O'Connor Damien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
O'Connor Damien: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16571] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 The best I could say about John Key’s speech would be that it was disheartening. I think anyone in this country who has played a part in their community who has worked in any part of government or indeed just goes out to do a decent honest day’s work would have been absolutely disheartened by that pathetic speech. 
John Key puts himself up as an aspirational leader for this country. Well the first thing he should do is get his facts straight when trying to explain a few things to this country. Firstly this country has an issue with debt because this National-ACT Government is borrowing $300 million every week. The reason it is having to do that in part is because it has given $14 billion in tax cuts over 5 years with the vast majority of that going to 10 percent of the population—the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. That money should still be in the Government coffers and it should be spent on the things that have been cut in the last 2 years. 
National Governments have always harmed this country. I go back to Mr Muldoon; he had Think Big projects but he at least left us a legacy of some infrastructure. We had Jim Bolger who did not think at all. His Government just cut benefits and privatised anything it could. Now we have John Key who wants to think small. He thinks that Government should be doing less spending less and that the private sector should be doing more. The basic flaw in that is that the debt problem of this country is in the hands of the private sector. John Key will not acknowledge that. I do not think any Government will intervene in basic private property rights unless it feels there is a good reason to so our ability to limit private sector debt is limited in itself. But John Key’s solution to the debt problem it is to take assets from the State—State-owned enterprises—which have a low level of debt. 
I can just see Michael Cullen fuming as he listens—he is probably not watching TV tonight—to this debate. He spent the surpluses—the additional money that we had over and above Government spending—on lowering debt right down to I think 22 percent of GDP or thereabouts. It was one of the lowest levels of Government debt in the OECD and that put this country in a very good position to take on the international financial crisis. That was where we had left it when the Tories came into Government. But their flawed philosophy which is one of doing less in Government and allowing the private sector to take over means that we will have less ability to lower the debt of this country overall. I have to say that that private sector debt was fuelled by the banks most of them foreign-owned. They were quite happy to take the profits when things were going well but they are now showing a little bit of caution indeed a bit of fear in their inability and reluctance to fund capital particularly in the primary sector. 
I think we are in a shocking situation and this Government has shown absolutely no plan as to what it is going to do to get us out of that. It has cut $14 billion from the Government spend and handed that back to about the top 10 percent of the country. It has increased GST. It has increased the cost to each and every New Zealander across this economy and we are starting to really feel that. 
Mr Key the so-called aspirational leader of this country aspired to take us along the path of Ireland. In fact in 2008 he was still championing the wonderful benefits of Ireland as an economy. The “trappings of a considerable economic success story” is what he said. Well it is a measure of his poor judgment that just over 2 years ago he was claiming Ireland as an amazing success story. 
The thing I agree with Mr Key on which I cannot quite reconcile with his policies is his saying that “we need to own more of our own future”. He then set about to justify selling off our State-owned enterprises. What a bizarre situation and contradiction to put before this country. I do not think New Zealanders are conned in any way at all. I do not think they are fooled for one moment about the so-called 49 percent threshold and the so-called preferential allocation to Kiwi mums and dads. I have been challenged not to use that term because as we know that will not happen; preferential rights will be given to the wealthy people who can afford to buy shares and they will onsell them to foreign investors. The New Zealanders I have spoken to up and down the country are not fooled for one moment. They know that it means effective privatisation the selling off into private hands of our State-owned enterprises starting with the electricity sector—notably Solid Energy. 
I say to members—National members have been too scared to say it—that Landcorp will be next of course. David Carter has said a number of times that he does not think the Government should be in the business of farming. That means that Landcorp will be on the blocks as well. The question is where that will leave us as a country. If the private sector is too keen too often to sell shares to foreigners—because there is a nice handsome profit in it; because it might see a windfall gain somewhere—what path does that lead us down? It certainly does not take us to John Key’s stated aim of our owning our own future; indeed we are heading in the wrong direction. 
John Key David Carter—though David Carter less so of course—and a few others made statements against the sale of the Crafar farms to the Chinese. We should be very concerned. John Key has made other statements about not wanting us to become workers in our own land. He also said he would not want to see the “wholesale sale of New Zealand’s land productive sector”. Well I agree with him but what has he done about it? Zippo nothing! What happened after his statement of 7 March 2010 raising concerns about the sale of the Crafar farms? Indeed on 1 February this year we saw that Germans had paid $109 million for 10 farms down in Southland and what did he say about that? Nothing absolutely nothing! If he is passionate about our owning our land then perhaps he should stand up be true to his principles and be consistent for a change. 
It is not only the sale of land that Labour has indicated we will move to restrict. We want New Zealanders to have some control over our future but National has refused to move in that area. In fact it is refusing to move in the area of PGG Wrightson’s potential sale as well. I have not heard a squeak from the National Government about whether it thinks the purchase by Agria of PGG Wrightson the No. 1 agricultural service company in this country is a good or a bad thing. Maybe it should be taken over by Agrium another foreign-owned company. 
It goes on and on and the problem is that National members sitting over there think the private sector will deliver a wonderful future for this country. We have to acknowledge their wonderful efforts but Government has to ensure the provision of core infrastructure so that we can pay for early childhood education adult and community education or the Treaty settlements of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations—if he ever has one that was not negotiated by the previous Labour Government— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: More in 2 years than Labour had in 9. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: We will wait and see how he performs tomorrow with his legislation I say to the Minister. We will see how well he does negotiating with his coalition partners. I say good luck to him. We will be pointing out a few double standards I guess in the position that National has taken over the issue of the seabed and foreshore. That Minister should be very very quiet. In fact there is an “h” word that is a wonderful description of his position on many many issues. 
The National Government has to stand up and provide some plan some real aspiration and some true control over our economy; otherwise the Prime Minister’s claim that we need to own our future will be a fallacy along with most of the other policies and claims that the National Government has made while it has been in power.