Roy Heather: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Roy Heather: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7262] 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 We have just listened to a Prime Minister’s speech that epitomises everything that is chronically and terminally wrong with this Government. I move  
That all the words after the word “That” be omitted and the following substituted: “this House has no confidence in the Government which is in denial about the real issues confronting New Zealanders keeping families dependent on government and stands between our people and prosperity.” 
Let us first remind ourselves that this is a Government born of desperation and self-interest primarily between the Labour Party and “Winston First”. This Government conspires to deliver a society ever to be remembered as “Helengrad”. It follows its leader in a state of collective denial of the carnage it is creating. Denial is evident throughout the Prime Minister’s speech today. Can there be a greater manifestation of this desperation to cling to power than the latest act of denial? It was proof positive that 80000 Kiwi kids attend school with no breakfast—and no lunch either. But do their empty stomachs keep the Prime Minister awake at night? Not at all. She denies their very existence. The alternative of course would be to admit the abject failure of this Government. But there was no admission of that in the speech we have just heard. The Prime Minister and her deputy sitting over there laughing at the prospect of 80000 children being hungry are the masters of the art of denial. 
We witness the crumbling health service creaking under its own bureaucratic weight. Countless thousands of Kiwis are waiting for lifesaving and life-changing treatment. The Government’s solution is simple: to deny it. The Government had them wiped from the waiting list. What problem? See it has gone! 
Unemployment is no problem; one just manipulates the figures. People are not unemployed; they are invalids and they are sick. They are sick all right—sick of being denied by this Government. It is the Prime Minister who should feel sick—sick with shame. But no the Government has convinced itself that anything is justified—any slick twisting of the facts and any spinning of the truth. Anything is justified in the pursuit of power. Let the children go hungry. Let the sick suffer. Let the jobless wither away—generation after generation of them. There is denial after denial because the solution would be to deny the crazy ideology that drives this Government. The Prime Minister is in denial that the answer lies in creating a truly fair society—a society where hard work and enterprise are rewarded a society where the disadvantaged are given a hand up not a handout and a society where people can depend on the Government to create an environment in which they can all prosper. 
When the economy did pick up the Government read the signs that a burgeoning middle class was emerging. More and more Kiwis were actually in danger of taking charge of their own destiny and being less dependent on the Government—a Government awash with cash. Did the Government welcome this transformation? Did it embrace the opportunity? Did it do what any responsible Government would do and return the money to the people who earned it in the first place—a move that would have empowered hard-working Kiwis and innovative companies? No it panicked. It did not see a nation set free from the chains of excessive taxation; it did not see families with choice; it saw its voter base eroded. For this is a Government that depends on people being dependent on it. So what did it do? It fell into a bout of chronic denial and set about turning middle New Zealand into a land of beneficiaries. 
That is the Labour way. That is the “Winston First” way. It is not the Maori Party way. The Maori Party knows the perils of intergenerational dependence and is sick of Maori being just another statistic for Labour to lie about. It is not the Green way. It knows that only a well-educated healthy invigorated workforce can support the vulnerable and truly needy. The time has come for everyone on the right side of this House—whatever our differences—to end the denial. The more I talk to our friends and colleagues in other parties the more I am encouraged by how we are united in our desire to create a prosperous nation. 
The Prime Minister knows that the answer is to repair the infrastructure education system justice system and health service and that the people will take care of the rest. But instead she stays in denial locking as many people as possible into a lifetime of dependence on the State on Government and on Labour pretending all will be well. It is clear from her speech what the Prime Minister seeks. More than anything else it is another term—another 3 years at the helm. To achieve that she is prepared to practise the cruellest of hoaxes: she will use the money that hard-working Kiwis pay in tax to turn them into dependants in the fervent hope that they will reward her with their vote. 
Such is this state of denial that some of the Labour members chipping up over there have even managed to convince themselves that this is somehow a manifestation of socialism. They insult their own heritage if they think that. Labour Prime Ministers who once stood for reform and new ideas were never afraid to address the social and economic issues of their day. If this Prime Minister believes she lives up to their reputation then she is in denial about that too. This country could once lay claim to being a model of social democracy. ACT recognises respects and believes in just that. I long for a day when a Prime Minister stands in this House to return power and self-respect to the people for a Prime Minister leading a Government that puts in place the building blocks for a fair and just society and for a Government that encourages success and recognises that its duty is to lead and aspire. 
The speech we have just heard was a classic twist on the Mark Twain gag. Yes the Prime Minister has principles and if people do not like those then she has others. It is not good enough. Those 80000 hungry children do not live in some far-off land to be pitied over chardonnay then denied by breakfast; they are our future. They are our fellow New Zealanders. The tens of thousands of sick and suffering wiped from hospital waiting lists are not a tear-jerking statistic from a World Vision commercial; they are our fellow New Zealanders. The victims of avoidable crime do not live in some far-off ghetto; they are our fellow New Zealanders. The hard-working men and women supporting others dependent on the State do not live in some Third World country; they too are our fellow New Zealanders. They all deserve better. They deserve a Government that will not deny them.