Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7277] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 First I start by thanking the National Party whips for giving me this wonderful timeslot at 10 past 5. It is peak drive time in Auckland my home city. But I want to point out to the National Party whips that they could give me a slot any time from about 3.30 in the afternoon till around 8.30 at night and it would still be a peak drive time slot back in Auckland because of the congestion issues. 
Secondly I say that it is a great time to be a member of the National Party in this House because for the first time in a long long time I saw a leader come to this House and heard that leader give a speech not from a written cue card or from something prepared by spin doctors along the way but from the heart. John Key got up and gave a speech from the heart about the things he believed in. What I thought was more incredible about that than anything else was that there was more substance to the speech from the Leader of the Opposition—given that we are still 2 years out from an election and that one thing we must not do is give out too much policy or substance yet; that would be really silly in the timing of it—than in the speech from the Prime Minister. 
As we watch Labour members enact a sort of combination of TV survival programmes—a combination of  
Lost 
Big Brother 
 and  
Celebrity Treasure Island 
 or “ 
Survival Labour Party Caucus 
”—it becomes quite clear that their whole process is based on slogans. Last year Helen Clark’s speeches used the words “economic transformation” over and over again. In fact she could hardly go through a sentence without “economic transformation” being the key words. But that is so last year! Now “economic transformation” hardly gets a look in. The new design the new word is “sustainable”. In the speech today I think it was used 33 times—sustainable sustainability and so on. Helen Clark had some crackers in that speech and I must say that I have never seen Government members look so bored and so flat. I was hoping to be able to say that she did not get a single clap but to be fair I must say that when the 20 hours was mentioned a faint ripple—the “snickometer” they use in cricket would have picked it up—did go through a couple of members but that was it. 
Helen Clark said: “Meeting the challenges our country faces in the 21st century requires substance not slogans.” Yeah right! Then I saw some of what she had to say: “Building a sustainable nation requires smart active Government working with key stakeholders across the economy and society.” Well what the hell does that mean? Is there any substance to that? Anyone can get up and say that they are going to do that. She said: “That is why I have called for boldness in our approach to these issues.”—and then she said nothing. 
Oh actually no—we should not be unkind to the Prime Minister; she did have some substance. She is going to make the Ministry for the Environment the Ministry of Health—remember that is not the hospitals where all the big stuff goes on—the Ministry of Economic Development the Inland Revenue Department and Treasury significantly cut their carbon footprint. What does that mean? Does it mean that they will not use double ribbons in their laser printers or something? Oh hang on! And if they do not cut their carbon footprint they will have to go out to support some tree planting on Crown land. I can just see the Secretary to the Treasury getting in his four-wheel-drive each morning and saying “Bugger! We didn’t meet our targets last week so we’re off to the East Coast and we’re going to plant some more trees to try to meet them.” What a joke—what an absolute joke! 
And she says that they do not run on slogans. Well anyone who is masochistic enough to sit down and read this speech will find sentence after sentence of nothing but slogans. Can members guess what the Prime Minister says? “I believe we can aspire to be carbon neutral in our economy and way of life.” She did not say that we will be or that we will have policies that will achieve it but she said “I believe we can aspire …”. Who does not believe that we could aspire to anything? We could aspire to be the richest nation in the world but what does that do if there is no substance? 
Then I read—and I think this one is probably my personal favourite—“As we reach each goal and target we set in economic and social policy new ones must be identified and met.” Targets—well let us go through them. Two sentences before she had said: “Many more people are in work incomes are higher”. Well I challenge the Prime Minister to find any year other than possibly the Depression years of the 1920s when incomes have not gone up. Incomes go up every year no matter what. That is always so. 
She said that “educational achievement is up”. How does she know that? When you talk to parents about their National Certificate of Educational Achievement stuff they do not have a clue what their kids are achieving. Parents in my electorate sit there scratching their heads and asking: “What does this mean? There’s pages and pages but I don’t know. Did Johnny get a pass or did he not?”. 
And “…crime rates are lower.” she says. Is that not great? Well is that true or is it a slogan? [ 
Interruption 
] Hang on—let me give members the facts. Over the past 12 months crime has increased by 6.9 percent. How can the Prime Minister say as a slogan that crime rates are lower when crime has gone up by 6.9 percent. Violent crime is up by 10.2 percent. Grievous assaults are up by 19 percent. Homicides are up by 31 percent. The public do not need to be told all these numbers; they see them every day as they watch the television screen. 
But the Prime Minister so out of touch is playing her “ 
Survival Labour Party Caucus 
” show. Members know it: “The tribal council has spoken Jill Pettis; you’re gone.” or “The tribal council has spoken Ann Hartley.” Actually tribal councillors had spoken with regard to Taito Phillip Field but he was just not around to hear it when they spoke. But I have to say that there are nothing but slogans. 
The purler was when this Government first started off—I love this one. It said—and I thought that this was a superb target—“We will get New Zealand into the top half of the OECD for GDP per capita.” For those who are not really economically literate that means basically the wealth created per person. It measures our ability to buy things. We hear the debate about Herceptin for breast cancer and the arguments. We debate things like that all the time because we are not a wealthy nation. Those nations who have the wealth can afford to just go out and buy that drug. So Helen Clark set us a goal do we remember—it was at the very beginning of the term when Labour came in—that we would be in the top half of the OECD within a decade. “That is the goal of my Government.” Do we remember what she said? Now she says that as we set goals and achieve them we move on to the next ones. 
Well how did we go? Labour has been in power since last century—since 1999. Oh this is not good; this cannot be right. It says to me here that when Labour came to power we were 20th in the OECD for our GDP per capita; now we are 21st. So rather than getting into the top half of the OECD we have fallen now into the bottom third. How can that be a goal that was set and measured? And the Labour Party has done this on a regular basis. 
If anyone is again masochistic enough to go and get a copy of the glorious coloured brochure put out by David Cunliffe called  
The Digital Strategy 
 they will find that it is motherhood and apple pie to everybody. They should go and have a look at it. It would have cost half of a Kaingaroa forest in terms of carbon credits to produce and it set a goal for broadband penetration: “We will be in the top part of the OECD by 2007.” I do not know whether anybody has noticed—it is probably on a calendar somewhere—but we are there; we are in 2007. But I have forgotten to tell the House that that all changed last year when the broadband paper got leaked and all things turned to custard. One of the things that no one spotted was that that goal had gone out to 2010 and the goal to be in the top quartile had gone out to 2015. So the Prime Minister talks about slogans. Her speech was nothing but slogans and there was no substance to it. 
I finish with one last thing. Phil Goff talked about three things of this Government. He talked about trust sincerity and integrity. I want to go on record as saying that I think the behaviour of Taito Phillip Field as a constituent MP has brought the entire profession of politics to an all-time low. What has made it even worse is the fact that not one Labour MP will say publicly—and I do not know whether they believe it but if they do they should have some guts to say it—that they think his behaviour has been so disgraceful that he should go from the Labour caucus right now. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right. Let us do a quiz. How many members of the Labour Party think his behaviour has been so unethical that he should go from Labour today? Not one hand is raised. 
I have to say that Helen Clark built her reputation around dealing to people. She dealt to Marian Hobbs when she was not sure what house she lived in. She dealt to Ruth Dyson when she was caught drink-driving. She dealt to Lianne Dalziel when she was caught telling lies. But suddenly when her skin depends on one vote she has let a man who has brought the entire integrity of this Parliament down badly go on gardening leave. He is still on full pay and even his trips to Samoa are subsidised by the taxpayer.