Foss Craig: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoss Craig: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15632. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I support and endorse the motion from our very good Prime Minister Mr John Key “That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2014 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament.” We will continue our hard discipline and transparent work as we build a much brighter future for our wonderful wonderful country.The Leader of the Opposition David Cunliffe is an invisible man leading an invisible party spending invisible money on invisible problems due to some invisible crisis that will inevitably lead Labour to invisible poll results. Invisible money is being spent on invisible problems due to some invisible crisis. How often have we heard about a manufacturing crisis an economic crisis a fiscal crisis an education crisis? I heard the other day from the Leader of the Opposition that there was an early childhood education crisis for goodness’ sake. The Leader of the Opposition’s very bad start to this year and his leadership continues. I believe that his polling results are still under those of the previous leader Mr Shearer and have not yet reached his dizzying heights of about 13 or 14 percent I understand. We will wait and see over the coming weeks.Labour’s big announcement DavidCunliffe’s tricky announcement the other day is continuing to unravel—absolutely tricky. His bad start continues. He left New Zealand with the impression and he sold a policy to New Zealanders that said that regardless of who they were and where they were and as long as they were under $150k of income—but Labour is unsure now whether that is a single or a double income—for every child born every family would receive $60 for the first year of that child’s life. In no uncertain terms he told New Zealand that he told the gathering in Auckland that and he told the media that again and again and again.Well Patrick Gower has called that quite dishonest—deceptive and dishonest—because New Zealanders were left with that impression and Labour knew that that was the impression it gave out and no one corrected it. No one corrected it until Labour was found out because the fine print was read. The tricky policy was unravelled and continues to unravel as the fine print is read. I imagine that David Cunliffe is now kicking himself and furiously trying to back-pedal knowing that he should have understood that policy he should have understood the details and he should have read his very own fine print when the policy was released.I know that Mr Cunliffe is very interested in fine print. I quote Mr Cunliffe—because this is in fact what is happening right now under this National Government as we unravel the fine print of Labour’s policy and discover what is in it. This is what Mr Cunliffe said in this House a couple of years ago: “this debate to uncover some of the hidden traps the fine print and the places where the gloss is not as good as people were led to believe”. That is what the current Leader of the Opposition said a couple of years ago in this House. Well that can apply to this exact policy which if it was applied under the Fair Trading Act or advertising would be misleading and would be deceptive and someone would probably be held up before the courts.Our Prime Minister John Key continues to lead the National-led Government and our coalition friends and partners through tough times in New Zealand but we continue to work for all New Zealanders regardless of where they come from regardless of their parentage regardless of the definition of their family regardless of how their parents or birth parents ended up and regardless of the state of their caregivers. We govern and work every day for all New Zealanders all the time regardless of where they comefrom. We do not grab the short-term highlights or whatever; we make every decision for the medium and long-term betterment for this wonderful wonderful country.We are open we are transparent and we will lay out our policies before the electorate as we did last time. There will not be any fine print. There will not be any hidden details. Our leaders our Cabinet understand their policies our policies which have led this country to a position where we are so much stronger than we were albeit just 5 years ago. We will continue the hard work and the discipline making some tough calls. You have got to do that in Government and you have to do that even more so in an environment around the world where there has been a global financial crisis. When National came into Government New Zealand had been in recession for a couple of years and our export sector had been collapsing since 2005. For an exporting nation that is tragic.We will continue our prudential management of our Crown accounts the taxpayers’ balance sheet while maintaining our dedication to the betterment of social services and that will lead us to deliver what we said we would so that every New Zealander regardless of who and where they are and why they came into the world has an opportunity to realise their awesome potential for our awesome country—regardless. If they trip up along the way our social conscience and our social help will be there to assist them. That is who we are but that must be balanced with our economy with our social conscience and of course with our environmental aspirations. There will be no tricky nonsense or silly details hidden in the fine print way down in the bottom somewhere—no stuff that hopefully no one will notice until after the election.The National Government has had a first 5 years that have been quite challenging with the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes and the tragedies around those socially in a human sense and of course economically. We have had an export crisis which we inherited as I spoke to earlier. But we have got through. We have got through. We have built a platform where New Zealand can begin to fly. The platform for growth for a better New Zealand even better than we have now is ready and waiting. We cannot put it all at risk. We cannot put it all at risk. Just as the global financial crisis is starting to really step away just as Europe the United States Japan and Asia are starting to come right out of the global financial crisis we cannot put it all at risk with silly things such as invisible spending invisible money making our country more vulnerable to global waxing and waning around the world.Just as confidence in New Zealand reaches a higher level than it has been for many many many years—which means hiring one more person which means investing in our country—we cannot put it all at risk. The policies articulated and the track record of a Labour-Greens - far-left Government would be tragic for New Zealand. It would put at risk every single hard call over the last 5 years just as things are coming right not only for New Zealand but for the world. We cannot put it all at risk.We are just about to reach surplus in 2014-15. We cannot put it all at risk with printing machines invisible money and uncosted spending promises to try to grab electorate gain. We cannot put our awesome decline in crime statistics at risk. A Labour-Green coalition if it were ever to get into Government would continue the old policies forgetting about victims and doing the catch-and-release policies we inherited from them in 2008. We cannot put our health gains at risk. Just as we are now gaining 40000 extra elective operations every year a Labour-Greens Government would put it all at risk. It would put it all at risk because every time it is pushed it would go back to the situation where people were lying in corridors bleeding into buckets.We cannot put at risk 3.5 percent growth in New Zealand—3.5 percent growth some of the best growth in the developed world—with Labour and Greens policies. We cannot do that. We cannot put at risk the progress we have made in Treaty settlements.We cannot put at risk the gains in after-tax wages. And of course finally we cannot put the gains of internet and information and communications technology at risk in New Zealand by crazy silly policies such as trying to ban Facebook ban Google or whatever Labour is trying to do over there—just ban it and that will fix it.This is a serious serious game. New Zealand has turned the corner. We are about to take off. The platform for growth and a much brighter future has been built. We must be able to continue the work. We cannot put it all at risk with a far-left - Labour-Greens Government.