General Debate

Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Earlier this year John Key predicted that by this stage of the year New Zealand would be coming strongly out of recession. I am very pleased that the world is coming out of recession, but, so far, ordinary hard-working New Zealanders are seeing no benefit from that. In fact, New Zealanders on the average or below-average wage are finding that things are getting worse, not better. This is a Government that looks after the privileged, not ordinary hard-working New Zealanders.

Recently I attended a rally of low-paid workers. They are the decent folk who keep our hospitals going: the orderlies, the cleaners, and the people who work in the kitchen. They are the people who care for the disabled and the elderly. Those folk are on $13 to $14 an hour, but they have been offered by this Government a zero wage increase. A zero wage increase is not a pay freeze; it is a pay cut. Their power prices are going up, the cost of their groceries is going up, and their rents have gone up. They were finding it hard to make ends meet before; now, they simply cannot make ends meet.

This year rent payments, according to Statistics New Zealand, have gone up by more than 8 percent. A zero wage increase and an 8 percent increase in the average person’s rent are driving many New Zealanders into poverty. Last week we saw the figures from the Southern Cross health survey. What did those figures tell us? They told us that the figures relating to New Zealanders who simply cannot afford to go to the doctor have gone up by 8 percent. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders, under this Government’s Minister of Health, cannot afford to go to the doctor when they are ill. Doctors’ fees have gone up by 6.5 percent. I say to Mr Ryall that that is false economy, because those people who cannot get treatment when they need it will end up getting more seriously ill, at huge personal cost to themselves but also at a cost to the health system.

We have seen power prices go up. Today we had the announcement of the new restructuring of the electricity market. But nothing in that restructuring will help ordinary people struggling to meet their power bills. Sitting next to the Minister of Energy and Resources is the Minister for State Owned Enterprises who got $300 million in dividends out of those power companies this year, and said that he wants more; he wants more.

Bill English, the Minister of Finance, told these low-income people that they will have a pay freeze for 5 years. A pay freeze of 5 years drives people into poverty, and for the Minister of Finance to announce the pay freeze from the high moral ground of doubling his housing allowance to $47,000—more money than most of these workers get in a full year—is actually a lack of moral authority. That is why he is not taken seriously. Mr Hide, who supports this, can take his girlfriend to Hawaii or Disneyland, but what about the average family who is finding it impossible to make ends meet? Mr Harawira can do the same; he went to Paris.

This is a Government that has no standards, but expects to put the full weight of recession on ordinary hard-working New Zealanders who are finding it toughest at the bottom. These are the people who did not get the tax cuts that were forced through Parliament this time last year; these are the people who will be paying the costs in the cuts to accident compensation, and the other things that the Government is doing to New Zealanders. This is a Government that has no concept of what it is like to be on the average wage and to struggle to make ends meet. This is a Government that has no concept of fairness.

Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) Link to this

That speech from the Leader of the Opposition can lead us only to diagnose him with RDS—relevance deprivation syndrome. Relevance deprivation syndrome is how Gareth Evans once described going out of Government, and that speech shows how irrelevant Mr Goff and his failed party opposite has become.

I understand the situation they find themselves in. I remember going into Opposition after 9 years in power and it is true that one goes through the seven stages of grief. First up, there is shock and denial as one reacts to learning of the loss in numbed disbelief: “You … deny the reality”, and “Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once.” That is what it is like. During 9 years in office the media and the left-wing rags were telling them that they were completely impenetrable, and that they were the best Government New Zealand had had, so of course it is now shock and denial.

