Hide Rodney: Address in Reply 
Hide Rodney: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:133] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 ACT is back. I begin by passing on our best respects to the Governor-General to the Prime Minister to you as Assistant Speaker to Margaret Wilson to Clem Simich and to Ross Robertson. I also pass on my respects to the Green Party and our regret for its loss of Rod Donald. I take the opportunity here to welcome back Nandor Tanczos who will be with us tomorrow. I also welcome the new party the Maori Party—the new kid on the block—whose members are sitting beside me here today. I welcome all four of its members to our Parliament and I say this: that the foreshore and seabed legislation passed by this House was a travesty of justice and that if we are to mouth the words about wanting to live in a country that has one law for all New Zealanders then that means that each and every New Zealander should be able to have his or her day in court. It is totally unacceptable when a Government finds the courts going against the outcome it would prefer that it rushes to this House to change the law and deny a people their opportunity to have their day in court. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: A defender of the rule of law. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes a defender of the rule of law I tell Mr Cunliffe and a defender of the principles of justice. It stands for that whether it is one New Zealander having his or her day in court or whether it is a group of New Zealanders having their day in court. I ask Mr Cunliffe: how awful is it that a Government would change the law against a race living here in New Zealand? Because we know what that means. The day that law was passed was a dark day in New Zealand’s legislative history for each and every New Zealander. I wish the Maori Party every success in having that law overturned. 
I pay my respects to the good people of Epsom who voted for me who put their faith and trust in me and who elected me as their member of Parliament and ensured that the ACT party would stay on in this Parliament. I also note given that an inquiry may be coming up the outrage of the Television New Zealand poll. It was a shonky dishonest and unprofessional poll that showed me as being 14 percentage points behind. It was clearly false the day it was done. The questions that were asked were wrong and the candidates in the race were not identified. That is how badly out that Colmar Brunton poll was. It had me coming behind by 14 percent and I won by 9 percent. That poll was out by a whopping 25 percent. Of course that had a devastating impact on the vote on election day because the implication was that ACT was finished and that we could not win Epsom. I hold Television New Zealand and its poll responsible for the loss of some very very good MPs in this House. I think that both Parliament and the country are the poorer for the loss of the ACT MPs. 
I welcome all the new MPs in the National Party. I wish them every success and I wish them well for their maiden speeches. I certainly wish Dr Don Brash well because he ran an outstanding campaign and did very well in the election. 
I think the problem I have with Helen Clark is that she has gone back to the idea that she knows best. The reason the Labour Party struggled in the campaign and struggled to get back into power—having to resort to our colleagues in New Zealand First and United Future to hold up its numbers—was that Helen Clark and the Labour team failed to listen to what the people in New Zealand were saying. They have lost touch. Sadly it looks as though we will have another 3 years of that. Just take one issue: tax. New Zealanders are struggling to make ends meet and we have a Government that is absolutely stuffed full with their money. It is spending it on all the crazy schemes that Michael Cullen Helen Clark and others can come up with and still there is a large surplus. 
What did people say during the election campaign? They said that they wanted to keep some of that money. Let us go around the House and see. United Future campaigned for big tax cuts. I remember the debates—$2 billion or $3 billion Peter Dunne said. New Zealand First campaigned for tax cuts—large tax cuts and indeed for some companies a top company tax rate of 20 percent. That was the campaign from New Zealand First. Maori Party members sit beside me. They too knew that New Zealanders were struggling to pay tax. They wanted large tax cuts and the company tax rate lowered to 30 percent. The National Party campaigned for large cuts as did ACT. Even Mr Jim Anderton sitting around the Cabinet table campaigned for tax cuts. What does that equal? That equals 65 MPs in this House—the overwhelming majority of this Parliament—who campaigned during the election to reduce the burden of tax on New Zealanders. And what did Helen Clark say in the Speech from the Throne? “No tax cuts.” It is that sort of arrogance New Zealanders are sick of from Helen Clark and her Government. 
I tell Helen Clark and her Cabinet Ministers a simple thing: they should listen to what New Zealanders are saying. We need only to look around this Parliament to see that 65 MPs campaigned for tax cuts. I neglected to mention the Greens. They too campaigned for lower income tax. They suggested a shifting on to pollution taxes and the like but they too campaigned for lower taxes on working New Zealanders. The Labour Party was the only party that campaigned during the election not to reduce the burden of tax on New Zealanders. Yet Helen Clark has the arrogance to stand up and deliver a speech here today and through the Governor-General deliver a Speech from the Throne saying that there is no opportunity to have tax cuts. I tell United Future members and New Zealand First members to please go back and read their election promises to New Zealanders. 
The ACT party will be campaigning hard through the next 3 years. I will outline the issues we will campaign on. First despite what Labour says crime is out of control. The police are overwhelmed and demoralised. They get no support from this Government and have to listen to lies that somehow crime is down when every New Zealander knows that it is up that somehow when one rings the police they will arrive when they do not and that crime is somehow not a problem now in New Zealand because we have the Labour Government. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It is down. The member is making it up. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I can tell Mr Cunliffe that if he actually got out and talked to people in Auckland—if he discussed this issue with people in Auckland and with people around New Zealand—he would discover that the issue of crime is huge and that crime is out of control. 
I also suggest that unemployment is a big issue. Yes the unemployment rate is down and that is a good thing. We have had a strong economy and more people are in work but we are suffering in New Zealand from large-scale welfare abuse. People who could be working are actually getting a benefit. It is not good for them it is not good for their families and it is certainly not good for the taxpayers who are paying for it. 
Here is one other issue: transport. The problems we suffer from in this economy by the failure to be able to get around smoothly and efficiently on our roads will ruin our economy. I do not see any measure any urgency or any hurry from Helen Clark to deal with those issues—issues that were raised at every meeting candidates went to. It was as though Helen Clark went through the whole campaign with her eyes shut and her ears covered. She failed to hear what New Zealanders were saying. Well in this Parliament the ACT party will be standing on those issues as I am sure the National Party will. The Maori Party the Green Party the New Zealand First Party and United Future will also be standing on those issues. That is a majority in this Parliament. We will not all agree on all things but I ask the Labour Party to lose some of its arrogance and to understand that there are parties here whose very existence is because of the Labour Party’s arrogance. I ask the Labour Party to actually involve everyone in this Parliament in the decision making and to stop using the high-handed tactics we saw it use in the last 3 years. Maybe then people will truly get what they voted for. 
Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.