Rich Katherine: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Rich Katherine: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3376] 
KATHERINE RICH (NZ National) 
: 
 I too listened to the Prime Minister’s droning speech yesterday and it was quite clear that this Government is in cruise mode and has no new ideas. As the welfare spokesperson for my party I listened intently for some new plans to help those Kiwis most in need but I did not hear one new initiative of note. For the 409000 people in this country on benefits and needing the support of the community there was nothing. For the 134000 people on the unemployment benefit and looking for work there was nothing to make their lives better. While Government members may wax lyrical about the unemployment figures I remind them that they have enjoyed the best economic conditions in a generation and still long-term benefit dependency continues to grow. As a country we must continue to ask why. Helen Clark smugly thinks that this buoyancy is a result of her last couple of years of control-freak methods of management but may I say that her style of management does not yet extend to the manipulation of the weather or commodity prices or even the favourable exchange rates that underpin the good growth that we have seen. 
The Government has enjoyed the best economic conditions in a generation and still there are 409000 people on benefits. If we look at the invalids benefit and the sickness benefit we see that the December Economic and Fiscal Update from last year shows that those numbers will skyrocket in the next term. We consider that there are better ways of ensuring a safety net that does not engulf people in long-term dependency. I am interested in looking at different solutions to reduce that welfare dependency and in doing so I am confident about National’s ability to develop a welfare system with a better mix of compassion support and encouragement.  
I have been brought up to know that it is the Kiwi way to offer compassion and support for those in need and that the only real way to make changes in people’s lives is through community-based projects. I know that because I have watched my own family members dedicate their working lives to community employment. I may not share some of their political philosophies but I have known that one of National’s core philosophies—in fact it is a key part of our constitution—is the provision of assistance to those Kiwis who are in need of help. But unlike some of my opponents I do not have a “Here’s your cash and see you later.” approach to welfare. We believe that there are obligations to one another as we are all members of the same community and that is why I am investigating better ways of delivering welfare services.  
I am looking at eligibility requirements for some benefits but let me be clear in my intention. I want a country where children can grow up to be safe secure and vaccinated from Third World diseases where they know their heritage and where they attend preschool and school. I want teenage mothers—a small percentage of the recipients of the domestic purposes benefit admittedly but one of most concern to the community—to have the opportunity to live in supported accommodation where they can get the help that they need and continue their education to at least finish secondary school. 
 I want a child protection system that is not in crisis and is not struggling to provide even basic protections for New Zealand’s children. Even though Mick Brown in his report told the Minister that the unallocated case list needed to be reduced to zero in 6 months at last count we still had 1400 children whose cases had not even been seen by a social worker yet. I do not think that is good enough and my party does not think that is good enough either. Fourteen hundred children—who knows there may be another Delcelia Witika another Olympia Jetson or another “Lillybing” sitting on that case list. I hope not but frankly the Department of Child Youth and Family Services does not know because many of those cases have not been allocated to social workers.  
Labour has made it politically incorrect to have a view on these sorts of things. I think it is time for us to talk about the sorts of lives that we as a community want to provide for the coming generations. We also need to talk about time limits and community support. Some benefits were designed to be transitionary. The unemployment benefit was not designed to support someone searching for work for 10 years; neither was the sickness benefit. After 10 years that person will become trapped unless there is some intervention to help that person back out into the workforce. This Government thinks it is OK that someone like Jules Mikus can be on the sickness benefit for 20 years. Well Opposition members do not and I do not think the public does either. We intend talking about these issues and raising them with the public over the coming year.  
Government members will shriek they will talk about beneficiary bashing and we had that unusual outburst from Steve Chadwick yesterday but the funny thing is that a lot of these ideas that I have been considering have been implemented and developed by none other than the Minister’s idol Tony Blair. The UK is taking a much more proactive approach to welfare development and I think we have a lot to learn from the Australian and UK models.  
Parenting children is one of the toughest jobs a person will ever have and being unemployed is one of the most demotivating experiences of one’s life. I know that because I have experienced both. I do not pretend to be an expert on either but I do say that experience of both those things does give me a head start when I look at developing a better welfare system for this country. We heard from the Prime Minister’s speech that Labour simply does not have the practical skills to give people the encouragement to make changes in their lives. Labour is happy with people being powerless and it is happy with people being trapped in dependency. It is a good way to secure their vote. I am not prepared to have that negative view of welfare.  
