Collins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Collins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18269] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It has been absolutely deadening to have to listen to the speeches from the Labour Party’s research unit all of which have been written out for the members who spoke because they could not work out any for themselves. That is just appalling. 
That member skites about the number of women MPs Labour has. There are an awful lot of blokes in this House who would say “Name one!”. There are an awful lot of people in this House who would ask us to name any of them who understand about being mums. Ask how many of them understand about being a working mum and trying to juggle all the sorts of things working mums have to do and ask them what they know about having to breastfeed babies run law firms and everything else because they would not know. They are not interested in real mums. They are interested only in their sorts of women. It has nothing to do with real mums. 
When I think about their nasty mean-spirited petty little attacks on National today I have to ask this: how many of our people had to leave the job because they lied to the public? How many of our people had to leave their job because they bullied a little 16-year-old girl out of this country and lied? How many of our people did that? None! That is because this Labour Government does not care a scrap about women. It just wants their votes. It is happy to bully a 16-year-old girl who had been sexually abused most of her life. That is what this Labour Government did for women. That is what it does. It is all talk and no action. [ 
Interruption 
] Is the member speaking of himself like that? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I know that Ms Collins is making a hard-hitting speech and some interjections can be expected but not so much as to drown out a speaker. The Speaker will not allow a member to be drowned out. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: How many of our members have had to go and front up for the great big tax-free handout of—what was it—$320000 having said they would not? One of their members lost his position because of it. Worse than that he is one of their better members because at least he is a bloke who says that he is a bloke. 
Look at the mean-spirited nasty and patronising attack they made in relation to my colleague Georgina te Heuheu. What a nasty patronising attack saying that they felt sorry for her. They said that only because she is Maori and a woman. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take grave exception to that slur. I think that the member should be careful. She is talking about a colleague and personal friend of mine and to suggest that there was anything tokenistic about the concern expressed by my colleagues is an insult. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Members should look at Speaker’s ruling 50/5. It depends on the context in which the word is used. I would ask the member to come to order. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister was not here when previous speakers were attacking Georgina te Heuheu. She made a speech and she was attacked and the Minister who has just commented was not here at that time. I think his comments are out of the context of what happened earlier on. Georgina te Heuheu took it she made a brilliant speech and I think that should be acknowledged and recognised. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I will come more to the point because I do not want to spend my entire speech talking about that lot. Frankly they are not worth it. 
I am really pleased to be in charge of the welfare portfolio and really pleased that Katherine Rich will be assisting me as she already has done. One of the things I am looking at is a story from the Nelson edition of  
The 
Leader 
. It tells us all about just how tough the Hon Steve Maharey is as the Minister of—what is it called now? It is not called “social welfare” but “social development”. Is that not interesting? It is now the Ministry of Social Development and Employment. 
Steve Chadwick 
: She doesn’t even know! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Oh yes I say to Ms Chadwick I do know. In fact that name is political speak for “social welfare” but Government members cannot bring themselves to say that—people would have to have a new university degree in it. 
The article tells us about David Gibson and his wife Julia. David is an electrical engineer and was a mathematics lecturer in Britain and his wife Julia is a special-needs teacher. They came here in 1999 and guess what they have done since then. Have they worked in their occupations? Well they may have for a short time but since 2001 those people have been bludging on the dole. I say “bludging on the dole” because they have used their time to set up a new business for themselves. Poor old New Zealand taxpayers are used to being taken for a ride in this country but what are those new immigrants doing who came here and sorted out how to get the dole as soon as they had been here 2 years? David states in the article that the couple were invited by the Minister of Education Trevor Mallard to conduct trials on the benefits of a game they are setting up—on the taxpayer—by contacting the schools advisory service. 
Well I have a whole advisory service for that couple. It is to get off their bottoms stop taking the New Zealand taxpayer for a ride and do what they are supposed to do which is work. We have skill shortages in maths teachers and special-needs teachers all around the country. Electorate MPs deal with special-needs education issues all the time and parents out there are crying out for some help on this issue. But this couple are two highly trained and obviously highly competent people who are happy to come to this country and benefit from the nice New Zealand taxpayer. The worst thing is not only did they do that but they have the gall to skite about it because the article says that they have been on the dole for the last 3 years. They say they have a reason for it. Oh of course they wanted to set up a business. 
How many other business people want to set up a business? I know that my colleague across the way agrees with me. What a pack of wasters! Those people should be out. A lot of people mistakenly think that all the bludgers who come into the country come from some place where they do not speak English. Well they are wrong. Here is a perfect example of people who have come here from the UK with no excuse whatsoever for taking our people for a ride. I am not sure where they are living but I bet it will have something to do with the taxpayer again. Yet those people are allowed into this country and allowed to sit around on benefits. Obviously their skills are being enhanced by the new maths game they are working on but that does not do a scrap of good for the New Zealand taxpayer. 
Should the other game they are supposed to be making which Trevor Mallard is so keen on—members will remember him; he used to be in charge of education but that has now gone to David Benson-Pope—be successful and make them multimillions will they pay back that money to the New Zealand taxpayer? No they will not. The first thing they will do is take off overseas back to England and make their money over there having used the poor old Kiwi taxpayer for 3 long years to date. If the Minister does not do something about it he will really have to answer to this House because that is an absolute disgrace. 
Of course that is not the only instance. This Government has made its whole name out of taking money from people who are not well off. If anyone thinks that trying to bring up a family on $60000 gross income a year makes one rich—which is what the Prime Minister thinks—then that person is wrong. The Government takes money from people churns it here in Wellington and then sends it back out having already taken out all the money for the bureaucracy and it does not give anything extra. If the Government wanted to look after women and do something for them—and by the way women do not need looking after; women can look after themselves—it should give them the choice about how their money is spent. That is the best way to do it for women. If the Government wants to do that all it has to do is give women a bit more money—in other words give them their own money. It should give them back some taxes. 
Hon Member 
: Oh no! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: The member says: “Oh no—we couldn’t do that.” Why? Are women not capable of looking after their own money? The fact is that of course they are. What we see is a Government that will not trust women—or anyone else who does not belong to the Public Service Association or some other Labour Party organisation. That is what we have. That is what the Government could do. 
When the Government had the opportunity as it did to extend paid parental leave to self-employed women I asked it to do that rather than give extra weeks to employed women—I have been there myself and I know how tough it is—but the Government said no. It was too hard to find out how much those women earned. Well I do not think there would be a self-employed woman in the country who would believe that rubbish because the Inland Revenue Department certainly knows exactly what self-employed women earn and so does the Accident Compensation Corporation and all the Government had to do was ask. As a self-employed woman in this country one can certainly earn money to pay taxes but by goodness do not ask for anything back.