Lees-Galloway Iain: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 During this debate a lot of members of the House have focused on what the Prime Minister said. Of course that is appropriate; it is the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. But I will not focus on the Prime Minister because as my colleague Kris Faafoi said the statement was 22 pages that said absolutely nothing whatsoever. 
I will focus on one of the true acolytes of the National Party David Bennett because last night David Bennett managed to say in 10 words what the Prime Minister could not bring himself to say in 22 pages. Members can check  
Hansard 
 and have a look at what David Bennett said. He said this: “The Government is not there to make your life better …”. That is what David Bennett said. It is fantastic that we finally have a National Party member who is prepared to tell the truth about this Government’s agenda. I will say it again: Mr Bennett said: “The Government is not there to make your life better …”. Ain’t that the truth because we have seen cuts to front-line health services and we have seen cuts to early childhood education. I will pause on that for a moment. 
The Minister of Education says that if parents are not happy they should change centres. If the early childhood centre where parents send their kids is putting its fees up because the Government has cut its funding then they should change centres. Well guess what! The parents of kids who are going to kindy to early childhood centres send their kids to a particular centre because it is part of their community or because it is close to where they work. They do not want to have to change centres; they should not have to go to the other side of town. The Minister just shook her head nonchalantly as if it is no big deal no problem. The Minister is saying that she is not there for the parents of children in kindy or early childhood centres. She would prefer that they go to the other side of town if their centre has to put its charges up because she has decided to cut the funding. 
We have seen increased GST. We have seen the Government let unemployment go through the roof. It has no plan to grow the economy. It has no plan for jobs. It has no plan for manufacturing. It has no plan for clean technology. It has no plan for New Zealand’s future. Why? Because David Bennett is right: the Government is not there to make people’s lives better. What the Government has done is create public debt. Net public debt was zero when the Government came into office. It has let that skyrocket too. Why has it done that? Because it wants to sell our State-owned assets. That is why it has let that debt get out of control. This Government wants to sell off assets that belong to every New Zealander. John Key got up and said the reason he was doing that is that we need to take ownership of our future. I think the Prime Minister has been hanging out with Prince William a bit too much. He is clearly using the royal “we” because it is only people like John Key who will be able to take ownership of New Zealand’s future if we continue to sell off our State assets. 
John Key’s message to hard-working New Zealanders is simply this: “The National-led Government is not working for you.” Whom is it working for? Well it is working for the tiny number of people who have the most—those with millions of dollars in the bank who receive interest hand-over-fist—because they got the tax cuts. John Key got $1000 a week in tax cuts. National is working for the foreign banks and the finance companies. They will be the ones that get to buy shares in our State-owned assets; they will be the ones that take over ACC. They will be the ones that sell us health insurance because this Government will not take its responsibility seriously and will refuse to provide proper health care. 
This Government is certainly not there for people who need proper health care. It should not cost a parent in New Zealand 20 percent of their weekly budget just to take their child to the doctor after hours. But those parents are not a priority to this Government. The cost of going to one’s general practitioner no matter what time of day it is should not be going up—but it is. That means it is harder for everybody to see their doctor—everyone except of course the very few whom this Government is working for. Wages went up 1.7 percent last year and general practitioner fees increased by 6.5 percent in 2009. They went up again in October last year when National’s GST hike kicked in. But that does not matter because this Government is “not there to make people’s lives better”—David Bennett said so. 
Hard-working Kiwi families know that the Government is not working for them. This Government is working for someone else. The Government is planning to cut $750 million from health over the next 4 years. That means cuts to the services hard-working Kiwis rely on. It means hard-working New Zealanders will not get the treatment they need. What will National say then if it is still in charge? It will say that health care is in crisis and that we need to privatise privatise privatise. The insurance industry will be licking its lips at that idea just as it was when Merrill Lynch told it to expect a $200-million-a-year windfall when National privatises ACC. That is whom this Government is working for. 
In health care there is a test coming up very soon for this Government. We are negotiating a free-trade agreement the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a number of American pharmaceutical companies are putting the pressure on to make sure the cost of medicines in New Zealand goes up. Who will the Government go into bat for? Will it be New Zealanders? Will it be hard-working Kiwis who appreciate the fact that pharmaceuticals in this country are inexpensive? Pharmac has provided the cheapest medicines anywhere in the world. Or will it be the overseas corporations? Will it be “Big Pharma”? Is that who the Government will go into bat for? That is a huge question and people will be asking that as we get closer to those negotiations. 
The track record of this Government is not good. If someone is in need of health care that person’s costs have gone up and his or her services have been depleted. If someone is a parent who has a child in early childhood education that person’s costs have gone up and the quality is going down. Those people are facing higher prices at the supermarket. There is a greater chance that they have lost their job. There is no plan—there is no plan. 
That is why constituents are coming into my office such as the two who came in last week. One has just completed her teaching qualifications. She has applied for 25 teaching jobs and has been turned down for every single one. She is not lazy and she is not sitting on her backside at home. She is out there working extremely hard to try to find a job but there are none. What is the Government’s message for her? It is: “We are not working for you. You are lazy. That is why you do not have a job.” That is the Government’s message for people like her. I met a gentleman who was made redundant last year. He gets no support from the Government. He is out there working hard to try to find a job but he feels labelled and stigmatised by this Government because it is not working for him either. 
This Government is not working for New Zealanders; it is working for someone else and it is about time that it came clean. It is about time that we heard more people like David Bennett get up and tell it like it really is. Here are his words again: “The Government is not there to make your life better …”. That is true; the Government is working for foreign finance companies for foreign landowners for insurance companies and for people who have the very very most—the tiny tiny percentage in this country who have the very very most. National is working for its mates. 
This Government needs maybe to take a leaf out of the Opposition’s book because we will invest in skills development. We will support New Zealanders to make the most of themselves. We will invest in early childhood education. We will make sure health care services are available for everybody accessible for everybody and of the very highest quality. 
New Zealanders need to know that the National-led Government is not working for them; it is working for someone else. New Zealanders need a Government that is working for them and that is a Labour Government.