Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14265] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 When Parliament opened on Tuesday this week the National Party leader John Key moved a motion in this House that many New Zealanders want to see voted on—I think on Tuesday next week—and passed with success. That motion of John Key expressed no-confidence in the Helen Clark - led Government because it had failed to make significant improvement in the areas of real importance to New Zealanders. Despite the words from Chris Carter a minute ago I say that the current Labour Government is tired is stale and is bereft of ideas and all New Zealanders whom I speak to up and down the country agree with that statement. They want the election sooner rather than later so that we can get a Government that is keen to be ambitious for New Zealand and to make progress. 
When I listened to Helen Clark’s speech on Tuesday I knew that I had heard it all before. There was absolutely nothing new in that statement as Helen Clark continued to trot out the ideas that she has trotted out now for nine prime ministerial opening statements. In nine Prime Minister’s statements in a row she has given us the problems that face this country and for nine statements in a row she has failed to give us the answers. New Zealanders have had enough. New Zealanders have had enough of a Prime Minister who is not prepared to come up with solutions. 
When I think back to the foundations that were created for this economy by the previous National Government I know that when Helen Clark took over in the last few months of 1999 we had the foundations right for tremendous economic growth. Those foundations had been built with a lot of hard decision-making by the previous National Government. We saw buoyancy come into the economy which if the Labour Government had utilised it correctly could have lifted the standard of living of all New Zealanders for all time. But the Labour Government and Helen Clark have continued to take the easy options. She has been prepared to take the good times but not to bank the good times. Michael Cullen has squandered—squandered—huge tax surpluses year after year without building in the chance for a sustained improved economy in this country. Now for the first time in this decade we have an economy under extreme pressure. We have the second-highest interest rates in the developed world. That does not seem to worry many Ministers. They live in their ministerial houses and they do not have the mortgages that most New Zealanders have. But I can tell the Labour Ministers that they ought to get out of Wellington and go back and spend some time in their electorate offices. If they are prepared to get out and listen to real people they will find that those interest rates are really biting. New Zealanders are saying to me that they know they had the opportunity for some good times over the last decade yet they personally feel no better off. I think that will be the legacy of this Labour-led Government after the last 8 or 9 years. The foundations were there for the good times but Labour has squandered them. 
Today in question time we had questions around what has happened to wages in New Zealand compared with those in Australia. Despite the drivel given by the new Minister of Statistics last year there was a net loss of 28000 New Zealanders to Australia. They are not going because they earn less money in Australia. Despite the drivel from Darren Hughes I say that they are going because they know they will be far better off by leaving New Zealand. I do not know a New Zealander who does not view that with concern. 
Sue Moroney 
: That’s obvious—that you don’t know a New Zealander. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: We all have either family or good friends who have left this country with no intention of returning—and Sue Moroney thinks that that is funny. Well I do not think that that is funny because the ones who are leaving are the talented ones who are ambitious for this country and unless things come right they will not come back. 
It is interesting. I remember the election night of 1999 when Jim Anderton the great messiah appeared on TV. He was like Martin Luther King calling for people to come back. But what we have seen since he made those pronouncements is a great exodus which has got bigger and bigger. In fact the last time so many people left this country was 20 years ago in 1988. Can members guess who the Government was then? 
Hon Members 
: Labour. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: So—yes—the Labour members on that side of the House can hang their heads in shame because they have squandered some of the best years we have ever had. 
We have issues like the health system. Labour has admittedly poured billions more dollars into the health system. But what do we get out the other end? A person who had done some work for me on a farm went to the Christchurch emergency department last year with serious back pain and Christchurch Hospital sent him home to die. And that is not a one-off. There was another case in the headlines on the front page of the  
Dominion Post  
on Tuesday this week of a woman from Hawke’s Bay who came down to Wellington for emergency treatment and again she was sent home to die. That is not the health system that New Zealanders deserve and the Labour Government needs to take responsibility. A headline in the Christchurch  
Press  
on Tuesday acknowledged that the Labour Government has poured billions of dollars of additional resources into social welfare. But Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army no known friend or supporter of the National Party was quoted as saying that that money had been squandered too. So I say to Helen Clark and I say to the Labour members in the House that it is time they took responsibility for the mess they have created over 8 or 9 long years. It is time those members realised that New Zealanders are desperate for change because with every week that goes by another 800 of our talented young people decide it is better on the other side of the Tasman. 
We desperately need success in the vote of no confidence in this Government next Tuesday because National’s members need to get over to the Treasury benches where we can make a difference. We need to focus on the real issues that this country needs to address. We want to make sure that New Zealanders have the opportunity to better themselves. The extraordinarily high tax rates are not about that. We heard in the House today about the situation that has developed where the Inland Revenue Department says that if people earn $60000 or more then they are wealthy and will pay tax at 39c yet the Housing New Zealand Corporation says that if people earn $70000 then they are poor and the corporation will help them into a new affordable low-cost house. The priorities are all wrong. We need to take the opportunity of high product prices in the dairy industry and buoyancy in the economy and bank it with some strong structural change that means we can lock in an improved standard of living for all New Zealanders. Unless we face those decisions and make those hard calls we will be faced with more and more good people acknowledging that life is better in Australia and I take no satisfaction out of that at all. I know that the Labour members seem to think it is a joke that 800 people leave New Zealand each week and go to Australia but I do not. 
I look forward to the vote on Tuesday. John Key is right. I have no confidence in the Labour-led Government and certainly the National Party caucus has no confidence in the Labour-led Government and never has had but the most important thing is that more and more New Zealanders all around the country are coming to hold the same point of view. If we do not have an early election and the situation drags on until 18 October—as I am told it probably will because Labour members are not interested in the future of this country; all they are interested in doing is making sure they preserve their own jobs for as long as possible—it will only get worse. The sooner that date comes the better so that New Zealanders will again have the chance to be ambitious for themselves.