O'Connor Damien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Damien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 30 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7645. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 For a Minister who says that this Government accepts no failure I cannot understand how Tony Ryall can sit there and not walk from the benches because the only mark that that Government can get is F for failure. This week we had a profound announcement from the National Government—a National Government under John Key that is attempting to deal with the unemployment and housing problem. Well they had one profound announcement. This is a country under John Key where if you want 40 hours’ work per week and you want a— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Not you Mr Speaker. If any New Zealander wants a secure roof over their head then the only place they can get that is in prison. In prison under John Key’s National Government you get a roof over your head and 40 hours’ work a week. 
History repeats itself. In 1984 a number of things happened. I have to acknowledge that the Hon Lockwood Smith came into Parliament and the Hon Robert Muldoon left Parliament. No not quite—he left office. That was a year of crisis brought about by we were told a Prime Minister who was out of control in borrowing money—out of control. He left this country with huge public debt. He borrowed $17.7 billion. Well 30 years on—in fact it is 29 years on but it will be 30 years in 2014—the National Government under John Key has so far borrowed $50 billion which is a record amount. New Zealanders understood the crisis in 1984. Labour when coming into Government in 2014 will be facing the same crisis. It is a crisis of confidence brought about by a Government that fails to make the hard decisions fails to intervene when necessary and is failing New Zealanders every single day. Next year if John Key is allowed to continue he will have sold off strategic electricity assets the dollar will remain overvalued because his Government refuses to intervene as most other Western countries are doing to protect their exporters and unemployment will continue to be at record levels—20 percent is a fair calculation of those unemployed and underemployed. 
Kiwis up and down this country—these are the ones with jobs—are saying: “How come I’m working harder for longer and I’m worse off?”. Well John Key’s rhetoric and his smarmy smiles do not work any more. Kiwis are starting to ask where they are heading. The gap between the rich and the poor in this country has grown more than it ever has before. Why? Well because when John Key’s Government came into power it cut taxes for the rich. It put GST up for the poor. It increased petrol taxes. It has increased school fees. Ask a parent about the cost of the so-called free education that Mr Borrows was rabbiting on about. There is no such thing. And there is no such thing as free health care. We have public health and education systems but under the National Government they are far from free. The sooner those people on that side of the House—those in Government—understand that the sooner we might have some intervention. John Key’s Government is failing. A thousand Kiwis every week have lost confidence in the future of this country. That is a very very sad state of affairs. 
What has National done in 5 years? Well when it came into Government it started out by taking off the Auckland regional petrol tax. We heard some ramblings about road funding. Well the only roads that are getting properly funded are the “roads of National Party significance” to the point where we have a southern alliance of South Island councils coming together to try to defend their funding. They acknowledge that their funding has been cut because the National Government refuses to top up their roading funding—the very infrastructure that supports rural New Zealanders the people who still are the backbone of this economy and who were supporters of the National Party. That Government has slashed funding for that infrastructure. The Government promised rural broadband. Well there are a lot of farmers out there who are still waiting for it. If the Government was really concerned about rural post it would put rural broadband in place so the farmers could buy online and then get the parcels delivered. There are some simple solutions. 
We had an increase in GST which is a real pressure on all rural New Zealanders—the people creating the wealth in this country. We have a Prime Minister who said of his vision for the future that he would like to see a financial services hub in New Zealand to drive a better economy. Never mind the speculation that that would have further created a higher dollar for exporters. He wanted and still wants to have a financial services hub here. Well there has been a number of reports. In fact the Government spent half a million dollars giving Mr Craig Stobo money to go and do a report. There is huge debate between Treasury and Mr Stobo and Mr Key about the value of the financial services hub but mark my words the Prime Minister is determined once he has sold State-owned enterprises and once he has allowed the partial float of units in Fonterra to get on and create a financial services hub just like Ireland and just like other countries where we have seen rorts in the system. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: I would just like to briefly acknowledge the existing Speaker for one more day or thereabouts. I would like to acknowledge his huge contribution to Parliament since 1984. One of the most significant things he did of course was play in the Parliamentary Rugby Team—a very worthwhile winger I think and Mr Tremain will acknowledge that. 
I am here as Labour’s primary industries spokesman. I am here to try to keep the National Government accountable and to try to keep it on track. The National Government was the friend of the rural New Zealander. Well it is no longer. John Key wants to set up a financial hub in New Zealand at the expense of the exporters and traders of this country at the expense of the people who produce this wealth. 
There are a couple of acronyms I would like to mention. One is PGP the Primary Growth Partnership and the other is DCD—dicyandiamide. Firstly on the Primary Growth Partnership. The National Government took from rural New Zealanders from farmers $700 million that we had allocated for research and development and for innovation and support. The Government took that money it put it into the coffers to pay for the tax cuts and it has allocated a new funding grants scheme called the Primary Growth Partnership. Any analysis and it is starting to happen now of that grants scheme will show that a huge amount of money is going to companies that are owned or majority-owned by overseas people by foreign companies. That is in itself not bad but it does beg the question: can we guarantee benefit for New Zealand taxpayers from the investment made in that Primary Growth Partnership fund? We will be pursuing that and keeping the Government honest in that area. 
The next one is dicyandiamide. There was a rather vicious attack from the chief executive officer of Fonterra on me for daring to ask questions of why it took so long from September until the end of January to raise the issue of dicyandiamide in milk. It is not a food safety issue. It is however an issue of integrity honesty and openness with our trading partners. The reality is that the company and Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative spoke to the Ministry for Primary Industries at the end of October so there was a little bit of a delay there. At that time the Government was informed. The question I have of the Minister for Primary Industries and the Minister of Trade and the Prime Minister is: why did they not act then up front telling our trade partners that this was not a food safety issue but that it was an issue that we wanted to clarify with them? That delay the procrastination the attempt to hide it has escalated this into an issue that is a huge challenge at this point for the dairy industry to deal with. There is no food safety issue but an issue of perception and of integrity and of reputation. 
I put it to you that the delay was in part because of the floating of Fonterra units on 30 November. That was a big issue for NZX and it was a big issue for the Prime Minister because he is absolutely committed to the floating of Fonterra and to the strengthening of capital markets in this country. That wheeling and dealing by a trader Prime Minister has put our dairy sector at risk and he should be held to account for that mistake.