Hughes Darren: Address in Reply 
Hughes Darren: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:333] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I begin by paying my respects to the Governor-General of New Zealand Her Excellency the Hon Dame Silvia Cartwright. I congratulate Madam Speaker the Hon Margaret Wilson on her re-election unanimously to that post the Hon Clem Simich our Deputy Speaker you Mr Assistant Speaker and Assistant Speaker Ann Hartley. I congratulate the new members of Parliament who have joined this House and also the mover and the seconder of the Address in Reply debate Shane Jones and Sue Moroney on their speeches. I record my sympathies to the Green Party on the death of Rod Donald whom I worked with in my role as a Government whip while he was the Green Party musterer. I also extend my congratulations to Prime Minister Helen Clark. As has been stated through this debate Helen Clark has become the only leader in Labour Party history to be elected Prime Minister three times—a very significant achievement particularly I think in an MMP Parliament where she has had to run minority Governments. 
I thank the Otaki electorate for once again choosing me as its local representative. 
Rodney Hide 
: Only just! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Yes but they still chose me. As the National Party is finding out at the moment to its enormous discomfort a win is a win and I am pleased that the people of the Otaki electorate have sent me here for one more term. I know that that will continue for many years because they appreciate hard work. It is a privilege to represent the local community of Horowhenua and Kapiti. I give it everything that I have and I am looking forward to another term in the seat. 
 I have bad news for the National Party in that regard. [ 
Interruption 
] I hear Mr John Key calling out. It is amazing the confidence one gets from receiving 5 percent in an opinion poll after an election! It is extraordinary stuff. It is fantastic. It is a kind of “kiss of death” to get only 5 percent to just cross the threshold in an opinion poll taken after an election when it does not count because it means that everybody else who sits around knows that in order to get to that job they will have to knife John Key. So John Key might have got five people out of 1000 around the country to say he is all right but in actual fact all his caucus— 
Rodney Hide 
: Five out of a hundred. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: In fairness five out of a hundred but I tell him that he will not get any support from the 48 who sit on the National side of the House. 
The Speech from the Throne set out the Government’s priorities. Quite clearly they are about maintaining a strong economy which over the last 6 years has delivered to this country record numbers of people in work the creation of over a quarter of a million new jobs real shifts in the minimum wage which have delivered gains to working people throughout the community—all of which have been opposed by National at every step of the way—and a commitment in this term to try to raise productivity and skills training in order to keep the economy growing so we can get economic growth and gains for people right across the community. In doing that we are trying to make sure that people in the cities and in the regions— 
Dr Don Brash 
: It’s 6 years too late. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: I am being interjected on by Don Brash. What is he saying? Is he talking about his age? [ 
Interruption 
] I know the member had a birthday recently but if he is going to interject he ought to make it pithy and to the point. I will give him another go. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Labour squandered 5 years of good export prices. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: We have not squandered a thing. We have had 6 years of a growing economy and just last week unemployment fell not only to the lowest level in the world once again but to the lowest level on record in New Zealand—so only 3.4 percent of the workforce is now unemployed. We have more jobs and more working-age people off benefits yet can we guess what that member who believes in a natural rate of unemployment comes in here and criticises the Labour Government for? He criticises us for creating jobs and for putting more mums and dads into work. I would have thought the temporary leader of the National Party would support a stable labour market so he could keep the job he has right now instead of criticising us. 
I turn to another topic in the Speech from the Throne which I think Dr Brash will be interested in: health care particularly for older New Zealanders. The Government is proposing more operations for cataracts and in the area of orthopaedic surgery such as hip and knee replacements because those are areas in elective surgery where clearly we have to improve what we are able to do for ordinary New Zealanders in the public health system. I know that John Key is a strong supporter of the public health system and when my electorate gets those gains from the MidCentral District Health Board and the Capital and Coast District Health Board I know they will thank the Labour Government for it. Those people knew when we won the party vote in that seat that a tax cut would mean reduced health services. So they were keen to make sure we were able to boost our hospitals. I see the member for East Coast shaking her head. I ask her how many cataract operations she does not want out of the Crown revenue mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. 
Anne Tolley 
: A lot more than you. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: So we have to spend more and tax less. That is voodoo economics. 
