Jones Dail: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Jones Dail: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10984] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker I would like to congratulate you on your position as Assistant Speaker and wish you a very good run in the House for the rest of the session. I also offer New Year greetings to my fellow parliamentarians. 
At the last election New Zealand First made three promises. We said we would fix immigration law and order and the Treaty of Waitangi industry. As far as immigration is concerned I think the Prime Minister is a little bit late in some of the statements she made in her speech. She said for example: “Net migration continues to be strong which also reflects confidence in New Zealand. In the year to December 2003 more New Zealanders came home and fewer left than in the previous year. The long-term visitor arrival numbers however are being affected by the decline in overseas student numbers.” The Prime Minister is hopelessly out of date. She does not seem to be aware that our promise we made at the last election to reduce immigration is coming into effect. As we know the current figures show when we annualise the last 3-monthly figures a bigger drop in immigration to about 17000. We are moving from a stage when at the time the 13 new New Zealand First members came into office we had an immigration rate of about 45000 to 55000; now the immigration figures are being annualised out to 17000. That is New Zealand First policy. We promised to fix three things. Can we fix them? Well there is one of them fixed already by New Zealand First. 
The second thing we said we would do was take some action on the Treaty of Waitangi. I am not sure whether we should appreciate the way in which the National Party has gone about its business as it is plagiarising New Zealand First speeches plagiarising New Zealand First phrases and plagiarising New Zealand First questions in Parliament but it cannot plagiarise New Zealand First principles which have been held by the leader of this party for 16 years. They are principles upon which he resigned but principles that he is not giving effect to in the same underhand sort of way that we see from this very sad National Party today. 
One of the things we would like to see in this foreshore and seabed debate is some more action from the Labour Maori members of Parliament. I was looking at the way in which the Labour Maori members of Parliament perform; I thought I would see what they were doing this year. So I looked at the bills before select committees. I thought I would look at what the Maori Affairs Committee was doing. How busy are those members of Parliament? Well they do not have a single bill before them. The Maori Affairs Committee does not have even one bill before it. I thought that maybe it would have some other work but the only other work it has is the financial review. Yet here we have another select committee being set up in Parliament to look at Maori issues. We have Maori members of Parliament who are lions on the marae but we know they are lambs in the caucus. We have been listening to them in this debate for the last 3 days. They have not said a word that matters on the foreshore and seabed debate. They have kept very quiet on that issue. So I thought that perhaps those Maori members are earning their money on the select committee. But they are not doing a thing. There is nothing happening at the Maori Affairs Committee. 
New Zealand First came up with a little slogan about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: “Taihoa taihoa and off to work we go.” What we have now is: “Taihoa taihoa and off to shirk we go.” They are shirking the job. What is the use of Maori seats if Maori members do nothing—absolutely nothing—in the Maori Affairs Committee and allow Russell Fairbrother and his group to run the business of Maori affairs? The Maori Fisheries Bill is being handled by Russell Fairbrother a general seat member from Napier. What are the Maori members doing? The nail in the coffin of the Maori members is well under way. 
As far as law and order our third issue is concerned my good colleague Ron Mark is running rings around the Labour Government Mr Goff and Mr Hawkins. Members will notice that most of the questions seem to be answered by Mr Goff these days not by Mr Hawkins. He has just about resigned his police portfolio because of the hard work being done by Ron Mark. We promised we would do three things before the last election. We are doing them. They are well under way and we will get them sorted out before the next election. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 Members will be interested to know that was the once-great Dail Jones a former senior National Party MP. When Dail Jones stormed out of the National Party when he was heavily defeated by another former National Party ally the Hon Jack Elder in 1984 he spent 20 years away from Parliament. Dail Jones spent 20 years in the wilderness only to be rescued by the New Zealand First list. One would think that after 20 years away the once-great National Party MP the doyen of National Party thought in those days would come back to the House with some very strong messages that he would be wanting to tell Parliament. One would think he would be wanting to tell New Zealand right across the nation some very important messages. But Dail Jones used the first speech of the year to tell members what committees are meeting in Parliament how many bills are before them who the members should be and what time of the day they should meet. This is a man who was focused very much on the small minutiae of parliamentary detail. There was no great idea no great statement— 
John Carter 
: What’s this member going to speak about? 
