2 April 2008

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the third and final reading of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill. I must say there are a few things said by the previous speakers that I certainly agree with. One would be when the Greens said it has been a long 2 years. It certainly feels like it and it certainly feels like it for the residents of Waitakere and I am sure for the councils, and particularly Waitakere City Council, which sponsored the bill.

I stand up with a smile because this bill has been a true reflection of democracy in New Zealand. I think in some respects we should stand up and be quite proud that there has been, most certainly, robust discussion around it. There has certainly been debate. I would certainly say that the residents of Waitakere support the Waitakere Ranges, as does the National Party. I do not think there can be any question of that.

On the poll, just for one moment, when people were asked whether they supported protecting the ranges, the majority said yes. I say with a wry smile that I think if I had been called I would have said yes as well. But there is no doubt that 221 submissions on a local government bill means that there was a strong interest in this legislation in the local community. The community was split and it was split pretty much fifty-fifty.

The local community has been split about this. I have been pretty upfront and available and have spoken to those who, I believe, support this bill. I have had no hesitancy in going to meetings where I have known I would not be the most popular person because the majority at those meetings were in favour of the bill, and I have had no hesitancy in making sure that my office door was open and that I listened to those who were at times rather zealous and incredibly passionate about the issue.

What I think is a bit of shame is that there has not been quite that feeling of openness and transparency from those who support the bill. In fact, we have just heard a speech—just before mine—that tries to paint the people who oppose this bill as being “devil developers” who want to cut up the ranges into a thousand pieces and see houses galore in a tight-fitting subdivision. That is grossly unfair because it is so far from the truth. If we ask around the residents who live in Waitakere, we will find that no one wants to see that sort of tight-fitting subdivision within the Waitakere Ranges and foothills. Certainly, that is the answer we got when we talked about protection. So I do not think there is any question as to whether the debate was about a tight-fitting subdivision by those “devil developers”. Unfortunately, that is how the debate progressed.

I want to pick up on a few things, which some of my colleagues have already mentioned. One has to be the fact that landowners are not necessarily the enemy. They are not the ones who barged in and cut down all the trees and turned this into a high residential area. In fact, it is the opposite. In fact, the people and the landowners in Waitakere have restored and rejuvenated the area. They are passionate about it, and they need that opportunity. I think that to paint National members as the big baddies who want to carve it all up may fit the agenda of some people, but the reality is we do not believe that this legislation will achieve its intention, and we have been consistent in that view.

We believe that this legislation is unnecessary and will potentially create huge litigation costs for ratepayers—and it should be done throughout the nation if we see cumulative effects as being vitally important. I for one do not stand here and negatively go against those who have put forward this bill and are supporting it. I think the intention has been genuine, and I think the desired outcome is actually quite good. But will this bill do it and will it be any good for Waitakere? My answer is absolutely and categorically no. In the Local Government and Environment Committee we were not at any time assured that this bill would fulfil its purpose. I have heard that 25,000 people—that is the latest count—live in the area and will be affected. To say they are not affected is to ask why we need the bill. It is a simple as that.

There are other ways to get the desired results of this bill, and it is through the Resource Management Act and a local district plan. Let us let a district plan do what it should do and plan how a district should be. This bill will not improve the quality of environmental management. It will simply add to the bureaucracy of existing plans and laws.

I commend the members of the select committee who worked on this bill. What we see today is certainly not what we saw when the bill was first introduced. There will be so many people—well, not so many; I do not believe that many people actually listen to these debates—who will find it quite hard to believe that at the select committee, even on a bill this contentious, we saw cross-party support to work our way through it. We may certainly have come at it from different angles, and we certainly had different beliefs and wanted different outcomes, but as the bill was to become law, we had a desire to make this legislation as workable as possible for Waitakere residents.

