Dalziel Lianne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Dalziel Lianne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18294] 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I congratulate Maurice Williamson on his contribution to the debate. Everyone who is anyone in the National Party is asking: “Why not Maurice? What a great leader he would be.” and we on this side of the House agree. He might be right wing—we know that he is—but we know where he stands. That is what people in his party say. He does not ask for referenda on issues that he believes in and there are no flip-flops on policy because Murray McCully says that that might help National in the polls. The retired Governor of the Reserve Bank has no competition within the National Party because he ignores talent like Maurice Williamson and keeps sacking the rest. 
I really begin my contribution by picking up from where my colleague Phil Goff ended his contribution earlier in the debate. The circumstances that he described were nothing short of galling. Don Brash was in New Zealand according to the media when the Boxing Day tsunami struck the coastlines of many countries in Asia. The next day he left for his much-needed holiday in Hawaii. It is true that when he left New Zealand the estimated level of lives lost was well below the level it would rise to over the coming days. I remember watching it on TV. I think that on the first day we thought 10000 people had died the next day we thought it might be 15000 the next day 20000 then 30000 then 50000 then horrendously over 150000. It did take several days for the enormity of what had happened actually to sink in. But our Prime Minister was already on her way home from her holiday. She cancelled her holiday because of the enormity of what had occurred. 
I do not object to Dr Don Brash’s decision to continue with his holiday—after all his contract with the Reserve Bank gave him 4 weeks’ annual leave well ahead of the rest of the country getting that. He is used to it and I think it is important to maintain continuity. But what I truly object to—and this is what Phil Goff was saying earlier—is that after his 10 days in the sun which is more than what the rest of us who stayed in New Zealand had he returned to say that this Government had not done enough. He said nothing and did nothing while he was away on holiday in Hawaii and then he came back and had the gall to tell this Government that it had not done enough. He criticised the Prime Minister for waiting until the first Cabinet meeting to deal with what is the largest contribution to a crisis like that that this country has made in my lifetime. He criticised her for not announcing a memorial day as other countries had done whereas if he had been in the country the day before he said that he would have known that a memorial day was soon to be announced once the details had been organised. If he had stayed in touch he would have known what was going to happen. 
I believe very strongly in what the Prime Minister said in her statement to the House at the beginning of this year: we have to be good neighbours in bad times as well as good times. We cannot be just fair-weather friends. We have to be good friends to our neighbours when they suffer something such as they have suffered with the Boxing Day tsunami. The people of New Zealand have been overwhelmingly generous. I think we have all been struck by the enormity of what has happened and think that but for the grace of God there go we. I think it has been truly petty and unpatriotic to be so spiteful in the face of the contribution that this country this Government and the people of New Zealand have made in terms of the tsunami. 
As members might have gathered I was feeling very strong resentment towards Dr Brash when the  
Press 
 asked me to write 150 words suggesting what he should say in his Orewa II speech. It was published in the  
Press 
 on Saturday 22 January this year and I thought I would share it with the House: “Well Don you’ve really got yourself in a bind. As many film-makers know the sequel to a blockbuster is never as good as the original. Makes me think you never realised what a powder keg Orewa I would be and I bet you’re wishing you’d saved it for election year. So what’s my advice? Race relations? That was Orewa I. Law and order? Crime rate is down. Immigration? I don’t think so; after all what would your wife think? The economy? It’s doing quite well actually. Welfare? Unemployment at it’s lowest level in years. Health and education? Maybe the public isn’t ready for your privatisation agenda yet. I don’t know Don. Given your recent musings on a referendum to get rid of MMP (which is how you got into Parliament) the fact you qualify for national superannuation this year and you want front-page news as well maybe you should just announce your retirement.” 
That is what I think Don Brash should have done in his Orewa speech this year. But no instead he drew out that tired worn strategy of divide and rule—“Let’s pit one group of New Zealanders against another. Oh and let’s not be strictly truthful in the way we present the case in respect of people who are in need of benefits at particular times in their lives.” 
But I really do not want to spend time on an Opposition that is going nowhere. I want to talk about a Government that has a future and that is because this Government believes in the future of this nation and its people and we are prepared to articulate a vision that is inclusive of everyone in this nation. We are not into divide and rule; we are into ensuring that everyone is able to participate at every level. 
I am proud of what this Government has achieved in the last 5 years. I believe that this Government has every reason to be confident about its future and I think we should all be proud of what we have achieved. Economic growth for the year ended September was at 4.6 percent and more than a quarter of a million jobs have been added to the economy since 1999. These are fantastic statistics because they form the base for building. That is what I think has been missed by members of the Opposition. They get stuck in their economic area and do not see the benefits that are able to flow through to the social side. There are two sides: the economic side and the social side. The two go hand in hand. This Government is the only Government capable of merging the two. 
We have the lowest crime rate in 21 years. We still have an Opposition that thinks there is no correlation between the crime rate and the unemployment rate yet when we look at the unemployment rate and the crime rate we see they are directly related. As unemployment comes down so does the crime rate. As unemployment goes up so does the crime rate. It is not that people who are unemployed necessarily are driven to a life of crime; it is just that choices and opportunities are narrowed for people when employment is at its lowest ebb. 
Last year I described the Working for Families package as the best thing that had happened that year. When the Budget was read out in Parliament I felt so proud to be part of a Government that was delivering to working families. 
There are almost 7000 Modern Apprentices in this country. I can blame Bill Birch for a lot of things such as the Employment Contracts Act the destruction of accident compensation and “think big”. We can say a lot of things about Bill Birch but I say to the House that the worst thing Bill Birch ever did to this country was to destroy our apprenticeship scheme. This Government has rebuilt an apprenticeship scheme that has given real opportunities to young people to take their place proudly in our infrastructure as the tradesmen and tradeswomen of the future. 
And we have given a real boost to health and education spending. 
I think the choice this year is really quite straightforward. People need to decide whether they will stick with a Government that they know works—and Labour is working at the moment. It will also work in the future because we have the fundamentals right. We are getting results and we are building a stronger future for New Zealand. The alternative offered to us by the Opposition is a lurching back to division to unfairness and to the almost sheer nastiness of the 1990s. That is not the future that our people want for our country. In the wake of the tsunami the country pulled together. We truly came together. We do not accept the politics of division—driving people apart saying that one group of people is better than another that one group has it over another. That is not what New Zealanders want. They want a future together. They get that with Labour.