Barker Rick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Barker Rick: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10906] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 It has truly been a pleasure to serve as part of this Government. I reflect on the times we have had over the last 4 or 5 years and contrast them with the times basically through the 1990s when I was a member of Parliament in Opposition and before I came here and I have to say that the way in which this Government interacts with the people of New Zealand is completely different. Through the miserable 1990s the Government of the day seemed to have a cold celluloid soul. It had a miserable view of human existence. It seemed to believe that the only way it could get people in this country to do anything was by threats sanctions and coercion. 
It also perpetrated deceptions upon the people of New Zealand. I give as an example none better than the Employment Contracts Act. Prior to the election the National Party told the public of New Zealand that the Employment Contracts Act or its legislation would not cut penalty rates or overtime. The sad fact of the matter was that it did—and it created misery. It meant that it slashed and hacked into workers’ conditions and as a consequence many fine New Zealanders went overseas to Australia to find better jobs and conditions. It is ironic that today the National Party including Mr Don Brash is complaining that New Zealanders are going overseas when it was the National Party and the then Governor of the Reserve Bank who helped to create the conditions that saw those people go away. 
New Zealanders are working overseas as builders for example because they get 4 or 5 weeks’ annual leave. They get guaranteed contributor superannuation schemes better health and safety protection and a whole range of other things. That is why we do not have tradespeople in New Zealand. The Government recognises we have to do something about that and that is why we are helping to improve labour market conditions in New Zealand and giving workers 4 weeks’ annual leave. 
The other area of great concern to me through the 1990s was the rising level of unemployment. Unemployment seemed to rise and rise without stop and nothing could be done. The National Party had a traditional right-wing extreme response to that. It was the work-for-the-dole scheme straight from the Wisconsin Works project in the United States. National said to people on the domestic purposes benefit that once their children got to a certain age it expected those people to participate in work regardless of their circumstances. It set punitive sanctions if that were not done. National believed that people would behave in a particular manner only if sanctions were imposed upon them; it did not believe in a positive approach to people who were on the domestic purposes benefit. 
That situation was in stark contrast to that of this Government. This Government has changed the system completely. We engage with people on the domestic purposes benefit asking them what they intend to do so that they can build a better life for themselves. We let them develop their plans about where they want to go. We are getting towards the end of interviewing nearly everybody on the domestic purposes benefit and the results will astound the Opposition. I am sure that Opposition members will cast a Nelsonian eye on the results just as they did today in the House when the announcement was made that New Zealand rated No. 1 in an overseas survey on health systems. The National Party could see only wrong; it could not celebrate our success. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr Tisch bleats on. I tell him that when this Government came into power the National Party had left us a legacy of 158227 people on the unemployment benefit. That was the Tory legacy and that callous Tory party did not care. It said that it cared but it did not. I am proud to be able to say that the number of people on the unemployment benefit today is 94000. That is a reduction of 60000 people. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Wayne Mapp can diss that but that figure of 158000 registered unemployed was quite a low figure for the National Party through the 1990s. 
However the figures get better. The level of unemployment for Maori in 1999 was 14.6 percent which was grossly disproportionate to the number of Maori in our community. The reforms of the 1990s had affected Maori much worse and the National Party did not care. Why did it not care? That lack of care is reflected in the comments of the leader of the National Party at the time the Prime Minister who talked about islanders coming in through the window. There has been a tinge of this underneath all that National has stood for. That Prime Minister did not care about unemployment levels amongst Maori; this Government does. 
The level of unemployment for Pacific Island people was also another disgraceful story. Of the unemployed 12.3 percent were Pacific Islanders. This Government has done a very good job in reducing the level of Pacific Island unemployment to 8.8 percent. That is a 30 percent improvement from what the situation was. The story gets even better: only 2 percent of Pacific Islanders were in training; now the percentage is up to 5 percent. We have a fabulous story to tell. 
Why are we doing this? We believe that we should have equality of opportunity in New Zealand and that disadvantage should not be visited upon a single group. It was very clear from all the statistics that Maori were overly represented in the lowest quintile of earnings in this country and that poverty could be described by one’s race. Pacific Island people were overly represented in the lowest quintile of income in this country. Again poverty could be described by one’s race. That is the legacy of a Tory National Party. It does not care about Pacific Island or Maori people as long as its own members are well off. The National Party is about cementing opportunity for its members and for people like themselves but not about building a quality society. 
If those figures had continued then the legacy of this Parliament would have been to institutionalise disadvantage and poverty. Members can look all around the world for many examples of that and there are numerous countries where poverty is described by race. What is the gift to those nations? It is division bitterness riots theft and violence. Their societies fall apart because the simple fact is that democracy and society only ever hang together because people want to hang together. If they do not want to and see no advantage in being together then riots and all sorts of other bad violence will occur. 
We do not have any sign of that this day. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell Mr Mapp the only sign we have of it is because of the divisive politics preached by his party—the politics of rage the politics of fury and the politics of envy. I say to Mr Mapp that when he gets to the end of his political career he will reflect upon these heady months. He thinks he is heading for glory but he will come to see that this is most probably the worst policy option National ever promoted. I guarantee that Mr Mapp will regret those speeches. I promise him that. 
 What we want in this society is a sense of hope and opportunity. I have never seen such a sense of hope and opportunity in this country as I have on this day. When I grew up as a young man in the early 1970s there were lots of job opportunities for me and I was really impressed. I left several jobs because the morning tea was not up to my standard—a person could have standards in those days. Through the 1990s people had no option but to accept a job because there was no other. Young people today have options about what they want to do. They have the option of going to university or polytechnic or of getting an apprenticeship—a system the National Party abolished. People are falling over themselves to get into apprenticeships. There are over 7000 young apprentices and—boy—every one of them loves his or her job. They want to get on learn and make a future for themselves. 
Young people are in vocational training and they are taking up jobs. I personally know several young people who have more hours than they can work. One of them turned up and showed me that the soles of his shoes had fallen off because he had done too many hours’ work. That is fantastic. That is not the life we had in the 1990s when we had deprivation and misery and when every parent in this country wondered about and despaired over their children’s future. They despaired because youth unemployment was at stratospheric levels. It was an extraordinary event when a young person got a job. To leave school and go to a job was an extraordinary event; the usual thing was for the young person to leave school and go on the dole. This Government has turned that round. 
This next generation has hope and opportunity. It has realistic options about going to tertiary institutions realistic options about getting an apprenticeship realistic options about getting into vocational training and realistic options about getting a job. New Zealand is an entirely different place. It is remarkable how much it has changed in 5 years and the good thing about it is that we are going to have even more change for the better.