Brownlee Gerry: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Brownlee Gerry: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10809] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The Prime Minister’s statement today delivered by a Prime Minister who I think is almost in mourning should be an occasion where there is a little bit of excitement injected into the House—a little bit of optimism about where the country is going. But what we got was a very very damp squib of a speech. Why did we get that? Because this year’s and next year’s political agenda has been set by Dr Don Brash and Helen Clark has failed to respond to that. Not only has she failed to respond to the issues that he has raised but she has failed to respond to the tens the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who are offering their support to Dr Brash on the issues that he is raising. It should be of huge concern to everybody in this House that so many New Zealanders who by and large probably have not read the full text of Dr Brash’s speech have picked up on it and decided to support it because they believe finally there is someone out there who is speaking for them. I am becoming sick and tired of hearing from apologists from the Government that somehow that is divisive and confrontational. I say to them they should drop that talk because when 80 percent of the country says it is putting its hand up because it is worried about those issues then that is the sort of confrontation that the Government cannot win. It is the sort of confrontation that will divide this nation in a most damaging way. 
The challenge that Helen Clark has failed to pick up is the challenge to debate reasonably the issues that Dr Brash has raised. Instead all we have heard from Labour politicians and from the lapdog Jim Anderton are all sorts of pious speeches about how this nation needs to unite behind a Government that is apparently leading us to some sort of nirvana just over the hill. Well no one believes that. Mr Anderton can talk all that he likes about the growth record that this country has how wonderful last year was and how we were the best country in the OECD last year but the people who are doing their 40 45 49 50 and 55-hour-a-week jobs know that the money in their pocket does not go as far as it used to. They know that and we can see it. I challenge people like Mr Tamihere—the great champion of the working man—just to walk once or twice around a supermarket and to see how many products are dumped out of place as people biff them out of their supermarket trolleys because they work out that they cannot afford them. Those are the sorts of people who are listening to what Dr Brash is saying. They are the sorts of people who are looking at Helen Clark and saying the Government is not giving them their fair dues. They are the sorts of people who will be changing their vote and putting as Richard Prebble said a right-wing coalition Government back in place in this country. 
I want to comment a little about some of the things the Prime Minister did say. The starkest thing for me was that she said that the Government was now making some progress on the Porter plan which is actually 15 years old. Here we have a Government that is claiming some success on the basis of starting a plan that should have been in place 15 years ago. That tells us that the Government is slowly waking up and realising that it will never be able to deliver on some of the misleading nonsense it put in front of New Zealanders just a few short years ago. We have heard the Prime Minister say today that the House will see the introduction of the bill that will phase out asset testing for elderly people who are in care. I will guarantee anything members like that the bill projects the horizon for the phase-out 10 20 or even 30 years out into the future because the Government cannot phase out asset testing. Despite all that Jim Anderton wants to say the Government cannot do it. 
When I look at the rest of the legislative programme for this year I see the most controversial thing of course is the seabed and foreshore issue. If anybody wonders why there was such an emotional connection to what Don Brash had to say at Orewa he or she needs only to look at what the Government is proposing for the seabed and foreshore around this nation. Over the Christmas holidays I saw the Hon John Tamihere on the news one night. Interestingly he was at the beach with the family dressed in a shirt and tie. He was dressed in a shirt and tie on that particular day at the beach—paddling along the beach in his traditional shellfish-gathering gear—and he was telling the nation that his family his whanau his hapu and his iwi had a greater claim to that part of the beach than any other New Zealander. [ 
Interruption 
] I want to know on what basis they have that and so do all New Zealanders. 
Hon Taito Phillip Field 
: Common law. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The poor fellow there the much-maligned Phillip Field suggests that it is based on common law. When he says that in such a confident way he tends to indicate that like most of the trained seals in the caucus he is prepared to believe anything Helen Clark tells him. The reality is I tell Mr Field that common law under British common law is established after 30 years. So why cannot non-Maori New Zealanders make the same claims to bits of beach that they have spent 30 years fishing on camping on and swimming and having fun at? Why not? 
Hon John Tamihere 
: They can too. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Oh no we are being told by this Government to face up to the fact that those of us who are not Maori have to tell our children that they will not be as special in this country as their Maori cousins. Let me tell members on the Government side of the House that that simply will not go down. 
I support the motion moved by Don Brash that this Parliament should vote “no confidence” in the current Government. I challenge all those nervous twittering Labour Party members who are worried about their political futures to have the courage to vote for that as well and to go to the polls over that single issue. The outcome would be certain: the end of the Labour Government. I say that the size of that defeat will just get bigger as the months go by. I suggest that Helen Clark’s speech today smacked somewhat of coming from a Government that is contemplating an election will take place in November of this year. We got all the platitudes about what wonderful things there will be in the 2004 Budget apparently for middle New Zealand. Is it not interesting that the Government considers middle New Zealand to be made up of people who unfortunately keep so little of their own incomes that they have to be topped up by the State in order to pay their rent and mortgages? [ 
Interruption 
] I do not normally ask people to desist from making interjections. At the moment the biggest interjector is the member for Waimakariri a man who should be most worried about holding his seat. 
I want to make a couple of comments to Peter Dunne. I was struck by his statement that he thought serious constitutional issues in this country should be dealt with by an overwhelming majority in Parliament. We have I think an issue that is as serious as any constitutional issue in the seabed and foreshore issue. It is Mr Dunne who has to provide the votes needed for the Government to put in place the dreadful legislation it proposes. The question to Mr Dunne and his United Future members is this: why would they do that to New Zealanders if they believe that serious issues should have the support of an overwhelming majority of Parliament? In this case this issue does not have such support. 
I want to make a final comment to Mr Winston Peters a man who spent most of his speech today explaining why he was a completely incompatible member of the National Party. I say for the benefit of anyone who is listening that we should remember that Mr Peters’ greatest gift to the nation was a full set of Cabinet papers—his own full set of Cabinet papers collected during his time as Treasurer and presented to the archives of this country unopened and unread by his eyes. That is the member for Tauranga—and whatever he has to say on this matter should be taken with a very small grain of salt indeed. 
I have some final comments for the Government again. How is it that Jim Anderton Helen Clark and Michael Cullen can make such grand claims about what they are doing for this country when they are shutting down provincial New Zealand? While Mr Clayton Cosgrove might laugh about that because he is in the inner sanctum and the schools in his electorate are not being shut Mr Sutton should be very worried. Not only will the schools be shut in his electorate but his term in this House will come to an end as a result of that. I support the motion moved by Dr Don Brash.