Ardern Shane: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Shane: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3429. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I can see why we have changes of members of Parliament from time to time. It is a healthy thing in a democracy. Can I say that it is interesting to note the tone that the Labour Party has taken in recent times particularly coming from the senior whip—that in itself must be close to being an oxymoron when you look at the youthful looks of the member who holds that position now—which is that the plan that the National Government has prepared for New Zealand going forward is meaningless. That is to say according to the member doing something about the appalling incidence of rheumatic fever in New Zealand is meaningless doing something about the out-of-control crime rate that the National Government inherited from its predecessor is meaningless and doing something about the unemployed targets and reducing unemployment is a meaningless thing. 
It is interesting to draw a comparison between the assertions by the senior whip and those that were asserted towards me I guess you could say in a recent debate that took place in the House over in the Opposition’s opinion the release of a public asset. They were fuelled of course by his very learned colleague Andrew Little and they were both proven to be wrong. I have not yet heard a single response from them. So I say to the member that when your integrity and your figures are challenged to that extent then you really do not have a strong position to argue from when you start talking about things such as substantial Government policy targets. 
I have heard a diatribe from the long-serving member the Hon Annette King on what she described as an “animal manure” combination of targets. It is interesting to note that that member dates right back to the 1980s Lange-Douglas Government when interest rates actually peaked at 22 percent—22 percent. And those members would suggest that the interest rates today being brought forward by the current Government policy mix which the last time I looked were in the low 5 percents are somehow a negative position to find ourselves in. 
So all of those who are listening to this debate today should just remind themselves of what happened the last time we had a Labour Government—and the time before that. Anyone who has a house mortgage in New Zealand Labour is after you. Interest rates would rise again—absolutely—under a Labour Government. But that would not be the worst thing that would happen to you. A Labour Government would also tax you if you got any capital gain on that property. And Labour members all talk about that as being a way forward. The answer for Labour is the answer it has always had: borrow and hope; if it is still moving tax it; and if it stops moving subsidise it to get it moving again. Labour has never ever had a new plan. 
 By comparison if you look at what is being offered by this side of the House in supporting vulnerable children and reducing long-term welfare dependency—measures and targets that are being compared year by year are transparent and are made available for people to test us by—it is almost a black and white contrast. A Labour Government would never do that. 
Reducing crime rates by up to 15 percent is a very honourable goal and so far the Government is on target to achieve that. Boosting skills and employment by ensuring that 85 percent of 18-year-olds will have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 or equivalent by 2017—if that is a meaningless target then what are the targets of our opponent? What is its policy? What would it do? What are its suggestions? What would it have done differently? In the 9 years that Labour held the Treasury benches through some of the best economic times all it did was put more and more barriers in front of the engine room of the economy—like more taxes and more regulation. Labour is without ideas and it is without policy.