Maharey Steve: Appropriation (2004/05 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Maharey Steve: Appropriation (2004/05 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:619;Page:14954] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I wish Jeanette Fitzsimons all the best for her recovery from what seems to be a flu that has certainly gone around the House. For those at home who are listening to this debate on the radio I remind them that they are listening to the end of the debate on the Government’s Budget. It was an excellent Budget and that has been borne out by the fact that there has been so little criticism of it over the last little while. The Government members delivered that Budget and we have waited on this side of the House to get engaged in the cut and thrust of ideas as they came up particularly from the National Party—the pretenders to the throne. We waited to hear what National members would put on the table how they would spend the money and what they saw as the priorities. 
We have waited in vain. We have not had one single policy idea from “Moga Don” or any other National Party members throughout this debate. The best they could do over the last little while was to say that they would reshuffle their members so that National looks like a Government-in-waiting. What did they do? They have promoted the organisation of the National Party to slot No. 3 in the National line-up. New Zealanders need to know that National believes that its own organisation—keeping its members in line—is the third most important issue for the National Party. So Simon Power my colleague from the middle of the North Island is now “senior whip No. 3”. When he goes home and people ask him what he is doing to advance the country he will say: “I am organising the National Party; I am whipping them.” That is what he will say. 
National members are saying that that reorganisation means they are ready for Government. Their first term MP Mr Key on the second bench is their finance spokesperson. The previous leader Bill English who is on the front bench now cannot be in the same room with Mr Maurice Williamson. If Mr Williamson walks in Mr English walks out. If Mr English walks back into the room Mr Williamson does not walk out—he has too much cheek—so Mr English has to go back out again. Ms Rich is now agonising over whether to stay with this National Party. She is a woman of integrity. She is a woman who believes in fairness and decency and she knows that work-for-the-dole time-limited benefits forced immunisation fines for not taking one’s kids to work if one is a beneficiary—and that is all—is the National Party plan of the 1990s. It did not work then. It made people mean. It made them the worst kinds of New Zealanders. New Zealanders did not like that behaviour. Ms Rich knows that and she is thinking of leaving. Mr Sowry has already gone. Dr Lynda Scott is a first-term MP; one would think she would have her sap rising would one not? She has been here for only one term—for only a little while. If National thought it was winning and would take over the running of the country would not a first-term MP keen on health issues want to stay want to be here and want to be part of all that? 
Mr Brash leads all this. He leads it by not being in the House. As Mike Moore used to say: “Isn’t it strange we’ve struggled so hard to get into Parliament and we never turn up here.” Mr Brash is on his provincial tour around the country and when he has time he goes to Australia and bags this country. He says that we are just another Pacific Island State. We are not. We are a First World country. We have First World infrastructure. We have First World incomes. We have First World industry. We have First World attitudes education and a health system one after the other. We are not a Pacific Island State—“just a Pacific Island State” as he likes to say. But then Mr Brash likes to go on all the time with this kind of insinuation that things are wrong. He gets a few facts wrong all the time. He comes into the Chamber and says all the time that the world is about to end. He is always telling us the problem. At Orewa he did that and he got it wrong. He told us about crime and how National would build $500 million worth of new prisons. When people asked “What for?” he said that maybe we would just double the number of beds in the cells. He got it wrong. 
He tells us about welfare and says that we are so much worse off here than Australia. Australia has more people on welfare than we do. Its unemployment level is higher than the unemployment level here. He gets it wrong. On something like the economy time and time again he gets it wrong. He tells us about these policies that were 20 years’ bad luck and led to no real gain. And then by some sort of magic when the Labour Party arrives suddenly things start to pick up. We do OK. We get more growth we get better wages—we get all these kinds of things. Is that supposed to be luck? Even Dr Brash knows that 5 years’ later it is not luck. 
This is a good Government leading a country that is doing very well. People are sick and tired of the hollow insinuation no facts doom-laden politics when there is no answer. I say to Dr Brash: If the country is in such a mess where are the problems? If the country is in such a mess where are the answers to these so-called problems? If the country is in such a mess why do 80 percent of New Zealanders report themselves as feeling pretty happy with the way things are? Why do they feel like that? Well I tell Dr Brash that the fact is that New Zealanders think this country of theirs is on a roll. After years of being told that they were going to get no gain without pain New Zealanders are finally seeing their lives steadily year after year month after month week after week getting better. That is what they have found over the last little while. Their economy is growing. Their regions are growing. Their wages are growing. They are better educated more healthy and better housed. They live in a country that the rest of the world—but not Dr Brash—thinks is a hot country to come to. Tourists are pouring into this country. They want to be part of a country that has a lifestyle like this that has food like we have that has wine like we have. They are saying: “Let me go and be part of that country.” Young people 20 to 29-years-old do not go out of the country as they used to. They see a life for themselves here. They see jobs here. They see opportunities here. They want to stay. They love going to New Zealand films. They love Peter Jackson. They love people like Sarah Ulmer winning gold medals. They love New Zealand music. They love switching on the radio and saying that 20 percent of what they listen to has been produced by a New Zealand band or artist. 
This is a fantastic country to live in. Those people have a real pride a real sense of identity and they love being part of a special unique group of people capable of doing anything. They like living in a country where they get a fair go. They like living in a country where they have opportunities to reach their potential. They love the lifestyle here. They love sharing in the dividend from all the hard work that has gone on. Working for Families is a fantastic policy. Sixty percent of New Zealanders will do better if they have a family under this Working for Families package. They will get about $100 extra in their pocket from this Government. Even the National Party has had to say: “We won’t take it off them we will let them keep it.” This is a fantastic policy. No wonder the polls have begun to change. They have begun to change because people are sick of the negativity of the National Party. They are sick of insinuation sick of no facts and sick of no policy. They are starting to turn on to a party that has had solid achievement over 5 years. We have a leader who has fought through for 5 years and who has led this nation in a way that makes us proud to be Kiwis and proud to be led by someone who has a brain in her head ideas to say and a vision for the future. This party on this side has the people and the policies but most of all it has the passion to lead this country. 
We want New Zealand to succeed. We want New Zealanders to have a better life. We want their families to get better their communities to get better and their nation to be one of the leading nations in the world. Unlike Dr Brash we do not call ourselves just anything. We call ourselves very special; we call ourselves unique. We call ourselves a mix of people who can stand up and be proud of ourselves because we have a special bond with each other and we have a special bond with the land that we live on. We understand that we live in the luckiest country in the world. Labour is saying to Dr Brash that he can reshuffle his team but it is time to stand for something and not against everything. Labour is clear on where it stands. We are on the side of Kiwis who want the best for their families their communities and their nation. That is why over the next year as we lead into the election period we will put the vision forward for this country against the negativity of the useless National Party.