Address in Reply

SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this

I move, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency’s speech. Kua hakamārangaranga he kotahi te manu ka tau ki te tahuna, ka tau, ka tau, e tau katoa nei tātou. Mai i te tāhūhū o tō tātou Whare ki ngā rākau kōrero mai i ngā hau e whā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Tēnā tātou i te aroaro o ngā mokopuna me ngā uri hakatipu kāore anō kia puta. Tēnā tātou i te ātārangi o te hunga nā rātou tēnei Whare i hakakōrero i tō rātou wā. Nā reira, tēnei te mihi whānui ki a koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora koutou katoa.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

I second the motion that a respectful address be presented to Her Excellency’s speech. In doing so, I record my respect for Her Excellency Dame Silvia Cartwright and her role in representing Queen Elizabeth II.

My congratulations to you, Madam Speaker, on your re-election. From one Waikato woman to another, I celebrate the dignified and fair but firm way you conduct business in this House. It is personally fulfilling for me to be able to deliver my maiden speech through you. I offer hearty congratulations to the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, on her historic third successive term as Prime Minister—an awesome achievement for a truly awesome leader.

I pay my respects to the member of Parliament for Ōhinemuri from 1905 to 1925, Hugh Poland, who is the great-grandfather of my husband, Shane Vugler, and therefore the great-great-grandfather of our children, Quinn and Logan. In doing so, I acknowledge the involvement and support of Shane, Quinn, and Logan in everything that I do. I am so proud to have them here with me today, along with my parents, other members of my family, and friends. Welcome.

I thank the people of the Cambridge branch of the New Zealand Labour Party for their hard work, their encouragement, and their support. After 31 years of chipping away in a part of New Zealand that has not always welcomed their views, that hardy bunch of visionaries now has a member of Parliament among their ranks, and I am privileged and humbled to carry that mantle. I thank the New Zealand trade union movement and my colleagues in the Waikato in particular for their mentorship and support.

My being a list member of Parliament allows me some latitude in deciding who my predecessor is. I choose to acknowledge former Labour list member Helen Duncan in this regard. Helen worked tirelessly in this House under the most difficult of circumstances with her health, to ensure that the voice of working women was heard here. In particular, I acknowledge her involvement in supporting the introduction and review of the Employment Relations Act 2000. I applaud her courage in deciding that the time was right to leave this House in order to focus on spending time with family and friends, and I wish her well.

It pleases me to have contributed to this Parliament’s returning a higher proportion of women members than ever before. Women now make up 32 percent of this House. However, given that women are 51 percent of this country’s population, we have some way to go before this House can live up to its claim of being truly “representative”. I note that the New Zealand Labour Party is doing better than most with 38 percent of its members being women, and I stress the importance of women being elected to Parliament who will stand up for the rights of women and children. The important contribution we make to this House is that we do bring a woman’s perspective, and we must work to protect and enhance that.

There are three key defining experiences in my life that form the foundation of my principles and beliefs. The first was not unusual for a New Zealand child; it was the experience of growing up in a small rural community. For me, that was the Waikato community of Walton, where I lived next door to two sets of cousins who, along with my four siblings, made up a fair chunk of the roll at Walton primary school. Like my colleague Lynne Pillay, our family never had Michael Joseph Savage on our wall, but we did have a very tasteful mural of a horse race over our fireplace. My mum and dad were dairy farmers, and the 80 acres provided our family of seven with the means to get by. Although it was not always easy for my parents to make ends meet, as children we enjoyed a carefree existence in a loving and supportive family.

It was in this setting that I learnt the importance of working together, of valuing each other’s strengths, and of accommodating weaknesses, for in small communities neighbours draw on each other’s resources all the time. That is how we get by. Nothing is more devastating for small communities than infighting and bickering. Energy spent on those destructive forces soon makes small communities dysfunctional. New Zealand, Aotearoa, is a small community. There is no doubt that we do best when we draw on each other’s strengths and value diversity. We have witnessed just how successful this approach can be when it is taken, as it has been in the past 6 years. When we pull together, we are unbeatable.

That brings me to the second defining experience of my life, so far. Again, it is something that is not unusual for a New Zealander of my generation—the big OE. I headed off overseas by myself a little earlier than most, at the tender age of 18. In my naivety, I packed an overnight bag to take away with me to see the world. Inside were two sets of clothes, a sleeping bag, and—my most important cargo—as many cassettes full of Kiwi music as the bag could handle. What I brought back with me 2 years later was a deep love and appreciation of New Zealand and its people, and a head full of what I now know to be political awakenings.

Two things struck me in particular. Having spent much time travelling in Ireland, Britain, and the Middle East during the early 1980s, I saw the close connection between intolerance and oppression. Coming from New Zealand, it had never occurred to me that intolerance of others’ religious or cultural beliefs would be used as an excuse for so much bloodshed, just so that one group could gain power over the other. It caused me to reflect on how vital it is for New Zealand to foster tolerance and understanding. We are a shining beacon of light in a world dimmed with hatred, suspicion, and fear. We must work hard to retain our stance on that.

My other lasting impression from that defining experience is of the unique gift we have in our tangata whenua. The fact that Māori are our tangata whenua gives us a perspective on life that no other country has, yet, although my life is partly defined by that fact, I had never set foot on a marae until I was in my early 20s. In fact, I had been the editor of a community newspaper before I had engaged with Māori in their place, in that unique and thought-provoking way. When I look back, I find it disturbing that I was in the position whereby the newspaper I edited and partially wrote purported to be the voice of the community, without having a good understanding of Māori within that community.

But here is the good news. Our two sons, aged 6 and 7, have already been on to a marae because their State-funded kindergarten took them there. Because of what they hear and are taught at home and at school, they both have the most natural pronunciation of the beautiful Māori language. For them, it is already a part of being Kiwi, and they do not have to go overseas to find out about it. So that is progress, and it bodes well for our future.

If that is what I came back with, what did I leave behind? Well, all that great Kiwi music was left with overseas acquaintances, who got a head start on the rest of the world in appreciating our unique creativity. Th’ Dudes, Dragon, Herbs, Split Enz, Sharon O’Neill, and Hello Sailor were all great ambassadors.

I speak now of my third defining experience. It was the one that drew on all my other experiences and put them into context—my involvement over the past 18 years in the trade union movement. At this point, I wish to acknowledge the direct and lasting impact on my life of unionists James Ritchie, the Hon Mark Gosche, Carol Gosche, Dr Linda Sissons, Steph Breen, Stephanie Doyle, Linda Holt, Carol Beaumont, and a group of wise Waikato union women who are just too numerous to mention individually. It is the many experiences and discussions I have had with those people, union delegates and union members, whom I have worked with that gives me the strength of my convictions.

It is through the trade union movement that I learnt once again the power of working together, the empowerment in valuing diversity, the futility of feeling threatened through ignorance, and the wisdom of collective decision-making. I learnt the art of advocacy, the importance of strategy, and the satisfaction of standing up for what one believes in. I learnt that we win some and we lose some, but that we never, ever give up—we just regroup and develop a better plan. Another lesson from the farm was reinforced during my time in the trade union movement. It goes something like this: if one wants to know how best to get the job done, ask the people who do the job. It sounds simple enough, but time and time again I have seen bad management decisions made because the actual workers never had a say or were not listened to.

The health system of the 1990s was a particularly bad example of that, and the damaging effects remain with us today. I represented the predominantly women members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation through the harsh industrial climate of the Employment Contracts Act. I learnt how quickly things can be torn apart, and how much longer it takes to rebuild them. National awards that had been negotiated by that union over decades were decimated within just 18 months of the Employment Contracts Act being enacted, because that legislation made it illegal for workers to strike for agreements that bound more than one employer. Even after Labour introduced the Employment Relations Act, which promotes collective bargaining and gives back to workers the right to strike over multi-employer collective agreements, it has still taken 5 years to get back a national agreement for nurses in the public sector. The disparity that took place over the 1990s for workers doing exactly the same job was so large that national consistency had to be put back together piece by painstaking piece. Most New Zealand workers are still nowhere near to getting back the types of agreements they lost under the Employment Contracts Act. It is much easier and faster to tear things apart than to rebuild them.

