Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
Wagner Nicky: General Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4832] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 We are hearing a lot about and from Phil Goff today and I want to focus on the real mismatch between Labour rhetoric and the beliefs of its current leader. The Hon Phil Goff has been around Parliament for a long time. It has been a long haul from 1981 to 2009. It has been a long time of standing behind Clark and Cullen and a long time of being on the wrong philosophical side of the powerbrokers. 
All Labour members know that Phil Goff has always been to the right of the party and way back in the mid-1980s whenever the party was in dispute he generally positioned himself on the side of Roger Douglas which was in support of deregulation and free trade. I am sure that is very pleased to see Roger Douglas back in the House these days. When we read his quotes from the 1980s we know that deep down he absolutely does not support the things his party is saying. And now as the country is facing a global recession it must be particularly difficult for him to support the frankly simplistic and fiscally naive prattle that we have been hearing from that side of the House in the last few weeks. 
Phil Goff is a Clark clone but that will not do now. The prosperous economic times that buoyed up her administration have been kicked into touch and after 9 years of loose fiscal control and irresponsible spending by the Labour Government New Zealanders are now paying the price. It is all very well for Phil Goff to cry crocodile tears but why did he not take notice of the situation to be fiscally responsible in the last 9 years? To go forward we need a whole new responsible value-for-money attitude to Government spending. We need a positive focus on jobs we need to increase productivity and we need to prepare our nation to seize opportunities when this recession is over. Phil Goff understands that. He has said that low inflation and high productivity are essential means of creating new jobs. Well done Phil! National certainly would not argue with that. He also knows and understands how difficult it is to create jobs. He says that there is always in some quarters a temptation to address the problem of unemployment with simplistic answers—and we have heard those today. 
In reality there are no quick-fix solutions with easy answers. National agrees with that. We are not about sitting around and bleating about the problem or asking irrelevant questions in the House; we are all about getting on with the job of keeping people in work helping people to hold on to the jobs they have now and creating new ones. That is our first focus; that is the most important thing for all New Zealanders. If we as a community instead of scaremongering can hold our nerve can keep our businesses and organisations functioning then we will get through this recession. We will come out of it stronger and better prepared to meet the challenges of the future. 
National is absolutely committed to honouring all present entitlements and to looking after our elderly in the future. In the short term we may have to make some decisions that are not ideal as in postponing the transference of funds into our long-term Superannuation Fund. But of course it is the right thing to do. The fund was set up as a means to park surpluses in the good times which were to be used in the future—perhaps in 2020. That is a great idea when there is money to spare. But in the face of really tough economic times nobody with any financial acumen would suggest that anybody should borrow to pay our money overseas to play the stock market. Yet that was the main criticism by Phil Goff of the Budget. He contended that we should keep on borrowing and keep on borrowing to invest overseas even though he must have known that that does not make sense.