Finlayson Christopher: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Finlayson Christopher: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7354] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I was going to congratulate the previous speaker because that speech was for at least 8 minutes the first vaguely intelligible contribution I have heard from him in my time here. Then he ruined it at the end and I am very disappointed in him. 
The Prime Minister’s statement yesterday was as banal as last year’s dismal effort and it was delivered with her trademark humour and lightness of touch. This year’s effort in particular shows signs of the synthetic market-tested language peddled by her political advisers. Last year she said that she and her cohorts were in Government to make a difference for the better. Then throughout 2006 we all witnessed Labour’s performance over the pledge card and the disgrace of the Taito Phillip Field affair. 
This year she said that her Government stands for “decent values at home” yet in the last few days we have had the president of her own party hinting that the $800000 the Labour Party owes the people of New Zealand may not be paid back. And we still have the disgrace of the Taito Phillip Field affair. Yesterday we learnt that Mr Field is finally history in the Labour Party. Why? Because he has committed the greatest crime of all: he has offended the leader. 
The Prime Minister’s speech was an excellent example of the typical Labour approach over the last 7 years: fix the perception and leave the reality to look after itself. Time and time again this Government has tried to present itself as visionary compassionate and effective. The reality is of course quite different. It is a washed up visionless Government that has no practical and detailed agenda for advancing the economic and social interests of this country. 
Though the Prime Minister’s speech was supposed to run for about an hour she herself could keep going for only about 35 minutes before she became bored. In those 35 minutes she sure managed to get those clichés across. There were howlers like: “Complacency will not do” “We have to secure our future.”; and the statement that this Government has a “commitment to social cohesion and the willingness to be inclusive across ethnicity culture and faith”—as long as one is not a Christian. And so it went on. There was not a social democratic cliché that the Prime Minister omitted from this lousy effort. 
True to form the Labour MPs who have followed the Prime Minister have repeated her same tired slogans. Last year I commented that Labour MPs reminded me of the zombies sitting in the Soviet Politburo in the 1980s mindlessly applauding the speeches made by their leaders who were in various states of putrefaction. On cue Labour MPs this year again mouthed the same inanities about economic transformation families young and old and national identity. 
In fact it seems to be the same pattern in other socialist parties around the world. Just the other day I was reading an article about the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Environment Mr Miliband who was talking about the Blair Government’s determination to deal with issues of climate change national identity economic transformation and competition. At least the Labour Government in England is prepared to talk about competition. The competition aspect seems to have been lost by the New Zealand Labour Party in its rendition of the formula devised by the socialist parties of the world at some group grope last year. True to form Labour MPs have recited the formula as though it were a litany. 
Seeing the Labour MPs faithfully reciting the formula conjures up memories of the Chinese Communist Party hacks constantly singing that apparently genuine hit number from the cultural revolution: “Oh I love to push my wheelbarrow to the collective garbage dump”. An interesting question is whether any of them really believe their own speeches. Well I do not know. Who knows? I bet a number of them do not believe their own speeches but they will be wary of saying anything lest they too join the ranks of Labour MPs bound for the knacker’s yard. Last year Parliament said goodbye to Jim Sutton today it is Georgina Beyer and during the year it will be curtains for two or three others. Next year one can confidently predict that another seven or eight of the Labour backbench will be saying goodbye to this place to be replaced by more trade union secretaries. 
So there we have it: another speech where slogans are more important than substance and where the Prime Minister is more concerned about the perception rather than the reality. 
Hon Member 
: Herceptin. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Certainly she is not concerned about Herceptin. 
It was a speech riddled by words beloved by focus groups like “smart active government” and that real shocker about the Government standing for “decent values at home”. Compare this drivel and the tired and fearful MPs who mouth it with the fresh and dynamic National Party team led by John Key and Bill English. I consider it a real privilege to be a member of the John Key shadow Cabinet and to have responsibilities in three areas—Attorney-General Treaty negotiations and arts—and I want to say something about those areas now. 
First I will talk about Treaty negotiations. The Prime Minister insolently said that the settlement process has “considerable momentum”. Well that is just rubbish. The record of the Prime Minister and her two lacklustre Ministers in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has been very poor indeed. In the 1990s National negotiated among others the fisheries Tainui and NgaiTahu settlements. Between 1992 and 1999 National negotiated settlements amounting to over $500 million. Labour has not managed even half that sum in an equivalent 7-year period. 
It was very interesting the other night to attend a function held by NgaiTahu to honour Sir Tipene O’Regan. National was represented by Jim Bolger Jenny Shipley Doug Graham Doug Kidd and me. Labour could manage to send along only the Minister of Labour—who I think sloped off early—and the Minister of Commerce. It was obvious which party had made a real contribution to the rebuilding of NgaiTahu’s fortunes. 
A John Key administration will bring to the Treaty settlement process the same energy and optimism that were brought to Treaty settlement policy by the Bolger and Shipley administrations in the 1990s. The reality is that National commenced the historic Treaty settlements policy that Labour has done very little in the area and that a John Key administration will justly and successfully conclude the process. How can the Prime Minister say that the process has momentum when for example the North and South Island inquiry in which I participated as counsel held its final hearing in February 2004 and 3 years on the tribunal has not yet been able to release its report? How is that “momentum”? What practical suggestions does the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations have? Well he has nothing. 
And look at what the Prime Minister said about the arts: “Government support for culture … will continue to play an important part in the development of new productions across theatre music and dance.” That is all. Labour has run out of ideas in this area. In fact since the Prime Minister announced the Cultural Recovery Package in 2000 Labour has done very little in this area. It was a National Government that had the first Minister for the arts and that established the Arts Council the Film Commission and Te Papa and it will be a National Government that works with the arts community on issues as diverse as the interrelationship between new technologies and the arts the reform of existing institutions and the reform of the Authors Fund. It is simply not good enough for the Prime Minister to mouth a few ritualistic phrases in her dreary speech and for Associate Minister Tizard to turn up to functions and witter on about how passionate she is about the arts. Clichés and waffle will not do any more. 
Finally the Prime Minister also addressed the criminal justice system. If ever there was an area that is failing it is this area yet once again the Prime Minister and her Ministers showed themselves to be ignorant of what needs to be done. The Minister of Corrections is a weak man and on his watch Liam Ashley was murdered and other shocking abuses have occurred. That Minister has no answers. Nor does the Minister of Justice who is as bewildered by this area as he is by Treaty negotiations. The same could be said about the Minister for Courts and the cohort of Associate Ministers of Justice. So many Ministers and so few answers! The same thing applies to reform of the civil justice system. No one in this Government really appreciates the realities of legal aid delays in the court system the need to reform the appellate court structure and so on. 
What I despise about the Prime Minister’s speech is that she showed no respect for New Zealanders. The New Zealand electorate has been sliced and diced by her pollsters their policy priorities cross-tabbed and the turns of phrase most appealing to their ears focus-grouped yet the people of New Zealand are no longer impressed by the Prime Minister’s synthetic market-tested language. They know that there is more to Government than this shallow shabby effort. They want a Government that knows what the issues are and has the courage to address them. After 7 years New Zealanders are entitled to expect more than the formulaic drivel that was the Prime Minister’s statement. 
Sue Moroney 
: That’s from a party with no policy. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: That is why her time is up I say to Sue Moroney. It is time for a change; it is time for National.