Mapp Wayne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Mapp Wayne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7369] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I was here earlier prior to the dinner break and I listened to Georgina Beyer’s valedictory speech. It was a very fine valedictory speech I must say. It was spoken without notes and from the heart and was about the values of our democracy. It made me reflect that everyone who comes to this Parliament comes with good intentions to do better for our country. I also note because of that one of the opponents I had in North Shore Helen Duncan. Helen was a very decent person and going to her funeral and listening to the eulogies was in a sense quite inspiring. They actually said what each of us is here to do: good for the country by our own light. 
Of course good intentions are never enough. We all have good intentions but they are not enough. We have all heard the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This Government has hung its all on the concept of sustainability—a good intention dare I say it. The  
Collins Concise Dictionary 
 defines sustainable as “renewable” “a steady state” and “not exhausting one’s resources”. My question to the Government members is whether they are sustainable. Are they renewable? Are they exhausting their votes? Yesterday when the Prime Minister gave her speech the Government had 61 votes. Today it has 60. Is that a steady-state situation? Is that renewable? Is the Government exhausting its resources? Any Government that comes into Parliament on the very first day of the year with 61 votes and goes out at the end of that day with 60 votes is not sustainable. The Government is exhausting its resources. 
The Prime Minister says: “Oh well it doesn’t really matter we’ve got the Greens to back us up.” In the Prime Minister’s statement she set out her list of important legislation. She mentioned several bills one of which was the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill which establishes a trans-Tasman regulatory agency. Will the Greens support that bill? There is no way the Greens will support that bill. I know perfectly well that they believe in options for New Zealanders in natural health products so why would they support the Government’s crazy bill? They will not. I suggest that 61 votes going down to 60 indicates already the Government’s first failure: the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill. In desperation that side of the House will come over to the National side and say: “Please please support the bill.” Let us be very clear on this. National has heard clearly the messages from New Zealanders that they do not want natural health products controlled by an Australian-dominated agency under Australian-dominated rules. That is the great concern and that is a very clear message. It is quite different of course from the situation of registered pharmaceuticals and of medical products. There is a distinction to be made. This Government sold out New Zealanders by not defending the interests of New Zealanders. 
In one day the Government’s buzzword “sustainability” has been shown to be another hollow word. It was repeated 33 times by the Prime Minister but was not once defined. She says that it is used like “nuclear-free”. Well I know what “nuclear-free” means: one does not have nuclear ships and one does not have nuclear weapons. That is all one needs as an explanation. I have asked members of this Government yesterday and today to define sustainability. They have all refused. Why have they refused? Because they cannot do it. So it is not like “nuclear-free”—it is not self-explanatory. It was not defined in the Prime Minister’s speech. The Government will fail on this concept. 
For instance let us take one issue alone: energy use. When most people think of energy use they think either of using up stuff—non-renewable energy—or of having renewable energy. The Government said yesterday that it supported biofuels. That idea was actually stolen from National’s own discussion document last year. The Government is saying that biofuels will account for 3.4 percent—1 million tonnes out of 75 million tonnes—of carbon dioxide generated. 
What about the bigger issues? Is this Government going to stand behind State-owned enterprises generating power from coal-fired power stations? Those include not just the existing ones like Huntly but the new ones like that at Marsden Point up in Whangarei. Will the Government stand beside those? There is one thing about coal: it is not sustainable it is not renewable and it is polluting. A Government that was serious about carbon neutrality would not be building coal-fired power stations. What happened in the Prime Minister’s speech? Did we hear even one mention of the future of the Marsden B power station? No because the Government members are scared. Yet this is a country that has huge untapped hydro geothermal and wind resources. This Government has not built a single hydro dam in this country. It has ignored the one real renewable resource. 
I note also that the Prime Minister’s statement is supposed to set out the Government’s priorities. In my role as spokesperson on Auckland I note that the Prime Minister said in her speech: “The development of Auckland as a world-class international city is critical for New Zealand’s overall growth and development.” Nobody would dispute that. The question is what the Government is going to do about it. 
Later this year local body elections will take place throughout the country. The Auckland Mayoral Forum set out a plan on 13 December last year to reorganise regional government. There is a bit of an element of it being a lowest common denominator plan because all seven territorial local authorities had to agree to it. What did the Government say about that in its prime ministerial statement? The Prime Minister stated: “The Government is currently considering its response to the region’s proposals for strengthening its governance”. Has the Government not worked out that there are elections in October this year for the local authorities? One would think that by February the Government could tell us—the public of New Zealand and the public of Auckland—whether a bill will be presented in the next few weeks. If it does not happen in the next few weeks it simply will not happen. I ask Government members why there is no timetable around that crucial issue. It is a mark of failure that there is not. 
The Mayor of Auckland said to me recently that he wonders about the capacity of this Government to produce any sort of reform for Auckland regional governments before the next election. Why did he say that? Because there is no communication from the Prime Minister to the mayoral forum as to what the Government’s plans actually are. Local government in Auckland is left in a bind; it cannot plan and it does not know where things are heading. It reminds me of the stadium debacle. Trevor botched that up and now we are going to have temporary seating. He says we will not be on pipes with binoculars but who can believe that? It look like there has been another kind of botch around local government as well. 
 When a Government says it is sustainable it is supposed to be renewable. It is not supposed to exhaust its resources. It is supposed to be in a steady state—business as usual. This statement of the Prime Minister’s has failed that test. Labour did not look in the dictionary or at the popular understanding of the world “sustainable”. It thinks it can con New Zealanders and that if it repeats the word long enough that will do—that “sustainability” is a complete policy unto itself. The public will not be fooled. Government members will say that the other side is all about style not substance. The truth is that those in Labour are concerned about style and have no interest in substance.