English Bill: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 04 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1649. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Today’s announcement by the Prime Minister around funding and reorganisation of youth mental health services is just one part of the larger picture that the Government has been painting over the last 3½ years as we get to grips with New Zealand’s significant economic challenges.  
If we look at that announcement it has the same characteristics of the Government’s approach that were praised yesterday in the IMF assessment of New Zealand policy because in the announcement the Government has taken a clear view about its priorities and it has decided that one of its higher priorities is the mental health of our young people and that has meant that money that was allocated to lower priorities has been shifted to this higher priority. It also demonstrates the drive the Government has applied to the Public Service to work across Government departments in a way that recognises that people live in communities not Government departments—our communities are where our young people are—and reorganises the tools of government to meet the needs of those people. 
This is just another example of how the Government is going to meet our fiscal objectives of a surplus in 2014-15. At the same time it is not just maintaining our public services but actually improving them—actually improving our public services and making them more effective. And yes there are some cuts in programmes that do not work programmes whose time has passed and most important programmes that do not achieve the objectives this Government has set. 
This is unlike the Labour Party which thinks that because a public programme is public and because it is run by people who might vote for it therefore we must keep it. That is not how this Government works. We are focusing public services on the needs of individuals families and communities. Well listen to them chattering; nothing has changed with the Labour Party members. They think they represent the paid professionals of the State. That is the last group of people who they think— 
Hon Members 
: And they do. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Actually I do not think they do because when we are working with the paid professionals of the State they now accept that the direction this Government is going in is the right one and that is to get our public services to work for people in communities not for Government departments and professional groups. That is why the current Labour leader is taking them nowhere—because nothing has changed. 
Not only has Labour refused to apologise for the damage to the economy but it has refused to apologise for the damage it did to public services. Once it does apologise the public will listen. But until it apologises it belongs to the time before the financial crash around the globe belongs to pre-2008—the nasty lazy Labour Party which has not changed a thing. When this leader gets up will he apologise? The answer is no but Grant Robertson is getting ready to do it. Grant Robertson has figured out that even though nothing has changed in the Labour Party he has to apologise or the public will not listen. That is the difference between the current leader and the next one. The current one will not apologise. He is not allowed to because he is captured by his caucus of vested interests. The next leader looks like he will not change anything in the Labour Party but at least he will make it look like it is taking notice of the public. 
That is why the Government is continuing with its programme. We are reorganising public services we are getting back to surplus and we are focusing on a competitive economy because in the long run that is how we are going to be able to pay for better mental health services for our young people.