Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6591. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Taking political advice from “The Maestro” of Mt Albert is a bit like learning humour from Chris Finlayson. Chris Finlayson has so little to say about the National Party that he spent the whole of his speech talking about the Labour Party and this member the “Minister for Cigarettes” the brain of Mt Albert is content to bad-mouth Labour while Rome burns. 
New Zealand is burning. Jobs are burning. Manufacturing is burning. Thousands of New Zealanders are leaving and the ostrich economists on the other side pretend nothing is wrong. This is not about them or about us. This is about New Zealanders who cannot pay the bills who cannot support their families who cannot find a job. As Jacinda Ardern pointed out they are the thousands upon thousands who have queued up for jobs at supermarkets and fast-food chains because that is all that they could find. And what does this Government say to those New Zealanders? “You are lazy. You are not trying hard enough.” Which one of the 2700 Kiwis queuing for 100 supermarket jobs was lazy? The 2600 who were back in the queue? Do not insult New Zealanders members. Do not insult their hard work. Do not insult the belief of those who are still in New Zealand that there might be a future. 
Unemployment is at 7.3 percent. That is the worst in 13 years. It is the worst since the last time Bill English was the Minister of Finance. It is up 74 percent since National took office. John Key promised 170000 new jobs. What have we got? We have got 175000 more unemployed—175000 people looking for work. The jobless rate is up 65 percent. Underemployment people who are just making do with part-time work is up nearly 40 percent. The number of people on the dole is up—wait for it—116 percent. 
Is it the rest of the world’s fault as National has said? Well it really cannot be because the increase in New Zealand’s unemployment has been one and a half times that of the rest of the OECD. So it cannot be the rest of the world dragging us down; we are dragging them down. 
Just this morning the retail trade figures showed again that grocery spending—the basics—is down 60 million bucks in a quarter or nearly 8 percent. People cannot feed their families and National is content to make bad jokes about members of this House. No wonder the public is losing confidence in the institution of Parliament sadly and certainly New Zealanders are increasingly disappointed in this Government. 
So what is the bigger problem? Is it inflation that is below the target range or is it unemployment that is through the roof? And if it is inflation why will those members not modernise a monetary policy framework that was written last century and flies in the face of the global financial crisis? Why are they happy to subsidise agriculture like through irrigation subsidies and wipe out the emissions trading scheme giving farmers a free ride and pollution subsidies while jobs burn manufacturing closes and thousands of New Zealanders are leaving? 
We are here on this side of the House we are here together as a team because we are not prepared to draw down the curtain on New Zealand. We are not prepared to give up on our country. That is what brings us to work every day and the difference between this Government’s “vision” and ours is stark. Its vision is a dumb economy vision of basic pastoral agriculture open-cast mining and fat cat bankers while ordinary New Zealanders are fleeing from their country cannot feed their families and cannot find a job. New Zealand wants a smart green economy with the jobs of the future that pay good wages and build smart products and services that people will pay the world for. We have got nothing against agriculture—it is our backbone—but it is not enough and just milking a few more cows or mining a bit more coal is not going to change the fundamental decline of our economy. 
These are serious issues for serious times. They are not a laughing matter. There are real people hurting and it is the future of our country on the line.