Prebble Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Prebble Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3275] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to respond to the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament. Can I in parliamentary tradition respond to the remarks of the right honourable gentleman. What I found interesting was that Mr Peters normally is quite willing to tell us his views on anything but when he sat down I could not work out whether he was for or against support of the American position on Iraq. In fact he made some very strong statements but actually failed to make any statement. But in that sense he is no different from the Leader of the Opposition or the Prime Minister. If we read the Prime Minister’s statement we are not really any wiser as to the Government’s views with regard to Iraq.  
I would like to start with that issue and say to the House that we are one of the few Parliaments in the Western World that has not debated this issue. I can remember when the Kuwait issue arose and the then Government brought us all back and we had a special debate on the Kuwait-Iraq issue but this Parliament has not had a proper debate on Iraq. I have written to the Prime Minister saying that there should be one. Instead we had a page at the end of her speech on a major issue facing New Zealand—and it is.  
Let me just put in a nutshell what the Government has done over January. Over January our Government has casually decided for the first time in our history that we are going to turn down a request made to us by the United States the United Kingdom and Australia. We can put it this way: if we look at the last century it has been the coalition of English-speaking nations that first freed us from fascism and then communism and we have now decided casually and without any debate or discussion that we are not part of that coalition. I believe that a decision of that magnitude should at least have been debated and discussed.  
Let me just put the issue to the House this way. Do we want a United States of America the world’s only superpower that is prepared to use its muscle and its manpower and to shed lives in order to take action against rogue States? Do we want that? Or would we prefer to have a United States of America that says: “No we’re going to be isolationists. We’re going to react only in our own narrow interests. We are not prepared to be the world’s policemen.”? That appears to be the position of continental Europe.  
I have seen statements by our Prime Minister saying that she aligns New Zealand’s interests with continental Europe. I just say to the House: “When did continental Europe ever give a continental about us?”. When did continental Europe ever stand up for the needs of small democratic States? When did continental Europe ever stand up for our needs in the South Pacific? Who in this House thinks that Germany will ever come to our defence? No one! Yet our Prime Minister guided no doubt by focus groups and polling has decided to tell the United States: “No thank you we are not going to help.”  
Members will say: “What difference can we make?”. Be under no illusion. We could make a huge difference. Just as there are people in New Zealand reluctant to get involved with this far-away nation so there are Americans who are reluctant. Every poll in that great democracy says that the American public are prepared to take action against rogue States but only if other nations are prepared to stand beside them. It is the standing beside them not the numbers that we can contribute that makes the difference—and our Prime Minister will not even hold a debate on the issue and will not tell this House today the very serious consequences of the decisions that she has already made. 
Will the United States remember? Will Britain remember? Will Australia remember? Of course they will. Yet I read in this statement that the Government’s foreign policy objective is to have a free-trade agreement with the United States. Why on earth should the United States have a free-trade agreement with a nation that is not prepared to stand up when it requires courage to do so? Of course it requires courage. I have seen John Howard. He is showing courage. I have seen Tony Blair a Labour Prime Minister. He is showing courage—and what are we doing?  
Every member knows that what I am saying is correct. I say to members opposite that we will regret the decisions that this Government has taken with regard to Iraq. We all know that Saddam Hussein is in defiance of the UN. I read this rubbish in this report saying that the Government is only prepared to take action with the support of the Security Council. There are already in place Security Council resolutions authorising force I say to the Prime Minister. They are already there. When did we have this new international law that says somehow or other they have expired? What a load of nonsense! The international law says that the allies the coalition of the willing are already entitled to take action and the Prime Minister knows that. But of course she would have to put out leadership to be able to make that statement.  
Well the ACT party is prepared to provide leadership and we say that we should stand by the United States stand by the United Kingdom stand by Australia and stand by freedom when we are asked to do so. We know—and we can look around these walls and see it—that the cost of freedom is being prepared to fight for it. Every generation has to do it and so do we.  
Now let me turn to another aspect of this report and let me say some good things. The Prime Minister has actually devoted more attention to the economy and I think that that is quite good. If we look at her first statement we can see that there was nothing about the economy so I guess one does learn from experience. But then when we have a look to see what the Government is actually going to do about the economy we see that it is flimflam. There are statements about innovation and the like—things that no one can speak against—but do we think they will make a fundamental difference? No they will not.  
Even though I strongly disagree with many of the statements made by the Rt Hon Winston Peters he is actually right in this respect: we have gone from an export-led economy which this Government inherited—an economy that was being driven by our export industries—to one that is now being driven by consumerism. The facts are overwhelming. I say to the Prime Minister that dairy income last year fell by 18 percent. Where is the growth coming from? It is coming from the city of Auckland. What is motivating that? A housing boom! What is motivating that? It is being driven by immigration.  
I support immigration. Immigration is a good thing but the idea that we can run a whole economy on immigration is absolute nonsense. Anyone can see that it is unsustainable. We now have an unsustainable bubble in our economy and it must fail at some point. What members opposite should also realise is what they have done to the economy. I shall make a comment about immigration as well. 
Dail Jones 
: Oh. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: These are some statements that are actually in support of the member’s party. The Government talks about net levels and indeed Mr Peters is dead right; 87300 New Zealanders in the last 3 years have left permanently. In the last year we saw a net loss of 16700 New Zealand nationals. If we have a look at their skill levels we see that that is a very serious matter. If Mr Peters were to talk about those sorts of things instead of some of his other xenophobic rubbish he would have more support.  