I want to touch on the potential for New Zealand. Let us have no disbelief that we have opened a can of worms that means that legislation like this can now come throughout the country. I want to pick up on what the Hon Peter Dunne said. He said that no one can deny the Waitakere area its natural beauty. I look at clause 8, and note one of the heritage features must be “natural scenic beauty”. I challenge members in this Chamber to stand up and tell me of somewhere in New Zealand that does not have that. But I can say to my Waitakere colleagues and the residents who may be listening, that I do know of one place that does not have natural scenic beauty, and that would have to be the Glen Eden overbridge, but I will deal with that issue in another format, I think.

Chris Auchinvole: You’re probably right.

PAULA BENNETT: Yes—bring it on, ONTRACK! I want to talk about a couple of clauses. One, which was an improvement made by the select committee, means that the boundary of the heritage area can now be extended only by an Order in Council and has to be by way of a legislative amendment. That is certainly an improvement on the original provision. The features of the heritage area, which are mentioned in clause 8, are still, perhaps, of the most concern, certainly to us, because they are the most ambiguous and carry the highest risk of litigation. So the clause still seeks to “protect, restore, and enhance”. It still talks about the quietness and the darkness, but that sort of stuff is so open to interpretation. I cannot help but say to the Greens that a lot of their party members are involved in the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society, and I sincerely hope it does not cost the Greens some membership and thousands and thousands of dollars, to be debating in court what the quietness and the darkness of the ranges really means.

It is important that the bill at least categorically states that if there is a conflict, the Resource Management Act prevails. Thank goodness! But, then, why have the bill if it will not do something that the Resource Management Act does not do?

It is fine for people to make little comments. It has been a personal attack for me, quite frankly, the whole way through, and people can go on about how completely awful I am or where I live and the fact that I do not actually live in the foothills area but live instead in poor old Henderson, which gets the raw end of this deal more often that not. It was fine for Mr Cunliffe to sit there earlier and talk about how no new person has been employed. That is not true. Already the Waitakere City Council has advertised for someone to work on this bill.

I finish with a final plea, and that plea would be that we turn this regional park into a national park. Let us give it that highest protection, and let the foothills and the rest of the area covered by this bill actually be under the National Parks Act, the Resource Management Act, and the Local Government Act. If we had stuck with them instead of yet another piece of legislation and bureaucracy, the Waitakere residents would be getting a better result.

Ayes 61 New Zealand Labour 49; Green Party 6; M?ori Party 4; Progressive: 1; Independent: Field.

Noes 60 New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; ACT New Zealand 2; Independent: Copeland.

Posted by Staff in From the House, Speech at 14:54

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I stand to speak on the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, which is being promoted by the Waitakere City Council. First I will address the way in which the community has had to deal with this issue. Although differing opinions are a good thing, and it is good to come at things from different angles, there is absolutely no doubt that this bill has split the community to its detriment.

That is a fact. The member speaking previously, David Cunliffe, spoke about surveys being put out that show 81 percent support it, but we need to ask what question the people answered on that survey. Is there any doubt from members of the public living in Waitakere that they want to see those ranges protected? There is none. I have not yet met one person who does not want that protection. Certainly members of Parliament from this side of the Chamber can stand proudly and say they wish to see those ranges protected.

The preamble to this bill talks a lot about what those ranges mean not just to the Waitakere area but also to the wider Auckland area in general. Yes, for those of us who live there and look at the ranges, we do think they are jolly special. The National Party stands up and says that if we really think the ranges are as special as that, then we should protect them, and we should give them the highest protection in the land by turning them into a national park. There are no national parks north of Taup?, and if we are serious about seeing the Waitakere area truly protected, then there is no greater protection that we could give the ranges and the regional park than to turn the area into a national park. That is what the National Party puts on the table. It is not the first time we have said publicly that we think that idea should go to the New Zealand Conservation Authority and that it should be given due consideration.

But this bill affects all those people who live in the area. The population was 21,000 in 2005, I say to Mr Jones, although I think it is more than that now. I do not have an exact number at this stage, but I think we are talking about significantly more people than that. As a consequence, this bill is putting a caveat over those people’s land, and if it is not, then why do we have the bill? It is as simple as that. If this bill will not affect detrimentally what people can do with their own land, then why do we have the bill?

