te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
te Heuheu Georgina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1197] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 The Hon Dover Samuels must have had a bit of a memory blank. He stood there and said that Labour had delivered but he has forgotten that he lost his seat to another of his colleagues from the north. Members do not lose their seats if they have delivered. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Where’s your seat? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: It is the same as the member’s. In that sense we are the same. If the member had delivered to his people in the north when he was an electorate MP he would still be sitting in that electorate and Hone Harawira possibly would not be here. So Mr Samuels seems to have had a memory lapse. 
Let us see what Dover Samuels his colleague Shane Jones and Nanaia Mahuta who is also from the north—who all have Ngapuhi connections—do in the coming term of the Labour Government. The north is hugely represented in this Parliament. Let us see what those three MPs who sit across the Chamber do to deliver to their people in the north. That is one area where not a lot of progress has been made in respect of Treaty settlements or decent housing. Up there there are still issues around health education and so on. Let us see what those members together with the other member from the north who is part of Government Pita Paraone can deliver for their people of Ngapuhi. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: What’s your problem? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: That member is the one in Government; that member is required to deliver. Let us see whether he delivers. In relation to the Maori Party yes those members are certainly on watch but let us be clear: they have only four members in this House. The member Dover Samuels is in the Government and it is up to him to deliver not only to the people in the north but also to Maori in general. 
The last week has seen a really interesting saga with another Labour Government scandal unfolding. The public of New Zealand are definitely watching. The public usually does not want to know the detail of what we do in this place and actually I do not blame them. As long as they can get on with their lives they are not always interested in what Parliament the Government and political parties are doing in this place. But mark my words they are very interested in the scandal that has unfolded in the last week. That will stick in their minds. 
Events slip into the past but some remain to be reactivated by a subsequent occurrence. Helen Clark’s behaviour around putting her signature on a painting she did not do and the way she just slipped that incident off her back as if it did not matter sticks in the mind of the public. Helen Clark’s motorcade sped at speeds of up to 180 kilometres an hour to get to a rugby match and she let others take the chop for that with not so much as an “I’m sorry”. That sticks in the mind of the public too. 
This week that sort of behaviour has been reactivated by the Labour Government which has been found wanting in the way it has spent parliamentary funding. Actually that parliamentary funding is taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. This Government has been found to have gone outside the law in the way it has spent that money but are we surprised? Not at all. That has been the pattern of this Government since it came to power in 1999. Its members believe that they are above the law. They behave outside the law and when found out they try to shrug it off as if it does not matter. Well it does matter. The public of New Zealand remember those things and they will remember this. It is not finished. 
Helen Clark’s MPs may have praised her speech but we watched her yesterday and she knows she is in trouble over this latest scandal. Only so many times can she shrug these things off. Eventually if people behave in ways that are outside the law they will be done. A colleague of mine said earlier that a stench has descended over the Labour Government. That stench will not be removed no matter what Helen Clark or her cronies do or say because it will now stay there totally. It will not move. 
I refer briefly to some of the things the Prime Minister said yesterday. She has all the centre-right language—“transformation” “investment” “higher productivity” “business investment” “skills acquisition” and so on and so forth—but she has had 6 years to deliver some of that transformation. Business has been telling her that for 6 years— 
Hon Member 
: Six long years. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: —6 long years—and now unless something happens it might be 9 long years—but will Labour have transformed the economy at the end of it? No it will not have because it does not know what is required to transform an economy. Labour members can have the language but unless they have the action to follow it up they will not do it—and they do not. 
So National will be watching and challenging. Unfortunately we will be disappointed just as the New Zealand public will be disappointed and just as business will be disappointed. A party cannot know those things if largely it has not had experience in the business world. I do not know whether Labour’s ratio has improved in the last 6 years but on balance it is very low and unless people have invested their own money they will never know what it takes to get higher productivity and to transform the economy. 
The other point I refer to in respect of the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday was her discussion on national identity building a country that is united and building our national identity. Again the words are there but like all things we have to have the actions to follow that up. The surest way to build national identity is to ensure that all New Zealanders not only have the opportunity to reach their full potential but indeed do reach their full potential. Cohesion and unity come only when all New Zealanders feel they have a stake in this country such that they can make a contribution to it and feel good knowing that they have made a contribution so that they have not only contributed to their own lives but to the lives of all other New Zealand citizens as well. 
People cannot feel any of those things if they are some of the 150000 schoolchildren who cannot read or write. There is no way people can feel they have a stake in this country if they are those children. After 6 long years we are still not seeing the light in the eyes of too many of our children—not under this Government—because they will never feel like they have a stake nor will they be able to make a contribution. 
People cannot feel cohesion if they live in South Auckland in conditions of poverty and poor housing and have been doing so for the last 6 years. Not a lot has been done in parts of South Auckland by this Government no matter what members on the other side of the House say. People cannot feel that they are part of a united nation if all they are feeling is despair and desolation. They cannot feel any of those things either if their life is drifting away while they sit for months and months—sometimes years—on a waiting list and the Government seems content to build the health bureaucracy here in Wellington rather than put hard-earned taxpayers’ money into more health services. 
I will make some comments briefly about TVNZ. A group of New Zealanders came out today and called for something different to occur. Their suggestion may be impractical for a fully funded public broadcaster but their proposal states that what we have now is not working. The Minister of Broadcasting Steve Maharey has presided over a total shambles with TVNZ and he sits there with his smarmy manner and does nothing about it. It looks like we will have to wait until the public broadcaster reaches absolute rock bottom before the Prime Minister sacks the Minister from the job because that is what should happen to him.