Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Volume:670;Page:17266] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I begin by joining with the previous speaker the Minister of Police in acknowledging the suffering of the Japanese people following the 9.0 earthquake in Sendai the devastating tsunami and the current crisis with the nuclear facilities in Fukushima. A year ago today I was in Japan as a guest of Government in Tokyo and in the Yamaguchi prefecture where my father had served in J-force to assist post-war reconstruction. I must say I feel at a very personal level the suffering of the Japanese people today. New Zealanders know what Japan is going through; Japan was with us in our suffering in Christchurch. We commend the decision of the Government to dispatch an urban search and rescue team to Japan to assist in their struggle. 
All New Zealanders are still struggling with the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake and Labour supports every effort to help them through that. We know that Government agencies on behalf of all Kiwis have played a remarkable and an honourable role in that relief effort. Beyond that we have seen the best of New Zealanders over the last 3 weeks: the man who pumped the water out of his well on to the street so his neighbours could quench their thirst neighbours helping neighbours people providing food and services free of charge relief centres and search and rescue personnel. All of it proves that New Zealanders have a quiet strength in adversity and are prepared to do the hard yards to rebuild our city and our country. 
Someone said to me that if we could only bottle that spirit of rebuilding Christchurch and use it to rebuild New Zealand we would be better off. I join with that person in expressing that hope. But that is where it becomes difficult unfortunately because the reality is that even before the earthquake New Zealand was going backwards. Growth in the third quarter of last year was negative. Treasury and the Reserve Bank say that growth in the fourth quarter was zero or negative. Unemployment is at recent record levels and apparently rising again. Meantime food prices and petrol prices are rising and people have not had wage rises or they got a puny 25c increase in the minimum wage. 
All around the country and not just in Christchurch New Zealand families are in crisis. It is a crisis because they do not know how they will make ends meet. It is a crisis because they cannot put petrol in the car or food on the table. They face the devil’s choice between taking their kids to the doctor and putting the budget together for the groceries. At the same time Government debt was blowing out and Government services were being compressed. 
Why is all of that happening? The bottom line is that this Government does not have a strong structural and sustainable plan for turning the economy round. This is no time for petty point-scoring; I am not trying to do that. But I ask on behalf of all New Zealanders whether it is not time that we had a recovery and rebuild plan for our whole economy as well as for the great city of Christchurch. If strong Government leadership is appropriate after a disaster surely strong Government leadership is appropriate when our country is in the biggest economic crisis it has faced in decades. 
The Government does not have a plan. Cutting more services from the Government simply puts more people out of work and undermines confidence. Failing to address the underlying imbalances in the property sector in the savings gap and in the investment gap simply means it takes longer to turn business round. When business lacks confidence because they do not know the plan they cannot hire and they are reluctant to invest. That means that people stay out of work and wages stay down. 
As Wilkinson and Pickett in  
The Spirit Level 
 pointed out we are all in this together. When we share the gains and share the pain we are all better off than if we have a society of haves and have-nots where a few at the top do better and better and most in the middle and the bottom do worse. It is not sufficient to rely on a relationship with a few well-placed mates—the Mark Weldons the Rob Fyfes the Fonterras the Telecoms and the MediaWorks of the world—to fill the gap because it does not make the difference.