2. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this
to the Prime Minister
Does he stand by all his recent statements on unemployment?
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) Link to this
Yes, and I would like to add one more statement. Should I take from the fact that there is no question from Phil Goff today that he has joined the ranks of the unemployed?
Hon Trevor Mallard
Mr SPEAKERA member has just accused me of not being even-handed. I did not object when members of the Opposition were hurling absolutely insulting interjections across the House during the last question. If I am to be even-handed, I have to allow a little bit of “What is good for the goose is good for the gander.” I am very happy to clamp down on all of it, if that is what honourable members would like, but I want the House to live and breathe a bit.
What did he mean when he said yesterday “Treasury’s prediction for all of 2009 was that unemployment would rise, … that is not the advice we had from Treasury.”, and what is the difference between Treasury’s predictions and advice? Is there a difference; if so, what does he believe, Treasury’s advice or its predictions?
I have not referred to the quote from yesterday’s Hansard, but what I would have said is that there was an increase from Treasury each and every week for 2009. What has happened is that the trend has actually gone down for 9 weeks. Unemployment has fallen in this country because of the actions of this Government. The only people who are lamenting that are the miserable Labour members, who are very focused on unemployment at the moment.
Does he stand by his comments that Treasury cannot predict what the deficit will be in December, let alone anything that requires a longer time frame, and their predictions are wrong; if so, why is he staking his credibility on Treasury’s advice about unemployment, and why should New Zealanders believe the advice when the Prime Minister of this country calls Treasury’s predictions nonsense?
No, I do not stand by that statement, and the reason for that is that we are in December, and I reckon Treasury will probably get it right in the next 7 days.
Did the Minister for Social Development and Employment advise him that barely 3 hours after he admitted in Parliament that her unemployment benefit figures were “unreliable, highly volatile, and potentially misleading” she intended to put out a statement saying “Oops, I’m sorry. The number of people on the unemployment benefit is not actually going down, it is now on the way up again.”?
No, because the Minister for Social Development and Employment has been pointing out to Cabinet for the last 9 weeks in a row that unemployment has been falling because of the actions of her department, and I just took the time to congratulate her on her great work.
Hon Gerry BrownleeDoes he agree with the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who said that young people thinking of hanging about on the dole can forget about it on her watch; if so, how come the number of young unemployed people has exploded by 14,000 on her watch, and, of those, 12,000 have been unemployed for a year? Can he not see that this Minister is all puff and no action?
My answer is to the Leader of the Opposition—sorry, no, it’s not. It is to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
Well, feel free to ask a question, I say to Phil Goff. I am here all afternoon. Anyway, my answer to that question is quite simple. What about the 2,100 people who have a job because of Job Ops? What about the 1,200 people who got a job because of Community Max? We live in the real world on this side of the House. In the real world we are in the middle of a global economic recession, and, relative to other countries, we are doing pretty well as a Government.