Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:677;Page:676] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 I do believe in work ahead of welfare. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Well go and do some. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: But I want to tell you—I want to tell that member—something. When there were 150 jobs advertised in my electorate at the New World supermarket 3500 people queued up for those jobs. You know if you want to get people off welfare you do two things. First of all you make sure there are jobs to go to. And there are fewer jobs in New Zealand today than when that Government held its Job Summit. The second thing you do is make sure that people have the skills to go into the jobs. And you do not give people the skills by cutting back apprenticeships like this Government has or cutting back the financial ability of people to get those skills like the Minister for Social Development did. She cut back the very scheme that gave her the chance to get skills and get a job.  
I want to talk about foreign affairs now. Which one of Mr McCully’s three stories do you believe? Do you believe the story yesterday where he said publicly no it was not $900000 to build a swimming pool; it was ¥900000? That would have been NZ$15000. So the first story was that they were doing the pool but it was only costing $15000. The second story was the story he said on TV last night: they were doing the pool but he said he would be asking the embassy whether it was really needed. Then we got the third story this afternoon: there was never going to be a pool; some misguided engineer went out and did a whole lot of work bidding for a proposal that the ministry had never made. You know what that is? That is BS. That is just wrong. There was a proposal; I have got the tender sheet. And the engineers that were bidding for that were bidding for it because the ministry said that job was available. 
I ask the Minister this: when he is laying off one in four of his workforce why are we building swimming pools for $900000 in Tokyo? Why is the Minister taking a plane ride at a cost to us as taxpayers of $75000 because he preferred to go by Air Force jet rather than paying $756 which is the return fare to Vanuatu if he had gone commercially? 
Michael Woodhouse 
: He’s making the numbers up. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No it is quite true. Ring the travel agency. It will show you that the Minister could have done the trip for $756 or a little bit more if he went via Australia. It is no wonder that the hard-working people—they are losing their jobs. These people have gone out. I was their Minister for 9 years. I have watched their competence their commitment and their sheer dedication and hard work. And he is telling one in four of them that they are down the road.  
It does not stop there Mr Speaker. You were once Minister for International Trade. Do you know what happens now to someone who accepts an assignment maybe in Geneva for the World Trade Organization? They give up their job security. They have to relinquish their position with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They go on a 3-year posting and when they get back they can apply for a new job. But if they do not get it they go into what is called a surge pool—a surge pool. What image does that engender? It is like being thrown into a washing machine. They go round and round and round in that for a little while and if they cannot find a job then they are down the road. I ask you what young talented person would take up a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade today when they have absolutely no job security? What young person with a family would go on a posting to an expensive place to live and get their kids educated in when they have to pay for that themselves or a certain percentage of it?  
What this Minister is doing is destroying one of the best ministries that this country has: the people who go out and work in the interests of New Zealanders pushing the trade pushing for security issues and doing the consular assistance. What will New Zealanders think when they or their family are in trouble overseas—they are in hospital; they desperately need help—and Minister McCully says “Here’s an 0800 number. If you’re lucky they’ll speak English.”? They expect consular assistance. I expect that for me; you expect it Mr Speaker; we expect it for our kids. If they get into trouble overseas one of the fundamental responsibilities of any Government is to be there to help its citizens in trouble and this Minister is contemplating doing away with that assistance. That is wrong—that is fundamentally wrong. They did a survey of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff recently. They showed that more people in what was once our proudest ministry had become “disengaged” than in any other Government department. What was our finest-performing ministry is demoralised and disillusioned and this Minister is the person who is destroying it.