General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
General Debate 
[Sitting date: 13 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2925. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
General Debate 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. In recent weeks there has been a cacophony of calls a literal caterwauling of echoes regarding a campaign being launched against the senior citizens of this country. They are being targeted because politicians pressure groups and the media have decided they are getting too much money and they are getting it too early. I want to remind members what these people are being paid at 65 years. It is $348 a week for singles who are living alone; it is $536 a week for a married couple. Is there anyone in the House living on that? Are any of these people over there on the Government side living on that? No.  
When there are problems society always looks for scapegoats—let us find someone to blame. Let us for example pick on the elderly. In Nazi Germany they had to find scapegoats. They did not blame their own militant leadership between 1914 and 1918. They just blamed the Jews. We cannot blame the elderly for problems facing New Zealand and I am going to tell members why. These problems were caused by politicians greedy banks and the corrupt leadership of finance companies in the last few years. Since 1984—this is what has happened to New Zealand—two Governments have come into power one in New Zealand and one in Australia. Australia has by making incremental change and reform grown 37 percent larger in terms of GDP in real terms than New Zealand which went down the road of economic experimentation.  
The blame lies fairly in the experience of this House not with the elderly but with those people who thought and still think that this experiment is going to work. It is not going to work. What is the growth rate of Australia which Mr Key has been talking about all this time saying that we are outperforming Australia? Well the growth rate came in for the end of March at well over 4 percent. What is ours? It is 1.1 percent. This genius from Merrill Lynch has been telling this House that for month after month and it is all absurdly false. What is the average of the growth rate under his administration? Well it is a lousy 0.8 percent per year and that is why they are looking round here in this House now and outside for scapegoats and they have found the elderly.  
Who is leading this charge? Well it is the Financial Services Council. Who are they? Well their chairperson is Jenny Shipley. The person who could not understand the BNZ disaster the wine box or the Asian financial crisis is now heading the financial services sector of this country. She was the very person who back in 1997 opposed New Zealand First’s offer for a referendum in this country for people to save from tax cuts 8 percent eventually to go straight into their personal account. We would have had tens of billions now had we done that—and Jenny Shipley went out and opposed it. But now she is leading the financial services and she is saying: “We’re going to have to have a savings plan.” What damn hypocrisy! What a sham that she of all people should be doing this saying: “Well we’ve got to do something about our savings because we can’t afford superannuation 80 years from now.”  
I think there are only 10000 New Zealanders who are 20 years old right now and who have got any chance of living to 100 in 80 years’ time. She is very concerned about that because she says that half of them if they are born now will be 100 years old 100 years from now! No analysis no facts just public relations spin out there and the report has not even been released to anybody yet. No no—you see they are saving the report for some future time. In the meantime they are just scaremongering.  
We know how this problem started. You get certain sections of the public who believe—and the media believe them—that the elderly should pay. We are referring to someone’s grandparents. It is an outrageous situation and New Zealand First will start a revolution before we will let the pension get cut again. We do not intend to run a miserable failed economy. Oh no! We are the ones who believe in the currency being controlled for farmers and exporters. They do not. They believe in downtown Queen Street paper shufflers speculators and foreigners—all sorts of people. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Wall Street not Queen Street. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes Wall Street. Nobody in New Zealand is of any interest to them. They look after all the people who have pumped money into their financial coffers. We know what Bill English did the last time he was the Minister of Finance. What did he do? He cut the pension from 65 percent to a lousy 60 percent.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the Hon Amy— 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Our list for the day had the National Party as the first on it and the Labour Party as the second. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: All I can say is that I have New Zealand First first and then I have National and then Labour. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I apologise. 
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I am getting heartily sick of sitting in this House and listening to Opposition parties that claim to care about jobs claim to care about incomes and claim to care about raising the living standards of New Zealanders yet continually oppose every single policy that will actually create jobs raise living standards and create prosperity for New Zealanders. They claim to care about those things but let us judge them on their actions. Every time this Government brings to this House a proposal to do things that will create jobs and that are creating jobs things that will get a handle on debt and things that are creating prosperity and a future for New Zealanders Labour New Zealand First and the Greens oppose it—every single time. Their policies are contradictory inconsistent misguided and misleading. In fact they are intellectually duplicitous. They promise New Zealanders that they care about those things but they oppose every single opportunity to actually make a difference to the wealth the prosperity and the future of this country. 
 While this afternoon we have sat here and listened to petty political point-scoring from Labour this Government is watching the fact that the international situation is increasingly more serious. Anyone who is following the situation in Europe understands that there has hardly ever been in our memory a time more serious in terms of the international and local financial management. This is a time for sensible prudent fiscal management and that is what this National-led Government is delivering to this country. We are focusing on getting our debt under control so that we are not reliant on international lenders and having to pay more and more money to offshore lenders as the Labour Green and New Zealand First parties would want. We are focused on keeping our debt under control getting Government debt down and getting back to surplus in 3 years so that we have choices and so that this Government can deliver policies that will create more jobs as we are.  
