Tolley Anne: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tolley Anne: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police) 
: 
 The difference between us here on the Government benches and those sitting on the other side in Opposition is clear. It is very clear to us here in Parliament and it is very clear to the people out in our electorates. That lot the previous Labour Government—and the Greens who propped it up—had the very best of times. It enjoyed the very best of times. What did it do with all that success? It spent it. 
Scott Simpson 
: Squandered. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It squandered it—absolutely. When Labour left office inflation was running at 5.1 percent. The export sector was not talking about growth. In fact it was flatlining and it was struggling to survive. The back-office bureaucracy the media teams the public relations consultants the policy wonks and the “Wassup!” badge designers were all ballooning in numbers and Treasury’s books showed decades of deficits as government spending and debt spiralled out of control. We were in recession. We were in a recession the like of which this country had not seen since the 1930s. That is 80 years ago. 
But under careful and steady management this Government has turned those statistics round: steady increases in after-tax wages; inflation at 1 percent not Labour’s 5 percent; mortgage rates at 5 percent not Labour’s 11 percent; a top personal tax rate of 33 percent not Labour’s 39 percent; and company tax at 28 percent not Labour’s 30 percent. When Labour abolished the youth minimum wage in 2008 9000 young people lost their jobs—9000 young people. Yet the Labour Opposition brayed like asses when we used dollars from Moroccan cooking classes for well-heeled adults to put extra dollars into education and training for those very same young people whom that previous Government had callously written out of employment. 
The Taranaki region enjoys the highest regional growth in the country. It is the only region that has oil and gas production and it has had that for 100 years. It has 4500 jobs directly involved in the oil and gas industry—4500 jobs—and it has 1500 jobs indirectly involved. The average wage is $80000 a year. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: How much? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It is $80000. We envy Taranaki. It is known for its dairy industry its tourism and its oil and gas industry. I come from the East Coast. We are known for our sheep and beef farming forestry horticulture and viticulture and tourism. Why can we not add oil and gas industry to that list? Why can we not? Well this Government wants to. 
Last week in the East Coast region just 64 jobs were notified to the Ministry of Social Development—20 more than at this time last year—but 3637 job seekers were registered with the Ministry of Social Development in the region. Why would any of those job seekers not want to work in the oil and gas industry as cooks carriers truck drivers plumbers builders or electricians and maybe nurses tea ladies engineers or managers? 
There are 763 youth job seekers registered with the Ministry of Social Development in the East Coast region down from 837 this time last year. So a big thanks to the schools the tertiary providers and the employers who have worked so hard for our young people but some of them will have left. Some of them will have gone to Australia to get a job. So why cannot these young people work in the East Coast in their own home town in the oil and gas industry? 
Well Labour is all about saying no. Labour says no to everything that is proposed that will provide those young people with jobs. Intensification of farming—Labour says no. Australian companies moving jobs to New Zealand—Labour says no. Ninety-day probation period for new employees—Labour says no. The new youth starting-out wage—Labour says no. To any of our labour market reforms actually Labour says no.