Mackey Moana: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Mackey Moana: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18224] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 “National will start rebuilding.” Well that is a very surreal line to stand up and have to follow on from. 
What a day this has turned out to be. I was watching television last week while National members were basking in the lukewarm post - Orewa II glow. They had a bounce in their step as they went along to their caucus thinking that this was it this would close the gap this would give them the big boost that they had had from Orewa Mark I—but what did those members do? They scored the biggest own goal I think I can remember in my life’s history of watching politics. 
It seems that Dr Brash did not feel it was necessary to consult his social welfare spokesperson on a social welfare speech that was outlining social welfare policy for the National Party. If he had he might have worked out a little earlier before the speech that Katherine Rich did not support his backward approach to welfare dependency and he might have saved himself a little bit of pain today. Maybe if he had run both of his speeches Ratana and Orewa II past her in the first instance for a start he would not have accidentally over-inflated the number of Maori children dependent on welfare that he told us at Ratana. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Well that’s true because she knew about it. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Katherine Rich knows about that and she would have picked it out and told him it was not the truth. He found out about that but I also note that he was a little bit slow in correcting his Ratana speech in respect of the over-exaggeration of the number of Maori children on welfare dependence. Obviously the truth is a little bit less important to Dr Brash than he would have New Zealanders believe. 
I register my disappointment at Katherine Rich’s demotion. I know it is not usual in this House to show much cross-party affection but I have a lot of time for Katherine Rich both personally and professionally. We have been on the Social Services Committee together. I have always enjoyed the debates we have had. She has always been above board and really committed to the portfolio. I have always found her a very tough opponent in relation to welfare because I know that she has a real idea of what dependence on the domestic purposes benefit is like and what welfare dependency is like. In that respect she was far more likely to get it right than anyone else in the National Party. So I hope that Mrs Rich is doing OK tonight and I register my disappointment at her demotion. It might end up being quite good for this Government but personally I was extremely disappointed to see it happen. 
It is always amusing to hear the National Party’s doom and gloom merchants out in full force when everything is going well and when the rhetoric will just not wash in New Zealand. When I was back home over Christmas I found that all the retailers were absolutely ecstatic with the way New Zealand was going because it was the biggest Christmas and New Year period they had had at the cash registers. Does that fit with an image of a New Zealand that is falling behind every other country in the world in terms of how much disposable income we have and in terms of standards of living? I am afraid that the National Party rhetoric just does not live up to the reality. It does not live up to the smiles I have seen on the faces of people down the street when they have come up to shake my hand and say they have never been traditional Labour supporters but they think we are doing a really good job and to keep doing it. 
I notice that Disney is putting out a new animated movie this year called  
Chicken Little 
 and the tag line is: “This time the sky really is falling.” I wonder whether Dr Brash is providing the voice for Chicken Little. He certainly has a lot of experience in that area. 
Orewa II was classic “the sky is falling again” scaremongering except this time New Zealanders are not buying it. They are not buying it because they know that National relies on stereotypes of welfare beneficiaries. It relies on stereotypes of low and middle income New Zealanders. According to the National Party the way to motivate wealthy people is to give them more money through tax cuts but the way to motivate poor or low to middle income New Zealanders is to take money from them. That has always been the National Party way. It has never managed to explain that discrepancy in its philosophy—punish poor people and they will do better and reward rich people and they will do better. 
In the Labour Party we know that all New Zealanders have the same kinds of aspirations. We know that it is not easy on the domestic purposes benefit. It is not easy to provide for children. The National Party does not tell people that the average age of a domestic purposes beneficiary is 32 years. By the way that National Party members talk about it people would think we were talking 18 or 19 years and paying young girls to have babies as an alternative to entering the workforce. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: How long do they stay on the benefit? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: They stay on the benefit for an average of between 1 and 3 years. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Not 13 or 15 years? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: No not 13 or 15 years and not a lifetime. They stay on the benefit for 1 to 3 years. The average age— 
Government Member 
: That’s not the impression Don Brash gave. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That is not the impression that Don Brash gives because the reality does not work for the National Party and that will be its problem coming up to this election. 
