Mahuta Nanaia: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 August 2007. Volume:641;Page:11362. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs): New Zealanders are entitled to know National’s policy on anything that its members have raised in this House today. It is a very interesting debate when we hear members of the Opposition getting up and saying a whole lot of things but not being prepared to put some substance behind those things. It is a typical Opposition strategy to create a doom and gloom image say anything bring in the marketing guru and then say anything again. That has been the strategy adopted by National members.To put it quite simply National is not reflecting the real concerns of people on the ground. In fact what we are hearing out there is something to this effect: “You know John Key says all the right things but we’re not sure about the detail. You get the feeling he’s going to say what he thinks you want to hear but not what he really believes in. When are we really going to hear the detail? We know the policy but what are they really going to do? We have had enough of the marketing strategy.” That is what New Zealanders out on the ground are saying but National wants us to believe otherwise.Labour has been listening to the real issues out there that people care about the real issues that they believe this Government is addressing the real issues that they know make a difference to the lives of families—families with children the elderly and people who are disadvantaged within our communities. When we get that feeling that there is a bit of a movement and a swelling on the ground that John Key says all theright things but that people are not sure about the detail—they get the feeling he will say what he thinks they want to hear but not what he believes—we know that there is a marketing strategy there that is just for TV and just for Parliament that has nothing to do with people out there on the ground in the community. I can tell by the way National members are looking down at the floor that they know it too.Dealing with real issues is about affecting the lives of people in our communities for example through establishing low-cost visits to general practitioners and low-cost prescriptions. Those affect real people real lives. Income-related rentals affect real people real lives so does ensuring that in our communities we have more skilled and trained people. Just last night I was in the south Waikato district at a ceremony to celebrate the increased number of Modern Apprentices who are now coming through in Tokoroa. It was fantastic. The mayor himself said that never before had they had such commitment from the Government from industry training organisations and from local businesses to say that the trade sector was a priority. Small communities like Tokoroa are growing their own apprentices and now those apprentices have the ability to contribute back to their communities.That is what real people are feeling on the ground. They are quite excited actually about the level of investment that this Government is making alongside communities to improve the lives of a lot of people. More important my colleague Clayton Cosgrove pointed to the issue of employment and to the increased number of jobs we have had out there. We know that affecting the real lives of people and families with children is done through giving people the ability to have a job put kai on the table and look after their own. That is what people want and that is what they have seen under this Government. There are also rates rebates for low-income homeowners. Again that is a policy that affects the real lives of real people.But what would National have us believe? They would have us believe that all that does not matter and that it is not making a difference. We can go into any small community and its people will tell us that Government policies have gone quite a bit towards helping them meet their annual costs.What is most important is that we are investing in families with children through tax credits not through tax cuts that would benefit only a few. Investing in families with children through the Working for Families package has continued to make a difference. We can always do more there and we intend to. National is very light on detail but what it is not telling people is that that investment would go under a National Government.So although the marketing strategy may work for Parliament and for TV those people out on the ground real families with real commitments who have a real sense of wanting to do better for themselves know that if National gets in all that will go. Out on the ground people know that although National members are so hungry to get on to the Treasury benches that they will say what people want right up until the election after the election bang they will do something else.That is at the core of the question asked by my colleague Pete Hodgson. We have to be able to believe what someone says and we want to have a sense that at the very top of the Opposition leadership the Leader of the Opposition is able to tell the truth and to say what he believes not what he thinks people want to hear. That is the kind of difference that I think in time will reveal itself and will really show a lot of New Zealanders that that leadership is all style no substance and no detail whatsoever. New Zealanders deserve better than that.