Carter David: Address in Reply 
Carter David: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:370] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I extend my congratulations to you Mr Deputy Speaker on your appointment. I also congratulate the other presiding officers of this House. 
I want to start my contribution in the Address in Reply debate by acknowledging the sudden passing of Rod Donald. I competed against Rod Donald on four occasions in the Banks Peninsula electorate. I guess if I consider the first occasion when I campaigned in 1993 it was effectively like another campaign against Rod Donald because of course he was so involved in electoral reform at that time. I guess it is fair to say that I disagreed with Rod on most things he said but I never—not on any occasion at all—shared a cross word with him. I extend my sympathy to Nicola who has been a courageous woman and who has displayed her courage to all New Zealanders over the last couple of weeks and to Holly Emma and Zoe three gorgeous children who now have to move on but they will do so without a father. My deepest sympathy goes to the Donald family. 
Move on we all must. So the National caucus will also move on and I say it is really exciting to be back in this Parliament as a member of the National caucus so buoyed with twice as many members as we had last time. We see excitement and enthusiasm every time our caucus assembles in the caucus room. We are going to enjoy the next period of this Parliament. Some people say it will be for 3 years. I do not think it has a dog’s show of lasting 3 years and we will enjoy every minute as we set about destroying the current Labour - New Zealand First Government. 
I want specifically to welcome within the huge intake into the National caucus those people who come from my area of Canterbury-Westland. I pay tribute to Nicky Wagner who delivered her maiden speech tonight to Kate Wilkinson who delivered a superb speech the other night to Colin King and to Chris Auchinvole. Let us face it—Christchurch is an area in which National must poll better if it is to be the Government at the next election and with that sort of team we intend to do so. 
I also welcome to Parliament the Maori Party. I got to know Tariana Turia when we travelled overseas on a parliamentary trip in I think 1999. She is a person I would describe as having gutsy determination. She took the hard decision when she disagreed with what the Labour caucus was doing. Unlike other members of the Maori caucus Tariana Turia actually took the hard decisions and formed the Maori Party and I say to this House that that party is here for as long as we have MMP as our electoral system. It is a party that I guarantee will not be left-leaning because it will not be interested in the wealth distribution that the Labour Party stands for. We will see the Maori Party become passionately involved in the betterment of Maori and it will do that by promoting policies that lead to wealth creation. I look forward to those days. 
I want to thank Don Brash for his recent portfolio allocations. I am delighted to be back with the role of agriculture spokesperson and I also welcome the chance now to be the tourism spokesperson. Those two industries have so much in common. The same type of entrepreneurial hardworking people get involved in those industries—people who just want to get on and make a buck for themselves and who want to do it without perpetual Government interference. That is something that the Labour Party just fails to understand. So to the agriculture team I welcome my associates Craig Foss who also delivered a superb speech tonight and of course Nathan Guy. To the tourism team I welcome my associate Chris Auchinvole. I look forward to working with those guys because we have one target in front of us which of course is the current Labour - New Zealand First Government. 
I also take this opportunity to acknowledge some people who did not make it into our caucus. I acknowledge all our unsuccessful candidates and I want to mention a couple of them tonight. One is David Round a person who came into our party and campaigned in the tough territory of Christchurch East. He would be a very valuable addition to our caucus and I hope he stays involved because at the next election which could be anytime soon we will have him as a member of our caucus. I acknowledge in the gallery tonight Katrina Shanks who was nearly here as part of our team. If she is prepared to stick with it she can be part of our team next time. I also note Roger Bridge in the gallery. He is a very close personal friend of mine my best political adviser and also the chair of the Canterbury-Westland region of the National Party. I say thank you to him because he is so typical of the many people who make democracy work. Those people are not paid for the role they play in political parties; they give of their time freely and at a cost to themselves to make sure we have a democratic process. 
I move to the election result itself and the disastrous system of MMP. No one won the last election. If Labour members and Helen Clark think they can claim victory from that election result then they are deluding themselves. The appearance of Helen Clark on election night said it all. The old lemon-sucker look was back permanently etched on her face as she knew she would have difficulty forming a Government. 
But no worries—Helen Clark was not interested in the national interest. [ 
Interruption 
] She threw all that to one side I tell Marian Hobbs and out of personal interest she grabbed the only cab on the rank without principles and gave the bauble of power not to New Zealand First but to Winston Peters. That was all that was necessary to deliver the votes of New Zealand First. Is Ron Mark a Minister out of that arrangement? He would have been a very good Minister but he did not get there. Brian Donnelly would have been a superb Minister but he did not get there because Winston Peters himself grabbed the only bauble necessary—and now he in conjunction with Helen Clark is moving around the world making New Zealand look like a laughing stock. How can we have a foreign Minister who on Tuesday says he wants to be part of the Government but by Wednesday and Thursday says he wants to be part of the Opposition? It is unworkable. It will not last 3 years. I look forward to putting up the hoardings in the not too distant future. 
But there is one other issue I want to comment on in the time that is left and it is tax. It has been mentioned already by a couple of members tonight. With the Treasury revelation of an $8 billion surplus Mr Cullen is burying his head in the sand if he does not realise that New Zealanders know darn well we are overtaxed. He can make every effort to deny that debate until the next election but New Zealanders will not lose sight of the fact that we are now so heavily overtaxed we are driving talented young New Zealanders offshore when they should be staying here and making a contribution to this country. 
Tomorrow night we will have a vote on this debate and on the no-confidence motion moved by Don Brash. It will be interesting to see the way the parties vote. I suspect they will not vote according to their election campaigns. New Zealand First campaigned on tax reductions so will it vote for the continuation of this high tax regime? It looks like it; there is silence. United Future campaigned on tax reductions so will it vote to continue a high tax regime—the highest in this part of the world? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I bet they do. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I bet they do. Gordon Copeland said a minute ago that he would deliver. Do members know what he will deliver? He will not deliver lower taxes; he will deliver a review. Well what a cop-out for United Future—what a cop-out for New Zealand First! All Winston Peters wanted was the bauble and the chance to travel over the 3 years and we will continue to ask what beyond that is the arrangement that he managed today to extract from Helen Clark. I think that that member completely let down not only the voters of this country not only the voters of New Zealand First but every member of the New Zealand First caucus.