Key John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Key John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14089] 
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That this House has no confidence in the Helen Clark - led Government because it has failed to make significant improvement in the areas of real importance to New Zealanders because it lacks ambition because it is tired and bereft of ideas because it has lost touch with the people who put it in power and because under its lead our country has become a story of lost opportunities.  
About the kindest thing I can say about that Prime Minister’s statement from Helen Clark is that it will be her last one. I am really not sure who looked more bored: the Prime Minister reading it out or her own caucus listening to it. Today the Prime Minister had the opportunity to be bold. She had a chance to be visionary. She had a chance to give a sense of hope and aspiration. And she did none of those things. Instead she gave us her version of sustainability and recycled a bunch of tired old previously announced policies—some of them going back to 1994; in her own electorate she was talking about them back then. She then reused National’s policies around tax non-governmental organisations and—that is right I say to Mr Maharey—public-private partnerships. 
In 9 months’ time this Labour Government will look like a gramophone—confined to history a relic left gathering dust at the back of the cupboard—and it will be wondering why the music has stopped. Today I have some answers for the Government members as to why that has happened. They need just to look at the Prime Minister’s speech. What a bunch of vacuous statements from the Prime Minister. It was like she has been a bystander for the last 8 years. She has been running the show and all she can do is tell us about problems. That is what she knows. There were no solutions; there was just a bunch of committees and a bunch of things that she could look at. There was not one solution there. 
New Zealanders will read that speech tonight and ask: “Is that it?”. There have been 9 years of a Labour Government. Where is the beef? This is what New Zealanders know. After 9 years of a Labour Government they have more debt and more of their friends living in Australia. That is the reality of 9 years of a Labour Government. They are sick and tired of Labour. They are sick of Labour telling them that this is as good as it gets when patently it is not. If the Government really believes that this is as good as it gets it should get out of the way sooner as opposed to later because we can show it what things really look like. New Zealanders are sick of a Government that tells them they should be grateful. [ 
Interruption 
] Michael Cullen laughs but he wants them to be grateful for a tax cut that he might deliver them one day. We will get back to that in just a moment. 
New Zealanders are sick of a Government that wants to blame everybody else. Nothing is the Government’s problem. Even youth crime according to Helen Clark can be traced back to the footsteps of Ruth Richardson. If we wandered out to South Auckland we would see that apparently crime is up because of the alignment of the sun and moon. Astrologists are deciding what is wrong with New Zealand. The sun and moon have decided it! New Zealanders are sick of waiting 9 years for a tax cut which by my calculations is three times as long as it will take for Shane Jones to launch his leadership bid and that is coming pretty soon. They are sick of a Government that has no answers and sick of a Government that has excuses. 
When one reads the Prime Minister’s statement one sees that there is a much bigger problem for the Labour Government. It is as simple as this: the public are no longer listening. They are no longer listening to the rhetoric. They heard Helen Clark back in 2001 when she told them that the Government would get them into the top half of the OECD by 2011. We are further away from that now than we were then. We are going down the OECD not up. New Zealanders are sick of the Government’s empty promises. Most of all they are sick of reading about the Government on taxpayer-funded pledge cards. The way the Labour Government will be judged is not by the rhetoric of Helen Clark; she will be judged by her record. Her record speaks volumes about her leadership. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: When are we going to get some substance? 
JOHN KEY 
: Well let us look at the record of a Labour Government that Jim Anderton is proud to be part of. Interest rates started at 4.5 percent and now they are at 8.25 percent. Jim should go and tell that to the people of Sydenham and see whether they think that is good economic management. 
Let us look at the record of a Government that sits back and has no answer for the widening of a wage gap that now sees New Zealanders able to earn a third more when they go to Australia. Let us look at the record of a Government that had 77000 long-term departures last year alone—77000 New Zealanders left with 800 a week going to Australia. That is the worst brain drain to Australia in 20 years. 
When we look at the Government’s health system we see its complete and utter failure. Government members clapped when Helen Clark started talking about health but on the front page of the  
Dominion Post  
this morning is an article about a man who says that his mother is not a statistic. That is the record of Helen Clark. 
