Tizard Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Tizard Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7279] 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 I find that the National speakers seem to be suffering from a deep illness. It is the worst case of collective amnesia I have ever seen. Maurice Williamson talks proudly in Auckland drive time whilst entirely forgetting the fact that he put no investment into that infrastructure in all the time he was Minister of Transport; nor did he put another dollar into public transport. He capped public transport spending at $40 million. What is this Government now spending? It is spending $450 million just on public transport. 
I am proud to be part of a Government that remembers the record of that party unlike John Key who could not remember what he thought about the Springbok Tour. Obviously he was not here when Ruth Richardson brought in the “mother of all Budgets”. The children who starved then—the children who were forced out of decent homes and out of schools because their parents had to shift and shift and shift when benefits were slashed and when health services were slashed—are now the ones whom this Government is putting into training and into work and whom it is providing family support to so that they can feed their children. How dare those amnesiacs across there talk about an underclass? They are the underclass. They are the people who betrayed New Zealand’s values at every level through the 1990s which this Government is putting back together. 
I am appalled at the dishonesty of people who stand up and talk about an underclass when they gleefully said during the 1990s that only failures live in State houses. John Luxton said that only failures live in State houses. Tell that to John Key as he goes around beating his breast about what a hard childhood he had. His childhood may have been hard; so are the childhoods of many New Zealanders. But the great gift New Zealand has had since the 1930s is hope and that is what Ruth Richardson took away. That is what this Government has put back along with trust. We have carried out our promises along with sincerity. We are New Zealanders who stay here and believe in every New Zealander being able to contribute and who have integrity—unlike those hollow men who lied through the last election campaign because they were going to do a Ruth Richardson Mark II. The “mother-in-law of all Budgets” is what we would have been dealing with now. It would have been an appalling state of social services. That is what Don Brash would have done if he had won the last election. They are so under-democratic. They could not accept that their lies were not accepted and that all that money they put out was not accepted nor all the nonsense they put on billboards. New Zealanders were not sucked in. Was not that sad? It was. And they are still whimpering. [ 
Interruption 
] There is Gerry Brownlee tragically— 
Nathan Guy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That member is saying we have lied. I would like you to rule on that because my understanding of  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 and the Standing Orders is that members cannot come into the House and say that members have lied. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I just say to the member that members can never allege that another member personally has lied. That is absolutely out of order and the member is quite correct. If a member does not like what another member says in debate the matter can be referred to Madam Speaker as a breach of privilege. All members are honourable members and their word is accepted unreservedly. They all have a fair and equitable opportunity to address the business of the House within the Standing Orders that govern this institution. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I am very proud to be part of a Government where the Prime Minister talks about economic transformation and implements policies that will transform New Zealand. The member for Pakuranga appears to have forgotten that many of the problems New Zealand has with the lack of roll-out of broadband go straight back to his decisions about Telecom. I am proud to talk about security and prosperity for families young and old. I was delighted to have spent the summer with family friends and total strangers who told me that family support has transformed their families. Young working mothers are delighted to be able to stay home with their babies because of the money that the Government is giving in tax cuts for families. I was delighted to go up to Mitimiti last week to meet a group of lovely young Maori people who are on an elementary construction course. They are being trained in their communities to build those communities. Those are the sorts of policies I am proud to see rolling out in New Zealand as well as hearing Auckland University declared one of the top 50 universities in the world. 
I am delighted to be part of a Government that talks about national identity and to see some great New Zealand films and hear some great New Zealand music. But even more than that New Zealanders all around this country on Waitangi Day were talking about their values and what matters to them and their families. I am absolutely delighted to be part of a Government that is working to turn Auckland into New Zealand’s major international city—a city with the infrastructure we need to be the leading trading city in New Zealand and to become a major hub for trade for the economy as well as continuing to be a good place to live. 
I am absolutely delighted to rise and support the statement of the Prime Minister Helen Clark to Parliament today. She talked about New Zealand being a stronger fairer more confident country where people are included and where gay lesbian and transgender New Zealanders do not need John Key turning up in a pink shirt having voted against every issue of that kind that has been raised in this Parliament in the few years he has been here. We do not need John Key to take one small girl to Waitangi because presumably that will stop her from being a glue-sniffer and stop her tagging the street with the underclass that he says live in her street. 
Let me tell members about my going out to Panmure my own old electorate where I grew up. A man who is the manager of a major construction firm said: “Judith I grew up in Te Koa Road in a State house. Is that man saying I’m underclass? Is he saying that I’m not a New Zealander who is making a contribution? I grew up in a State house and I did a bit of tagging in my youth. We didn’t have spray cans but I did a few ratbag things but I am now a taxpayer an employer and a contributing New Zealander.” He said that if John Key wants to tag people who live in State houses as an underclass he feels deeply resentful—as deeply as he felt when Don Brash said that Helen Clark was not mainstream. That is the reality of what those people think. 
I am very proud to be part of a Government that opened a huge new extension on Auckland’s “Spaghetti Junction” so that finally after Rob Muldoon cut that funding in the 1970s and 1980s Aucklanders who come from the North Shore can go on to the western motorway. It has been waiting 30 years because the National Government of course slashed all that funding and certainly did not put it back in the 1990s. 
This is a country that has good health services. Indeed when I was up in Mitimiti the woman from the health service there who had been brought up the beach to look after the people who were isolated was delighted because she had a satellite phone. The nurses in the north have all been given satellite phones so that they can communicate. So in an emergency she is able to get information in and out. We have good health services in this country and they are getting better. There are fewer children going to hospital because of asthma. There are fewer children going to school hungry. There are more children not living in houses where benefits are the main source of income. 
I am proud of that economic transformation security and prosperity for all New Zealand families young and old and of our unique national values which include respecting the contribution of every New Zealander the rights of every New Zealander and the hope of every New Zealander. This is a Government that has kept its promises that goes to elections saying what it will do and then does it that cares about New Zealanders and that believes in the promise of our forefathers and foremothers. Walter Nash and Michael Joseph Savage said in the 1930s that the test of a society is not how it treats the people with their hands out for tax cuts and not how it treats the people who stand in the sunshine of life but how it treats those at the edges. Georgina Beyer will say just as that man who grew up in a State house in Panmure said that New Zealand is a great country and that under this Government it will continue to be.