Clark Helen: Address in Reply 
Clark Helen: Address in Reply 
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Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 That was a “gone by lunchtime” speech. Indeed as one’s eyes roamed over despondent Opposition members one saw the only one with a smile on his face all the time was John Key. The only cliché missing from the vocabulary in that speech was “baloney”. We did not hear “baloney”. In the days leading up to this speech spin-meister Gerry has been around the press gallery and he has been saying that the National Party would be coming back into Parliament all guns blazing. That was until Don fired a series of blanks. We just heard the same old tired recycled lines that lost the National Party the election. One might have thought that there would be a moment’s reflection on what had gone wrong. No it was the same desperate attempt to put a bad spin on New Zealand’s success. I believe that what Kiwis reacted very very badly to in that campaign was Dr Brash and the National Party always talking New Zealand down. I tell Dr Brash that that lack of vision and that lack of care for our country will never win an election for the National Party. 
I do congratulate the mover and the seconder of the Address in Reply debate. Both of them gave very powerful speeches. They gave the House real insights into what has motivated them to make a parliamentary career and a career with the Labour Party. I also repeat my congratulations to you Madam Speaker on your election to the Deputy Speaker on his election and to Ann Hartley and Ross Robertson on their election as Assistant Speakers. I acknowledge Her Excellency the Governor-General who came for the State opening and delivered the Speech from the Throne which sets out the Government’s programme. 
I regard it as a great honour to be elected to this House and I regard it as a very special honour to lead and form a Government. This is the ninth time I have been elected to this House and spoken in the Address in Reply debate and it is the third time I have had the privilege of being sworn in as Prime Minister. I thank the many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who cast their vote for the Labour Party to go back into Government. Indeed not far short of a million New Zealanders voted for this party to lead the Government again. 
I also record my thanks to the other parties in this Parliament who were prepared to negotiate working relationships with Labour. I set out after this election to negotiate arrangements that would be stable and durable—as they will be. I thank New Zealand First and United Future for the confidence and supply arrangement and I thank the Green Party for the abstention and working relationship that we have with it. We worked hard over the course of a month to put those arrangements in place and now it falls to us to provide the leadership and the good Government that will take New Zealand further ahead. I said from the time of election night that Labour did want to reach out across the Parliament to a range of small parties and to be as inclusive as possible in arrangements for Government. We have shown our willingness to share power and work collaboratively in the MMP environment and that I believe is what New Zealanders want from our electoral system. 
Ever since the infamous Orewa speech our opponents set out to gain power by dividing Kiwis against each other. Our route to power has been very different. Where others preach exclusion we preach inclusion and we do see it as our historic duty to play a role in bringing New Zealanders together—not driving them apart and splitting our society down the middle. We also see it as the historic duty of the Labour movement to see that every New Zealander gets a fair go and has opportunity and security and that as our country grows and develops every single Kiwi has a chance to share the fruits of that progress. We are dedicating our third term in Government as we dedicated the first two to our work to strengthen our economy and to make sure that the fruits of that go to every household in the land—as they do. 
We also dedicate ourselves to building a strong and confident nation. We are proud of the cohesion in our society relative to that of many others. We are proud of the achievers New Zealand has in every field. We are proud of the unique cultures and heritage of our county proud of the natural environment and proud of the role our country plays in world affairs. There is no doubt that there will be challenges ahead in this term in Government. Of course New Zealand has had 6 years first with a Government of Labour and the Alliance then of Labour and the Progressives and now of Labour and the Progressives again where there have been good growth rates and a fantastic fall in unemployment rates. We are proud of that. We are proud of being able to reinvest back into our public services and infrastructure into areas like the arts and sport and the environment into policing into the justice defence and security areas and into getting better representation of New Zealand offshore. 