Because of those three defining experiences, and all of life’s other lessons in between, I am extremely proud to be a member of this fifth Labour Government. Anyone can rule the roost by using the tactics of divide and rule. The plan is to attack those who are most vulnerable or a little different, so that then the rest will want to be in “your gang”. We can witness that style of “leadership” in any school yard. But what takes real skill, a high level of intelligence, and determination, and results in a better place for everyone to live in, is the ability to lead by inclusion, to involve everyone, and to harness the benefits of diversity. Those are the leadership qualities that I most admire in Helen Clark, and are the factors that have led to New Zealand’s success in recent years.

Understanding the difference in the two leadership styles I have just outlined puts the political correctness debate into context. Some have struggled to define what political correctness is. It appears that anything not believed or accepted by the majority is politically correct, and therefore must be eradicated. However, I will stick with the literal meaning. Strictly speaking, the term “political correctness” means the correcting of power. Power is corrected when recognition and rights are given to those who previously did not have them. This has the effect of taking power out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the many. Therefore, when I hear people complaining about something being politically correct, I know that they are worried that it will pass some power on to another group. It is called power sharing, and I am all for it.

Following the election, the media have focused on divisions within New Zealand. However, what I see are significant areas of consensus that create opportunities to keep moving forward. For example, during the election campaign, everyone agreed that wages are too low in New Zealand. Well, let us get on and get that sorted. Another area of general agreement was the need to build a sustainable future for New Zealand, including how we plan for our energy needs, how we invest in infrastructure, and how we invest in skills development. Those issues will not wait.

I believe that the timing is right to improve the balance between people’s lives and their paid employment. Surely the whole point of having growth in the economy is to improve our lifestyles. Why else would we strive for economic growth? Several pieces of research now point to us working some of the longest hours in the developed world. This does not make us more productive; on the contrary, it adversely affects our productivity as fatigue sets in and the risk of making a mistake or having an accident increases. It also has a significant social impact as families miss out on spending valuable time together. That is why I welcome a minimum of 4 weeks’ annual leave for all workers from 2007. It is why I want to work on other initiatives that address those issues.

As a new member of Parliament, I feel I am about to have my fourth defining experience, and I expect it will build on my previous three. I have nearly completed my maiden speech and I have mentioned horse racing only once. But for those who appreciate the subtleties in life, please note that the light-blue silks, the black sleeves, and the red cap are very much in this House today. For those members who have no idea what I am talking about, it does not matter, because getting horses to run very fast is one thing—and is very exciting—but helping to improve people’s lives, well, that is something else, and that is what I have come to Parliament to do. With the love and support of those who share this vision with me, I will do my very best to achieve that. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this

I move, That the following words be added to the address: and that it informs Her Excellency that this House has no confidence in the Labour - New Zealand First Government because it has no serious programme to secure rising incomes for all New Zealanders; because the Labour component of the Government has coasted over the last 6 years on the back of strong export prices and utterly failed to lay the foundations for reducing the gap between living standards on this side of the Tasman and those in Australia; because it fought a dishonest election campaign, one that ransacked the public purse for irresponsible party purposes; because during that campaign it suppressed vital information about the financial consequences of its policies; and because it has trampled over all previous constitutional conventions in cobbling together a bizarre set of coalition arrangements that put personal ambitions well ahead of the national interest.

Last Tuesday Her Excellency was asked to read a profoundly uninspiring Speech from the Throne. The speech was full of good intentions and pious hopes. It tried to suggest that this “Labour - New Zealand First” Government actually cares about raising the living standards of all New Zealanders. There were lots of references to the importance of productivity and of transformation of the economy, and of giving particular attention to a wide range of issues. The speech tried to suggest that the “Labour - New Zealand First” Government would like to see the gap between our living standards and those in Australia reduced. But we all know that that is empty rhetoric.

Many people in this House remember Helen Clark just 6 years ago as Leader of the Opposition deploring the exodus of Kiwis to more prosperous countries and vowing that she was “not prepared to stand back and see the best and brightest of New Zealanders leave this country, taking their ideas and their businesses with them.” Even more of us recall her stating in 2001 that her goal was to raise New Zealand’s living standards to the top half of the OECD within 10 years. She abandoned that task, of course—no doubt because she could see that she had no chance whatsoever of achieving it. But in 2003 she still told Parliament that she was committed to raising New Zealand’s living standards to the top half of the OECD “over time”. Yet again this year she has made another vacuous statement that suggests she is serious about raising living standards.

I guess the best way of judging whether her Government is serious about this important goal is to see what Labour has actually achieved in the last 6 years. Over the last 6 years, as over the last 12 years, total economic growth has been better than it was over the previous decade. Indeed, over recent years total economic growth has even been slightly better than total economic growth in Australia. It sounds pretty good, but it is not nearly as good as it sounds. As umpteen people have pointed out to the Government, the reality is that this total economic growth was made up of a big increase in the employed labour force and some improvement in output per person, or productivity. The increase in the employed labour force was in turn made up of a reduction in unemployment—which continues a trend that began in 1992—and an enormous surge in net immigration, first in the mid-1990s and then again after September 11.

I say to the Prime Minister that the worrying thing is that growth in output per person employed, while markedly better than before the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, is still well below the OECD average. The Clark Government has done nothing to build on past productivity improvement. It has failed to fix the delays and obstacles in the Resource Management Act, with the result that we have less investment in almost every industry than would be desirable. It has failed to fix the growing problems in the road network, which results in hundreds more people dying and being injured on our roads than in countries with better roads, such as Australia and the UK, and hundreds of millions of dollars of additional cost arising from congestion.

It has utterly failed to deal adequately with the prospect of “brownouts” and blackouts, despite the fact that the great bulk of the electricity generation sector and Transpower are owned by the Government itself. It has failed to take significant steps to ease the critical shortage of skilled workers, and indeed the Clark Government capped funding for apprenticeship training and provided more than nine times as much funding to Te Wānanga o Aotearoa as to the entire Modern Apprenticeships scheme. Though the business sector has been under very considerable pressure from the appreciation of the New Zealand dollar in recent years, the Clark Government failed to ease the burden of compliance costs facing the business sector, and in fact did not hesitate to dump additional costs on employers—thus further undermining their competitiveness—through amendments to the Holidays Act and the Employment Relations Act.

Though the Government’s own advisers in Treasury have calculated, in a paper written a year ago, that a lower, flatter income-tax structure could add between a half and 1 percent to our per capita growth rate—a phenomenally large gain that would see us begin to narrow the gap with Australia—the Government has totally failed to take the slightest notice of that advice. Indeed, it has explicitly ruled out any change in personal taxation structures before a trivial adjustment in 2008.

The Clark Government has coasted along, enjoying the prosperity arising from excellent prices for meat and dairy exports on international markets, and the boost to the housing market provided by a strong inflow of immigrants. But the end result has been profoundly disappointing. Figures released by the Government Statistician just last week suggest that productivity has actually been falling recently, and is now at a 4-year low. In 1999 the gap between average after-tax wages in New Zealand and those in Australia was $5,000 per annum. Five years later the gap had virtually doubled to $10,000 a year.

Is it any wonder that the exodus of New Zealanders to greener pastures abroad, an exodus that Helen Clark pretended to be concerned about back in 1999 when she was in Opposition, has been accelerating lately? Is it any wonder that a recent OECD study pointed out that New Zealand had a higher proportion of its tertiary-educated people living abroad than any other developed country?

And what about the future? Well, it would be nice to think that the pious hopes expressed in the Speech from the Throne would result in real action. But why should we expect that? Labour’s famous pre-election pledge card was devoid of any policy commitment that might have been expected to produce higher living standards—

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) Link to this

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 Ōrewa 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 270,000 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, Māori 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 Māori 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 Māori 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 Māori 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 Māori development. I was at the Hui Taumata; I saw the huge momentum that Māori development has. I want to commit our Government again to working with Māoridom not only to resolve historical grievances—which we must do—but also to see that Māoridom, 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.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this

Outsiders who watched the events of the past few months unfold could have safely reached the conclusion that democracy can be a strange and an unwieldy beast. Indeed, if one were to take a quick look around this Chamber, one could only conclude that the gods of politics have either a strange sense of humour or a strong sense of irony. If there is a lesson in that—and there always is—it is to never underestimate just how astute the voting public actually is. The doomsayers were quick to write the smaller parties off as non-entities, but in doing so they failed to understand that New Zealanders will never accept single-party majority Government again. Under MMP that has gone, despite the best efforts of both the old, large parties.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

Mr Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the Green Party I extend our congratulations to yourself and to your colleagues, Madam Speaker and the Assistant Speakers, on your election. I extend our greetings to all members of this new Parliament, especially those who are representing their communities here for the first time. In particular, I acknowledge a new party that has won the right to represent its people in the House. I welcome Pita Sharples, Hone Harawira, and Te Ururoa Flavell, who join Tariana Turia in representing the Māori Party. We look forward to the new flavour and perspective they will bring to debate here, and hope to work with them where we have common cause.

