Burton Mark: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Burton Mark: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7427] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I want to tell Pansy Wong that one does not confront the great issues and challenges facing our nation by donning a tiki T-shirt exploiting a 12-year-old kid for a photo opportunity and calling that leadership. Those are cheap political stunts. I also want to tell Pansy Wong that yes she should be pleased—we should all be pleased—not about the increase in the number of cases of child abuse but about the fact that we are hearing about them because when they are being exposed to the light of day they can be dealt with. That is something our society has to confront. I listened to one or two of the more informed commentators talking about the Unicef report and the most intelligent comment was that these issues are for our society and our communities. I want to tell Pansy Wong that they are not issues for cheap nasty point-scoring. 
On Tuesday the Prime Minister observed that New Zealand today is a stronger fairer and more confident nation than it was 7 years ago and it is. But the Prime Minister Helen Clark in detailing the Government’s achievements to date also conveyed this Government’s determination and commitment to build on the good work that has been done. Yes indeed there is still a great deal more to do. But to see the sorts of stunts of the so-called revolving leadership of the National Party—donning tiki T-shirts to go to Waitangi and pink T-shirts to go to the Big Gay Out as though doing that is somehow a statement of policy and makes it connected to New Zealand and New Zealanders—shows that National is not only a party of hollow men; it is a party of shallow men. One of my constituents who listened to John Key’s speech on Tuesday said to me on the telephone the other day that it was the most profoundly shallow speech he had ever listened to. “Profoundly shallow” is a new concept—one that I think bears listening to. 
Pansy Wong wants to talk about substance. I came to this House in significant part because of the blight of unemployment on my neighbours—the blight of unemployment of the families of the good people of the central volcanic plateau. In the 7 years and 2 months that I have had the enormous privilege of serving as a Minister in Helen Clark’s Government the unemployment rate in my community of Taumarunui has declined by 60 percent. In Tokoroa the unemployment rate has been reduced by 73 percent. In Turangi it has been reduced by 87.5 percent and in my home town of Taupo we have gone from nearly 1000 people whose lives were blighted by unemployment to 60—a 94 percent decrease. 
Some 25 years ago as a new resident in the town of Taupo I along with some others helped to form the Taupo Employment Support Trust. Many good people have since been involved with that trust. Obviously I moved on from my involvement in it as a foundation trustee. Those people have been involved in providing some of the best-quality training and support services to unemployed people in that community and that district for a quarter of a century. Recently that trust wound up. Do members know why? It is because its purpose for existing—to support long-term unemployed people—simply did not require its existence any longer. It was a tough thing to decide for the current trustees. It obviously required winding up some people’s employment. They went on to other jobs as well. But there simply was not a justifiable purpose for the Taupo Employment Support Trust any longer. 
That is the business that this Government has been about for the last 7 years. So yes I say to Pansy Wong: substance. I say to Pansy Wong that as a Government we have been about the people’s business. And yes there is more to do because frankly if 60 people are still on the unemployment benefit in my home town that is 60 too many. But that is what passes for real action and real activity that means something to the people of New Zealand. 
I contrast that activity with the 10-minute superficial waffle that we heard the other day from the stand-up comedian opposite. He has already had the high point of his speaking career with his speech down in Christchurch. That speech was described by one prominent commentator as disappointing in its content and particularly disappointing in its delivery. What is more we now know that it was Mr English who wrote that speech not Mr Key. Mr Key said he spent the summer working on this masterpiece. Actually Bill English is on the record as telling us he actually wrote the speech because Mr Key does not know about social policy. So this is the brave new leadership of the National Party! John Key did not spend the summer writing a speech because he did not know anything about the subject. We saw just how substantial a leader he is with that shameful jaunt to Waitangi with a 12-year-old child hauled along as a camera trophy. I think many thousands of New Zealanders felt ashamed to see a senior politician in our country engaged in such a stunt on a day that most New Zealanders wanted to celebrate their nationhood. 
 Many things have been talked about in the last short while in the wake of the release of the Unicef report. It is important that the issues raised in that report are looked at are discussed and are considered by New Zealanders. It is fair to say that the report taken in its time from the mid-1990s through to the beginning of this decade makes a fair representation of the way things were. But a great deal has been done since then. The Working for Families tax credits have substantially changed the material well-being of thousands of New Zealand’s families. By 2008 we will have reduced the percentage of children living below 50 percent of the median income level from 14.6 percent to 4.5 percent. That will place New Zealand in the top four countries in the OECD alongside Denmark Finland and Norway. That is a case of the Government working on the serious business of the people—with New Zealanders for New Zealanders. 
I have referred to the unemployment rate and the overall benefit rate. If one adds them all up one finds that 30 percent fewer New Zealanders—in actual numbers putting aside population growth—are on all benefits. The total number of people who are reliant on any benefit is down by 30 percent. In regards to the Children’s Nutrition Survey we have heard cheap stunts again about child nutrition but the survey carried out in 2002 found that 84 percent of 11 to 14-year-olds ate breakfast. That data not used in the Unicef report released this week would have put New Zealand in the top three. 
Nathan Guy 
: More spin. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: No this is a substantial research report. Spin is someone putting on a tiki T-shirt and flaunting it around Waitangi because one thinks for some reason that a tiki T-shirt and someone else’s child being towed around as a trophy is a demonstration of leadership and then going down to the Big Gay Out and putting on a pink shirt because one thinks that that somehow proves one is identifying with that part of the community. Well it does not. 
Leadership is not about those sorts of stunts; it is about having real aspirations for New Zealand and for New Zealanders. It is about keeping one’s feet on the ground so that although one has the aspirations one also has the ability to map out practical actions that will take New Zealanders towards the goals and aspirations that they share. That is the leadership Helen Clark has given as a Prime Minister: the ability to take a big idea and promote it and to lead it but also the ability and determination to map out the practical steps that we all have to take from day one in order to share the responsibility of reaching the goals that New Zealanders have. That is what leadership is about. It is about as different to the stunts we have seen opposite as one can get.