Coleman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Coleman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8680] 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I must say it is good to be back in the House and I trust everyone had an excellent break. Certainly there is some serious work for the Government to get down to this year as outlined quite clearly in the Prime Minister’s excellent statement tabled this afternoon. Clayton Cosgrove the member who has just spoken wants to know what the economic vision is. I think the Prime Minister has spelt it out very clearly on multiple occasions. We want to see the gap close between New Zealand and Australia. We want to see incomes in this country rise. We want to see GDP rise. It has been spelt out absolutely clearly and that member knows it very very well. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: We want to see it. What are you doing about it? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: If that member reads the Prime Minister’s 9500-word statement which was tabled this afternoon he will see there is a very clear programme of work there to get the economy going. The Prime Minister said quite clearly that the economy is the No. 1 priority for this Government this year. Those on the Labour side of the House may have been expecting a detailed Budget statement but I think there was plenty in that statement that clearly indicated the direction the John Key Government is going in this year. There was a lot there about tax reform and a lot of new stuff. He has ruled out some options and he has said other stuff will happen. 
Those members over there say they do not like the idea of an increase in GST. Well it very much depends on how that question is put. If we go to someone and say “Do you want GST to go up?” there will not be too many New Zealanders who will agree with that. But if we say to someone “Would you rather have more money in your hands each week to spend and you control how it is spent would you be prepared to have an increase in GST?” quite frankly the overwhelmingly majority of New Zealanders would say “Yes.” Those members can try to twist it around how they like but the idea of the tax changes that the Prime Minister has foreshadowed today will incentivise work get people back into the workforce and give people the incentive to get off benefits and grow the economy. For 9 years Labour was in charge of a system where the incentives were totally wrong and where it made more sense for people to stay on benefits rather than get out and do that little bit of extra part-time work to earn that extra money for their families. 
I can tell members that Labour members complain about the Prime Minister’s statement today but one had only to listen to Phil Goff’s speech to hear a speech that had absolutely no substance in it. There is only one member here today who would have thought that that speech was good and that is Shane Jones. Quite frankly I think that speech has brought the leadership challenge forward by about 6 months if not a year. That was a dire speech from Mr Goff today. There was not a single idea and there is no response from the Labour benches because those members know it is absolutely true. The two big ideas Phil Goff has come out with this year are to cap chief executive officers’ salaries and something to do with Jackie Blue’s electorate office—some incoherent ramble he spent several minutes of his speech talking about today. 
Those members are all criticism but they have no ideas. The reason for that is that Labour had 9 years to grow the economy. It wasted the best years of our economy by shrinking it. Under that party when it was in power the tradable sector of the economy where we earn all our income shrank by 10 percent. There was economic growth but that was just on the basis of debt and consumption. We had this situation where New Zealanders had access to easy credit they borrowed more and more and the economy grew but in the end it turned out to be a house of cards. The only way this economy will grow is if we encourage exports get the tradable sector growing again and get tourism going—another major part of our economic growth. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: How? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well it is pretty obvious. I ask members whether they know what has been happening in terms of the signing of free-trade agreements. The Government has gone out aggressively in the last year opening up new markets for New Zealand goods. The Prime Minister took the tourism portfolio. He recognised that that was a crucial area in which we could grow the economy. We will see revenue from that increase at quite a rate over the next couple of years because that is where the emphasis is going. 
The problem for Phil Goff is that he has no credibility. He got up in the House today and said “I do not believe in GST.” He has been around the circle twice in Government. He voted for GST in 1986. Actually he was a big fan of Roger Douglas’ flat tax. Phil Goff’s problem essentially is that he does not know whether he is left or right. He is caught in between. He has been around way too long and basically his parliamentary record has completely caught up with him. The idea he had last week about capping chief executive officers’ salaries is all very well but when we look at the historical record we see that Phil Goff was right behind the State Sector Act. He was part of a Government that spent a long time trying to raise the pay for public servants. He wanted the salaries of chief executive officers to go up and up so when he finally gets an opportunity at the start of the political year a crucial year for Phil Goff all he can come out with is one idea which is absolutely contradicted by his political record. 
Meanwhile National reckons we were elected on the basis of three things. One was to get the economy right. John Key was the man whom the public trusted to conduct effective stewardship of the New Zealand economy and the public have faith in the plan that he is putting forward. The second thing they elected the Government on was to sort out law and order. Frankly under that lot over there it is a fact that people did not feel safe in their houses. The third crucial issue that we have been elected on is to get education right. Back in 1998 before Helen Clark became the Prime Minister she said it was totally unacceptable that one in five New Zealand kids leave school not able to read or write properly. They could not read the editorial of the  
Dominion 
 each day or the front-page headlines. Ten years later when she left office the statistic was the same. Basically under Labour the education system failed New Zealand students. John Key has said that we will not stand for it and that education will be a key plank to getting the country going in the long term. We will make sure that New Zealand children come out of school being able to read and write. National standards will be a key part of that. We campaigned on that election plank. 
People knew what they were getting and Kelvin Davis agrees with it. He cannot say it now that he is a Labour MP but he knows what happened when he was principal at his school. When he took it over he knew the standards for reading and writing. That member made a great difference at his school but it was through testing children showing parents how their children stood at a national standard and how they should improve. I think of it like this: there will be many people out there watching and listening who have kids. When they go along to the Plunket nurse they know exactly how their child is doing on that growth chart. They want to know whether their little son or daughter is below the norm or above the norm and whether he or she is doing OK on height and weight. National standards are just like that. A parent at a school wants to know whether their child is below average or doing OK or whether he or she is a gifted child. Why should people in the poorest parts of New Zealand those whom Labour claims to represent be putting up with their children failing—why should they? It is not good enough. 
John Key has said he will get the economy right. There is a clear plan there but those members have not even bothered to read the statement. There is a clear vision for where we want to go in terms of catching up with the Australians. There is a clear plan in the education system. We will make sure that children can read and write and the first step in that is knowing how they are doing. There is a clear plan on law and order. We have brought in penalties and sentences that make it way way tougher for criminals out there to go about their dastardly deeds. 
I can tell members that Labour is in league with the teachers unions. Those Labour members over there are basically the provisional wing of the teachers unions. They know that 30 percent of teachers in New Zealand are not up to standard; 70 percent are excellent. I can tell members that an excellent teacher leading a successful school would want to be measured. The reality is that if teachers have nothing to worry about they are doing a good job. Those doing good jobs will not worry about the parents and their school being able to see exactly how the children are doing. 
I can tell members that the thing about the Prime Minister is that he has brought a focus to the job that time-expired Labour politicians like Phil Goff once had but do not have any more. John Key lays things out clearly in terms of the economy education and law and order and most important it is a programme that New Zealanders believe in. It is a great programme. I encourage members opposite to read it. It will be good for the future of New Zealand.