Shirley Ken: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Shirley Ken: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18360] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party supports and totally endorses the motion of the Leader of the Opposition Dr Brash namely that this House does not have confidence in a Helen Clark - led Labour Government. We are drawing to a close of this 14-hour debate and there have been some interesting and less interesting contributions I would have to say. One of the fascinating contributions I heard just in the last half hour was from the United Future member Paul Adams. He actually made what I thought was a fair enough analysis of the economic situation. He condemned the Government for its economic policies highlighted the point that it pays for failure creates the incentives for failure yet it penalises success. He was right on with his analysis. But the question I put to him now is why on earth does that party support this Government’s Budgets and allow it to govern if they are genuinely as opposed to its economic policies as he purported to be? 
Ron Mark 
: It’s poodle policy 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Well it is either poodle policy or doormat policy. Call it what one likes but it beggars belief that on the one hand they can rail against it and then stump up time and time again and pass the very measures that they say they are opposed to. There is no place for that sort of behaviour in this Parliament. 
I think we are all getting a bit sick—I know that the country at large is getting sick—of this Government’s arrogant wallowing and claiming success for what are yes very buoyant times in the New Zealand economy. We should all be thankful for that. But it is not of this Labour Government’s making. It is the hard yards from reforms of the past decades when real hardships were endured to change the structures and make those hard decisions. I am thinking of the Rogernomic reforms and the Ruth Richardson reforms. That is what has borne the fruit. That is what has delivered the fruit. 
This Government is plucking the low fruit while it messes up the fundamentals. When the cycles do turn and they always do—commodity prices and global interest rates—they will have messed up the fundamentals and this economy will be in a poorer state to weather the storms that surely lie ahead. It is for this reason the ACT party says: for goodness’ sake when we have a surplus of the size we have today give it back to those people who paid it. That is where one will get growth in the economy. That is where one will get real jobs. I heard the member for Whanganui Jill Pettis interject I think it was on Mr Worth. He said: “It is not the Government’s money.” She said: “Yes it is.” She believes that taxes paid by hard-working New Zealanders in hard-working communities actually belong to the Government. That is not the situation. 
Jill Pettis 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not make that interjection at all. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: That is not a point of order indeed. I think that others in the House would have heard similar sentiments where the assumption was that yes it belonged to the Government and the Government has the right to distribute it as it sees fit to try to secure its own support base. But the Government’s tracking for the operating surplus is to continue to get to be more than 4 percent of GDP. There has never been a better time to give taxes back. All successful countries in the OECD have reduced taxes. No economy has increased taxes and had sustained growth. That is the reality. 
So now is the time. Yet the Prime Minister has in subsequent comments missed taking advantage of that opportunity. Twenty-two percent of the 250000 full-time workers are treated as rich by this Government. They are sick of seeing no reward for the hard work and the longer hours they put in. 
It has been pointed out by numerous parties in this House that in the 5 or 6 years of this Government those workers are not better off. If one takes inflation into it they are no better off yet the economy is booming. What we have is a rich Government but poor people. Our wages are amongst the lowest in the OECD. They are far lower than those in Australia. So we have a rich Government but a poor people. That is an appalling situation and cannot be left to continue. 
But day after day week after week the Government dreams up new ways to throw out the largesse and say we are all benefiting. That is absolute nonsense. Its mates might be benefiting but in fact it is “poor people rich Government” and that is a very bad situation to have. 
One thing that really concerned me however was this quote from the Prime Minister’s statement. It relates to trade which is very important for our country: “We remain ready to enter negotiations with the United States as the mutual benefits of a free-trade agreement between us are clear.” Can members believe that? “We remain ready”! We know we are not ready and we know what the obstacle is. We have seen our neighbour our partner in closer economic relations take those first steps towards a free-trade agreement. All economic analysis tells us that the New Zealand economy would benefit from a billion dollars a year if we were to secure a free-trade agreement with what is the largest economy on the planet. But this Government’s policies and its senseless cold war mantras and dogma by continuing the ban on nuclear-powered vessels visiting our ports and territorial waters prevent that occurring. 
Even this week there was a very significant trade lobby in the US rating New Zealand in the top five in preference terms. But what they say is that it will not happen because Washington cannot accept the continuation of the ban. A comment in a speech has already been made—perish the thought—but imagine if a mega disaster such as we have just seen in the Indian Ocean were to hit our part of the world. Earthquakes and tsunamis of those proportions have hit us in the past as we do live in a very vulnerable part of the world on a tectonic plate. Perhaps if a major force 9 earthquake or a tsunami were to occur in Wellington for example with massive suffering we would welcome an aircraft carrier like the one that provided so much support off the coast of Sumatra. They have hospitals on board and it is the only logistical way that relief could be offered in a mega disaster of that proportion. 
That is the point is it not? If we faced that situation we would tear up our legislation beg them and welcome that aircraft carrier to come into our ports. But oh no we continue that mantra and dogma when we know there is no public safety or environmental risk factor. We had a major report over 15 years ago that told us that. It concluded that four times more radiation is emitted into the environment every day from Auckland Hospital than from the entire US naval fleet in a year. That is the nonsense of our continued ban on nuclear propulsion. 
So I say to the Prime Minister that if she is genuine in wanting to establish a free-trade agreement she should remove that obstacle and we can then start talking on equal terms with Australia and start making the progress that we all want to see. 
Crime has been a key issue in this debate and so it should be. New Zealanders do not feel safe. The Government may claim that it has brought crime records down but what it is not saying is that it is reported crime. People are no longer reporting burglaries because they do not get investigated. It is a waste of time even reporting them. The Government should make that claim to the families of the murder victims. There have been nine murders already I believe this year. That is an appalling record. If we go back to the 1950s there was one murder a year and it would dominate the news. Now it is almost a weekly if not daily occurrence and this Government is certainly not on top of that appalling situation. 
It must be a major concern to all New Zealanders. There have been some dreadful situations like the one in Foxton just in recent times and crime—certainly violent crime particularly—is not falling. Violent crime is increasing. This Government does not have the solutions. It has a hapless Minister. We saw that today in question time with the Tame Iti issue. He is a totally hapless Minister. If the Prime Minister were serious about crime then the first step she would take would be to change the Minister. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The next contribution from New Zealand First is split between Craig McNair and Edwin Perry.