We are focused on creating economic growth for this country and we make no apology about that. We are here to create economic growth we are here to create opportunities and it is delivering. It is delivering. The Opposition does not want to hear it but the facts speak for themselves. This afternoon in question time you heard the Minister for Social Development confirm that the number of people on the unemployment benefit is now at its lowest level for more than 3 years.  
Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor 
: They’re on their way to Australia.  
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: You see they do not want to hear it. They want to keep blustering and bleating away from the sidelines knowing that they broke the economy and we are fixing it. They do not want to hear it but the fact remains that the number of people on the unemployment benefit is not only one of the most respectable in the world but also now at its lowest level in more than 3 years. Even more impressively the number of young people on the unemployment benefit has dropped by 44 percent.  
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Where are the jobs?  
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Well that is where the jobs are Mr Cosgrove. They are being filled by those people who have got off the unemployment benefit and whom you abandoned. The jobs are exactly why we now have a 44 percent decrease—a 44 percent decrease—in the number of our young people on the unemployment benefit. That is proof that this Government is delivering an effective economic growth strategy to this country. That is why the New Zealand people continue to put their faith and their trust in the John Key - led Government because we are focusing on what matters.  
We are focusing on getting jobs getting opportunities and lifting living standards for all New Zealanders and we are prepared to walk the talk. We are prepared to walk the talk. We do not come to this House and oppose growth structures. We bring to this House infrastructure plans like the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband the Rural Broadband Initiative and the roll-out of the 700 megahertz spectrum all of which the Labour Party opposed. Labour members do not want you to have ultra-fast broadband. They do not want to move to a digital economy. They have opposed that. They had 9 years to do anything and they did nothing. Yet this Government is rolling out a digital future for this country because we know that that is where the future lies. That is why we have invested $1.35 billion in ultra-fast broadband. That is why New Zealand is being taken into the future with a digital economy by this Government which is focused on infrastructure and which is focused on innovation.  
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 This is a broken shonky incompetent out-of-touch Government so distracted by scandal and cronyism and its own mismanagement that it is missing in action on providing any economic leadership for this country and on addressing any of the underlying issues that this country has.  
But let us look at just 2012 in this Government. A few years ago there was a book on the top of the Amazon best seller list called  
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 
. Well if they were writing a book about this year under this Government it would be called “ 
A Mind-boggling Term of Staggering Incompetence 
” because that is what we have seen right from the beginning of the year with the Crafar farm deal about which a High Court judge said that Maurice Williamson and Jonathan Coleman had misdirected themselves in law. They got it wrong and the Government is so out of touch with the public’s view about the importance of our farmland that it wants to see it hocked off.  
Then there are asset sales which are not only opposed in polls by 80 percent of Kiwis but also opposed by 99 percent of submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. But it is apt that the Government is acting in the interests of the 1 percent because that is what it has been doing throughout—the 1 percent of submitters the 1 percent of this country—and bulldozing this Mixed Ownership Model Bill through the select committee.  
Then we have John Banks up a river on a cabbage boat without a paddle. He does not know what he is doing. He does not know what he is doing in this Parliament. The Government does not want him here but it is stuck with him because he is the only way it can get its ridiculous agenda through.  
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has seen disgraceful mismanagement and passing of the buck by Murray McCully. In ACC there is a legacy of cronyism internecine National Party warfare and Michelle Boag playing “peekaBoag” and lurking around pillars in Parliament trying to get on the television. It is an organisation let down by its Ministers and let down by this Government. Then we have Skycity the convention centre and the pokies—a grubby deal and the Prime Minister is right in the middle of it. Make no mistake when the Auditor-General’s office is looking into this it is the Prime Minister’s actions it is looking into the Prime Minister who interfered in a deal the Prime Minister who got in front of other bidders and said: “Forget about it. I’ve got a deal for you with Skycity.” There are dinners and there are all sorts of things in this when the Auditor-General gets into it. But make no mistake this is the Prime Minister a dodgy deal and this is what the Auditor-General will be looking at.  
But I want to refer to the Budget. Once upon a time Budgets were documents of certainty and gravity thoroughly worked-through proposals based on analysis and debate. Ministers even offered their resignations if something leaked out. Well look at this National Government and its Budgets. It seems to see them as a cross between a Sunday newspaper horoscope and some kind of policy  
Dragons’ Den 
 where half-baked ideas are pitched to an unwitting New Zealand public who are forced to protest and threaten before the would-be policy dreamer backs off and admits that their idea would never have floated in the first place.  
The most avid reader of the horoscope is of course that well-known stargazer Bill English. I actually half expected his Budget speech to begin with: “The presence of Jupiter planet of joy and happiness in our sign indicates 140000 extra jobs and enables a totally unrealistic growth forecast. Go for it!”. But no what we had once again was the Budget coming from Bill English where we failed to meet our growth targets where the numbers are wrong and then the final indignity in this Budget a core proposal in education that is ditched after 2 weeks.  