DARREN HUGHES 
: John Carter asks what I will say. I will get on to it soon and when I do the National Party will find out a whole lot of good things are happening in this country that will keep it cemented so far down in the polls that it will be several elections before it gets anywhere near the cross benches of this House. 
In rising to support the Prime Minister’s statement which I thought was just fantastic I want to say how proud I am to be a member of this Labour-Progressive Government and how proud I feel to be a young New Zealander at the beginning of the 21st century and part of a Government that is setting forward some future plans for our country as we decide to fix the problems that are there to build on the strengths we have and to make sure we have a country for everybody to live in that means something and that we can be proud of. So I am proud of the Prime Minister’s statement because she came to Parliament with a message. She came into the House and she read out some things that she believes in values she holds and policies that this Government is putting in place for all New Zealanders. 
One can whinge and whine about things all the time and members have heard that. Of this whole 14-hour debate half of it will be about complaining about saying this country is not good enough about saying the Government is not doing enough. But in the half that Government members have we are saying what we believe in and the differences we are trying to make. 
Over the summer adjournment I spent a lot of time in my electorate the Otaki electorate. It was a great pleasure to be at home for long periods of time without having to rush down to the city and be subject to the environmental pollution from the Opposition’s side of the House. There are some really good things happening around provincial and rural New Zealand that make me proud to be part of this Government but more important proud to be a citizen of our country. I went to so many events over the summer adjournment where there were New Zealanders of all different backgrounds shapes sizes and styles. Any kind of New Zealander one would want to mention was there at those big public events; people were enjoying one another’s company and being part of a community. That is why we are born and live in the same sorts of places—because we believe in communities. We believe in being around one another and supporting one another—not ripping each other to bits chipping away all the time and being negative. It is the big public events where people come together for positive reasons that attract numbers not protest rallies complaints or divisive tactics. 
It is the sort of thing we saw around the Horowhenua and Kapiti Coast over summer. I was very pleased to be at the 98th annual Horowhenua Agricultural Pastoral and Industrial Show in Levin where there were 20000 people. There was the major Organic River Festival also in Levin which attracted many thousands of people. There was the “big dig” at our beaches. There were the Waikanae sports days which people from right across the Wellington region turned out for. A Whopper Chopper was held recently and this weekend there is the Manakau Medieval Market Day. So it can be seen that there are lots of things happening around our area and region and people are coming together at those public events. 
Jill Pettis 
: Men in tights. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: There will be men in tights in Manakau this weekend I can tell the House. The event will be on State Highway 1 so there will be a lot of highway patrol cars directing traffic. Mrs Pettis should just carry on to Whanganui and I hope Mrs Turia ensures she gets there without stopping to check out the men in tights at Horowhenua. Maybe she could give her a ride! 
But it is the Government policies that I think are making a big difference in my electorate. In 2003 there were 135 new businesses. That means more people in my area are working in real sustainable jobs and more businesses are contributing to our local economy. Our regional partnership plan which is an important part of this Government’s economic strategy is beginning to take real shape now. The Kapiti and Horowhenua districts are working together on the kind of economic growth that we can get for our district. 
Ron Mark 
: The Labour members have more fun. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Mark chatters away through all of this because as a list member of Parliament—somebody who has failed in every general election he has ever stood in—he is not quite sure how to work as a constituency member to get economic growth. So he finds it a bit tough. He is still giggling about the Manakau Medieval Market Day. 
But what we are doing now is focusing on tourism. Our economic development agency is coming together to bring together the two district councils and business groups from the two districts to try to work out ways to lift the skills base of those already in work and to find jobs for those who are out of work. So there are very positive things happening on the economic front in my electorate which mirrors what is happening right around New Zealand. Opposition members do not like the fact that every single region in New Zealand is in economic growth. That is not true just for some people; it is true for every single New Zealander. Every single group of New Zealanders has seen unemployment go down and prosperity go up as a consequence. We are making some real differences because in the end it is jobs that make the best difference for ordinary New Zealanders and that is what we are seeing. 
