Heatley Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Heatley Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1110] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 There is a minister-in-waiting and we on this side of the House wish him well with his doctor of theology studies. That is the only way that member will ever become a minister because Winston Peters certainly will not recommend him. When Winston Peters negotiates an agreement with the Labour Party to get his baubles of office he does not get any baubles for Ron Mark. Ron Mark is studying theology at university in his spare time—and he has plenty of that. That is how he will become a minister and I wish him well. 
I welcome fellow members back from their Christmas break. It is a delight to be in Parliament. I must say that at the end of last year—those last couple of months before the House adjourned for the Christmas break—the National Party was pretty chipper. The Government could not call an end to urgency quickly enough. We on this side of the House were here until all hours of the night but Labour could not go into the Christmas adjournment quickly enough and we had an extra week’s holiday because it did not want to face us this year. National is chipper because we have had a good clean break. 
I have to say I was speaking to some of my colleagues including David Bennett about their holiday break because I had had a good one and I asked David how his break had been and he replied: “What break? I’ve been pretty blimin busy over the Christmas recess.” I said I was talking about the Christmas break. Do members know what David said to me? He said: “Well that was a good day.” David Bennett had Christmas Day off and that was all. Do members know why? Because Hamilton has not been served by a decent MP for many many a year. He had every constituent in town coming to him to complain that constituents had not had good service for many a year and asking him to fix their problems. 
Bob Clarkson from Tauranga told me that he had half a day off because he had to deal with all the issues in Tauranga that Winston Peters had not dealt with while he was over in Fiji and Samoa on holiday breaks. Craig Foss in Tukituki Jacqui Dean in Otago and Eric Roy in Invercargill all spent their Christmas breaks dealing with the issues that Labour MPs never dealt with in 3 6 or 9 years. They had to spend their Christmas break doing that—and they enjoyed doing it. I spoke to Nathan Guy and when I asked him how his break had gone he said he had had 3 days off—a Sunday a public holiday and a Sunday after that. He said he was so busy in Otaki with constituents coming to see him thinking that he was the local MP— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Wishing he was. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: They were wishing he was the local MP. He had very little time off at all. I asked him whether he told those constituents that Darren Hughes was the local MP and he said they all just asked “Darren who?” and Nathan said “Darren Hughes.” They repeated “Darren who?”. Nathan Guy did more work in the Otaki electorate over the Christmas break than Darren Hughes did in the last 3 to 6 years. So the National Party is coming back very chipper. 
Members of the Labour Party of course are looking very solemn indeed because they have come back to Helen Clark saying: “My signature is on that half-a-million-dollar taxpayer-funded pledge card. I’m accountable for that half-a-million-dollar taxpayer-funded pledge card. That half-a-million-dollar taxpayer-funded pledge card got me back into Parliament.” What they have to face is corruption—corruption at the highest levels. 
The Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said that Labour had funded the pledge card in a similar way in previous elections. He said that it had done pretty much the same thing in 2002 and that questions were not raised. I know what the reporters the journalists in the press gallery will print tomorrow. They will use shorthand and they will report that Michael Cullen said this about the half-a-million-dollar taxpayer-funded pledge card: “We did it we got away with it and we are going to do it again.” because that is the Labour Party’s attitude on spending taxpayers’ money to get itself elected. It has been caught with its hands in the till. It should surrender and it should pay up. 
This is a suggestion: why do the Labour Party Ministers not all have a whip-round and chip in to pay off the half a million dollars like they were prepared to chip in for the policeman who got charged for driving Helen Clark too fast through the South Island? Why do the Ministers not have a whip-round for the half a million dollars and pay for the card on behalf of Helen Clark just like they did to get her off the hook for speeding through the South Island? This country remembers—and I know that the people in the gallery MPs and colleagues remember this and they will always remember it of her 6 to 7 year term—that Helen Clark used taxpayer ink to sign a painting not done by her Helen Clark used taxpayer petrol to race through the South Island to get to a rugby match and Helen Clark used taxpayer funding to get re-elected as the Prime Minister of this great country. 
It is very sad indeed to see corruption at the highest levels reflected out through the television screens to our young ones watching the 6 o’clock news and listening to National Radio. I know that lots of children aged from 5 years to 12 years are watching  
One News 
 in the afternoon and getting the impression that if Helen Clark can get away with these indiscretions then anybody can. That is a sad thing for our country indeed. 
I would like to reflect on the Prime Minister’s speech and I have highlighted a few of the low points of the speech. I would like to bring them to the attention of the House because they deserve closer examination. She said—and I think she smiled at this point—“A strong economy in turn needs healthy well-educated highly motivated and confident people to drive it to ever-greater achievements.” That is what Helen Clark said today. I believe that that is the first paragraph she is putting in a letter to John Howard to ask him to send our people home. She wants all the young New Zealanders who have gone to Australia—those New Zealanders who are healthy well-educated highly motivated and confident—to come back from Australia and help drive this economy. She will be begging John Howard to send them home. But they will not come because there is nothing here for them. If they work hard they get taxed to death. If they try to start businesses they have to slash through so many regulations that it is not worth the sweat on their brows at all. If they want to do something with their families again they are regulated to death. They do not want to come home. That is a very sad thing. 
In her speech today Helen Clark bragged about the economy. It was built on the backs of farmers with high commodity prices low interest rates and a relatively low dollar several years ago and fairly good weather over the last 5 years. That was nothing to do with the Government nothing to do with Helen Clark whatsoever. That was what the economy was built on. Now it is flagging and Labour does not have a single solution on the table. 
I will close with a statistic. Helen Clark said: “For those interested in comparisons with Australia I can tell them that from 1999-2004 our GDP per capita grew at a rate nearly 40 percent higher than Australia’s.” I ask members whether they know why our GDP per capita grew higher than Australia’s. It was because everyone was leaving. Our GDP was divided by fewer people because they are all over in Australia—and we want them back.