Let us put a few other facts on the table at this stage, as well. This area is not being carved up willy-nilly for town houses and medium-density housing, let alone high-density housing. This area already has very strict rules about what can happen and the way in which it can happen. There are already rules about the land within the heritage area affected by this bill. People cannot just build a house right next door, and they are restricted in what they can do with their property. Communities within the Waitakere Ranges have spent not just months but years working on their land area management plans. They have consulted, talked, and met, and they have been in consultation with the councils and have decided what is best for their area. And now we have legislation coming along that says doing all that is not enough. That is fundamentally wrong.

What can happen in the land affected by this bill at the moment—the land mass and the boundaries that we are talking about—is incredibly limited. There are families on 8 hectares who would like to build another home for their families. That is the sort of stuff we are talking about; it is not mass land development. We are not talking about subdivisions like Henderson Heights, where I live, and places like that where some of us choose to live. We are not talking about areas like that. In the argument on this bill over the years, we have managed to have hysteria around mass housing and subdivisions, and there has been talk about the land being unable to cope with those things, but that simply is not true.
We are talking about development in an area such as Pih?, for example.

I think I heard from the council just recently that something like only six sections are for sale now within the Pih? area. The development that can go on in an area like that is fairly limited. I would be one who would stand up to say that if we were to put any caveats on property, then perhaps that is the sort of area where we might do it. We might say that we do not want a lot more housing going into an area like that, purely because of the way the land is.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : There are a few points I want to get through on the preamble, and one we have much concern about really is the vagueness of the bill—the fact that it is open to interpretation—and it is the opinion of this side of the Committee that the only winners out of the whole bill will be lawyers. We will see more litigation, we will see lawyers in courts, and we will see them try to battle out this piece of legislation that, quite frankly, is not succinct and does not accomplish anything.

I would like to add that I think some good people in the community have gone into this with perhaps a good intention, and their intention, I think, has been to protect the very ranges and the heritage area that the bill lays out in the schedules. But, all good intentions aside, what we are dealing with in this Committee is the fact that the bill will be enacted legislation.

The concern on this side is that we actually believe it will be yet another layer of bureaucracy, and we will see lawyers having to interpret statements a little bit like “natural and dynamic character;”, clause 8(c)(i).

Hon Shane Jones: Give us examples.

PAULA BENNETT: Now that phrase may actually even explain the member who just interjected. We may speak about that very member and say he is natural, and of a dynamic character in some way or another, but do we define a piece of land that way? What does that mean? I think that in this Committee alone we could come up with 121 definitions from members of what “natural and dynamic character” actually means. Another example, which we could apply to that member, is “the quietness and darkness of the Waitakere Ranges”, in clause 8(e). So are we concerned about bird calls? Are we concerned about cars driving through the ranges on a scenic road and heading out to P?h??

Hon Member: Turn their lights out.

PAULA BENNETT: Should drivers turn their headlights off to protect the darkness of the ranges? Should we let only a certain cc rating of vehicle drive through the ranges so that we actually protect the quietness? As a westie, I could say there is the odd person who likes to hoon it up a little. So are we actually going to start restricting the cc rating of vehicles that can run—[Interruption]

For those who cannot hear them, I tell members that the Greens are speaking up now. I will be most interested to hear them speak on this bill, because during the bill’s first reading I must say that at least Nandor Tanczos said they had some very serious concerns about it. During the first reading they raised concerns about singling out one piece of land within New Zealand and asking why one particular place was being singled out for special attention in a bill, and they had real concerns about that practice being shared throughout the country. I think that concern is incredibly legitimate.