The Government had a crack at pitching its idea to the public before ditching it and leaving a huge hole in the books not to mention a bizarre belief that the Prime Minister holds to this day that teacher professional development is possible only with class size increases. He is the only person making the causal link. He is the only person who thinks that New Zealand children do not deserve quality teachers unless we cram more children into the classes. He is wrong. It is not just a political mistake it is a mistake and this Government should admit that.  
If this Government was putting an ad in the personal columns it would say: “Hopeless policies seeking incompetent management; long-term relationship assured.” That is what we are seeing from this Government and the only real plan this Government has now is to adopt a new strategy: “WWPD: What Would Paula Rebstock Do?”. That is the strategy from this Government. That is the person whom this Government turns to when it is trying to come up with a plan because it does not have one of its own. There is no strategy from this Government to grow the economy. The only strategy for actually doing something about the economy is coming from this side of the House. We know that to invest in our future we need to support education and we need to support a clean green clever innovative economy.  
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 With all the conflict and economic gloom and doom around the world right now I am really glad to be a Kiwi. Yes we have had tough times in the last few years. We have had a global financial crisis the Pike River disaster the Canterbury earthquakes—all 11000 of them—and the  
Rena 
 spill but despite the negativity of the Opposition actually we have coped pretty well.  
New Zealanders are resilient. They are adapting to change they are making the most of every situation they are working hard to move forward and we are getting results. I am glad to be a Kiwi because we are made of the right stuff. We are smart educated innovative people. We live in a beautiful clean green environment. We have a stable and I must say excellent National Government and we have prudent financial management.  
 Economically most of the world is far worse off than us—the eurozone is in a meltdown the US is just treading water and even China was affected last week dropping its interest rates to stimulate its economy. Unemployment is rife across the world. We are looking at 24 percent in Spain and worse still 50 percent of young Spaniards are out of work. Right across Europe there is about 11 percent unemployment. It was interesting to hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters talk about Nazi Germany because frighteningly the economic statistics coming out of Europe right now are very similar to those of the 1930s. Both Britain and the US have over 8 percent unemployment and so has Canada. But in New Zealand although our unemployment rate is still hovering around 6 percent our job growth strategies are working. The rate has been coming down consistently since early 2010 and job numbers are growing.  
But the most significant thing is that most Kiwis seem to understand financial risk and they are adapting well to the global economic uncertainty. Households and businesses alike are cutting costs they are reducing waste and many are even managing to save. This Government is doing the same thing. We are determined to keep our debt down to deliver more and affordable effective services and to develop a more productive and efficient economy. And we are getting results here too with interest rates the lowest that we have seen for years—something that affects every New Zealander—and growth in nine out of the 10 last quarters. In fact we are forecast to grow even faster in the next 3 years than Europe Britain Japan the US and Canada. We are even expected to match Australia’s growth. When you think of Australia the Lucky Country with one of the best performing economies in the OECD if we are close to them we are doing well.  
I am also glad to be a Kiwi because we are living in the right part of the world. Sixty percent of our exports are going to Australia or Asia and they are the most vibrant and thriving regions in the world. The Government and Tim Groser are focusing on new trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region that will give us new markets we are investing in innovation and new technologies and we are increasing funding in engineering science and research. So what we are doing is building on our strengths because that is where our future lies.  
I am glad to be a Kiwi because we are developing a more sustainable economy. Tourism and agriculture are predicated on a clean green environment and New Zealanders are absolutely focused on making sure that we look after it. The Government is investing in clean-ups. The Land and Water Forum is looking at water issues. There are toughened standards from Fonterra and dairy companies. All that will improve our water quality and help our waterways.  
But I am really interested in the new environmentally friendly businesses that are flourishing. At the Green Ribbon Awards last week we heard about companies like Eco-Stock a company that is turning waste that would normally go to landfill into valuable animal food. We heard about CarboNZero a Canterbury company that is helping companies all around the world to cut their carbon emissions. We heard about the wineries that claim that their global competitive advantage is being from environmentally friendly New Zealand. There are a host of other innovative and sustainable products.  
But most of all I am glad to be a Kiwi because I am from Christchurch. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 Next week the Earth Summit reconvenes in Rio 20 years after the first meeting. I shall be attending—apart from a Cabinet Minister for a few days I shall be the only member of the House to be there. Some 110 leaders attended back in 1992. The global problem of sustainability was on the agenda. A global framework for action was adopted in a genuine attempt to address the global problem with a global approach. Conventions on climate change on desertification and on biodiversity were adopted. Forestry eluded us but we issued ringing declarations about sustainable consumption and production and we called for new concepts to measure the carrying capacity of the planet. In an imperfect world we left Rio back in 1992 thinking that we the international community of States had laid the basis for at least future action to address these daunting problems on behalf of the global community of peoples. 
Twenty years is a long and a short time. It is long enough for us to have been able to follow through with protocols to develop effective action within each framework. This we failed to do at least effectively because it is too short it seems for our international institutions and national mindsets to transform into legitimate global decision-making. And it is long enough for the planet’s continuing degradation and climate instability to become apparent as a result to the intensifying alarm of the scientific community. 
