Collins Judith: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15074] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 If anyone wants to look at the future of the Labour Party—well we have just seen it! Darien Fenton is one of the hardest working members of the Labour Party and one of the most talented and that is actually one of the reasons why Labour is doing so well in the polls at the moment! 
That speech was just a few notes from the Labour research unit on the ninth floor of the Beehive. It was just the same old rhetoric—everything is wonderful under Labour they say. Tell that to the member’s constituents who do not have enough money to pay the mortgage and go along to the supermarket wondering whether they can buy the block of cheese they normally get for their kids. We see the increased cost of petrol and everything else under this Government. That is what we see. 
Certainly this is most relevant to the beneficiaries that the Ministry of Social Development deals with. We are constantly told by the Government that unemployment numbers are down and we accept that. They are down but for how long? The world’s economies are in turmoil. We see that right now. Almost every day the front pages of newspapers talk about what is happening with overseas economies and therefore what is happening here. 
We have heard a lot about what happened in the 1990s. We have heard a lot about the 300000 or so jobs that have been created in the last 9 years. Well I have news for this House. There were 300000 more jobs created in the 1990s under a National Government as well. And that was actually when economic times in the world were very very tough and New Zealand had to deal with the fact that the National Government inherited a bankrupt economy from a Labour Government that cooked the books and then made out that there was money in the Budget when there was not. That is what the National Government inherited. But the Labour Government inherited from National a good set of books and a good economy and what has Labour done? In the 9 years Labour has absolutely wasted it. Labour fudged the books—that is the other thing it does. 
If we look at the household labour force survey which is the only official record for unemployment we find that 25000 young people are not in work or training or education. That number has not changed significantly in the last 9 years. New Zealand has been getting fantastic commodity prices—not due to this Government—and there are opportunities everywhere but that number of unemployed young people has not changed. 
So many children still miss out in life. More children than ever are being referred to Child Youth and Family. The departments that deal with kids in need are now bigger and the reason is that more children are in need. The Salvation Army report of last year showed that the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming bigger under this Government. More children are missing out and more children are living in poverty despite all the opportunities. The reason for that is that this Government is interested only in cooking the books and in making out that everything is fine when it is not. 
The Government spends an awful lot of taxpayers’ money because it cannot trust taxpayers to spend their own earnings. Let us look at the cost of staff recruitment in the Ministry of Social Development. The ministry spent $101000 in 2002 on recruitment. It is a big department and one can understand that. But what did it spend in 2006? It spent $608000—and that was not spent on wages; that was spent just on recruitment. 
Craig Foss 
: On bureaucrats. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Absolutely. If we look at the number of people on the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit we see that 130000 New Zealanders of working age are now too sick to work. That is after 9 long years of a Labour Government. Huge amounts of money have gone into the health budget but more people are sick. Huge amounts of money have gone into education but more students are leaving school unable to read write or do basic maths. 
More people are failing. Why is that? It is because this Government knows only about wastage. It loves to employ people in all sorts of Government departments particularly those involved in communications. The spin doctors have had a huge windfall under this Government. Anybody who looks at these accounts will see that spin-doctoring—the communications outfits—has grown like Topsy. That has happened under this Government because it is interested only in power. We need only look at the beneficiary debt owed to Work and Income to see that this Government is not doing its job.