King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:678;Page:912] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I have been fascinated by the National Party putting up such a defence for agriculture today. We can only assume that the National Party is in trouble with farmers around the country. It all comes from their decision to sell off some of our prime farm land. The farmers are now in revolt. The best that National members could do in their defence of agriculture was to go back to the days of David Lange. I have to say why did you not go back to the days of Rob Muldoon? I am sure you would have found even more interesting things to dredge up for the Wednesday debate. Now we know where John Key stands when it comes to better public services—the things he said about public services before the election. It is public service by 0800 number call centres—0800 Government. That is what we have got for public services now. Of course those call centres are in New Zealand at the moment but Mumbai here we come. 
So perhaps John Key ought to take some time to learn what a public service is. You see “public” means relating to people and “service” means an act to help or assist. So the latest public service to join 0800 Government in this “aspirational” way that the National Party is putting forward policy is Housing New Zealand Corporation. It has 69000 people who are its clients and most of them are the most vulnerable people in our society. So I just hope the whole 69000 do not decide to call on the same day. But they have been told that they are now going to get a smarter faster fairer service by an 0800 number. Well it reminded me very much of Tony Ryall’s slogan. “Better sooner more convenient” was his health slogan in the last 3 years. Well of course we have got more people waiting for service we have got more district health boards in debt we have more district health boards not meeting their health targets and we have got more vulnerable people waiting or having their services cut including my colleague David Cunliffe’s own mother who has had her service cut. So this is a Government by slogan. 
Well I have got a better slogan for them for the Housing New Zealand Corporation policy. It is called “dopey dumb and dicey” because 69000 people have been told that all they have to do is just make one phone call on an 0800 number and they can get help straight away. Well does it work? Because when you measure public services you always want to measure if they are working. I heard the Minister of Finance say today that this is how they measure them what they are doing and how well they are working. Let us take a social worker from Glen Innes. She works with the most vulnerable in that area. She decided that she wanted to work on behalf of a client who came to see her. It took her nine phone calls and two personal visits in her car down to the Housing New Zealand Corporation office before she got to leave a message on an answerphone for a tenancy officer. Unfortunately she had to sit for 7 minutes on the phone line before she even got to leave the answerphone message. She is a qualified and experienced person who knows the system and she could not work the new 0800 system. It is not the old 0800 system. It is the new way to provide a smarter faster more convenient service! 
Seventy jobs are to go in Housing New Zealand Corporation and the offices are now to be closed to customers. They open by appointment only. It sounds like something very shady when you have to go in with a sort of bag over your head because you do not want to be seen. It can be opened only by appointment and that is if you are going to have a needs assessment. There was a wonderful cartoon in the paper yesterday where all the Housing New Zealand Corporation officers are hiding behind their desks saying: “No no. We’re not stopping them coming in. We just want them to use the 0800 number service.” There will be staff sitting in offices and people will not be able to go through the door. They can go only if they have made an appointment. 
Then we are told that this will be a very good service because now they will have a relationship with the corporation. I am trying to picture this relationship with the corporation. You know a corporation is a business. So how do you wrap your arms around that? How do you talk to a corporation when you are a tenant of Housing New Zealand Corporation and you want to talk about your housing needs? You normally talk to a person and that is what a relationship is. This is a dopey policy. It is not going to work. It is not faster smarter or fairer. It is going to be hopeless.