McCully Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
McCully Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14285] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 I rise to support the amendment moved by my colleague the Leader of the Opposition John Key which invites this House to state that it has no confidence in a Government that is increasingly out of touch a Government that is increasingly running out of steam and running out of ideas a Government that is in the process of squandering the best economic opportunities this country has had for many decades and a Government that is presiding over a saga of failure. Worst of all this is a Government that is now so badly out of touch with New Zealanders that it is focused on one thing and one thing only: its own miserable political hide. 
With poll after poll we see the looks of increasing desperation from the other side and one would think that the Prime Minister might have come to House this year with some ideas some programmes and some solutions. But there was nothing from the Prime Minister in her speech. The term used by the Leader of the Opposition to describe that speech was “vacuous”. I think he was being kind and courteous. It was more than vacuous. I invite members to join us in expressing a vote of no confidence in this Government for several reasons. 
Many New Zealanders who are finding things a little tough right now must have watched that speech from the Prime Minister and wondered whether she was in a different country or possibly even on a different planet. She could not have been more out of touch. I get people coming to my electorate office—and I guess other members have people coming to their electorate offices—who are finding times tough. They look to the Government and to the Prime Minister to see some solutions and there are none. New Zealand now has the second-highest interest rates in the developed world. What was in the Prime Minister’s statement that dealt with that? Absolutely nothing. 
The Leader of the Opposition reminded the House on Tuesday that when this Government was elected to power one-third of the average income of New Zealanders would service the cost of an average house. Today it takes half of an average income to service the cost of an average house in this country. What was in the speech from the Prime Minister on Tuesday about that? We heard more slogans and more acronyms and we heard about more committees but there were no solutions. Not one New Zealander out there who is under pressure to service a mortgage would have heard that speech and said: “Ah! Things will get better because at least the Government is on the case and the Prime Minister understands the pressures on me and my family.” There was nothing for those New Zealanders in that speech. 
Others have commented that in the last 12 months we have seen 76000 New Zealanders leave these shores for good. These are not statistics from the National Party research unit—although they are always accurate of course. These statistics are from the Government Statistician. Seventy-six thousand New Zealanders packed up and left. They voted with their feet and expressed their own lack of confidence in this Prime Minister and this Government. Forty-thousand of those New Zealanders went to Australia; 40000 just packed up and left. They said: “There is no future for me and no future for my children in this country. I’m off to Australia.” 
It is not hard to understand why. If we look at the direct income comparisons we see that the situation is bad enough because the average income in Australia is now about one-third higher than the average income in this country. Most New Zealanders are not stupid. Most New Zealanders understand that for them considerable advantage is to be had from moving. Michael Cullen’s response to that is that these people are functionally innumerate and we should be pleased to see the back of them. That is what New Zealand’s Minister of Finance says to the 40000 New Zealanders who got on a plane and went to Australia. They took their skills their aspirations their ambitions their families and their futures to Australia and our Minister of Finance says they are functionally innumerate and we are better off without them. Is it any wonder there was nothing in the Prime Minister’s speech to send a message to the 40000 or 50000 New Zealanders who are thinking about leaving New Zealand for Australia this year as to why they should stay in this country? There was no hope for them in the Prime Minister’s speech; there was no hope for the 100000 or so New Zealanders who are thinking about departing abroad. 
It is bad enough that when we look at the direct income comparisons we see a gap of about one-third. The average wage in Australia is one-third higher than that in New Zealand. The equivalent of one’s take-home pay in Australia is one’s gross salary in New Zealand. But it gets worse when we do a state by state breakdown. Again I am not using figures we have invented; these are figures from Dr David Skilling of the New Zealand Institute and I have checked the figures with him myself. If we look at the state by state breakdown we can see why people are heading for Western Australia where in Kiwi dollar terms the average per capita income is $58500. In the Northern Territory the figure is $59500. Those figures make even Queensland look a little bit sick at $45000 and the figure for New South Wales is around $46000. The worst performer of the lot in Australia is of course Tasmania at $35000 for the average per capita income so New Zealand may have some chance of surpassing the performance of Tasmania. But even that has not happened. The average per capita income in New Zealand is $33600. That is behind Tasmania and about half the figure for Western Australia or the Northern Territory. 
And we wonder why people are packing up and moving to Australia. It is because they can count; that is why. It is because they can count and they can work out that there is a future for them in a country where for five successive Budgets people have had a tax cut from the Government to make it easier to pay the mortgage to pay the kids’ school fees and to make ends meet. In this country the response from the Deputy Prime Minister the Minister of Finance is that people moving to Australia are functionally innumerate and we are better off without them. What sort of country says that to the 40000 good hard-working New Zealanders who leave our shores each and every year—and the number goes up week after week after week? 
What do we get from the Government? There is nothing on that front just a few weasel words. The Prime Minister thinks that if she says “sustainability” a few times in a speech it may encourage a few people to vote for her later on this year. I say to Prime Minister “Sustainability” Clark that her Government has one of the worst records in living memory on one of the most important issues affecting the sustainability of this country. I am talking about the planting of trees. In this country we have kept records on forestry since 1951. In each and every year until 2004 we planted more trees in New Zealand than we cut down. If we look at the period from 1995 to 2000 we see that New Zealand’s planted forestry area increased by 90000 hectares 64000 hectares 88000 hectares 49000 hectares and 52000 hectares consecutively during those years. By 2004 we had actually moved into a position where we were cutting down more trees than we had been planting. By 2004 we had actually lost 5000 hectares of forestry. For each of 2005 and 2006 the figure was 11000 hectares. But the granddaddy of them all is going to be the year just past because this Government has put in place the most powerful incentives possible to get people to cut down trees in a hurry and the stockpiles of logs are sitting all over the place. I say to this Government which wants to talk about sustainability that we are going to look at its record on sustainability in forestry in particular over this year and we invite New Zealanders to pass their judgment based on the numbers. On the National side of the House we have some policies that are going to make a dramatic difference in that respect and Government members are going to have some cause for concern as the year goes on. 
It is a truly shameful state of affairs when we have 40000 New Zealanders a year moving to Australia and a Deputy Prime Minister who says they are functionally innumerate and they can go. This is a Government that lacks ambition for our future and it is time it went.