But we know that we can never stand still in Government. As fast as our country grows and develops and as fast as we lift the level of skill and innovation our country has there are other nations that are striving to catch up with us and others are keeping that critical margin ahead of us in the living-standards stakes.It will take very smart thinking and very smart strategies to stay positioned as an affluent nation in today’s global economy. And we have to stay positioned as affluent; there are no prizes for failure. As we look around the world we see China and India emerging as mega-economies. Each of them produces four million university graduates a year—each of them as many graduates as our total population. We see them competing not just for the low-wage low-skill jobs but for the high-tech high-skill high-value work as well. So we have a race on to keep our position as an affluent nation and we cannot afford to waste the talent of a single New Zealander. We say that the New Zealand way in the 21st century has to be to mobilise all the skills the talent the ideas and the passion of every New Zealander so that our country can succeed. I believe New Zealanders want to accept that challenge. Our role in Government is to provide the leadership and the inspiration to lift our people’s aspirations so we can succeed in this century. 
I do see the immediate challenge before us as being to help facilitate the economy to move into a better balance between its export and its domestic sectors. Monetary policy obviously is tightening in order to head off domestic inflation and the effect of the higher interest rates and the higher currency exchange rate has undoubtedly hurt our export sectors. In managing through this period we believe it is very important for the Government to continue to run a conservative fiscal policy so that we do not put pressure on monetary policy. I want to say this: there is no doubt in my mind that the National Party’s reckless tax cuts policy could only have led to very severe monetary policy or to radical cuts in public spending. It is with great appreciation that I record that enough New Zealanders were aware of that not to give National the chance to wreck the economy and public services as well. 
As a Government we have always looked far beyond any short-term fix that might have presented itself in economic issues to the medium and the longer-term strategies. As in the past 6 years our emphasis will be on improving the foundations for long-term and sustainable growth. That means lifting our skills levels. It means lifting our savings levels. It means lifting productivity. It means lifting our capacity for innovation. It means lifting the capacity to export and to produce goods and services of a higher value. It means modernising our infrastructure. We cannot ask New Zealanders to work any harder. Already our people are working many more hours every year than workers in other comparable countries and record numbers of us are working as well—the participation rate is extremely high. So our future to prosperity is about working smarter. 
Of course that will require commitment from the workforce and from business but it is also helped by the Government’s willingness to invest and to adjust policy settings so that we enable a continual move of our economy upmarket to occur. That is why in our election programme we set new targets for skills training. That is why we are moving more of our science and research spending into the longer-term funding arrangements. That is why we are reviewing corporate taxation to see what practical signals we can give to lift productivity. That is why we will do more to back the commercialisation of innovation. That is why creating opportunities for our exporters is central to our economic policy. We will be designating 2007 as export year and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will be expected to increase its focus on exporting. 
We know though that the big export gains for New Zealand will be made in the breakthroughs we get in trade negotiations. We know our primary sectors would be huge winners from success in the World Trade Organization’s Doha round and those negotiations are and must remain our top trade priority. As well of course we will continue to follow bilateral and regional free-trade agreements such as those we are currently negotiating with China Malaysia and all of ASEAN. Our belief is that New Zealand will succeed as an open trading economy and that we must be smart creative entrepreneurial and innovative as well. We have policies aimed at positioning New Zealand with a competitive edge in the global economy. That is the route to prosperity. 
I believe what distinguishes Governments of the centre-left from those of the right is our determination to see the benefits from a growing economy reach households across the country. Our Government’s policies have been exceptionally job rich with more than 270000 more people in work than there were when we came into Government in 1999. That has boosted household income. We have been able to invest heavily in public and social services. We have built up health and education. We have built up support for families and superannuitants and we have built up the capacity of our police force. 
But we have new goals and targets to meet in a third term. Before Christmas we will have passed legislation for two critical parts of Labour Party policy. The first is the extended tax relief for our families—in total around 77 percent of our families with dependent children will qualify for that. We can say that this is the biggest investment in families made by any Government for many decades and it will have a dramatic effect on child poverty. It still excites me to know that the effect of Working for Families will be to drop child poverty rates in this country down to the level of those in the Netherlands which we all look up to as being an advanced social democracy that delivers for its people. It is a proud day for us to be able to achieve that. Labour has said that the top priority for tax relief right now is our hard-working families. They do face the costs associated with raising children and I think the well-being of the next generation is a vital concern to every New Zealander. 
The second key initiative that will be legislated for before Christmas is getting rid of the interest on student loans—getting rid of it. This is a very big investment in our young people and in our country. It gives a hand up to those graduates who are prepared to put their skills at the service of New Zealand. It gives fresh hope to young Kiwis who would otherwise have been saddled with very high debt. It means they can plan ahead with confidence and it means that they will stay in New Zealand. That is good for our country. 
