Peachey Allan: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peachey Allan: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13237. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 Goodness me! Nine years in Government 18 months in Opposition and that is all the socialist Labour Party has to show. That is the best that that party can do. Labour had 9 years in Government 18 months in Opposition—I almost said 18 years but let us not get too far ahead of ourselves—and that is the best that it can offer. 
There has been a bit of talk in this debate as to whether this Government inherited a mess. I would have thought that was a non-debatable point. Obviously the Government inherited a mess—a big mess—but a mess can be fixed. With discipline application and good policies a mess can be fixed. 
What can never ever be recovered from though is 9 years of lost opportunity. New Zealand will never get those years back. The people of New Zealand will never ever recover the lost opportunities that they experienced as a result of 9 years of the previous Labour Government. There is that simple telling figure: real after-tax wages grew by only 3 percent over the 9 years of that Government—only 3 percent. What is worse is that the bulk of that growth occurred in the early years of that Labour Government on the back of disciplined economic policies from the 1990s. Rather than squawking across the floor at me I suggest that members like Mr Cunliffe Ms Street and the others over there get out into the streets of the working-class parts of my electorate of Tamaki and tell that to the people who used to vote for Labour in the past. 
Carol Beaumont 
: We do. We get out on those streets. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: I look forward to Miss Beaumont actually being out there doing that and explaining to those good people why over 9 years the real growth in their incomes their wages— 
Chris Tremain 
: People they were representing. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: —was a miserable 3 percent I say to Mr Tremain. 
There will be more explaining for the Labour party and its members to do as well. They can begin to explain not only why the real salaries of those good people did not grow under that Labour Government but also why that Government required those people to pay so much more in tax than needed to be paid. I ask why that Labour Government year after year after year took so much money in the form of taxation from the good working-class people of New Zealand. Labour members should get out on to the streets in places like Glen Innes and similar areas around New Zealand and explain that. They must explain to people how can it be that in 18 months of a National Government somebody on the average wage can have their income tax effectively cut by a half. How can it be that through good government the income tax of a person on the average wage can be cut in half? 
Carol Beaumont 
: Tell those people in Tamaki why you did a deal with the issue of loan sharks—the huge issue in that community. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: Then go a step further I say to Ms Beaumont: explain to those people why that Labour Government had to take so much of their money from them and then apologise. Labour members should apologise for the way that money was squandered. 
While Labour members are at it they might also like to explain to the parents in communities like that why Labour’s investment in the schools in those communities was so poor. I ask them to explain that. Why was it despite the fact that New Zealanders were being taxed to a greater extent than ever before their schools were allowed to become run down? How can it then be that in just 18 months this Government can produce a Budget that allows for $12 billion of spending in education—$12 billion in 18 short months? That is more money than has ever been spent on schooling and education in New Zealand in the past.