Hughes Darren: General Debate 
Hughes Darren: General Debate 
[Volume:652;Page:1634] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 There is nothing like rewriting history and if there is one member who gets his twink out all over political history in New Zealand to try to cover up what National did in the 1990s and the great work that happened in the 2000s under Labour then it is the Hon Tony Ryall. He is one of a small group of Ministers who we are looking forward to watching. He is so full of his own self-confidence and his own belief that he is going to be able to make the changes he whinged and complained about for 9 years. When he falls flat on his face Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will be here to point it out—as well as a few of his own colleagues. We know that he is not one of the most popular members of Cabinet and quite a few of those frustrated backbenchers know he is going to be a Minister who falls over. 
It is amazing that Mr Ryall considers the previous Government to be a failure. Why then did National members adopt most of the Labour Government’s policies before they got within cooee of the Treasury benches? When National campaigned on a more right-wing agenda—which some of its members were much more keen on—it could not get within cooee of the Treasury benches and its members sit there now because they have adopted so many of Labour’s policies. 
National’s members are letting all the spin wash over everything. All of a sudden the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is the great big monkey on their shoulders that they are going on about. They say that they so are worried about it they have had to contact Harcourts to put the “For Sale” sign out the front as a way of justifying the privatisation of that asset. The report that came out yesterday showed the truth. It exonerated Dr Cullen and Maryan Street and not one single bit of nonsense from the Opposition that is being repeated and repeated and repeated will ever make it anything other than the truth that I have said. 
The Government opposite talks about the failed record of the Labour Government on the economy. Labour resisted the temptation of the here and now when year after year National said: “Give away the surplus.” Every year when the Budget surplus was repeated National speakers would get up one after the other and say: “Give away the surplus; spend it!”. The Labour Government put it away into the superannuation fund for the future and used it to pay down debt. The only reason that National Government is able to pursue what small timid little ideas it had in its manifesto is because its ability to borrow is stronger than it would have been if Labour had not paid down debt year after year. So we are not going to brook any criticism of the economic record of the Labour Government. New Zealand is well positioned for this terrible worldwide recession because of the actions that Labour took in Government. We will have a little bit more consistency with the facts when it comes to National trying to argue its way ahead. 
Today the Labour Opposition is making the point that not enough is happening to combat the recession and to protect jobs in this economy. In fact the only jobs the Government’s members are concerned about are their own ones. The only jobs they are moving to protect are their own ones and that is because they have the great spin machine going with their “rolling maul” of initiatives. They are proud of that. They are proud that they are doing very little once a week to get in the media in New Zealand and that will suit their political purposes for 2009—I have no doubt of that whatsoever. But it does not suit the purposes of the economy. The economy needs a positive signal from Government members that they are serious about the issues that confront this country and that they have a proper comprehensive plan for doing something about it. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the transport area where the Government asked to be congratulated on bringing forward the Kopu Bridge by 3 months at the grand cost of nothing. There is one good thing about this: Maurice Williamson wanted to toll the bridge but it is not going to be tolled in reflection of the recession. So I guess that is one positive to come out of it. But other than that there is nothing about transport that this Government can point to that is actually going to help the economy. 
I look at rail. In the rail announcements today the majority of the money that Bill English was talking about—the $40 million for new locomotives—was money already voted by Parliament under the previous Government. We hear members talk about underfunded commitments. Bill English could only talk about those trains today because they were funded by the previous Government. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: No they weren’t! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Nick Smith needs to check the books because that is where the money came from. It just shows that someone can be a front-bench Cabinet Minister and not know that that $40 million came from money already appropriated. I am worried that that man holds a warrant. Actually to be fair I was worried about it before he said that. 
We in Labour say that rail has a positive future and a positive vision for being part of the economic stimulus. It is good for the environment good for jobs and good for the efficiency of our transport network. National is letting that go at every single level. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It was a dopey deal. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: He calls it a dopey deal. Nick Smith calls rail a dopey deal for the New Zealand economy. That shows the limitation of the Government. 
We want to see more trains carrying more passengers and more freight around New Zealand because that is the way we are going to get more jobs into our economy and open up regional and rural New Zealand. Those Government members from rural and regional seats who do not speak one word to defend regional and rural rail lines have to answer to their constituents about that because today the Minister of Finance did not guarantee any single one of the rail lines—they will have to front up and do that.