Henare Tau: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Henare Tau: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4526] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to give members a bit of a history lesson. 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I do not have to say much before the rabble starts denying history. The members on the opposite side of the House do not even know what I am about to say and they start denying things. They cannot even handle— 
Grant Robertson 
: Tell us about Wilberforce again! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No I want to talk about the history that the previous Labour Government has left this nation. This speech will be called the leftist speech. The Labour Government left behind an absolutely dysfunctional Immigration Service. It left us with an accident compensation shortfall of $1.5 billion. 
Hon Member 
: How much? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: $1.5 billion. It left us with KiwiRail and its value is about half of what Labour paid for it. It left us with falling economic growth. Between 2000 and 2008 after all the money that the Labour Government spent all it could muster— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Oh dear! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: “Oh dear!” is what the public is saying; “Oh dear! I wish we had got rid of the previous Labour Government earlier.” I tell members— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Let’s go back to New Zealand First days! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I was not in partnership with New Zealand First. I did not make the leader of the party the Minister of Foreign Affairs and then slobber all over the fact that he was our Minister of Foreign Affairs. I did not one day say that he is a nasty man and then the next day give him a bauble or two. That was not me. 
Therein lies my speech; it is about history. 
Craig Foss 
: Who gave him the baubles? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well it was the lady who has gone. 
The previous Labour Government left us with an inflation rate of 3.5 percent. It left us with rising current account deficit. Here is an interesting figure: $16.1 billion was in the current account deficit in the 2008-09 year. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Oh dear! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Those members keep saying “Oh dear!” because they cannot get away from the fact that they left the cupboard bare. There is nothing in the cupboard. On Budget day the Hon Bill English got up and delivered what is needed; not a wish-list but what is needed. Shortly afterwards New Zealand got a stable rating from the credit agencies. We did not get a downgrade and you can bet your bottom dollar that we would have been downgraded if that lot on the opposite side of the House had won the last election. We would have been worse off than we ever have been. 
Mr Jones should take note of this history: every time there has been a Labour Government for more than one term—and that does not happen very often but happened in the last two: the Lange Government and the Clark Government—it has left the cupboard bare. It left the cupboard bare not for the spend-up of a National Government but for those who really need it. I say to Mr Jones that they are those who live on “Struggle Street” to coin a phrase. 
Paul Quinn 
: He wouldn’t know. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh yes he would know. But the problem is that he forgot. He forgot where he is from; he is from “Struggle Street”. 
The Labour Government ate lavishly and spent up large and for what? Where were the results? No I am not a denier; those members are deniers. It made no changes to the things that really matter. For example it made absolutely no changes to the Resource Management Act. In fact the changes that did come hog-tied businesses and developers and nothing was done. For 8 years Labour members spent up large employing their mates in the Public Service and now they moan about the cuts and retrenchments in the Public Service. Let me tell that very new member over there Grant Robertson that a big Public Service is not the best idea in the world; the best idea in the world is having an efficient Public Service. 
While I am at it let us look at education. The unions are protecting members of the teachers unions from being good teachers. We know for a fact why there is large Maori underachievement. It is because of the poor quality of teachers and principals in this nation. The people who support and protect those poor teachers sit opposite us today. They protect those poor teachers and those poor principals. So what we have done and what we will continue to do is manage— 
Grant Robertson 
: How does money for private schools help? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is not about money money money. It is not about that; it is about doing the job properly. If one cannot do the job properly it is time to get out. 
Grant Robertson 
: How does private school funding help? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is not even about private schools any more; it is about teachers doing the job that was asked of them. But they are being protected because they do not want to go and learn—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: There is too much noise. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: They do not want to learn how to do the job properly. That is why we have statements like those from our Minister of Maori Affairs. All he wants to do is get the achievement rates up. We can argue till the cows come home about what he said but the fact of the matter is that a whole lot of people out there are underachieving and it behoves us to make sure that we find better ways of helping them achieve. 
Opposition members have the gall to say that they were in Government for 9 years and they did lots. If they did lots in those 9 years how come more Maori kids are underachieving now than in the last 9 years? I can tell members why: because none of the schemes and programmes of the previous Government in the last 9 years worked. Why do we have Te Kotahitanga? 
Grant Robertson 
: Who started Te Kotahitanga? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The Labour Government did not start Te Kotahitanga; Russell Bishop started Te Kotahitanga. Russell Bishop saw that teachers needed a helping hand and that helping hand was a change in attitude. Some teachers stepped up to the mark. Every teacher should be learning that stuff at training college rather than the Government having to spend millions of dollars on retraining. [ 
Interruption 
] No teachers should have been doing it when they were at training college. All of the Labour members’ argy-bargy about 9 years during which they did a wonderful job is a load of balderdash and a load of pixie dust. It does not wash. That is why 70 percent of the country is happy with the job John Key Bill English and the National Party are doing and that is why this Government will survive for quite some time into the future.