The United Nations Environment Programme’s latest report released last week advises humanity in the following way. Earth’s environmental systems are being pushed beyond their biophysical limits beyond which looms sudden irreversible and potentially catastrophic change. “As human pressures on the earth … accelerate several critical thresholds are close or have been exceeded. Once these have been passed abrupt and possibly irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet are likely to occur with significant adverse implications for human well-being.” The chief of the United Nations Environment Programme Achim Steiner says: “Once the tipping points occur you don’t wake up the next morning and say ‘This is terrible can we change it?’.” That is the whole essence of these thresholds. We are condemning people to not having the choice any more. 
So we assemble next week back in Rio geared up to review what we have done since 1992 and preview what we might do in the future. Perhaps the mindset is changing. Very few now query climate change. Most want a switch to a low-carbon economy even as we argue over how to retain it. Most are very worried about the potential for “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. At last we are recognising that our international institutions need to be beefed up.  
Rio Plus Twenty will address two major themes: the green economy and an institutional framework for sustainable development. Consideration will be given to forming a Sustainable Development Council to strengthen the UN’s environment programme and establish an ombudsman for future generations. Priority will be given to food security water energy oceans climate change forests biodiversity land and deserts mountains chemicals and waste. A set of global sustainable development goals might be adopted brilliantly eliding from the Millennium Development Goals of 12 years ago. The limitations of GDP and the need to adopt new indicators of well-being may be acknowledged. This of course is by no means enough yet it is not too late to transform this draft into something with real substance. This is not the moment for specific action on climate change; that will occur at Qatar later in December. It is not the moment for specific action on the other themes. It is the moment for political will for changing the mindset and strengthening the institutions. Let us see how we do. “We” means humanity. “We” includes New Zealand. 
It is a shame the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is staying away. He has no appetite for grim challenge. The fate of the Earth is off his visionary agenda but the other 115 or so leaders will decide. They will decide for him and therefore for us. Whether or not Nicky Wagner is thrilled to be a Kiwi they will decide for us. This is no time for tears no time yet but the challenge ahead is immense. 
MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I take a call in this general debate. When we watch and read the news day after day informing us of the massive challenges and problems being faced by much bigger developed economies it brings into sharp contrast the incredible job our National-led Government is doing in protecting and building our own economy. New Zealand is only 0.25 percent of the world economy. We are not insulated from global forces just because we are geographically remote. We are affected by what is happening to the rest of the world.  
But the great news is that we are beginning to emerge as standing out from a large part of the pack because this Government is doing the right things. Growth in New Zealand over the next years as my colleague Nicky Wagner alluded to—and by the way I must say that Christchurch is very lucky to have a representative like Nicky Wagner who is as passionate about the rebuild there as any New Zealander could be—is forecast to be higher than in Europe Britain Japan the United States and Canada. We are expected to achieve around the same growth rates as Australia at about 3 percent. That is because we are getting the fundamentals right.  
Brendan Horan 
: The forecasts so far have been so widely askew.  
MARK MITCHELL 
: You might say “So what?” but this is actually very important to most New Zealanders. We are expected to achieve those growth rates because we are getting the fundamentals right. We have sound economic and financial institutions. We have products and services that are in demand and will continue to be over the coming decades. We are growing our exports in the most vibrant and thriving regions of the world like East and South-east Asia. The rebuilding of Christchurch will effectively be a huge stimulus programme funded largely by significant insurance payouts coming largely from overseas. So as a country we face a relatively favourable set of circumstances and opportunities over the coming years. We are ready to make the most of those opportunities while continuing to carefully manage the exposure to global risks.  
I would like to talk about our business sector and the key growth initiatives of this Government. Back in my own electorate of Rodney I have been running a series of business forums of which I held my third last week in Silverdale. These are some of the issues that have been highlighted as being important to our local business people: a reduction in red tape and compliance costs— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What have you done about that? 
MARK MITCHELL 
: This is what we are doing—this is what we are doing. We are removing 176 unnecessary regulations from the law books and repealing 31 obsolete or redundant Acts. We are amending 13 Acts to reduce compliance costs and the regulatory burden on business. What would Labour and Mr Cosgrove do? They would apply a capital gains tax to all our businesses. They would return to 1970s industrial relations policies and wind back National’s ACC changes meaning higher ACC levies.  
What else is important to the local business people in Rodney? Investment in infrastructure was highlighted as being important. Investment in infrastructure is highlighted as being important so what is this Government doing to invest in our infrastructure? We are investing $12 billion over the next 10 years in new State highways and $1.8 billion in new local roads. This is important.  
This is significant actually to our communities and I would welcome and invite anyone to come as a guest and visit the people of Rodney north Rodney and Northland and to speak to them about the Puhoi to Wellsford motorway. This has been tagged as a holiday highway by the Opposition. It is not actually a holiday highway; it is an economic highway. Labour members as I understand are saying that if it was up to them if they were in Government this road would be cancelled. Come north and find out how popular that policy is.  
