Hayes John: General Debate 
Hayes John: General Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4596] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 There spoke a true Labour battler. Much of what George Hawkins said I agree with because I see it in my own electorate where 60-odd people lost their jobs in Greytown a couple of weeks ago. I reflect on why those jobs were lost. They were lost because of the profligate incompetent management of the previous Government for the last 9 years. Why are we having such a significant problem and having to pay high interest rates? It is because the Labour administration over the last 9 years spent far more money than it owned and it took from our pockets. We see this in areas like accident compensation which I pointed out to the House yesterday—a $2 billion black hole. We see it in the energy area where that Government had promised but unfunded home insulation in rising electricity prices and in a transmission network that was in need of significant repair. We see it in the district health boards including the Wairarapa District Health Board where there is a combined debt of $160 million for the 2008-09 year. The previous Government was an incompetent bunch of managers. We see $2 billion worth of deferred maintenance in State houses and we see a totally dysfunctional immigration service. I point the bone in the direction of Lianne Dalziel who for a period took responsibility as Minister of Immigration. What problems did she solve? None. 
Given that this is a general debate I would like to record the passing last week of a significant New Zealander Ron Crocombe. His memorial service was held in Auckland yesterday and his funeral will be held in Rarotonga later this week. Ron was a great New Zealander and a significant Pacific scholar. One of the things he pointed out was China’s ravenous appetite for resources. He notes in his research work that China’s arable land is being converted into factories and urban sites so China has gone into outsourcing for example to the Philippines where Chinese minorities run most of the economy in that country. If we think about China’s extension into Indonesia where it is becoming a Chinese reef then if Indonesia is becoming a Chinese reef certainly the Philippines is becoming China’s rice paddy. 
Ron Crocombe pointed out that Oceania is the second ring in Chinese strategy: its strategic desire to acquire resources and ultimately to support the activities of its blue-water navy. China does not have to conquer the small island countries in the Pacific; it just buys them. We are seeing that happening every day. Evading investment restrictions is no problem for Chinese State agencies. They just buy up the means of production and distribution through for example financing mines financing infrastructure and developing railways. In Papua New Guinea I think it is fair to argue China has accelerated the deforestation of virgin jungles and it is doing exactly the same in the Solomon Islands. Where is that timber ending up? It is all ending up in China and by 2030 all of the virgin forests in the Solomons and Papua New Guinea the tropical rainforests will have been depleted. 
It is interesting to reflect on Crocombe’s thesis that China is exactly targeting the same parts of the Pacific that Japan did in the Second World War: Papua New Guinea Polynesia and Micronesia. For example it has just built a satellite tracking station in Kiribati to monitor its State space programme. I think we need more Ron Crocombe’s.