Parliamentary Debate

DEBATE--PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT

Hon. BILL ENGLISH (NZ National--Clutha-Southland): Today's Evening Post headline sets the tone for the Government for the year: ``Ministers face legal probe''. When have we ever seen a headline like that in a newspaper? Two Ministers face a legal probe for a couple of simple reasons. One reason is that Marian Hobbs told Wellington Central people that she was a Wellington Central resident, while she was claiming an allowance for being an out-of-town MP. Ms Bunkle had any number of houses, one of which appears not to have existed while she was claiming an allowance for living in it. There will be more to be disclosed about that. But that is the tone that has been set.

It has been added to by the duplicity of the Minister of Health, who duped TVNZ into running a hospital waiting-list story that she found out herself was wrong. She criticised the booking system for 3 or 4 years while she was in Opposition, and she has been the Minister for 14 months. If she understood the booking system, then she deliberately misled TVNZ and the public about waiting-list numbers. If she did not understand the booking system, then it proves what we know: that she is a lightweight Minister who cannot handle anything in her portfolio without getting the approval of the Prime Minister. She will make health a big political issue; she has started in the right way for that to occur.

That brings me to the Prime Minister and her venture into economics.

Hon. Max Bradford: What about the spin?

Hon. BILL ENGLISH: We will come to the spin. What we saw yesterday was a kind of thunderbird puppet imitation. We will not see a transformed economy; we will see an airbrushed economy. We saw the posters of the Prime Minister in the election campaign. They are almost unrecognisable now. Yesterday we saw the reality: a sullen, embattled Prime Minister turning up to talk about lots of things that she does not understand. The most important phrase in her speech to the House was that there will be a branding and marketing campaign--more spin. They spun the posters, and now they are going to try to spin the economy with a branding and marketing campaign.

The problem is that there is no substance to it. The Government keeps ending up with something that is quite different from what it says will happen. It said that it wanted to abolish poverty, and it has higher food-bank use than ever. It said that it wanted shorter hospital waiting lists so, instead of shortening them, it just made up a story that said they had been shortened. That is disgraceful behaviour from that Minister. The Government said that it wanted to get people off welfare, and it spent all its time building poverty traps to make sure that people cannot get off welfare. It said that it wanted better tertiary education--this is all part of the economic transformation--so it sent off Steve Maharey, ``Soup Kitchen Steve'', to read up his sociology 101 lectures to find out what he is meant to do with the tertiary system.

Hon. Max Bradford: Well, he's increased student loans.

Hon. BILL ENGLISH: He has increased student debt, that is for sure, when the Government said it wanted to reduce it.

The Government said that it wanted better industrial relations. What do we have? We have flying wedges of police on the waterfront. My colleague Mr Bradford said some pretty strong things last year during the debate on the Employment Relations Bill, but not even he could have imagined that by Christmas we would have flying wedges on the waterfront. The Government said that it wants to grow the export economy, but what do we have today? Government employees are about to strangle the meat industry, right in the middle of the best season that it has had in 10 years. What is the Government going to do about that? A lot of the members on Labour's back bench do not understand that the vets are the Government's employees; they are not the farmers' or the freezing works' employees but the Government's employees.

The Government says that it wants to talk to business, but it despises business values. I want to warn the business people of New Zealand to be wary. A Government that has Ministers who face legal probes for their electoral behaviour and who can make up stories about hospital waiting lists is a Government that is using business people as extras in a little theatrical role for the thunderbird puppet who has discovered the economy. I want to tell business people and organisations like Local Government New Zealand to be wary.

Hon. Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. While the expression that has been used by the member is not original--I believe it has been used by David Lange regarding Lockwood Smith in the past--it was not used in the House, because it would have been ruled out of order. One does not refer to members in the way that the member has just done. One is not allowed to refer to any member as a puppet of any sort.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): There are many grey areas concerning words, and a lot of it has to do with the context in which they are used. On this occasion I rather think that it was a matter of vigorous debate. I have certainly heard the term used at other times in this House. The member may be right, and the term may well have been ruled out at other times, but on this occasion I will rule that it is a matter of vigorous debate.

Hon. BILL ENGLISH: The Government said that it wanted innovation, and one of its first actions as a Government was to punish innovators. It said that it wanted growth, and there is no group of politicians in New Zealand's history who hate profit more than that group; I have never heard the word pass their lips. It is a Government that is concerned about spin, and its whole approach to the economy will be about that.

I will advise the Prime Minister of a few realities. I saw the line in her speech that said that the Government was going to change New Zealand from being a country living on Third World commodities. Was that a reference to the meat and milk industries that are currently driving this economy? Is that what it was? Surely not! Surely those members are not taking credit for an economic recovery that is built on the increased returns for meat and milk. The Prime Minister does not know that; she does not know that that is what is driving this economy.

I will tell her about another reality. Most of the people who voted for her Government are worse off than they were 12 months ago. What is more, the Government has been conspiring with the trade union movement to make sure that those people are worse off--because if there is a devaluation and wage inflation, the economy will get into real trouble. Government members have to release material to me about that conspiracy with the unions in the next couple of days, under the Official Information Act. They have told me that there is a lot of material about communications between various Ministers and the Council of Trade Unions, but Trevor Mallard has told me that he has not communicated with the unions, at all. I will raise that matter with the Ombudsman, because I do not believe Trevor Mallard. So the second reality is that most people--most working families and most of the poorest people-- are worse off than they were 12 months ago. The income-related rentals for low-income State house tenants only apply to 50,000 or 60,000 of our 200,000 beneficiaries.

So when the Prime Minister talks about the economy, I think that we will see a branding and marketing campaign, the innovation chain, as if that is all there is to it. Those things are important. But basic things, such as people's incomes and an understanding of what drives this economy, do matter. What happened to the Prime Minister's inspiring talk 12 months ago about nation building, about closing the gaps?

Hon. Trevor Mallard: He's not a pollster.

Hon. BILL ENGLISH: He is not? Then why did she take his advice? That is why members of the Government caucus were looking so unhappy when they came into the House yesterday. The Prime Minister has shamed the Maori caucus by playing to the middle-class gallery in New Zealand, by being seen to kick the Maori caucus around. That is real leadership, is it not? This is a Government that is perfecting the art of spinning. Those of us who are in the Opposition will not let the economic debate be dominated by a marketing and branding campaign.

The other reason that the Government's caucus is unhappy is that its members cannot resolve the issue of the ``People's Bank''--the back-benchers finding out about it. Peter Harris, Dr Cullen's adviser on economics, is a director of the Public Service Investment Society. The Public Service Investment Society has all the features that are proposed for the ``People's Bank'', with 130,000 customers, cheap fees, and branches in suburban areas. Peter Harris is totally opposed to the ``People's Bank''. The independent report on the ``People's Bank'' was done by Cameron and Company, which has had PostBank as one of its clients for most of the last decade. The Government caucus is very unhappy about the ``People's Bank'', and about Maori issues. Spin on the economy will not defeat that kind of duplicity.