Cunliffe David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Cunliffe David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7436] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Tihei mauri ora! Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa o ngaropu o te motu. I say welcome back to school to all the other parties here. It is good to see our colleagues here and I say happy New Year to them. 
I think it is good to be back in school and to see all the friendly faces of the support teams. It is good to see Allan Peachey back in one piece. It is good to see our colleagues in the Maori Party the Greens New Zealand First United Future and of course my Labour colleagues. It is fantastic to be back on the team in a very positive and upbeat mood at the start of a great year—a great year because it is great to be here in Government. It is great to be here serving the people of New Zealand. 
I had a marvellous holiday. I do not know about the rest of you but I took the family to the beach and we had some friends come in. I thought that Kiwis wherever I met them were in good humour. People were enjoying the sun—when it finally arrived. They were enjoying spending time with their families and they were enjoying the fact that more of them were feeling secure in their jobs and good in their schools. I thought there was a very very positive mood around New Zealand. 
As I was lying there on my backside with my feet up my cold beer in one hand I asked myself when I really thought about it what it was that Kiwis wanted. I think coming down to it it is really very simple is it not? They want a decent job so that they can provide for their families. They want to know they have a good school nearby to educate their children. They want to know that if their kids get sick or they get sick there is a good public health system they can rely on. And they want to know that the beaches they enjoy swimming at and the clean water that they drink will be here not only for them but for their tamariki and their mokopuna. At that level it ain’t complicated. 
But the question before New Zealanders now at the start of this year and in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement—her vision—is the same question that we ask ourselves on the beach: which of the major parties here before us has the record to deliver on that vision to ordinary Kiwis? And that is not hard either. Despite the millions that our opponents are able to spend on fancy consultants focus groups slick packaging sound bites YouTube and MySpace the reality is that we have been doing the mahi we have been doing the work. We have put 300000 people into jobs. We have cut the unemployment rate by 68 percent since we inherited the situation that Ruth Richardson and her friends left behind. In relation to my colleague Winnie Laban I do not think I have heard a better or more eloquent exposition of that legacy in a good long time—kia ora talofa fa’afetai lava to Winnie. 
So that is the choice before us. Is it a Government that has a proven record—it has the track record to prove it—and is committed to all the people of New Zealand but particularly those who need a handout who need an opportunity? Or do New Zealanders want to take the risk of somebody who cannot really decide it seems whether he is “Helen-lite” or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? There will be more on that in a moment. 
I thought the Prime Minister’s speech earlier in this debate was extraordinary. It was extraordinary in its boldness and it was extraordinary in the breadth of its vision. I find it very difficult to understand how anybody could now say not only that Helen Clark is not a seasoned and pragmatic deliverer of change but that she lacks vision. It is said of the leadership of the best leaders that when the job is done people will look back and say: “Hey we did it ourselves.” The job of leaders is to anticipate the way the world is moving then to respond to the power given to them freely by the group by the tribe to move the group forward and to face the future in a way that benefits all. Is not that the way Helen Clark works? Is not that the hallmark of this Labour Government? 
Of course the world is changing. Of course it is getting more difficult and more complicated. As if globalisation the rise of east Asia the post-9/11 terrorism and everything else was not complicated for the first time since the cold war the doomsday clock has gone forward again. We understand that once again we are grappling with the possibility that the human species has the power to cause its own extinction. That is not an overstatement. I have seen some really serious research that predicts that by the time we take account of the slowness of the world’s political systems to respond to the reality that is climate change and by the time we take into account the 50 to 100-year lag that exists from when we stop or reduce our emissions to the climate of the planet rebalancing it could well be too late. The Arctic tundra could thaw the ice caps could have melted and that in itself could release enough extra carbon into the atmosphere to continue the warming effect beyond our power to stop it. 
If people are saying there is a rebalancing towards green issues in that statement I say “amen” to that. It is not enough to get people in jobs. It is not enough to build good hospitals. It is not enough to have good schools. We have to have a planet that will sustain us now and in the future. If that is not bold—to reflect the reality of that challenge in public policy from the Treasury benches—I do not know what is. I am proud to be a part of this Clark-Labour team. I am very proud to work with a team like Helen and Michael whom New Zealanders know not only have the vision but have the pragmatism and the management skills to deliver. 
But as I said there is a contrast. On the other side of the House we have a man who I think is best described on the letterhead of the very apolitical and wonderful Business and Parliament Trust that I was flicking through. Here are the ways some people are described on the letterhead. These are the people who are on the trusteeship: Dr Pita Sharples CBE MP JP—a good list I think—Mr Lindsay Tisch MP JP; and Mr John Key MP TBC. TBC seems to ring a bell with me. He is TBC is he not? What do we know about him? He trumpets the fact that he was once a State house boy. I do not hold that against him. I am rather proud that he has made it. But what I cannot stomach is that this man who was the beneficiary of State intervention is dedicating his life to stopping other kids from getting the same chance. He is trying to sell the veneer that somehow he has discovered poverty when we have been working on it for two decades and that that is news. 
Hon Member 
: We’ll report him to Bill English! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Ah the co-leader the Dick Cheney of the National Party the power behind the throne the man who never smiles when the others clap for John Key. 
The paradox of John Key is twofold. In the first place he cannot afford to answer the question of whether he is really “Helen-lite” or whether he is really Don Brash in drag. Once the voters work that out some of them will not vote for him. If any of them work it out he cannot afford to lose that segment and still get into Government. That is why he is engaging in the age-old trick of multi-segment marketing—telling one thing to one group turning up in a pink T-shirt at the Big Gay Out and then telling  
Investigate 
 magazine that nothing has changed that he stands for the same hard right agenda that Nicky Hager exposed in  
The Hollow Men 
. 
The second paradox of John Key is that Kiwis have to decide whether the fact that he got a hand up at the start qualifies him to take that hand away from others who need the hand up now. On that I think the public’s answer will be resounding when they work out the question. It will be resounding. If it was good enough for John it is good enough for us. If it is good enough for his kids it is good enough for our kids. When they look around they may well say that it has something to do with the Greens and the planet. They may well say it has something to do with New Zealand First and its contribution to economic nationalism. They may well say it has something to do with United Future and its contribution to the future of the family. They may well say that the Maori Party has done something to lift their aspirations for their people just as Maori MP colleagues have in the Labour Party. They will say that the Labour Party has delivered and they will also say that the National Party is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The next contribution is from the Maori Party. There will be two speakers Hone Harawira and Te Ururoa Flavell with 5 minutes each.