Mallard Trevor: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Mallard Trevor: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:669;Page:16487] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I think the highlight of that speech made by the senior Government whip Chris Tremain was the fact that he moved on from thanking Pansy Wong to congratulating Anne Tolley and I think that is probably about it. 
I echo the comments made about the staff. I think Rodney Hide went through the list very well. I am not proposing to repeat it but I endorse his comments about the people who work here. I thank you Mr Speaker. I think you have mainly treated me fairly. I think the only injustice I felt was at the time you tossed me out for Chris Carter’s comment. I was certainly relieved when he got shifted down the benches. I do not think our voices are very similar Mr Speaker but you clearly could not differentiate on that occasion. 
There have been some disasters. I endorse the comments Phil Goff made about the importance of following up promises with action. I will read a text I received 12 minutes ago. It said: “Just chatting to lady at dog park with fat Golden Labrador. Her insurance company told her over $100000 when they assessed. She has a big two-storey house. Piles are stuffed roof is stuffed garage needs replacing and EQC said $22000. She had structural engineers around there today and the house has twisted around three chimneys and they say it must be rebuilt.” Stories like that are coming in from all over Christchurch. 
People are very distressed and the Minister in charge of Earthquake Commission has to get that agency’s act together especially with regard to the people on the phone lines because the systems are not working and that has resulted in a very poor Christmas. One does not get that sort of text unless one is involved in and knows of other cases as I do. 
I want to make a comment on Pike River. Kate Wilkinson the Minister of Labour was here earlier. I do not want to refer to her absence but I am sure that she will be asking herself—as I am; and as other Ministers who have been in charge of reviews of mining safety are asking themselves—whether anything else could have been done and whether it would have made a difference. We will wait obviously for the inquiries and the explanations as to what actually happened before we can go into those questions but I think all of us who have worked in that area have felt some distress and done some personal questioning. 
I endorse the comments that Phil Goff made about the importance of retrieving the remains from the Pike River mine but it is also important that people are paid their entire wage packages and that people both living and dead get the bonuses they have earned and to which they are entitled. It is basic decency and in my view it is incumbent on the Government to make sure the system works to ensure that happens not withstanding our rules regarding receivership. It is important and it would be a sign of a decent society. 
I will follow Chris Tremain’s theme in relation to Pansy Wong. She jumped before the inevitable firing occurred. She will run but the issue will not go away. It is something that New Zealanders will want to find out more about and will find out more about because New Zealanders do not like anything that looks like corruption in our system. In my opinion this case as it unfolds will look like that and it is not acceptable. 
I will move on to addressing Mr Brownlee. We have good-natured banter across the House on occasions. I congratulate him on his masterful handling of the House over the last week or so. I felt relatively good being in the House with six of my colleagues at 9.45 p.m. on Saturday night while the National members had a voting strength of 58 and then we were so busy that we got to 8 p.m. on Tuesday and there was nothing to do. If that is an indication of the approach and focus on detail that will continue on behalf of National next year then I welcome it and I thank Mr Brownlee for it. I think we will give him the title “House Manager Supreme”. 
I have been searching for something all this year; it is called the plan. I want to know where the plan is. We are told that it has six points. In fact we were told what they were at one stage. I cannot remember them. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh there were six areas. I will comment on one aspect. It is the major part of the plan—it is one I am interested in and care a lot about—and it is the cycleway which will create jobs. 
I am getting slightly sick of the Prime Minister opening cycleways that I rode on 5 years ago. The idea is that the Prime Minister spreads a bit of gravel on a track and it is called a new cycleway and he opens it. I must say to Kevin Hague that he looks a bit of tit as he rides cycleways that many people have ridden on long before. The Greens should be embarrassed to be associated with the pretend new cycleways. There will be some new cycleways and that is really good. I also want to say that a concrete highway from Cambridge to Karapiro is not a cycleway. It is a bit of road and people need to know that. It is certainly not a step change in the economy. 
I have been looking for something else. I have been looking for the statistics that tell us we are closing the wage gap with Australia. First I looked at the statistics that we have generally used—the ones that our library gives us from Statistics New Zealand and its Australian equivalent. They have always shown that the gap has been widening. The Prime Minister gave us a new set of statistics. I think it is fair to say that they were heavily massaged. It was a “most improbable approach to statistics” as someone said. But even the Prime Minister’s massaged statistics now show us that the gap is getting bigger. That is why so many Kiwis—all of us know of individuals; friends family and people who live in our constituencies—are going to Australia. They are going because they have jobs and those jobs pay more and their standard of living will be higher and will get higher still. 
I will finish with a thought and I think it will be a theme as we go forward. I thank a member of the National Government for suggesting that it be the Labour Party theme. It is a question and it is a question that we will ask Kiwis time and time again: “Are you better off now than you were 2 years ago?”. Next year Labour will ask: “Are you better off now than you were 3 years ago when National was elected?”. Some people are. Some people who are in the top 10 percent of the income brackets are certainly better off than they were. But most Kiwis when they are asked whether they are better off will be honest and say no. That is why they will say: “We’re going to wave John while you smile.”