Roy Heather: Address in Reply 
Roy Heather: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:411] 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 As the member who has just resumed his seat said at the beginning of his speech—the only part of it that I agreed with—it has indeed been a treat to hear many of the maiden speeches of the new members over the past 2 parliamentary weeks. Many have been very impressive. I have to agree with Mr Burton about the passion he spoke of and the enthusiasm is quite infectious. 
Well the Speech from the Throne—there it is and I have to say that if that is the plan for the next 3 years it is completely devoid of vision for New Zealand. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: We’re in trouble. 
HEATHER ROY 
: We are in trouble all right. The Speech from the Throne is full of what are perceived successes but it is actually full of biased accounts of what 6 years of Labour Government have brought to this country. In terms of self-reliance and less government involvement in the lives of Kiwis this Labour Government has been an overwhelming failure. A further 3 years of that assisted now by New Zealand First and United Future will move New Zealand backwards. A good example is State dependency. It will increase with more people being dependent for some of their income on the State. The example that springs to mind quickly is the expansion of the Working for Families package but it should be remembered by this Labour minority Government that 60 percent of New Zealanders voted for parties advocating tax cuts. 
So let us look at the Speech from the Throne and members are right—it is probably not worth looking at but there are some things we should look at and debate critically. One of the statements on the first page is: “Ours is now a country more confident of its economic future …”. Well it would seem that since that speech was written and certainly since it was delivered there has been quite a lot disagreement about that not only here in Parliament but outside the parliamentary walls. Today there has been heavy reporting of the Reserve Bank report that shows we have the biggest drop in business confidence since the 1987 crash. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Really? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Absolutely! Last week of course we had Treasury’s report challenging the Government’s policy. Dr Cullen did not like either of those reports—not surprisingly—but in fact both Treasury and the Reserve Bank have made very pertinent and relevant remarks that we should pay heed to. Those are things also I should point out that members on this side of the House and in particular ACT members advocated at election time. 
A bit further on in the Speech from the Throne is the statement: “… significant fiscal loosening—either by way of large expenditure increases above those already signalled or by way of significant tax cuts—cannot be considered.” Well during the election campaign Dr Cullen said that tax cuts would be inflationary and he went on about that at quite some length. But he told only half the story. In fact tax cuts on their own can be inflationary but what he omitted to say and what is every bit as relevant is that increased Government spending is also inflationary—and what have we had in the past 6 years and what will we be getting in the next 3 years? We will be getting increased Government spending that will cause inflation. 
The Government should remember that 60 percent of New Zealanders—and New Zealanders are not stupid people—voted for parties advocating tax relief. But what is this minority Labour Government doing? It is ignoring that message completely. We should not forget that as well as the Reserve Bank report and Treasury’s report of last week there is the McLeod Tax Review of 2001 which also advocated significant tax relief for New Zealanders. But Dr Cullen does not take advice well. He knows best—in his own mind. He reportedly threw the McLeod review across the room when he received it saying: “I’ve just paid a million dollars for ACT’s tax policy.” Well New Zealand would be in better shape today if he had heeded that advice in 2001. 
There is a further quote from the Speech from the Throne: “Over the last six years my government has transformed our system of social assistance so that it is focused on assisting people to find sustainable employment.” How can we take that statement seriously? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Ha! They should stop telling porkies. 
HEATHER ROY 
: It is a joke—Mr Williamson is quite correct. We have heard a lot of talk about unemployment figures dropping and that is undeniable but let us look at the other part of the story. That is the problem with Labour—it only ever tells half the story. The number of people on the sickness benefit has increased by 35 percent since 2000 and the number on the invalids benefit has increased by 41 percent since 2000. So the unemployment rate might have dropped but suddenly we have become an extraordinarily sick nation—that and a nation that loves learning because everybody else has gone off to the local tertiary institutes and is learning. That is of benefit of course to the Government because those people do not feature in the unemployment statistics. 
My last quote from the Speech from the Throne—because we have probably had enough—is: “My government’s priorities in health are to focus on primary health care through the continued roll out of accessible and affordable primary services;”. The fact that most people are still paying the same or more for their primary health care seems to have escaped notice. I go on: “… the implementation of preventative health care services; and increasing elective surgery numbers through initiatives such as the orthopaedics and cataracts projects.” Well let me tell members that the number of people on waiting lists now—180000—is the same number as when Labour came to power. The Government thinks it is addressing the problem of elective surgery by picking favourites—by picking orthopaedics and cataracts—and by ignoring everybody else on waiting lists. The area of health is a disaster just waiting to happen. 
Two words that new MPs can look forward to hearing a lot of from this Government particularly from Labour Ministers are “transparency” and “accountability”. This Government thinks it is transparent and accountable. The Minister who thinks like that most of all is the previous Minister of Health Annette King. She thought that by hiding the number of deaths of people on waiting lists by hiding the real numbers of people on waiting lists she was being transparent and accountable. Well she was wrong but we have another 3 years of apparent transparency and accountability to look forward to. 
Accountability is one thing we did not hear about in the Speech from the Throne because the Prime Minister knows that it is not the case at all. As an illustration of that point I would like to briefly mention golden handshakes. In 1999 Helen Clark had this to say—members should remember that National was in Government at time. The woman who was about to become Prime Minister said: “I’ve had a gutsful. I don’t intend if I’m Prime Minister to have to sit there and suffer one humiliation after another because of a culture of extravagance which has been allowed to grow in the public sector. Whatever’s in there and hidden we want out.” Yet a very quick search of media reports revealed the following golden handshakes between 2000 and 2005. There were actually 17 of them but two of the biggest and most recent of course are the Television New Zealand golden handshake—Ian Fraser’s $420000—and the Families Commission golden handshake of $50000. One big difference between the previous Government and this Government is that at least the previous Government’s golden handshakes were for people who had been fired. This Labour Government has made a real thing about giving people golden handshakes for quitting. It is setting quite a new precedent. 
I thought it was not unreasonable to investigate golden handshakes better so I asked a parliamentary question of departments a couple of weeks ago about golden handshakes or other payments including termination payments for former employees. Somebody probably somebody on the ninth floor I expect got hold of all the questions and said: “You must answer them in a very particular way. You must say ‘I refer the member to the answer to one particular question.’ ” Regarding the question to the State Services Commission the answer says: “The scope of the question which potentially includes a wide range of payments such as redundancy and superannuation payments is too broad to answer meaningfully.” But the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) answered the question in the right way and then sent through to me the chart of the work it had done. ACC did not find it too hard. Members might be interested to know that in 2002-03 ACC paid out $919000 in settlements. Those settlements decreased in the next 2 years but interestingly somebody at ACC forgot to delete the table from the answer to the question. Just imagine what we might have known. I took the Prime Minister at her word: “Whatever’s in there … we want out.” she said. I took her at her word but no she does not really want it out at all. 
That brings me to a common theme in the maiden speeches of many of the new MPs—that is that less government involvement in the lives of New Zealanders is a very good thing. I was very pleased to hear that from this side of the House particularly. It made me remember a quote I had read a while back from Lord Salisbury who said that anything a Government does is likely to go awry so it is best to do as little as possible. That is the message I would like to leave with the Government today. I am looking forward to the lighter sitting hours this Government has presented us with because it is lazy but also because it will have much less scope to go awry and perhaps that will lead to moving New Zealand forward.