Newman Muriel: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Newman Muriel: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18227] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The Prime Minister’s statement today can be described as a triumph of spin over substance. The Prime Minister claimed credit for the buoyant economy but everyone knows that the economy is doing well in spite of the Labour Party. Labour has done everything it can over the last 5 years to pull down the economy. It is an anti-business party. It has put up taxes. It has introduced dozens of extra charges taxes and levies. It has re-regulated the workplace to satisfy the demands of its union mates and that has taken away flexibility. It has increased compliance costs and it has introduced punitive penalties on small-business employers. This anti-business Labour Party is determined to punish the small-business sector. It says the right things but its actions show it does not actually care about small business which is the engine room of any country. 
Under Labour the massive increases in rules and regulations have made it harder for businesses to do well and that is why it has been truly bizarre today to hear the Prime Minister bleating about the need to increase productivity. All the Labour Party had to do was to stop meddling stop penalising small business and let those hundreds and thousands of small-business enterprises—mum and dad enterprises—get on with their job of building a strong economy and taking this country forward. But no after 5 years of interference we have Treasury now forecasting that growth in New Zealand will halve this year. We have international surveys telling us that our standard of living has dropped to that of Korea Slovenia and the Czech Republic and the gap between living standards in Australia and New Zealand is growing wider as each day goes by. 
One has to ask oneself: “What’s the effect on families?”. Well the reality is that families are struggling harder and sliding backwards. They are overtaxed by the Labour Party—a Labour Party that gloats about the massive tax surplus and schemes and plots as to how it can best spend it in this election year in order to win votes and try to get itself elected for another term rather than giving some of it back to the families that earned it. Yes the Prime Minister has categorically ruled out tax cuts. It is a bit like a shopkeeper who overcharges his customer. The Labour Party is overcharging New Zealand families—New Zealand taxpayers. 
If New Zealand taxpayers think it is wrong and unfair that the Labour Party is overtaxing them then they should sack the Labour Party at the election and support a Government that believes in lowering taxes rewarding families for hard work and helping the country to get a strong firm foundation to grow into the future. I tell the Labour Party that ACT has always advocated lower taxes. We believe in rewarding workers not punishing them. 
The Prime Minister tried to tell us in her speech that the crime rate in New Zealand is falling. I say to the Prime Minister that her soft-on-crime Government has done enormous damage to this country. The public know that the crime rate is not falling. The public are fearful for their safety not only for their own safety but for the safety of their family members including their grandmothers and their children. We have a whole country that is now scared of crime. Already this year there have been nine homicides from grandmothers to babies up and down the country. Innocent New Zealanders have been raped beaten and tortured and in many cases the perpetrators are walking free in small-town New Zealand. The people who live in those communities are scared. 
Keeping citizens safe is a core responsibility of the Government. The Labour Party has failed in that crucial role. Not only is it failing the public but it has failed the police. Having George Hawkins as the Minister of Police has been an absolute disaster for the police force. He has allowed public confidence in the police to be totally undermined. He is turning police officers into traffic wardens instead of crime fighters and their big job these days is to collect traffic fine quotas in order to collect more money for the Labour Party instead of getting out and stopping crime and catching criminals. 
The Labour Party has understaffed and under-resourced the police and now the police are overstressed. Labour has weakened our laws and it is the public that suffer as always. In a recent case in Northland an offender with a history of violent crime raped abducted and beat a young woman. He had her bound in the back of his car and told her he would kill her. Fortunately some locals heard her screams and as a result of their intervention she was able to escape and was saved and the man was arrested. 
The police did a good job. They opposed bail. They said that the man was violent and a danger to the people in the community and particularly to the young woman. What happened? The bail laws allowed that man to be bailed. Sure he is on a 24-hour curfew but how can one officer in a large rural area hope to keep an eye on one isolated house with somebody on a 24-hour curfew? He cannot. The reality is that one police officer cannot keep an eye on that man. What happened? Immediately he breached his bail conditions. One thinks to oneself: “That’s fine—he will be remanded in custody until his hearing.” Did that happen? No he was bailed again. I say that one police officer does not have a hope of keeping an eye on that man. The only reason we the public can think of as to why that man was bailed and not remanded in custody is that the prisons are full and there are not enough prison or remand beds to keep a man like that in custody for a length of time. That is another failing of the Labour Party. 
The police hate what is going on. They deserve better but they are powerless to do anything about it. The public deserve better. The public deserve to be safe but we are powerless. Again I say that it is election year. If we think that the Labour Party has failed us when it comes to its crucial role of keeping us safe then let us sack its members at the election and get a Government that actually cares about safety will put more police on the beat and will ensure there is better policing tougher laws and stronger punishments in this country. 
I am ashamed of the way in which the Labour Party has run this country. It has undermined the social fabric of New Zealand. Its values are out of step with mainstream New Zealand. It has been driven by political correctness and it is totally obsessed with winning power. That is all that matters to this Government. Rather than make New Zealand a better place for our children and grandchildren it has undermined this country. When the economy turns down—which it will—we will find that more and more people will be flocking on to the welfare rolls. The Government talks tough about welfare but the changes it has made have simply made the welfare problem worse. The number of sickness benefits and invalid benefits is up 30 percent and the number on the domestic purposes benefit has not moved. We have 110000 women and children wasting their lives. The only thing that is better is the fact that the economy is doing well. I am ashamed of this Labour Government and I hope it is beaten at the next election. 
Debate interrupted.