Parker David: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Sitting date: 12 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7487. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 This year has seen a decline in the National Party’s credibility. It has also seen a rise in the credibility of the Labour Party and in particular of David Shearer. David Shearer’s credibility has grown during the year and most forcefully in the last month. I thought that was apparent in the speech he gave in the House today. It was a mature speech. It had humour in it. It was not forced. It the sort of speech you would expect of a senior politician. It was not as the National Party has tried to characterise it some sort of jokey speech that was addressing trained seals behind him. That was John Key’s attempt at humour which by contrast was shallow. 
I was asked earlier in the month what I thought of David Shearer’s performance this year. They asked me what his score was out of 10. I did not have quick answer at the time so I did really give a smart-arse answer. I am not especially good at those. But I did think about it afterwards. I thought: “What is the proper score for David Shearer out of 10 this year?”. Well I think it is between seven and 11 because that is the narrowing of the gap between National and Labour this year. If we look at the worst of the polls the gap between National and Labour has narrowed by seven points. If you look at the better polls the narrowing of the gap between National and Labour is by 11 points. The gap is narrowing. 
Why is that? Why is the National Party in decline in its credibility? Well it has been a year of poor political management. It has been a year of scandal and mishap. The Government has been diverted from paying attention to the proper management of the economy and as a consequence we have a stagnant economy and we have record numbers of people going to Australia. The list of scandals and mistakes is longer than I have seen it since I have been in Parliament and I have been here for a decade now. Just a year ago we had the tea tapes. We had the Prime Minister using the power of the State disgracefully calling in the police against the media during an election. Lo and behold a month or two after the election they did not want to proceed with the prosecution because it would have been so embarrassing for the Prime Minister and John Banks to turn up in court and pretend that their public stunt gone wrong was somehow an illegal action on the part of the media against whom the police were used. Then we had the Prime Minister deeming Mr Ambrose guilty in a way in which he would never even do with John Banks despite a written record showing that Mr Banks broke the law. 
Then we had the ACC debacle. We had Nick Smith having to resign because he as ACC Minister wrote a letter on behalf of Bronwyn Pullar advocating for her and then he misled the Prime Minister about having done so. So he had to fall on his sword. Then we had mayhem in ACC. We had Judith Collins kicking out the chair and losing the chief executive. Most of the board went. We had privacy breaches—another scandal. 
What was next? We had the centrepiece of the Budget being improved student outcomes through larger class sizes. What a nonsense! That was the end of the reputation of Hekia Parata whose ignominy has been added to every time she stands up in the House and fails in her duty to act competently as a Minister. Yet she stays on as the Minister of Education. Bring back the Minister of Police into that role is what— 
Grant Robertson 
: I never thought I’d hear you say that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I never thought I would say that Grant. But I saw that in a column from one of the commentators recently and I thought about how far the star of Hekia Parata has fallen. That also besmirched the reputation of the Minister of Finance because he was the other driver for that policy. 
Then we had Murray McCully. Murray McCully and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—what a disaster that was! It was well brought to light by Phil Goff who showed that he is more than a match for Mr McCully. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: It’s a disgrace—maligning people in this House. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am maligning people in the House. I am maligning Mr McCully because he was terrible. 
Then we had pokie machines being traded for a convention centre. Then we had John Banks who sought donations asked for them from Skycity was given them personally in an envelope knew that they were from Skycity and said they were anonymous. Then of course we had the link with Dotcom and the fact that he said that he did not know he had donations. That has already been covered by someone else. But the Dotcom link then comes through in the next scandal that beset the National Party. A spy agency despite the fact that the residency for Dotcom was celebrated in the largest display of fireworks ever not just in Auckland but in the whole of New Zealand and that it was paid for by Dotcom like the Keystone Cops under Mr Key missed it. Then John Key forgot about it and forgot about it again and again. 
Meanwhile what is happening to the economy? Well the centrepiece of the Government’s economic programme for this 3 years asset sales went off the rails. Asset sales were meant to be the biggest part of the economic plan for this country for this 3 years. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: We won. You lost. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is right. He says: “We won. You lost.” That is Simon Bridges. New Zealanders lost. That hubris on the part of Simon will come back to haunt him. Asset sales were never a cure for the economic malaise of this country. Changing who owned what already existed did nothing to increase the output of New Zealand. It did not create one extra new job. All it did was over time increase power prices—we know that because that was proven at the select committee—and increase assets inequality over time as those assets instead of being owned by all New Zealanders would end up owned disproportionately by the same 10 percent of New Zealand that this Government always acts for. 
At Budget time we also had disclosure for the first time which again showed Steven Joyce to be the chief spinner for the National Party. He was rolled out at the time of the last election to say that the Labour Party was telling lies when we said that we were accounting for the proceeds of the asset sales but were not accounting for the loss of share of profits. Sure enough come the Budget the Government had to admit it—a deficit that was $100 million per annum worse because of asset sales. 
In the meantime what has happened to the economy? Well the Government promised that people could say goodbye to higher taxes not their loved ones. That is what the National Party was elected on in 2008. What has happened since? There have been record levels of people leaving New Zealand for Australia—the highest ever in the history of New Zealand. More than 175000 have left since National took office. That is more than the population of Hamilton it is more than the population of Napier and Hastings combined and it is more than the population of Dunedin and Invercargill combined. Some areas have lost 4 percent of their population—4 percent of their population. Despite that record loss of people we have got unemployment at the highest rate in 13 years—over 7 percent. What did the unemployment numbers do? They surprised the Government. Government members said that they thought that it was inconsistent yet the banks had already forecast it going to over 7 percent. The quarterly employment survey had also shown an increase in unemployment. 
We have had an increase in child poverty and inequality. I do not have time to cover that but I am sure my colleague Jacinda Ardern will do that justice. We have had exports down. The Government says there is no crisis in manufacturing. Well it is true that primary manufacturing holds up when terms of trade go against you—that is true. But non-primary manufacturing really suffers and that is what is suffering. We are losing jobs in that sector. This Government refuses to pull the levers of power that are open to it. The Government says that the Labour Party stands for nothing. We stand for a neutral investment signal that is fair through a capital gains tax and that also improves the economy. We stand for universal KiwiSaver and changes to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act so that the Reserve Bank does not give primacy to inflation targeting over things like the exchange rate and full employment. 
The last thing I would say is that the messaging of the Government is now becoming desperate. For years it said that we in Labour were fiscally irresponsible then just this week we have got John Key saying there were $20 billion of surpluses in 3 years under Labour and because of that we did not spend enough on child poverty. Despite the fact that we lifted many people out of child poverty through Working for Families the truth is we were responsible fiscally. We have partially rehabilitated our reputation in respect of fiscal responsibility this year. We left the lowest Government debt in the world and the lowest unemployment in the world and this Government has squandered that advantage.