Barker Rick: Address in Reply 
Barker Rick: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:433] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 I want firstly to congratulate you Mr Assistant Speaker on your re-election and Ann Hartley as well. I would like to congratulate Margaret Wilson on her election as Speaker. I think she brings dignity and respect to this Chamber. I also congratulate Clem Simich for whom I have had a great deal of respect over many years. I think he also will add to the dignity of the office. These positions are Parliament’s positions and I am sure all four of you will do your utmost to preserve the standing of this House and will be respectful of its traditions and the people who participate in the debates. 
Secondly I want to thank the people of Tukituki my former electorate for electing me to be their representative for a period of 12 years. It is a humbling experience to represent an electorate and one that I have greatly enjoyed. It is interesting to note that my Labour Party predecessor David Butcher represented the area for 12 years before he was defeated to be followed by 3 years of National representation. If we go back before that it was 12 years for Duncan MacIntyre before he was unelected as well. It is an interesting electorate. It does change from time to time. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You’ve got a long time to wait this time around. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Well I am just making the connection that it is 12 years followed by 3 years followed by 12 years. We will just see how the maths plays out in the future. 
Thirdly having thanked the electorate for its support for me over the last 12 years I would like to thank my campaign team. Those people worked very hard and assiduously—well supported by my family and well supported in the electorate too I might add. The issue of Tukituki was that the votes coalesced almost exclusively around the most conservative candidate in the field. A number of candidates were not there before parties that were formerly represented were not represented and the votes of parties that were represented in 2005 and also in 2002 fell away. 
It is very interesting to look at the situation in Hawke’s Bay and around New Zealand to examine what happened in the electorate and to understand where this leaves us for the future. The first point that needs to be appreciated is that this Labour-led Government has been outstanding. We now have the lowest rate of unemployment in the Western World which is something that no one would have believed possible 6 years ago or 3 years ago. We have the lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD. When people think about that they recall that New Zealand had always had the highest rate of unemployment and it was almost accepted that New Zealand would always be at the top end of the unemployment rate. 
We have the highest growth rate in the OECD. For ordinary New Zealanders it means that the kids are getting jobs—they are getting jobs they have better jobs and they are better paid. Nearly all the people in my electorate I know whether they be carpenters or truckdrivers are now paid two and three times what they were paid before under the miserable National Government of the 1990s that chopped slashed and burned. 
Company profits are up. Everything is going up. Everything that should be up is up and everything that should be down is down. The other thing that is very good is that we have better education better police numbers better health services better transport and better Government systems. 
The National Party had no way through that by fighting a positive campaign. The National Party knew that if it went out there to fight on its economic record it would not win the argument. We saw the approach the National Party was going to take in the speech at Orewa by Don Brash which was essentially to be anti-Maori. It was to say that Maori had privilege and National was going to remove Maori privilege. National tried to argue that there were two levels of citizenship in this country and that some had more than others. But if we had a look at the issue of Maori privilege and calculated it by any measure whether by the rate of incarceration in our jails by longevity by educational success by quality of housing or by average income we would find that Maori were always at the bottom. Yet the National Party and Don Brash argued that Maori had privilege—that there were two systems and that Maori had a so-called privilege. 
The National Party knows from other experiences overseas that voters quite often coalesce around a candidate because of what they are against rather than what they are for. The negative can be the most powerful campaigning tool we have. It is very often difficult to argue and campaign in the positive because people like to be scared and like to be pushed into thinking that they should exercise their will by what they are against. 
We now have the National Party coming to the House and trying to make out that it is somehow very pro-Maori—speaking in Maori talking about going to marae and so on. I find this really quite extraordinary given the approach of the National Party to Maori during the election campaign. It was the National Party that said it would abolish the Maori seats. It was interesting on the campaign trail to listen to a question from the audience to the National Party candidate which asked firstly whether the candidate could explain the history behind the Maori seats secondly whether the candidate could give an analysis or a rational argument as to why they should be abolished and thirdly what the consequences would be of abolishing the Maori seats. The candidate said he did not know he could not articulate what the consequences would be and he had no idea about the future. That was a key plank for the National Party and it was playing to resentment and envy. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What did the royal commission on MMP say? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Well that member might be a bit more informed than those people but the point was that those were slogans. They were saying that people were advantaged and that they were different somehow from the rest. We get that theme again with the talk about mainstream New Zealand—so people could identify with who they were and know that the other people were somehow different and against them. 
We had the traditional “who we are against” in the National Party campaign. National was bashing beneficiaries and solo parents. But if we go to see a solo parent which solo parent says: “I really want to be here. This is my life. I wanted to be abandoned by my husband with three kids and a mortgage and with all the rest of the chaos that goes with life.”? That is what National tries to claim solo parents want but they do not. But a lot of New Zealanders are not solo parents so when National members bash solo parents they can then say: “Well that is whom we should be against because they are bludging off you and your taxes and we should deal to them.” So it is about attacking minority groups to drive voters to the cause. 
That is what the National Party did. It was supported—and I thought in a very surprising way—by the Exclusive Brethren whom I want to deal with just briefly. Two of the members of the Exclusive Brethren who appeared on the front page of the  
Dominion Post  
live in Hastings and I know them. They said they spent $500000 on the election campaign; they said that after having been forced out of the shadows and after consistent denials by the National Party. I want to say that $500000 is a gross underestimate. 
I do not have a problem with anybody getting involved in election campaigns but I do have a problem with people who do it dishonestly. I think people should be upfront. I know that the National Party grumbles about the Council of Trade Unions and unions but at least they put their name on their pamphlets say who they are and say upfront as to what they are. But the Exclusive Brethren hid under noms de plume. I know they went to other organisations and said: “We want you to publish an attack on the Government’s defence policy we want you to publish papers that support the Americans in the war on Iraq and we will pay for that as long as you put your name on it.” That is what the Exclusive Brethren are about. They were campaigning for the National Party but they did not put their names on the pamphlets and front up. The Exclusive Brethren telephone canvassed extensively they pushed polls they pamphleted and they ran election day systems. 
The hypocrisy of all of this is that when it comes to their pro-war stance on Iraq and their attitude of being pro-development of the defence establishment the truth is that the Exclusive Brethren also say they are a pacifist organisation and their kids should not have to ever go to war. So they are articulating a position that would see the kids of other parents going to war being in the front line and putting their lives at risk when they want their kids to stay at home be safe and make money for them in their family businesses. That is what I find to be the most despicable and disgusting thing. 
The election campaign has been a very interesting reflection on New Zealand. The fact is that despite what the National Party wants to think the Labour Party won 41 percent of the votes. It is the biggest party in this Parliament. It has a mandate to govern. The National Party is trying to say that this Clark Government will not last 3 years. Well I want to say that the predictions about this Government falling apart before 3 years are up are wrong. It will last 3 years. The only people who are hoping it will not last are the National Party members and that will not come to fruition. This Government will last 3 years and New Zealand will continue to have growth rates that are better than the average for the OECD unemployment will continue to be at low levels we will continue to invest in good-quality government services and we will continue to make a better life for New Zealanders. Young New Zealanders can now get trades qualifications which they could not get under the National Government because it had abolished the Apprenticeship Act. This Government will continue to invest in health services and education services to give every young New Zealander the opportunity for a better life here in New Zealand. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.