Fenton Darien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Fenton Darien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14234] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I would say that that speech made by Kate Wilkinson would have been very much at home in 1994; in fact it sounded very much like a recycled 1994 speech as I recall. 
I want to join with some of my colleagues in paying tribute to Brian Donnelly. As a newish member of Parliament I have not had the privilege of working with him but on a personal note I know Brian from his time living in Maungakaramea where he was the headmaster at a local area school and actually taught my son when he was a little lad. He played cricket with my brother and was close to my family in those ways. I appreciate what he did for my son who is a fine young man today and yes he is going on his overseas travel. I am very confident he will be back because he is a Labour supporter and he knows that he is doing very well. 
Similarly I have not had the opportunity to work with Katherine Rich although everything I hear about her makes me believe she is a woman to be treated with much respect. I regret I have not had the opportunity to get to know her better. We have had a couple of really good conversations about shoes but that is as far as it has gone. But I wish her well and as a woman I completely understand what she is saying about her family and her priorities. These priorities are hard sometimes and the choices are hard. 
Yesterday our Prime Minister outlined the significant programme of ongoing work for this very busy Government. It builds upon year upon year of the outstanding effort by this Labour-led Government because we care about real people and we offer real solutions. This Labour-led Government has long-term sustainable strategies for our economy our society our environment our culture and our way of life. These are strategies that are being driven by strong leadership and sound policies—not sound bites media stunts and false promises. 
The Prime Minister’s speech laid out a comprehensive programme for 2008 with major funding boosts for community-based organisations. It is fantastic. The member Anne Tolley neglected to mention the Salvation Army’s press release yesterday that said the Government’s plan will deal with the issues that the Salvation Army had raised the day before and that it was very very pleased about the funding boost. The programme includes Schools Plus which is a plan for really pushing forward on education and skills development a comprehensive plan for housing development and affordable housing greater rights for victims before-school checks a moving forward on sustainability and an investing in infrastructure. It is a programme of change that will continue to develop New Zealand’s potential and open up opportunities for all. 
Labour has delivered while it has been in Government but we are never arrogant enough to say everything has been done. The challenges of 2008 are different from the challenges of 1999 when Labour was first elected. We understand that and that is why the work of this Government goes on every day under Helen Clark’s leadership. And it shows. I ask members to look at some of the highlights of 2007. There was a strong and resilient economy the lowest unemployment in the OECD the highest participation in the labour force ever growing wages cheaper doctors’ and prescription fees 20 hours’ free education for 3 and 4-year-olds KiwiSaver—which 400000 Kiwis have now enrolled in—4 weeks’ annual leave and so on. And 2008 will be even better. 
John Key’s response to the Prime Minister yesterday was a joke. The disappointment on the faces of members of his caucus was plain for all to see. John Key failed to deliver on substance—we are used to that—but he also failed to show any new ideas. I guess we are used to that too. But what is worse is that it was not even funny. I heard some ridiculous statements and he keeps saying them. John Key says he is going to raise wages. Well I want to know how he is going to do that. How will he make that happen? I heard a couple of members tonight offer a solution. They are going to drive the economy. That sounds to me like the old trickle-down theory that we had in the 1990s; they will grow the economy and all the poor people at the bottom will be lucky to get a few crumbs. 
Hon Member 
: Will that work? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well I will want to know. I will want to know whether he will support ongoing minimum wage increases. Will he do something about that? Will he? I ask members to tell us; we would like to know. Will he support a growth in collective bargaining and industry-wide approaches to skills standards wages and capital investment to help improve productivity? Will he do that or will he make sure that that all goes backwards? Will he line up his big business mates in the aged-care industry and tell them to pass on to workers the money that the Government has funded instead of waste time taking on the Government in the courts? Will he explain to the member Jonathan Coleman who has been making very sympathetic noises about the wage levels of disability support workers on the North Shore that it was National’s attack on those workers that created the problem in the first place and if it were not for this Government’s increases in funding to the sector and increases in the minimum wage rates then those workers would very likely still be on the $8.50 an hour they were being paid when Labour came into Government. 
I am going to talk about the 1990s because it is a very sensitive issue on the National side of the House. I can see that it is; it gets National members going and I cannot resist doing it. I know they cannot cope with the idea that they are responsible for many of the problems that this Government has had to deal with. They are being very very defensive and it shows. Let me talk about the “mother of all Budgets”. That was not one Budget; it went on for years and years with real wages dropping growing gaps between rich and poor child poverty rates increasing Third World diseases overcrowding and lack of housing families living in tents and caravans no jobs and no help when those families needed it. 
Today in Australia the Labor Government is saying sorry to the Aboriginal nations for the lost generations and it has taken 41 Parliaments to do so. But it is a historic moment with a courageous Labor Government in Australia taking that first step. I keep looking at John Key and his brave new world of adopting Labour policies. I keep looking to him and hoping that he will say sorry and own up to the mistakes that the National Government made in the 1990s and apologise to the people whose lives were decimated whose lives today are still affected by the economic crimes committed by the last National Government. 
In those years National’s friends had a bonanza. The rich friends of the National Party had a bonanza but there was a famine for the rest. I have heard National members trying to blame the previous Labour Government of the 1980s for the economic nightmare of the 1990s. Some of us did not like Rogernomics and I will own up to that and the Labour Party has owned up to it as well—we own up to our mistakes unlike the National Party that just wants to say “Forget that; that’s history.” Well we have to learn from history. I want to see National take some responsibility for the Employment Contracts Act— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Helen Clark was the Deputy Prime Minister under the Rogernomics— 
DARIEN FENTON 
: She was not in the National Government. I ask National to take responsibility for driving real wages down. I ask it to take responsibility for the health reforms—the ridiculous charges in hospitals. I ask it to take responsibility for the blow-out in the gap in the real average earnings between New Zealand and Australia. I ask it to take responsibility. 
I say that to National members but I say it in particular to the National members who still occupy the front and middle benches and who were here during the 1990s. Maurice Williamson was one of those and what was he? He was the Minister of Transport and what got done? Nothing! Bill English was the Minister of Health in the health reforms and the Minister of Finance—hello! Nick Smith was the Minister of Education and various other things. I ask Nick Smith to own up. David Carter and Murray McCully—the Minister of Customs Minister of Housing and Minister for ACC—I ask them to own up to the problems that they created. Lockwood Smith was elected in 1984. He was Minister of Education Minister of Agriculture Minister of Trade and so on. Dear old Lockwood Smith made a pledge that he will make sure unions never have control of workplaces again. You see National members cannot help themselves. Members can look at the pledge he made with that old anti-union rhetoric. It is on his website. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: He also pledged to not have student fees. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. Then there are a whole lot more. Poor old Gerry Brownlee was elected in 1996 and is champing at the bit to be a Minister along with Wayne Mapp and Pansy Wong. There are a whole lot more who came in in 1990 and they are desperate for power. They are already salivating at the ministerial houses and the ministerial cars and the fight for positions in the National Party caucus is heating up. The arrogance is breathtaking. But members of the National Party are going to wait a long long time because until that party owns up no one in this country is going to believe a word it says. John Key can swan about the country mouthing soothing platitudes but it is not going to work with those who remember. And many people remember; I tell the House that those citizens those voters have very very long memories.