The Minister loves to quote statistics but I remind him that those statistics are people. I would like to talk about a number of people whom I have worked with in my city over the last few weeks. It is pretty hard to stand opposite a hard-working couple who are earning less than the highest-paid beneficiary in this country and explain to them why they earn less than $41000—that being the amount earned by the highest-paid recipient. What was in the Prime Minister’s speech for them? There was nothing. Yesterday I began working with a woman who has spent 10 years on the domestic purposes benefit. She is desperate for work but is deflated by the regular knock-backs. We have started working together and we will find her a good job but there was nothing in the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday for her. 
I spent a day driving trucks with Tulloch Transport. That company said that its industry faces 40 vacancies for truck drivers who have their truck and trailer licence and it cannot get any applicants. The Government’s plan offered nothing to address the fact that so many of our businesses at the moment cannot get the people and the skills they need. What about the mum in my Plunket group who is juggling time to work and motherhood but is barely covering the childcare costs? 
David Benson-Pope 
: That’s why we have all those modern apprentices—thousands of them. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: It is interesting that Mr Benson-Pope raises the apprenticeship scheme. How come a constituent told me that one of the people working in that member’s office said that the scheme is a load of rubbish and is not working? That was straight from the mouth of Mr Benson-Pope’s own electorate secretary. I say to the Minister to cut the academic rubbish about social capability and building and joined-up government and get back to some common-sense discussion about jobs and getting people back into work or getting them into training. Stop trying to make it a complicated academic subject and put some solutions in place.  
The Minister keeps chanting about real jobs but he arrogantly dismisses a lot of work. I ask the Minister to define what a real job is. My husband used to drive trucks for a living. Is that a real job in the eyes of the Minister? I get the impression he would not think so. He also used to be a builder’s labourer. I suppose in the Minister’s eyes that does not count as a real job either. I had a job cleaning gravestones—one of my favourite jobs I might add—but not a real job in the eyes of the Minister either. I say to that Minister that he should define what is a real job. The value of a job is in the eye of the beholder. It is not just about money; it is about self-esteem it is about connecting with one’s community. It is about being a part of things.  
When the Minister talks about social exclusion I say that there is nothing more exclusive than sitting at home and staring at the wall. Talk to anybody who has made the transition from welfare to work and he or she will say that a dollar earned from work brings greater satisfaction than any dollar that can be given by the State. That is why National is looking at new solutions for the welfare system and we are going to take the debate to the Government this year. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (NZ Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I want to thank David Benson-Pope for a somewhat vain attempt to inject some passion and for helping the previous speaker at least to have some passion in her speech. If ever there was a passionless delivery that was it. If ever there was an Opposition faction—well the National Party Opposition faction—that was on some sort of cruise control then from what we have seen during this debate that was it. I am going to implore Mr English as the current official leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to do the right thing and at least give Winston Peters and maybe Mr Prebble some of his salary—share it around. Mr English should not be looking just at members on this side of the Chamber. A more pertinent danger to his leadership not just within his own ranks but in terms of de facto leadership of the Opposition clearly is coming from the member for Tauranga. The mind boggles if the member for Tauranga would ever accept a second-in-charge position to Mr English should Mr English make it to government which of course in my view is highly unlikely.  
We thank Mr English for at least acknowledging that we are now potentially looking very much at a three-term Labour-led Government. The work we on this side of the House are going to do will ensure that that extends beyond three terms. I have to say to the previous speaker Katherine Rich that quite frankly your lot had 9 years— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member must not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: I said “your lot”. I apologise and without at all questioning your ruling I say to Katherine Rich: “Your lot had 9 long years and frankly you had your time. Your time has gone and it is gone for a long time.”  
