Gosche Mark: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Gosche Mark: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14857] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 This is an interesting debate following on from question time earlier when I watched the Leader of the Opposition questioning the Prime Minister as if he cared about low-paid families and worried about them being able to buy butter and cheese. He is the man who said on 20 December: “We would like to see wages drop.” 
Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition—the man who would be the Prime Minister—that statement was recorded by a young man with a tape-recorder who was sitting in his vicinity. The young man who recorded Mr Key’s comments is called a journalist and journalists are inclined to write things down and print them in newspapers. Of course Mr Key said he was only joking—that was his excuse—and that he actually wanted to bring down wages in Australia. We are still waiting for the National Party’s policy on how it will lower wages in Australia. We are very interested in hearing what that is because it was Mr Key’s second excuse. He said that it was a joke; it was about bringing down wages in Australia. 
That same man Mr Key expressed concern in the House today on behalf of average families and asked how they cope with the cost of living. When we read the list of flip-flops and changes we can understand why this man is saying these sorts of things. Members should contrast that with this Labour Government’s actual record. Let us look at the graphs that show what real household incomes have grown by and let us look at the 7 years that this graph I am holding deals with. It is a real household income graph that shows that real household income has increased by 25 percent under this Government’s policies. You see we have policies for the future. One need only look at the record of the last 7 or 8 years to see that they have worked. One need only look at that statistic alone—real household incomes have increased by 25 percent. 
The National Party leader said: “We would like to see wages drop.” Well I can understand that. He does not like the fact that we have got wages up. He would like to drop wages. When that got reported—and he did not like it being reported—and he could not get the media to go away he had to contact the publishers of the newspaper to get them to tell the journalists to retract it. What we have now is a letter from the workers—the journalists—who work for the  
New Zealand Herald 
 to their boss to the owner saying that this is unacceptable. I agree with them. 
I was a journalist and you Madam Speaker have family members who were journalists and who were proud of their craft and proud of their principles. One of those principles which is longstanding in a free and open democracy is that the owner or the publisher does not interfere in editorial freedom. That is exactly what the  
New Zealand Herald 
 journalists are telling the paper’s owners right now because of John Key and the National Party standing over the owners to get his words retracted. 
Well John Key might like to retract a whole lot of words because there are a few here. In July 2007 John Key said: “We wouldn’t have sent troops to Iraq.” and many people reading those words which I have written down in front of me would say: “That bloke has the right ideas.” He said he would not send troops to Iraq. Who could disagree with that? This Government made that decision and New Zealanders are proud of it. It has proved to be the absolutely correct decision as we see Governments in the UK the US and Australia struggling with their decisions around that issue. So one would have to say that that was an excellent statement made by John Key. He said in July 2007 that he would not have sent troops to Iraq. But whoops! In September 2003 Mr Key said that New Zealand was missing in action during the invasion of Iraq. 
He changed his views conveniently. Was that a joke or was he talking about somebody else? Was he talking about the Australians as he was with the wage gaffe he made? Then he said we should have had New Zealand troops in Iraq—or maybe he was talking about the Australians. Maybe it was really a joke and he did not know that somebody was next to him with a microphone and a tape-recorder. 
It is the same when we look at the words he spoke on 6 November. He said he firmly believed in climate change and always had. Well that is a sound statement. That is decisive leadership from a man who would be the Prime Minister. But whoops! Somebody was there with a tape-recorder in May 2005 when John Key said that climate change is a complete and utter hoax. Can this man make up his mind? Is he joking? Is he talking about New Zealand or Australia? We have just heard Tim Groser talking about a parallel universe. Well he described his leader very well because in May 2005 John Key said climate change is a complete and utter hoax but in November 2006 he said he is and always has been a firm believer in climate change. 
The list goes on. This is a very good statement: “We will keep interest-free student loans for tertiary students.” said John Key just a month or two ago. But in 2005 he said that interest-free loans were an unaffordable and irresponsible cost to the country. That was the Leader of the Opposition’s opinion just 3 years ago. He said in October 2003 that the anti-nuclear legislation is bad news for economic growth and for our job market. But by September 2007 he said that National will stick with the anti-nuclear legislation. That was said by Mr Key whom we are allowed to call slippery because everybody in the country is calling him slippery. Every piece in every paper I have read in the last few weeks has called him “Slippery Mr Key”. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Why do they call him slippery? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Well because one hears about those sorts of things. And it is a real problem when as a local member of Parliament he comes in here and asks question after question—and he gets his man down the back from Whangarei to ask them if he has not got the energy himself—about affordable housing. We have just heard about that from the previous National speaker too. 
When we made sure that the land in Hobsonville was retained so that we could in fact have affordable housing—at the time I was Minister of Housing—it was outside the urban limit so we could not immediately start building on it. We had to wait for the proper processes. It was described by John Key as economic vandalism. He said National was committed to cancelling it. That was said in June 2006 by the local member for Hobsonville one John Key. But then “Slippery John Key” said in February 2008 that he is in favour of the affordable housing that might be built there. In fact I heard the interview where he was criticising the Labour Government for not getting on and doing it quickly enough. It was economic vandalism back in June 2006 and now we are being criticised for not doing it fast enough! Well it is no wonder they call him slippery. 
John Key cannot actually hold a position on some things for more than 12 hours. He told the media at 7 o’clock one morning that National had no firm date for Treaty settlements—absolutely no firm date. He was on national television telling everybody that National did not have a firm date on Treaty settlements but by 5 p.m. that night he had gone back talked to the people in his office and they had said: “But John we do have a policy. We do have a date.” At least on that occasion he was big enough to say he got it wrong. 
How much more does he need to get wrong before people realise that he is a person who if put in charge of a Government could not keep the same opinion for 12 hours? He could not understand a brief from the people who work in his office and tell him what to say. He could not get out of the fact that someone had a microphone next to him when he said he wanted New Zealand workers’ wages to drop so he went and heavied the owners of the newspaper—who have been running a campaign about freedom of speech and who use their paper every month and every week to have freedom of speech—and the owners of that newspaper stood over the journalists and told them they had to retract what they wrote. The owners were at the beck and call of the National Party. I want to know what self-respecting journalist in this country would put up with that and sit back and accept it. Thank goodness the  
New Zealand Herald 
 journalists have said: “Enough.” 
In my last comments I will talk about the latest announcement by the National Party on public servants. National has said it will take an “enough is enough” approach. It sounds a bit like the Destiny Church—it was the Exclusive Brethren last time now it is the Destiny Church. National says that enough is enough and John will take the axe to them. Oh but not really. National will just go and have a look and see whether there are too many public servants doing too little.  
Moana Mackey 
: They won’t tell us which ones. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: National will not take one out it said. But it will look and see whether it can have a sinking-lid policy. 
When we became Ministers in a new Government we found that there was no capacity to do the work that was required to figure out how we could overcome an infrastructure problem in New Zealand because National had not built any roads in Auckland for a whole 9 years. National had not spent any money on public transport and it did not have policies on anything that would in fact make our economy grow. So “slippery” is probably too polite a term for the nonsense we hear coming out of the mouths of Opposition members and particularly from their leader John Key. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Before I call the next speaker I advise the House that this speaking slot the twelfth slot is split into two speeches of 5 minutes. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes.