Hughes Darren: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Hughes Darren: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:656;Page:5924] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat Tony Ryall has battled humility all his life but appears to be winning the battle. He appears to be getting there. He is also a former Acting Prime Minister of New Zealand. I wondered why he was so busy ingratiating himself to Judith Collins because she has never struck me as being a particularly popular member of the National caucus but then the reason was revealed to me: Tony Ryall has been invoiced for the expense of the Diplomatic Protection Squad that was tailing him around the Bay of Plenty while he was the Acting Prime Minister. Judith Collins has said it was a waste of public money—she is such a hard-liner on these things—and she has charged Tony Ryall for the services of the Diplomatic Protection Squad during his tenure as Acting Prime Minister of our country. 
It was not a very good tenure—not that anyone will be too shocked to hear that. During Tony Ryall’s grand moment when his address to the country was all about a new shirt and tie at the very same moment on typewriters around this country the  
Dominion Post 
 was labelling him the loser of the week. The  
New Zealand Herald  
was writing stories about him saying he was fudging the health numbers and we saw evidence of that in his speech before. 
One of the things Tony Ryall was complaining about was the number of committees and reviews the previous Labour Government set up but as the Hon Annette King told the House this Government has initiated 40 reviews after just 8 months. That is a lot of Tories being appointed to do a lot of jobs if you ask me yet the Minister Tony Ryall in his other portfolio of State services set up a scheme that he said would redeploy State servants who lost their jobs. Obviously when people are losing their jobs first and foremost is what we can do about that. He said 1500 people who had lost their jobs would be available to be redeployed across the State sector. Well Labour thought that was quite interesting so the Labour spokesperson on State services my colleague the Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson went and found out exactly how many people had actually been redeployed. Out of the 1500 people who could be redeployed over the State sector Tony Ryall has managed to find jobs for two people. 
Hon Members 
: Two! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Just two out of 1500. So when Tony Ryall is lecturing Labour about committees and reviews he needs to know that his own policy is spin. Two people have been redeployed out of 1500. Mind you we did not count the police officers who were redeployed from the front line to tail him around as Acting Prime Minister of our country. 
Let us not worry too much about Tony Ryall. In this Budget debate Labour is focusing very closely on the message that the Government is not listening that the Government has gimmicks for the real problems of our country and that the Government has no plan for the real problems and challenges that New Zealand faces. There has been nothing from the Government in this Budget debate on how to lift up the New Zealand economy by several gears in order to get it going for the recovery. 
We see all around the world signs that a recovery is under way. It will come to New Zealand and whereabouts is the National Government in New Zealand doing any work or coming up with any creative ideas in order to try to harness those opportunities for New Zealand? There are none. There are gimmicks everywhere. There are half initiatives everywhere. The cycleway is the greatest gimmick of them all and it keeps changing in terms of its nature. All National’s initiatives are half-pie half-thought-out and not really focused on what matters for the people of New Zealand. The Government cannot get its act together. 
On the issue of Maori representation in Auckland—and the Leader of the Opposition has moved an amendment to the legislation criticising the Government for the way it has behaved in pre-empting the select committee process—the Government is all at sea. The Hon Georgina te Heuheu once acted with great honour on the question of Maori seats on councils in the Bay of Plenty. When the previous speaker Mr Ryall said Maori seats were racist she acted with a great deal of honour and crossed the floor in order to support Maori representation. Today she said that she did so only because she lives close to the area of those seats. That is not a very credible argument. It is amazing the difference a Crown car can make to a member’s position on an important issue like Maori representation. 
We know that options were put to the ACT Party so that there would be one person one vote which ACT members say is the No. 1 argument for them. There is no reason to deny Maori in Auckland the right to representation like any other Aucklander by way of the new super-city that is being set up. Denying the Maori seats is all about the personality and ego of the ACT Party and not at all about the needs of the people for representation. 
I feel sorry for parties in this House that have been let down by National which is running a sham consultation. Let us remember what National has done. It put through a bill under urgency and then said the select committee would be the point at which the Government would listen. Then it made the Associate Minister of Local Government John Carter—the guy who does all the work—the chairperson of the select committee. When the most contentious issue about the council—the question of Maori seats—came up National decided to pre-empt the select committee process and abandon Maori representation. The Government said that is democracy. 
The Government does not listen. That is all it has to do—listen to the arguments give people a chance to have their say and then make a call. In the end we have to respect that the Government gets the final call but to not even listen is unbelievable arrogance particularly when we were told that everything was going to change. National said it would listen if it became the Government. The nanny State would be gone when National became the Government. Actually there are more rules about how to run one’s life now under National than there were under Labour. 
