Hipkins Chris: General Debate 
Hipkins Chris: General Debate 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I think the previous speaker Chris Auchinvole is out of his tree if that is the very best that he could come up with. It is always a privilege to follow the former member of Parliament from the West Coast. 
This is a Government that has already given up a Government that 3 years in has already given up and its plan is simply to cut our way to the brighter future that John Key promised us. We know that if National cannot cut it it is going to sell it and if it cannot sell it it is going to contract it out. This is a Government that is not all about delivering a brighter future for New Zealand; it is a Government that has given up and now it is simply content to manage New Zealand’s decline. It has given up trying to give New Zealanders the brighter future that John Key said he was all about. Now it is simply all about decline. 
Let us go back and remember what John Key promised New Zealanders before the last election. 
Hon Member 
: What was that? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh there is so much material. I have got only 5 minutes but there is so much material. He said: “I need to be able to look New Zealanders in the eye and assure them that the money they pay in tax is being spent wisely and as much benefit as possible is going to front-line services from which they will directly benefit.” How has that manifested itself in the last few weeks? Well the Government has spent money on giving staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who are going to lose their jobs advice about getting themselves pets that offer unconditional love taking yoga classes and meditating. This is what it is spending money on. They are not front-line services by anybody’s definition but that is what this Government seems to think it should be spending the public’s money on. John Key seems to think he can look New Zealanders in the eye and justify that. 
He said National would be going ahead with its programme of tax cuts because these tax cuts would not be at the expense of public services. Well have we seen any evidence of that? No we have not. Two and a half thousand people are out of jobs already and there are more to come—and more to come. 
Many New Zealanders will ask themselves what is wrong with Public Service reform. Well I quote John Key on that one as well. He said that structural change and significant reorganisations tend to create more problems than they solve. It was John Key who said that. The Prime Minister John Key said that. He is not saying that any more. He said there will be no wholesale reorganisation across the public sector and yet what have we seen? Massive reorganisation. 
The thing that I want to talk about the most is the hoax that John Key and his party played on the New Zealand public when they said: “We will be putting more into the front line. We will be moving resources from the back office to the front line.” Let us quote from John Key again here: “We are not in any way going to reduce the number of front-line staff. Let me make this absolutely clear—under National the numbers of doctors nurses teachers social workers police and other front-line staff will grow.” Well what have we seen? In recent weeks we have seen district health boards saying they are going to have to lay staff off because they have not got enough money. The police have been told they have to save $360 million over the next 3 years. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is having to save $40 million a year in spending putting 305 people out of their jobs. We have got health boards up and down the country talking about cutting medical professionals’ jobs because of this Government’s underfunding of the Public Service. We have got the Government talking about increasing class sizes and having fewer teachers in front of kids because of this Government’s unwillingness to fund it. 
This is not a Government focused on the front line; it is cutting into front-line service. It is removing health board services. I know from my own electorate that literally hundreds if not thousands of older people have found that the front-line staff who deliver their home help have had their hours cut. Older New Zealanders have had their home help cut. Home help is one of the best examples of a front-line service that has been cut under this Government. There is no better example by the very definition of the words “front line” than our Defence Force—our Defence Force. The very nature the very definition of the words “front line” comes from the Defence Force and the Defence Force is being cut under this National Government despite its promise that it would not cut front-line public services. It was a hollow promise that it made New Zealanders before the 2008 general election—one of many. It was one of the many things that National said to New Zealanders in order to get itself elected and now it has given up. It has given up on delivering a brighter future. It has given up on fulfilling its promises. Now it is content to manage our economic decline.