Beaumont Carol: Maiden Statements 
Beaumont Carol: Maiden Statements 
[Volume:651;Page:894] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Karanga mai rau rangatira ma me nga hoa hoki. Te Whare e tu nei te papa takoto ki waho tena korua. E nga mana e nga reo e nga tangata o te wa tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
To the many chiefs and colleagues also extend your call of welcome to us. To the House that stands before us and the courtyard that lies outside greetings to you two. To the authorities languages and the people of the moment greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to you all 
.] 
Having paid my respects in the first language of our nation I now acknowledge the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of this country. Mr Assistant Speaker Barker I acknowledge your appointment. 
I am aware of the privilege and responsibility that being a member of Parliament bestows on me. It is a great honour to represent my fellow New Zealanders and to serve and be accountable to them. I will undertake this role passionately seriously and with integrity. I will work constructively with all of the people MPs and staff of this House which occupies the central place in our democracy. 
Let me acknowledge all members. Ours is not a well-respected role. We have a shared responsibility to work to improve the way in which MPs are regarded by New Zealanders as attacks on politicians have the insidious effect of undermining our democracy. 
I want to acknowledge my family and friends especially my mother Barbara for her unconditional love; my stepfather Ray who is watching at home; my sister Alison for her consistent support and friendship; and my wonderful nieces Keriana and Emma who keep me focused and for whom I want to see a better future. I also acknowledge my partner Robert for his support his friendship and his love. My friends and union colleagues are also important in my life: my thanks to you too. 
I acknowledge with pride our new Labour leaders Phil Goff and Annette King and also our previous leaders who provided outstanding leadership for this country—Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. I am proud to be part of this determined and principled Labour caucus and I am proud of what Labour has achieved and delivered for New Zealanders not only over the last 9 years but over our long history. I particularly acknowledge the role of Helen Clark as someone who has inspired me since 1981 when she was elected as the member for Mt Albert. I acknowledge Helen’s strength intellect integrity and commitment to our country and to the cause of peace and social justice globally. Like many others I have been enormously proud of Helen as our Prime Minister; history will confirm the significance of her contribution. 
I stand before this House as a passionate advocate for social justice and human rights who believes in fairness opportunity prosperity and sustainability for all New Zealanders. I want an Aotearoa New Zealand that provides hope and ideas for social justice in our region and globally. 
Social justice means equality of opportunity. I proudly identify as a trade unionist and as a feminist despite the unthinking stereotypes some feel compelled to promote. In my experience union officials are people who care and who want to make a difference. I acknowledge in this House the valuable work they do. 
Social justice means being fair. I grew up in a family where we struggled to make ends meet. I understand the stress that puts on our families. My parents believed in a fair go working hard and education—values that have shaped my life. My late father Ron who would be so proud to see me here taught me to speak out against injustice and fostered my love of debate but also showed me injustice firsthand. My dad despite leaving school at 12 became a tradesman mechanic and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. That may have been natural but what even as a child I knew was not right was his dismissal of my dreams as being unsuitable for a girl. 
Social justice means educational opportunities for all. My political activists grew from my time as chairperson of the Melville High School student council. While at school I was also a cleaner and a member of the cleaners’ union. My sixth form history teacher Marjorie Barrows fundamentally changed my life course by persuading me not to leave school but rather to go to university. 
 Education is a passion of mine. Education is transformational—for individuals as it was for me and for our society as a whole. Our social and economic development relies on improving the educational levels of our people. I can only imagine the impact of low literacy levels on individuals—on their job opportunities their employment security and their exclusion from vital parts of our collective life. Imagine not being able to help your children with their homework to decipher prescription instructions or to read the newspaper. Imagine the impact that improving literacy could have on the individual families and society. 
I trained as a teacher a role we do not value highly enough and have been an adult educator working with those already in the workplace. The focus on workplace learning given that 80 percent of the workforce of 10 years’ time is already in work is something I believe in strongly. For the concept of lifelong learning to have real meaning requires our workplaces to be places of learning. This is not suggesting an impost on employers but a cultural change by all concerned. I was very proud of the huge increases in industry training under the Labour-led Government and the proposal to provide workers with the right to a retraining allowance. I commit here to promoting measures to ensure that lifelong learning is a reality for all New Zealanders. 
I will stand in this House to champion the cause of social justice and human rights. Human rights are both individual and collective. Our rights are mutually dependent and as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 recognised individual rights must be placed in the context of economic social and cultural rights. 
When the declaration was signed Dr Colin Aikman speaking on behalf of New Zealand said: “Experience in New Zealand has taught us that the assertion of the right of personal freedom is incomplete unless it is related to the social and economic rights of the common man. There can be no difference of opinion as to the tyranny of privation and want. There is no dictator more terrible than hunger. And we have found in New Zealand that only with social security in its widest sense can the individual reach his full stature. 
Therefore it can be understood why we emphasise the right to work the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being and the right to security in the event of unemployment sickness widowhood and old age. 
Also the fact that the common man is a social being requires that he should have the right to education the right to rest and leisure and the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community. 
These social and economic rights can give the individual the normal conditions of life which make for the larger freedom. And in New Zealand we accept that it is the function of government to promote their realisation.” 
Assuming the inclusion of women too this remains true 60 years later. Unfortunately some see human rights only in terms of self or see any talk of rights as “political correctness”. I believe in a strong rights-based framework and I will defend human rights for all. 