People are sick of a society that is less safe. Helen Clark said twice in her speech that crime rates in New Zealand are going down. She should go and tell that to New Zealanders—that crime is down. They are sick of a society and a record where young New Zealanders are failing to learn to read and write at the level we need. They are sick of a society and a record where bumbling Treaty settlements are the order of the day and quite frankly they are sick of a record that shows them that the probability of buying a home is next to nil under this Government. 
The bottom line is this and this is the way New Zealanders are looking at it. They know out there in New Zealand voting land the same thing that we know on this side of the House: if 9 years is not enough no amount of time will ever be enough to actually make a difference. The Government has had 9 years to make a difference and the Prime Minister can point out only what she might like to do and what the problems are. 
What was interesting in the speech today I thought was that the Prime Minister talked about Michael Cullen having some budgeted programme of tax cuts in his Budget. Well after 9 years of waiting one tax cut would actually be nice but we will get a budgeted programme of tax cuts. This is from a Government that has collected just under $44 billion worth of surpluses—$26 billion in the last 3 years. Michael Cullen tells people he cares. He just does not care enough to let them keep their own money. He just does not care enough about whether people can meet their mortgage payments and in increasing numbers they cannot. He just does not care enough about whether people can pay the rent. He cares but he does not care enough that they cannot afford to fill up the car with petrol. He cares but he does not care enough that they cannot make the voluntary payments to schools. He cares but he does not care enough that they cannot buy a house. 
It might have been a little bit more useful if the Prime Minister rather than telling us that Michael Cullen will have a programme of tax cuts had explained why after 9 years those tax cuts are not here. The Government has had the surpluses it has had the environment and it has had the opportunity. It has had all the reasons in the world to cut taxes and it has not done so. We know why it has not done so. It is because Michael Cullen is with every fibre in his body opposed to personal tax cuts. It has nothing to do with the environment and it has nothing to do with the economic opportunities. He does not want them but last week he wanted us to believe he was having a road to Damascus experience about the benefits of tax cuts. Well I read the speech and it was a bit more like a tunnel under Damascus experience really. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Maharey that it was a sort of a gold-plated tunnel under Helen Clark’s electorate as a public-private partnership. 
What Dr Cullen told us in that speech was quite interesting. He said we would be driving though the Waterview tunnel by 2015. Have these people heard of the Resource Management Act? I have more chance of being Britney Spears’ therapist in 2015 than of driving through the Waterview tunnel in my car. Members can trust me—there is more chance of that! 
Then Dr Cullen went on to his four tests for tax cuts. You see the four tests for tax cuts are to make the system look like it is principled but actually there is only one test: is it election year and how far behind is Labour in the polls? What Dr Cullen likes to do is get up and lecture us about the impact that tax cuts could have on inflation and interest rates. Well this is my message for Michael Cullen: spare me the lecture! This is the man who came into office when interest rates were at 4.5 percent and now they are at 8.25 percent. 
Hon Annette King 
: This is pathetic. 
JOHN KEY 
: I will tell the member what is pathetic. It is those thousands of New Zealanders who cannot meet their mortgage payments and are getting forced out of their houses. Forty percent of them have mortgage stress. We are in touch with those people. We are not out there creating four bogus tests. 
Michael Cullen has an interesting position here. In 2005 when we announced a tax cut that would cost $2 billion and would have delivered $45 a week to the average New Zealander this is what he had to say about it. He said it was unworkable unfair and unaffordable. Those were his words—unworkable unfair and unaffordable. But the problem is that in 2005 the surplus was $11.5 billion and today it is $6 billion but he is having a tax cut today apparently. Inflation was at about the same level back then. The cash surplus in 2005 was $3 billion. The cash surplus today on predictions is a deficit of $760 million. You see Michael Cullen does not have four tests. He is having tax cuts because Helen Clark has told him to do it or she will sack him. That is the bottom line and he can come up with his four tests all he likes. 