I will give just one more example, because I know that the member Shane Jones is excited about hearing one, and it is a quote from clause 8(i)(ii): “the distinctive harmony, pleasantness,”. So to reiterate, the types of things we could expect to hear in future court cases, and could expect to hear time and time again, will be the sorts of language around natural and dynamic character, the quietness and darkness of the ranges, and distinctive harmony and pleasantness. They are just three examples that are picked out quite easily from the bill, and that this side of the Committee has genuine concerns about. If we debated them quite openly I think members would find there would be many different meanings from many different people. How can a piece of legislation possibly hope to legislate for that sort of language?When we talk about the ranges, it is so easy to do the sort of “devil developers” and “eco-angels” labelling used during the submission process but, quite frankly, I think that that is a very naive way to try to define this argument. People on both sides have come from both sides of the argument. We certainly heard people in the submission process talking about the environment, the rehabilitation of the ranges and their natural resources, and the fact that people who live there and who have moved in during the last 50 or 60 years have done more in relation to the natural resources of the land than those who were there before. They are the ones who have replanted, they are the ones who have looked after the land, and they are the ones who have regenerated it.

That is something that the Greens should take into consideration. People are not always the enemy.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I stand to speak on the purpose of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill in our mind and the intention that members had when the bill was first introduced, and that of the Waitakere City Council in the long discussions we have had for more than 10 years in the community of Waitakere and west Auckland, as has been stated by members previously.

The purpose of the bill was certainly to protect the ranges. As has previously been stated, I do not think that anyone can deny that protecting the ranges is a favourable thing to do. No one in this Chamber would disagree with that, and National certainly would not, either.But we are not talking about just the ranges. We are not talking about just the area of the regional park, which, as we have stated, should be a national park, anyway. We should be looking at well and truly protecting that area and turning it into a national park. We are actually talking about the foothills, about private land, and about more than 21,000 people who live in that area. What will happen to those very people once this bill is introduced? Those are the questions these people have had for the last 10 years, and I do not think they will be answered when the bill is introduced.

Although the purpose of the bill may be admirable in many cases, it simply will not be achieved through this bill. The ranges and the foothills area will not be any more protected. What will happen is that there will be court case after court case, uncertainty, and language that, quite frankly, leaves everyone in doubt as to what it actually means. That will not help anyone. It will not help the supporters of the bill, quite frankly, and certainly it will not help those who oppose it. The purpose of the bill, although admirable in wanting to protect that area of New Zealand considered to be unique, beautiful, and the backdrop to Auckland City—which of course it is—will not do that.

We hear talk about development being the main reason for the introduction of the bill but if those members actually knew the area, they would know that local area plans are already in place to address development in the very area that this bill covers. There are already caveats that mean there can be no more than one or two houses on a 4-acre block, unless they are there already. So there are already arrangements in place now, because the people of New Zealand and the people of Waitakere love that land and do not want to see either medium or high-density housing up in the ranges, but they do not believe that this bill will help matters. Although the purpose of the legislation may be admirable, having legislation that is, quite frankly, too ambiguous to make sense of, is not the answer for those who seek to protect that area.

How should the area be protected then? We have the Resource Management Act. We have a city council that is elected every 3 years and goes out to the community with its vision for Waitakere City. Those very people who are on our local councils are selected when they go out every 3 years and talk about their vision for the city they wish to serve. They have the means and power to put in place that vision. They do it in consultation with the people and have been doing so for years. They should continue. We have a Resource Management Act that actually addresses these very issues that arise in this document. If there are problems with that Act, and people believe that it is not doing what it should be doing, then perhaps they should look at amending the Act.
Why should a member’s bill address only an issue in a small local area, when there are other ways to fix the problem?

No one would say there should be medium or high-density housing in that area. No one would say the land should be carved up for houses to be built on top of each other. But this bill will not prevent that, and that is what those members do not understand. Although the purpose clause may be admirable, in reality we will be in litigation time and time again because the purpose of the bill cannot be fulfilled through this legislation. Another layer of bureaucracy will not solve the problem that those members seem to think is there. If one looks at the boundaries and drives around the boundary for the heritage area, one will find—

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I rise to speak to Part 2. The first part of Part 2 talks about boundaries, and I will address those for a little while.