What felt like the longest election campaign in history has come and gone, and, unlike in 1999, no one can stand here today and say: “We won. You lost. Eat that!”. National has gained seats, but it is still in Opposition. All small parties, except for the Māori Party, have lost seats heavily. Among the small parties, only the Greens have retained even as many as two-thirds of their seats. The Prime Minister has her third term of Government, but this is surely not the kind of Government she planned to lead. It is certainly not the kind of Government her supporters wished her to lead—one that is hostage to narrow-minded intolerance, Treaty bashing, environmental ignorance, and prejudice against immigrants, gays, and Muslims. It is the Government that we warned could be formed if people who supported the Greens gave their party vote to Labour instead, out of fear of National. It is a Government founded on expediency and political pragmatism, not on shared values and vision. It is designed to please a few businesses that oppose any form of environmental regulation, sustainable development, or justice for low-paid workers. That is why the Greens cannot give it our support on confidence and supply.

The Greens played a straight bat through the election and the negotiations. We made it clear that we would not support a National-led Government, and so ruled out playing off one side against the other for our own political advantage, as Winston Peters and Peter Dunne did. That gave Labour an advantage in the campaign, as it increased the certainty that it would be able to form a Government, although that was not our reason for doing it. We did it because we believed that the voters needed to know how their votes would be used in forming a Government. Going to the polling booth should not be the same as going to the TAB. We negotiated in good faith and put our cards on the table. We offered our skills and experience to help form a Government. We accepted that the cards the voters had dealt dictated that there would have to be a multiparty Government. We did not rule out working with any other party that Labour was talking to. We had a firm understanding that Labour’s view of its support parties was that if everyone could not be in, everyone would be out.

Labour had a number of options that would have formed a stable Government, but it chose to take this one. It is an arrangement that has raised concerns among political commentators and constitutional experts. Two parties whose leaders hold ministerial warrants, who are part of the executive, claim not to be in coalition. They claim not to be part of the Government, yet they have Ministers in that Government. One of the parties even wanted to sit with the Opposition, and demanded that the Greens, who are not even supporting the Government on confidence and supply, should sit with the Government.

If this were the breaking down of the two-party system and the concept of “the Opposition” under first past the post, and if this were a move to a more inclusive parliamentary system, we would welcome it. There are many countries where multiparty Governments work well even though the parties do not agree on everything, and we support having room to disagree in a coalition. A system of shifting majorities on legislation takes us closest to what the people voted for, provided that parties vote in accordance with the policies they put to the electorate. However, on past experience, I say that that is a big if.

But I fear that this situation is not mainly about that. I fear it is a contrivance to pander to political positioning, in order to allow Ministers to have their cake and eat it—to have the baubles of office without the responsibilities of executive positions. In 2½ years, will Winston Peters and Peter Dunne again be making overtures to National from their positions in a Labour-led Government? How will the new Minister of Foreign Affairs draw the line between his portfolio, where he is bound to represent the views of the Government, and everything else, where he is not? Can he separate foreign policy from environment policy, when we are party to so many environmental treaties? Can he be a Minister of Foreign Affairs who opposes his Government’s climate change policy under the Kyoto Protocol agreement that his Government helped to negotiate and is a party to? Can he separate foreign affairs from defence? Will he have to be mute in his overseas meetings on the dangers of a free-trade agreement with China, leaving it to the Greens to be the sole advocates of fairer trade? Can he separate foreign affairs from immigration, when immigration policy is often a reciprocal arrangement negotiated between countries?

Labour has been very clever with the fine print of the agreement with New Zealand First. Superannuation is to rise to 66 percent of the average ordinary-time wage, but only during this term of Government. Then inflation will be allowed to catch up with it again, reducing it to 65 percent. Labour knows that 66 percent is not affordable over the long term as the population ages, and that senior citizens, although absolutely deserving of security in their older years, generally are not in as desperate straits or as needy as our poorest children or the mentally ill, to use two examples. Let us take the agreement to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour, which is a measure that the Greens argued for, too. New Zealand First and the Greens both received the same promise in our agreements—that the rise would occur by 2008, if the economy allowed it. Well, that is a huge loophole when we know that the economy will slow over this term. There are no policy concessions in the foreign policy area, so Winston Peters will be the mouthpiece for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and for Labour in his major portfolio. What will he look back on in 3 years’ time as his major achievements?

Then there is the extraordinary situation of United Future. Its caucus has reduced from eight members to three, but it holds a ministerial warrant. That certainly does not have much to do with what the voters voted for. How will the new Minister of Revenue separate his portfolio from the whole fiscal and economic stance of the Government, which he is likely to disagree with? Will Labour capitulate to him over the carbon charge, leaving us with no economic incentive at all to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and so increasing the financial risk of a big Kyoto Protocol deficit? Will he be held responsible for that deficit? Is he required to support the whole health policy, or only the matters within his delegation? I see that the Minister of Health is having a little chuckle.

If it were not so serious, this term would be a very entertaining 3 years. But it is serious because the country is facing major economic threats, and this patched-together combination of parties is not well placed to address them. We have had 6 years of unprecedented economic growth. Despite what the parties on the right would have us believe, the average inflation-corrected economic growth rate over the last 6 years has been almost 4 percent.It is a very long time since New Zealand had a growth rate like that over any sustained period. That is a result Labour is very proud of. It has reduced unemployment to record low levels, raised incomes for those in well-paid employment, raised Government revenue, and enabled more spending. But this growth was pursued with no attention to whether it was sustainable—and it is not. Not only can it not continue but, just as it slows, we must start to pay the enormous costs of that past growth, which are coming home to haunt us.

Economic growth has not been sustainable because it has been pursued with no whole-of-Government attempt to increase energy productivity. In fact, energy use and, in particular, fossil-fuel use have grown faster than the economy. This leaves us facing a half-billion-dollar projected deficit in meeting our Kyoto Protocol commitments, when we had the opportunity to have a surplus. We should be very clear that the costs the Kyoto Protocol may now impose on us are the fault not of the protocol but of our own refusal to take seriously enough the need to use energy more effectively.

Economic growth has not been sustainable because it has been driven by high immigration and a bullish property market. If our prosperity depends on pumping up activity in building and infrastructure just to meet the needs of more people, what happens when we decide New Zealand is full? Do we believe we can keep increasing our population forever? If not, relying on that for our prosperity is a short-term strategy. It has also resulted in homes becoming unaffordable for ordinary Kiwis.

The dairy industry and its exports have been the poster child of our growing economy. Fonterra has positioned itself well in international markets, and world prices have been kind. As a result, prices of farmland have risen, making it even harder than it always has been for young farmers to buy their own farms. The average age of farmers is now in the mid-50s, and that is not sustainable, either.

The growth of the dairy industry has been at the expense of our rivers, our aquifers, and our soils. It has raised demand for water to convert dry land to dairy farms, depleting rivers and aquifers. It has raised nitrogen inputs by 160 percent in just 6 years in order to intensify stocking rates. The rapid increase in runoff has led to seriously polluted rivers and streams—Lake Ellesmere is biologically dead. It has increased energy demand for irrigation, with further pressure on rivers for hydro development, and water conflicts between farmers and energy companies. Further growth in the number of dairy cows and the inputs of nitrogen fertiliser is not sustainable.

So where will our growth come from next? Our economic growth has not been sustainable because it has been led by a binge of consumer spending that has left us heavily in debt to the rest of the world. The gap between what we earn in the world and what we spend has never been higher. Borrowing for investment is one thing; borrowing for consumption is another, and there is little sign that the warnings of the Reserve Bank will be heeded. Once, if we wanted to borrow money, we went to the bank and pleaded for a loan. Now, the banks come to us in our living rooms every night, pleading with us to put our new car or holiday on the mortgage.

