Shirley Ken: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Shirley Ken: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 In listening to the speech made by the member for Invercargill who has just resumed his seat it is clear that the Government has in its back benches a member who is holding a marginal seat—and he is feeling the cold draught up his majority. That was a speech of desperation if ever I heard one. 
The ACT party supports Don Brash’s motion expressing no confidence in this Clark-Wilson Labour Government. The Prime Minister’s statement at the beginning of the 2004 parliamentary year was visionless arrogant and smug. It is clear that the Government has no direction and no traction and has failed to present a vision for this country and a programme to make it happen. 
This Labour Government has experienced a dream run on the economic front inheriting the fruits of the hard-earned yards laid down by the Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson reforms. The Labour Government while publicly rejecting those reforms and railing against them at every opportunity has not changed one—other than the Employment Contracts Act. And what has it done there? It has introduced industrial relations legislation that represents a return to the 1970s. I have had it on good authority that Con Davitt Blue Kennedy and Roger Middlemass are dusting off their blue pin-striped suits and heading down to Trades Hall knowing that their time has come again. 
 Labour’s new industrial relations legislation represents a return to the past and it can only erode this country’s competitiveness. The Government’s foreshore and seabed fiasco has angered all sectors of society and it is clear that the Prime Minister and her colleagues are panicking as their poll-driven spin doctoring tells them they are on a losing pathway. They know they are on a losing pathway and they are lashing out in desperation. Prime Minister Helen Clark has said that the Government’s foreshore and seabed proposals are about acting in the best interests of all New Zealanders. However the Government’s top legal adviser the Solicitor-General Terence Arnold QC told New Zealanders the truth about Labour’s proposals when he told the Waitangi Tribunal that Labour plans to accord real rights to those who hold customary titles and customary rights. They are not simply in the position of any other person. Those who have a customary right do have a right to stop activities and they will have a significant impact on the way customary rights are exercised. The Solicitor-General went on to indicate that under Labour’s policies customary rights holders take precedence and their interests become paramount. This is not one law for all. 
The extraordinary thing is this Labour Government’s duplicity in the way it is attempting to give different messages to different constituencies. We saw it in the local government legislation where the Government printed one version in Maori and another in English and the versions were contradictory in content. The Government was caught out and exposed but time and time again we are seeing this Government exercising duplicity in the messages it delivers to New Zealanders. Don Brash’s Orewa speech has captured the nation with a simple clear message of one rule for all and no race-based policies. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Sounds like the ACT party. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Indeed it does sound like the ACT party as my colleague Richard Prebble has just reminded me. In fact the ACT party was formed some 10 years ago and ever since it has been a staunch advocate for equality before the law and the curtailing of the self-perpetuating treaty grievance industry. We were disappointed in 1997 when the then National Government used its majority to vote down ACT MP Derek Quigley’s bill for full fair and final treaty settlements. However we are delighted that at the last election both New Zealand First and the National Party adopted our policy word for word with the same time frames. Truth is certainly the daughter of time. 
We have had an extraordinary situation with the spin doctoring of the Prime Minister Helen Clark and the Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen. They are trying to imply that the simple message of one law for all is somehow racist because that was their response. They called Don Brash racist for saying there should be one law for all. That is indeed very perverse logic. Don Brash’s message has captured a resonance with New Zealanders and for the information of members who may not be aware the  
Holmes  
show tonight had a record number of responses to its poll—35000 responses. The question was: “Was Don Brash’s message delivered at Orewa on the right track or not?”. Ninety percent of responses said “Yes”. Don Brash and the ACT policy is on the right track for this country. In other words this Government has at best 10 percent support for its proposals on this issue. This is the circuit-breaker the issue and the turn-round for this Government; it is all downhill from here. It has done its polling—it is good at polling—and that is why the member for Invercargill was so desperate in his speech. He knows he is in a key marginal provincial seat and he knows that with this trend he is dog tucker. The member for Otago is smiling. His seat is an absolute apparition. He is gone—a one-term MP. And the member for Otaki—the bright young spark—started early in his career but I say to him: “It’s all over sunshine!”. It is all over. He should pack his bags now and go back to school to finish his education. That is the best thing he can do. Perhaps in 35 years’ time he might have a chance of coming back because there will be no chance before then. 
I was astounded at the way the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister engaged in personality attacks on Don Brash. Surely any thinking person would conclude the logic of the situation and that defines a racist as those who believe that the machinery of State should confer either privilege or prejudice to individuals on the basis of their race. That is what this Labour Government is putting into legislation and has done since it came to office in 1999. Right across the statute book race-based policies have been inserted into our legislation. Many jurisdictions have engaged in various forms of what have been called positive discrimination but such policies have always failed. It has always been found that the identified disadvantaged group or minority has always done best when such policies of discrimination have been abandoned. We have seen it with the separate Maori rolls in local government and now separate Maori seats in local government. I put it to members that the Maori seats in this House are an absolute anachronism. They were introduced as a temporary measure in 1867 but this Labour Government has foolishly now gone for separate rolls and separate seats based on race at the basic level of democracy on our local councils. We also know that the local government legislation has special consultation provisions conferring special privileges on Maori. 
Others in the debate have mentioned the primary health organisations which are now clearly racially defined. There is different health provision according to one’s race not one’s need—according to the date on which a person’s ancestor might have arrived in this country. The Resource Management Act and the Conservation Act are riddled with race-based privilege and prejudice and that is one of the stumbling blocks of those pieces of legislation. The Resource Management Act was meant to provide for the sustainable management of natural and physical resources but not any more. That Act contains all sorts of undefined nebulous metaphysical provisions that the courts cannot determine and that change through time according to the whims of Labour politicians. 
We could ask ourselves why Contact Energy paid Ngai Tahu $1.6 million to avoid an objection from them on spiritual grounds against the resource consent application to renew the water rights for the Clyde Dam. We should not be surprised that shortly after the Contact Energy payment Ken Mair and his band of Wanganui members seized the opportunity of leverage against the State-owned monopoly company Genesis which was facing a renewal of its water rights in the Tongariro. That is the sort of leverage to be gained from these race-based laws. It is a licence to print money and to clip the ticket. It distorts investment in this country and it is bad. The centre-right parties are giving a clear message to New Zealand that it is coming to an end. We firmly believe in one law for all.