English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:17330] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 When inflation is heading to 5 percent and is gouging the budgets of many low-income New Zealanders and when New Zealand businesses and particularly exporters who are trying to stay competitive so that they can employ New Zealanders are burdened with 4 percent domestic inflation for the last 5 years Trevor Mallard is the best that Labour can do. His economic policy now amounts to a $200000 gift to Trevor Mallard to try to save the Hutt South seat. When interest rates— 
Jill Pettis 
: Why does this member hate workers? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well that member must hate workers because under Labour interest rates have doubled. Mortgage interest rates are now twice what they were when Labour came into office and Labour’s solution to that is that member over there. Therefore it is no wonder that consumer confidence and business confidence are lower than they have been for a long long time—the lowest for years. 
House prices are not just not going up; they are dropping—in some places precipitously. We see news in the paper today that the performance of the Australian parent owners of some of our banks is now a real concern to financial markets and what is Labour doing? Labour is mired in the workings of New Zealand First’s finances. The Prime Minister has spent 10 days prevaricating and procrastinating over issues that she would normally deal with in a matter of a day or two. When public concern about law and order is higher than it has been for a long long time because of a rash of violent crimes in Auckland what is Labour doing? Labour is trading insults over who donated what to whom and when. Labour and New Zealand First pushed the Electoral Finance Act through Parliament. Why? Because they wanted transparency around big money in New Zealand politics. That is what they are doing. 
Labour’s flagship legislation the emissions trading scheme is now almost fatally caught up in the parliamentary process. We know that because the Leader of the House told us so today. When Labour has flagship legislation it wants pushed through for which it needs New Zealand First’s support it is not in there negotiating the fine points of how the emissions trading scheme might deal with carbon; it is in there telling Winston— 
Jill Pettis 
: The member has a name. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —Winston Peters—it will do whatever it can to keep him out of trouble so that they might get his vote for the one piece of legislation that Helen Clark would like to claim as their legacy. 
In short the Government—as has been the case for the last 18 months—is not focusing on the issues that matter. It is focused on a whole set of preoccupations that are nothing to do with the real concerns of normal Kiwis and that is why it is regarded as being out of touch. 
How does Labour think it feels to be one of those working-class voters whom it thinks will vote for Labour but will not when price rises are heading for 5 percent when interest rates have doubled and when house prices are dropping? Well Labour does not care how they feel. What it cares about is how Mr Peters feels. 
Let us deal briefly with Mr Peters. It has now become clear that he did receive donations when he said he did not. That will be a surprise to the public. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of how that happened it will be a surprise to them that when Labour and New Zealand First said that National members are the people who are influenced by big money and that legislation must be passed to stop it it turns out that Labour and New Zealand First members are the people getting half-million dollar and secret donations.