Our economic growth has not been sustainable because the benefits have not been shared. Although the Government is to be commended for the record low rates of unemployment, they are not so low for Māori, and there are still literally hundreds of thousands of people who cannot obtain jobs at all, or who cannot get work doing what they want to do at pay rates high enough to sustain a reasonable quality of life. Tinkering at the edges of the benefit system is not going to solve this problem, nor is putting off for another 3 years raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour. It is a real pity that Labour will not take the brave step needed to increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour now, as advocated by the Green Party, the Council of Trade Unions, New Zealand First, and also, I believe, the Māori Party during the recent election campaign. Working for Families and the accommodation supplement are, between the two of them, a massive taxpayer subsidy to employers. It is time employers paid their fair share.

At the same time, high rates of child poverty continue. The Green Party is saddened that extensions to Working for Families will only increase discrimination against the children of beneficiaries, at a time when sole-parent families are disproportionately disadvantaged already. Labour and its partners seem determined to continue to intensify the income gap between working and non-working parents, which is something that only makes life harder for the children of beneficiaries, and leads to poor health, education, and employment outcomes for yet another generation.

So high growth has left us in a very vulnerable situation. On top of this comes rapidly rising oil prices. The Greens have warned of this since 2003, and, wearing various other hats, for the last 30 years in fact. It has been as plain as day for three decades that the day would come when oil supply could no longer increase at the same rate as demand, and all the evidence is that that is starting to happen this year. How long it will take before oil supply actually decreases and how fast it will decrease are still debatable, but the fact that we are at or close to the peak is much clearer than it was when the Greens first warned of it. I know from campaign meetings around the country that the people know it. Business knows it. Bush and Cheney have known it for a decade, which is why they are in Iraq. It seems that some members of this House may be the last ostriches to keep their heads in the sand.

For decades successive New Zealand Governments have behaved as though cheap oil was inexhaustible. We have built more and more big roads, we have imported cars that use twice as much fuel as they need to—we still do not even label them to help consumers—and we have ignored public transport in the belief that no one will use it, yet as soon as another commuter train is put on in Auckland, it is full. High and rising oil prices, combined with a slowing economy and a big balance of payments deficit, will not make it an easy ride for this Government. If one thing is clear, it is that it cannot be “business as usual” in this term of Parliament. Even Labour, which, after the Greens, has the best grasp of this stuff, has failed totally to address the unsustainability of the growth it is so proud of. How much will Labour be able to do, now that it is saddled with its new partners?

So where will the Greens be as our country struggles with those challenges? It appears the former member for Tauranga cannot keep his pre-election promises about abstention, so we will keep them for him and abstain on confidence and money supply. We will vote case by case on the issues. The difference, however, is that the Greens have made substantial policy gains and have some hands-on projects to run in the next 3 years. The urgency is such that we will grasp any chance to begin the transformation we need to a sustainable and fair economy. While others preen themselves around the cocktail circuit with titles and limousines, we will be working to make real change. My aim is, in 3 years’ time, for New Zealanders to look at our work and say: “The Greens didn’t get the baubles of office, they didn’t get the resources and staff that Ministers have, but with only six MPs and a small staff they have made more positive difference to our lives and the future of our country than those who did.”

In this term I have been given responsibility for improving New Zealand’s energy efficiency under the legislation I brought to the House and had passed 6 years ago. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act has not yet fulfilled its promise. It has not led to a whole-of-Government approach. We still have no standards or consumer information on vehicle fuel consumption. The new building standard for homes is dragging its feet. We are insulating and damp-proofing some houses, but at the pace we are going it will take around 50 years to retrofit the 300,000 homes that have inadequate ceiling insulation alone. New plant is still being built that will cost its owners dearly in wasted energy over its lifetime. The Government commitment to solar energy has been derisory, with it providing only $400,000 a year for a loan scheme even though the industry has made great strides in that time. I have been inundated for years with letters from people who see the sense of using the sun to heat their water, and want to invest in it, but find that the price is too high. We will bring down the price of solar water heating only by building capacity in the industry, and with bulk purchase by competitive tender. That is what I want to organise, so that we can get half a million solar panels on Kiwi roofs over the next 5 years.

My late colleague Rod Donald was to have been given responsibility for a Buy Kiwi Made campaign to identify New Zealand - made products and raise awareness that whenever we spend a dollar it is a political act. We can choose to spend it to support Kiwi businesses and Kiwi jobs, and reduce our balance of payments deficit, or we can use it to support jobs and profits in other countries and worsen our economic difficulties. The Greens are committed to undertaking that work, both in honour of Rod Donald and because we know its importance. We will be working with the Government to finalise who will drive this work.

Metiria Turei will be working closely with the Minister of Education to build capacity for environmental education, so that eventually the very good guidelines and strategies developed by the Government some years ago can be implemented in every school. If we are to face the challenges of the future, we must have citizens who are ecologically literate and understand cause and effect in our use of resources and our management of wastes.

Sue Kedgley will be working with the Minister of Health on a range of initiatives to improve the nutritional quality of the food New Zealand children eat, especially in schools. We know that one-third of New Zealand’s children are overweight or obese. We know that many of them will get serious illnesses, like type 2 diabetes. We know that much of the food they eat offers huge doses of fat, sugar, and salt, but few of the nutrients they need to learn and to grow. We know that that will cost us millions of health dollars in the future, unless we act responsibly now. If we are serious about improving the well-being of our children and their readiness to learn, we must reduce the overwhelming commercial pressures on them to eat unhealthy food, and we must create environments that encourage healthy eating. That means starting with schools. We want all our schools to teach children basic nutrition, cooking, and gardening skills, and to encourage healthy eating.

The agreement between the Government and the Greens acknowledges the intention to increase support for public transport, to extend eligibility for student allowances, to increase the level of overseas development assistance, and to further reduce levels of child poverty. In addition, it commits to several new policies and Budget initiatives.

The Greens made it clear that although we would not insist on the reinstatement of a moratorium on the release of genetically modified organisms, we would expect some progress towards greater security around genetic engineering. The Government is committed to working with us to provide segregation throughout the production chain between any GE organism that might be grown in the future and other products. That will give producers greater security that they will continue to be able to provide the level of product purity for GE-free food that their markets demand. The Greens continue to believe that the release of any live GE organism would be an act of crazy self-destruction in the farming sector, but we still consider it worthwhile to improve the rules governing any such release that might occur in the future despite the wishes of the 70 percent of the people who do not want that release, as shown in successive polls.

Sue Kedgley will also be working with the Minister of Agriculture on a Budget initiative to provide enhanced advisory services to the organic sector. New Zealand lags way behind Europe and other countries in organics, with less than 1 percent of our agricultural land in organic production, and we are missing out on the expanding international niche market for organic food. Our organic sector needs the sort of reliable political and institutional support that organic sectors in Europe receive. We hope to work closely with the Minister over the next few years so that we can encourage approximately 200 farmers to convert to organics each year, and can achieve the goal of organics becoming a billion-dollar industry by 2011.

The Green Party believes that the Māori seats should be entrenched in the same way that the number of South Island seats is entrenched. The Government has committed, in our agreement, at least to retain the Māori seats for as long as Māori wish to do so.

We have negotiated a conservation Budget initiative to provide intensive habitat management at additional sites in order to restore populations of endangered species, in cooperation with local communities. This combines two key issues for the Greens. We are still not turning the tide of extinctions of native species, and more effort is needed to protect the places where they live. But that cannot be done by only a Government department. We strongly believe that communities must be involved in conservation, and this is an opportunity for the Department of Conservation to work jointly with local people who care about their environment. We look forward to discussion with the Minister about where those additional sites will be.

The Greens are keen for New Zealand to carve out a role as peacemaker—not war-maker—in the world, and through our agreement with the Government we will be working closely together to enhance New Zealand’s role in peacemaking. We will also be defending the traditional legal protections of citizens, and will argue against any new anti-terrorism legislation of the sort that has recently been introduced in Britain and Australia, and has been much criticised by civil libertarians.

Tomorrow we welcome Nandor Tanczos back into our parliamentary team, not to fill the shoes of Rod Donald but to fill his own shoes again. He left a big gap in our caucus when we just failed to win enough votes for a seventh MP. Nandor Tanczos will be taking on the environment and justice portfolios, where I know his experience and interest in sustainable land management, waste management, permaculture, prison reform, and restorative justice will serve the Greens well.

