Smith Lockwood: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Smith Lockwood: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18214] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 That contribution reminds me of a movie I saw years and years ago—I think it was called  
The Mouse that Roared 
. This afternoon Don Brash in his reply to the Prime Minister’s statement noted a key challenge facing this country that the Prime Minister chose to ignore—that New Zealand is bleeding talent. Week by week month by month hundreds upon hundreds of our skilled people are leaving this country. Sure they are being replaced by immigrants but our skilled people are going. 
One of the reasons for that is the gap in incomes between New Zealand and other countries. This Labour Government has done nothing to resolve that. If we look at its 5-year track record as we go into election year we see that the average real disposable income for New Zealanders has stayed flat. We have had 5 years of a Labour Government and the average disposable real income has not lifted under this Government. The gap with Australia is not closing and what is more it will get worse. 
This afternoon Helen Clark spoke of her Government’s dynamic trade agenda. I would say that she has certainly learned a lot since she made her anti-trade tirades when in Opposition. But it is in that area that we see Helen Clark’s most massive policy failure. What a lame statement she made in her speech. She said: “We remain ready to enter into negotiations with the United States.” But where is the deal? It was Labour’s No. 1 foreign policy goal. What a failure! 
It is 1 year since the negotiations between Australia and the United States on a trade deal were finalised. From 1 January this year Australian beef farmers have been getting 6c to 7c per kilo more for their beef—the same grass-fed beef that New Zealand farmers send to the United States for the hamburger trade. From 1 January this year Australian beef farmers have been having tariff-free access; we have not. It is worth millions and millions of dollars to Australia and New Zealand farmers are missing out. Within 2 years Australian beef farmers will send 20000 more tonnes of beef tariff-free while New Zealand farmers will get nothing. The gap with Australia will get wider. 
Why is that? It is because Helen Clark has single-handedly stuffed our relationship with the United States of America. It is not just about the insulting comments on the Bush presidency and about whether a Gore White House would have gone into Iraq. The insults just keep on coming. Just yesterday in response to the historic elections in Iraq Helen Clark said—despite the unexpectedly high turnout in those elections—that she was concerned that if the Sunni community were not seen to be voting it would not give the winners of the election a mandate to rule. What arrogance! She went on to say she hoped there would not be a civil war. 
How does Helen Clark think that Washington—not to mention Canberra—viewed those mean-spirited comments made by New Zealand’s Prime Minister? How does she think they viewed the Labour Government’s consideration that the fledgling democracy in Iraq was so unimportant it did not give the 7000 Iraqis in New Zealand a voting booth? Did Helen Clark and those Labour members opposite have such little belief in democracy that they thought it was good enough for Iraqis in New Zealand—7000 of them—to have to go to Australia to vote? Iraqis in Australia could vote in that historic election—the first for 50 years in Iraq—but Helen Clark did not care enough about democracy so hard won in Iraq to even bother to provide a voting booth for the Iraqis in New Zealand. Even the interim President of Iraq commented publicly noting that the New Zealand Labour Government had failed to support the elections and that as a consequence Iraqis in New Zealand had no option if they wanted to vote but to go to Australia. 
American British and I believe also some Australian servicemen and servicewomen have risked their lives and many have died to give the Iraqi people a chance for democracy. It is the first time in 50 years that the Iraqi people have been given a chance to have a say in their own future and they courageously grabbed that chance despite the risk of terrorism to every one of them who voted. To see their determined faces on our television screens as they lined up to vote and to see the private joy on their faces after they were able to exercise their right to vote leaves me feeling damned ashamed of our mean-spirited Prime Minister. It leaves me with little wonder that Washington has no time for her and it leaves me with little wonder that Helen Clark has failed New Zealand in achieving the most important foreign policy result for New Zealand—a trade agreement with the biggest most important economy on this planet. I am ashamed that our Prime Minister cared so little for that fledgling democracy in Iraq—democracy so hard won with the lives of so many servicemen and servicewomen from countries that are our friends: America Australia and Britain—and could not have cared less but left it up to the Iraqis in this country to have to go to Australia if they wanted to vote. 
Then she said publicly that the winning Government in Iraq would have no mandate if not enough Sunnis voted. Goodness me! Plenty of people in this country do not vote for Helen Clark and will never vote for Helen Clark yet when she won the last election we accepted that she had a mandate to govern. It is insulting of her to tell the Iraqi people that whoever wins the election over there—with a huge voter turnout—does not have a mandate to govern. 
What is quite clear in this country today is that Don Brash and National are setting the agenda. Labour should not forget that with the election this year. It is interesting that when Labour members leave the Labour Government they get an improved perspective. It is interesting to read what a former Labour Prime Minister the Rt Hon Mike Moore wrote a little while ago in the  
Australian Financial Review 
. He said: “The labour movement was once about the dignity of labour; now too often it is about the dignity of welfare.” He said that Labour members do not care enough about labour any more. 
The Rt Hon Mike Moore reminded readers in Australia that one of the great Labour Prime Ministers in New Zealand cared when people just used or abused the welfare system. I am talking of former Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser. According to Mike Moore he told this Parliament in 1945 that the treatment of loafers should be to put them in a large tank to pour water into it and to give them a pump to keep the water level down. If they did not pump continuously they would drown. That is what one of the greatest Labour Prime Ministers said about people who used the welfare system to do nothing. That is what one of the great Labour Prime Ministers believed—in the days when Labour was a great party. 
New Zealanders do care about the welfare system and how it is destroying the culture and integrity of people in this country. That is why New Zealanders believe that Don Brash was on the right track and is on the right track with his concerns about the way the welfare system is destroying the attitudes and aspirations of so many New Zealanders. Just as Don Brash was right about the separatism being created by the treaty industry in New Zealand so New Zealanders see him as right on this and that is why Labour will lose the election this year.