Peck Mark: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Peck Mark: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:609;Page:6384] 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I can do no better than to start by looking at tonight’s poll figures. 
Government Member 
: What are they? 
MARK PECK 
: They make very interesting reading: Labour 52 National 24 New Zealand First 8 and nobody else made the margin to get in. I say to United Future not to worry because I think it will be judged better in time. But to ACT I say: “You’ve gone!” I ask Gerry Eckhoff who is sitting over on the ACT benches now to answer a question—and he can do so by way of interjection if he likes. As Donna Awatere Huata is one of ACT’s members of Parliament New Zealand would be very interested to know who is paying for her husband and daughter to be with her in Australia on the select committee trip she is on right now. Can the member tell us who is paying for that? 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: That member is suspended from our caucus. 
MARK PECK 
: He says that is why she is suspended. Maybe he could also tell us why his party is continuing to pocket her $111000 of electoral funding. Furthermore maybe he can tell us why Deborah Coddington is spending 4 months in Britain at the taxpayers’ expense beefing up her qualifications. That is the party that goes on about integrity. Let me say there is a word for that sort of action but we cannot use it in this Parliament. I ask the next ACT speaker— 
Darren Hughes 
: What is it? 
MARK PECK 
: I cannot use that word and I am not going to. I ask the next ACT speaker to stand up and put a few things on the record because we could say it smells. We were talking about hippopotamuses before; well the hippopotamus that is that party rolls in the mud. I am surprised at the way in which its members behave because it is supposed to be a liberal party. What do they do? They roll in the mud. I say to them: “Grow up!” It is about time they listened to someone in their party like Stephen Franks. I do not like his policies much but at least he is policy driven not muckracking driven like the rest of that party. It is time they grew up. 
I must say I feel really quite sorry for John Carter— 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Who creates the muck? 
MARK PECK 
: Who is that little man chortling over there? I feel quite sorry for him in the position he is in. He needs to pick up the phone and ring the Leader of the Opposition. He needs to tell him he has to come back here because somebody finally has to give Bill English the message that he is not going to make it. The cruellest thing that the National Party can do now is to retain him in the leadership. 
Bill English is my next-door neighbour in electoral terms and I despair to see the position he is in. He probably is a decent man. I heard a magnificent speech from Kim Beazley one time after a Government Minister had decided to retire. He said: “Well now that he’s going we can praise him.” Now that Bill English is going I can praise him. I say to John Carter that it is his job as chief whip to be straight with his leader and to tell him he is not going to make it. The figures tonight that show that Bill English and Don Brash together do not get anywhere near a quarter of the support that Helen Clark enjoys are quite revealing. The National Party used to be the party that got elected to government more often than most and now it has been reduced to a minor player in political circles. The good news for John Carter is that National will go up from 27 to 31 based on tonight’s poll but there— 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s seats. 
MARK PECK 
: —that is seats—but there is one thing he needs to understand about that figure. It is the traditional mid-term return of votes to the two major parties. Unfortunately the National Party can no longer be called a major party in this situation. It is a serious matter for National. I tell those members that they should get out of their unmarked cabs and travel in ordinary cabs like ordinary members of Parliament. They should start to understand they have been voted into Opposition start to understand that the National Party is no longer the Government and get rid of the trappings of privilege. It is an interesting thing that the three people in the National Party who look to be going anywhere have very interesting names: Power Rich and Worth. It is the rich the powerful and the worthy as they see it. I say to them that they have very unfortunate names for politics. 
This Government has been an extremely good Government. My electorate has done enormously well in this period of time and not only with growth in the economy; we are starting to attack some of the infrastructure matters that need to be dealt with. I am looking forward also to seeing some work done as far as Stewart Island’s infrastructure is concerned and I am sure that once the final report on that is done— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Eric Roy never did it. 
MARK PECK 
: No Eric Roy talked about it a lot but never did a thing. I tell the National Party that I actually have its economic policy. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: A blank piece of paper? 
MARK PECK 
: No. I say to the member that is a silly interjection on this occasion because it is a very well-detailed policy and it was given to the knowledge wave conference by Don Brash. If the National Party has not voted for it yet it will not be long before it does. I will tell members what it is. Actually I quoted Don Brash’s speech in my economics essay as one of the possible approaches New Zealand could have taken to the unemployment of the 1990s. We had to talk of two competing areas and I thought Don Brash’s comments did set out a competing area. 
But here is what he would do. He would remove all remaining tariffs—not review them but remove them. His attitude is let us not learn the lesson from the 1980s that if one takes away all protections one should not be surprised if there is a crash which is what happened. Not only did the stock market crash but once we had removed industry protections we actually had an enormous crash of people hitting the scrap heap. He says let us not worry about that. 
He would introduce a capital gains tax. While he was the Governor of the Reserve Bank he was on record as saying at the Finance and Expenditure Committee that he supported a capital gains tax and he has not recanted from it. It is still in his policy as outlined to the knowledge wave conference. 
He would go to the Singapore model of welfare—no superannuation and no support for those who are a bit down on their luck or who are ill or injured. He would have none of that because it is inflationary and one cannot have inflation in the economy. He would drive it out with those measures. I say to him he should come down here and tell us what he would do then to prop up the justice system and the prison system to make sure that people who own property are protected. They would need to build fences. People who do not have anything to live on will find a way of living. 
He would also reduce tax for the very wealthy. In his speech he went on asking what damage would be done if those on half a million dollars a year paid only a small proportion of their income in tax. He asked what difference it would make. It would bring people to New Zealand as he saw it who might be prepared to invest. That is the National Party policy. 
People understand that this Government has introduced good policies which are working. People have had enough of the right-wing experiments that were undertaken by National and ACT. People have had enough of the double standards of the ACT party which have been exposed in the House tonight and that is why this Government is riding so high and that is why the National Party is in deep disarray. That is why I say to John Carter he should get on the phone get Bill English back here and deal with that party’s systemic problems. Lord forbid we do not want a situation where New Zealand First ends up being the major Opposition party! At least the National Party should stand for something decent. But in the condition it is in it has not got a prayer of even starting to form a policy much less the next Government