Of all the things that were done under the Labour Government that National complained about not one has been reversed. In fact Gerry had to try to reopen an incandescent light bulb factory because the bulbs are not being made any more. Steven Joyce put up his hand because he is the guy who wants to charge us 80 bucks to talk on our cellphone which is the most expensive mobile termination rate that a Minister for Communications and Information Technology could ever come up with. 
What else is the Government doing? It is looking— 
Paul Quinn 
: Shower heads—what about shower heads? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Well I will tell members something about shower heads. That member should take a shower because he will get 3 years 6 years or 9 years at the end of this parliamentary term. If ever there has been a one-term wonder it is Paul Quinn. If I were him I would not be asking for an early shower quite so soon as his is not going to be a glittering and distinguished parliamentary career. 
What is the National Government doing? The National Government is saying it wants to change tax policy. It is true that those members are always focused on tax. You know they campaigned on the issue of cutting income tax and they came in before their parliamentary—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. Barracking is unacceptable. Interjecting across the floor is OK but that noise was not acceptable. Members need to keep the noise level down. I am sorry to interrupt the member. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. While you are at it I think that saying: “You have done nothing with your life.” is also out of order. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I would hope that I have done something with my life. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: We know you have. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. It is amazing how one can touch a few nerves in this place from time to time. I think we might have just done something along those lines. In fact if the member Paul Quinn wanted to get some publicity for himself all it would take is for four members of the National Party out of 58 to vote for Maori seats and we would have the seats. Labour has 43 votes the Progressive party has one the Greens have nine and the Maori Party has five. We need only four National MPs to vote for Maori seats and there would be Maori representation in Auckland. We could have Georgina te Heuheu and Tau Henare and we need to get Hekia Parata and Paul Quinn. He could have his 5 minutes in the sun on this issue. Actually he would probably stuff it up and get only 2 minutes in the sun but publicity is something. The member would be keen on it. All we would need is the four votes to be able to do it. 
National campaigned on tax. National was going to cut taxes and initially it did. The top 3 percent of income earners got one-third of the value. Then in the Budget which we are debating here National put taxes back up for the people who had voted for it to bring down taxes. Now National members are running round the country wanting to put GST up to 20 percent. Well how does that help working families in this current economy? It does not help them at all. National wants to put GST up to 20 percent. Its second option is a friendlier 15 percent. That is the kind of bright friendly face that the National Government has—wanting to put up GST. 
At the moment the rates bills are going out around our country and people will be applying for a rates rebate which is a scheme of the third Labour Government that was improved and made better by the fifth Labour Government. The value of that rates rebate will be totally undermined three four or five times over if pensioners have to pay higher GST as the National Government proposes. 
Everywhere we go we find that the Government is not listening. It is not listening in the area of transport. The Government has taken a plan for Auckland that was comprehensive funded costed and ready to go and it did not listen. At the moment in my area in Kapiti the Government is doing the same old trick. At the last election I campaigned on Transmission Gully Western Link Road electrifying the railway line to Palmerston North and doing something to sort out peak weekend traffic at the Otaki roundabout where the major retail centre is causing congestion at that time. The National Party said “Me too!” and campaigned on the same thing. Yet now National has got into Government for the whole year while the council was working on those options it had the Transport Agency working behind the council’s back on an alternative plan for Kapiti that no one had seen and which the Government turned up with on Monday. Consultation on the plan started on Monday. 
The proposed motorway does not include Western Link Road and it does not include one extra dollar for trains. The proposed motorway rips through the communities of Kapiti and totally bypasses Otaki. Do members know how long the Government which said it would listen is giving people to have a say about the plan? Six miserable weeks. It is a scheme that no one had heard of and people have to decide in 6 weeks whether they lose their house. [ 
Interruption 
] National members might be yelling at the moment but I know that they have so many homes individually that if their home was run over by a motorway they would just shift to another home. I know that they do not understand the problems of working families. But the people of Kapiti have only one house to live in and if a road—a four-lane 100-kilometre motorway—goes through it then they cannot simply shift to another home. 
That is an example of National members’ arrogance. If the Minister thinks he will get away with the plan which is wiping out our community overnight in this way then he is sadly mistaken because people want to have a say on it. They want the right to be able to put up a plan and National should have campaigned on the proposed motorway if that is what it wanted to do. We have experience with this Minister because he did the same with the Waterview Connection as well. National campaigned on it got into office and then wanted to rip through houses all around the place and take away the homes of working families there as well. 
The Government is not listening. It is focused on gimmicks that do not matter—like cycleways—and it has no plan to take the New Zealand economy up a step in order to give real opportunity to people. That is why we are opposing the Budget bill.