Goff Phil: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Goff Phil: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:659;Page:8619] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 A year ago today Bill English moved the adjournment motion—and just as badly—but at that stage Steven Joyce was not smiling quite as much as he is in the House today. I want to go back to Bill English’s speech of a year ago because he described the outgoing Labour administration as “scandal ridden”. 
At the very time Bill English was giving that speech he was busy. He was busy rearranging his personal affairs so he could claim twice as much for his housing allowance as any other Minister had ever got—$47000—by claiming he had no pecuniary interest in his own home. The Auditor-General said that Mr English patently did have a pecuniary interest in his home. Mr English of course claimed that he lived in Dipton to be eligible for any housing allowance at all but at the same time he was claiming that he lived in Wellington to be eligible for a self-drive car. I ask Bill English whether it was Dipton or Wellington. Which was it? 
Anyway $47000 was not enough. He wanted more. He wanted more for his cleaner. The irony of that is that the cleaner was part of that very same occupation that Mr English as Minister of Finance said did not deserve a pay rise this year despite the fact cleaners are low-income earners. Bill English launched the crusade to cut the real incomes of the lowest-income people of this country from the “moral high ground” of claiming $47000 a year in housing allowances alone. That is more than any of those cleaners get from their entire income for the year. That is no moral high ground at all I say to Mr English. Mr English has the temerity to talk about scandals but when it comes to scandals Mr English is the gift that keeps on taking. 
Sadly Mr English is not alone. There is Mr Hide over there. That is Mr Hide the perk-buster. Mr Hide was into perks as hard and fast as he could. He was claiming he was against perks but he was secretly taking them. Then of course there was Mr Harawira. He was happy to have the taxpayer meet the cost of his travel to Europe but he did not turn up at the meeting the taxpayer paid for him to go to. For Mr Harawira accountability apparently is a Pakeha concept and the people who paid the taxes for him to go were worthy only of insult and obscenity. 
When Mr English finished his speech last year he promised that the National Government would act in favour of the majority of this country. Over the last year we have seen from this National Government anything but that. This National Government looks after privilege. Why else this time last year did Bill English move through Parliament legislation that gave 30 percent of the money for tax cuts to the top 3 percent including himself and his colleagues over there? 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am having a bit of trouble hearing the member because colleagues of mine are able to read his speech from a BlackBerry. He left out the bit about multinationals. I seek leave to table his speech. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think I had better take that as a good-humoured interjection. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: This Government is about privilege. It claims it has no money to meet the basic needs of ordinary working New Zealanders but it has put $110 billion aside to look after the interests of the multinationals and the polluters. The Government did not bill those who are causing the pollution which is what an emissions trading scheme was meant to be about. Rather the bill will be passed on to hard-working New Zealand taxpayers who will be paying for decades to come for this Government’s dirty deal on the emissions trading scheme which will be disastrous for our economy and disastrous for our environment. 
This Government does not put the burden on the privileged. There is no point Mr English in the cheap words of sympathy you gave to low-income earners at the start of your speech when you have been looking after the privileged and you have been putting the burden of this recession fully and squarely on low-income earners. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It happened several times there but the member knows he should not be bringing the Speaker into the debate. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Mr Speaker he— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need any assistance on the matter. Mr Hide is quite correct. I did not want to intervene because I did not want to interrupt the speech of the honourable Leader of the Opposition. But he must not use the word “you”. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He said “you Mr English”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has been in the House long enough to know that saying “you Mr English” is totally inconsistent with the Standing Orders. A member cannot for good reason say that because it personalises the debate. The member cannot say “you Mr English”; the member cannot use “you” because “you” is referring to the Speaker. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Yesterday Mr Key in this House boasted that having 60000 additional New Zealanders deprived of their livelihood through unemployment was “a pretty good result”. But I will tell National members who do not seem to understand what it means to a person to be unemployed about the case of a young man whom Maryan Street and I visited by chance in Nelson last Thursday. An article about him has been written in the  
Nelson Mail.  
The young man’s name is Ivan Culpitt. He is 22 years old. He has over the last 7 months applied for 20 jobs but failed to get them. 
Mr Culpitt is desperate to get off the sickness benefit and get into work. He turned up at the place we were visiting McCashin’s Brewery and Malthouse and told the employer he would work for nothing—work for nothing—because he was so desperate to get a job. The woman who was running that brewery a very nice woman by the name of Emma McCashin said in this article and to us on the ground that every week she is phoned by people so desperate for work that they are indeed prepared to work for nothing. 
I acknowledge the commitment of Ivan Culpitt to finding that job but no New Zealander and no young New Zealander should have to go out and work for nothing because things are so tough and that person cannot get a job. I say to the National members opposite that when they are smug and arrogant about those people—as they were during question time—they should think about that young man and about the New Zealanders who are suffering at the moment because they have no chance of employment. 
As we adjourn this House and as we think about what we may be doing a week out from now when we spend time with our families I ask the members of the Government—both National and ACT members—to think about what was said yesterday by the Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson about what is happening in her agency. She said that a new class of people is coming through her agency. She is seeing people who had never been there before and who had never asked for assistance before—thousands of additional New Zealanders. 
We have heard the same story from the Salvation Army from the Citizens Advice Bureaux and from the Family Budgeting Services. She told us a story about a woman who came in with three young children. The woman’s husband had been made redundant 8 weeks earlier. The family had lost their home. They had no money for Christmas and nothing for extras. I ask National members not to give us the cheap words we have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister but for God’s sake I ask that next year they start to govern for ordinary New Zealanders who are missing out on the things that New Zealanders should be able to expect to have in life. 
Finally I acknowledge the parliamentary staff who do the work that makes the functioning of this institution possible. I will begin with you Mr Speaker and your office. Thank you for your service to the House this year. I acknowledge also the Clerk and the Clerk’s Office for the work they do. I thank the Hansard reporters who are sometimes called upon to write down things—particularly from the Government benches—that do not make much sense. 
I thank the security staff and the messengers who have had to fight this year for a decent wage for working in this House and I thank the cleaning staff who are still fighting to get a decent wage. I acknowledge our executive assistants and our media research clerical and electorate office staff. They work hard and they work professionally. For those of us who have the privilege of having drivers I acknowledge them also for the work they do. 
Last but not least I acknowledge the spouses and families of parliamentarians from whichever side of the House we sit on. Our families and our partners do not choose the careers that we have chosen for ourselves but too often they pay the price for that—the price of our absence and the price of unwanted publicity. I wish all our colleagues and all New Zealanders a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.