We are investing $12 billion over the next 10 years in new State highways and $1.8 billion in new local roads. We have committed $750 million to the $4.6 billion plan to improve the rail freight network and to help rail to become commercially viable. We are investing $1.35 billion in public-private partnerships to roll out ultra-fast broadband with 90 percent of businesses to be covered in 4 years. This is a significant policy. If you talk to our small businesses and our entrepreneurs in remote areas who rely on an ultra-fast broadband service or to those whom an ultra-fast broadband service would allow to expand and grow in the global market this is important.  
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 Before I get to the guts of my speech I just want to address the last point that the member Mark Mitchell raised. He talked about what the Government has done for small business. He talked about a bill called the Regulatory Reform Bill in the name of Minister John Banks which does something amazingly innovative—it repeals 31 Acts that do not exist. But apart from that it is now languishing on the bottom of the Order Paper because the Government is so scandal-ridden that it does not want its fingerprints its boot prints or its toe prints anywhere near John Banks. Do you know what the cost of that is to small business? I talked to the film industry. I went and visited them on Friday. It is costing them $50000 a week because there is a clause about classification that when passed will make the industry efficient and save them $50000 a week. But it is costing them because these guys will not pass the bill because they do not want the ghost of “Uncle Fester” anywhere near the public—anywhere near the public eye.  
Now that we have put the sword into that one I will read Government members a few quotes from the Christchurch  
Press 
. This is a headline from the Christchurch  
Press 
: “The Government has made itself look careless and incompetent”. It says: “The Government’s botched handling of education reform raises significant doubts”—oh this is a cracker—“about the competence of senior ministers and the Prime Minister.” This is from the Christchurch  
Press 
—not known to be the reddest publication in the world.  
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Newspaper of the year. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is the newspaper of the year. It says that senior Ministers in this crowd are incompetent. What the education back-down shows us is that there is no blueprint no plan and no strategy. They are poll-driven fruit cakes and they change their minds like Gerry as he goes from brunch goes to lunch and goes to dinner. They change their minds like they change their socks. There is no plan it is ad hoc there is no blueprint and there is no strategy. They change their minds every day based on a poll result.  
I will read them another great headline here from last weekend’s  
Sunday Star-Times 
: “Key’s govt losing charm offensive”. It says this: “The proposed increase in class sizes was a minor matter a stupid idea invented by Treasury and swallowed by sleepy politicians.” I think it is talking about Nicky Wagner actually. “But the Government won’t back down on its core policies.” Then it says this: “The sell-down of state assets after all is nearly as unpopular as the increase in class sizes. But the Government is ramming through the asset sales in a rush and popular protest won’t stop it.”  
It goes on to say this: “There is no good argument for asset sales. They make no difference to the Government’s net debt. It is flogging off assets for ideological reasons not economic ones.” Yet again it is not-thought-through slipshod work and populist stuff—for some of its constituency about 1 percent. It is not thought through at all—the incompetence the lack of a plan. And every day there is another scandal that rolls out. Some of them hide behind their desks. They are like a bunch of what I think the Australians call skinks—you know lizards. I think Paul Keating actually said this. Most of them over there are sort of lizards sitting there frozen—alive but looking dead. They are alive but looking dead all of them. And I say— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No no—Jonathan Young moves like a tuatara.  
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague says that Jonathan Young moves like a tuatara. There is scandal after scandal. It is an inward-looking Government that is obsessed and myopic about its own incompetence. Every day our people in the communities languish. There are 87000 young people on the scrap heap and the Government is proud of it. There are people in Christchurch who have had a glacial pace—a glacial pace—to their recovery from the earthquake disaster and the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery interferes with one of the best chief executive officers I think we have had Mr Roger Sutton who has now basically been corralled sat on and had a fence put around him. He cannot do his job because Mr Brownlee puts the politics in front of everything including the humanity of our communities.  
The Government is inward-looking. It has “third-term-itis” in the second term. John Banks Nick Smith Richard Worth—the scandals go on—Judith Collins ACC and all the time our communities the people men and women who need help who need assistance who are in desperate times and cannot make ends meet and who look to a Government for leadership for a strategy for a plan for help and for assistance get nothing from this crowd because it is so self-obsessed.  
Well I say this: when you start to get headlines like this when you start to get major newspapers calling the Prime Minister incompetent and saying that the charm offensive is over when you start to get newspapers and media saying that senior Ministers are incompetent then that is when you start on the slippery slope.  
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 Well I have got to say what an impassioned speech that was from the previous speaker the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. What did I get out of it? Well we got called lazy we got called lizards and we got called self-obsessed but nowhere in that speech did I hear about a plan from Labour a vision from Labour or an alternative Budget from Labour.  
 So what did we hear from Labour members? We heard criticisms put-downs and personal attacks. Nothing has changed in the last 4 years. But it is good to see for the first time in 4 years that they are starting to wake up. It is good to see them taking notice of what is happening around them. It is good to hear them say that they are looking forward to a brighter future for all of New Zealand because that is what this National Government is going to deliver.  
