Boscawen John: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Boscawen John: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 11 May 2011. Volume:672;Page:18564. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The last fortnight has been a period of great change rejuvenation and optimism within the ACT Party. When we returned to Parliament last Tuesday we did so having elected a new ACT leader Dr Brash and a new leader of the ACT parliamentary party. Dr Brash of course is a former leader of the National Party and is deeply concerned for the current economic and social state of our country at a time when we are borrowing over $300 million a week and we have high levels of unemployment particularly amongst Maori Pasifika and young people. Dr Brash’s economic credentials are unparalleled. He spent 14 years as Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and 5 years working for the World Bank in Washington DC and has served on many policy advisory committees for the Government since 1974. He has spent extensive time in private enterprise. More recently he chaired the 2025 Taskforce charged with analysing and promoting policies that will first of all lessen and then eliminate the income gap between New Zealand and Australia. The Government’s response to two very well-reasoned reports has been to scrap that task force out of sheer embarrassment.  
How ironic it was then that the Prime Minister’s first response last week to the new ACT team was to move a motion congratulating the New Zealand Breakers basketball team on their outstanding victory in the Australasian National Basketball League. They dared to dream to achieve something that few New Zealanders had thought possible and that has never been done before. They won an Australian-based A-grade professional sporting championship. The ACT Party asks why New Zealanders cannot also dream as the Breakers did and aspire to raise our living standards to raise the level of prosperity in this country and to address our social problems. We have done it before. We have been successful in the past and there is no reason why we cannot be successful again. But it requires the courage to articulate economic policies and the honesty to present them.  
It is a pity that when Phil Goff lamented the price of electricity at Grey Power’s national annual general meeting last weekend he did not tell the meeting also that he voted for an emissions trading scheme that increased the price of electricity by 10 percent. Members can expect to hear more from ACT on the emissions trading scheme choice in education the damage to our society of a debilitating culture dependent on social welfare and the wasteful use of Government resources.  
The ACT Party will present a different approach to the public in the coming months. We do however remain absolutely committed to the confidence and supply agreement that we signed with National and will continue to provide solid reliable and stable government. But there will be one change: we will not be taken for granted. National opted to insert a Treaty clause in the Environmental Protection Authority Bill going through this House this very afternoon. We were not consulted on that and we certainly were not given the 48 hours’ notice required under the confidence and supply agreement for major amendments of this nature. Heather Roy on behalf of the ACT Party voted against that Treaty clause in the Committee stage and this afternoon ACT will be voting against the third reading of the bill. Thank you.