Hobbs Marian: Address in Reply 
Hobbs Marian: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:163] 
MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker it is very good to see you back in the Chair—in fact it is very good to see that particular team back in the Chair working with us to make an effective Parliament. 
The most recent election was an honest debate in some ways—probably the most honest election we have had in years. Once we cleared the decks of racism mainstreaming and other illiberal sideshows and once we exposed the strange behaviour of Dr Brash and the secretive support by the Exclusive Brethren we got down to the kernel of what determines the differences between the two main political approaches—thank you Greens—in New Zealand politics. It goes like this: how much do we gather into the community pool and how much do we leave to individuals to pay for themselves? The debate very clearly came down to that—it certainly did in Wellington Central. 
In simple terms when we come to this Chamber we do two to three tasks: we make laws for the community so that we can get some order in our lives we raise taxes and we decide how those taxes are spent. In New Zealand we are mostly agreed that the community not the individual pays for much of our education health care safety and security and infrastructure—roads rail power generation and power transmission. In respect of education in New Zealand it is generally accepted—in compulsory schooling anyway—that the State provides the basics. Even in tertiary education the State still provides I think about 70 percent of the cost of tertiary provision. Less than 3 percent of our students are in private schools; we can compare that with Australia’s 30 percent. Again in terms of health we expect the State or the community to help to pay for our secondary and tertiary health care. In infrastructure individuals do not pay for the rail-track or the roads—the community does. 
Yet the National Party advocated during the election that there was money sloshing around in those basic areas. National members argued—and this is really strange—that as there was money sloshing around we should send it back out to the individual in tax returns. Yet their friends send children to private schools and they wanted that 3 percent to be supported with more money from the community than the current Government provides. So they argued for support for the 3 percent of students in private schools. At the same time they ignored the 3000 extra teachers above roll growth who went into classrooms. National called that at times “false” and “an expanding public service”. National ignored the fact that that public service consisted of more teachers more and better-paid nurses and more people working on the border—better border security. Instead National said that it was an amorphous expanding public service. 
While National MPs talk of excellence as against mediocrity—and I would have to say to Mr Groser that I did not expect to hear clichés from him—they ignore the increase in early childhood education which leads to a reduction in illiteracy to more productivity and to a better start for all children. We in Labour will remove the barriers to early childhood education. We will provide 20 hours’ free early childhood education a week. While the National members may talk of excellence that was not the tertiary model that the previous National Government left us; it left us a model of quantity of “bums on seats” and of those equivalent full-time students generating the income—a market model. It was not a model of quality. It was not a model of differentiation. It was not a model of excellence. 
National left us without apprenticeships which is an excellent example. It said that it was up to the individual plumber to train the next generation—a very difficult job to do. The Labour Government had to come in and create Modern Apprenticeships and to work with the industry training organisations so that the community responded to the glaring gap in skills training. That is the difference: to individualise—to leave it to individual plumbers to replace themselves—or to work as a community. That is what the last election was about. 
But it is very easy to tell the voters that there is money sloshing around in public community funds and that it is there to be individualised by reducing taxes. That shows a basic misunderstanding of the business demographics of New Zealand. It is to apply a model gleaned from societies with large businesses and corporations rather than from New Zealand’s very high percentage of small businesses that employ less than five or 10 people. A large company with hundreds of thousands of employees can pay for research. A large company can mount overseas trade delegations. A large company can punt and explore in the international market place. But the small local business in Upper Hutt or Petone cannot do that. Those businesses have to do it either very cleverly or with community support. 
Small enterprises depend on community financial support to move from small to medium size. Small enterprises need efficient effective roads they need an energy supply they need international airlines—that is why we stepped in—and they need a skilled and healthy workforce. In the past small enterprises in New Zealand have shown us that they work together. That is the basis of the dairy co-ops. By working together they built up research and markets. It was not done by an individual farmer taking his or her round of cheese over to England all by himself or herself.That was cooperation. And New Zealanders thank God understood that. They rejected the bribe. They rejected individualisation and plumped for communal support for each other. But they do have an eagle eye for waste and they do want improvement. And they do want protection be it in biosecurity—for example protection from bird flu—or protection from violence or from terrorism and Labour will deliver that. 
I did not enter Parliament for individual power and think that is quite obvious from my standing aside from a Cabinet position. I entered Parliament in order to keep building a healthier more thoughtful and more peaceful society. I wanted to work with others to do that. I come from the heritage in New Zealand that values people working together to achieve that. The reality of those on the Opposition side of the House may be one that says: “You believe you can do it; we believe that we can do it all on our own.” They believe that they do not need their colleagues. That is why it is always so exciting in the National caucus. Those members believe that they alone have all the insights and all the solutions and that they can pay for all they need outside of the community pot—private schooling private health-care private rubbish removal private research and private marketing. But our social make-up in this small society says that we do better when we cooperate—when we collaborate. We are competitive but not against each other in this small society. We are a competitive force in the world. We support our sports our arts our products and our designs and we want them to be the best in the world. To do that we need to work together. 
During the last election Dr Brash wanted to complete the individualisation that was begun by Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson and I heard mention of that again tonight from Tim Groser. New Zealanders rejected it—even with a tax cut bribe. That was what made me so happy on election night. I felt I was a part of the community particularly in the 69 percent red/green Wellington. That is a city where citizens work together. It is a city where there is much private philanthropy particularly in the arts but it is also a city where individuals contribute many many small amounts in order to create a large community good. An example of that is the Karori sanctuary or the frigate  
Wellington 
 which has just been sunk. That frigate was financed in the beginning by the community’s taxes—at both ends of its life. The project to sink the frigate was led by a vibrant and an exhausting Marco Zeeman but he did not do it alone. He built a team and he won the support of volunteers of local government and of central government. 
I am very proud to be part of that approach to our society and that is what we will continue to build over the next 3 years. 
Debate interrupted.