The second stage is pain and guilt: “As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain … You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn’t do”.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) Link to this

The previous speaker, the Hon Tony Ryall, has seven stages of grief. The first one is when he remembers the days when it cost 50 bucks to go to the doctor, not 10 bucks. The second is when he remembers it cost 15 bucks for a prescription, not three bucks. Then he remembers the world before decent primary health care or when we still promoted healthy food in schools. He is really enjoying this, is he not! He is really enjoying a fight; he loves a good scrap. What a resolute spokesperson for the Government the Hon Tony Ryall really is! Is that really the best that this tired Government could put up? Let me remind that member of a couple of other things. I remember when the Ministry of Health staff actually turned up and enjoyed their work, and when the ministry believed in the direction of Government policy—before it was gutted and put out to scrap because of the ego of that man, who is not prepared to stand and get his medicine back. Those are the seven stages of grief. If Mr Ryall wants to argue about it, he should come back and face the music.

Ordinary Kiwis are facing the music this Christmas. This Christmas they are faced with rising costs, at a time when their wages are frozen and Bill English is doing the double-talk. He is telling them the world is in recovery, but that they cannot be part of it. He is telling them that the previous Government lavished expenditure on them and they had it too good, which is why they cannot have it now. The problem that Bill English has is that nobody trusts him any more. People do not trust his personal judgment, they do not trust him not to get his wires crossed when his own interests are at stake, and they distrust him even more, after today, to correctly quote Treasury’s figures. Manipulating Government expenditure numbers is about as bad as it gets for a Minister of Finance. Apparently Bill English cannot tell the difference between nominal numbers and real numbers. He is so fixated on Labour that when describing the previous Government’s expenditure, he included his own last Budget. Talk about integrity! He cannot tell the difference between his own Budget and ours. The reason for that is that the only Budget that did anything for ordinary New Zealanders in the recession was ours. It was Budget 2008. That Minister ought to be very grateful that the so-called rough edges were taken off the recession because people had a Government that cared, only 18 months ago.

But it is all downhill for Kiwis now, because the stalking horse of the 2025 Taskforce has been revealed for what it was. It was not a serious attempt at policy. Oh, no! Mr Key saw to it that before the report was even released, it was dissed to the media. It was just like what happened regarding Mr Hide’s trip to Hawaii. A little phone call from the ninth floor to the press gallery put paid to that one. This country is faced with a Budget in 2010 that might actually start to line up National’s actions with its intentions, and that might actually start to claw into the basics that New Zealanders have had to get by on during this terrible recession. The Government cannot have it both ways: it cannot be both popular and decisive.

We all know that the only decisions that National is prepared to make are the wrong ones: the decision that says the answer to a recession is to make cuts, or the way to give New Zealanders a future is to take away their educational opportunities, or the way to have healthy kids is to take away healthy food in schools. I say: “Mr Ryall, come back; your country needs you!”. The Government cannot have it both ways. It cannot be a kinder, gentler, “Labour-lite” National Government and deliver what New Zealanders want, and also give New Zealanders a clear plan, because it is obvious that the only idea of a plan is one that Don Brash serves up to the Government. Why is it that when the Government ship is becalmed in the sea of ideas, the word goes out to the denizens of the old right—the Murray Horns, the Graham Scotts, and the Don Brashes—and the sign goes up, saying “Help, we need an idea.”? But when the idea comes in, the National members say: “Ah, that wasn’t exactly the one we wanted to try to sell. We wanted a new idea.” Well, I say so do New Zealanders, as they are at home worrying about this Christmas.

Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Defence) Link to this

Seven years in the wilderness is what that crowd opposite is facing. For the biblically inclined, it will be a time of tribulation. We could ask whether Mr Goff can survive such a trial. Mr Goff already knows what that is like. He saw it in 1990 through to 1999 and, I have to say, National saw it from 1999 through to 2008. We know that things happen in 7 years. Leaders become desperate. They make what they believe to be epoch-making speeches. They fend off challenges—or not. They demand loyalty. They deal with whispering campaigns.

We have all seen this in just the last week. It did not take 7 years, actually. It took 1 week. I am not surprised that Mr Goff is somewhat grey-haired now; the flush of youth is truly gone from him. Let us look at the so-called nationhood speech that he made. How did it start? “New Zealand is at a cross-roads”, and there was some kind of divisive approach—one pathway, another pathway. So why does this speech include words like “festering wounds”, “dividing New Zealanders”, “set one against another”, and “ ‘pork bone’ politics”?