We are a nation that is not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get down to some good hard work. We are a nation of hard workers we are a nation of integrity and we are a nation of innovation. They are key to economic growth in New Zealand. That economic growth will be driven by this Government driven by the 120-point plan because this is a Government that is going to build that brighter future for all New Zealanders. We are taking responsibility for ensuring that we have got our books in balance to ensure we return to surplus in 2014-15. This is not a new aim; this is not a new plan. This has been in place for the last 4 years and that is what we are going to deliver for New Zealand.  
We are looking at economic growth at 3 percent—equivalent to Australia’s. We are looking at creating 154000 more jobs for New Zealanders. In the last 2 years we have created 60000 new jobs. This is important to New Zealand. We are building economic growth on strong fundamentals. We are going to make the most of all the opportunities that we can find. But we know that businesses depend on six things. There are six key components to business. The first one is ideas and innovation and we are great at that in New Zealand. The second one is allowing businesses to have access to money. We have worked with the capital markets to improve those and improve confidence. The next one is access to raw materials. We have got plenty of those in New Zealand. The fourth one is a skilled workforce for our businesses and we are working on that. The fifth one is customers who want to buy our products. That is why we are working with these emerging markets around the world. The sixth one is infrastructure. Businesses depend on infrastructure like electricity broadband and transport. Those are the three areas that we are focused on.  
I would like to touch a little bit more on research and development and innovation. We are increasing our spending significantly in science and innovation. We will spend $385 million in the next 4 years which is more than $1.3 billion by the year 2015-16. We believe that science and innovation is one of the major drivers for economic growth and our international competitiveness. So $166 million goes into the advanced technology industry and it will work with our businesses. We will put $60 million into national science challenges $100 million into a performance-based research fund and $59 million into increased funding in science and engineering tertiary education. We are focusing on these areas because that is our future and that is how we will stand out from the rest of the world.  
But I believe that we need to change the way that we look at science and innovation. We have to challenge our culture around science in New Zealand. We need to get the science community the businesses the universities the public and the Government all having open discussions about how we can increase our economic development. We need to start mature debate around the issues that really matter to New Zealand. These debates previously have been based on emotion not science and evidence—for example fracking. Thank you. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Is it not funny how this Government has gone from something resembling  
The 
Love Boat 
 with the New Zealand public to  
A 
Nightmare on Elm Street 
 in the space of just a short few months. The names of what has taken the Government there are already writ into political legend. They are “Banks and the banana boat” and the sieve that is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The photocopier must have been going double time over there from what has arrived in the Opposition offices. McCully is the exorcist. That is what this is. The sleazy deals where the Government has sold the law—things like I do not know Warner Bros the Telecom broadband deal MediaWorks which is the company that Steven Joyce used to own and then bailed out. And now Skycity. The poor old Opposition is drowning in a sea of riches at the moment. We are finding it difficult to know quite which scandal to touch on first. Because at 11 o’clock today the Office of the Auditor-General said that it was investigating Steven Joyce and the deal with Skycity— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And John Key. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —and John Key for the lack of due process for the lack of transparency in the tender. Then at 1 o’clock Mr Joyce issued a press release which said: “We don’t give a damn. We’re going to carry on regardless. We don’t care what the Officer of Parliament the Auditor-General says. We’re going to carry on regardless.” Exactly what will happen if the Government does rush out a shoddy deal with one party—Skycity—and then the Office of the Auditor-General comes out and says: “Sorry back to square one.”? Could it be that Skycity could then sue the Government—sue the taxpayer—for non-performance? Could it be that the jilted suitors at the wedding could also sue? Morrison and Co. Infratil ASB Bank Auckland Council Ngati Whatua—what of those? The word around the Auckland business community is now “Have the rules changed? How do you get work done in this town? Do you have to invite the Prime Minister to dinner?”.  
You know they may not have loved the form-filling that went with Ministry of Economic Development tender processes they may have sometimes chafed against the paperwork but nobody ever said it was not fair. But in this case let us just look at the time line. It actually goes right back to 2001 when none other than Judith Collins the current Minister for ACC whom people will have noticed is under just an incy-wincy cloud at the moment was the National-appointed chair of the Casino Control Authority. She approved 230 extra pokie machines to get the first Skycity conference centre built and thus set the precedent.  
I understand the Beehive is trying to spin that as a Labour decision when it was taken by the chair of the Casino Control Authority Judith Collins. Well is that not interesting? Fast-forward to August 2009: the Ministry of Economic Development does a feasibility study under Steven Joyce but none other than the Prime Minister the Minister of Tourism intervenes to say “Stop work. Nobody do anything on this until my mates at Skycity have presented their proposal.” At the same time Skycity is saying how well connected it is to the Government and only after Skycity’s deal arrived is any sort of process restarted. Surprise surprise—everybody else’s proposals are bagged and the Government negotiates with only one partner Skycity.  
