Mapp Wayne: Address in Reply 
Mapp Wayne: Address in Reply 
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Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair in an elevated position compared with the one you held previously. I would like to congratulate you on that. Frankly it is disappointing to me that you are not in an even more elevated position. Nevertheless I offer my congratulations to your colleagues as well. 
This week for our country the competition just became a lot tougher. Australia is passing innovative industrial law and it already has productivity growth that is higher than New Zealand’s. Australia has 2 percent annual productivity growth; we have about 1.5 percent or 1 percent. The Prime Minister said in her speech that that is the big challenge. Well I have to ask the Government what kind of plan it has to address it. The reality is that the Government ignores the advice of the OECD. The OECD has said that one of the major blockages to growth in this country is our sclerotic industrial law. This Labour Party in Government has held our nation back. That is the truth of it. 
I challenge Parliament: under this new regime Labour United Future New Zealand First the Greens the Maori Party and ACT can change that. I will be introducing a member’s bill that will provide for a 90-day probation period. I have heard New Zealand First say that that is what it wants. Mr Peter Brown has said he supports that. Well he will have the opportunity to actually vote for it. It is the same for United Future which will also have the opportunity to vote for it. With this bill we will find out whether those parties are the lapdogs of the Government or whether they have independent minds. That will be the real test. The Maori Party knows the challenge of growing the economy as many of its members are involved in small business. They know the challenge of getting young people into their first job. They also will have the opportunity to give people a chance. 
That is what the 90-day probation period is actually about—it is about giving people a chance. It is not some kind of radical measure as the Labour Party would have the country believe. New Zealand is one of only two countries in the OECD that do not have any form of probation period. I say to the Government that if it is serious about productivity growth it will unshackle the economy where it counts. Where it counts is in making extra jobs for people who need a break. That will be the acid test for those parties when my legislation is presented to this House. 
It will not surprise members to know that over the past few weeks I have received literally hundreds of emails letters and phone calls from people up and down our country. And there is a common thread: people are fed up with this Government’s political correctness. They are fed up with this Government’s excessive intrusion into their lives. Actually Labour may want to reflect on why this position has attracted so much attention. The reason is that people know that political correctness is a real issue. I heard some members in their maiden speeches totally misconstrue what it is about. The public knows that this Government would sooner be engaged in social engineering than in anything else. For heaven’s sake that is exactly why the Prime Minister came to this Parliament! She wants to remake this country. Has she ever given New Zealanders the chance to vote directly on prostitution? Did any New Zealander get the direct opportunity to vote on that issue? The answer is no. Did any New Zealander get the direct opportunity to vote on civil unions? The answer is no. Poll after poll indicated that New Zealanders did not want those changes. 
People are sick and tired of social engineering because it is all about trying to control the way they think and the way they lead their lives. Labour has presided over a project that is intended to fundamentally change this country. That is why I am receiving all of those emails letters and phone calls. People know that the issue is real. 
The education sector is particularly prone to trying to embark on the social engineering project. It is part of the sisterhood Helen Clark has put together for that purpose. It is not surprising that education would be the focus of social engineering. Why? Because the Government wishes to change the views and attitudes of young people. How does it do it? It promotes things that may seem innocuous like sports games with no scores. What could be wrong with that? It helps people to participate. That is the idea of the Labour Government. Who gets fooled? No child gets fooled. Children know who won who lost and what the score was. [ 
Interruption 
] The Government junior whip might ask why scores matter. Actually games are about lessons in life. When people sometimes do not win or succeed they have the incentive to try harder in the future in order to better themselves. That is actually what competition and success are all about. It is about building on things that do not go quite right and about doing them better next time. But Labour does not understand that. 
Of course primary school is only where political correctness started. The next step was the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Dr Lockwood Smith has advised me that it was intended that NCEA would be competitive and that people would know whether they had passed or failed. But under Labour and the teachers unions the idea of failure has gone out the window. People do not know whether they fail a subject under the NCEA. It is not recorded. An achievement pass is given to those scoring between 45 and 60 percent. I have to ask the Government whether such people have passed or failed—whether they knew more of the subject or less of it. Let me tell members that on that basis NCEA is not a preparation for life for work or for university. I have taught at university and I can tell members that in the universities people do pass or fail. That is an important lesson. The people who fail their exams re-sit them in order to do better and improve themselves. That is the reality of the situation. 
So political correctness is about changing the culture. It is actually about destroying aspiration. It is about destroying the values of this country and the public knows that. Labour of course is deeply attached to political correctness because it wants to control people’s lives. Why did my colleague have to assist people in her community to clear mangroves? The reason was that the Resource Management Act as Bob Clarkson mentioned today in Parliament has strangled the community concerned. Actually in that particular case it has strangled the harbour. The community could not get a consent for that work. So what did the people do? They took direct action. They had no choice about that because this Government thinks it knows what is best for them. The whole project against political correctness is about restoring power back to the people. It is about giving choice to people and it is about valuing aspiration and success. 
I want to close by returning to my initial theme. This country is in a competition. Our closest competitor is Australia. Australia is doing better than we are. It is passing laws that mean it will do better than us in the future. Australia achieves a 2 percent productivity gain each year which is way better than us. If the Government wants to know the reason why New Zealanders are going to Australia it is that people have better prospects there. The Government’s plan as outlined in the Speech from the Throne will not address that. That is why its project is doomed to failure and that is why New Zealand First and United Future will rue the day they sheeted their fortunes to a failing Government. It is a huge mistake and they will regret it.