The Prime Minister says she cares about housing affordability. I am glad she has woken up to the problem. That is at least a starting point. Maybe she has reflected on the fact that in 1991 three-quarters of all New Zealanders could afford to buy a house and had one. Today that figure is 65 percent and going down. Maybe she has reflected on the fact that for the average household with a mortgage today that mortgage is 50 percent of their after-tax income and when she went into office the figure was roughly a third. Maybe she has reflected on the fact that New Zealanders like owning their own homes. 
The Prime Minister said in her speech that she would tackle the issue of building consents. The only problem is that she created the issue of building consents back in 2004. She says she will go out there and force the councils to have developers who can issue affordable housing. But what about the Resource Management Act? What about land banking? What about the other compliance costs? They do not matter. 
The Prime Minister told us that she wants to keep kids at school until they are 18. Well what is her answer to the fact that 31000 kids are truant from school every day today when the leaving age is 16? If they do not stay when the leaving age is 16 they will not stay when it is 18. What the Prime Minister needs is a policy like the one National has—a youth guarantee policy where for 16 and 17-year-olds there is universal— 
Hon Member 
: She’ll take it. 
JOHN KEY 
: She will take it actually—eventually. That seems to be what she is doing at the moment. Ours is a flexible approach a modern approach and an approach that allows young New Zealanders to get in there. 
The Prime Minister told us she was concerned about literacy and numeracy levels. Well she would be concerned about literacy and numeracy levels for Maori New Zealanders but she could not be bothered to turn up to Waitangi and find out what their concerns were. That is the truth of it. 
It is time that Labour admitted the truth. It is out of ideas it is out of steam and it is out of puff. New Zealanders should stop looking to Labour; they should look to National because only one party has bold ideas. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: What are they? 
JOHN KEY 
: I say to Mr Anderton that these are the things we are going to do. The first thing is that we will lift the wages and conditions of New Zealanders and we will lower taxes—and we will do it year after year. We will invest in the infrastructure that will allow New Zealand to be productive. We will not take a decade to tackle the issues of Auckland governance. Secondly we will lift long-term productivity growth and we will stop the decline of New Zealand down the OECD. We will invest in science and research and development at a Government level. 
We will trim the compliance costs and red tape. I had to laugh when Labour members clapped after Helen Clark said she would do something about compliance costs. I wish they had shown so much enthusiasm when the Labour Government introduced all the compliance costs over the year. 
We will tackle the issues of broadband. We will reform the Resource Management Act. We will undertake quality Government spending we will stop the waste and we will get to grips with the core bureaucracy. One message I have for the core bureaucracy is that unlike the Labour Government we will not see the bureaucracy as an extension of the National Party. We will value its contribution we will listen to it and by the way when things go wrong we will not blame it every 5 minutes. 
We will do something about making our communities safer. We will be out there tackling youth crime with Fresh Start programmes. We will have better bail laws. We will have better allocation of resources. We place a higher priority on drug and alcohol rehabilitation than we do on landscaping our prisons. We will have tough sentences for those who deserve them. We will tidy up our prisons and corrections facilities and we will not be afraid to use the private sector in the case of Auckland Central Remand Prison. 
National will demand a higher performance from core State services. We will look for outcomes not just for processes. When we look at things like health we will be flexible in our integrated family health clinics. Our priorities will be doctors and nurses not bureaucrats. We will split up the bureaucracy. 
We will lift the performance in education because we will tackle those issues. We have a policy of national standards. We have been talking about trade and apprenticeship training in schools for a year or more not just today. We will be looking at the issues. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: This is pretty pathetic. 
JOHN KEY 
: Mr Goff has had 8 years. That is the point. He has had 8 years to do something about it and he has failed. 
We will tackle the issue of homeownership. We will reform the Resource Management Act. We will fast track the process of systems. We will lower the cost of bureaucracy. We will build the positive values that New Zealanders want. We will celebrate success unlike a Labour Government that has forgotten how to do that. We will put the word “winning” back into the New Zealand conversation. We will not be afraid to value entrepreneurialism. We will value freedom and confidence. 
Most of all after 9 years of a National Government we will not get up like the Prime Minister did this afternoon and say: “These are the problems. I was a bystander who did nothing along the way.” There will be change and improvement and New Zealanders cannot wait for that time.