Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2509] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 I have listened with interest to this debate today. In fact I have listened with interest for about 6 months and all I can say is that I have been truly disappointed by the lack of positive direction the lack of integrity and the lack of performance by this Labour Government. I know that this Government is in its third term that it has lost its enthusiasm and energy and that it does not think how to make a real difference. But do members of the Government have to be quite so bare-faced quite so cynical and quite so cruel as they scrabble around desperately spending taxpayers’ money trying to hold on to power? 
But let us focus on a simple small issue—noisy exhausts. For some of us that issue is irrelevant but if one’s home is near a road that has been designated by boy racers as a drag strip—and there are plenty of them all over the country—and if one’s hotel or business is in a central city noisy exhausts are a disaster. Families lose sleep and patience businesses lose patronage and income and our country loses its reputation for being clean and green—all this when there is a very simple solution. 
Cheap Japanese cars with modified noisy exhausts have been a persistent and growing problem since this Labour Government came to power but in the 6 years it has been in office it has done absolutely nothing to solve it. There are now over 90000 excessively and offensively noisy cars in New Zealand. One can go to Europe to the UK or to Australia and find that those countries are able to solve the problem. There is an easy solution but this “Minister of Transport Safety and Noisy Vehicles”— 
Hon David Carter 
: Who’s that? 
NICKY WAGNER 
: It is Harry Duynhoven who just cannot or will not make it happen. Sure he has made lots of pronouncements that he can fix it. He has even given dates when he will fix it but nothing changes. I wonder whether he remembers grandstanding in Cathedral Square in Christchurch 8 months ago promising faithfully that he would deal to noise by putting a specified decibel limit on noisy cars and introducing an objective standardised test to measure exhaust noise—and when? Within 6 months. Can I repeat that? He did a song and dance in Cathedral Square and said: “Yes I can fix it.” and he set a deadline for performing. But alas that was a long time ago—it has gone. That is the habitual story of this Government—lots of spin lots of grandstanding. It promises the earth and delivers sod all just short-term panaceas that look good on the surface but in practice take us deeper and deeper into the mire. 
The reason I came to Parliament is that I believe we need to build a strong successful country to attract and keep our young people. This Government sells the same message. But what does it offer? It offers a student loan bribe that will totally distort the economy. Students will have even bigger loans and have them for longer. When they graduate they will be able to work in a heavily taxed low-wage economy. How long will that satisfy our kids? 
With such poor quality short-term thinking this Government is destroying the future for New Zealanders. The student loan policy the Working for Families package and the whole welfare system is a cynical process of entrapment. Instead of empowering New Zealanders to go out there and make it happen for themselves this Government tempts the most vulnerable with free hits of welfare until they are truly hooked and cannot cope without Government support or interference. We want a safe prosperous and healthy country and we want a future for our kids and grandkids.