Tremain Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Tremain Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14228] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I support the motion of John Key which moves that this House has no confidence in the Helen Clark - led Government—no confidence because it has failed to make a significant improvement in areas of real importance to New Zealanders it lacks ambition it is tired and bereft of ideas under its leadership our country has become a story of lost opportunities and lastly it has lost touch with the people who put it in power. 
Before I continue with my speech I acknowledge the work of Brian Donnelly and Katherine Rich in this House. Both of them have made significant contributions to the work done across the House and I acknowledge the work they have done—particularly that of Katherine who came in with me on the economic development team and who provided a bit of a starting guiding light for me when I first came into this House. So I thank Katherine Rich. 
I will focus on the last point that I made in terms of the Government having lost confidence and having lost touch with New Zealanders. This can be seen no more so than when we look at the two leaders of the Labour Government. In the House today at question time the Prime Minister stood up and said in response to a question about migration statistics that everything was OK because despite a record migration of Kiwis we have had a net gain of skills. Minister Duynhoven repeated that claim earlier tonight. But the Prime Minister demonstrated in black and white just how much she has lost touch with the blue-collar workers of this country. She does not care about them; she cares more about importing skills to replace the jobs going out of this country. How in touch is that? 
Then we have the Deputy Prime Minister who told us today in the Finance and Expenditure Committee that hard-working Kiwis who demand ongoing tax cuts have an Oliver Twist mentality. That just shows how much the Minister of Finance is out of touch with hard-working Kiwis. He forgets that the gruel they want a little more of is in fact their gruel in the first place. It is their sweat their hard work and their tax that they think deserves a better home in their pockets in their stomachs and in their bank accounts not in this Government’s. National understands this; Labour quite clearly does not. National understands that these hard workers these workers with an Oliver Twist mentality are struggling out there. 
Hard-working Kiwis with an Oliver Twist mentality are struggling after 8 years of Labour to understand why the health system has not improved when billions of extra dollars have been poured into it. I will focus on health in the rest of my 5-minute speech. Yesterday’s  
Dominion Post  
disclosed the heartache felt by a local Napier family. It was felt by Craig O’Neill and his mum Beverly O’Neill who when she called on her time with the health system was totally failed by it. We have to ask ourselves why hard-working Kiwis have lost faith in this Government because here was a lady who had put taxes into the health system for her entire life. She went into hospital with heart troubles she was flown to Wellington and the system did not deliver for her. Today the Minister of Health said that it was not a funding issue. It was an absolute cock-up and this lady lost her life. 
Last week in Hawke’s Bay we found out that the Minister of Health had allowed the sale proceeds from the hospital on Napier Hill—$20 million in total—to be used to cover the operating deficits of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board since 2005. This was done against clear indications that the sale proceeds were to be used to build two new operating theatres and an in-house psychiatric unit. Yet here we have it in the annual report being booked as an accrual against operating revenue to fund the deficit. Hawke’s Bay people have once again lost confidence in this Government. They have lost confidence in this Government and that is why National has moved a motion of no faith in the Prime Minister’s Government. Thank you.