But I want to come to this point: it is a question of tax and families. This Government is using inflation to see people’s tax levels increase. Over the summer I got the Parliamentary Library which all members know to be a very reliable and reputable source to do some figures on the net position of the average working family—that is how much money they have after tax. The library came up with some quite alarming figures. The average net wage has fallen since Labour took office by 2.4 percent or almost $14 a week. I know that that is right because Dr Cullen has a habit of putting out statements refuting mine if he thinks I am wrong. I put out that statement earlier and the silence from Dr Cullen has been deafening. He clearly knows even if his back bench does not that average New Zealand families are worse off today than they were 3 years ago. One might say: “Well how are they sustaining their standard of living?” Then we get to a very very alarming situation and that is the level of debt. New Zealand families have never been in more debt than they are today. What has happened is that lower interest rates have led people to believe that they can take on more debt to compensate for the fact that their incomes have fallen. When we come to look at the level of debt of the average family we can see that again it is completely unsustainable.  
Let me give just a few statistics to the House and I will quote the source. Dr Neville Bennett the Canterbury University economic historian said last year that New Zealanders now have the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world—I am waiting for some Labour politician to say that we are leading the world in indebtedness—and borrowing is increasing rapidly. The Westpac household savings indicators report in November last year revealed that households now owe $80 billion. It went up 8.6 percent in just 1 year and if we go back we discover that New Zealanders owed just $10 billion 16 years ago. On top of that they have $3 billion of credit card debt and that figure does not include the splurge in spending that apparently occurred this Christmas.  
Household borrowing in the 1990s increased from 57 percent of disposable income in 1990 to 112 percent in 2002. That is not sustainable. We keep reading about the level of indebtedness of the US consumer but the level of debt of the New Zealand consumer in percentage terms is higher. This Government has created a bubble that cannot be sustained and there is going to be a collapse. And of course we can add student debt to that debt. I also say that we need to have a look at how it has been financed. It has been financed by our banking sector—and where did it get the money? It borrowed it from overseas. We are not even saving enough to lend to ourselves so we are in a situation that I find thoroughly alarming.  
Then I look at the Prime Minister’s statement and I see not a word about the fact that the average indebtedness of the average Labour voter—and National voter and ACT voter and New Zealand First voter and United Future voter—has gone up over the last 3 years and their real household income has fallen. 
 The ACT party says we need tax relief for middle New Zealand and we need it now. We will certainly be promoting it vigorously in the upcoming session. Members should look again at the McLeod report as ACT members are the only people who seem to have read it. McLeod pointed out that for the amount of money in our surplus we could afford to give every working New Zealander a tax cut. Where is the advantage in the Government boasting that it has a surplus and no one else in New Zealand having it? How did the Government get it? The Government has this surplus after putting us all into debt. Where is the sense in such a policy? We need a change in policy.  
There are a number of important issues that this paper does not really look at. If we look at the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders we find they are most worried about health. They are worried about the length of hospital waiting lists and the fact that half of the hospital boards in New Zealand have not had their financial plans approved and we are halfway through the financial year— 
Hon Annette King 
: No you are wrong. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Well I am pleased to see that the Minister is now ticking a few of these off. The real level of indebtedness of hospitals has gone up— 
Hon Annette King 
: Seventeen of them. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: The member says I am wrong but I will ask her to have a look through the Prime Minister’s statement and tell me where the statement is about the hospital waiting lists. I have had a look and the statement made about health and the biggest issue facing New Zealanders is only three paragraphs. One paragraph tells us about primary health organisations the second tells us about population-based funding—that is of course code for cuts for half of New Zealand—and the third tells us that they will do something about mental health. I have heard the Government say that it is going to do something about mental health—not just under this Government but under successive Governments for years. There are three paragraphs on health in the Prime Minister’s statement.  
Hon Annette King 
: What would ACT do? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: The member asks what the ACT party thinks. The ACT party is putting up some real new thinking on health. We want to know why we do not have a patients’ guarantee. Why do we not offer people on hospital waiting lists once they reach a certain waiting time a place in a private hospital to have their operations? That might be a terrible idea but the Accident Compensation Corporation does not think so. The corporation switched from using State health to using the private sector and slashed the waiting lists. As can be heard by the screams from the Minister of Health she is opposed to that proposal because she believes that the average patient would rather suffer than—oh dear what a horrible thought—being treated in a private hospital. This just goes to show how out of touch this Government is. She screams because she knows that what I am saying is right.  
The next major issue is education. What are people actually worried about right now in education? They are worried about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) the meaningless exams and the fact that they are having to wait. I see by the headlines that people are worried about the NCEA. Not a word was mentioned about this in the Prime Minister’s statement. The ACT party believes we need to have education standards. We need to have external exams. We may be the only party opposed to this experiment but we remain opposed to it. This experiment will fail because this type of politically correct education has never worked anywhere in the world and it will not work here.  
This brings me to another issue which has not been mentioned. There was some mention of a dog but there was nothing else about law and order. That is interesting because during the election campaign the Government thought that law and order was important. This is a Labour Government. Three months before an election Labour thought that law and order was a serious issue but the moment the election is over they go back to their namby-pamby politically correct views. What they really believe is that there are no criminals in New Zealand that the criminals are the real victims and they themselves are bleeding hearts. Once again the ACT party is not going to give up. We believe there should be zero tolerance for crime and we will be raising this issue again.  
I will finish by saying that I thought the comment made by the Leader of the Opposition was very pertinent. What is really wrong with this statement by the Prime Minister? There is absolutely no vision. I think the term the Leader of the Opposition uses is that it has “no purpose”. I believe that there is no intellectual rigour behind it. This is an itsy-bitsy paper. Why is that? It is because this is a Government that was elected on a credit card and a group of meaningless slogans. The disadvantage is that we end up with a Government without a programme without a vision and I say that it is out of time.