Mackey Moana: General Debate 
Mackey Moana: General Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:5033] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I ask Georgina te Heuheu whether she read the report that came out recently that showed that because of the previous Government’s Working for Families package 130000 children have been lifted out of poverty. I ask that member who stood there and said the previous Government did nothing— 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: Whatever. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: She says “Whatever.” and walks out. That is typical. The National members sit there and whinge and moan about the fact that we are pointing out that they have appointed the Lord Voldemort of New Zealand politics to head their productivity task force. Apparently that is our fault and we should not complain about it. The reality is that we are complaining about it. 
Georgina te Heuheu said that at the last election the New Zealand public were behind National. That is a fair comment; National won the election. But let us look at the difference between what the National Government promised at the last election it would do and what it has actually done. 
Louise Upston 
: Have you seen the polls lately? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Ms Upston might do very well to just listen for 5 minutes rather than screeching across the House. Let us have a look at National’s promises. During the election campaign we had the smiling mask of John Key and the National Party with its “Labour-lite” policies. It said that it would not change much and that everything that New Zealanders love would be kept with more on top of that. That is what we had during the election campaign. Well the mask is slipping. We are seeing the hard cold right-wing free-market ideologue face behind that mask—and Maurice Williamson is smiling because to him that is a compliment. We are seeing the mask slipping and the reality of this National Government. National has already broken election promises in its first year in Government. It has used the recession as an excuse. Apparently it was the only political party in the whole world that did not see the global recession coming! National deliberately promised things it knew it could not deliver and now it blames the recession as the reason why it cannot deliver on those promises. National knew it had to make those promises to get elected. 
But it has gone a step too far in appointing Don Brash to head the productivity task force. Any credibility that National had in saying that it would be a moderate Government has gone. First Christine Rankin was appointed to the Families Commission and now Don Brash has been appointed to head the productivity task force. If National was serious about productivity it would have put together a task force right across the political spectrum. It would have engaged a whole lot of different competing ideas and had a real debate about this matter. The fact is that National does not want that. It wants Don Brash to come out and say that the best way to increase productivity is to privatise everything and to get the Government out of every aspect of people’s lives. 
The point is that if we look just in the area of research and development we see that Treasury’s own papers to the Government said that if it is serious about productivity it has to do something about private sector investment in research and development. There is no point in talking about productivity when it is doing nothing to address our appallingly low rates of private sector investment in research and development. What did this National Government do? It cancelled the research and development tax credit. We are now one of the only OECD countries that do not have tax incentives for research and development. The Minister for Research Science and Technology Dr Wayne Mapp said at the Education and Science Committee and in this House that we are not at a competitive disadvantage compared with Australia yet the Australian Government has just bolstered its tax incentives and we have got rid of ours. This Minister has his head so far in the sand that only his ankles are visible. He seriously expects New Zealanders to believe that this Government is serious about productivity. If the Government is serious about productivity it needs to bring back the tax incentives for research and development—that would be a good first step—and admit that it was wrong in getting rid of them in the first place. 
Let us look at the issue of wages. Don Brash has made a big deal about the fact that our wages are so far behind Australia’s. He thinks we need to do something about that and the answer is privatisation and less government. Do members think that Don Brash will seriously consider whether the previous National Government’s reforms in the area of industrial relations had anything to do with our wages stalling? Will he consider whether the fact that workers could not bargain or negotiate for increased wages had anything to do with the fact that our wages fell behind our Australian counterparts? Will he consider the fact that Australian workers have consistently received a much fairer share of the economic growth and any other kind of advantage in that area because they have strong unionisation and strong industrial relations protections? Do members think that Don Brash will say that that has anything to do with wages in Australia versus wages in New Zealand? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Let me guess. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Let me guess. I think Don Brash will probably say that what we need to do is get rid of protections for workers get rid of the minimum wage and absolutely crush unionism. I ask members to look at New Zealand. It is interesting that the workforce areas that have had the best pay increases have been the most strongly unionised ones. Does the Government think that is a coincidence?