National wants to tell New Zealanders that the economy is going to fall over and that New Zealand does not have the same standard of living as overseas countries. But that message does not stand up to the reality that New Zealanders are enjoying today. National wants to tell people that domestic purposes beneficiaries are just bludgers—mothers who want to have more and more babies to get the extra few dollars a week they might get for that. Maybe it is because Dr Brash is a male and therefore cannot have children but the impression I get from the members of my caucus is that what a woman goes through when she has a child is not worth an extra $20 a week and is not a good career move. But Dr Brash does not want people to know that. 
I visited a school recently that had had a National member speak to its students a few months before I was there. The school said that the National MP had raised domestic purposes benefit dependency as an issue for young people but had said that those young people in the audience were doing a great job and getting their education. The MP had also said that those particular young people would go out there and get jobs so they should be resentful that other young people were choosing to go on to welfare dependency and the domestic purposes benefit rather than face the same challenges as themselves. I asked those young people what they thought the average age of a domestic purposes beneficiary was following that National MP’s address. They said they thought the average age was 18 or 19 or the age of someone just out of high school. I asked them whether they realised that it was 32 years of age. 
I told them that the average domestic purposes beneficiary is a woman who has just left a long-term relationship—usually a marriage—where she has been the primary caregiver for the children. She needs a bit of time to get herself back on her feet time to get her children back on their feet and time to make sure that the family can work again in the new separated environment it finds itself in. I think that that is a good thing. 
In New Zealand we should be extremely proud that we care enough about the children in our society—all children and not just those from families who manage to stay together and who have happy and wonderful nurturing lives. No children should fall through that welfare gap in the most traumatic time that children can have—the time when their family is falling apart around them and their primary caregiver does not have enough money to send them on a school trip to buy them a school uniform or even to let them buy their lunch at school once in a while just so that they can feel as if their normal life and ordinary way of living are carrying on as much as possible. 
We have to think that the National Party has not learnt anything from its last disastrous stint in Government because the punishment approach to welfare that we are seeing being touted again this year was a disaster for Jenny Shipley. It was an absolute disaster when she was Minister of Social Welfare in the 1990s. 
She cut the benefit and who suffered? The children of the beneficiaries were the ones who suffered. They were the ones whom the National Party again thinks should be punished for the decisions their parents make that it disagrees with. It was landlords who lost rental income because their tenants could no longer afford to live in their houses; it was local businesses who lost millions of dollars in potential income when people could no longer afford to buy food and luxuries over the counter; it was businesses that suffered when we plunged into a recession again. 
I cannot wait to hear the new National Party spokesperson on welfare and family matters explain how punishing children for the decisions their parents make helps families. I cannot wait to hear her explain how cutting benefits will help families. I cannot wait to hear her explain how liberalising our workplace legislation again so that families no longer have job security will help families. I want to know how slashing spending on health will help families particularly those who cannot afford private health insurance and who cannot afford to go to a private doctor. I want to hear how the National Party spokesperson on families will try to convince New Zealanders that what happened in the 1990s which was an absolute disaster for families will work this time. 
The Labour Party has a long history of having to mop up National Governments’ messes. It seems all one has to do is look back and see that every time there has been a National Party in Government there has been a Labour Government that has had to come in afterwards and clean up the mess. Well I think this time the Labour Party is saying enough is enough. Labour members want to cut out the middle man; we do not need the extra work. We want to tell New Zealanders that if they elect another National Party to Government supported by the ACT party and we see some of the legislation reintroduced that failed miserably in the 1990s—which was devastating for families—the Labour Party will just have to come in and clean it up again. 
So why do we not just cut that bit out? Why do we not just cut out the middle man? This Government will continue to provide for all New Zealanders—not just those at the top end of the scale and not just those whom we happen to agree with on everything. We urge people to stick with a Government that works. That is my message to New Zealanders tonight.