How very very interesting. Why would any Government negotiate with only one tenderer giving itself no fall-back position and thus losing any guarantee that the taxpayer would get the best value? That will be one of the questions that the Office of the Auditor-General will seek to answer. And why did the Government not treat all parties to that tender equally? Why did it not give ASB the same chance it gave Skycity? Why did it not give Infratil the same chance it gave Skycity? The answer is easy: the board had not invited John Key to dinner. Well I do not know that that is going to be good enough for the Auditor-General’s office. And when and if it is not then the question will be asked: why did Steven Joyce thumb his nose at the Auditor-General—thumb his nose not only at due process but at the Officers of Parliament? 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 I am very pleased to stand here today and speak from the sensible side of the House about what New Zealanders want and that is a life to aspire to and a livelihood that is going to build and support their families here in this country. In order to build this life you have to be positively pro-growth—something that we know the Opposition of course opposes. It opposes everything that this Government is doing. It opposes growth and every single idea that we have proposed to enlarge our economy. For every single idea that we have proposed to bring restraint which would bring us back to surplus all we have heard is opposition. All we have heard is complaint.  
Here are some of the initiatives that our opponents have said no to. We want to intensify and develop our agricultural sector; they want to put it out of business like last time with their tax. We want to develop our mining and our oil reserves and we want to see—as I know and I experience in Taranaki—the prosperity that that industry can bring to New Zealanders but they say no to that as well. We want to see Australian companies move jobs to New Zealand. Just recently the Hon Bill English was across in Australia and Australian businessmen were saying that it is more competitive for them to be able to locate here than there but our opponents oppose that. They do not want to see more business come here. They do not want to see New Zealanders get jobs like that.  
We want to bring an element of work to those who are beneficiaries because we believe that work is good for people. It is not a punishment; it is a reward. It is something that builds esteem that builds wealth in people’s lives that builds skills and social interaction and that enables them to contribute to their communities. But no every idea that we put forward they oppose. We want to help people get into jobs and help businesses to grow. We have brought in a 90-day probation period for new employees but they are against that as well. So many employers that I talk to say that because of that law change they have given somebody a go when they would not have done that before because the risks were too great. Yet we have done it and we have seen—the Department of Labour said—13000 jobs grow because of that. And all of our other labour-market reforms the Opposition has opposed.  
I guess to be in Opposition you oppose but there are so many good workable ideas that are helping New Zealanders that we are putting into place. We are bringing some stability some strength some economic growth and opportunity. We heard today that unemployment is reducing. We are not happy with those levels of unemployment at 6.7 percent but we know that right now they have gone under 50 percent. We know that there has been a reduction of 44 percent of those youth who have been unemployed. We know that in times of recession the young people are the ones who struggle to find work and we are seeing more and more of them being able to take up opportunities. A lot of that is to do with the labour laws that we have put in place.  
We are in times in our world where there is a lot of uncertainty beyond our borders and we need to acknowledge that. We know that there is social disintegration taking place in a number of countries up in the northern hemisphere. We understand that there is a gap between what people want and what they have and I guess that has always been the human dilemma. People have always wanted more and aspiration can fulfil that goal if people are prepared to work. But if we want the world’s best we have to become the world’s best. We have to find out what we are good at and what our point of difference is and become very very good at it whether that is farming food processing engineering or making movies. We need to use our ingenuity and innovate and this Government is putting so much effort funding and support into those particular areas where we can develop innovation and where we can become the world’s very best at what we are good at so we have that point of difference and are able to compete in a mobile and global world like never before. That is so important.  
What we are seeing in Greece and in Europe is that there is a tremendous disconnect taking place in those economies between what people have become used to and what they can actually afford. I was reading this week’s  
Newsweek 
 magazine and there it showed pictures of people in Greece having a party. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 The member Jonathan Young who just resumed his seat mentioned that Labour is opposed to some of National’s policies and I have to say that is right. It is the only good thing it is the only correct thing it is the only sensible thing that he has said during his contribution to the general debate.  
I am pleased to confirm that Labour is opposed to mining in schedule 4 land of our national parks—land that has been put in schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act because it is so precious and so important. National wanted to mine it. Thousands of people up and down our country protested and National said: “Oops! We’ve done the wrong thing again.”  
I am also very pleased to confirm that we do not support sacking a worker in this country without the employer having any obligation at all under the law to tell the person why they have been sacked. That is all that is required actually under the current trial provisions in the employment relations legislation and what the National Government did was take away that small but very important obligation—what I think is a moral obligation—to tell a person why they are sacked. Just gone. The member for New Plymouth thinks that is a good thing. Well I think it is a bad thing. Not once did he mention any plan any strategy or any vision for New Zealand that the National Government has because it does not have one.  
You know sometimes on general debate day Opposition members say: “Oh well that is good. We have had a little mistake that a Minister has made a little policy gone wrong from the Government.” and the Opposition focuses its entire time in the general debate around that one single mistake one single policy that went wrong. Well where do we start? Where do we start this week? 
Kris Faafoi 
: An embarrassment of riches. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Talk about an embarrassment of riches as my colleague Kris Faafoi has just said. This week is overwhelmingly bad for the Government. It has been described by the media as the worst week John Key as Prime Minister has ever had. It is incompetence dripping from the Government—incompetence rampant throughout the ranks of the National Government. No wonder its support partners have been nowhere around this week. They are hiding in every possible corner of the building.  
