Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 22 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4632. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I have to say that in all of my 25 years in this Parliament I have never experienced a time when the accusation of being on “Planet Labour” has such relevance. 
In 2008 as we went to the general election and the world was facing prosperity and growth for all a whole range of things were committed by all political parties—by the National Party and by Labour. We got elected at the end of that year and suddenly something called the global financial crisis crossed across the whole world. I can tell you that a number of countries across the world have gone into the absolute depths of depression and have gone into areas where they are almost bankrupt. We see them daily in the news places in Europe like Greece and Spain and Portugal. But the Labour Party here keeps going back to “How come National said when it was standing in 2008 it would deliver the following?”. That is why the accusation is that you must be living on “Planet Labour” because on “Planet Labour” the global financial crisis just did not happen. On “Planet Labour” the earthquakes in Canterbury just did not happen. So we should all be in this beautiful world of peace and prosperity and the rest of the world is all booming. 
Well even in total regards to all of what has happened to the world I have to say the track record of what this Government has delivered over the last 3½ years or so has been outstanding. The rest of the world has nearly all been sentenced to life imprisonment and relatively speaking this nation has got away with a couple of weeks of periodic detention. Quite seriously it has got away with almost no damage at all. In fact in many cases this country has been growing has been expanding and has been doing better than anyone could have predicted. 
Members of our team today in the general debate will be picking up on things like the fantastic delivery that we have had within the health sector. Daily Tony Ryall almost does not get enough time—in fact we feel like we want to move extensions of time—to tell members of this House and the country how many more surgical operations are being delivered across the country. It is nothing short of outstanding and that is while we have had to use tight and in many cases zero budget increases. It is an outstanding testimony to what he has done. 
Other members of our team will cover things like the outstanding record in law in order where I notice huge drops in the crime rate—a 15-year low in the crime rate. Again how else could you want for better at a time when you think everything is tight financially and people are struggling? It is often the time when you will see more offending but no not under this Government. If you look at the outstanding results in the education field in the early education field they are just spectacular. 
But I want to concentrate for my few minutes that I get today on just a few things about the economy because I think the economy is the central driver of all those other achievements. The first thing I want to do is ask are New Zealanders actually better off or are they worse off? Well let me give you the answer. The after-tax average wage has gone up by 20 percent since 2008. The average tax the average tax wage— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: After tax. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: —after-tax wage is up by 20 percent since 2008. That is spectacular. In fact my favourite my personal favourite is this one: three-quarters of all income earners in New Zealand pay no more than 17.5 percent tax. Three-quarters of all income earners pay no more than that. That is my personal favourite. But wait there is more. There is a lot more. New Zealand has the lowest inflation since 1999 meaning that the everyday cost of living is increasing at the slowest rate that it has ever done in the last 12 years. That is an outstanding result. 
Interest rates—look at this—are at their lowest in 45 years. Do you know what that means? That means for just an ordinary family with a $200000 mortgage they are paying around about $200 a week less in interest than they would have been and it would be a lot more than $200 if that lot were in control. 
My colleague Steven Joyce gave me a little road test I think it is called. The Labour Party has released the road test for the economy. It has come out with what is called Labour’s solutions and I really do not want to promote the Labour Party too much although it does need it. But I would love to go through—