Barker Rick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Barker Rick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18220] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 That speech shows the dichotomy faced by the National Party. It has a dilemma. It wants on the one hand to convince the public that it can manage the economy. But the interesting thing is that its leader Don Brash cannot manage his caucus. Every time he gives a major speech someone gets the sack. Georgina te Heuheu and now Katherine Rich have gone. Not only that; there are more rats leaving the ship. Lynda Scott is leaving. Roger Sowry is leaving. Why would so many people be leaving the National Party if they felt they were on the brink of making Government and having the opportunity to realise their dreams and ambitions for their party? Of course they are leaving and being sacked because the National Party is in disarray ideologically politically managerially and in every other way. 
Let us look at one simple example. On the one hand the National Party tells us that people are leaving New Zealand to go to Australia and it is saying that this is bad. The next thing it says to us is that the Holidays Act which gives workers 4 weeks’ annual leave is bad and should be scrapped. That is what it says. But many workers have left New Zealand to go to Australia because there they get 4 weeks’ annual leave they get superannuation guaranteed and they get all these other things. So by proposing to cut the advancements this Labour Party Government has made the National Party is creating the grounds for more people to want to leave New Zealand and go to Australia. 
I just want to say to the public that if they want the brain drain to Australia to accelerate and people to leave they should vote the National Party in because it will do again the things it did in the 1990s. Let us recall the 1990s. National gave us tax cuts in the 1990s and the first thing it did after that was cut superannuation. It made the poor old pensioners pay for the tax cuts. It cut money going into health and education. Tertiary fees went through the roof. State house rentals went through the roof. Legions of people who came to my office were completely impoverished by the policies of National. Market rentals impoverished people in my area. 
Little wonder that 71 percent of the public today support the notion that this Government is a good economic manager! They do so for a range of excellent reasons. For example youth unemployment is down by 79.2 percent in my East Coast region. This means that parents instead of worrying about what their kids are going to do for a job have confidence that the kids will get a job. And they are getting good jobs in my area. Almost 8000 people across the country are now in apprenticeships. There are 6000 young people in my area the eastern region in training and apprenticeships. 
National under Bill Birch supported by Dr Wayne Mapp legislated apprenticeships out—abolished them. It was Labour that reinstated apprenticeships and gave young generation New Zealanders hope for the future. 
It also gave them the opportunity to train for the jobs that this growing economy is developing. That is what Labour has given. Young people I know are now training to be apprentices—mechanics builders carpenters electricians. 
None of this happened in the miserable 1990s which the National Party is so proud of and wants to drag us back to. The public will see through that. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Mapp goes on about economic growth. The Labour-led Government has year after year generated the best economic growth in my memory. Through the 1970s to the 1990s we dreamt of having 2 percent growth rates. Now we have an average of about 4.5 percent. 
Steve Chadwick 
: It’s 4.6. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: It was 4.6 percent in the last year. These are fantastic numbers and they will get this country going forward. 
Darren Hughes 
: But they’re against it. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Of course they are against it. 
The other thing that has been most remarkable in my estimation is that I have never seen such a turn-round in the number of people on the unemployment benefit. When this Government came into power about 160000 people were receiving the unemployment benefit. That was the inheritance we had from the National Government and its policies—60000 people flung on to the heap of misery by National. After 5 years of effort we now have registered unemployment down to less than 65000 and falling. We are not satisfied with getting 100000 people off the benefit. We want much better. Our ambition is much greater than Don Brash’s. It has been good news all round for New Zealanders. 
In Hawke's Bay we have had fantastic improvements to the health system where $12 million has been spent on front-line services. Because of the primary health organisations everybody over the age of 65 in my electorate is getting cheaper doctors’ visits and $3 prescriptions. 
In education 65 centres are being grown for free early childhood care for 3 to 5-year-olds. Ten schools in Hawke’s Bay are receiving nearly $2.2 million in extra funding to upgrade school properties. There are 27 extra staff in my area over and above roll growth. Everywhere I look things are better. 
This investment in staff and infrastructure has a flow-on to jobs. Every school I go to has better facilities throughout including libraries administration blocks halls and information technology. All of this means jobs because people have had to go and build those things. When we create a thriving economy it means that we will have plenty of jobs. 
The other thing that this Government has done very well is invest in infrastructure. We have spent a substantial amount of money on roads. The Opposition scoffs but I am amazed that every time I go to Auckland there is a line-up of tractors diggers and bulldozers making new roads in Auckland. When the National Party was in power during the 1990s nothing happened at all. The Auckland members could not get anything done. This Government has made huge changes. 
The infrastructure investment also means that we have spent $69 million over the last few years on the East Coast roads which will help get logs off the East Coast and hopefully to ports for export. This is helping to develop our exports which makes our economy grow. This has been very good. 
This Government has also led the way on free-trade agreements. Free-trade agreements are good for Hawke’s Bay. Several of my farmer friends have told me that if we can get a free-trade agreement with China then it means millions of dollars of extra revenue for them for their wool sales. That is millions of dollars of extra revenue coming into Hawke’s Bay because of its agricultural production. This will mean substantial extra growth for Hawke’s Bay and I think it will be a great thing. 
The National Party has negotiated none of these things. It has no ideas at all. All we have heard from Lockwood Smith who speaks on foreign affairs is his blackguarding this country. Everywhere he goes he blackguards this country. In his dismal speech he made some reference to the fact that New Zealand would not have a polling booth for Iraqis. Well that is not true. In fact there was a threshold set and New Zealand had so few Iraqis that we did not warrant one. I am given to understand that there were only three polling booths in Great Britain where there is a substantial number of Iraqis. In fact there were only 14 countries around the world with booths. 
New Zealand likes to play a positive role in international affairs and no one can say that Helen Clark has been anything less than an outstanding leader for this country in international forums. No one can say anything other than that she has been a very very proud New Zealander who has advanced the causes of this country in every forum possible. New Zealand can feel rightly proud of the leadership given by Helen Clark and this Labour-led Government. We have led on almost every front including arts and culture. We are developing pride in New Zealand. 
We have been indefatigable in trying to reduce the numbers of people on the unemployment benefit. We have increased job opportunities for thousands and thousands of New Zealanders. The average wage has gone up substantially in my area and that is a reflection of what has happened across the country. For example in my area—the East Coast—the average wage in 1999 was $401 a week. Last year it was $507. I think it will go up much more. The National Party tries to say that that is not the case but friends of mine who were driving trucks in Hawke’s Bay in the late 1990s were getting paid $8.50 an hour and now they are on $16 or $17 an hour. Carpenters in the 1990s were getting $10 an hour; they are all earning over 20 bucks an hour now. I know young people who have left school and have been in a job for only a couple of years who are pulling $15 an hour. Everybody I look to has had an improvement in his or her economic well-being. 
Unemployment is well down and those who are in jobs have got better pay they have more money in their pockets and the economy is booming in Hawke’s Bay. I would like to believe that it is all due to the local member but a lot of others have helped. It is not only in Hawke’s Bay; it is everywhere that I have been in the country. Provincial New Zealand is doing extremely well. When it gets to the election people will have a choice: the nasty 1990s and the National policies that failed then or the policies of this Government with a positive future.