Dyson Ruth: General Debate 
Dyson Ruth: General Debate 
[Volume:665;Page:12761] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 In every town and city in our country people are getting more and more confused about what the Government is doing. They are asking me and my colleagues where this Government is going where the vision is and what the plan is. Well our decisive Prime Minister John Key gives them an absolutely decisive answer. When he is asked that question John Key says: “Well yes ah maybe and no; no yes maybe.” He has absolutely no idea of where he is taking our country. He has no vision and no plan. 
That is quite different from the John Key we had in Opposition who gave a speech saying that National would give New Zealand a fresh start. He said that National in Government would be unrelenting in its quest to lift our economic growth rate and raise wage rates. Well I think that the job of being the Prime Minister is harder than he ever thought it would be. It was easy for him to make those great commitments and outline a great vision when he was in Opposition but since National has been in Government we have seen nothing at all except for great plans then oops a U-turn; then another plan and oops another U-turn or great announcements and no action to follow. 
As my colleague David Parker said who could argue with the idea of a cycleway? John Key made an off-the-top-of-his-head comment at the Job Summit where people from all around the country had given a commitment to work with the Government to get us through the recession to make sure that fewer New Zealanders lost their jobs and that more New Zealanders were able to be in paid employment. The only thing that came out of the summit was the cycleway which has produced no jobs at all. What an embarrassment! At the Job Summit key leaders from all around the country committed themselves to doing something together for New Zealand and not one action came out of it. 
What about the proposal to make New Zealand the Asia-Pacific hub for the financial services industry? That was another great idea coming out of the mouth of the Government. A proposal was due we were told in May. Now it is nearly August and there is absolute silence from the Government. There is not even a whisper about the next great bold initiative. Nothing else has come out from the Government. 
The Don Brash - led initiative the 2025 Taskforce which said that the most important thing that the Government should do is to slash Government spending blew its entire 3-year budget for meeting fees in just 1 year. Don Brash was preaching that the Public Service should cut back on excess and that the Government should cut its spending but the task force spent its entire 3-year meeting fees budget in its first year. 
Now we have resorted to that shining light from the back bench of Cabinet Kate Wilkinson. She says that the best way to take New Zealand forward is to make sure that people can be sacked in the first 3 months of their employment without knowing why. It might be for a good reason or for a bad reason but those people regardless of what they did deserve to know why they were sacked. Kate Wilkinson is taking away that very simple right particularly from young New Zealand workers. How does that feel? When people go for their first job they try really hard and they do not get everything right. Maurice Williamson is still trying really hard in his job. Clearly he does not get everything right but he deserves to be told so that he can improve rather than just being sacked as he was in the past with very little idea about what he had done wrong. All New Zealand workers should have that basic right. 
Paul Quinn 
: Who got sacked? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I was not sacked actually I say to Mr Quinn. 
The other bold initiative from the Government which John Key and Gerry Brownlee paraded around the country was that we would start mining in the schedule 4 land in our national parks. Now that plan has gone down the tubes as well. There is no vision no plan and no future for New Zealand under this Government.