I want to refer to the boost coming for superannuation on 1 April because superannuitants are also going to get a greater share in the growing economy. The annual adjustment for superannuation next year will be set at 66 percent of the net average ordinary-time weekly wage rather than 65 percent and I acknowledge that this was part of the arrangements entered into for confidence and supply with New Zealand First. As well there will be many superannuitants who will benefit from the improved rates rebate scheme that is due for introduction next year. 
We also have very ambitious new policies right across education health and social development. In education particularly in terms of the priority being given to the early years from July 2007 we will see 3 and 4-year-old children in our licensed teacher-led early childhood centres being funded for 20 hours of free education a week. That will be an enormous help to our families. Over the next 3 years we will be implementing a 1:15 ratio in the new entrant classes in our schools. At the other end of the school system the goal is to see all our young people move on from school into some form of further education training or work. We have many new initiatives coming on stream for youth transitions and of course the many thousands of new places for apprenticeships as well. 
Health ranks with education as a top priority for us and is right at the top of the public’s list of what it expects a Government to deliver.We do deliver with many thousands more treatments at our public hospitals with more affordable primary care and with huge investments in mental health as well. We have new targets to meet for orthopaedic surgery and for cataract surgery we have the roll-out of lower doctors’ fees coming across all age groups of our community and we have many new initiatives for child health as well. Among them are more funding for the well child checks of the kind done by Plunket the free child health check before a child starts school in order to pick up any problems that might impact on the child’s ability to learn and very important the hearing check for newborn children. New Zealand has been picking up deafness in children far too late because we have not had a systematic programme of testing and that is about to change. We also have very big improvements planned for child and young persons’ dental services. 
As well at the other end of the age scale there are the many challenges in the aged-care sector. There will need to be more funding. The staff there are lowly paid the numbers in care have been growing rapidly and the truth is that when unemployment is low it is very hard for the aged-care sector to hang on to good staff. All of us have an interest in knowing that our older citizens in care are well looked after. 
Looking to the future the KiwiSaver scheme has benefits for the whole economy in helping to boost our savings rate. It has benefits for future generations saving for their first home and it has benefits for future generations who can supplement their income in retirement. What we know is that generations of Kiwi families got their first home with Government support in the past. That all stopped when National sold the mortgage portfolio of Housing New Zealand in 1991 and the homeownership rates dropped off. Now it falls to Labour to put back in place schemes that will help people to get their first homes. We will do that through KiwiSaver through the mortgage insurance underwrites and through the new equity-sharing initiative to be developed this term. As well of course our policy of fair income-related rents which the National Party has always totally opposed will continue. 
We have made huge changes in the social assistance area to focus the system on getting people off a benefit and into work. Our very low unemployment rate is a product of both high economic growth and very proactive labour market policies and we have to keep being proactive. We still have pockets of higher unemployment in some communities than others. For example Maori unemployment while half what it was is still 2½ times the national rate. When one looks very closely into those figures one can see that about two-thirds of Maori on the unemployment benefit actually have no formal educational qualifications at all as opposed to about half the other New Zealanders on the unemployment benefit. We also find that with the exception of Auckland among four of the big northern regions for employment statistics for Maori unemployed whose first job choice is labouring the number of vacancies is vastly fewer than the numbers looking for that kind of unskilled work. So that tells us that critical to lowering Maori unemployment further will be lifting skills levels. And that is not just for the young people coming through school and transitioning into a first job; it is for the people out there who would like to work but who did not get the opportunity to get the skills the literacy the numeracy or the information technology skills at an earlier stage in their lives. 
I want to say that I am very optimistic about Maori development. I was at the Hui Taumata; I saw the huge momentum that Maori development has. I want to commit our Government again to working with Maoridom not only to resolve historical grievances—which we must do—but also to see that Maoridom too benefits from our country’s growth and development. 
