Chadwick Steve: General Debate 
Chadwick Steve: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:12861] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 It is great to follow Simon Power’s speech in this general debate a speech that was largely focused on personal politics chaos and despair. I want to talk about the Labour conference which was an affirmation from a huge membership; the largest number of people to turn to a Labour Party conference for 13 years was hardly the message of a Government on its way out. For 2½ days our conference focused on the leadership of this Government the policies of this Government and the team—yes the new faces in the team but also the way this team has pulled together without splits and dissention. I am proud to be part of that team brimming with ideas and with new ideas and new policies coming through we have turned the corner and are now steaming sustainably ahead. I know that with the hard work of all of us out there around New Zealand going out and talking about our achievements over the last 8 years we could well be heading towards a Labour-led victory for a fourth term. 
Let us look at what Labour has done—remarkable gains for New Zealanders. We have led on transforming the economy; we have led on rebuilding social policy from the years of despair of the 1990s and restoring integrity and transparency to essential public services; we have led on building New Zealand’s identity as an inclusive nation projecting our values of peace reconciliation and social cohesion to the world; and now we are leading on sustainability. They are great stories to take out and they build on the way that Labour-led Governments in the past brought in votes for women social security for those vulnerable people needing to know that they have security and then opportunity and workers’ rights. 
Those gains have happened for most of our Labour-led history when we have been in Government and we will not give them away. We are focused on giving our children the best start in life and I know that in my role as Minister of Women’s Affairs I will have quite a central approach with the Minister of Health in improving the lives of women and children in this country—adding on to the paid parental leave the Working for Families tax credit the 20 free hours’ early childhood education the smaller classes for new entrants at school and the affordable doctors’ fees and prescriptions. We will not change any of those things. 
Do New Zealanders want change or do they want leadership—leadership which we saw right through 2½ days of our conference that showed commitment and the need for us to work on continual improvement in our Government? Do we want those new ideas or do we want privatisation private education over public threats to New Zealand superannuation and KiwiSaver Australian-style industrial relations American-style private health-care a dependent foreign policy not an independent one social polarisation and marginalisation of minorities of all kinds? Forewarned is to be forearmed and when we go out on our policies we will be showing the country that this is how we are determined to secure a Labour-led Government in the future. We forget the politics of division. Labour does what works for New Zealand and it will work with anyone to take our country ahead. 
I am really looking forward to working on the cluster of portfolios that I was given: conservation women’s affairs and associate health. The Prime Minister made an incredible statement at our conference about instructing the Ministry of Health to get on with the papilloma virus vaccination. Women in the country were really thrilled. They have been speaking out about this since the Cartwright inquiry. We have a prevention and the Prime Minister said: “This must be funded get on with it.” I also want to talk about issues that we will be leading on: reducing family violence and particularly the impact of women as mothers the impact on children as victims of family violence sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy. In conservation I want to work on the further gains for biodiversity heritage protection and the recreational use of the conservation estate; opening out so much of our country—our beautiful country that is our New Zealand identity—so New Zealanders can get into that conservation estate take their children there and bring tourists in to tell them the wonderful stories about this wonderful land. 
I want to finish with one of the observations about the appointments to Cabinet. I heard the comment “diligence and hard work have been rewarded.” Well this Government wants to reward hard-working New Zealanders.