Mr Goff knows full well the importance of language. He knows that those words will set people against one another. He knows that people will react adversely. So it was not surprising, was it, that Andrew Little, the president of the Labour Party, said on Monday that he had personal concerns. I have to ask whether he was speaking personally or speaking for other members of his party. I notice, for instance, that Mr Shane Jones did not applaud his leader’s speech today. Actually, he was virtually the only one who did not.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) Link to this

People all around the country are asking what the plan is from the Government. Well, we have just seen that the Government does not have a plan, but it does have a Mapp! That is about as close as it will get to having a plan. The member who has just resumed his seat, Wayne Mapp, once held the lofty title of “PC Eradicator”. The “PC Eradicator” was going to sweep the country and eradicate the scourge of political correctness. Well, the only thing that was eradicated was his title. It was gone by lunchtime. Wayne Mapp did not have any credibility to start with, and that was why he got the job of PC eradicator.

There are 16 more sleeps until Christmas. I know that a lot of people in this House are looking forward to what is a very special time for many families. We will have time with our families without the pressure of work, have special food together, have special times to share, and perhaps if we have been very good—as I understand, Mr Speaker, you are reported to have been this year—we will even get some special gifts for Christmas. I hope that everyone in the House does have a wonderful time.

But I know that for a lot of New Zealanders this Christmas will not be a good time. For a lot of very hard-working, ordinary New Zealanders this Christmas will be very sad and very hard. What many of our New Zealand families face are increased costs and a decrease in income. People who are already on a low wage and are working really, really hard at their job have then been offered a 0 percent wage increase. When they face increased costs for petrol, electricity, and food, and for rent or mortgage repayments—everything that they have to take out of their pay packet every week—and they are offered a 0 percent wage increase by the Minister of Health and by the Minister of Finance, they really do wonder what they have done to deserve such a heartless Government.

This Government lacks any respect for people and the jobs that they do. It does not care about the fact that not just at this Christmas but throughout next year, as well, life will not get any better, but will get harder. A lot of New Zealanders face insecurity in their jobs. They are facing a 0 percent wage-increase offer, which is in fact a wage cut, and they are watching all the prices around them go up. For example, Māori and Pacific workers have seen their weekly earnings actually fall in the past year. It is not just that they have had a 0 percent wage increase; their average earnings have actually fallen over the last year. The average wage per week in June last year for a Māori family was $398, and now it is $392. For Pacific families, the average wage was $375 a week, and now it is $359. So they have already lost money.

In the South Island, the clerical workers who work in our hospitals, in our district health boards, have been offered a 0 percent wage increase. That is a wage cut. Those are front-line health workers. Those are the people who answer the phone, make the appointments, put away all the patient records, and make sure that the doctors and nurses can do their jobs properly. They are being told that the $14 an hour that they are paid is enough, and that it is tough for them if they have to face increased costs. We know, of course, that 2,000 people a week have lost their job. That is 2,000 jobs a week gone from the New Zealand economy over the last 12 months.

In circumstances like those, people would expect to have a Government, and particularly a Prime Minister, that cared. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was asked, in this House, about the predictions for unemployment—about his commitment to supporting New Zealanders to keep their jobs, and, for those who have already lost them, to get into a new job. I was just astonished at his answer. He was asked directly about unemployment, and the answer he gave my colleague Annette King was: “Why should there be no road rage on my cycleway? I think it is a good idea.” I am not sure what road rage on cycleways has to do with unemployment, but hard-working New Zealanders deserve better than that from the Prime Minister.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) Link to this

It is my pleasure to take a call in this general debate. As we are coming to the end of the year and building up to Christmas, many of us take some time out and take a breather, and start reflecting on the year we have had. We reflect on how good our year has been or how bad our year has been, and where we want to go in the future.

