Bennett Paula: General Debate 
Bennett Paula: General Debate 
[Volume:662;Page:10331] 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Now that we have heard from “Angry Smurf” we understand why the Labour Party is so desperately— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Did I hear the member use a name that is not a member’s name to refer to a member? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Well I— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member did so then I ask her to withdraw. That is not acceptable. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I withdraw. For the last 18 months we have seen the Labour Party desperately trying to reinvent itself. We almost heard the conversation around the boardroom table when Labour members were telling Phil Goff that he was not making any traction and he needed to reinvent himself. They told him to wear more leather get on a bike and get out there into the heartland. They told him to visit pubs on that bike and they would see how it went. 
My advice to Phil Goff is quite simple. It is called being true to oneself and it seems to come through each time. I would say to Mr Goff that he should be true to himself about the fact that he is an “SPM”—a stale pale male—and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. We see people all over the world embrace their inner selves and get away with it. As Mr Goff travels around the country desperately trying to reinvent himself and sending out a Labour survey that says things like: “Let’s see ourselves as retro and edgy.” and “Do you see us as funky?” we see that it is not really working for him. 
First of all we saw Phil Goff “The Paratrooper” who came sailing in out of a plane and that did not really work for him. Then we saw him as “The Farmer” when he stuck a lamb on his shoulder and we all remember that. Quite frankly any farmer knows that when people stick lambs on their shoulders all that will happen is the lambs will pee down their backs. But Phil Goff went for that angle. Then he went for the “Biker Dude”. We saw the leather and the cruising up and down the country. I can hear the conversations. I wonder whether he is like the Lone Ranger. If Phil Goff is the Lone Ranger then I wonder whether there is a Tonto uniform for Shane Jones. That is where we are heading. It is about ditching the spin and embracing who one truly is and we never know Labour members might find that being true to themselves means people believe them. 
I can see Phil Goff and “Slick” Rick Barker pulling up on their bikes to the pubs with Annette King in the car in the background trundling along behind and the people in the pubs saying: “Woohoo! Here they are to change our lives.” Those people will be sitting there filling in a Labour survey about whether Labour is retro funky or all that. Quite frankly is it any surprise that we are seeing such an absolute display? On Facebook in conjunction with this Phil Goff put up a nice photo of himself as the young hip new face of the Labour Party. The photo shows how truly retro and funky Phil Goff really is. It is a great start to the programme. It was a nice way to reinvent himself and to find out who he can be. 
I simply say that when we hear the rhetoric and the questions that are coming from the Labour Party we see that there is something simple in all of the messaging. It is that we cannot continue the way we are. We cannot continue to pour extra millions and millions of dollars into our communities like we have for the previous 10 years and expect to see different outcomes. We are seeing dysfunction in some of our families and communities that is getting worse and more serious. I say to those people who think it does not affect them—and there are some New Zealanders who sit back and say: “That is them this is us and we are sitting here.”—that it does affect them. If there is such dysfunction in a family that they are hurting each other and hurting their children then imagine what they are doing to their street to their community and to their country because they simply have nothing invested in it. 
To say that we are going to do some stuff differently and to say that we will take some of the power out of Wellington and put it back into our communities and let them decide how they do it through programmes like Whanau Ora and contracting— 
Hon Annette King 
: That’s where it has been for years. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: The member opposite yells out that that is how it has been. For 10 years we saw more money going in and we saw more box ticking required from Wellington but we did not see outcomes. We have more children being abused and neglected than we have ever had we have more dysfunction in our families and we have had 10 years of increases in benefit dependence and that has driven society backwards. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What nonsense! 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Let me give the member some evidence of that. In December 2000 there were 33560 people on the sickness benefit and in December 2008 there were 50896 people on the sickness benefit. Over 45000 people have been on the invalids benefit for 5 years or more. That is entrenched welfare dependency. This Government will not sit back and let it happen.