Anderton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Anderton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10807] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 The kindest thing I can say about the speech made by the leader of the National Party is that it could have been given by Simon Carlaw of Business New Zealand but if it had been given by him it would have been more animated. 
As for credibility we heard all the doom and gloom about the performance of the New Zealand economy. Well here are two simple facts that shoot to pieces any credibility of the attitude that was displayed this afternoon by the leader of the National Party. Firstly New Zealand was one of the best-performing and fastest-growing economies in the OECD last year—the fourth year of this coalition Government. Is that something that can be sheeted home to this Government or does the National Party want to take credit for that? I hear Dr Brash say that we had to accept responsibility for everything that happened now because this is our fifth year in Government. So if in the fourth year we have the fastest-growing economy in the OECD then it must be credit to us somewhere. He cannot have it both ways. 
The second fact is this—and this should be noted by a party that claims or used to claim some constituency in rural provincial New Zealand—the annual economic growth rate measured each quarter for every region in New Zealand has shown 18 successive quarters of growth. That started late in 1999 so the National Party might be able to claim a little bit of credit for the first ones but 16 of the others occurred in the 4 years of this coalition. That is a remarkable performance and for anyone to get up and start deriding the performance of the New Zealand economy beggars the mind in terms of any credibility he or she might want to have. One cannot fly in the face of hard-nosed economic results like that. 
I want to say that for my colleague Matt Robson and myself this is part of the fifth year we have been a junior partner in a progressive coalition administration. The tangible gains we are proud to have promoted include revitalised regions—the facts I have just given give heed to that—the lowest unemployment rate in a generation; practical steps to promote the transformation of the range and depth of industry sectors in this country; a nationwide retail bank owned by all New Zealanders that offers services that are competitive with those of overseas-owned banks; a strengthening of programmes designed to combat the problems of drug and alcohol abuse; 4 weeks’ annual leave on the way; and paid parental leave here and being strengthened as we speak. 
Above all else the party that I lead is positive about people and understands the value of securing well-paid jobs for all New Zealanders. The more high-skilled jobs there are the less welfare dependency there will be; the more high-skilled people in employment the less crime and the higher the quality of publicly funded education and health and the services that go with them will be. The more young people we have in satisfying jobs the fewer problems we will have with legal and illegal drug abuse. 
It is interesting how the National Party in my view has failed to get traction on its economic and social platform over the past 5 years. We know that National would unwind the Superannuation Fund. National members say they would throw away the savings to help pay for unaffordable tax cuts for those who are already on high incomes. What is their record on securing national superannuation? Their record is that they used the Asian crisis and financial markets to reduce the level of all superannuitants’ income and living standards. That is what happened the last time National was in Government. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s not true. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Well the facts will show otherwise. The superannuation level linked to after-tax ordinary-time wages when this Government came in was below 60 percent. It is now fixed at 65 percent—and that was a drop from 80 percent under the National Government. So is that what they would do again if given the chance? What is the answer to that? 
In Government National reduced the nation’s reservoir of skills. During the National Party’s term in Government apprenticeships collapsed. Whole regions of the country went into serious decline and unemployment and dole dependency skyrocketed. Joblessness was used as an economic and social weapon. Why is it that when I became Minister for Industry and Regional Development everywhere I went people were desperate for jobs and now when I go back to those same regions 4 years later they are desperate for skills? It is because there are plenty of jobs but we do not have the skill base and this Government has had to deal with that. 
Would the National Party abandon the regional development programmes this Government has introduced? National voted against them when it came into office. Would it abandon them now? We have not heard anything about that. Would National abandon the highly successful Modern Apprenticeships scheme? We do not hear anything about that. Would National address Government efforts to establish skill bases in New Zealand and would it throw away the investment that the country is making in those by giving tax cuts to the richest people in New Zealand? One cannot have it both ways. If we are going to invest in a new and expanding skill base in New Zealand we have to have the wherewithal to do it. 
I looked carefully through Dr Brash’s comments at the opening of Parliament and through the speeches he has been making in recent days and weeks. I want to quote what he said this morning on Radio New Zealand’s  
Morning Report 
: “I want only to see the Government treat all New Zealanders on the basis of need not on the basis of race.” All right; sounds great. Let us look at the track record. When National was last in Government how did it treat the people in need in New Zealand? It froze minimum wages for 2 years in a row so that the gap between those on benefits and those on low wages was frozen in time—it never expanded upwards. This Government has increased the minimum wage every single year it has been in Government so that there is merit in getting a job and a way of not only getting off the benefit but improving one’s position. When one freezes the minimum wage one actually lowers in real terms the gap between those on benefits and those on low wages. It is an extraordinary way to treat people in need. Are people on the lowest wages in need? If they are why would one freeze their wages? It is just ridiculous. 
When National was last in Government those in need must have been those who were in the high unemployment groups. The highest unemployment groups were Maori and Pacific Island peoples. Their rates were up near 30 percent when we had a National Government. Amongst the most needy in terms of housing would have been State house tenants. State house tenancies were put on to market rentals so the neediest people were forced to pay market rentals which of course lifted the rents for those in the private sector who were in the low-income groups as well. Yet Don Brash says we should help New Zealanders on the basis of need not on the basis of race. Yet the neediest people in New Zealand got smashed to pieces in their housing in their benefit levels and in their minimum wages. Even those on benefits did not escape because their benefits were cut by up to 24 percent. So on the one hand the most needy people got slaughtered and on the other hand those trying to help themselves got no chance. 
So what do we get from National? We get promises of more division and confrontation. This Government is trying to take New Zealanders forward together on the basis of cooperation partnership and success. Against that we get confrontation division and failure and that is not a recipe New Zealanders want to revisit. There might be some short-term gain in trumpeting those rhetorical phrases about treating everyone equally and all the rest of it—if that had happened 3 months out from the next election National might have got some cheap possibilities; 2 years out forget it. In reality this speech and this position will come home to haunt the National Party because when New Zealanders get time to reflect—as they will—they will look back and think about what happened the last time we had confrontation. They will think: “What happened last time we had this negative division setting one group of New Zealand against the other?”. We wasted years of negative energy on that and New Zealand went down the gurgler. 
It is true that New Zealand’s per capita income has been falling over the last 30 years but in the last year or two we have reversed it for the first time. New Zealand is now climbing back. I just said to Dr Brash that his view of the New Zealand economy is absolutely negated by the facts. New Zealand was one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD last year and we have had 18 consecutive quarters of annualised growth in every single region—yet we heard this doom-and-gloom message. 
In truth New Zealand is succeeding. There is an extraordinary level of optimism in this country. Extraordinary levels of entrepreneurship and globalisation in terms of linking ourselves to international markets are taking place. This is a Government that is giving leadership; this is a country that is on the move. The last thing it wants is to be dragged back to the future by a leader who does not know that the 21st century has come.