Pillay Lynne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Pillay Lynne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22009] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 What a lot of drivel! I feel incredibly sad when I hear the bitterness and aggro that comes from the opposite side from a woman member who kind of gives the word “woman” a bad name in this Parliament. And why? 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take exception to that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. The member will be seated. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It makes one feel one should be ashamed to appear to advocate for women’s issues for things that this Government has been proud to introduce—things like paid parental leave which has given the mums of this country so many opportunities to care for their newborn babies in their first 13 weeks of life. We think that is a good thing. Clearly the Opposition does not think it is a good thing. It thinks it is a dreadful waste of money. 
Opposition members bang on and on about Labour’s policies and how ineffective they are despite the fact that this country’s level of unemployment has been turned round under this Government to become the second lowest in the OECD with over 260000 more Kiwis in work than in 1999. People are not standing outside the post office looking for work. Neither are they working for the dole. They are undertaking industry training and getting apprenticeships which is something that was lobbied for by the union movement. The “union movement” is another dirty term a dreadful term for people on the other side of the Chamber. They do not believe in anyone advocating for working people. But yes the union movement advocated to this Government and it listened. We are a Government that listens. We understood that investment in skills and training would be a great thing for our country so that is what we did. Now there are 9000 apprenticeships and in the near future we will probably see more increases. We are a Government that is committed to skills and training. 
The first thing the National Government did when it came into power was to scrap pay equity for women which the National Party is totally opposed to. The second thing it did was to scrap the Apprenticeship Act. Overnight the National Government stopped training and skills in this country. We saw that devastation through the 1990s. When Labour got in we fixed it. We gave hope to young people and created jobs by supporting business and creating skills and we are seeing the rewards in our unemployment statistics now. We are seeing job growth and that is a really good thing. 
Again we are seeing the Working for Families package bad-mouthed. Why would one bad-mouth that? Why is it bad to support working families in this country? Why is it bad for hard-working families in this country who have more than one child who have two or three children to get targeted tax relief so that they can provide the best opportunities possible for their children? Why is that a bad thing? I would ask Judith Collins that question but I know she does not know the answer. All National wants is to return to the failed policies of the 1990s when there was no training and no support for industry and families when State houses were being flogged off as quickly as one could look at them and when there was no support for education in this country. We know—we saw what happened through the 1990s. 
Judith Collins was working really hard at doing I do not know what. She seems to think that people on this side of the Chamber do not know what hard work is. I look along at my colleagues and I know that they all know what hard work is. We are at the grass roots. We are talking to people all the time just like our leader is. We know what is important to people in this country. It is training education and opportunity for people for their children and for their children’s children to enable them to sustain a good lifestyle and to have a future in this country. We see it with superannuation. What was another thing the Nats did when they came in? They said: “We aren’t going to touch your super.” then they cut superannuation and tried to fool the people telling our superannuitants that they had not cut superannuation. But they knew—and they were told very clearly—that they had reneged on their word. 
We are a Government that is very proud of our policies. We are proud to support our families we are proud to support skills and training and we are proud to support education.