Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:624;Page:19055] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I acknowledge the contributions in the House this afternoon from Marc Alexander and Ron Mark. They were two speeches that helped to highlight how out of touch the current Government is with ordinary New Zealanders and they showed how much there is to be bothered about by crime in this country. We have spent weeks finding out how bad the education system is. We know what is wrong with welfare and we know also that the economy is not as rosy as Michael Cullen may like to paint it. 
If we ever wanted proof that the Labour Party despises workers does not trust workers and does not like workers we got it from the Prime Minister today. When she was asked a simple question about whether New Zealanders who received a pay rise should keep most of it or pay most of it to the Government her response was: “I think it’s ludicrous that workers should get more pay through tax cuts.” That is code for the Prime Minister thinking that it is ludicrous that more workers in this country keep more of the money they earn. 
The Prime Minister and her Ministers think that the best way to improve incomes for New Zealanders is to turn them into State beneficiaries. That is exactly what the Working for Families package sets out to do. Apparently 300000 families will benefit from it. Will they benefit from it by keeping more of the money that they earn? The answer is no. They will not do that. They will benefit because Helen Clark will send them a cheque out of the State’s funds every 2 weeks. The Opposition simply asks that people be allowed to keep more of what they earn. What is worse not only is the Prime Minister saying that it is ludicrous for workers to keep more of the money they earn and much better for the Government to give out benefits but she also overlooks the fact that only one out of every four families in this country will benefit from this income advancement. 
Over the next couple of weeks I want to see Ministers stand up in this House and—rather than go through the sort of exercise that we saw from Mr Maharey today where he tried to rehearse his future occupation as a stand-up comic—explain why workers in this country should vote for a Labour Government. Why should workers who constantly have the Government’s hand in their pockets give Labour their vote later this year? Thirty new taxes have been applied by the Government in the last 5 years. Who pays for that? It is the workers. From 1 April every time those workers pull up at the petrol pump another 5.6c will come out of their pockets for every litre of petrol they buy. 
Government members may say that 5.6c a litre of petrol is not much and that it will be only a few dollars a week but when one is earning $30000 or $35000 a year those few dollars make a very big difference. I say to Government members that when they lose touch with that fact and they cannot understand even for a moment what it is like to live on a tight fixed income and cannot empathise with New Zealanders they start to lose the vote. I predict that very shortly the polls will start telling Helen Clark and her Ministers what a disaster they will face on election day later this year. 
Is it not amazing the way that some of the best Ministers in the Government have started to lose their tracks this year? Today Trevor Mallard was unable to answer a simple question as Associate Minister of Finance. He had to send the question to Pete Hodgson Minister of Transport to get him to answer it. He had the Minister of Transport explain why the Government is applying more tax. The Government is a group of people who have lost touch with New Zealanders and who will pay the price for it. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I see that my good friend Clayton Cosgrove the outgoing MP for Waimakariri groans in his seat at the prospect at having to look for a job after the election.