Mahuta Nanaia: General Debate 
Mahuta Nanaia: General Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9054] 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 We know things are in trouble for Opposition members when they lack ideas and they cannot inspire people in the direction they are going. We know things are really in trouble for Opposition members when they go around and reconnect with communities that they ignored. They are there to listen but they have no solutions. We know things are in trouble when the Leader of the Opposition sets out to oppose the Government on an issue like the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act then right at the eleventh hour he changes his mind by himself without consulting his caucus. 
The public know that things are not good for the Opposition. They also know that despite the verbiage coming from members on that side of the House it is actually a very difficult time for the National Party. In a sense although National members are trying to propose a way forward on particular issues they take positions where there are definite flip-flops. National members say one thing then they mean another thing. What do we do? That is the kind of scenario we are faced with when we listen to the types of things coming out of the National Party. 
I think National members are in trouble and that we should take a good hard look at what they really mean—not just at what they say but at what lies behind it. So far the U-turns made by National actually put at risk what New Zealanders want. New Zealanders want certainty direction and vision. New Zealanders want people who say what they mean and do it. They also want people who are going to deliver and that is what they get with this Government. 
There has been a lot of contribution in the general debate today on all sorts of things. I will pick up on just one aspect of the debate referred to by the previous speaker and that is youth crime. On the issue of flip-flops from the National Party I have picked up from my own local community newspaper an article in which David Bennett has said that he blames Government inaction in the face of increasingly popular youth gangs for the huge surge in Waikato youth crime. 
However in that same article Hamilton police themselves have said that they do not know where Mr Bennett got his figures from. Why? It is because Hamilton is probably a model community in that we have had the Family Violence Intervention Programme family safety teams and youth offending teams. The community is working together in a constructive way—in a real way—to tackle the issues of youth crime youth violence and making a difference in the lives of young people so that they can make positive choices. 
When people go off half-baked on an issue about which they do not have a full set of facts that is the kind of thing that critically affects good work being done at a community level. Their comments on those issues put at risk the credibility of the good work being done at a community level to tackle the hard issues and that is the type of thing I am talking about. 
When we look to make a difference in the community on some really difficult things everybody in our community knows that it is not just about the Government; it is about the Government working successfully across other agencies with the community in partnership for change. These are the types of positive successes that this Government contributes to. We just cannot have the types of shallow statistics not supported by evidence that are put up by members like David Bennett in a way that undermines the work being done. 
If we really look at the issue of youth crime and at making a real difference we know that busy hands matter. That is really important. If we get people into education keep them in there and get them into work and employment then we know that that fundamentally makes a difference. 
When the Labour-led Government came into power in 1999 in my own community in Huntly 849 people were on the unemployment benefit. In fact if members know my region very well they will know that between Huntly and Ngaruawahia we skewed the overall statistics of the region. So there had to be a deliberate response in terms of providing sustainable employment options. These are also the communities where people would say there are hard issues. In 2006 in that same community we have only 164 people on the unemployment benefit. 
That is the type of change this Government is delivering on. It is not just about words; it is supported by doing by action.