There were seven polls over this last year, which I want to reflect back on—just seven polls. The first poll I will reflect on was on 22 February this year. It was the One News Colmar Brunton poll. National was at 56 percent, Labour at 28 percent, Key at 51 percent, and Goff—who can guess what Goff was at?

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. I seldom agree with anything written by the New Zealand Herald’s conservative commentator Garth George, so I was astounded to find myself in full agreement with his column last week, in which he called Don Brash’s 2025 Taskforce report “economic and social bullshit”. He suggested that every copy should be recycled into toilet paper. I have the document here, if anyone would like to use it for that purpose; it cost us, as taxpayers, only $150,000. I also liked someone else’s description of the Brash “playgroup” spending their time photocopying old ACT policy leaflets and calling it a task force.

“Planet Brash” is a strange parallel universe, in which the reduction of the minimum wage to the same ratio as the average wage that prevailed in 1999—that is, to less than $11 an hour—will somehow increase New Zealanders’ wages to the level of Australian wages. On “Planet Brash” the sick, disabled, and mothers of young children are forced to work for the reduced minimum wage, and students are saddled with further debt through the reintroduction of interest on loans. On “Planet Brash” all businesses owned by central government that operate in markets where competition is actual or feasible are privatised. Well, that one worked really well for the railways and Air New Zealand, did it not? On “Planet Brash” water is not a public good; it is a tradable commodity to be hocked off, along with local government trading enterprises, to predatory big business. And the list goes on.

The report reads like a cut and paste from Sir Roger Douglas’ unfinished business—the dream of a few extremist neo-liberals who would have our economy heading rapidly in the direction of Iceland rather than Australia. Even the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have rubbished it, so why do they not just scrap the task force? The answer, of course, is that they have some particularly unpalatable policies of their own to deliver, and they need Brash’s far-right rantings out there in the public domain to make their own social and economic policies appear more moderate. That will help the country to accept their policies and to be quite comfortable and relaxed, as the Prime Minister often says, about more punitive approaches to beneficiaries.

Bill English hinted at some of these policies on Q+A last month, when he announced that National’s pre-election welfare policy, which read like “Brash-lite”, was back on the agenda now that the recession was easing. The jury is out on the question of whether the recession is really easing or whether we are just having a temporary respite from it, but, regardless of trends in economic growth, it is undeniable that the unemployment rate is continuing to rise. Figures released by the Ministry of Social Development this week state that 57,000 more people have been relying on the unemployment benefit since November 2008.

So where will they come from, the jobs that Bill English and Paula Bennett want to force upon invalids and sickness beneficiaries who are assessed as having some capacity for work? And where are the flexible working environments for single parents whose youngest children are aged over 6? These people will be among the most disadvantaged in the labour market: people with mental and/or physical impairments, and people with childcare responsibilities. There will be no jobs for many of them to go to, and Work and Income’s persistent efforts to force them to find work will, in the current job climate, be tantamount to harassment. Pushing more people into the labour market, especially people who will be significantly disadvantaged in it, will have the exactly opposite effect to the purported objective of the task force; it will drive wages down.

Ten days ago I spent a day outside Work and Income’s Rotorua office, and I met literally hundreds of poor, disabled, and mainly Māori whānau who were on benefits and were utterly disheartened by the approach of some case managers to their poverty and their need. They did not even want to walk in the door any more, and that was even before we had any more bright ideas from Don Brash, Bill English, or Paula Bennett. Those people were totally disheartened by being disrespected when they went in to try to get a $20 food grant.

So “Happy Christmas” to the poor and hungry of this country. The food bank is empty and “Scrooge McBrash” is creating a smokescreen for the more subtle methods of keeping the Christmas stocking empty for the apparently undeserving poor. There will be no Christmas bonus for them, but $150,000 of their money—and I include beneficiaries because they pay taxes through their benefits—has been spent on this sad sideshow while people go without food and children go without shoes. They are going without power and fuel.

