Chauvel Charles: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Chauvel Charles: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16550] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 This afternoon John Key told the House that he thought Governments should be judged on how they treat the most vulnerable people in the community. I would like him to know that that is exactly how this Government will be judged on 26 November. If fairness is to be the benchmark then the record of National ACT the Maori Party and Peter Dunne is shameful—it is shameful. No matter how many catwalks John Key struts down he will not be able to hide the fact that his Government is just failing hard-working Kiwis. No amount of smiling and waving will be able to hide the most worrying gap that New Zealanders face the rapidly widening gap between what John Key promised in 2008 and the grim reality that we all now face. That reality is that now under National ordinary people are just worse off. 
No amount of spin from the Prime Minister’s public relations team can hide the fact that prices are rising faster than wages. He can smile all he likes about raising GST but at the end of the day Kiwis know that the real effect is that they have to pay a lot more for a lot less at the supermarket checkout. Mr Key can smile all he likes about rebalancing the economy but at the end of the day Kiwis feel in their pockets that prices are rising a lot faster than their wages. The Prime Minister can smile all he likes about leading a Government of aspiration but at the end of the day Kiwis know that there are no jobs and that there is no plan. They know that the brighter future he promised is not coming. 
I had to laugh when I heard Mr Boscawen talk about the promise to stem the net migration to Australia. A thousand Kiwis a week are leaving these shores for Australia at the moment. Two jumbo jetloads of Kiwis are leaving because they know that there is no plan for recovery in this country. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: What’s the price of electricity in Australia? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Mr Boscawen asks about the price of electricity in Australia. He needs to understand that when Australia puts a price on carbon as it undoubtedly will New Zealand’s renewable advantage will finally be recognised and a lot of people who think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence on electricity prices will have a big surprise coming. 
On 26 November New Zealanders will have a very clear choice. They can stick with the Government that has got us to the point where 158000 people are out of work including 25000 Maori and almost 40000 young people. The Government claims that it is aspirational but to have almost 30000 young people aged 15 to 24 out of work and in no form of training or education is shameful. People could choose to stick with the Prime Minister who promised not to raise GST and who then did and with the Prime Minister who said that he would make sure that early childhood education remained free but who then cut its funding so that fees have to rise far beyond what a lot of ordinary families can afford. They can choose to keep a Prime Minister who obviously has no plan to create jobs or grow our economy but who is hell-bent on selling off assets that all New Zealanders already own cutting Public Service jobs and benefits to all New Zealanders and borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of ordinary Kiwis in order to fund unaffordable tax cuts. 
But there is a fairer option—a Labour-led Government. Governments should be judged as Mr Key said earlier on how they treat the most vulnerable members of our society. The difference is that our actions will match our words. A Labour Government will not borrow for tax cuts or to raise GST or sell off assets that we already own. Our team has a plan. We will put middle-income New Zealanders at the core of what we do and create jobs and growth by investing in research and development by boosting skills and trade training and by changing the way in which monetary policy works so that we actually support our productive exporting sector. We will make sure that we own our own future by preventing the indiscriminate sale of farmland and other strategic assets that ought always to stay in Kiwi ownership. 
I have the privilege of being Labour’s environment spokesperson and I was delighted to be here in the House earlier to hear the excellent contribution from Kevin Hague when he spoke about the shabby record that this Government has on environmental matters. Anybody listening to the outcome of the so-called Bluegreens’ conference in Christchurch a couple of weekends ago would absolutely despair at the direction that this Government is taking New Zealand on the environment. I do not know how John Key and Nick Smith expect us to have a brighter future if they are bent on destroying the environment that our future and our economy depend on. 
It is amazing to me that National is so undemocratically pushing through so-called national standards in schools while at the same time Nick Smith wants to relax the standards for the air we breathe and to allow more air pollution for a longer period of time. Members on that side of the House need to know that the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research says that we will see 635 avoidable deaths from respiratory illness—Jacqui Dean thinks that is funny but I think that anybody looking at it objectively would not have that smile on their face—as well as 505 unnecessary hospital admissions and over 1 million extra sick days. That is not a laughing matter I say to Ms Dean; that is something that any Government putting in place those decisions ought to hang their head in shame about. The fact that John Key can talk about looking after the sick and the vulnerable while allowing decisions like that speaks volumes about the utter lack of compassion from members on that side of the House. 
What I think is most telling about National’s lack of commitment to the environment is the refusal to set a 2020 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Any Government can wax lyrical about window dressing and statements as Nick Smith did a couple of weekends ago about a 2050 target years and years away in the future but that is not showing real commitment to putting immediate actions in place to match the Government’s words. Of course there is a reason why we are not going to see a 2020 target for greenhouse gas pollution reduction. This Government would not be able to meet one because every policy that it has implemented in this term will make pollution rise rather than fall in the long term. The Government has watered down the emissions trading scheme—and Mr Boscawen very conveniently failed to mention that—so that it effectively operates as a— 
Hon John Boscawen 
: I did—I did. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: He says that he did but it was so hard to understand what he was saying that I did not realise it. The Government has watered down the scheme so that it effectively operates as a massive subsidy from taxpayers to big polluters. The Government has done away with Labour’s biofuels obligations and it has scrapped Labour’s plan to have 90 percent of energy generated from renewables by 2025. There has been an absolute failure to invest in public transport— 
Jacqui Dean 
: It’s not possible. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Ms Dean the genius on the benches opposite says that it is not possible. It is possible I say to Ms Dean. I ask her to read the Energy Strategy that her Government has watered down where there was a plan to get to exactly that target. But what happened? Gerry Brownlee abolished it because he has no commitment to the environment just like all of the Ministers in that Government on that side of the House. 
In Government Labour would commit strongly to supporting industries like the cleantech industry which has the potential not only to help to save our environment but to add value in the order of say 10 percent extra to our economy. But things like cleantech are jeopardised by National’s approach to policy. Many fledgling cleantech companies just cannot succeed without access to research and development assistance like the tax credits that National slashed. There is no point trying to sincerely market New Zealand’s cleantech businesses when the other Government policies that I have mentioned already are fast destroying the clean image that we rely on to trade internationally. The cleantech industry is something amazing that should be nurtured but I fear that it may never get the head start it needs when National is in charge. 
Nobody looking at the record could rationally have any confidence in this Government because it has failed Kiwis and it has no plan. There is no plan and no regard for the well-being of ordinary working New Zealanders. I am proud to be part of a team that does have a plan and that will offer Kiwis a real alternative on 26 November.