Swain Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Swain Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18343] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 What is really interesting I think for people listening to this debate is the line between what one hears from members on the Labour-led side of this House and what people in the National Party say. One could summarise it this way. It is about a view on life. On the Labour side of Parliament we have people who are proud of New Zealand and want to promote the positive things about New Zealand. Members on this side of the House are energetic and enthusiastic about New Zealand’s future and they pay tribute to the great heroes and battlers within the New Zealand communities and to the people who are really leading this country forward—the scientists the artists the people in the creative industries and our business leaders. We are a Government that wants to promote those people. What we hear from the National Party is doom gloom whinge whine grizzle and groan. It is a sad and pathetic world outlook that we are hearing from the National Party. 
What is obviously getting through to New Zealanders is the fact that they do not want to hear all that negativity. They do not want to hear all the bad things. They do not want to hear about a party that wants to constantly remind them about what life used to be like in the 1990s. They do not want to hear all that. They do not want to know about all the things that National is standing for—the division it promotes. People want to hear about where we are going as a nation and where we are being led as a nation. That is what they want to hear about. 
What we heard from the Prime Minister was a view on where we should be going as a country where we can get to and where we should be in the next few years. That is what I think the public were looking for when they heard the comments from Dr Don Brash at Orewa. Of course in the first Orewa speech he essentially wanted to divide Maori against non-Maori. That is basically what that speech was about. Then there was Orewa II. That speech was essentially about trying to divide off those who are in work and those who are not. It was about the politics of division. We had that in the 1990s. We have had the politics of division and it did not work and in the end by the way the National Party was chucked out because of it. 
People do not want to talk about division. People want to be proud of New Zealand. They want to know where we are going and they want to hear the positive things. Of course what people are now talking about is the fact that Dr Brash has lost two spokespeople. After Orewa I he lost one and after Orewa II he lost another. To lose one spokesperson is careless but to lose two is downright reckless. Of course those demotions have upset Maori. Don Brash demoted Georgina te Heuheu. I have an enormous amount of respect for that woman. I think she has dignity. I certainly listen to what she says. She has a lot to say about things and I have a lot of respect for her views. To be fair to Katherine Rich I have to say that although I disagree with what she said she was certainly able. And boy are they short of able people over there! 
People are saying that if Don Brash cannot run even his own caucus how could he possibly be expected to run the country? That is a theme that people are coming to me to talk about as I go around the country. The problem is of course that Don Brash is trying to run the caucus like he ran the Reserve Bank of New Zealand where he was the top bureaucrat. What he says went and everybody fell into line. Everyone fawned with sophistry and said: “Oh what a great person you are!”. Of course in here people have opinions and they want to be listened to. When someone has done a lot of work on a policy he or she expects to be able to have major input into the speech about that policy but Katherine Rich learnt that does not happen with him. 
The problem we have with that leader Don Brash is that he does not listen. If he does not listen to his own caucus and if he does not listen to even his own spokesperson how could he possibly hold himself up as someone who will listen to New Zealanders? His whole life has been spent telling people directing people and expecting people to fall into line. Well New Zealanders have had a gutsful of that. To be frank they had a gutsful of that in the 1980s and the 1990s and they do not want it any more. They expect to be shown some respect and that is something that they get under this Labour-led Government. 
When one looks at who is in the National Party we see Simon Power—the once great hope of the National Party—who gave us the old basic line: “Where America goes we go.” That of course did not go down terribly well with the public nor within his own party and he has gone. Now he sits like a kind of empty vessel as No. 3 on the front bench as the whip. Having a whip on the front bench is an incredible position that has not been heard of before. 
Then there is the brat pack. If one looks up the words “negative bitter people” in the dictionary one will find the National Party brat pack. They are bitter bitter men. Why is that? Well deep down they still have not forgiven New Zealand for dumping them in 1999. That is the problem. They still cannot believe it. They still think that the New Zealand public were wrong in doing that and they are bitter about that. As a result they never have a positive word to say about New Zealand. Tony Ryall did not say one positive word about New Zealand in 10 minutes of vitriol. Nick Smith is always on about negative things. Bill English whinges moans and grizzles about education when in fact there are hugely good things going on in education as anyone who knows anything about that subject knows. Roger Sowry has actually lightened up a bit now given that he will not be here much longer. He is on a lifeboat heading for the beach as the National Party heads down the gurgler. 
National is a sad and pathetic party. It used to be a great party. It used to be the party of great leaders like Keith Holyoake. It used to be a great party that people respected but now it is just a pathetic miserable whingeing whining party led by a person who clearly does not have leadership qualities and later on this year it will find itself in a very similar position to the one it found itself in after the last election. 
So what are the things about New Zealand that we need to be proud of? Well there are a lot of things. Economic growth for the year to September is at 4.6 percent. What does that mean? Well actually it means that we are now outperforming a lot of the developed countries. With growth comes jobs. We have 3.8 percent unemployment. This has not been seen for at least two decades. More people are in work and if more people are in work then more people are actually providing for their families. More people are able to give their kids the things they have not been able to give them. They are paying taxes and we can better afford to pay for better education and health care. As a result everybody is better off. 
 We have the Working for Families package. The crime rate is the lowest it has been in 21 years. There are 7000 people in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and 125000 people in industry training. Huge amounts of effort have gone into health and education funding. That is why people are feeling good. That is why the polls are showing that basically we are on the right track. People are feeling good. They can feel it and they can see it. 
The Prime Minister spelt out that we are never happy—we always need to be doing more. We need to get workplace productivity up to make sure that our growth is sustainable. We need to improve labour force participation particularly for women. It is a choice. Some women want to go back to work and some do not. We want to make it easier for those who do. We need some savings initiatives. We need to do a lot more in terms of our infrastructure development even though we have done a great deal and we need to do a lot more in the trade area. 
The Labour Party is a party that is positive about New Zealand. It is confident about New Zealand. We want to celebrate the good things about New Zealanders and New Zealanders want to celebrate those things about themselves as opposed to listening to the negative whingeing whining and groaning National Party. I challenge the next speaker from the National Party to tell us one thing that is positive about New Zealand. That is what New Zealanders want to hear and that is why they will be voting for a Labour-led Government after the next election.