AARON GILMORE (National) Link to this

The Labour Party leadership at the moment reminds me a little of that old show Dad’s Army, with Phil Goff running around like Captain Mainwaring, saying: “Don’t panic, don’t panic! Everybody has undying loyalty towards me.” We can almost hear the sucking sound of the votes and the money disappearing from the Labour Party as a result.

Meanwhile, the Labour caucus is in fairyland, as in that old fairy tale Snow White. We all remember the tale. There was a wicked stepmother. In this case it is Mr Cunliffe, who stands in front of his magic mirror, saying: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”. What does the mirror say? It says: “It is you, Mr Cunliffe, for you are the prince and the future of the party.” Mr Cunliffe smiles, and he sits there with his seven secret dwarfs and his secret illuminati of Dyson, Cosgrove, and Parker, who, long ago, formed a secret pact. We all know who “Dopey”, “Grumpy”, and “Sleepy” are, obviously.

Meanwhile, we have Stuart “Mangrove” Nash, a starter for “Bashful” if ever I saw one. At least, that is what every female member of the Napier population tells me. Darren Hughes is known as “Happy”, simply because he knows Mr Cunliffe will get rid of Mr Mallard and give him the position of shadow Leader of the House, making sure he has the ability to do his job properly, in silence. Over to the left we have “Mr Sneezy Hipkins”, the man who loves Mr Cunliffe, as he wants him to keep his seat, but clearly Mr Goff does not want him to keep his seat. Mr Hipkins even put in his own personal blog that he would be surprised if the Labour Party ever caught the National Party in future. Then there is “Mr Doc”, Grant Robertson, “Mr I Don’t Worry About a Thing Robertson”, who said: “I know how to do a coup because Helen Clark taught me, but I do suffer a bit from premature excitement and I’m not very good at attending barbeques, but can I be in the team anyway?”.

What a collection of misshapen, misguided, and mistaken individuals. But “Hi ho, hi ho, it is off to caucus they go.” Every week they are knocked into shape, and they tell Mr Goff not to worry because they are behind him—almost 100 percent, sharpening their axes. Meanwhile, like a forlorn lost child in the woods, a little man waits, and only yesterday Mr Cunliffe stood up, after Mr Nash had brought him the mirror, and said: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”. What did the mirror say? “You, Mr Cunliffe, are truly fair, but there is another star rising in the north over there.” Mr Cunliffe screamed “Who’s that?”, like a jilted lover, at the mirror.

“It is Shane Jones.”, whispered the mirror. Yes, it is my fellow front-row player on the Parliamentary Rugby Team, the Hon Shane Jones, the silver-tongued fox with the wit to match. It is just a shame that Labour has not worked that out yet and woken from its slumber. Labour does not recognise his massive talents. What a stroke of genius it was for Mr Jones to put forward the nationhood speech to get rid of the dark prince of the Labour Party and bring in the silver-tongued fox from the north. What wonderful genius that was!

On this side of the House we care about what is important. We care about delivering the things people care about. That is why the people voted on 8 November last year for a John Key - led National Government. That is why today Labour is floundering and the people of New Zealand are flocking in droves to our side. Labour members are out of touch and out of reality. Soon Mr Goff will be out of a job and we can all live happily ever after.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. That last speaker, Aaron Gilmore, is the man who is known in his own party by the name “Shagger”, largely because it reflects an interest he has in the way that sheep sound. That speech sounded like it was delivered by someone prepared for the knacker’s yard. He did not have either the wit or the courage to stand and deliver that speech other than by rehearsing hour by hour, as he looked at John Hayes’ positive transformation and saw his own future. The beginning of that young man’s speech will be back to haunt him when he occupies the seat that will soon be left vacant by Mr Quinn when he leaves to try to fix up Māori rugby in 2011.

This is the year when a number of holes have been dug as we arrive at the end of 2009. Of course, the greatest hole of all was developed by the members of the Māori Party. They developed that hole not to prepare the hāngi but to bury Hone Harawira. But Hone Harawira is made of harder stuff. As they put in red-hot rocks, clay, alluvial soil, and peat, a hand reaching for Tariana’s throat came from below. That is the first hole.

