Cosgrove Clayton: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:609;Page:6394] 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 As Gerard Eckhoff rose to speak he looked like a man who had risen from a warm seat at least five or six times tonight clutching pieces of paper—especially after seeing tonight’s TV3 poll. That poll put ACT at 4.5 percent and falling which is consistent with the Television One poll of 4 percent. 
In referring to the supplementary estimates I want to touch on a couple of things that Mr Eckhoff talked about. Mr Eckhoff—that great genius of the ACT party the man who will tell us the secret of his and his party’s success—talked about the rural sector. He should read some of the statistics on economic growth. The urban sector had 3.7 percent growth this year and the rural sector 3.9 percent. That is real growth real jobs and real productivity. And he calls himself a farmer now and again! He touched on that and also talked about Deborah Coddington who has gone to seek knowledge on a scholarship to Great Britain. She has I think been away for a couple of months. There is nothing wrong in my view my party’s view or the view of anybody in this House with people seeking knowledge. In fact if Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble did a bit more of it their party might rise slightly more in the polls. But what is wrong and what is a rort is when someone gets a Qantas Media Awards scholarship that pays all his or her expenses and gives a few bob to have a pint down at the local pub in Oxford or Cambridge—or wherever it is that Deborah Coddington is for the next 3 months—but the taxpayer still picks up the tab for the salary. That is wrong. That is a rort and is it any wonder that it is just one of many rorts to come out of the poor old 4-percent ACT party? 
Then Mr Eckhoff went on to do the old “tried and true”. ACT party members really are political strategists. They have pulled every cat out of the bag that they can and they are being advised I am told by some great Australian political strategist. He attacks the Prime Minister. He attacks our fantastic trade diplomats. We are small in numbers as a country. We are small in numbers in terms of our diplomats but I would put our diplomats up against those of Australia the United States or the UK any day of the week when it comes to world trade. Our people and I think even some of the National Party people would agree that our diplomats are some of the best in the world. But Mr Eckhoff desperate to try to find anything negative in these supplementary estimates attacked our diplomats and our Prime Minister yet again. 
I have a message for the ACT party. That party is on 4 percent in the polls but it keeps attacking the Prime Minister whose measure of leadership and confidence from the people of New Zealand keeps going up. ACT members are on a loser in attacking her. They try to get the people to lose confidence in her but it does not work. Tonight the people have spoken—they have spoken two nights in a row—and they are sick to death of Mr Eckhoff’s party and its grubby little muckraking tactics. 
What a spectacle we have had tonight in this Parliament. Coming to the Chamber tonight I had a revelation. I saw groups of National Party members of Parliament huddled in little teams around television sets. In the dining room there were little groups of National Party and ACT members of Parliament ashen-faced. They know they are in deep deep trouble. They know that the people of New Zealand who have spoken through the polls want more than platitudes and Lynda Scott’s fake pity and bravado; they want words matched with deeds. What grinds down the soul of every National Party member and every drongo from the ACT party is that these supplementary estimates deliver. 
My colleague Dianne Yates talked about the priorities in this Budget—health education housing and training. It is worth noting that this Government has delivered a $4 billion surplus and a growth rate of 4.4 percent. That might be a hard concept for Mr Eckhoff to get his head around but when we go to the towns and cities in this country—and I invite some of the ACT party members to do that; to come out of the flash boardrooms to close the cocktail cabinets and to actually go out on the street and talk to some of our Kiwis—we find that people are feeling pretty good about this country and about their own well-being. There has been growth of 4.4 percent. In my own half of the country the South Island there was 4.3 percent growth. In the North Island it was 3.7 percent. As I have said in urban New Zealand there was growth of 3.7 percent and in rural New Zealand growth was at the rate of 3.9 percent. That is real substantial growth. That is a building block on which we can go forward as a country and it would be nice if just once or twice—in fact it might earn them a brownie point or two in the polls—the Opposition  the ACT party and the National Party said something positive about our people about our nation and about where we are going as a country. 
Since we came into office 120000 new jobs have been created—real ones. Suddenly the clatter from the Opposition benches has ceased and there is a hush of silence from those members because they know that it is true. There is a current account balance of 4 percent of gross domestic product. Inflation is at 2.5 percent. Interest rates are some of the lowest around the world at 5.38 percent. This Government in these supplementary estimates is backing our young people through the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. Every time we go around the constituencies including mine and we mention the word “apprenticeship” to constituents two emotions are displayed. One response is that they ask: “Why did those fools in the previous National Government abolish apprenticeships? The second is that they acknowledge that this Government reinvented them. We have 5100 young people on the go getting real training and in these estimates we have committed to having 7500 in total by 2006. That is not the sort of Don Brash philosophy of the unemployed going to the Post Office and cutting grass with scissors or doing something inane just so that Mr Eckhoff and his fat-cat privileged mates can say that someone is sweating for his or her social welfare benefit. What use is that person to an employer in getting a job if he or she has not been properly trained? None! 
I want to turn for a moment to Lynda Scott’s contribution. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: If you can call it that. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague says if I can call it that. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Rant! 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My other colleague says it is Lynda Scott’s rant. Lynda Scott another member of the National Party again takes any opportunity to find a negative. She does not make one move towards announcing a health policy from the National Party but rants and raves. I find it a bit distasteful. There are people on the waiting lists who are hurting but they will get there. There are people in our society who have it a bit tough but they will get help. But that member Lynda Scott’s—Mr Carter laughs and that says it all—getting up every day in this House and jumping on the back of people’s tragedy and misfortune for her own political gain is behaviour not worthy of the so-called once-great National Party. It is desperate. It should circle the wagons because every tactic it tries does not work. Members can look at the polls. Even Mr Sowry was booted out for the first time in his career. 
After their best week of having a go at us the message for the National Party is that people have had a gutsful of all the peripheral rubbish that its members keep going on about. What people want is an Opposition that comes out with some policy so that they can then measure it against us and then we could have a debate. But the problem is that we cannot have a debate if there is no policy coming out from a weak and lazy Opposition which spends its time whingeing and whining and lamenting the fact that it has had 9 long years—Lynda Scott should remember—to put all those great grandiose ideas that they never announce in place. They did nothing and now all they do is criticise us. Lynda Scott failed to mention that we are putting $9.6 billion into health this year—an increase of 31 percent. She failed to mention that because that might be good news; that might actually be telling the truth. Then she could say what her party and her prospective Government—though National will never make it—would do. 
I say to the National Party and the ACT party that they are on a loser. The people of New Zealand for the second night in a row have spoken. We can hear a sort of death rattle in the Opposition around this Chamber. We have the C-team with David Carter who will be up speaking next I am sure. We can hear the death rattle and see the body bags coming out. They are not up to it economically they are not up to it socially and they are not up to it politically. They ought to take note of the people and what they say.