Coleman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Coleman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7310] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 Firstly I would like to welcome my new colleague Katrina Shanks to the Chamber. It would have been a bit disappointing for her to have to sit through that pretty average Prime Minister’s statement earlier today. I assure her that on some days speeches can be a lot better but those speeches always come from this side of the House. 
The Prime Minister stated this afternoon that meeting the challenges our country faces requires substance not slogans. But all that the Prime Minister’s statement really gave New Zealanders this afternoon was the Government’s latest fatuous slogan for 2007—sustainability. She mentioned that slogan 33 times and frankly it was dispersed throughout the most downbeat slow-paced speech I have yet heard her deliver. It was delivered to a subdued caucus and it was quite noticeable that the Minister of Maori Affairs was failing to sustain consciousness throughout the whole effort. 
The only sustainable thing about this Government is its desire to stay in power and it wants to hang on to power at all costs. But tonight the sustainability of this very Government must be in doubt with the news that Taito Phillip Field has forced Helen Clark’s hand and Labour finally against all the odds is preparing to cut him adrift. After all the months of defending him all the months of saying he was innocent until proven guilty and even after setting up an inquiry that the Prime Minister knew was never going to yield a transparent result the Prime Minister has finally admitted that Mr Field’s behaviour was immoral unethical and unacceptable. But even after that admission on radio yesterday the Prime Minister was prepared to hang on to his vote and cynically cling to power. She was prepared to do so until Taito Phillip Field did the simply unsustainable: he criticised the Labour Party and by implication the Prime Minister herself. After doing that he simply had to go. 
Bob Clarkson 
: He told the truth. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: He did. 
This Government is out of ideas. There are only 35 items on the Order Paper and at the rate this Parliament is going to get through them I would say we could well be out of here for the year by June. The Prime Minister herself had an hour allotted for her speech today and she took up only 35 minutes. If that is not an indication of a Government that is out of ideas and out of puff I do not know what is. 
We heard that slogan of sustainability but what about all the slogans of the past? Last year the slogan of the day was “economic transformation”. One could not go anywhere where a Labour Minister was speaking without hearing about economic transformation. It was being linked to all sorts of spurious things like health policy and occupational health and safety legislation but why do we not hear that any more? The simple fact is Labour knows that it cannot deliver on that economic transformation. It is a bit like the goal of getting New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD. We do not hear about that any more because we are in the bottom third of the OECD. That does not make quite such a good sound bite. It is a faded aspiration. Labour has given up on that goal of getting this country back into the top half of the OECD. The reality is that the gap in earnings between people in this country and people in Australia is growing all the time. It has become worse in the past 7 years so Labour knows that it has failed in that concrete goal it set itself at the beginning of this term of Government. 
The Government’s promise of 20 hours of free childcare will be a harder slogan to bury but clearly the promise is not catching on. In the Northcote electorate which I represent only 3 percent of early childhood centres are going to take up the Government’s offer because the people of those centres can see through it. They know that it is not the deal that it appeared to be. They know it is a Labour broken promise. It will be low-cost low-quality childcare so sensible childhood centres are not prepared to take the punt and offer that service. 
What about closing the gaps? No one in the Labour caucus would dare to utter that slogan any more. Do members remember that? It has now become an unmentionable. Why? Because it was a failed policy; it was nothing more than a slogan. What about Mr Maharey’s favourite word “investment”? Investment was a term that covered all sorts of wasteful Government spending. It covered the increasing number of people going on to sickness benefits. It covered the increasing bureaucracy in the public service. We were told this was not Government spending; it was “investment”. But was there any sign of a dividend? There was not. Are we hearing about investment now? No because people know that it is failing and reflects poorly on the Government. 
But this Government is hoping that sustainability might just work as a slogan; it might just work as a concept. The reason for that is that it is a sort of nebulous concept. It is not easy to pin down. We cannot really measure sustainability and it is a goal that is so far out that the Government will never be held to account. 
I guess one could add to this list of slogans the latest trendy Labour catchphrase “carbon neutrality”. The Government says it is aiming for carbon neutrality but quite frankly it is neglecting to put the facts before the people. The reality is that we are now burning three times more coal to produce electricity than we were in 1999 and 85 percent of our new electricity generation since 1999 has come from coal. How will the Government turn that into a carbon neutral situation? Well that will be pretty interesting to see. Even worse we are now chopping down more trees in New Zealand than we are planting each year and our emission rates are growing faster than those of Australia and the United States. The reality is that carbon neutrality in a Government department or ministry might sound all very well but unless this Government is serious about bringing India and China into line it is just going to be a joke of a campaign. It sounds good on the surface but carbon neutrality in a Government ministry means absolutely nothing. 
The point is that all this spin doctor jargon and the language that this Government has used in the Prime Minister’s statement today just reflects a Government that is increasingly out of touch with the grassroots. We get a headline demonstration of the extent of that probably about twice a week these days. Helen Clark is prepared to try to deny the existence of an underclass. She denies that kids in New Zealand are going to school without enough food to eat. She denies that they are going to school without breakfast and going to school without lunches. Yet the experts are saying that 80000 children every day are going to school in exactly that state. If that is not an embarrassment for those Labour members I do not know what is. I would say it would be an embarrassment to traditional Labour supporters and they are going to desert that party in droves at the next election. 
Interestingly when Labour members were talking about this—[ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Barker that he does not look very hungry. I am sure he gets breakfast every day. When Labour members were talking last week on breakfast television about the cause of this situation John Minto—who would have to be described as no friend of the right—when asked why this was happening said that it was because incomes were so low in this country. What is this Government going to do to try to raise incomes? The answer is nothing because the incomes of people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale have not increased after 9 years of a Labour Government. 
The second example of the Labour public relations disaster is the mortgage levy hash. If there were anything that displayed how out of touch these Ministers and this Prime Minister are with the average person working away on the average income of $42000 it would be the mortgage levy debacle. When one is Helen Clark and living in a mortgage-free Mt Eden villa a mortgage must seem like something from years ago. No doubt she is totally freehold. No doubt it is a levy she would never have to pay. No doubt of course it is a levy that Dr Cullen would not be paying either. 
But one thing that is clearly sustainable is the growing rift between Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. Michael Cullen is getting ready to give his last Budget. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Ha ha! 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Mr Fairbrother may laugh but he saw how quickly his leader slammed down the Minister of Finance straight after he made that mess-up on the mortgage levy stuff just like she had to slam down Mike Williams last week when he said Labour might not pay the money back after all. 
The reality is that Helen Clark is having to take control of portfolios all over the place because there is a big rift between Government Ministers and the leader. We are going to see a lot more of that developing over the next 18 months as this Labour Government struggles through on its last legs. 
So the situation we have is that of a Government that today sent out a pretty empty statement of its intentions for the year ahead. There are 35 pieces of legislation on the Order Paper and we heard a speech that lasted for 35 minutes instead of an hour. It showed a Government that is completely out of touch. It is resorting to a slogan that people will see through. Sustainability: what does it mean? It means absolutely nothing. The other slogans that Labour has tried to hoist off as policy in the past—closing the gaps getting us into the top half of the OECD—have been seen for what they are. Now Cabinet is at odds Cullen is on the ropes and as a last gasp this Prime Minister has moved the goalposts once again from hard economic targets to the nebulous abstract concept of sustainability. The public will not be fooled.