisons. Where have we heard that one before? Oh gosh in the 1990s! Was that not what National did then? It is reverting to type and its true colours are coming out.