Goff Phil: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Goff Phil: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:651;Page:1019] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 That talk from the Deputy Prime Minister Bill English about protecting superannuitants was all a bit rich. He was the last man in this House to cut superannuation which he did in 1998. I tell Bill English that the only reason why he might be able to assure superannuitants that their benefits will not be cut is that the man sitting just behind me Michael Cullen put aside more than $13 billion in the Cullen fund. The fund guarantees that they will get that payment and for those who are about to retire that they will have the entitlement they have been paying taxes towards. 
It was an interesting speech from the Deputy Prime Minister. It started off with the normal party politicking—“It was all your fault.” and “What’s the Opposition doing about the crisis?”. Well Mr English you’re in the Government now and we would like to know whether there was a sense of urgency— 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My raising a point of order means that the member sits down. We have had a number of points of order in this session pulling up the Leader of the Opposition for a breach of the processes of this House that no one else is allowed to commit and he has done it probably 10 or half a dozen times; that is using the term “you”. Parliament has been around a lot longer than Mr Goff and it has always had that rule. He should be required to keep to it particularly when the Speaker has ruled three times I think on that matter in respect of him during this short 2-week session. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Mr Speaker you may recall me actually touching upon this point the other day when I pointed out that there are three different ways in which the word “you” is used. If this Parliament is going to cut all of them out then that makes a nonsense because what Mr Goff said was: “Mr English you’re in the Government now …”. Nobody could possibly read that to mean a reference to you Mr Speaker. It is a reference to Mr English and that is normal English usage. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In fact the Hon Bill English is quite correct. The usage that is not allowed under the Standing Orders—and I repeat this for the benefit of all members of the House—is to say for example: “Mr Bloggs you did something.” That is not disallowed because it includes the Speaker in the debate; it is disallowed because it leads to more personal debate and that is unacceptable. The Standing Orders are quite clear: the only occasion on which members can use the word “you” is in a situation where one might be saying “one” in older grammar. I remind the honourable Leader of the Opposition that it is not acceptable to address a member on the other side as “you”—as in “you” did something. That is outside of the Standing Orders. I invite the honourable Leader of the Opposition to continue. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: After 2 weeks of urgency we would have expected the Government to show some sense of urgency and to present this country and this Parliament with its plan for addressing the impact on New Zealand of an international economic downturn. There has been no such plan. For 2 weeks we have debated light bulbs and justice bills—bills that experts in sentencing say will make no difference at all. We have debated serious matters. We have debated matters relating to jobs and to stripping away the right of working people to not be sacked without due cause and without due process to call upon. Yes we have talked about job security but this Government has been taking away job security. The member Mr English talks about investment and about jobs. The first thing this Government did in this Parliament was to undermine the emissions trading scheme and scrap $400 million worth of investment in forestry—investment that would have created jobs right across provincial New Zealand. 
Then there were those 46 jobs it has destroyed by undermining the biofuel industry in New Zealand. Gerry Brownlee brought the bill on that into the House. He had a letter from a former president of the National Party Sue Wood and one from the gentleman who ran BioDiesel Oils (NZ) Ltd and he had not read either of them. I give credit to David Garrett from the ACT Party who sat in the House who listened who probably read the letter and who said: “My personal view is that the Opposition is right. This is a bad move but I have to vote with my party.” I suggest to you Mr Speaker that if Mr Brownlee had read that letter if he had not been so lazy if he had done his homework and if he had understood that what he was saying about the unsustainability of biofuels produced from tallow was just nonsense we would not have had that bill before the House at all. I will come back to some of those issues. 
The other thing I say to “Mr 20 Percent” about investment is that yes he talked about investment in short-term jobs. He wiped out jobs in forestry and bio-diesel. He wiped out the thousands of jobs that would have been created by retrofitting houses to make them healthier. So in the short term he did damage but in the medium term he did damage as well because the key thing that would have turned round our economy in terms of our savings culture was KiwiSaver. This National Government has gutted KiwiSaver. Its members said their changes would make it possible for more people to invest in KiwiSaver but when they were asked what money they had put aside for those thousands more people who would come in the answer was zero—absolutely zero. 
If Mr English wants to talk about investment in the medium term he should know that every industrial company in this country knows that research and development is vital to New Zealand being innovative and competitive in the world. We had two great funds for doing that. The first was the 15 percent tax credits that would have helped those information technology companies to get on their feet be innovative compete in the world and be creative—and the Government scrapped it. The second was the New Zealand Fast Forward fund. We know that despite not mentioning agriculture once—or was it once I ask Mr Carter—in the Speech from the Throne this country relies on agriculture as its primary sector. We know that the fund would have enabled our primary sector to go forward into the future with real confidence and to compete in the world on the basis of sustainability. But the Government undermined the sustainability part of the fund as well and scrapped it. So it is just nonsense that Bill English should come into this House and talk about short-term jobs which he has already destroyed and the medium-term future which he has totally undermined. 
I now begin more traditionally and thank all of those who work in this place and who help Parliament to function as it does. I thank those from your office Mr Speaker. Through the Clerk I thank the Clerk’s Office. I thank the Hansard reporters for the job they do. They work very hard writing down things that sometimes do not make much sense—even to the National members who say them. I thank the security staff and the messengers—both groups do a great job around this place—Bellamy’s staff the cleaners and the people who when we sit in urgency are waiting downstairs to begin their job that supports their family at a low rate of pay when we are going home. I also thank our executive our clerical and our electorate office staff. If we are sometimes so busy around this place that we forget to say thank you to those people more often I ask them to please accept this as our acknowledgement of I think the whole House’s appreciation of what they do for us. 
I thank the families of parliamentarians too. All of us are volunteers here; we are here because we want to be. Our families do not volunteer for our career choice and sometimes they suffer because of it. I want to wish all the families of parliamentarians a peaceful and an enjoyable festive season—hopefully with their partners or their fathers or mothers—and one in which the families can have some quality time with them. 
For me the last fortnight has been remarkable in one particular positive respect and that is for the quality of the maiden speeches given by Labour’s 13 new parliamentarians. Their speeches were both passionate and sincere. They told the House of their journey through life of how they came to be in this place and of the support they had from their families. They told us about their values their beliefs and what they wanted to accomplish by being here. I think the Labour class of 2008 is a truly remarkable talented and diverse group. But what stood out for me were the things they had in common such as a strong belief in and a commitment to a fair and a decent society a tolerant and an inclusive community and New Zealand as a country that enables and encourages every one of our people and every one of our children to rise to their full potential. They talked about promoting opportunity and achievement they talked about not leaving the disadvantaged behind and they talked about a sustainable environment. Those maiden speeches were the highlight of this last fortnight. 
Sadly the only other thing the past 2 weeks will be remembered for is that a new and arrogant Government came in here and immediately abused parliamentary and democratic procedure. There was no reason for most of those window-dressing bills to have been forced through this Parliament without the normal scrutiny of a parliamentary select committee and without the democratic right of New Zealanders to participate in legislation by being able to make their voices heard on what was proposed. That was not window dressing; that was creating the perception of action where in fact no action was occurring. 
I say to Mr English that in the Budget Policy Statement he himself—if those were his words—set out that the previous Labour Government achieved the best fiscal position of any country in the OECD: the lowest levels of debt and the best opportunity to get out there and protect New Zealand jobs and New Zealanders. The new Government has squandered these 2 weeks. It has had no plan and it has acted arrogantly by forcing through legislation that does not advance the interests of New Zealanders but that sets them back. Despite all of those things I want to wish New Zealanders the best Christmas that they can have. Thank you very much.