Workers’ rights are human rights guaranteed by international and currently domestic law. I pledge here to fight each and every attack made on workers’ rights including on workers’ collective rights to union representation. Unfortunately we have already seen workers disadvantaged in this forty-ninth Parliament with the reduction of KiwiSaver entitlements unfair tax changes and the removal of rights to fair treatment for new employees in most workplaces. 
Poverty and increasing inequality are among the most serious human rights issues facing the world today. In New Zealand inequality grew in the late 1980s and 1990s and the much referred to gap in wages between Australia and New Zealand grew exponentially. Last year for the first time in two decades the gap between rich and poor narrowed due in no small part to a deliberate redistribution of income by Labour to low and middle-income families. Who benefits from inequality? Not the suffering families struggling to make ends meet. Not the children who go hungry. 
Inequality is not only simply wrong in a comparatively rich country like New Zealand; it is unsustainable. The health and educational outcomes of poverty impact on our whole country economically and socially. Global poverty is a proven destroyer of individual and societal potential and a grave threat to peace security and sustainability. 
Increasing provision for social justice depends on a healthy economy. Our economy faces a number of key challenges that can be met only by a highly skilled workforce developing smarter products and services. To continue to improve our valued public services and standard of living we must be aware of not only wealth distribution but wealth creation. I am committed to sustainable economic development. We need to be deliberate smart cooperative and strategic to strengthen our economy to cope with offshore volatility. New ways of working together and the clarification of the roles of Government business and yes unions have been a worthwhile development in the last 9 years. 
An important aspect of social justice is the right to work. In recent years we have achieved some of the best employment outcomes of any Western country. Now there are major challenges ahead with unemployment forecast to rise rapidly. Work is of huge individual and society importance. The Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand have started discussing what the workplace of the future would look like. I support the Council of Trade Unions’ view that its attributes must include high wages and high value high skill levels and fairness and that it must be located in a strong industry and be healthy and sustainable. High-skill high-wage and highly productive workplaces cannot occur without productive employment relations with decent wages and conditions of work where workers’ rights to a collective voice are respected. 
The attacks of the 1990s on workers were not the way to go. There is still a low-wage legacy from that era. Low wages lead to low capital intensity and people working longer and longer hours to make ends meet. Low wages and low skill levels contribute to low productivity. 
Families are the basic building blocks of our society and the implications of long hours and low wages on them are huge. We must focus on our children who are our future. We must ensure their access to quality public education and health and we must challenge any family violence that threatens to mar their future. I will firmly support initiatives in the area of family violence reduction and I take this opportunity to acknowledge all those working to eliminate this huge problem. 
Investing in people supporting them throughout the life cycle and ensuring they have the ability to participate to their full potential are essential for our success as a country. Social inclusion needs to be deliberately fostered. It benefits none of us if new migrants to our country are not able to participate to their full potential or if young Maori and Pasifika people are overrepresented in the unemployment and educational underachievement statistics. 
Small countries like New Zealand have a greater opportunity to build consensus on what sort of future we want. A number of successful small countries have created “social partnership” approaches to ensure that workers businesses and the Government all play a crucial role in economic and social development. 
This brings me to my final point: only healthy democracies can ensure successful fair societies. Democracy is something we value highly as New Zealanders. It is something we have fought for and have led the world in achieving. For democracy to thrive our people must have the will and ability to participate. Many New Zealanders do not participate in democratic processes and some attribute this to apathy. I believe the reasons to be more complex and include lack of knowledge language barriers disillusionment with political processes time constraints and a sense of powerlessness. Whatever the reason the alienation of some is a loss to us all because not only is their vote lost but so are their ideas and their commitment to common values and goals. We must all work to lift genuine participation. 
As a Labour MP I will be based in the Maungakiekie electorate where I live and where I was our candidate in the recent election. I acknowledge and thank my campaign team and the large group of Labour activists who worked so hard. Let me acknowledge the Hon Vui Mark Gosche the previous MP for Maungakiekie. Mark has always been a strong advocate for the values of Labour the people of Maungakiekie and working people generally. Mark has inspired many people through his obvious integrity and the courage he displayed through huge personal tragedy. I know that the people of Maungakiekie will miss him as their MP. I want to acknowledge both Mark and Carol Gosche for their support friendship and encouragement. I also acknowledge Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga as the MP for Maungakiekie and indicate my willingness to work with him constructively on local issues where possible. 
Maungakiekie is a vibrant and diverse electorate. In the course of the campaign I saw the huge number of people who work for community good in sports groups on marae in youth groups in community safety groups in churches and in community development initiatives. They are ambitious people. It is important to reflect on the meaning of the word “ambitious” because recently it has been used by many only in the context of the individual. It is more than that. I consider myself ambitious and have always wanted to use my skills in roles that challenge me but my real ambition is in wanting to make a difference for others. As my friend Helen Duncan a former Labour MP said in her maiden speech: “I believe … that people are not driven solely by the pursuit of individual goals and ambitions and that the welfare comfort and happiness of others can make a difference to our enjoyment of our own lives.” I commit to being ambitious for Aotearoa New Zealand and all our people and I will seek to ensure that we measure what we are doing by considering the economic social cultural and environmental impacts of our actions. 
I believe that most people want to do the right thing that they want a better future for future generations. It is about being clear about the future we collectively want and determined to make the necessary changes. In the words of Sonja Davies a pioneering woman union leader and member of this House: “Nothing is ever too difficult to achieve. Only inertia can defeat us.” No reira kia kaha kia toa kia manawa nui tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.  
[ 
Therefore be strong be brave be stout-hearted. Greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to you all 
.] 
Sitting suspended from 6.12 p.m. to 7 p.m.