Hayes John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hayes John: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8903] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to support the Prime Minister’s speech and his vision for this country. I bring a message from the Wairarapa electorate and provincial New Zealand because the message was given to me very clearly over Christmas. The message was: “We got rid of those Labour jokers because we want change.” So I stand here tonight as a very strong supporter of the visionary statement of our Prime Minister. 
John Key and his Government are trying to do something very ambitious. He is trying to be more ambitious than Sir Roger Douglas or Ruth Richardson. His vision and aim for this country are to engage in economic reform but in such a way that the whole country comes with him. In contrast let me say that Labour lost office because it spent its last 9 years locked in the tail of the 20th century. It had no forward vision; it had no ambition. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Instead of bouncing on a waterbed. 
JOHN HAYES 
: Contrary to those who would prefer to spend their life cushioned in a waterbed the key to New Zealand becoming wealthier lies in enticing all New Zealanders not just the elite and the well-off to think about a common future and working together. 
I listened to the words of the past Minister of Education Chris Carter and the wonderful things he had done for the people of New Zealand and why we do not need national standards. I would like to tell the former Minister that I was in Dannevirke on Saturday afternoon tracking back to Greytown from the 150th birthday celebrations in Waipawa and I ran into a couple of young boys on the street in Dannevirke—actually they were in a small cafe—and I asked one of them: “What’s 6 multiplied by 6?”. 
Moana Mackey 
: Oh you didn’t. 
JOHN HAYES 
: I did. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Oh I bet you did! Ha! 
JOHN HAYES 
: Does Chris Carter know what his answer was? Fifty! This was from a boy who will be 12 next month and he does not know 6 times 6. But it gets worse. I then said to them: “Well we don’t know 6 times 6 how about 2 multiplied by 3?”. They could not answer that question. I tried to make it even easier. I said to them: “Look what is 2 multiplied by 2?” and I got a wrong answer. This is the legacy that the Labour Government has left us to sweep up. The dismal truth in this country is that those boys and their parents have been living in a fool’s paradise for the last 9 years. They have been protected by the spending patterns of Helen Clark and Mr Michael Cullen who increased Government spending over those 9 years by 45 percent. 
Let us not talk just in percentages. I heard on the weekend from a recently retired public servant and I do not want to embarrass this person by mentioning his name that over the 5 years of his tenure— 
Moana Mackey 
: Which means that they are made up as well! 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Is this person real as well? 
JOHN HAYES 
: OK that person was from NZAID. Over the past 5 years its staff numbers have gone from 250 to 500. My constituents in the Wairarapa—and Parekura Horomia’s constituents in the Wairarapa—are picking up the bill for this nonsense. It is Government spending out of control. The result is that we have bled our skill base to Australia and to other countries. 
Prime Minister Key has enunciated ambitious measurable long-term goals for all New Zealanders to strive for. All of us are crucial to achieving those goals but each of us must help paddle the waka until we reach the targets of John Key’s aspiration. 
His vision has six drivers: first a world-class tax system; second better public services; third improved education skills; fourth investment in infrastructure as we are seeing on the Rimutaka Hill road at the moment; fifth regulatory reform to get rid of red tape; and sixth innovation. We need a tax system that creates incentives for people to work hard to improve themselves that encourages their saving and that boosts the productivity of investments. The aims of John Key’s tax reform will first of all create incentives for people to work hard to improve their skills and to get ahead. It will encourage them to save because we borrow far too much money outside New Zealand. The tax system needs to be fair to all New Zealanders. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister ruled out a land tax a comprehensive capital gains tax or a risk-free return method for taxing residential investment properties. We are committed to changing the way property is taxed. We are committed to reducing personal income tax. 
There will be no major changes to Working for Families. I 
will say again for the benefit of all beneficiaries that there will be no major changes to Working for Families. I have heard a lot this afternoon from various Labour speakers who are trying to put petrol on a fire that does not exist by saying that GST will put costs on all of us. Let me say loud and clear that people on low incomes will be compensated for any GST increases if that compensation is required. There is no fairer tax. I was told all weekend out in my electorate that this is the fairest thing we can do and people were supportive. 
Moana Mackey 
: You were not told that. 
JOHN HAYES 
: Yes I was. I was told in Waipukurau I was told in Waipawa I was told in Dannevirke and I was told in Pahiatua not to mention Greytown. 
The public service will continue to require savings because we are spending 45 percent more on public services than we were spending 9 years ago. We want to see stronger performance from Government agencies and we want to see an improvement in the way Crown assets are being managed. When I see the people without business skills whom Labour stacked on the boards of Crown entities I say that there is a very fast way of improving the return on those assets and that is by putting in new boards. 
I remember when Labour signed off a formal policy in 2005 to increase chief executive officers’ salaries in the public service by 5 percent each year for 5 years. Well let me tell the House that we cancelled that arrangement in 2009. By 2007 the second year I spent in this Parliament there was a 375 percent increase in the number of public servants earning $100000 or more since Labour came to power in 1999 and the constituents in my electorate found this absolutely abhorrent; they did not understand. The Labour Government let bureaucracy get out of control in this country in the 9 years that it was in office and the public service grew by 50 percent or by 30702 people in 1999 to 45934 in June 2008. 
Our focus this year will be on science and technology and on research grants. In the context of my work in the foreign affairs trade and defence area I am very pleased that we will be signing trade agreements this year with Malaysia Hong Kong and the Gulf Cooperation Council States while working on trade agreements with Korea India and I hope America. 
We have a vision for this country. The Prime Minister has articulated it and I am absolutely confident that not only members of Labour but the whole country will get behind his programme and will pursue that vision with its breadth and its very very wide base. I am quite sure this country will achieve Australia’s levels of income within the next 10 to 15 years and I look forward to being a part of the process that creates a step change in this country that moves us in that direction. Thank you.