Copeland Gordon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Copeland Gordon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14276] 
GORDON COPELAND (Independent) 
: 
 I will be voting for the Government at the conclusion of this debate because I have agreed to give my support on confidence and supply for the duration of this Parliament. However my support will come to an end when the House rises for this year’s election. I have no doubt that we will then see a change of Government. During the 1990s a number of black marks arose against the National Government when it cut benefits and introduced market-based rents. As a result real poverty emerged amongst Kiwis. Churches and other third-sector organisations responded by creating food banks and organising a Hikoi of Hope to protest these heartless actions. Labour was in consequence elected in 1999 and to its credit it has tackled the issue of poverty through the restoration of benefits the switch to income-related rents for State housing and the introduction of the Working for Families package. 
However that is not the whole story. Now black marks have also been awarded by caring Kiwis against Labour. These black marks relate to Labour’s social engineering. Between 2002 and 2005 that included the Prostitution Reform Act the Civil Union Act and Labour’s continuing support for the law originally introduced by National that gives girls under 16 the right to an abortion without parental consent. None of those actions enjoyed the majority support of Kiwis. Indeed the Prime Minister was quick to say after the 2005 election that it was the social engineering that brought her Government to the brink of defeat. However she then proceeded in short order to put all her MPs under the whip in support of Sue Bradford’s bill to criminalise good parents who use the occasional smack to correct and discipline their children ignoring the fact that polls indicated that 80 percent of Kiwis are vehemently opposed to the State intruding into their homes and lives to that extent. 
Her Government also opposed the marriage bill and put its MPs under the whip to support the appointment of a practising abortionist to the Abortion Supervisory Committee. I believe that in this year’s election the Prime Minister will discover that she cannot say before the election that she will not be supporting anti-smacking measures then do the opposite after the election in the hope that Kiwis will simply forget about it. They have not and they will not. On the contrary on this very day hundreds or thousands of Kiwis will add their signatures to the petitions that will lead to citizens initiated referenda both to overturn the criminalisation of good Kiwi parents that gross intrusion into their freedom to make their own choices about child discipline—with child abuse being a completely separate case—and its companion petition that asks the Government to understand and address the wider issues of family breakdown family violence and child abuse. We will have referenda on both those issues. Over 290000 signatures have already been collected. 
Whether or not the Government likes it the voice of the people will be heard—the hard-won freedom and liberty of Kiwi families will be restored. The unwarranted intrusion of the State in the form of the police or Child Youth and Family into the homes of good parents will come to an end. A new grassroots party based on the timeless values of the people whom Labour has abandoned will emerge. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Which one? 
GORDON COPELAND 
: The Kiwi Party. The Kiwi Party will give New Zealanders the chance to vote for themselves. 
There is an old saying. Labour may be able to fool some of the people some of the time and it may be able to fool some of the people all of the time but it will find—later this year in our general election—that it has not fooled the majority of Kiwis this time. One will find indeed that there will be a backlash against those social-engineering measures. I could go on too about Michael Cullen’s broken promise on tax cuts which was made in 2005 and reneged on in 2007. The plain fact is that the writing is now on the wall. Time is up for Labour and we will see a new National-led Government later this year. The polls indicate that my interaction with Kiwis indicates that and I very much hope that the Kiwi Party will be back here as well working with National as a partner so that we can actually change these unfortunate blots on the record of what used to be a great party. In that connection I refer to the “former” Labour Party.