 This Labour-led Government puts enormous emphasis on social solidarity and on building a strong nation in which everyone has an opportunity and a stake. In any nation where communities experience long-term marginalisation disadvantage or discrimination the social breakdown that results can be traumatic for the whole society not just for the marginalised group. Over the past 2½ weeks we have watched with the rest of the world as parts of France have been set alight just as in decades past we saw the riots in deprived areas of the United States and Britain. In New Zealand we worry about the gang warfare in some of our suburbs and about how to get the young people caught up in that on to a better path ahead. Offshore we see minority communities generating home-grown terrorism that involves second generation community members. The ripples of bombings offshore reach all the way to our families and cause heartbreak here. 
I think the challenge for us in New Zealand is to keep building in our small country the tolerance and mutual respect for each other that allow diverse peoples to live alongside each other in peace. Trying to enforce a monoculture that does not allow for diversity of culture heritage and belief would be a disaster for this country. Trying to force everyone into some kind of mythical mainstream would blow up in our face. In our nation-building in New Zealand the unifying concept has to be love for our country whoever we are and whatever our backgrounds. I know that proud Kiwis can be people of any religion any faith or belief any ethnic or cultural background and any gender or orientation. The New Zealand way has to be to build unity and diversity to avoid the marginalisation of communities to practise inclusion in the national interest and to encourage all of those who want to be part of the building of New Zealand. 
I illustrate that point with a practical example. Last week the Hon Marian Hobbs and I were privileged to be at the second award of the Sonja Davies peace prize. This year that award went to an association of young Muslim women in Auckland. Their project was to work on how they can contribute to better understanding and religious tolerance and better community relationships in our country. It was really inspiring to hear the CVs of the young women who came forward to get that prize. They were academic high-flyers—absolute standouts in any crowd. I believe that our hopes for our future rest on encouraging young people like that to make investments in the relationships that have to bind each of us to each other in our country. I believe that our common future will be reinforced by seeing that fairness opportunity and security are the common experience of every community that chooses to make its home in New Zealand. 
It is well known that I see the arts and culture and heritage as central to the building of New Zealand identity. I have always believed that through New Zealand’s creative people we express the essence and soul of what it is to be a New Zealander and we express our perspectives. Through our creative people we define ourselves to the world as a uniquely creative nation. I believe our filmmakers writers poets and visual and performing artists do us proud alongside those of anywhere in the world. So do our sportspeople whose many achievements keep New Zealand in the world headlines probably far more than for any other small country. 
We may be small but we are never insignificant. I know that in world affairs New Zealand’s voice is respected because it is reasoned constructive principled and independent. I am proud of that. I am one who sees New Zealand’s nuclear-free stand as an asset not a liability. Nothing on earth would cause me to want to change that. I also believe that our refusal to participate in the war in Iraq because it lacked multilateral sanction from the UN Security Council laid down very important and principled markers for our country and I would make the same decision again any day. 
 Doing the right thing is not always easy. It is not easy to meet our Kyoto Protocol commitments it is not easy to implement our trade agenda and it is not easy to wrestle with the great pressures put on our oceans from damaging fishing practices. But wrestle with such pressures we must as a concerned nation. Nor does our reputation as a peacemaker and as a tolerant and an inclusive country insulate us from the pressures of terrorism. Our people are affected when attacks occur on others and we cannot and will not be a weak link in the chain. Over the past 4 years since September 11 we have strengthened our border security and our intelligence and policing capacity for counterterrorism and we have passed new legislation to implement international conventions on terrorism. Like all nations we are striving to get the balance right between individual rights and freedoms on the one hand and the right of the community to be protected on the other and it is not always an easy balance to strike. 
I go into this third term as Prime Minister full of optimism for New Zealand and our Government. Of course there are challenges—there will always be challenges—but I believe we are well positioned to meet them. I do expect to see—as we have seen today—a somewhat embittered and angry Opposition in the House as it contemplates 3 more years in Opposition which is very hard for those who once saw themselves as the natural party of Government. My message to them is that there is no natural party of Government. My message is that being in Government is a privilege bestowed on those who keep faith with the public and whose policies and values are consistent with where most New Zealanders want to be. I say that our Government will work inclusively and collaboratively with everyone who shares our vision for a strong proud confident New Zealand growing and developing and enabling all our people to share in the progress. That is the New Zealand way and that is what we are dedicated to.