In the area of education we have brought in a very successful student loan policy. National has used exactly the same arguments in opposing the student loan policy as it used 6 years ago and it was wrong about that as well. National opposed the policy that when one is studying one should not pay interest. So National Party members—a very hard-working team working into the wee hours of the afternoon—got their research unit to find the exact  
Hansard 
 back in 2000 and they trotted in here last week to oppose interest-free student loans for New Zealand - based graduates and students. I hope they continue to oppose that policy. I hope they continue to go all around New Zealand saying they are against it because the previous speaker complained about Kiwis leaving New Zealand. A lot of young people go overseas to earn money to earn pounds in Britain to pay off their student loans and the National Party of course says that is a crying shame. But then the National members came into Parliament and voted against a policy on student loans. I just hope they keep on doing that. 
The other thing on our pledge card of course was around the apprenticeship scheme. We are pledging 5000 more apprentices this term. All those policies have been opposed by National which voted against the Modern Apprenticeships legislation. 
John Key 
: They did not. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: That comes as a bit of a surprise to the finance spokesman because he was not in Parliament then. The National members actually went out into the Noes lobby against that legislation. It was very good legislation that is lifting the skills training for young people and giving them a chance in New Zealand. It was opposed by the Brash-led National Party. 
Then in terms of police numbers we have 1000 extra police by way of our agreement on supply and confidence with New Zealand First. We have a rates rebate coming through for those on low incomes—particularly pensioners—to help them pay their bills. We are going to move on the over-80s drivers’ regime which has been very unfair to constituents of mine and I am very keen to see that test removed and replaced with a much fairer regime as soon as we are able. And of course I mentioned that we have a big focus on jobs in order to make sure that we keep on growing a strong economy because what other point is there for a Labour Government than to make sure there are jobs and well-paying jobs for working people? To that extent we are going to try to move the minimum wage to $12 by the end of this term. That also will be opposed by the National Party and I hope that it will make an effort on that. 
On the transport front the Government is trying very hard to address the infrastructure issues that our country faces. Throughout the 1990s of course there was very little infrastructure investment made and this Government has come in and tried to invest more into that area. I am very hopeful that we will get a much-improved access from the Kapiti coast into Wellington. I am very keen that passenger transport is included as part of that package to make sure that we can through electrification and more regular services ensure that public transport is a real option as well as major roading improvements. I personally would like to see Transmission Gully built but our region has to work together to make sure we can have that. 
We have an invitation from three National Party list MPs in the Wellington region by way of page 3 of the  
Dominion Post 
—that is how they contacted us—to ask us to join their crusade. Well of course we are going to keep on working with what we are already doing to get gains for the Wellington region in transport and will not listen to those political opportunists. Mr Blumsky who was the Mayor of Wellington at one stage—what more powerful position could he have held than Mayor of Wellington—opposed Transmission Gully. He did not say one thing in favour of Transmission Gully as Mayor of Wellington and he comes in as a back-bench Opposition list MP and says “Please join my group.” Mr Guy joined the campaign for Transmission Gully about 4 weeks before the election so bold was his stance on the issue. Of course Chris Finlayson who kind of had a regal coronation campaign in Mana where he wandered around saying; “Hello I’m from the Tory party; I’ll be in Parliament.” has decided that despite saying nothing during the election at all basically he is now in favour of Transmission Gully. I think we will get on with it. 
The other point I want to make about that party over there on the Opposition benches is that it went through the election campaigning as a sort of early 19th century party. It has been extraordinary to listen to the National Party MPs give maiden speeches full of te reo Maori which I think is a fantastic use of that language in the House. But of course not one of them went around their electorates during the campaign talking like that. They talked about the “mainstream” and said that the Labour Party supporters were not part of that. Tau Henare’s cloth cap from his union days must be absolutely curling in the wardrobe after Tau Henare listened to those National Party MPs talk about diversity opportunity and coming together in inclusion when they ran a campaign as divided as one could get. 
But I will tell the National Party members this. For all their boasting and cockiness in this Parliament in the last 2 weeks they have missed one point: all the election did was to reorganise the Opposition. We saw the $7 billion tax bribe and we saw them playing the race card and getting their cult members from the Exclusive Brethren Church to run the campaign at half-time for them. All it did for the National Party was to reorganise the Opposition. It did nothing to take away votes from Labour. The election was a total disaster for National members. They first realised it when they came into the House for the swearing-in. They had been sitting in their caucus room congratulating one another on the size of the new caucus but they walked in here on the first day and suddenly realised: “Hey there’s still more of them than us and look where we are sitting—in the Opposition where we belong and looking at the third term Helen Clark led-Labour Party. That has made that man someone who is soon to join the pension queue.