Gosche Mark: Address in Reply 
Gosche Mark: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:344] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be speaking in this debate. I begin by congratulating the re-elected Speaker the Hon Margaret Wilson. I am also very pleased to congratulate Clem Simich—I think all members of this House enjoy a good relationship with him as Deputy Speaker—and of course yourself Mr Assistant Speaker and Assistant Speaker Ann Hartley. I welcome all new members into this House. 
This is my 10th year in the place and I have been here under MMP that entire time. I think we probably see some comings and goings that previous first-past-the-post Parliaments did not witness. I think that is healthy because it gives a new flavour and a new set of ideas to each Parliament as it forms. 
It has been interesting to listen to the maiden speeches. I particularly want to congratulate my colleagues Shane Jones Maryan Street Darien Fenton and Sue Moroney—people I have worked with for many many years in various guises. They all bring different qualities to this House and I know they are going to make a wonderful contribution to this Government. It has also been interesting to listen to members on the Opposition benches who are making their maiden speeches. It is good to be able to hear their perspectives. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we do not. 
I also want to congratulate the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark. I am sure most people want to congratulate her on the fact that she has been returned as Prime Minister for the third time. Up there with that achievement is the return of the Rugby World Cup to New Zealand and I think it will be neck and neck as to which the New Zealand public think is the most important at the moment. It is the political achievement that I want to honour here today. 
I also want to thank the electors of the Maungakiekie electorate which I am very proud to represent here for my third term. I started as a list MP and I am very honoured to be returned again as the member of Parliament for the Maungakiekie electorate. It is a wonderful electorate to represent. I was at a school prize-giving in Otahuhu not so long ago not long after some fairly negative publicity about our area of South Auckland—I am quite happy to call it South Auckland because that is where I was born that is what I have always called it and that is what I recognise it as. It is a great place to live and an excellent place to represent and I sometimes wish that I could pick up the local newspaper or some of the national media and read about the many positives about my community such as I witnessed at that prize-giving. 
I was very proud to hear that Timothy Funaki Otahuhu College’s first Youth MP who represented the people of Maungakiekie in this House in the first Youth Parliament some years ago was sworn in as a doctor last week and took his Hippocratic oath. It gives me great pleasure to mention that because he is just one of the young people of South Auckland who are making their contribution to our society. Of Tongan and Maori descent his family are real achievers in our community but they are people who work for our community in many many ways that go unnoticed by the media. The South Auckland community actually contributes enormously to this country. If members look at New Zealand sports teams whatever code they might be—on the international stage or at regional or local level—and at the people in those teams they will find a significant number of South Aucklanders in their midst. 
 Our music industry is something that this Government has actually acknowledged and supported in a way that no other Government has and the music industry has been led in many ways by the young people of South Auckland. I am enormously proud of them. They are selling records CDs whatever not only in this country at record levels but on the international scene. Many of those people have brown faces and I am very proud to say that our Pacific and Maori musicians and artists are contributing as they did to our sports teams over the weekend. They do that in our music in our universities in our businesses and in our communities. I just want to acknowledge that because I was struck by the great annoyance of the principal of Otahuhu College and of many whom I spoke to at that prize-giving about the lack of attention to the positives in our community. I want to place that on the record of the House. 
I am very pleased also to acknowledge Penrose High School. We have wonderful schools throughout New Zealand. They should be celebrated. They provide some of the best education in the world that we could get for our children. Penrose High School has $15 million to rebuild a school that badly needs its infrastructure rebuilt to meet the challenges of the Auckland isthmus as the population grows. They celebrated their 50th jubilee not so long ago and I read a very good history of the school and the wonderful people who have come out of that school and contributed to New Zealand society. Let us celebrate those things. We acknowledge there are troubles at times but we want to celebrate some of the wonderful things. I am pleased to be able do that in the House today. 
Some very important issues were outlined in the Speech from the Throne. Aged care is one issue that all parties in the House have said needs to be addressed in many many ways such as funding the way we build up the quality of the workforce through training and improving the wages of the people who do that work. We are all going to get old. We are all possibly going to need more services from the Government and the aged-care sector has to be supported. I am very pleased that that has been addressed in the Speech from the Throne by the Governor-General. 
I also want to say let us not forget the disability sector. I come here today with a great deal of emotion about this for obvious reasons with the situation that I have personally found myself in these last 3½ years. For some time now I have been advocating these matters to my colleagues and I am very pleased that the Hon Pete Hodgson has got the job of Minister of Health because he is grappling now with the issues of aged-care funding and disability funding. He is getting on with a job that has badly needed to be done. 
I want to speak for some of those families that are never recognised; the ones who look after their disabled relatives their elderly in their homes and who are badly under-resourced. They have been badly under-resourced by Government after Government so this is not a political criticism of anybody in particular. It is something we have to address as a nation. We have to acknowledge that some of these carers have to give up their jobs give up their houses give up their future careers and a whole lot else to stay home and look after a relative who has suddenly fallen ill. Our accident compensation scheme is the best in the world but in terms of disability support we have a very long way to go to catch up. I attended a rehabilitation conference in Auckland late last week where those issues were outlined. We cannot afford to say that for each person who suffers a disability that is acquired a family has to put their lives on hold perhaps for many many years. In my case I have had to do that. I am still here to represent those people because I think it is important that I put myself through a rigorous election campaign such is my belief in having to have this matter addressed. 
Quite frankly when I picked up the newspaper as all of us did last week and read a Treasury briefing that stated: “Let’s cut taxes” I wanted to know what world they live in because it is not my world. I say that when all the families who are crying out for more help to look after their disabled relatives have their needs satisfied I will agree with Treasury and with any member of Parliament that we can start looking at cutting taxes. When we have done that I will agree. In the meantime I say no. There are too many people who need the help of the State—of fellow taxpayers—to get basic rehabilitation to get basic care in the home when they need it and in our aged-care facilities and in our private hospitals where people with disability and age-related illnesses end up. That is when we should be seriously considering advice from Treasury on this matter but in the meantime I would say that it is absolutely and utterly wrong. 
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and it is a pleasure to be able to record my thanks to the people who elected me here. I will serve them with all my energy as I have done over the last 9 years. Many things need to be done by all members of the House and I look forward to working with them to pass good legislation and good Budgets and to oversee the work of the public sector so that New Zealand is a better place in 3 years’ time as a result.