Parker David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 26 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5672. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Party position on mining has never been unclear and it has always been consistent. Outside of schedule 4 areas like national parks we have always said it ought to be done on a case by case basis. We approve of mining but people have to get a consent under the Resource Management Act or the Crown Minerals Act. The law has not been changed by National in that regard in any great way and our position has not changed since we were last in Government when we spent $25 million of taxpayers’ money helping to get data to make it a little bit less risky for the oil and gas industry. So although we do not think mining is the whole answer to New Zealand’s economic problems we admit that it is part of it and we do not oppose it outside of schedule 4 areas. The National Party people should do a bit of research. 
Why is it that those members are rattling on about it? It is because they do not want to talk about the economy and they do not want to talk about jobs because in fact all they do is focus on one political disaster after another. Let us list them this year. Well we have had the Dotcom one recently. That has been addressed by Grant Robertson. I will not go into that any further. Go back a little while and we have the Government’s centrepiece of its Budget: improving student outcomes by increasing class sizes. What a nonsense that was and the Government had to back down. It spent 2 months defending that ridiculous policy when it should have been doing things to save people’s jobs. 
Go back a little bit further like just a month before that and we had Nick Smith falling on his sword because of the debacle at ACC which saw not only the Minister resign but also the board resign. The chair was effectively asked to resign and the board followed him because that was so mismanaged. That was another month when the Government was not managing the economy. 
Go back a little bit further and you have the problems with the teapot tape and the Prime Minister’s scandals around that. We have got the Prime Minister’s scandals around his electorate chairperson being appointed to New Zealand On Air called the Broadcasting Commission. 
Simon O’Connor 
: Talk about policy not people. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: What was that? 
Simon O’Connor 
: Stick to policy. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is what the Government is embroiled in every day and in the last month we have had John Banks. What should the Government be doing? It should be doing what it can do to help stop this shedding of jobs—160000 people have gone to Australia since this Government was elected. That is more than the population of the city I come from. Dunedin has about 100000 people—160000 people have gone just to Australia. That is not the rest of the world; that is just Australia. They are record numbers every month because there are no job prospects here. Despite the fact that a lot of the unemployed have given up and gone to Australia we have still got far higher unemployment now than when this Government came into office. The safety valve as Bill English describes the Australian economy has kept New Zealand’s unemployment lower than it would otherwise be because those people have gone to get jobs in Australia. 
What could the Government do? It could save some of these export jobs by doing what a responsible Government would do: back Winston’s bill to a select committee and change the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act so that we do not give primacy to the targeting of inflation ahead of other aspects of economic management. The IMF says we should do that. Nobel Laureates like Joseph Stiglitz say we should do that. Most of the Governments around the world have moved on from— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: Joseph Stalin? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —giving inflation targeting primacy. Joseph Stalin. That is what we get: Joseph Stalin. That is just like Steven Joyce. If anyone comes out with an alternative economic policy it is economic voodoo it is snake oil remedy or from Mr Finlayson it is Joseph Stalin when you talk about Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz who is a free marketeer to a certain extent. He is Joseph Stalin according to the National Party. These guys are so out of touch that they have had more people go to Australia than live in Dunedin and they say “Oh we don’t need to change anything.” They do not need to change anything. 
This Government is embroiled in its own controversies. It is not properly managing the economy. We are losing export jobs that will be very very hard to get back and as a consequence New Zealanders are disappointed. They have given up on waiting for the brighter future from the National Government and they are voting with their feet and going to Australia instead.