Carter John: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Carter John: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:16851] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 We are here tonight to debate the Imprest Supply (First for 2008/09) Bill and also the Appropriation (2007/08 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. When reading through the bills as I did over dinner I found that the pity of it was that it is the same old same old. It is the same stuff; there is nothing new. The Government will give itself the authority to spend more taxpayers’ money and impose more costs on to ratepayers. The ratepayers and taxpayers of course are the same people. The Government has its hands via central and local government in both pockets. The pity of it is that we will end up with more of the same old nanny State stuff. And what a pity that is. For the last 8 or 9 years as a consequence of the foundation that was left by the previous National Government this Government has had the best economic times that one could have dreamt of. This Government had the opportunity to give the people of this nation the right and the freedom to stand on their own feet and start making decisions creating job opportunities for themselves creating opportunities for people and their communities and creating opportunities for their children and their grandchildren. But what have we ended up with? Sadly we have ended up with a country that is dominated by a left-leaning socialist Labour Government that wants to control every facet of the lives of everybody in this country. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: And redistribute our money. 
JOHN CARTER 
: That is quite right. Instead of allowing people to create and build wealth and to have a better community the Government wants to take it off them put it in its pocket and control everything from finances to social lives to what people do on the sporting paddock. 
The Government wants to control the lives of New Zealanders. Let us look at some of the ways in which the Government has done this. Just recently the Government introduced a bill into Parliament called the Public Health Bill. One would think that nothing is wrong with that; there is some stuff in there that needs to be addressed. But one of the areas that will cause more cost for the taxpayers and for the ratepayers is the issue around hairdressers. One wonders why the Government— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: We won’t go will we? 
JOHN CARTER 
: I have to say to Mr Tisch that he and I are probably not people who frequently attend the hairdressers. 
Chris Tremain 
: Neither does Mr Tanczos. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Yes one or two others in this House are of the same ilk. The point is that up until now the hairdressers in this country have got on and done their job for people. They have even had a go for people like Chris Finlayson. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: What about Nandor? 
JOHN CARTER 
: We have already talked about Nandor. The fact is that those people have got on with their lives and got on with the job. They have cut hair and done hairdressing and they have made people more beautiful. I have to say to Ron Mark that in his case and mine that job has been more challenging for them. Nevertheless the fact is they have got on and done the job that people have expected them to do. Now the Government has decided that that is not good enough that there are too many risks around allowing people to be hairdressers and that they have to be controlled. So the Government will spend some of this money on ensuring that there are more controls and regulations around hairdressers and they will also tell local government that it has to police this. What we will now have is not just more taxpayers’ money being spent and the health department looking after rules and regulations in respect of hairdressers; we will now have the local authorities going down and spending more ratepayers’ money on issuing permits so that people can be hairdressers. I have to ask where it will stop. 
Let us look at the Department of Building and Housing. This seriously is a major worry. The costs that this department imposes on taxpayers and on to ratepayers are unbelievable. In 1999 31.5 full-time equivalents were employed in the Department of Building and Housing. Last time I looked just a few weeks ago 389 people were employed in that department. The Government is now going through the accreditation of local government. It has now accredited a good number of the local authorities in New Zealand to allow them to issue permits and carry on being involved in building but this is at a cost to ratepayers of at least $8 million. This is some of the crazy stuff that the Government is doing. 
Just recently I learnt that the Department of Conservation has about 300 huts—generally in parks up the sides of mountains and in places that people like to visit. These are not places that one would expect to be able to just walk into; some of them are a bit challenging. The Department of Building and Housing has issued rules and regulations about all sorts of things. One of them is about how to cope with people with disabilities. There is nothing wrong with making sure that there is proper access—there should be; in fact this is one of the things that the National Party absolutely supports. But I have to say there is a limit when the Department of Building and Housing writes to local authorities to ask whether they consider it necessary for wheelchair access to be mandatorily put into a Department of Conservation hut that is 3000 feet up the side of a mountain. I have to say that if someone is capable of getting up to that hut in a wheelchair the last thing that person will want or expect or demand is wheelchair access or disabled toilets. Yet the Department of Building and Housing is spending our taxpayers’ money and putting costs on to ratepayers by asking whether this should be something we have to do mandatorily across the country in the 300 Department of Conservation huts. We have to ask ourselves where this nanny State stops its control. It is just unbelievable that we would have that sort of thing. 
The other day I was in a rural village where there was an outlet for farmers. I was talking to the shopkeeper who told me that all sorts of stuff was sold that one would expect people in the farming community to purchase such as grain weed spray machinery—all sorts of different stuff. An occupational safety and health inspector went in the other day. The shopkeeper has a warehouse around the back with a certain variety of goods in it. On one side he has grain and food for the stock and on the other side he has weed spray so that the farmers if they need to control their weeds can purchase that and do whatever they need to do to control the weeds. The inspector told him that it was very dangerous to have stock food on one side and weed spray on the other and that a farmer could get very confused. The inspector came up with the following solution—and the shopkeeper had to do this. He said that on one side of the warehouse footprints going towards the stock food had to be painted in blue and on the other side footprints in yellow going towards the weed spray had to be painted. So when a farmer came up to ask for some weed spray the shopkeeper would have to say: “Yes but when you go out the back you must follow the yellow footsteps to get the weed spray and please don’t follow the blue prints to get the food stock because you might get mixed up and feed your cows weed spray instead of food stock.” 
Lindsay Tisch 
: What happens if he is colour-blind though? 
JOHN CARTER 
: There is a problem. I am not sure what happens if he is colour-blind. That is the sort of nonsense we are talking about. If somebody can tell me that a farmer cannot understand the difference between weed spray and food stock then I have to say that that person is not capable of farming. It is that sort of stuff that this country has had to put up with. 
This Government is wondering why 80000 people left last year to go over to Australia or further abroad permanently. This Government is wondering why people have become sick and tired of supporting it. This Government is wondering why we are having outbreaks of crime that we have never seen before. This Government is wondering why people in this country are dispirited. This Government is worried about what it has done to this country and the only people who cannot see the problem are Helen Clark and her Labour-led Government. The fact is that this country has got sick and tired of being told what to do. This country is built by people of initiative. This country has tonnes of people with fire in their belly. This country has tonnes of people who want to have the opportunity to get on with their own lives. The people in this country do not need to be mollycoddled. The people in this country do not need to be controlled by nanny State. The people in this country just want a Government that will get out of their lives and let them have the opportunity to carry on building and rebuilding this nation. I say to the people that they should just hold on a little longer—hope is on its way.