So the Greens are ready for another parliamentary term. We are still grieving for the loss of Rod Donald, but we are encouraged by the mark his life made on so many people, and determined to honour his memory in the way he would most have wanted: by actively pursuing the causes of social and international justice, peace, ecological integrity, and democracy; by taking responsibility, wherever it is offered to us, to create the transformation this planet and its people need; and by holding the Government to account when it needs reminding where the public interest lies. We have a sense of urgency that there is not much time to make these changes. The planet’s capacity to endure the effects of human greed is limited, but we also know that change, to be lasting, must be non-violent, evolutionary, understood, and broadly accepted. It is about states of mind, not just laws. That is where our challenge lies.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

First of all, I want to acknowledge the Governor-General, and to congratulate the Hon Margaret Wilson, the Hon Clem Simich, Ross Robertson, and yourself, Madam Assistant Speaker, on being elected Speakers of this House. I also want to acknowledge the Prime Minister, all the leaders of political parties, and all our colleagues who are here in this Parliament.

It is my privilege to respond to the Speech from the Throne in this entirely new Parliament—a Parliament that for the first time includes within its midst a party dedicated to the advancement of a strong and independent Māori voice and Māori people. The Māori Party is committed to making a positive contribution to Parliament, and to advancing our kaupapa in the best interests of the nation—a nation in which “one law for all” can truly be said to represent all within its brief. We have tested the concept of “one law for all’ from our first utterances in this house, in swearing our oaths and affirmations. It was right and appropriate to swear allegiance to the Queen; it was also right and appropriate to swear allegiance to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Some members will recall a speech made by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her 50th jubilee. Speaking about the resolution of Treaty issues, she said: “There still remains some way to go but I would like to express my respect for the courage of all those parties who have been working in good faith towards resolution. I am sure that a stronger nation will emerge from your efforts to address the past and move forward towards a shared future.” Elizabeth, a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, understands the significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as providing the constitutional framework for this nation. She recognises the Treaty as providing the context for all to live harmoniously in this land. It is the context that we sought to swear allegiance to, but were prevented from doing so by the laws of this house. We would suggest that the rational and informed dialogue on the role of the Treaty of Waitangi described in the Speech from the Throne would extend within this debating chamber in our first symbolic actions. It must also extend throughout domestic law.

Eighteen months ago many tangata whenua and other New Zealanders came to this Parliament, asking how a Government could legislate to confiscate the lands of tangata whenua and remove the rights of hapū and iwi to due process before the courts. In 2 days’ time, the world’s gaze will extend to these shores with the arrival of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the special rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples. His visit here follows the findings of the United Nations that the foreshore and seabed legislation contained discriminatory aspects against the Māori, in particular in its extinguishment of the possibility of establishing Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed. The Māori Party, as a priority, will be working on a member’s bill for the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Members of this House may recall that the United Nations committee recommended that the Government resume dialogue with Māori regarding the legislation and take steps to minimise any negative effects. The Government responded by saying that the committee did not understand the complexity of the issue. It suggested that “discriminatory” could not really be seen to be breaching the convention. It criticised the United Nations forum as “a committee that sits on the outer edge”. This is the same Government that last month went to New York and criticised the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as being “unworkable and unacceptable”. This was after 10 years of Government delegates working through the 45 provisions gaining acceptance for the declaration.

Throughout the globe, indigenous communities have signalled their disappointment at the actions taken by New Zealand in arguing against indigenous peoples. A treaty between two peoples at home is suddenly interpreted overseas as discriminating against other citizens, as suggesting two standards of citizenship or two classes of citizen. It is like being on a see-saw, except that since the signing in 1840 one side has progressively swung upwards and the other has hit the ground with a thump. Now, with the latest actions overseas, it appears that the Crown is willing to jump off and let the relationship agreement be dumped with it.

There may be one law for all, but the question that needs to be asked is whether it is applied equally or whether people are treated differently. In order to make the difference, to see the changes we all desire in the best interests of the nation, we may need alternative strategies. It may mean we see a world of abundance, and not limits. Sometimes it is a simple matter of asking the right questions and looking at things differently—strategies such as projects for youth, academies, and focus areas of sports, drama, culture, and the arts; academies that seek to develop students’ special interest so that their learning is relevant and challenging. It is a national disgrace that the Education Review Office annual report describes a group at the bottom, perhaps as large as 20 percent, who are currently not succeeding in our education system.

The Speech from the Throne stated that it is time to not dwell on the past failures. Well, that is exactly right. We do need to celebrate success rather than fear success. We have had too many successful Māori providers coming to us in recent weeks concerned about what appears to be this minority Labour Government, through its institutions, undermining the successful delivery by Māori of both health and education programmes. We are all for celebrating success, but we also will not turn a blind eye to the present failure of the system to respond to the distinctive needs of this nation. We must start bringing balance back to the see-saw. We must enable the distinctive strengths of all peoples who call this land home to be truly understood and respected. That is why we have called for an inquiry into the application of tikanga, including the use of powhiri throughout the State sector. Last week we witnessed the ceremony of the carrying of the Mace and the knock-three-times procedure of Black Rod. Just as the House observes these conventions, the Māori Party wants to ensure that when others’ cultural protocols are being adopted, respect for their significance must be upheld.

Bringing balance to the see-saw will also mean restoring a decent income for all New Zealanders. It was curious that the Speech from the Throne talked of a significant decline in poverty levels when we lack a clear poverty line from which to measure progress in the first place. We must set tangible goals if we are to achieve one law for all—the right to a decent standard of life. Central to this is an agreement on a specific target date to reduce child poverty. The speech confirmed that the Working for Families package will be extended from next year. However, it is grossly misleading to say that there will be tax relief for every low and middle income family when 250,000 of the poorest children in this country will miss out. In 2 days’ time when the special rapporteur observes the state of the nation, will he see a see-saw tipped in favour of one side? Who will explain away the inequalities, the disparities, and the variability in understandings of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I will conclude by talking about the retention of the Māori seats. It is the intention of the Māori Party to ask this Parliament to entrench the Māori seats through a member’s bill. We think back to the words of Chief Judge Durie, who said: “Like the Treaty of Waitangi, the Māori parliamentary seats stand as an enduring symbol of their constitutional status, and historic statements of principles, like symbols, are essential tools in rebuilding a national identity.” That will be a land where one law for all actually means something.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this

Madam Speaker, I begin by congratulating you and the other presiding officers on your election and assuring you of the support of the United Future members in this House for the difficult job you have ahead of you in presiding over this Parliament. I also pay our traditional respects to Her Excellency the Governor-General for the outstanding job that she does as our head of State and for the quiet dignity that she brings to that role. I note that this is the last time we will do this in respect of our current Governor-General, whose term will expire during the life of this Parliament.

I also congratulate the mover and the seconder of this debate on their speeches and, in advance, congratulate all other speakers who will make their maiden speeches in the course of this debate. It has been said many times but it is worth repeating that this is probably the most important speech that any member of Parliament gives, because it is the speech in which they talk about themselves, their own aspirations, and the things that drive them to serve their communities. I share the view of others that these are speeches worth reflecting upon in years to come to see how far one has held true to the goals and aspirations that one sets out in that maiden speech. It can be an illuminating experience from time to time.

I acknowledge too the support of my constituents in Ohariu-Belmont. I am very humbled and grateful for the fact that for an eighth time they have reposed their confidence in me, and I will do all I can to repay that as their representative over the next 3 years. I acknowledge the efforts made in the previous Parliament by my colleagues who are no longer with me. We are somewhat reduced in numbers, but I place on record my acknowledgment of the contribution of that team of members of Parliament who served with us between 2002 and 2005.

This is a vastly different Parliament from that, and the challenges that will be upon us will consequently be different and greater. In that respect I acknowledge the previous speaker, Tariana Turia, for her contribution and for the dimension that her party brings to this Parliament. I think all of us who may not previously have given the issues that she speaks about the attention that they deserve will have to listen and be guided by the interpretation and the wisdom that her party brings. I look forward to the relationship that will develop between our parties as this Parliament goes on.

