Field Taito Phillip: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Field Taito Phillip: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18349] 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD (Minister of State) 
: 
 The previous speaker accused Labour members of not saying thank you so I am about to say thank you. At the beginning of this new year and at the beginning of this speech I want to acknowledge and thank the source of all good things and of the blessings that this nation enjoys: Almighty God who is the giver of life the God that this Parliament prays to for guidance at the beginning of every sitting day and the God that New Zealand petitions to defend New Zealand when we sing our national anthem. The year 2005 will be a challenging year. It is the year in which our nation goes to the polls to decide who will govern and determine the direction this nation takes for the next 3 years. 
I want to congratulate the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark on her prime ministerial statement. It was a positive speech of vision and optimism and a speech that outlined not only what this Government has achieved—and it is considerable—but what New Zealand as a nation has achieved. The achievements are ones that we can all be proud of as fellow Kiwis. It was a speech that called not only for celebrating our achievements as a nation but also for the unity of our people so that together we can achieve more both economically and socially. It was about “united we stand and divided we fall”. The Prime Minister’s speech was the speech of a leader and indeed I believe that history will judge her to be one of the finest Prime Ministers New Zealand has ever had if not the finest. 
The question is what the difference is between the speech made by the Prime Minister compared with the speech given last week at Orewa by the Leader of the Opposition Don Brash and with his response to this week’s prime ministerial statement. As far as I am concerned the difference was like night and day darkness and light. Don Brash’s speech and message was one of doom and gloom. It was mean-spirited as usual and appealed to the darker side of human nature. It was a speech of pessimism of scaremongering of fear and of playing with people’s prejudice like last year’s speech when he played the race card. That was a speech that promoted division and disunity setting Kiwis against Kiwis as this year’s speech did again. And for what? To get a bit of political traction. 
The sad part of it all is that most New Zealanders with regard to Don Brash’s ideas know that we have been there and done that and it did not work. Someone amongst the Tories on the Opposition side of the House needs to tell Don Brash that he is about a decade and a half behind the times. The experiments with ideas that we have seen with regard to what he is talking about in places like Wisconsin have proven frankly to be an absolute failure and a disaster. It is certainly a disaster for the young mothers and children concerned in relation to that state in America. We know there are problems in the welfare system. We know of some cases of people who may be exploiting the system but that has been the case since Adam was a boy. It does not justify changing the welfare policy back to policy directions that were clear failures in the 1980s and 1990s. 
Leadership will be a major factor in this year’s election and Helen Clark is clearly the best option for New Zealand. As a matter of fact let me reiterate some of what my colleagues said previously about some of the fine outcomes this Prime Minister and this Labour-Progressive coalition Government have achieved for the benefit of those on the Opposition side of the House. Led by this Prime Minister this Government has strengthened relations with our neighbouring Pacific nations. The Pacific Islands Forum through her leadership has become a strong vehicle for high-level discussions amongst the leaders of our neighbouring Pacific nations and for economic and social development in the Pacific region. We have one of the best-performing economies in the modern world. In the past 5 years more than a quarter of a million jobs have been added to this economy. Unemployment has plummeted. It has gone down by 44 percent from the September 1999 quarter to the September quarter last year. That has been great for Maori and Pacific people. Pacific unemployment has been halved since we took power in 1999. That is an absolutely great achievement in 5 years. New Zealand’s crime rate is down to its lowest level for 21 years. 
Pacific families are heeding the dangers of meningococcal meningitis for Pacific children in particular. The result is that 95 percent of Pacific children in the south Auckland region have received their first dose of the vaccine that this Government is responsible for introducing. In addition Pacific families recognise the danger of not fully completing the vaccination process and Pacific children are more likely than those from other ethnic groups to receive the third and final dose of the vaccine. Much of the success of the vaccine update for Pacific families and communities is because of the resourcing for advertising to target an increase in Pacific vaccination because of community awareness-raising workshops and because of dedicated Pacific health workers across the health sector. 
There are now nearly 7000 Modern Apprenticeships and more than 120000 people are involved in industry training. The Working for Families package that commences from 1 April this year will enable 300000 low and modest income families with dependent children to receive a boost to their income. That is great news for Maori and Pacific low-income families. According to our Prime Minister’s statement those changes will have a dramatic effect on child poverty reducing it by 30 percent. At the new level the rate of child poverty here will be on a par with that in countries like the Netherlands. I want to commend my ministerial colleague Steve Maharey for his outstanding tenure as Minister for Social Development and Employment. It is his leadership in welfare social development and employment that has put New Zealand at the top of the OECD countries in terms of reducing unemployment. The lowering of the unemployment rate in New Zealand is an outstanding achievement for Steve Maharey for the Ministry of Social Development and for this Government. 
This Government has done more to advance New Zealand’s Pacific communities than any other Government and it will continue to do so in the key areas of health and education and social and economic development as well as in the other important areas of culture and the promotion of languages. The development is also for all the other sections of the community in New Zealand. There is no question in my mind that the people of New Zealand will make the right judgment on election day this year and judge this Labour coalition Government on its achievements and leadership not on the empty rhetoric from Don Brash and other Opposition members. I am sure that the achievements we talk about are a positive message for New Zealand and I am sure that in a united way we can achieve better results for our communities. 
 The diversity of the New Zealand community is something we need to appreciate. The answers in terms of development for our people have to be appropriate solutions that will work for the different communities we have. I come from the background of a very diverse electorate in Auckland with over 100 different ethnic communities. I believe that this Labour Government is the most sensitive Government this country has had in many years in terms of the diversity of our communities not only in Auckland but in other parts of New Zealand. I look forward to working with my colleagues to promote policies that will work and not the sorts of ideas that have been an absolute failure in past years which is what has been suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. I congratulate my colleagues again on the discipline they have shown in the development of policy that has worked for the last 5 years.