National took a little lesson from a knighted former finance Minister as to how to escape from a hole, because from the crypt has come Dr Brash. Dr Brash is in charge of one of three working groups: one on tax, one on capital markets, and Mr Brash’s group. The first thing that that party did to its own former leader was to move him to the side, because it had paid its paltry debt to the ACT Party in putting up a series of totally unworkable ideas; ideas that will not only reduce the worth and day-to-day living quality of average people but also take us on a giant leap backwards.

I come back to my relations in the Māori Party. That is the party that during the months of April and May said that to create a board to improve Māori representation in Auckland would be institutional racism. That is the group that said they did not want to be part of a tekoteko, which kind of means an emblem. What do we find just the other day? We find a media release from Dr Pita Sharples to the effect that an independent statutory board will promote issues of importance to the tangata whenua and Māori. Prior to that, he was saying that he agreed that such an initiative would represent crumbs at the second level, that it was a nonsense, and that the Māori Party had made it clear that it was not interested in being tonotono, in being people who are subservient to the top table—unwisely describing so candidly his own relationship with the Prime Minister. Why, after an entire year, is that party unable to provide anything of any substance to the Māori families that are being diminished and ripped off as the dominant party prepares to privatise the accident compensation scheme; to the Māori families that have definitely been marginalised by the sweetheart deal with the large, powerful, selfish iwi leaders as reflected in the recent tawdry deal? Nothing has been put forward by that party.

I will tell members something that is very, very disappointing about Dr Pita Sharples’ representation model. We have to move away from that party and its cosy relationship with a tiny, self-elected group of iwi leaders who believe they speak for all Māori. They have a mandate to speak for all Māori, yet they refuse to. They continue to trot out excuses and very, very tired arguments that reward only the corporate elite. That is not a Māori affairs policy. That is not a strategy to lift those members of our society who are in vulnerable circumstances. I will tell members something else: the model that the party is promoting is the model it had to accept, because Mr Key, as a consequence of giving it a sovereignty flag, has required it to buy into everything else he wants. So this has been a year of trinkets and trophies for that party, but no substance. It will be a sad reflection that a party that came in with an enormous amount of talent—and I do not mind saying that—has failed miserably.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

Six:two! It has been a rough ride to the end of the year for lawyers in Manukau. A fortnight ago Dame Margaret Bazley released a damning review alleging that the justice system had been undermined by more than 200 corrupt lawyers who were gaming the legal aid system. The breaking news revelation was that Dame Margaret revealed that she had been told that up to 80 percent of lawyers at the Manukau District Court were in this category. Since then, all hell has broken loose. Seventeen Manukau-based lawyers penned a letter to the New Zealand Herald and to the Minister of Justice, Simon Power. Four members of the Legal Services Agency resigned, and yesterday we learnt that its chief executive, Tim Bannatyne, had lost his job in the ongoing haemorrhaging of the legal aid system.

The Māori Party welcomed the opportunity to look critically at the legal aid system to ensure that it is of the highest quality and that it is being accessed by those who need it most, in a way that is cost-effective and sustainable. But we take seriously the challenge of John Marshall, the president of the New Zealand Law Society, that we must work together to ensure that the hard-earned reputations of lawyers for honesty and integrity are not scarred by the aftermath of such a critical review. The Law Society is concerned that some of the more inflammatory findings—including those for Manukau—are based on anecdotal evidence rather than on factual information, so the society is encouraging lawyers to notify it about any unacceptable practices, to lay a complaint, and to provide a confidential report. I commend the courage and commitment of legal practitioners to work quickly to respond to the claims and to do all that they can to restore confidence in the wider legal system.

