te Heuheu Georgina: General Debate 
te Heuheu Georgina: General Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:5032] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call in this general debate. It is pretty pathetic that the Labour side criticises National for not having ideas yet those members are content to use all of their time in criticising someone who was in Parliament some years ago and whom we have brought in now. But what that action says is that we do not pretend we know everything unlike that party. In Labour’s 9 years in Government the members took all the knowledge from the House and paid no attention to the New Zealand public. They pretended they knew everything and ran this country as though it was their personal party and it was not. Get real; the party is over! They bequeathed to us a whole line of negativity with a long tail of underachievement. Shame on the Labour Party! As I say it is very disappointing that in all their speeches no members came forward with any ideas themselves but are very happy to criticise us. 
I tell those members that we are getting on with the job. We do not pretend to know it all. We have invited a number of people from the private sector to come in help us and support us because that is what New Zealanders would expect. They know that Governments do not have all the answers but they know that some of them have the answers. The trick in my view—actually it is not a trick but the approach is to value the knowledge and skills and experience of New Zealanders and bring those people into the equation if they have something to offer. 
The future of our country is at stake. In Labour’s 9 years in Government it squandered the good times and left us only bad times. If Labour members are of the mind to care about their fellow New Zealand citizens then they should come in with some constructive ideas. National is getting on with the job. We are looking for new ideas we have new ideas and we have announced those new ideas. New ideas have been flowing since the Job Summit. 
I want to talk in respect of the new ideas for Maori for a wee while; for instance this week there will be announcements running regarding 250 new places for training for young Maori men and women. At the end of the week my colleague the Hon Chris Finlayson will be meeting in Rotorua regarding another Treaty settlement and there will also be a housing initiative that will be announced as well. We are getting on with the job and those ideas are just in relation to Maori but they are happening across the board. Someone has to manage this country wisely during this downturn; that is what we are doing. New ideas will not come popping out all over the place. The Labour Government had 9 years and it did not have new ideas. 
As much as Labour wants to criticise us the reality is that the New Zealand public are behind us. Why are they behind us? They got sick of the 9 years of a nanny-State Government thinking that it knew everything and developing all the answers down here in the centre. It bequeathed the country one of the worst legacies ever—absolutely! The good times are the times to lay up and prepare for the bad times. The previous Labour Government did nothing about that—absolutely nothing—and now we have to fix the mess. We are getting on; we are managing the country. 
To go back to what is happening in the Maori area we have a Maori economic task force and there are work streams that fall out of that which will look to boost the participation of Maori and Pacific people in the New Zealand economy. They are a growing part of the economy. When the economy starts to lift we want to make sure that they are prepared to help lift productivity. That is what it is all about. Frankly the growth rate in the good years under the previous Labour Government was pathetic and we have inherited that. New Zealanders have inherited that. Shame on the Labour Party!