Power Simon: General Debate 
Power Simon: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15727] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 Members of the National Party were watching the Labour Party congress over the weekend with interest. We were watching because a Government that is as far behind in the polls and as out of touch with New Zealanders as that Government has a lot of work to do in order to get back on the right track. We know that that particular congress did only two things. 
The first thing was to run workshops to work out how to rort the legislation that Labour brought into this House. That was the first thing that the Labour Party did. Senior Cabinet Ministers were sitting in workshops and working out how to get around legislation that they had worked very hard to shove down the throats of hard-working New Zealanders who wanted to have a say in this year’s general election. 
The second thing that we saw from Helen Clark Michael Cullen and Labour’s answer to the Spice Girls was a direct attack on other political figures in this House. There were direct personal attacks from four members of Parliament three of them Cabinet Ministers. We know that the squalor in South Auckland should have been worthy of Maryan Street’s attention but no she had time to write lyrics to a song that she stood up and sang at the Labour Party conference. We know that the Minister for Social Development and Employment should have had plenty of things to think about with the pressures that families are under at the moment from the rising prices for food and fuel and from rising interest rates. Blocks of cheese are now around the $14 to $16 mark. But that Minister did not want to know about any of that; she does not care about any of that. She had to spend her time scripting the words to a song at the Labour Party conference. The Minister of Women’s Affairs had time on her hands too while families are feeling the pressure of rising food prices to sit and scribble down a little ditty to sing at the Labour Party conference. There was also someone else involved; I cannot remember who it was. 
The cost of accident compensation levies is to increase under the administration of the Hon Maryan Street in a matter of weeks and she had the time to sing a song at the Labour Party conference. We know that Lianne Dalziel was far too smart to let herself be caught up in all of that but I can assure members that that will not be the last time for the public of New Zealand to see that particular song being sung on their TV screens. What we do know is that at $250000 a pop those Ministers with all the economic pressures that are on New Zealand families today had the time to sit down and compose a song of personal abuse against the Leader of the Opposition. We can imagine what an outcry there would have been if in 1998 Doug Graham Don McKinnon and Paul East had stood up at a National Party conference and sung a song about Helen Clark. We can imagine the outcry there would have been and what the media would have made of that. But the Labour Party has sunk lower than it has ever sunk before. 
Violent crime is out of control. Did we hear anything come out of the Labour Party congress about how to make New Zealand’s households safer? We heard not one single thing about that. Did we hear one single policy about dealing with rising food prices rising interest rates and rising fuel prices? No; we had time for a little comic relief from those highly paid Ministers who should be getting on with the job of helping New Zealand families to deal with the economic downturn. The Labour members have squandered 10 years of economic growth. Their attitude is that they are OK on their big fat salaries. They do not care about the pressures that New Zealand families feel under today because they could just leave that conference in their Crown cars and wander home to have a glass of wine despite the pressures that New Zealanders are under in their homes. 
The Labour members do not want to talk about their record over the last 8½ years but let me just say this right now: we will be talking about their record. We will be talking about their record right up to the election day and we will be reminding New Zealanders of all the things that those members do not want the public to be reminded of. We will be talking about the wasted money in the areas of corrections and courts and about the huge increase in violent crime—nearly 43 percent since Labour took office. We will remind New Zealanders of the appalling record of the last 8½ years.