Smith Nick: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: General Debate[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6681. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): One year on from the 2014 general election I need a basic question answered: what on earth does the Labour Party actually stand for? I have never witnessed in 25 years a Labour Party that is so rudderless so uncertain as to what it believes in and in what it stands for and so leaderless. It is all over the paddock on the issues that matter. Week after week we hear the Labour Party members speaking out of both sides of their mouths and engaged in doublespeak. Let us just look at the last week. Andrew Little said yesterday that Governments must not run deficits. He criticised the Prime Minister for some of the deficits that we ran post the global financial crisis. Yet on Sunday we had Grant Robertson saying: “I think the Government should run some more deficits.” So can Labour members tell me: are you for deficits or are you against deficits?Then we come to the issue of immigration. Andrew Little for the last 2 weeks has been saying that New Zealand needs to take more migrants and I thought that was a genuinely held view from the Labour Opposition. Then Grant Robertson turns up—he forgot to tell Andrew Little—on Sunday morning on Q+A saying that Labour’s policy is to reduce the number of migrants. I would love to know Labour’s position.Just after the general election Andrew Little said that Labour is opposed to a capital gains tax. Then why is it that in every single debate I have with Phil Twyford on housing he says we need to address supply and we need a capital gains tax? Can Labour members say where they stand on that issue?Then I come to the issue of housing and on housing I have heard Mr Phil Twyford say that interest rates going up is bad. Then when interest rates go down he says it is bad. When we increase housing supply he says it is bad. Again they are all over the paddock.Then we come to education. We have the issue of charter schools and we hear Labour saying repeatedly in this House that charter schools are bad. Then we have Labour members hopping off to raise funds for charter schools in Whangarei and saying that they are good.Then this week we had something even more extraordinary. I thought that Labour was opposed to the private provision of social services. That is what I have heard in this House. Then I turned on the radio on Monday morning and I heard a Labour MP decrying the Minister of Education for closing the Pacific Christian School for non-performance and saying we should be keeping it open. Again I have to say I am confused.But the one thing I thought that Labour always stood for is inclusiveness. If there was any party in this Parliament that I thought stood up for people not being treated on the basis of race it was the Labour Party. I thought it was right at its core that it would not be playing racial games with issues. Yet then we had the leader and Phil Twyford running their campaign of blaming the housing issue on people with Chinese-sounding names. It was so bad we had Winston Peters blushing. You see Labour’s problem is that it has ripped up its core values.I come finally to the issue of the new flag. At the election Labour said and I read this out word for word: “The time has come for change.” Labour members said there should be a referendum on a new flag. Well I say to Mr Little why is it that voters cannot trust you? It is because only 1 year ago you went to voters with a policy and you are reversing on it. And in respect of the Red Peak flag I have to say that the Prime Minister has been very generous. He said that if Labour wants to honour its policy and support the referendum well he will go the extra mile and will include the Red Peak flag on the referendum but all Labour has to do is stand for what it stood for just 12 months ago. And so my plea is: can someone anyone anywhere please tell me what Labour does stand for.