Of course we have got the ACC debacle. Well that is just going from bad to worse. It was bad enough frankly when Nick Smith was the Minister for ACC. It was bad enough watching him cut the entitlements of injured people because he wanted to narrow the scheme and then mislead New Zealand about the financial situation of the corporation which he later had to admit he had made up so that he could cut the entitlements of injured workers. People who were victims of sexual abuse had their support cut. People who were partially deaf because of the excessive noise in their workplace had their entitlement cut. Nick Smith made so many errors to the point finally of writing a letter of support to the corporation on ministerial letterhead about his close friend Bronwyn Pullar. He was its Minister and he wrote that letter of support. In the end he had to go.  
Well we thought that was bad enough but under Judith Collins—talk about things looking good under Nick Smith! It is just extraordinary what has happened and she as the Minister is washing her hands of all responsibility. I frankly find it hard to figure out why she accepts her salary every fortnight if the best effort she can make is to wash her hands of the responsibility. She got poor old John Judge up to her office. First of all she said she was going to back him then she thanked him and then she sacked him. Out—gone by lunchtime. Then it was the poor old chief executive Ralph Stewart. He has hardly been there 5 minutes—less than 6 months I understand. He has gone as well and this afternoon two more board members from ACC— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Rob Campbell walked. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I am not going to make any comments about whether Mr Campbell should have been on the board in the first place; I think that is not great territory for me to go into. The Minister has lost her chairman her chief executive and two board members and she is saying: “Whoa not my fault.”  
Hon Member 
: Careless. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: To say that Judith Collins as Minister is careless would be a significant understatement. She is the Minister who as my colleague David Cunliffe has just pointed out in 2001 as chair of the Casino Control Authority did the first shonky deal with Skycity. 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I have sat here all afternoon and frankly I wonder why I did. I have witnessed members on the other side of the House reading the paper to us. I came here and I am sure this side of the House came here to make the news not read about it. In fact we have spent the afternoon listening to a lot of history—the history of a pretty second-rate Opposition in my view. We have also listened to a member of the Greens talking about how to fix the rest of the world not how to fix New Zealand. This National Government is here to fix New Zealand. I am relieved for the men and women of New Zealand who need help that National is in Government not Labour because if we were relying on Labour we would be in deep strife.  
We in the Rangitikei understand the need to grow production not consumption. We understand the need for an export-led economy that will play a part and more in realising this. We know how to produce good quality milk meat wool malt carrots potatoes eggs and many other amazing agricultural products. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Vegetables over there! 
IAN McKELVIE 
: Absolutely—and they are productive. We know how to produce great university graduates and outstanding soldiers and air force personnel. We know how to host and transport tourists and above all else we know how to manage our environment for future generations. We also know what it is like to face a decreasing population and the pressure this brings to bear on an ageing infrastructure as fewer and fewer people are left to pay for that upgrade. We know the pressure on our local councils to produce better facilities for less and on the Government to provide better health and education services to remote parts of New Zealand.  
We like other remote parts of New Zealand know what it is like to fight for what we have. We know how hard it has been over the last 20 years to retain our services. We cannot successfully carry out any of these activities or provide these services without sound government great policy and practical positive budgeting. We feel the harsh economic realities of today but we understand the need for constraint. There is a need to create an environment where this great country can prosper and grow once again; an environment where we can get our produce to market efficiently and as quickly as possible; one where we can be proud of our small communities their schools their health services their infrastructure and their recreational facilities; and one where we can look forward to a brighter future.  
Building a brighter future is about joining many dots along the way including responsibly managing the Government’s finances building a more responsible and competitive economy delivering better public services and rebuilding Christchurch. These dots are contributed to by boosting early childhood education renewing our commitment to what I call special education services and other education reforms i.e. national standards and effective and better supported teachers under the leadership of Minister Parata. 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
IAN McKELVIE 
: At least it has cheered up the Opposition members. They look particularly gloomy. Delivering faster broadband services is absolutely essential to rural New Zealand and to our future. Minister Bennett and her welfare system reforms are enabling people to get back into work and my electorate knows what that is about. Reducing crime improving personal safety and improving prisoners’ opportunities to get back into society is most important to my community as well.  
The Treaty settlements process under Minister Finlayson will have a very positive effect on rural New Zealand and a positive impact on our history and on the morale of New Zealanders in general. Reforming the Local Government Act 2002 will enable councillors to become fleet of foot and efficient and effective providers of essential infrastructure.  
Growth for growth’s sake is not the answer for New Zealand’s future. We must have a planned structured growth and to achieve this we need a country moving in unison. We need planning undertaken in a strategic manner by our Government and councils and in the course of this we must protect and restore our environment as it is critical to the future of my electorate and yours. In the Rangitikei we rely on the environment to provide our income. It is critical to farming and tourism. We also have the resource to provide for solutions to these initiatives through our university and research-based businesses on the Massey University side of the Manawatu River.  
We are a Government about growth about people and about success for New Zealanders. We are a Government about protecting the future for future generations of New Zealanders and I commend the activities of this Government in this term of Government. I think we have done a fantastic job. Thank you. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.