One of the key features of the election, its outcome, and the Government formation that has taken place is that for the first time since MMP was introduced we have a Parliament that now has the genuine prospect of decisions being made on the floor of this House, because the narrowness of the numbers means that there will be many occasions when amendments from one side of the Chamber or the other succeed. The days are gone when the automatic Government majority, however it is constructed, will be sufficient. That will impose a challenge on all of us to be constructive, to work in the best interests of our country, and to promote those policies we see as important, not just because it is about getting a headline but because, for the first time for many, there is a chance they may be able to succeed.

My party is one that is founded on the principles of respect for life, liberty, freedom, opportunity, and community. We see issues relating to families as very much at the core of delivering those virtues, because families are a foundational unit in our society. All of the things that we will be focusing on over the life of this Parliament take their inspiration from a statement made by Norman Kirk over 30 years ago in this place, when he said that it is the primary responsibility of any Government to do things—and I am paraphrasing very loosely—that are good for families and to reject things that are bad for families. That wisdom is as true today as it was when it was stated way back in 1973 or 1974. Consequently, the focus that United Future members will bring to this Chamber over the next 3 years is just that. The agreement that we have concluded with the Labour-led Government is in many areas about advancing the broad interests of New Zealand families.

One of the reasons we want to have a thorough review of our business tax system to make it more competitive in the first instance with Australia is not because of some arcane argument about relativities, but because, in reality, by having a competitive tax environment that fosters the growth and development of business opportunities in New Zealand we foster the development and growth of employment opportunities, wealth-creation opportunities, and prospects for our people here in New Zealand. The previous speaker spoke about so many who fall between the cracks. This is a practical step that we can take towards, firstly, minimising those cracks, and, secondly, making sure that people will not be slim enough to fit through them.

When we talk about the Families Commission taking an oversight role for programmes relating to relationships and parenting skills education, that is practical recognition of the fact that at the moment in New Zealand, by a conservative estimate, each year we spend between $30 million and $45 million in a very uncoordinated way on such programmes. People thirst for information, they call out for the opportunity, but we have no real way of ensuring that the information they get will be in any way beneficial to them, or have any value in terms of today’s parents, their children, and the parents of the future, and that is a very practical point that we are focused upon.

When we talk about the need to reduce the burden on parents and students, because of the way in which the means test applies to parental income for student loans, that is as much about reflecting household income and household opportunity as it is about reflecting the stresses and strains that are placed upon our students that actually create opportunities for them not to stay in New Zealand and benefit us from their education, but to flee off overseas to earn more money to pay off their debt.

When we talk about having a national medicines policy based on the quality usage of pharmaceuticals, and looking at the role of agencies like Pharmac in relation to that, that is about ensuring that every New Zealander, whatever his or her circumstance, has the opportunity to get the best access to medicines that is possible, given the emerging conditions and given the emerging technologies.

It is all consistent with being part of an arrangement that means we govern in the interests of New Zealand families and provide the wherewithal for those New Zealand families to prosper, to have opportunity, and to launch the next generation positively on the journey of life. We are not a party that wants to prescribe rules and directions that shackle people’s opportunity, but we do want to create the opportunity and see Government’s role as working constructively towards that, so that our young people can have an opportunity to be part of a vibrant and new New Zealand.

The challenges we face are profound. This country stands on the threshold of a bold new future. We are questioning our traditional identity. We are talking about the sort of direction we want for our country, a vision for the future, where we fit constitutionally, and where we fit in terms of our place in the world. All of those issues are ones that this Parliament has to take on board and start to address. With the diversity of numbers here, and if the goodwill that has been emphasised in recent days remains in even a small dose, we have the opportunity and the chance to do something constructive and make a positive step towards building the New Zealand of the future. I look forward to working with other parties in this House who share that vision—on different matters, perhaps, from time to time, but none the less who are committed to New Zealand’s future—to see what we can collectively do to make the next 3 years ones that will be memorable for this country and positive for our citizens, and will create strong opportunity for our people to come in the future.

Madam Speaker, I wish you and your colleagues well as you embark upon the role of overseeing us in the vigorous debates that will follow. I look forward to hearing the views, aspirations, hopes, and challenges of the many new members who will make their maiden speech during the course of this debate.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

ACT is back. I begin by passing on our best respects to the Governor-General, to the Prime Minister, to you as Assistant Speaker, to Margaret Wilson, to Clem Simich, and to Ross Robertson. I also pass on my respects to the Green Party and our regret for its loss of Rod Donald. I take the opportunity here to welcome back Nandor Tanczos, who will be with us tomorrow. I also welcome the new party, the Māori Party—the new kid on the block—whose members are sitting beside me here today. I welcome all four of its members to our Parliament, and I say this: that the foreshore and seabed legislation passed by this House was a travesty of justice, and that if we are to mouth the words about wanting to live in a country that has one law for all New Zealanders, then that means that each and every New Zealander should be able to have his or her day in court. It is totally unacceptable when a Government finds the courts going against the outcome it would prefer that it rushes to this House to change the law and deny a people their opportunity to have their day in court.

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) Link to this

I have no difficulty in supporting the Government motion. The coalition Government formed in December 1999 has demonstrably been the most successful and progressive Government that New Zealand has had in decades. [ Interruption] New Zealand has experienced a sustained sequence of strong economic growth—even the member who just interjected will have to accept that fact.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) Link to this

I also support the Government motion. Madam Assistant Speaker, I congratulate yourself, Ross Robertson, Clem Simich, and Margaret Wilson on your appointments to the Chair to preside over matters in this House. I look forward to the opportunity to have robust debate, but also for the Government to continue to build on the agenda it set out in the Speech from the Throne.

The Speech from the Throne underpinned a forward-looking New Zealand and a progressive Government agenda—one that acknowledged strength and diversity, and the many challenges that presents. The Speech from the Throne set out an agenda that intends to build on the progress made over the past 6 years by this Labour-led Government—progress that restores fairness, inspires excellence, fosters collaboration, and generally gives a hand up to those most in need in our society.

I want to take a little time to talk in a very local way, from a Māori electorate perspective and that of my own electorate, Tainui, on the progress made over the last 6 years. Firstly, there was a huge investment—led by the previous speaker, Mr Anderton—in the last term of Government in regional development. But what did it mean locally? What did it mean for many of our communities? In Tainui, it meant that in regions such as the Waikato we were able to create a hub to attract investment into our region. We have created an aviation hub, and I think that both Dianne Yates and Martin Gallagher will attest to the opportunities that has provided in terms of regional development initiatives in Hamilton. In the Waikato region the Waikato Innovation Park, with investments in that area, has been created. We are attracting new investments into our region, which is good for the community, the local region, and regional development, and brings more jobs into my electorate.

In the King Country area, for example, investment in regional development has meant that people are looking at tourism in a broader way to ensure that the tourism dollar does not stop in Rotorua but stays in the King Country a bit longer. That requires the commitment of local government to work collaboratively with tourism operators, local business, and central government to be able to create more opportunities in the region. That is what a regional development strategy under the Labour Government has delivered in the Tainui electorate.

That bodes well for the general theme of what the Government has tried to achieve over the last 6 years. It is about economic development, but is not driven from a centralist view. It is about getting back into the regions and communities, and attracting opportunities back to where it really matters, because we know that that is where employment for local people is actually created. So I certainly want to ensure that that continues to happen in our regions. Let me just put out this figure: the amount of investment in regional development stands close to $250 million. I am sure that many of my Government colleagues can attest to what that has meant in terms of stimulating growth and opportunity.

My next point relates to education, skills, and training. Once we have a prosperous economy, the issues become, of course, employment and making sure that we invest in the skills and talent of every individual in our community, so that people can get the jobs that are out there. In fact, we have a lot of employee shortages because the Government’s strategy is doing so well. The Labour commitment to going back to apprenticeship training, and to investing in the skills and talents of our people, bodes well overall. There are 7,100 Modern Apprentices throughout the country, and we are on target to reach 9,000 Modern Apprentices by December next year. That is a good thing. Why? When we look at an electorate like Tainui, we see, for example, that Fairview Motors is attracting Modern Apprentices from Piopio. Who would have thought that kids who drop out of school and are told they do not have a future can get onto a pathway that enables greater investment in them, so that they can make a contribution and get a job? That is a really important thing, because it affects the lives of real people in our communities.

