Bennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Bennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the House today in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. I support the motion of John Key and have no confidence in this Labour-led Government. The reason is that there is simply nothing new. This Government looks tired and after 9 years it is bereft of any ideas. We are certainly not seeing anything coming out that is worthy of mention. 
You know it is about people and I think that that is what this Labour-led Government has completely forgotten. When we go out on the streets and talk to people we find out what is truly important to them and we realise that this Labour-led Government has simply left them behind. People put their trust in Labour. Quite a few people out there voted over the last 9 years and put their trust in Labour and Labour has simply ignored them and is thinking purely and only about its own survival. I think that that is a crime against society quite frankly and against those very people who have gone forth and put their trust in the Government. I would say to New Zealanders today that this is not all that they are worth—the last 9 years is not all that they are worth. They are worth more and they deserve more from their Government. 
The reality for thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders is that they are living day by day and realising that their pay packet is worth less. When they look back at the last 9 years they will see lost opportunities for them to get ahead. Time is passing quite quickly and people are realising that day by day they are worse off when they go to put petrol in their car and when they go to the grocery shop and realise that the dollar does not go far enough at all to even feed their family in many cases. And they are supposed to be grateful and go to the Government for their handout. Their Working for Families handout is supposed to be all they are worth. They pay more each week than they can afford and then they go for the handout that might mean survival on a week-by-week basis. 
That is not all that New Zealanders are worth. Members of this Labour-led Government should not tell New Zealanders—as I have heard in this very House—that crime rates have come down. I have heard that time and time again. They should tell that to New Zealanders who live in fear on a daily basis. They should ask New Zealanders whether they feel safer now on the streets of New Zealand than they did 10 years ago. It is a simple question. I challenge the members opposite to go out and ask New Zealanders whether they feel safer now than they did 10 years ago. We have to ask why violent crime against innocent New Zealanders has continued to rise. Why do people feel such a sense of insecurity and fear when they are out on the streets and why has Labour not addressed this very key issue and done something about it? 
Why is Labour unable to do something about these absolutely critical things that are most important to New Zealanders? New Zealanders are worth more than that. People were fed myths and lies for many years and over the past two elections. They were told that the Government would give them a handout and make this country a better place for them and people now understand that that simply is not true. It shows how out of touch this Labour-led Government truly is. It has been quite amusing this week to hear the backward chants about the 1990s and about all that went wrong the woes of the Tories and all the rest of it. 
When New Zealanders look back at the last 9 years all they will see is lost opportunities and all they will know is the reality of being and feeling worse off today than they were 9 years ago. When people look back at the opportunities that were there for them they will say they will no longer settle for mediocrity. They will no longer settle for being OK because they know that given the sorts of opportunities we have had in the last 8 or 9 years the possibilities of what could have been were truly tremendous. Normal New Zealanders who want to get on with their day-to-day lives live with their families have their jobs and get on with what they are doing feel so let down by this tired Government because they are not having that type of opportunity. They are finding that this Government wants to get into the stuff that families do not see as being important and the very stuff they do want to be dealt with—like the levels of crime safety issues health education and having a wage that actually means something and means they can survive—is not being addressed. 
I want to talk a bit about the community sector. The conversations we have had about that over nearly the last 8 months have been quite interesting and amusing. Members on this side of the House were not surprised at all by the Government’s announcement this week that it is waking up to the importance of fixing some of the problems out there for the non-governmental organisations. We are not surprised that Labour has woken up to the main issues and realised that the Government is not the answer to all social problems—although I do not know whether it has quite woken up to that—and it is acknowledging that there needs to be some continuity with funding there needs to be some certainty and most certainly there needs to be some cutting of compliance costs. We knew that when John Key raised this issue last year it would give the Labour Government a bit of a shake-up and it would realise it had better do something about it. I congratulate the sector because at least it is getting something even if it is for no other reason than the fact that National under John Key has made this such an issue. 
John Key has said continuously that more government is not the answer. He has said continuously in speeches and in brochures—like this brochure here—in black and white that the answers are more often than not in our communities and at the grassroots. It is not about more bureaucracy in Wellington. Does Wellington have any answers? I can tell members I do not think this House has the answers when it comes to all of those sorts of social issues but it has to go back to the people who are working at the coalface. I stand here proudly having given those sorts of speeches and having been to speak to those groups myself to say that under the leadership of John Key who has raised this issue time and time again we knew that this would shake up the Labour Government. When we spoke about it last year John Key’s answer was that at least it would get some results for the sector and that that could not be a bad thing. We say blatantly that we are reasonably pleased to see some of these changes being made. Having an opponent steal a policy may not always be a political party’s ideal situation but this is one occasion where it has seen some sort of positive result. 
But the devil is going to be in the detail. I think there are questions that the Government desperately needs to answer. It is not actually $40 million a year that is going into these services but are we going to see more services created for those people who are most in need? From what I have seen the answer is no. How will the Government cut the compliance costs? Words have been quite sweet in this Government and certainly the word “partnership” has been. But how are compliance costs going to be cut? I have been hearing about the Plunket Society saying how wonderful the Government is today I have been hearing about how the Salvation Army has said things and Minister Dyson has stood up and said many things. I just thought I would finish with a couple of quotes. On Tuesday morning this week we read in the newspaper that the Government is spending billions of dollars more on social policies to little or no effect. We hear that the Salvation Army has slammed the Government’s performance. In fact the gap between the rich and the poor appears just to be widening. More children appear to be at risk of harm and that unfortunately is what is happening under this Labour-led Government. 
So it is time. Bring on this year. It is time for a National Government. It is time that we had some true leadership. It is time we had true vision and it is time we got ambitious for New Zealand and grabbed every opportunity and then made them ourselves.