King Annette: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
King Annette: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12670] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 We have one opportunity a year to question the Prime Minister in the estimates debate. Today we will not have that opportunity to question the Prime Minister because as the Committee will notice he is not in the chair. All votes may be available to debate as the Government has claimed but there is not the ability to question the Minister who is in control of this particular vote and I think that is wrong. Why would the Prime Minister not wish to sit in the chair and hear what this Committee has to say on his estimates? What has he got to hide? Why is he not in the chair today to debate his estimates? That is what this Committee wants to know. 
Hon John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member I know is being very clever in not referring to the absence of a member in the Chamber. But it is a well-known rule that if the Minister in charge of the issue being debated is in the Chamber he or she has to sit in the chair that is currently occupied by the Deputy Prime Minister. Therefore the fact that a member is absent from the Chamber is being referred to and that is against the Standing Orders. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I make this observation: the member has referred to a very little-known fact and he has now made it public and in fact people can draw the conclusion. But on the interpretation the member on her feet has not referred to the absence of another. The member has made the point that someone is not in a particular position in the Chamber but that does not necessarily mean she has made it clear that that person is absent. People would have to be pretty knowledgable about the Standing Orders to be able to make that deduction and I have to say that even some members are not knowledgable enough about the Standing Orders to be able to make the deduction for themselves. Probably about 60 people know what the true answer is and Mr Carter would be one of them. I invite the member to continue. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: If the Prime Minister were sitting in the seat he should occupy today in this estimates debate I would be asking him a question. I would have liked to ask him whether the only advice he receives from his department when he has to consider a very hard policy issue is to just “kick the tyres”. Is that the only policy advice the Prime Minister has received from his department? It is the answer he gives to almost every difficult issue he has faced as a Prime Minister. He says: “We’ll just give the tyres a kick on that issue.” 
I have to say to the Prime Minister that it is time to stop kicking the tyres. How about putting a bit of petrol in the engine and turning on the motor? What New Zealand wants from that Government and from the leader of that party is a plan for New Zealand. You see as far as I know Kiwis kick the tyres only when there is nothing else to do or when they are standing around having a beer at a barbeque or when they are looking to buy a new car. But our Prime Minister thinks the answer to every problem is to give the tyres a good old kick. I ask the Prime Minister why he does not get on his feet and answer the fact that there is no plan for this country from the leader of the National Government. 
I have never seen a Government so lacking in vision and so lacking in a plan. There is no plan from that Government. All it has as far as I can see is a series of slogans. “We are going to catch up with Australia”—that was going to be the big plan but it has turned out to be a big slogan. When we listen to Gerry Brownlee the person who is supposed to be implementing the plan we find that he does not even know what the wage gap is between Australia and New Zealand. How can we catch up with wages when the person driving economic development does not know what they are? What does he tell the Prime Minister when they have their meetings? 
Members opposite said the Government was going to have an unrelenting focus—an unrelenting focus—in its quest to lift economic growth rates and raise wages. But of course its unrelenting focus has been all over the place because those members have no plan. I ask the Prime Minister how we will catch up with Australia in wages in employment in training and in skills. How will we catch up with Australia in investment in research and in development when there is no plan? There ought to be a plan for this country. 
National went to the country telling New Zealanders not to worry because it could fix everything but there has been no plan. Then National had a whole series of things that would give us a step change. Do members remember that? We were going to have a step change. Well the first thing out of the block was the Job Summit. It was going to give a step change for New Zealand. But I am afraid to tell the Prime Minister that his Job Summit did not give us a step change; it gave us a step back. There are more people unemployed today than there were when Labour left Government. 
I say to the Prime Minister that when we look at the estimates we find that the Government is planning to have higher unemployment in 5 years’ time than it had when it became the Government. So the step change in terms of catching up with Australia and the Job Summit has been a real failure indeed. The Government saved about 670 jobs with its 9-day fortnight. At a time when thousands of New Zealanders are unemployed the big idea the step change the big plan has saved about 670 jobs. 
Then of course there was going to be mining. “Mining here mining there mining everywhere.” said Gerry Brownlee to his Prime Minister. He said: “Don’t worry Prime Minister I’ve got a plan for a step change. Get out the shovels get out the wheelbarrows get out the diggers we’ll just dig up our wealth and we’ll be on our way catching up with Australia.” What happened to that plan? What happened to the big step change from mining? It fell flat on its face because the Government had not done its homework. Government members did not know what they were talking about. They did not have a plan at all—it was a light bulb that went off in Gerry Brownlee’s head. The Prime Minister who is wont to agree to everything the last person said to him said: “That’s a great idea. That’s our step change for New Zealand.” 
Then we had another great idea for a step change and that was to have New Zealand as the Asia-Pacific hub for financial services. Well they are laughing themselves silly in Australia. The Australians said: “Look we looked at that. We couldn’t make it work. How does New Zealand with just over 4 million people at the bottom of the world think that it can run a financial hub for the Asia-Pacific when countries like Singapore can do it standing on their heads?”. What happened to that idea? I think it has also been parked. 
Then there was the great New Zealand cycleway. We all think that a cycleway is a great idea—no doubt about it—but what was the big step change for New Zealanders? The Prime Minister said that 4000 jobs would be created. I know that the Minister of Finance fell about laughing when the Prime Minister said that. He said: “Prime Minister you’re dreaming and I’m not going to give you the money.” When it came to the crunch he got the money and the Minister of Finance was proved right—there are not 4000 jobs to be had in building cycleways. 
What about the Prime Minister’s tourism portfolio? We now know that we have moteliers in New Zealand with occupancy levels of around 15 percent. The occupancy levels have dropped so low that we have tourist operators worried about whether they will have a business next week. Now we have the Government’s next big step change which is to reduce the wages of New Zealanders. That is how the Government is going to make this country hum; it will reduce the wages of all working New Zealanders with its latest crazy ideas. 
This country is in desperate need of an economic plan that New Zealanders can see will take them forward. New Zealanders know that Australia is motoring ahead. But what do we have in New Zealand? We have a “gonna” Government. It is always “gonna” do something. It is “gonna” do something on Monday it is “gonna” do something on Wednesday it is “gonna” do something on Friday but it has not actually turned the motor on yet or put any petrol in the engine. We say: “Get a move on and give New Zealand a plan.” I have to tell New Zealanders that this party has a plan for economic development and recovery in this country and they will hear about it over the next few days. Labour had a plan when it was in Government and we will have one when we return to Government in 2011. 
This Government is so scared of being called PC that it will not tackle the hard issues. Government members are very brave at bashing beneficiaries but when it comes to the real hard issues they are too scared of being labelled PC. I say that it is not a PC Government it is more like a gutless Government—a Government that does not have the internal fortitude to tackle the hard issues. That could not have been made clearer than when the Prime Minister vetoed any changes to blood-alcohol levels for driving. That was an area where the Government could have shown some leadership but it did not have the internal fortitude to do it. 
This Government is two-faced. Its members will grin and wave at everybody they talk to led by the Prime Minister but they will not make the hard decisions. I ask the National-led Government to give us a plan. It must be agony for its coalition partners to watch it wallow.