Duncan Helen: General Debate 
Duncan Helen: General Debate 
[Volume:621;Page:16809] 
HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) 
: 
 A number of speakers this afternoon have been keen to tell the House about the Labour Party’s annual conference which is being held on the North Shore this coming weekend. I am not surprised that they are keen to share that news with the House because it will be a great conference. We have a great story to tell. The Labour Party is providing strong stable leadership for New Zealand. We are providing opportunities for all fairness and security through policies like the Working for Families package fairer employment laws and quality education for all. People are able to access affordable health-care and more New Zealanders are in work than ever before. It is a real good-news story that we have to tell. 
Of course the people at the conference will be debating Labour Party policy. We have reams of policy to debate. The Labour Party has policy on all the important issues of the day. I ask members to contrast that with the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition had a lot to say about policy at the end of 2003 and earlier this year. In November 2003 Dr Don Brash said: “We’re going to develop policy. We’re going to say what it is.” New Zealanders waited with bated breath. What did they get? In January 2004 Dr Brash said: “Over the next few months I plan to give a major speech on each of my five main priorities.” In July 2004 Dr Brash said we would increasingly see major policies being rolled out. We are still waiting. 
Dr Brash tells us now that he has abandoned plans to deliver five king-hit speeches this year on his five priority policy areas. In September 2004 he said: “The likelihood is that we won’t make any other major speeches on things like social welfare reform education and so on until the beginning of next year.” This is the dynamic policy development he talked about. Again he said that he and his advisers had decided to hold fire until next year. So we are not going to get those major policy announcements on areas so important to New Zealand except—and this is another flip-flop—that after having decided to hold fire on policy Dr Brash announced National’s policy on Kyoto a few weeks ago. He said that National’s policy would be to follow the United States and Australia. Goodness gracious me! Is that not wonderful? Where the United States and Australia go we will go according to Dr Brash. That is the extent of National’s policy development. What a pitiful example it is! Of course it is in total contrast to the Labour Party which has a lot to talk about on policy in terms of major achievements and where we go from here. 
I want to talk a bit about fairness and security for all which is a major Labour Party policy and I want to talk about what we have done. We have made holiday provisions fairer for all workers in New Zealand. We have given time and a half for work on public holidays and 4 weeks’ annual leave will come into effect from 2007. Something I am really proud of is that we have increased the minimum wage for workers five times in 5 years after it stagnated totally for 9 years under the previous Government. 
We passed the Employment Relations Amendment Act to strengthen the Employment Relations Act’s key objectives of promoting good-faith collective bargaining and effective resolution of employment relationship problems and we have a brilliant industrial relations record. All the doom and gloom that was forecast when the employment law came in under this Government has been proved to be totally wrong. We have had great industrial relations—fewer strikes fewer stoppages—and things are really going well. We passed the Companies Amendment Act and the Insolvency Amendment Act which give workers more protection when a business fails—none was offered to them by the previous Government—and we have set up a task force on pay and employment equity which will be really good for New Zealand.