Guy Nathan: General Debate 
Guy Nathan: General Debate 
[Volume:656;Page:5894] 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 What we did not hear that member Mita Ririnui talk about was the Labour leadership woes. There are big problems in the Labour caucus and anyone in New Zealand needs only to turn on a television set and he or she can see Labour’s problems in the regular polls coming through to people’s lounges right across New Zealand. The most recent TV3 poll rated the Labour leadership of Phil Goff at only 6.5 percent in the preferred Prime Minister ratings. In 1999 when Phil Goff called the barbecue and 12 MPs turned up to roll Helen Clark she was polling at 23 percent. Phil Goff currently is polling at 6.5 percent. Lo and behold what has Labour decided to do? The Labour caucus has decided that this Labour weekend it will go across all of New Zealand and have big barbecue meetings. That is probably because the Labour caucus is instigating these to get ready to roll Phil Goff. 
What did TV3 do? It sought public opinion on who should roll Phil Goff. These are the people whom New Zealanders thought would be a better leader than Phil Goff. We have the Hon Annette King who is polling at about 15 percent. We have similar poll ratings for the Hon David Cunliffe at about 15 percent. We have heard this afternoon from the Hon Shane Jones—another aspirant who is busy sharpening the knives with his Maori Labour caucus. He is sitting at around 7 percent in the polls. Lo and behold we have two people who are not even in Parliament whom the public think would be better leaders than the Hon Phil Goff. Laila Harré is at about 7 percent and the Labour Party president Andrew Little is at 4 percent. Wait for this! Twenty-one percent of New Zealanders in this poll did not support any of the people whose names I have read out. What is more 23 percent do not even care about Labour. The other interesting thing is that Helen Clark who is currently running the United Nations Development Programme in New York polled at about 8 percent. The other interesting thing that the Labour Party is extremely worried about is its membership which was about 50000 in 2005. Currently its membership is below 10000. 
Labour has huge issues. Not only are New Zealanders not listening to Labour but Labour’s membership is leaving in droves. What did Labour members decide to do? They decided to get on a bus and reconnect with New Zealand. They came through my electorate the wonderful electorate of Otaki and thought they might be able to reclaim it. No one was listening to them there apart from the cafe owner who was very pleased to take money from them when they had their lunch in the cafe in the main street of Levin. On TV I saw the Labour members sitting in the back of the bus with David Shearer strumming on his guitar and leading the songs. But this is a Labour Party that is not focused. New Zealanders are not listening to Labour. 
What New Zealanders are listening to is the positiveness coming out of the new Government and they are seeing the great job that the Hon John Key is doing as Prime Minister. Just today the Prime Minister announced along with the Hon Paula Bennett that $84.5 million will be going into youth initiatives. National will be getting tougher on youth offenders and it will be focusing on a great initiative which I think is wonderful called Break Away to help schoolkids to be able to attend programmes in the school holidays. It will be focused into high deprivation areas of New Zealand—indeed I have some of those areas in my electorate—because as many people in this House will know if youngsters do not have something to do during school holiday time they roam up and down the main street of our towns and cause havoc. If we can get them into the programme that has been announced today it will be a fantastic way to get them off the street. 
The other important announcement today is about the 500 places in respite camps. These are for those being cared for by people such as foster parents grandparents and other people who are looking after kids particularly in the 5 to 8 years age group. I know as a young parent that it is particularly difficult to look after kids at times. If we can give them an opportunity to go into health camps in areas like mine that will be fantastic.