Maharey Steve: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Maharey Steve: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22230] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 As we move towards the end of this Parliament with questions finishing today and people doing valedictory speeches people are looking forward to getting out on the hustings. Mrs Coddington told us that she wants to leave Parliament because she has no anger any more. I think Mr Mark was telling us that he wants to stay because he is about as angry as he could possibly be. That was a fairly angry passionate committed speech from him. I look forward to seeing Mr Mark out there on the hustings telling people what he is actually committed to. The speech he gave really did not get to the heart of what this election will be about. 
I think this election will be about a very very clear choice. There will not be a lot of parties left in this House after this election. MMP has got to the point where it is now maturing. People are starting to settle on what their choices will be. It seems to most pundits that the National Party and the Labour Party will offer people two different approaches to the future. I want to come back to that. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I offer my sincere apologies to Mr Maharey for interrupting his speech and I hope he believes me when I say that I am not doing this to interrupt his speech. Mr Speaker I have just had a conversation with the Hon Marian Hobbs who made it very clear to me that the comment she made across the House was not in support of the fact that New Zealanders some of whom she knows are working for 50 hours a week as casual labourers. She is not proud of that. She told me so and she made it clear to me that my comments upset and offended her. I wish to offer the Hon Marian Hobbs an apology. I accept that she is an honest person and when she says to me that she is not proud of that fact then I accept that wholeheartedly. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for that. I let you carry on. It was not a point of order but—all right. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: On behalf of Ms Hobbs I pass on that that was a noble act from somebody who obviously saw that there was a different way of looking at the issues. I was saying that I think that with MMP maturing the way it is we are going into an election after which we will not have the same cast of characters back in this House. It is clear that Mr Nandor Tanczos and the Green Party are running reasonably well out there in the electorates but when we look around the rest of the House we see obviously the demise of ACT some deep trouble for United Future and probably a reduced position for New Zealand First. 
The contest will come down to two big major pictures for the future. Those pictures really—and it is good to see John Key in the House this evening—will be driven by the choice in relation to a tax cut - driven agenda which Ken Shirley quite rightly is spitting tacks over. He himself—the ACT party—drove the notion that tax cuts were the only way forward. Unfortunately since the arrival of Don Brash the National Party has taken on that mantle so ACT is irrelevant and Mr Shirley is on his way to one of his last drives back to the airport as a result of that. What we have in front of us is the tax cut agenda which we know means cuts to social services and borrowing—exactly what happened last time a Government drove that formula—versus what I would call the investment agenda: the agenda of the last 6 years. The investment agenda is about investing in health investing in education and investing in the things New Zealanders care about like good housing regional development the police force and all the things that have led to the stunning headlines around the world concerning this country. What does the OECD call us? It calls us a “jobs miracle”. What does Lonely Planet call us? It calls us a “hot country”. What are we known as in the cultural and film world? We are known as virtually the world centre of arts and culture whether it is in fashion film or music. All of those things add up to this little country of 4 million people having a staggering reputation all around the world for its economy its society its environmental leadership and its cultural leadership. 
The National Party is offering to change that. Let us imagine really sensible people sitting down and asking themselves what they should offer New Zealanders at this election. We have a country that is running hot in the eyes of virtually every other leading country in the world and National says to New Zealanders that it wants to take them in a radically new direction. That is after 6 years of amazing success following decades of failure. Do people remember that incomes in this country fell every single year from 1972 until 1998—and then what happened? Labour was elected. People should remember that incomes fell every single year. I am not sure whether Murray McCully is the National Party’s strategist. I know that the great Liberace of the Opposition side of the House the “lounge Lothario” Mr McCully no doubt thought National’s agenda up himself as he thinks he is in touch with New Zealanders. He thought National should go out as the Opposition and offer to change everything. 
I just want to tell people that I am a local provincial MP as are Mr Darren Hughes and Ms Soper who are sitting behind me. We are simple folk in the provincial centres. All that we want is to have evidence of what works. I would ask Mr Hughes whether that is not right. We do not want to hear fancy arguments from the sharebroker from London. We do not want all that market-speak. We do not want to hear all the stuff that comes from the eggheads across the road from Parliament. We do not want to hear all the stuff that comes from rich boys who live in huge houses because the people we represent simply want to know what difference it would make to have this Government or to have another Government. 
Let us look at my province and at Ms Pettis’ province the Manawatu-Whanganui region with regard to jobs. Basically at the end of the 1990s after the National Government had finished with us in the Whanganui-Manawatu region we were arguing over who would turn the lights out when we left because there was no growth. There were no jobs. Our biggest enterprise in the Manawatu-Whanganui region was to export people out of the region. What is it like 6 years later? We went from an unemployment rate—queue if you like—in the city of Palmerston North of 11900 people. Do members know how many people are unemployed and on the unemployment benefit in Palmerston North today? There are 715 people. If we take businesses in Palmerston North we find businesses were leaving in droves in the 1990s one after the other. Light manufacturers were going somewhere else. When people come through and look at our city at the present time they will see that EziBuy a large mail-order fashion company is pouring a concrete floor the size of about five football fields for its new factory. The largest refrigerator in the Southern Hemisphere is being built by Kapiti Cheeses which also produces ice creams and so on in the Manawatu. That growth is happening in Palmerston North right now and in Simon Power’s electorate. He is very grateful to the Labour Government for stimulating the economy so that he has an electorate where things are absolutely happening. 
Darren Hughes 
: He’s a Labour MP at heart. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: That is what is being said at home. People are saying that Simon Power is a Labour MP because he backs growth and jobs and he welcomes the fact that 500 more businesses are operating in Palmerston North since we came to power—500. In the 1990s businesses were leaving; now they are coming. Those businesses have created 6900 new jobs in Palmerston North in the last 6 years. 
Let us take an area like training. There are 10000 people training in the Manawatu-Whanganui area right now because of this Government. Modern Apprenticeships are giving young people a route into industry and a real job. Crime dropped by 15 percent in Palmerston North in the last year alone—it is 15 percent down. We can walk through our square now; it used to be a place where people did not want to go. It is now a place where people want to go because there is no crime for them to worry about when passing through that square. If we look at health we see the spending on health is amazing—and we have a base hospital. We are a place with a lot of retirement homes and money has been flowing through that area—$42 million has been budgeted for older care alone in Palmerston North. A tsunami of money for health has been coming through our region. It is the same in education. We also find that in the defence area it is the same. We are the defence capital of the country and Simon Power knows that as a former defence spokesperson. We are the defence capital of the country. There is $4.6 billion for defence a large amount of which will flow through the Manawatu region because of this Government. 
That is all that Darren Hughes and Lesley Soper say when they are out on the hustings and that is all that Ashraf Choudhary says. We say to people that they have a simple choice at this election: a tax cut agenda with spending cuts borrowing and all the things we saw in the 1990s or a track record of stunning success for our regions. We will not turn the lights off now. The lights are burning incredibly brightly in provincial centres like mine because of this Government and its investments. In every meeting when I finish I ask people which box they will tick and they say they think they will tick Labour.