Carter John: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Carter John: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6263] 
JOHN CARTER (NZ National—Northland) 
: 
 I want to speak to the title and like my colleague to advise that the National Party caucus supports this bill. I will be tabling an amendment to the title and I hope the Committee will support me. I want this bill to be called the “Jim Anderton Self-promotion Bill” and I will talk about why I want it entitled that. 
I draw the Committee’s attention to a press release that Mr Anderton made in the  
Northern Advocate 
 on 10 December in which he told Northlanders that Santa had come to town and a bucket of money was arriving. He told them to stand back because he was on the way and things would come right. Mr Anderton put out a big press statement and I recall at the time reading the article in the  
Northern Advocate  
and thinking it was great and that if the Minister was going to do that for Northland I would be with him. That is what I thought even though I am opposed to Mr Anderton’s policies and philosophy. I thought that if he would make things better for Northland I would support him in that. I came out publicly the next day in the paper and congratulated the Minister. I said that if he did all the things he had spoken about on 10 December in the  
Northern Advocate 
 then good on him. I said I would work with him because I would be happy to see that happen. 
But what a disgrace that Minister has turned out to be. He has been an absolute failure. I want him to tell the Committee today what progress he has made in his portfolio for Northland in the context of the press statement he put out. It is an absolute shambles up in Northland. In that article Mr Anderton said he had already met with the local mayors and iwi and was impressed by the commitment of Northland regional leaders to job creation particularly for young school-leavers. I am sure he was because I know those people were committed to that. They still are. The sad thing is that Mr Anderton the Minister in the chair was not. That is the problem. That press release was just self-promotion by Jim Anderton. He has been an absolute failure. He should be ashamed of himself for coming up to Northland and trying to get Northlanders to think that things would happen when they have not happened at all. 
Although I support this bill I say to the Minister he should get going and make something happen instead of issuing the farcical self-promotional stuff that we have had. I remember him in the House a week or two after that press release getting someone to ask a question and then berating and denigrating me because I had gone out there and supported him. Well I have to say he was right and I was wrong; I should not have supported him. I do not want to be in the camp of that failed Minister. The mayors in Northland—and the Committee will want to know this so I will put this on the record—are saying they should forget it. They say they have put up project after project and proposal after proposal to that Minister and his department and have not received a solitary sausage. Nothing! 
The Minister will stand up shortly and wax lyrical saying that I do not know what I am talking about. He will say this and that are happening. Well that will all be hot air and wind from this Minister—nothing. Let him point to something substantial that has happened. I just say thank goodness we have some leaders in Northland who are trying to make things go despite having this Minister and his department in the place. I will be talking later on during the debate on this bill about some of the personal failures that have happened as a consequence of this Minister’s policies—some of the lack of impact that he has had on people who had good ideas and who wanted to make progress. This Minister and his team of people have let them down. 
I tell the Minister in the chair that he can stand up in this Committee and say what he likes. He can tell this Parliament how good this legislation is and what a difference this bill will make. Well I wish he were right. But if news of that gets up into Northland I tell the Minister that people there will not believe him. No one there now believes him. He has no credibility in Northland at all—none whatsoever. If the Minister thinks he can carry on promoting himself and his party—whatever it is—through this sort of legislation he is mistaken. He has become an absolute joke. Along with a number of other Ministers in that Cabinet Mr Anderton needs to go. He is an absolute failure and this bill will not save him. 
Putting these two departments together will not save this Minister. It is a good idea to put the two departments together in order to cut down on some of the bureaucracy but I only wish some of the bureaucrats could get down to addressing what New Zealanders really want and instead of getting in their way could get beside people and make things happen.