This is a pivotal time for the legal profession as a whole to demonstrate what I know to be true: that the great majority of legal aid lawyers are people of the highest integrity and the utmost dedication. It is time also to gather around those working in the Manukau court, to provide the support they need to provide the highest standard of service to their clients. No one could fail to be moved by the accounts of the 17 lawyers as they described the stress of the lives lived by their clients: the chaos of lives affected by drug and alcohol addiction, by poverty and violence, and by issues with communication. It makes for even more compassion when we hear the stories of what Dame Margaret experienced at courts, including accounts of small children spending hours in crowded reception areas waiting for their parents to appear before the courts. We must do all that we can to support the people of Manukau and the lawyers who serve them, to achieve the balance needed to ensure speedy and quality access to justice.

Finally, I have to air my heartfelt fear that I would be concerned if out of this whole episode legal aid is restricted to civil cases and criminal legal aid is thrown out. I have a longstanding passion for the vital difference that criminal legal aid can make. Back in 1973 my father, John Hippolite, and Dr Oliver Sutherland provided a paper, Justice and Race: A Monocultural System in a Multicultural Society. The paper revealed that official statistics about interpersonal violence and ethnicity may often be biased as a result of the social and legal processes by which individuals come to official attention. This was ground-breaking analysis—one of the first reports that dared to suggest that Māori offenders are more likely to be detected and classified as offenders in our justice system. It came from a time when dad was chair of the Nelson Māori Committee and Dr Sutherland was secretary of the Nelson Race Relations Action Group. They were concerned about the numbers of young Māori appearing before the court and being sent to borstal without ever having the benefit of legal representation.

That report informed policy on issues of racism in the court system, and it established the very first system of criminal legal aid. We must not walk away from that legacy—a legacy that reminds all New Zealanders that even the most vulnerable of our citizens deserve the justice of having their day in court. Kia ora.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this

Yesterday we saw another great idea for a Tūī billboard ad. Outside the Labour Party caucus room, Phil Goff told the media in relation to his nationhood speech that it was not a Don Brash speech as “I’ve never believed in doing that sort of thing.”—yeah, right!

But what I really want to know is who the genius in the Labour Party was who, after Labour had elected a unionist as party president who brought in several new MPs who had been unionists, shoring up the left, suddenly said: “I know what we should do. Let’s go after the right-wing vote. Let’s have a crack at the tub-thumping race relations issue in this country.”, never mind that it hugely upset its own caucus, never mind that it upset its own party membership, and never mind that it drove the last nail in the coffin of Labour’s relationship with the Māori Party, which Labour would surely need if it ever wanted to resume the Treasury benches. Even when Labour members were going into caucus yesterday we could see the stony-faced looks on the faces of Mr Goff’s colleagues. They were ready to give him a bit of a serve. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting.

But how is this for equivocal support? Labour’s own president, Andrew Little, told the New Zealand Herald he had “personal concerns” about the speech, and said that the speech had received a mixed response from the party’s rank and file. But I guess that sort of speech is pretty understandable from a leader whose own party is polling only around 30 percent, whose own support hovers above the margin of error but only just, and whose party has no credible policies.

In fact, if we really want proof that Labour does not have any credible policies at the moment, we need only to go on to its website and click on “Labour Policy”. It will come up with the Labour Party’s 2008 manifesto, the same manifesto that the electorate rejected when it threw Labour out of office last year. So what has Labour said about policies? On the foreshore and seabed, it said that the caucus had agreed to a new position this year, then Mr Goff declared in his speech last week that the present law was working well and should not be repealed. Let us talk about monetary policy. A 20-year monetary policy consensus was thrown out on the hoof. In relation to benefits for millionaires, Labour says “Oh, we do support benefits for millionaires but we don’t support benefits for millionaires.” I am not quite sure which one it is.

