McClay Todd: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 18 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7784. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 Twelve months ago tomorrow New Zealanders woke to a breath of fresh air in this country. They woke up and the sun was shining. It was like the lifting of the Iron Curtain or the first brick that was pulled out from the Berlin Wall. It was an end to being lectured an end to being looked down on an end to the repression and an end to a Government that had had enough of New Zealanders and had put its own issues and interests first. Thank goodness for that! 
In its place New Zealanders got John Key a new National Government and a breath of fresh air. They got fresh ideas integrity determination and absolute commitment. These are things that New Zealand had forgotten about. They are things New Zealanders had not witnessed for the last 9 years—9 lonely years of Government for Labour. Thank goodness Labour is now on the opposite side of this House in Opposition. 
I mentioned repression and being lectured but the last 12 months have seen action delivering on promises listening to New Zealanders and delivering for New Zealanders. What a lot of work we have seen in the last 12 months! There has been $1 billion of tax cuts for 1.5 million New Zealanders. What did Labour say? Labour said that it was not good enough. Labour said we should not be doing it; then it said we should be spending more. Labour said we were delivering tax cuts for the richest New Zealanders. 
Members will remember that we are in the deepest recession in 60 years. It started in New Zealand before any other country in the world. The previous Government saw in the recession for us a year before the Government was changed. 
There is extra funding for the front line. We have seen additional funding for health and education. We had better remind Labour members that they did not and still do not know that the front line means doctors nurses and teachers delivering for everyday New Zealanders and Kiwi battlers. Funding for the front line is about making sure that doctors and nurses are there in the hospitals doing what is needed to help New Zealanders in their time of need and it is about educators and teachers helping young children to read and write. 
The Opposition tells us that that is not important—that young kids in New Zealand do not need to know how to read and write and that everything was all right under the regime the Labour Government put in place. But the parents in the streets in our electorates are telling us that that is important to them. 
What else has the new Government done? There is $7.5 billion of infrastructure spending over the next 5 years. That means more roads more houses and more schools. It means broadband in urban and rural areas. I tell members that people in the rural areas of my electorate Rotorua such as the farmers cannot wait for us to deliver on that commitment to better broadband. That $7.5 billion of infrastructure spending means that New Zealand will be more competitive more productive and have a much better economy. 
That is what the National Government has done in the past year. Somebody came up to me in the street in Rotorua over the weekend and he said: “We may not agree with everything your Government is doing but at least you’re delivering on your promises and you’re doing exactly what you told us you would do.” He said he would find it hard to support a tired old party that had run out of ideas keeps recycling some of them and has lots of excuses but no new direction for New Zealand. He was talking about Labour. I cannot wait to get out on the campaign trail in 2 years’ time and campaign on our record and on the future—not about the past and all the things they have been hiding. 
One of the most important things we have done relates to law and order. During the campaign last year people told me that law and order was the biggest issue. Criminals are soft on crime and the Labour Government was soft on crime. I heard a story today. I heard that Phil Goff during the last election campaign was in prisons asking for votes. He was asking prisoners for votes. 
I find it hard to believe firstly that Phil Goff would stoop to such low levels and secondly that there are criminals out there who would believe the hype that Labour put out. Do members know what prisoners were telling Phil Goff? They said that they quite liked John Key and that he seemed to know what he was doing. They said that he wanted to put in place laws that would help people keep out of trouble when they are young and help them get back on the right path so that they would not fill up the prisons. 
But Labour members were soft on law and order and let me tell members where they were soft and why they were soft. We have delivered new powers to the police. Labour members said they did not like that and did not want it. I think they voted for it—but they said they did not like it and did not want it. 
Tougher penalties for organised crime and criminals is a good measure. Labour members did not like that measure and did not want to introduce it when they were in Government—but let us see what happened. Labour members voted for it. They tried to say it was their idea but they had 9 years to deliver on their ideas and what did we see? They were chucked out and then they voted for our bill. “Well done!” I say to Labour members. They are finally listening to New Zealanders and listening to the Government. We are also looking at tougher sentences for crime—another tough law and order message.