English Bill: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
English Bill: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14181] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I rise to support the motion of no confidence put down by our leader John Key because Labour has failed to make significant improvements where things matter because it lacks ambition for New Zealand because it is tired and bereft of ideas and because it has lost touch with the people who put it in power. One had only to listen to its two leading politicians today to know that. 
Helen Clark quoted approvingly in the House here in trying to defend the indefensible number of New Zealanders who have headed off to Australia a study that basically stated that we are losing only blue-collar people and getting bright people with degrees. So that is OK. That is Helen Clark’s view of her core supporters and that is why they are deserting her. She is not worried that people who do not have university qualifications are leaving New Zealand and going to Australia. 
National members are worried those people are leaving. We are worried that every single decision the Government has made in relation to housing has made New Zealanders’ houses less affordable. We are worried that every single decision this Government has made in respect of Government spending has pushed up New Zealanders’ interest rates. That is another reason why they are leaving to go to Australia. 
But if one had thought that that cavalier disregard—in fact contempt—for the Labour blue-collar voter was not enough then one should have heard Dr Cullen in a select committee. He said that if we give people tax cuts then they will have an Oliver Twist mentality—they will come back wanting more. That is what he said. Dr Cullen was talking about the people of New Zealand. They are a bunch of poor orphans who should be grateful for the gruel he has given them and the reason he has not given them any more gruel in their begging bowl is because they would then want even more. That is what he said in a select committee—the Oliver Twist mentality of the New Zealand taxpayer. 
Chris Tremain 
: It’s all their own money. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well that is the thing is it not? At least in Dickens’ novel the poorhouse made the gruel. In this case Dr Cullen took the gruel off them in the first place by the bucketful then gave it back with a teaspoon and then has nothing but contempt for them because they want some more. Well I tell Dr Cullen that the reason they want some more is because they need it. 
Chris Tremain 
: It’s theirs. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is theirs—that is important but more important it is because they need it. Those hard-working New Zealand working families are facing the second-highest interest rates in the developed world. They are facing high and rising inflation and a cruel burden of overtaxation which they never expected from a Labour Government. 
If people earn $39000 in New Zealand they pay 33c in the dollar when they do another hour of overtime—on $39000. If they earn $60000 they are part of the rich. Those people might happen to be a senior police constable a middle-level management teacher— 
Chris Tremain 
: A wharfie? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —a wharfie or a shearer who sweats 8 hours a day for the pay— 
Chris Tremain 
: A boilermaker? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Boilermakers have sort of disappeared but they might be a welder. Those people are considered to be super-rich. In Dr Cullen’s world of Oliver Twist those people will want more gruel they do not deserve. In Helen Clark’s world they are some of those dumb New Zealanders we are better off without because they do not have a university degree like she has. That is why those people— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Her attitude is “Oh you’re just a tradesman.” 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That is right; they are just tradesmen. Helen Clark does not care if someone who is just a tradesman goes to Australia when we get a doctor from the UK or an engineer from Iran. Helen Clark does not care. I think she should get out there and tell the people of Invercargill that—although there is no point in her going to Invercargill. Labour’s plans for the Southern Institute of Technology are to make it part of the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. It is the hub and spoke model which is why Labour will never win that seat again in my lifetime. 
Those people want a change because they have seen a Labour Party that is increasingly focused on its own needs and not on their needs. What did the Labour Government spend all its political capital on last year? It was the Electoral Finance Act to make sure that in election year people could not criticise the Government which is exactly what is happening. All the politicians—well certainly those on this side of the House—are spending a lot of time trying to understand how to deal with and comply with a whole set of new complex rules that have a chilling effect on public opinion and political activity. That is what Labour spent all of last year on. 
Then this year Labour members have turned up and said they are now worried about housing affordability. Every decision they have made about housing in the last 8 years has made it more expensive. This year they are talking about sustainability. Every decision they have made in the last 8 years has pushed up carbon emission levels not down. Helen Clark according to the publicity of the last 8 years was in charge of all that. But according to the publicity this year she was not even here. She must have been a permanent appointment to the UN or she must have spent the whole of her time at the socialist international latte coffee mornings with Tony Blair and never had anything to do with running the country. 
Of course that was not the case. She was here she oversaw it all and she will have to answer the questions that those people she so despises—those dumb people who are going to Australia; those lost orphans who want the gruel that Dr Cullen wants to hand out—will ask. She will have to say why we are paying the second-highest interest rates in the developed world. One reason is that the Government has been on a spending binge on a bloated bureaucracy that every New Zealander now knows serves the interests of the Government not the interests of New Zealanders. 
 Why is the wages gap between us and Australia getting bigger? I had a look at the regional wages by state in Australia and in New Zealand. We come below Tasmania. Our wages are lower than those in Tasmania and the Government is proud of it. We heard Helen Clark today. She does not care; the dumb people are leaving and it will fix itself. If those people go to Tasmania then they will be better off than if they live here. It is that simple. 
Why is one in five Kiwi kids still leaving school with inadequate literacy and numeracy skills under a Government that prides itself on knowing about education and has spent billions on it? Then Helen Clark turns up in an election year and says that too many kids are leaving school without skills. Where has she been for 8 long years and how will she explain that to the parents of those kids who trusted her when they voted for her? Why when the Government has poured billions into the health system is it not doing any better? In the House today we heard Tony Ryall tell more tragic stories. Why in particular has violent crime continued to soar? Labour’s explanation is that it is the solar eclipse and lunar tides. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: The sun and the moon! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That is right; the sun and the moon are the explanation. Please send Annette King everywhere there is a problem. That member is meant to be Labour’s most competent Minister—what a debacle! That is why New Zealanders are demanding change because Labour does not care about the things most New Zealanders care about. Labour members care about themselves. They spend their time and money shoring up their own political position; they bully the Civil Service to try to back them on it and we saw a series of scandals about that last year; and they lack the leadership for the next step in New Zealand. 
People now know that a growing economy delivers benefits. The economy grew despite Labour not because of it and now people have a sense of the potential in this country and they know that the answer to that potential is not the damp dark visionless leadership of Helen Clark. It is easy to give away money; it is easy. The Government has had more money than it knows what to do with. It is easy to give it away and people take it because that is the gruel they have been given. Of course they are not going to want to hand it back. But New Zealanders now have the confidence to build a much better future lift their income and have much better lives not lives punctuated by the occasional gift of gruel from Dr Cullen. That is why New Zealanders want to change the Government change the leadership and follow those who have some ambition for this country not those who are mean-minded gruel-givers who are contemptuous of ordinary New Zealanders.