On the transport front I want to pay tribute to my friend and colleague the Hon Paul Swain for the legislation he brought into Parliament last year—the Land Transport Management Bill. My colleague Winnie Laban the member for Mana and I have advocated for a lot of the regional transport initiatives that our two seats between the cities of Palmerston North and Wellington need to make sure we get the transport infrastructure right. Last year we were successful in lobbying about the McKays Crossing overbridge. It will make a huge difference to commuters from the Kapiti Coast to Wellington. We have had progress on it and this year work will start on the construction of that overbridge. I thank the Minister for the work on that. Obviously Winnie Laban and I are working with the Hon Peter Dunne the member for Ohariu-Belmont to see what we can do to progress theTransmission Gully road because that is another road that as Wellington regional members of Parliament we have said is quite important. 
On the health side of events the health policies under the very strong leadership of the Hon Annette King are making real gains in my electorate particularly in Kapiti. 
John Carter 
: Name-dropper. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: John Carter says it is name-dropping. When it comes to Annette King he is quite right because she is fixing up the problems in Northland Health when he does not do anything about them. He knows that she is making a real difference to people’s health in the far north. 
The Kapiti Health Centre was opened by Annette King in October and Winnie Laban and I were very pleased to be there at that. Already after just a few months of operation the local people are saying what a fantastic health asset it is. Why is it so successful? Because we worked with the community to build up an initiative that people could buy into. Rather than take the National Government approach to health which was to roll into town tell everyone what the decision was and impose it on people we have worked with communities from the grassroots up to make sure we get solutions that work for those communities. I am very pleased to talk about the health centre in Kapiti because it has been very well received. The primary health organisation there which I was able to launch in July is now starting to step up. It is only an interim funded primary health organisation so it is not one of the lucky ones I guess that has access funding but we got stuck into it straightaway because we knew the Government had a vision for primary health and we wanted to be out of the starting blocks early in order to make sure we could eventually get that funding to deliver lower-cost primary health-care for ordinary people. 
The time goes so quickly when one is talking about all the great things this Government is doing in the health area. Later this year for over-65s we will start a new primary health-care package that will reduce even further the cost to them of primary care. They will pay only $3 in prescription charges which for older New Zealanders will make a huge difference. 
 We did not hear anything from the National Opposition members at any point through this debate about their vision for primary health-care. Nothing was said about what they would do to deliver primary health-care to low-income New Zealanders to older New Zealanders to young people and to those with real health needs. Nothing was said about it at all. That is why National members have fumbled so badly this week. They have been done over badly at question time in the last 2 days. The “stunned mullet” look on the Opposition faces was extraordinary. I knew this would happen. They came into Parliament on Tuesday all cock-a-hoop all puffed up in the chest because they thought they had one idea—just one. When they found out that they could talk about one idea for one day only and that the sun came up the next day and they had to have other policies across the wide range of government they were plastered all over the walls of this Chamber by the competent and dedicated Ministers who stood on this side of the House. 
It has been a bad week for National members at question time because they have learnt that being grumpy will not work. Members cannot just get up and say: “I don’t like that. I’m grumpy about something. Who can I pick on today?” then say: “Let us see the votes flock in now; this will be a tidal wave to take us to Government.” Of course it does not work. On every other policy area that party is totally bankrupt of ideas. We heard no new ideas apart from Don Brash an elderly chap saying he thought the onus of proof should change when people are arrested for certain crimes or something or other. That was the big bold idea from a man who holds himself up as an alternative Prime Minister. 
I say that the National Party members could have used this debate to put forward their ideas for Government. They did not. They used question time to allow themselves to be done over badly. It has been a bad week. Labour has the ideas the vision and the progress to make New Zealand a great place—not for some people but for all people. That is what is happening in my electorate and it is happening around the country. I am proud of the Government and I am proud of the Prime Minister’s statement. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before I call the next member I have been informed by United Future that its members wish to split their slot into two 5-minute speeches. The bell will go at 4 minutes.