Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3311] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (NZ National) 
: 
 I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow on from the Hon. Chris Carter who unfortunately for me shares the same surname and I take this opportunity of assuring the public of New Zealand that in no way am I related to that man. I also completely dissociate myself from the stupid ill-conceived comments he made at Waitangi late last week.  
I want to comment on the speech he has just made in which he referred to an instance today regarding legislation to cover what clearly is a problem with dangerous dogs. I say to Chris Carter that if he is the Minister in charge—and he is part of the Government—he should come to Parliament with legislation to fix the problem but he should not abuse the parliamentary process by trying to tack something on to legislation that clearly has already been through the select committee process. Chris Carter has assumed the role of being the Minister in charge of fixing this problem. There is indeed a problem so he and his Government colleagues should quickly prepare legislation present it in this Parliament get it through the parliamentary process and get it passed to the satisfaction of the people he is attempting to bring to Parliament tomorrow—simply for a stage-managed situation for himself.  
The third point I want to raise is his opening comments about having just hosted a Chinese New Year celebration and then he went on to make patronising condescending comments about the contribution the Chinese people had made to New Zealand. 
Jill Pettis 
: Don’t be pathetic. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: They have made a tremendous contribution to New Zealand even though Jill Pettis says their contribution is pathetic. But I say that instead— 
Jill Pettis 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have a voice that carries. That member knows exactly what I said. I said that he should not be pathetic. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is a debatable issue. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Jill Pettis is attempting to interrupt yet again. I say to her and to Chris Carter that instead of making condescending comments like that about the Chinese people and their contribution to New Zealand they should do the Chinese people a real justice and start to treat them the same as all New Zealanders. They should strive to have one standard of citizenship in this country instead of having one rule for one race and another rule for others. Jill Pettis and Chris Carter should not come into this House and make those sorts of comments when they do not mean them.  
When a parliamentary session starts there is time for the Prime Minister to make an important contribution to initiate the parliamentary year. She got one thing right in her opening statement: she knew her speech would be a bore so yesterday she went to the newspapers and with the help of Mr Munroe and the ninth floor spent some time trying to tell New Zealanders that it would be a bore—and she was absolutely right. She had 40 minutes and she should have taken the opportunity to fulfil the Standing Orders. Standing Order 338(1) states: “On the first sitting day of each year the Prime Minister must make a statement to the House reviewing public affairs and outlining the Government’s legislative and other policy intentions for the next 12 months.” After that 40-minute speech can anybody in this House say that the Labour Party outlined a vision of where it wants New Zealand to be during this parliamentary year? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: No. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I agree with Mr Tisch. There is no vision in that statement because Helen Clark has not taken the opportunity to realise that this country has severe problems and we will lose much of the next 2½ years in tackling them. The Labour Party’s opening statement given by the Prime Minister today does not do a thing to address the underlying problem of New Zealand which is that New Zealand is not doing well enough.  
I want to say right from the start that Helen Clark was able to chime on about how well this country is doing because of the achievement of 3.9 percent growth in gross domestic product. That needs to be put in perspective. For 3 years we have had the best export prices we have seen for 30 years. We have had a relatively benign interest rate regime and that has existed for the last 3 years. There has been a buoyancy in this economy that New Zealanders have not seen for some period of time. On top of that if one looks at the historical chance of getting benign seasons following one after another for 3 years one has to acknowledge that the foundations were there for New Zealand to grab the chance to do something to get itself back into the top half of the OECD. But the aim of the Labour Party last year and the year before as it kept saying was that it must do at least 4 percent consistently to get back into the top half of the OECD. What do we see? I concede that we almost made it at 3.9 percent but the Prime Minister had the audacity to say in the House that 3.9 percent is as good as it will get. We ask the Prime Minister what she will do first to recognise the problem and then to advance policy that will do something about it.  
Let us look at the legislation the Government talked about in order. The Responsible Gambling Bill which was introduced by the hapless Mark Burton went to the Government Administration Committee when I was a member of it. I recall Mr Burton giving a personal guarantee that that legislation would be back to the House and passed through Parliament by mid-2002. That personal guarantee from Mr Burton has counted for nothing. But the more important question is: what will the Responsible Gambling Bill do to assist New Zealand’s long-term growth rate? Nothing! And not one member of the Labour caucus in the House tonight disputes that.  
The next listed piece of legislation the Racing Bill is the brainchild of the Government. That Racing Bill completed its process through the select committee a long time ago. It is supported by the majority of the House and it is desperately wanted by the racing industry yet it is still sitting on the Order Paper because the Government has not bothered to progress it. Then there is the Resource Management Amendment Bill. The original bill again was one that was advanced by the National Government before the 1999 election. It is back from the select committee and it is still sitting on the Order Paper. That bill if it were advanced sensibly by Labour would be the one that could do something about our growth rate.  
In my closing minutes I want to speak specifically about challenges within my portfolio area of agriculture. As I have said the Government has resided over 3 of the best years that I can recall in farming and I have been farming most of my working life. But what in return has the Labour Government delivered to farmers? What has Jim Sutton as the Minister of Agriculture done for the farmers of New Zealand? 
Ian Ewen-Street 
: Good weather! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I do not think that Jim Sutton can claim credit for that. I can tell Ian Ewen-Street what Jim Sutton has done: he has done a lot of damage. The Government renationalised accident compensation and to date costs to most farmers are now up 60 percent. Last year the Government passed the Local Government Act. Not only does that give special treatment to Maori but worse than that for farmers it has decreased farmers’ representation. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Ha! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Rick Barker laughs. The Canterbury Regional Council acknowledged in a briefing to parliamentarians that there will now be less representation for rural constituents. Mr Barker laughs because either he denies it or he does not know about it. But he voted for it. Those farmers—about 40000 of them—pay 20 percent of the rate bill in this country and their costs will now go up. In 2 weeks’ time Statistics New Zealand will release the farm expenses price index. That again will have risen and it will be the continuation of a rise that has occurred in every quarter since this Government has operated. It has done nothing for the New Zealand primary producers.