The Government has doubled the investment in industry training since 1999, and that is important, because we know that more than 150,000 New Zealanders are involved in industry training. That has stimulated a whole lot of other sectors to look at Modern Apprenticeships—Genesis Energy, for example. I applaud its commitment to fund 60 Modern Apprentices in the electricity sector and to engage in local training initiatives to ensure local jobs for local people, especially in communities where there is a high contribution to servicing the national grid, such as Huntly—fantastic!

The commitment to education also bodes well, because the Government has said that it will commit to 20 hours of quality, free early childhood education for all 3 to 4-year-olds at teacher-led, community-based early childhood centres by 2007. We have put an extra 3,040 teachers into our classrooms so that the quality of the educational experience in the classroom is much better. We have increased operations funding. We have made progress in tertiary education, which is really important. When we talk about having a high-skilled workforce, investing in skills through tertiary education is an important part of achieving that. All the progress we have made in student loans is really good. In my electorate, in particular, more and more Māori students have gone on to post-graduate education than ever before, and that is a fantastic achievement.

I want to talk about the support for Working for Families. I particularly want to talk about some of the local initiatives that are doing really well, like Family Start, which the Government has continued to build on and roll out into the Tainui electorate. That initiative is going very well because it supports young parents to be better parents. It helps them to network well into the community, secure the support they need just to get by, and explore the options that they have as young parents with regard to their own skills, training, and education needs. That has been done under a Labour Government. We certainly built on that success in the last term of Government, and we will continue to do so.

We have expanded the Social Workers in Schools programme. For a lot of schools that means that a lot of our kids have access to social workers so as to be able to deal with some very complex issues. I have met with people from a number of the schools in my electorate, and I know that that initiative works well, because the parents, who are part of a whole wraparound approach for some very difficult issues, are benefiting under it. So we have to support that, and I look forward to the continuance of that programme.

The support being given in education is best seen when we go into schools and see what is happening there. A number of students are now doing the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, and a number of them say that it is a good initiative in terms of valuing their skills. In my time over the next term of Government I want to continue to build and invest in youth potential, because I know that young people are an important part of the type of New Zealand we are working towards—the type of New Zealand that inspires excellence; the type of New Zealand that inspires people’s ability to look forward and to build on the strengths they have. That is the type of New Zealand and the type of future we are creating—where everybody has a role in this country. Some people might not think so, but I do, and I know that this Government does.

The future under this Government will also include building on Māori development. The Government will accelerate initiatives to support Māori development. It will not do it for them, but will support Māori development where it can be best supported. The touchstone for that is the outcome that emerged from the Hui Taumata. People said that they did not want the Government to take a major role in defining or implementing development goals, but wanted support from the Government, and we will do that over the next 3 years.

So the type of New Zealand we are building is one where everybody belongs, where everybody has an opportunity to succeed, and where we value education, invest in skills training, and ensure that people are in a position to do things for themselves so that they can go forward. Nō reira, tēna koutou katoa.

TIM GROSER (National) Link to this

It is truly a privilege to be a member of this Parliament. I have been a public servant for over three decades, and any adviser, whether official or unofficial, obviously from time to time has some influence over policy, but I never doubted that the beginning of every major policy shift, whether good, bad, or indifferent has its roots in the great campaign for electoral support that this Parliament represents. I suppose in many cases members here have some misgivings about having put aside earlier career choices, but in my case perhaps it represents an extreme example of the cliché: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

It is true that in the distant past I started on the left, as a student activist. As somebody who enjoys a paradox—I may not be the only person in this room—I rather enjoyed that part of the National Party application form that asks: “Have you ever held any previous office?” The only thing I could think of saying was that I had once been president of the Victoria University socialist society. This was, I should emphasise, before I came across Oscar Wilde’s observation that the essential problem with socialism is that it does not leave the evenings free.

In my mid-twenties I moved away from those views. I began to embrace a view of politics that does not deny the importance of social change—provided it is examined critically and not adopted like some transitory fashion item—and seeks to put the primary, not the sole, emphasis for individual social and economic outcomes on the individual, and not transfer that responsibility to the State. So I got my waka-jumping in early and since then I spent most of my professional career, before coming to this Parliament, on one theme—economic reform, both domestic and international. I believe, finally, that they are two sides of the same coin.

Let me start with some observations about the domestic side of the reform equation. There is no doubt that we have made tremendous progress in this country over the last two decades or so in wrenching our formal trade policy, our fiscal policy, and our micro-economic policy structures into the modern era. We have made great progress, and I celebrate that. But I am already less optimistic, having heard some of the contributions made in my brief time in Parliament, that the New Zealand public and the New Zealand electorate really have some understanding as to why in this country, for example, we have almost doubled the growth rate of our per capita income over the last 15 years, compared with the 20 years between 1970 and 1990, and why it is that we are today concerned about inflation rising over 3 percent, when 20 or more years ago in my youth we were worried about double-digit inflation. I am much less confident that that message has got through. Finally, I believe it does matter that societies work out correctly what went wrong in the past and why things have gone right in the more recent past—at what explains their relative successes and at what explains their relative failures.

The late Michael King said early on in his brilliant synthesis of New Zealand history that one of his reasons for writing that synthesis was “to identify the myths that have shaped New Zealand. Societies are conditioned not so much by events, as by group memories of events.” Allow me to illustrate the point I think Michael King was making, by deliberately taking a non - New Zealand example. I will take a French example—always popular with New Zealand audiences.

What does not work well in France is the job market. The general unemployment rate is about 10 percent. It has not fallen below 8 percent for 20 years. If members think that is bad, they should spare a thought for the youth. The youth unemployment rate in France is a tad under 25 percent, and there are regions of France where it is above 50 percent. The Prime Minister today rightly drew attention to the riots, or near-riots, now tearing urban and parts of provincial France apart. She did not talk about the causes of them, and the causes are certainly deeper than youth unemployment, but those riots are inexplicable without reference to the pervasive lack of jobs facing young French people.

Unfortunately for France, there is a vast appetite for the continuation of policies that entrench the problem. Draconian legislation exists to protect those jobs in existence. The 35-hour week is intended to share around what work is available. The minimum wage is set at a very high proportion of the median wage for production workers. Collectively, these and other policies—all introduced with the best of intentions—vastly complicate the task of the non - State sector to employ additional workers, particularly young and low-skilled workers.

Unfortunately, France is no exception to Michael King’s point about the potentially damaging nature of collective myths. The particular collective myth here is that all the real solutions to France’s sclerotic labour market are immediately labelled by the French political elite as “ultra-liberalism of the Anglo-Saxon type”—end of debate, end of discussion; we may have to wait another 20 years until the real problems are addressed.

I turn now to New Zealand. New Zealand, unquestionably, is performing at or a little better than the OECD average growth rate, but we are still below par in terms of productivity, as Dr Brash observed today. The reason why we are doing relatively better I think is obvious. It is because finally we did start to tackle economic fundamentals, and that is the message that needs to be repeated and repeated often. I believe that, in a democracy, if people believe that fundamental myths are responsible, it prepares the ground for bad solutions. It does not prepare the way for getting electoral support for sound policy frameworks that have given us a better future in this country. Misleading, and occasionally even malign, interpretations—I will not quote the obvious example I have in my mind—will mislead the public and provide the basis for complacency, and if they persist long enough, will lead, frankly, to political sclerosis of the type we saw in this country 25 to 30 years ago.

Let me turn to the other side of the reform agenda: the international side. Unquestionably, there are great opportunities emerging for New Zealand from, for want of a better word, the globalisation process now under way. There are great opportunities, and it is up to us to put up our hands and take those opportunities. None is more important than the Doha round agriculture negotiations, which I had the privilege of chairing until recently. As with the Uruguay round before it, these negotiations have the potential to add significant new opportunities to New Zealand, and to add significantly to our long-run potential growth rate.

Understandably, I am following the round with more interest than most, and with some pretty serious concern right now. Things look very difficult. Those difficulties will be at the centre of the APEC meetings this week. We can certainly expect a strong and standardised—one would almost say “boiler plate”—reaffirmation by APEC leaders of the absolute importance of concluding the round. And they should make that declaration, because the absence of such a declaration would send perverse signals to certain political markets right now and would be very damaging.