It will make barbecue season pretty interesting this year. As well as Labour members sitting under a tree at a barbecue, thinking up which Kenny Rogers song to trash at the next Labour Party conference, and reading the Sarah Palin autobiography, they might just be thinking “Hmm, when shall I make my move? If I don’t make my move now, someone else might.” And who might those aspirants be? I think, straight off the hoof, there might be seven. Might Annette King, in her reflections over summer, regret her public statements that she does not aspire to be leader? She will be thinking “Hell, I can do a better job than this guy.” In fact, she even said: “It wasn’t like ‘The King is dead, long live the King.’ It was slower than that. You know the King is dead but the Prince isn’t quite ready yet.”

Shane Jones must really be grappling with the nationhood speech. He is publicly supportive of Mr Goff and of his calling the emissions trading scheme deal with Māori cynical, but he knows that his Government did exactly the same deal with exactly the same five iwi, giving them additional benefits because of what they said were “unforeseen circumstances” in Labour’s emissions trading scheme. He knows that Labour’s relationship with the Māori Party is in tatters. Maybe he is thinking it is time to step up, to take the reins, and to heal those wounds as soon as possible. [Interruption] Labour members are moaning, but deep down they secretly want to be mentioned in this call.

David Parker has not been an obvious candidate, but after the Trans Tasman newsletter gave him a comparably high rating, calling him a high achiever, maybe he will be sitting under the tree, sipping his Central Otago pinot noir, and thinking “Gosh, I might have the right stuff after all.” But it is a left of left caucus, so maybe former party president and long-serving MP Ruth Dyson is thinking about whether she has the numbers to take the party back to its spiritual base. What about Trevor Mallard? Trevor Mallard has been a very good shadow leader this year, which is a pretty good achievement given that he is not the shadow leader. Or it might be a bolter. It might be one of the Clark clones like Grant Robertson, or should he be using the barbecue season to sidle up to the people who are likely to be leadership aspirants and asking to be their deputy? But are Messrs Ryall and Gilmore right that the frontrunner is in fact aspirant No. 7, David Cunliffe? He knows that timing is everything in politics.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) Link to this

Kiwi families are doing it hard this Christmas season. Unemployment is up, rents are up, and prices are up. But what do we hear from this National-ACT Government? With 16 days to go before Christmas, Kiwi families are still waiting for a sign that this Government cares about the recession and has some ideas about what to do about it.

In question time today we heard the Minister of Local Government reveal that this Government is stripping away—systematically stripping away—the protections against the privatisation of our local body assets. That is what this Government cares about. When it could actually be making a difference to Kiwi families, when it could be caring about jobs, what is it doing? It is pursuing a sneaky agenda to pave the way for our assets to be flogged off. The Ports of Auckland is worth $500 million, and what is this National Government doing? It is paving the way for the Ports of Auckland to be flogged off to its mates.

Why is that a bad idea? Why do Aucklanders care about the Ports of Auckland, and why do they not want it to be flogged off by this National Government? Let me tell members why. There are three good reasons. The Ports of Auckland is a natural monopoly. If we privatise the Ports of Auckland, we are almost certainly handing it over to foreign ownership and to rent seeking and price gouging.

The second reason is the need for port rationalisation. The country is crying out for the Tauranga and Auckland ports to be rationalised. If members opposite insist on setting up those ports for privatisation, they will never be rationalised. Thirdly, Aucklanders are waiting and waiting for the Ports of Auckland to be developed and opened up for public access. If members opposite insist on opening them up to privatisation, they will never ever be developed for public access and in the public interest. The red gates on the Port of Auckland will be slammed shut forever. That is why 78 percent of Aucklanders are opposed to the privatisation of the Ports of Auckland.

But here is the lie behind this entire debate. All year National MPs and Ministers have been saying that there is no privatisation agenda, yet what do we see? We see water infrastructure being opened up for private ownership for periods of up to 35 years. We see section 88 of the Local Government Act 2002 about to get the axe. That is the section that requires councils to consult the public before the contracting out of public services to the private sector. Now, we see that the protections for the Ports of Auckland are about to be thrown overboard by this National-ACT Government.

Here is the lie. Members on that side of the House are too gutless—too gutless—