One of the very critical things—and I do not think some of the other Opposition parties would disagree with this analysis—is that we may be seeing the Swedish style of Parliament where there is no longer a major party from the centre-right in this country any more but the centre-right is divided into three clear faction parties. I have said in a previous contribution to this debate that Dail Jones no longer recognises the party of which he was once a member. In fact Rob Muldoon would be spinning in his grave if he could see the remnants of the once-proud party that he led let alone the once-proud party that was led by people like Jack Marshall and Keith Holyoake. It was a significant party representing a very broad cross section of New Zealand society and of course it was the Government as we know throughout the 1960s. It had a significant grass-roots membership. When we look at the National Party today we see that it is far more reminiscent of some of those narrow right-wing parties that operate on a very narrow base in the Scandinavian parliament.  
One of the problems we have seen at National Party meetings is that they do not know whether they will go the Brash way the Maurice way the Rich way or which way. Who knows which way they will go? They are not sure whether their destiny lies in the centre or whether they should redefine themselves and gouge out a new position on the right.  
If ever there was evidence of the kind of intellectual and philosophical vacuum that the National Party faction is operating in I think that it was shown by the previous speaker Katherine Rich who talked about taking people off benefits. Presumably the answer now is that she will take them off benefits after 6 months or so then she will send them off to look for the nearest local post office wherever that is in order to see whether they will pick up a job. It reminds me very much of a sort of a “bob a job” scheme. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It works in Australia. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: No it is a “bob a job” scheme. People find their local post office if they can. They should not mistake it for Books and More or anything else. That is the vision that is coming from that side of the House. Dare I say it if we actually look at the vision of the ACT party—and I have to say that I get no pleasure at all from seeing the difficulty that ACT members are currently experiencing—we can see that they of course know everything about loyalty to their members! Look what they did to Ms Webster at the last election. Look what they did to Owen Jennings. If I were a member of the ACT caucus I would be watching my back. Two ACT members were dumped at the last election. They will not stop at Donna. In fact if members want a description of the ACT philosophy the all-embracing ACT way to care for people then I will give members a quote. It has been quoted before. I accept that the quote is not too original. I think that Clayton Cosgrove used it. In the May 2002 issue of  
North and South 
 there is a quote from Rodney Hide talking about his previous life. It is a fascinating article.  
I acknowledge the fact that Rodney Hide has had a fascinating previous life before coming here. I think that his view of life adequately describes the philosophy of ACT and its view of loyalty and ethics and all of that. I quote from page 79 of  
North and South 
 of May 2002. Mr Hide said about working with some colleagues: “I got very comfortable with the lifestyle. I liked the guys all of them drunks crooks thieves wife beaters and fighters but I enjoyed them immensely. I thought to myself ‘I’m in a foreign country. If this is the way the game goes then I’ll play it’ ... ”. All I can say to that is: “Boy! Talk about the ACT party having the temerity to lecture the rest of us on ethics and loyalty!” Members should ask Ms Webster and Mr Jennings all about the loyalty that ACT has shown them. Quite frankly if ever we did have a centre-right kind of coalition Government can members honestly imagine Mr Hide— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Yes I can. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: The member can imagine Mr Hide as a member of Cabinet. He can imagine him having some sort of role there perhaps as part of some three-headed monster unless of course New Zealand First can be the predominant player in that. Of course we realise—and Mr English realises it too—that that is exactly Mr Winston Peters’ objective. His objective is to gouge out the Nats and I would say to the National Party: “Be very careful because it does not automatically stand that you will be the dominant player in a centre-right Opposition in the next term of Parliament.”  
Finally I want to talk about three good local developments which I acknowledge. It was a very good speech from the Prime Minister. We are delighted and we thank Annette King the Minister of Health as we got the go-ahead for the much-needed Waikato Hospital neurosurgery unit. I publicly applaud Annette King’s efforts; I thank her for that. I thank Mr Anderton and Cabinet for giving us the go-ahead for the Waikato Innovation Park. That is two ticks on the board for the people of Hamilton. I say thank you to the Minister of Transport and to Transit for the traction that we are now finally getting on the Waikato expressway.  
As Mr Lindsay Tisch knows we have a long way to go yet. There is a lot of work that we as members of Parliament have to do. But when we go to the Long Swamp area and the Meremere and Ohinewai areas we see the construction and we see the bulldozers and we see that things are actually happening for our region. We are of course delighted but we are not going to rest on our laurels. Diane Yates Nanaia Mahuta and myself representing the interests of Waikato are going to get on with it We are chalking runs on the board. We are proud to be part of this Government and part of this Government for many more years to come.