That in itself, however, will do nothing to fix the problem. To fix the problem we now need to identify some middle ground on market access that is consistent with the objectives of the negotiation. Sure, New Zealand is sitting comfortably and there are some others who have further ground to make up in that respect, but some serious discussion, I hope, will take place out of the public gaze, amongst the delegations, on putting something together in a few weeks’ time in Hong Kong, because this country has more at stake in this negotiation than anyone else. Wishful thinking will not suffice at this late stage in the negotiation. A bold political declaration is essential, for the reasons I discussed, but will not address the substance of the problem, at all. I hope that our delegation will engage in those serious discussions away from the public gaze so we can look forward in Hong Kong to getting at least some elements agreed to carry this negotiation forward.

I still believe—and I have always said this—it is highly likely that this negotiation will succeed. To some extent that is a straight extrapolation of the past. There have been eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations since 1947. They have all been incredibly difficult. The last three have all gone over time. All the original game plans had to be redrawn, and new road maps had to be prepared. But, finally, they all succeeded, and I suppose it is less likely that this will be the first to fail. I suppose it will follow that pattern, but it will require some very tough work. Mistakes are made in international negotiations, and I hope New Zealand will be behind those negotiations, urging a reality check at this late stage. There will, of course, be another round, although armchair technicians will say, as they did last time, that there will not be. But there will be, after the political wounds of the last negotiation have healed.

International negotiations are many things, but they are also very human affairs. It takes time to implement them. It takes time for these wounds to heal. A breathing space is sometimes required internationally. Perhaps, to return to the domestic side of the equation, a breathing space is inevitable domestically, too. If that in the future is how observers come to see the political history of this country, from 2000 until—well, who knows—perhaps the next election, then so be it. But there is a political agenda for carrying this forward. It will not change much. It will not vary in its substance; it will vary in its detail. It is an agenda that New Zealand will embrace when and if the New Zealand electorate collectively decides that, improved though our lot has been, this is not good enough—that this is not “as good as it gets”.

And that agenda is, unsurprisingly, an agenda about further tax reform—lower taxes for all taxpayers and companies, which will re-incentivise middle-income New Zealand. It is an agenda—and there is nothing surprising here—that will impose real disciplines on Government expenditure, instead of masking it behind manipulation of data against a rise in GDP. It is an agenda that asks some tough questions about the explosion of social welfare beneficiaries in this country over the last 30 years, while fully understanding that many of our folk need permanent support from these arrangements. And it is an agenda that prioritises excellence, not mediocrity, in our schools. It is an agenda about removing some of the more obvious and ridiculous impediments that stand in the way of our workforce, our companies, our farmers, and our people, building the next phase of wealth creation to build on the success. Finally, I believe that this just comes down to a question of confidence—a belief that New Zealanders have done it in the past and can do it in the future—and strategic leadership behind it.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) Link to this

Madam Assistant Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, Margaret Wilson, Clem Simich, yourself, and Ross Robertson, on the achievement of high office.

I would also like to congratulate my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Unfortunately, he cannot be here with us today because he has had to make a personal sacrifice and go to foreign shores, representing our country—a country we all love dearly. We all understand that that is a tough job, but somebody has to do it. He had to make the sacrifice, and when he was asked to step up to the plate, he did that proudly. We are very proud of him for that, and I think he will do a marvellous job.

Ribald and uncouth comment has been made about New Zealand First sitting on this side of the House—a side of the House that I am most comfortable with, I might say, because it is nice to be freed from the people who neither respect nor understand the way MMP works. One would hope they would get a handle on it. In fact, when I was involved with the National Party the collective wisdom of the day was—and I remember people like Tony Ryall, Nick Smith in his saner moments, and people like them, sitting in the seats of power in the National Party saying—that National needed to go into Opposition for a while. That was mainly because the people in the benches in front of those members were giving them a pain in the neck and they thought it was time they took over. They said that 3 years in Opposition would rejuvenate the outfit and get rid of a few people, and that they would then be back in power. Oh dear, how sad! Never mind, those days have gone.

The National Party is now entering its third term in Opposition. So help me, those members opposite could spend four terms in Opposition if all they can do is yell and act in an uncouth manner, as they have been doing since the beginning of this Parliament. It saddens me to see the party I was once a proud member of acting in that way. But I guess that the day I got out of that party and Tau Henare got in shows us where the job has got to since then.

Let me tell members about how I see this term, this Government, and this enhanced confidence and supply agreement that New Zealand First has with the Labour-led Government. It is OK for those members opposite to laugh at us and carry on, but that does not help senior citizens. The members who are laughing at us have not helped those people; New Zealand First has. We will gain for senior citizens a gold card, entitling them to receive subsidies or help in their old age, which National has talked about doing but has never done—and it is the same with Labour, I might say. But New Zealand First is making sure it happens.

JILL PETTIS (Labour) Link to this

I am very pleased to join the debate tonight. I wish all the new members well as they give their maiden speeches. A maiden speech is a very significant speech. We all remember how nervous we were when we gave ours, and I offer my best wishes to the new members who are giving their speeches.

Tonight I also ask members of the National Party who are giving their maiden speeches to please not rewrite history. History is recorded very well in New Zealand, in many forms. I am sure that a number of National MPs will talk about when they were members of the Labour Party, and will then go through the throes of saying that they learnt the error of their ways, etc., etc.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) Link to this

It is no wonder the good people of Whanganui had the sense to fling Jill Pettis out on her ear—and I welcome Chester Borrows to the House. I hear the Prime Minister has dispatched Jill Pettis from the chief whip’s position so she can win Whanganui back. Well, God help the poor people of Whanganui if they have to put up with “Paint Stripper” there for 3 years, knocking on their doors. I can firmly confirm that Chester Borrows will have the largest majority in Parliament come the election in 2008. As for her comments on provincial New Zealand, I am not sure whether she has caught up with the news, but National took 10 seats off Labour in the election. They came from provincial New Zealand, and they are not going back. It is no wonder that the only thing going back is Russell Fairbrother. He is going back to Napier, because he did the almost impossible: he lost the seat that Labour had held since 1951. Even Pānia did not believe that he would lose the seat of Napier. Even Pānia had Russell Fairbrother winning that one, but away he went.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I congratulate you on your reappointment along with Margaret Wilson, Clem Simich, and Ross Robinson.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) Link to this

When I heard the first speaker for the National Opposition, the Leader of the Opposition, lead off the debate this afternoon, in what was one of the “less-lustre” speeches I have heard even from that member, I thought the interjection from the leader of the Progressive Party was really spot on. He asked the member whether he had worked out why National had not won yet. I think the answer to that question is no, the National Party has not worked it out.

The concluding remarks from the member who has just resumed his seat, Mr Key, that New Zealand has missed out on a great Government is pretty much testimony, because there is still the view amongst National Party members that the normal resting position of this country is that they are in Government—that the default position is that they are in Government, and that the natural party of Government is the National Party. That party points to its very proud past to give evidence for that, and indeed it has a very proud past. But the National Parties that existed during the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s are not the National Party in front of us now. In that time there was New Zealand’s version of the post-war consensus, where we did not attack people for being different or for having different proclivities. Their ideas, religion, sexuality, or indeed ethnicity were embraced and deemed to be OK.

I have just come through an election in which my party happened to come home first, but I found that election a difficult one because I found some things about that election that were ugly. I did not like the idea of the word “mainstream” being a code for excluding and sidelining those people who are not white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants—and heterosexual. I did not like that. I did not like the idea that we could have an election campaign in this century in which the race card was played so repeatedly and with so obvious an attempt at sophistication—and so obvious failure.

I did not enjoy that, and I did not enjoy the subtext that went through emails and people’s speeches, or the most ugly subtext that came out in the pamphlets that were put out, we now know, by the Exclusive Brethren. How did we know? We knew because the Green Party outed those people.

Then we had the spectre of the then—and still—Leader of the Opposition saying: “I know nothing!”, like some sort of Sergeant Schultz. The deputy leader of the National Party said that he knew nothing, and the difference between those two utterances was that the first was not true and the second was true, because the Leader of the Opposition had not told the deputy leader of the National Party what the Leader of the Opposition knew. He did not tell his own deputy. Instead, we had a progressive unfolding of the truth as the Leader of the Opposition was put to the sword, day after day, by media that knew they were on to something—as indeed they were. [Interruption]