Gosche Mark: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Gosche Mark: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2007. Volume:643;Page:12663. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is good to follow Rodney Hide—somebody who was talking about ideas somebody who in his time here has actually changed his politics and wants to discuss ideas. That is unlike the National members. The poor old National members are obsessing over there after 8 years in Opposition and looking forward to another 8 years. All they can do is to obsess about who will be in the Cabinet. But the problem for them is that it will not be any of them. They do not have to worry about who will be in Cabinet because—I have to tell them—they are in Opposition. They are in Opposition and that is where they will stay. They are obsessing about who will be in the Cabinet over on this side of the Chamber; it is a nice problem to have. It is a nice problem for the Prime Minister to have: who will make up her team going into the future and going into the Labour Party conference the weekend after next? 
I have a question for National members. Why does Mark Blumsky want to leave Parliament? Why is it that National has got him chained to the desk down here when he wants to go right now? He is desperate to get out of here. He says that the politics of the National Party are rotten and that he wants to get out. Maybe somebody should look at who is next on the list and then ask National members why they fear Mark Blumsky leaving this place before his time comes up at the next election. I think that is an interesting little question for National members to contemplate. 
When Helen Clark makes a speech to the Labour Party conference the weekend after next she will not be going there to tell the delegates that the war in Iraq is over. 
Jill Pettis 
: No. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Oh no she will not be telling them that—technically or not. She will not be going there to say: “We are going to put your doctors’ fees up.” No she will not be making that sort of speech. She will not be going there to say to our delegates: “We’re going to sell assets that you already own.” No she will not be doing that. I tell the House what she will do. She will know which party she is leading; she will not get to the conference and get her words all mixed up like the Leader of the Opposition over there did with his ums and ahs. 
John Key tried to put out policy but has given up that idea because it has gone just so badly wrong around doctors’ fees. After poor old John Key’s ums and ahs through his policy launch up stepped the undertaker this grim figure behind him—the Hon Tony Ryall. And what did Tony Ryall say? He said: “We don’t support Labour’s fees control system. We’ll be knocking it on the head.” He sounded like a bloody undertaker come to bury the National Party’s policy once and for all. He let the cat out of the bag; he said what National would do: put people’s doctors’ fees back up. Well National has to pay for the tax cuts somehow does it not? Doctors’ fees and prescription fees will have to go up because the market will take care of them. The market will determine doctors’ fees. Yeah right! 
New Zealanders know what the market did last time in the 1990s. People had to have a little plastic card issued by Jenny Shipley by the State to say that they were poor and that therefore they could get a cheaper visit to the doctor. Helen Clark will not be making that sort of speech to the Labour Party conference. She will be telling delegates about the halving of doctors’ fees about the prescription charges that have come down about the fact that this country has the lowest unemployment rate in the world because of Labour’s economic policies that we have more people in employment than ever before and that that number continues to grow. She will be telling them that we are doing something about the skills shortage which was actually created by the former National Government which scrapped apprenticeships and made tertiary education so expensive that it drove most talented New Zealanders offshore with a massive student loan—and of course this Government has put in place a dramatic piece of policy by taking interest off student loans to fix that issue. 
No the Prime Minister will be going to the conference to tell Labour delegates that the job is not done that we have to work hard in the future as a Government to make sure that we undo the damage that was done in the 1990s by the National Government by Jenny Shipley Gerry Brownlee and all that lot over on that side of the Chamber who want to go back to those days. They want to put up doctors’ fees and they want to put them at market rates. They want to say to young New Zealanders that they will pay a market interest rate on their student fees and on their student loans like they did in the 1990s. National wants to sell State houses—again. This Government has built 7500 houses and we are nearly getting back to the 13000 that the former National Government sold off. 
Jill Pettis 
: 13000 they sold. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: National sold 13000. The Government has rebuilt 7500. Those tenants who need help from the Government are about $120 a week better off just because of income-related rents. We have put money into the pockets of 360000 New Zealand families through Working for Families. That lot over on the other side of the Chamber voted against Working for Families. That is what our delegates will be hearing at the Labour Party conference.