Jones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Jones Shane: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14122] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I te tuatahi me mihi ki te Whare i roto i teneipo te potuatahi e noho aitenei Whare i tenei tau hou. Ka mutu pouri te whakarongo atu ki auakorerorano mai i tena taha o te Whare. Kei konei ngawhakaarohou. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker. Firstly I acknowledge the House tonight in respect of this being its first night sitting of the new year. I am disappointed at the usual stuff I have heard from that side of the House. There is nothing new. The new ideas are here on this side 
.] 
Greetings to everyone in the House this evening this the first evening that we are debating with each other when I have the opportunity to amplify what is by any estimation the best speech of the day likely to be the best speech of the year that offered by the Prime Minister; yet it is disappointing to come back and hear tired rhetoric look at jaded people and then contemplate that the last speaker’s contribution actually summed up the whole group. He used words like “arid” “supercilious” “bewilderment”. In fact those words describe the entire countenance of that group of people who unfortunately think that simply by meandering back into the House sauntering back from the four winds to the head of the fish—into Parliament—victory is going to fall into their laps. Victory will be delivered to those people who ensure that the waka of progress going forward is moved and kept stable by the ballast of policy content leadership integrity and forward motion. Those are absolutely the issues that lie at the centre of and are the foundation of our Prime Minister’s speech. 
I have to tell members that January showed Aotearoa how we must address the outstanding issues of our youth. Yes tragedy struck a number of families and tragedy will follow those families as their young people wend their way through the courts. But never was a truer word said if I am not mistaken by amongst others Mr Anderton who reminded everyone as indeed Dr Cullen did that those children are the progeny of that dismal wretched time when the National Government slashed the guts out of the State. And those are the children who during their most fragile sensitive formative years were blighted by the mean-spiritedness narrow vision and desire of that Government to enrich their secret supporters and not to look after the mokopuna and tamariki the young people of this country. Is it any surprise that putrid fruit has started to arrive from that dreadful time? 
Of course what is the response? Today we have had potentially the most signal decision that we are likely to encounter this year on the specific area of social service delivery. The Prime Minister has delivered for our non-governmental organisation sector. It is the sector that toils away dealing with the families at the heart of the community the families that have to wake up and actually wash away from their homes and streets the foulness that is a hangover from that dreadful time. They might say: “Six 7 8 9 years—how can you continue to blame us?”. I can tell folks that rest assured it will be 10 11 12 years because there is no single reason why Kiwis in adequate numbers will follow John Key—none whatsoever. There was not a single contribution today from his speech to match the ballast the power and the demonstration of progress reflected in the Prime Minister’s speech. 
Let us go back to the decision about non-governmental organisations. The non-governmental organisations were atomised; the non-governmental organisations were living in a virtual anaemic State when they were gutted in the 1990s. As a consequence of Dr Cullen’s fiscal stewardship and the Prime Minister’s unparalleled leadership we now have a surplus we now have the resources to resuscitate and strengthen that sector. I challenge the members from National’s side of the House to look at the groups that will benefit from our non-governmental organisation strategy because those are the groups that silently and quietly fear the return of a Government by members on that side of the House. 
I tell the House that rest assured the sector has every reason to live in dread that those members will arrive back with a secret agenda they will not reveal. They will not disclose what they hope to achieve. They are hopefully going to put it out not only in this House but around marae. Of course every time they go to marae they are really cuddling up to the Maori Party. The Tories are meeting the Maori Party believing they are going to form a Government. What a joke! What a wretched trick that is to play on our people and my Tai Tokerau people when their real agenda is to destroy the Maori seats. 
But let me come back to the non-governmental organisation announcement. This announcement lays down the platform for young families and vulnerable individuals old and young to have a great deal more confidence that their issues will be picked up that they will not be swept aside and that they will not be forgotten about. 
The Prime Minister’s speech totally eclipsed the very eclectic mean-spirited facile and shallow thoughts of Mr Key that somehow we could set up at the back of the Milford Track some sort of special zone where troublemakers and young gang prospects could be sent out of sight out of mind. The Prime Minister’s speech dealt with reality—that is that the medium and trajectory of education is the only way we will turn the lives of these young people around. That is why Schools Plus up and down the country is being embraced. 
A speaker earlier said that we were burdening the schools; in actual fact what the Prime Minister has proposed is that everyone to the age of tekaumawaru 18 years old should engage in ongoing learning. That will develop our economy that will be a sustainable contribution to productivity—not throwing them in the hinaki and not locking them in those special zones that Mr Key is talking about. 
So we really have had the foundation influences laid out this afternoon. There was a massive contribution to the non-governmental organisation sector. But of course that sector can go only so far and leaders of communities need to step up to the plate. It is a tragedy that not a single word has come from the Maori Party over the scourge and the blight that gangs represent in our area of Tai Tokerau. Gangs are spreading knowing that the Maori Party has an air of indifference or that it fears speaking the truth against them and challenging community leaders—leaders of our marae leaders of sports clubs—to say: “By all means join the fray! Come celebrate your culture but leave the kawa the terror of your gangsterism well away from the preserve of identity.” When we hear them provide that quality of leadership or speak that truth then our people will know they have genuine spokespersons from the Maori community who can join in common purpose with the non-governmental organisation sector that is completely overwhelmed with joy and gratitude as a consequence of the Prime Minister’s speech. 
My friend to the left asks when we are going to hear some policy from National. National’s strategy is not to put out policy I tell him; National’s strategy is to ape to purloin—in fact its members are engaging in the largest heist this House is likely to see. They are quietly and very deviously wandering around cherry-picking those parts of the Labour programme that we have travailed to deliver to the country. They will cherry-pick them and obscure under our policies their true agenda. 
The true agenda is to continue the marketisation of service delivery and to continue their reliance on the privatisation and corporatisation of key areas of public good: education and health. There will be a reversion to the privatisation of prisons and a putting on the block of those core State assets that the public has said time and time again are not for sale. That is what National’s agenda is about. Its members foolishly think they could be right and that the bewildered group known as the Maori Party will actually join forces with them and sustain that agenda. Well that will be the day that our people will curse the existence of the Maori Party so the National Party is unlikely to do it. 
That party is unwilling—and I can understand why it is unwilling because the agenda is frightening—and unable to pay back its debts to the people who are actually investing in behind. The same group that was delirious with joy when Don Brash at least had the gumption and honesty to spill out his rancid racist rhetoric the same group that clapped loudly for him then still exists in that party. Its members are quietly sneakily waiting for John Key who mistakenly believes that he can use his sharemarket trading skills—which brought the subprime crisis to our country—to run the country. Never! Just as he is bike-riding in Rotorua it will be “On your bike buddy; haere ra!”. Kia ora tatou.