Shearer David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 12 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7458. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
3. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by all his statements and have confidence in the statements of all his Ministers? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I will start by wishing the Leader of the Opposition a merry Christmas. Yes I stand by all my statements. I have confidence in all my Ministers. Although it may have been the case that Ministers in a previous Government had to run their statements past their Prime Minister I do not run such an autocratic Government. I can only have confidence in those statements I have specifically seen or heard. 
David Shearer 
: I return the compliments to the Prime Minister. Does he stand by his statement that “Yep in the end you know we need to. We need to get that unemployment rate down and that’s whatever we think of the merits or robustness of the number. We need to be printing a lower number.” and when will he be printing a lower number? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am reasonably confident it will be before the next election. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement that this year has been much more business as usual and is an additional 19000 people unemployed over the last year business as usual? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: To the first bit yes. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his answer in response to Labour’s claims of increased migration to Australia that “Yep they’ve got a point but I mean it’s a fine kind of conundrum in a way because we started that argument so I’m not arguing the merits.” and how does he reconcile this answer with his statement that this year has been much more about business as usual? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am simply making the point that a strong Australia has some real merits for New Zealand. It is the largest source of tourists to New Zealand the largest source of our exports and the largest source of foreign investment so a very weak Australia does not actually help New Zealand. But yes I stand by the view that we want New Zealanders to stay here if they can. 
David Shearer 
: Does he agree with his finance Minister that “child poverty rates fell in working families from around 16 percent to 8 percent” from 2004 to 2007 the period in which Working for Families was rolled out and how many children have his tax cuts helped out of poverty given that hardship rates for children have risen from 16 percent to 21 percent in the last 4 years? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I simply cannot verify the facts of the last bit because we know that they are typically unreliable when they come from Labour. If we look at the first yes it is true that Working for Families had a benefit in assisting children in poverty. That is true. It is also true that when Labour had 3 years—2005 2006 and 2007—where the combined surpluses were $20 billion there were still 240000 children in New Zealand in poverty. The simple bottom line was it did not care enough to do much about it. 
David Shearer 
: Given that over the last year there have been an additional 19000 unemployed a record 54000 people leaving for Australia and inequality rising to the highest level ever and that the rate of children living in hardship has risen by 40 percent since 2007 does he stand by his statement that the low point for him was his inability to sell New Zealand’s assets? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes that was one of the low points. There were a couple of others; that was one of them. The good news is we comprehensively won that court case yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Question No. 4 Nicky Wagner. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I want to be able to hear Nicky Wagner. Question No. 4.