Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well we know that the primary school teachers are on strike today. What we didn't know was that the primary school students from New Zealand First were in the House today. That show and tell stuff—it was only last week that the very venerable Audrey Young from the New Zealand Herald acknowledged her 30 years of contribution to the New Zealand Herald and I think most of that served in this press gallery. I heard her on the radio and she was asked what was the highlight of her career to date in terms of the 30 years and she said she remembered well breaking the story of the time that Winston Peters stood in this House and put up the sign No" and then she broke the story that proved it to be "Yes". So to Darroch Ball I say that when a New Zealand First MP stands up in this House and holds up cue cards like that it doesn't usually end well. It doesn't usually end well and it won't for Darroch Ball and it won't for New Zealand First. Strikes strikes and more strikes. We've heard today in question time that there have been some 60000 New Zealanders taking strike action in the short 10 months of this administration—Simeon Brown: How many? Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —60000—and we heard that the records show that over the entire nine years of the last National Government only 30000 people went on strike. So today we've had the teachers marching here on Parliament and around the country and we were told yesterday that about 1300 primary school are affected with parents who are stressed and having to cope with it. I've noticed that some of my colleagues have got their children busy around the Parliament here today. But what we know from this Government is that they have empowered and emboldened the trade union movement in a way that we haven't seen frankly since before the 1970s. They feel like they are owed a debt by this Government because never forget the political the historical and the financial links that exist between the trade union movement and the Labour Party. They are deep long and strong. So one of the first pieces of legislation that was introduced into this House back in January was something that the Labour Party had ready to pull off the shelf that was prepared probably well in advance of an election at some stage. As soon as they got into the Beehive they pulled this piece of legislation off the shelf and it's designed entirely to give strength new members and new money to the trade union movement. So what we are seeing is a contagion of strikes throughout the country. It is not just in the public sector but has now "contagioned" into—if that's a word—contaminated the private sector as well. What are the chances of there being more? Well there are going to be lots more strikes. Business confidence is tanking. My colleague the Hon Judith Collins has just made reference to the fact that only a year or so ago we were amongst OECD nations privileged and quite proud of the fact that we had the second-highest level of business confidence in the OECD and now what is it this year? We have the second-lowest level of business confidence. Now on the other side of the House they say "Oh this is just junk. This has no bearing at all." Well I can tell the House that in fact business understands this stuff. Business knows that with the level of economic uncertainty and the level of legislative uncertainty posed by this Government the economy is sliding and that's sad. That's sad for New Zealand jobs that's sad for New Zealand businesses and that's sad for us as a nation because this is a Government that doesn't have any visible coherent or logical plan for economic growth for a stable economy or for a country that is focused on a direction that is going forward rather than backwards. What we find at every turn from this Government is uncertainty—uncertainty that creates a lack of confidence in the business sector but also actually out into the rest of the society as well. So we've seen in this short 10 months that the first thing that the new Labour-led Government has done is provide a legislative payback to the unions and we're seeing that in the piece of legislation that's going through the House now. But that's just the beginning. That's just part of a suite of legislative initiatives that will be bad for business and bad for employers and of course ultimately bad for employees. There will be no doubt that business levels will drop. So 10 months in: chaos strikes strikes and more strikes."