Upston Louise: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Upston Louise: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1163. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat Chris Hipkins has said that today is a sad day for this Parliament. Well actually every single day is a sad day if you are a member of the Labour Opposition. 
If we look back at last Thursday we heard a speech from the leader of the Labour Party that was a classic example. It was meant to be about the dawning of a new day or the dawning of a new New Zealand. Perhaps he actually should have renamed it the dawning of a new Finland because that is what he spoke about. I want to take another little glimpse at the connections Labour has made with Finland and to look back at something that was in the  
Listener 
 in 1985. The comparison was being made by Roger Douglas. He was talking about the use of Rogernomics in Finland—actually it was the birth of the expression “Rogernomics”. Unfortunately what we saw back then and it is possibly something the current leader is wanting to follow was that Douglas was relying on the fact that Finland had made these reforms but he did not bother to check whether those reforms had got the outcomes that were expected. As we heard from Gerry Brownlee today sad to say actually New Zealand is doing far better in many many areas than Finland. So it is really unfortunate that the leader of the Labour Party also has not bothered to do his homework and check his facts as to whether any of these reforms will lead to anything. 
Harking back also to the Labour Party its leader for 9 years Helen Clark referred to this  
Cabinet Manual 
 which the previous speaker referred to as only a guide—only a guide. From listening to the member who resumed his seat prior to my speech you would think this was the Holy Grail and this would be absolutely everything. But unfortunately Labour’s leader for 9 years referred to it as only a guide. 
I actually want to focus on two key areas in the limited time that I have. One of them is the work that has been started—probably of any of the issues that my constituents bring into my electorate office it is the one that they are hanging out for—on reform of local government. The complaint that they have is about their rates—over and over and over again. We have local government that is actually not living within its means. Interesting to say the  
Dominion Post  
has said that in its opinion the councils have shown a disturbing lack of appreciation of the circumstances faced by their communities. This is actually what is important. If we look at what is important to our constituents to the people of New Zealand we see that they are tightening their belts on a daily basis. What are we doing with this reform? We are simply saying to local government: “You need to do the same. You need to tighten the belt.” It is interesting that Local Government New Zealand has come out and said that it supports the reform in principle. That is why this work is so important. It is refocusing the purpose of local government introducing fiscal responsibility—that is something that the Government here central government has to operate within—strengthening council governance and also streamlining council reorganisation. It is about making sure that the rates that locals pay every single day are accountable that they are manageable and that they are not excessive. If they have gone up 7.6 percent when the CPI has increased only 3 percent something is going on. So that is what we are looking at. Seven percent every year is excessive and we have got to do something about that and get on top of that particular trend. 
The other thing that I do want to touch on and that I am enormously proud of the Prime Minister announcing last week are the targets. Some targets in particular I think it is worth bringing to the attention of the House and they are the ones around the support that this Government is giving vulnerable children. One of the things I have spoken about a lot in this House and in my community is the need to increase participation in early childhood education. The one thing that I do not think there would be any disagreement in this House on is that the first 5 years of a child’s life are vital and children getting the best start possible in education is the one thing we should all agree on.