Street Maryan: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12920. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I would find it easier to accept a lecture from the member who has just sat down Paula Bennett if I was persuaded that she cared about some of the people whose lives are quite literally in her hands. If she cared enough then perhaps she would not be taking a 6-week stint on full pay to go to America later in the year to attend something that may or may not enhance her ability to do her job. If she had any sense of urgency around people who live on benefits and who are unemployed then I might have some sympathy for her. I do not get any of that from anything that member says. 
A plan is a systematic timetable that gets people towards a goal and it is very clear that the Government does not have one. The Government simply has a vacuum where a plan should be. A plan requires some strategic overview that links and binds actions together in pursuit of a goal. That means having enough of a vision to join the dots to be able to see how one portfolio relates to another and how one decision impacts on another and to be able to guide those in concert to achieve the end goal. 
We do not have a plan from this Government. We do not have a plan in this Budget because the Government has no idea what its goal is except to get closer to Australia. The Prime Minister has backed away from that goal in recent days because it is clearly becoming less and less achievable under this Government. 
To have a plan to have some sense of strategic forward movement there needs to be enough vision to join the dots. I will give a couple of examples. This Government has had two ideas about how to improve economic performance. The first was mining the conservation estate—that is digging up our precious territory which is part of our tourist attraction—and the second was building a cycleway. It had two ideas: dig up the conservation estate and build a cycleway. Did anybody get the Prime Minister to talk to himself about the connection between his role as Prime Minister and his tourism portfolio or the connection between Bill English’s role as Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister’s own portfolio as Minister of Tourism? 
Here we have two ideas: first to mine the conservation estate especially those areas that are most precious and are under the greatest level of protection; and second to build a cycleway. I will give the House an example of how those dots are not joined; I will give a very very local example. I am talking about Dun Mountain in Nelson where the Government still insists it is going to continue with prospecting despite the back-down—the humiliating back-down—on the grand plan for improving economic performance. But the Government was also promoting and announcing a few months ago the cycleway around Dun Mountain. One can only assume that now there is going to be a cycleway to view some open-cast mining. Tourists will come to our cycleway and look at our mining. They can look at how we are digging the wealth out of this country from underneath its surface instead of cashing in on the tourism potential developing the cycleway so that it can earn tourism dollars. Tourism is one of our biggest earners—if not the biggest earner—of foreign exchange. This is a classic example of the dots not being joined. The Government will continue to prospect on Dun Mountain regardless of the humiliating back-down and continue to build a cycleway. This is a nonsense. 
I will give the House another example. We had cuts to early childhood education. We will dumb down early childhood education because the Government says that we do not need 100 percent of our early childhood educators to be fully trained and qualified. It says that we do not need our 3 and 4-year-olds to have the best start possible with the best-qualified early childhood teachers; we do not need that any more. I ask the Government to take a nanosecond to join the dots between early childhood education and rates of incarceration. I tell Mr Key to join those dots. Everybody else in the community can join those dots but the Government cannot. 
If we do not invest heavily in early childhood education as the previous Labour Government did we do not give children the best start possible. If we do not give children the best start possible they will not be able to maximise their education opportunities. If they cannot maximise their education opportunities they will not be eligible for employment. If they are not eligible for employment they will be unemployed. If they are unemployed they will get into trouble. If they are unemployed they will not be able to sustain themselves and their families and they will head down the inexorable path to incarceration. That is called joining the dots and the Government seems incapable of doing it. 
These estimates have the very real potential to cause in a very short time Vote Corrections to be the largest vote that this Government expends on from general taxation. That will be the legacy of this Government. Where Labour would put money and did put money into early childhood education—[ 
Interruption 
] I have not begun on tertiary education yet. Labour invested in early childhood education because of that long-term vision and the long-term flow through. This Government is chipping away at that investment and it is eroding it. It prefers to spend money on Judith Collins’ portfolio of corrections. That is the portfolio that should have the least money put in it. 
I will give one further example; it relates to my shadow portfolio of trade. Somehow Mr Key cannot join the dots between an attack on workers’ rights in New Zealand and putting the trans-Pacific partnership in jeopardy. I will try to join the dots for the Prime Minister. If he is going on the attack on union rights and on access to workplaces by unions and if he is going on the front foot in order to shore up his redneck contingent he needs to realise that the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions does not operate in a vacuum; it operates in an international movement. Richard Trumka who is from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations was going to visit here but he has pulled his visit— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Who cares? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: I tell Mr Henare that the Prime Minister ought to care because it is about trans-Pacific partnership. That is exactly what Mr Trumka’s visit was about. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Who cares whether a unionist comes to New Zealand? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: That member ought to speak to his more senior colleagues because I think they understand. The person who does not is the Prime Minister. He has no plan he cannot join the dots and there is no prospect for improvement under these estimates.