At the moment the boundaries do not take in just the ranges; I think that is really important for people to acknowledge. So the  title of the bill, which we will discuss in a lot more detail later, totally misrepresents what the bill is about. When members talk about the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, they actually mean the bill concerning the Waitakere Ranges and foothills. Those foothills are perhaps what is most at debate today, and they certainly are from my perspective.

We are talking about some of the villages within the Waitakere Ranges. I have to make a bit of a confession here in that I feel more sympathy for people living there than I do for those living in the foothills in other areas, because I see that the people in those villages are suffering from a bit of intensification and are trying to keep their landscape the same. I do not believe that this bill is the way to address those issues, but I can certainly acknowledge that people living in places like the beautiful Karekare, P?h?, and Bethells beaches are restricted because of the landscape. Those places really are little coastal villages tucked into a certain area; only so many houses can be fitted in and only a certain type of housing perhaps suits the area. We can better acknowledge that situation, but the bill quite simply will not help those people. What would help them is a council that acknowledges the constraints of that area, a Resource Management Act that works alongside those constraints, and local area plans that can address the issues.
But we are talking about huge areas of the foothills—which go into Titirangi, Glen Eden, Henderson, Swanson, Waitakere village, and up to Muriwai—when we are thinking about how this bill works, land-wise. If some of those areas were simply not included in the boundaries, then I think we would have seen a lot more support for this bill in the Committee. I think we would have been hearing more from the National Party about how we might have been able to find a compromise if the boundaries had not been so broad, and if they had not taken in what in so many respects are actually residential areas that we notice when we drive around them.

How do the heritage areas the bill talks about differ? Clause 8(2)(a)(i) in Part 2 talks about heritage features including “large continuous areas of primary and regenerating lowland …”. Why is that land regenerating? It is regenerating because the people there love the land and care for it, and they have put in the effort to bring it back to its absolute natural beauty. Let us not pretend that that area, over time, was not bogged down and destroyed. When there was milling and everything that went on over a hundred years ago, the ranges, in fact, were quite a sad place to look at, in many parts. People moved in. People are not the enemy; people love the land, look after the land, and have actually nurtured and regenerated it to the state it is now. It can only get better.

To “have intrinsic value:”, in clause 8(2)(a)(ii), is part of the heritage characteristics that are defined in this bill, as are to “provide a diversity of habitats for indigenous flora and fauna:”, in sub-paragraph (iii), and “to collect, store, and produce high quality water:”, in sub-paragraph (iv). The list goes on. The other challenge I put out, and something I would be interested to hear from the sponsor of the bill, is how that situation is different from, for example, that of my colleague and local MP Chris Tremain—who does a fantastic job—when he talks about the Napier hills and the hills that surround his very area. How is there a difference, really, when we look at that building-up and the changes wanted there?

Mark Blumsky: A great local MP.

PAULA BENNETT: He is a fantastic local MP. The member is right; he is an outstanding local MP. There is no doubt of that.

I would like to hear from the promoter of bill, if she might just take a little time to talk. Some of us who sat through the select committee process understand perhaps how those boundaries were decided on, but I think a lot of people out there would like to hear that. One thing I commend the select committee for, as I think it did a great job with this—and I commend the council and officials, as well—is that it changed what was in the original drafting of the bill. Speaking from memory, I think the original draft stated that the boundaries could be changed by the council, but now the bill states that the legislation has to come back for boundaries to be changed only by an Act of Parliament. That is a good thing

PAULA BENNETT (National) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 3 of the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill, which discusses, amongst other things, local authorities having to monitor and report on certain matters relating to the heritage area.

I will speak a bit more about that monitoring and about how that reporting can happen.
One of the concerns that National wants to raise at this time is around local area plans, local area management plans, and long-term council community plans. Just so everyone is clear—

Mark Blumsky: That’s too confusing.

PAULA BENNETT: It is a little bit confusing, as my colleague says. When it comes to reporting, one of the important things for the community is that it has spent a lot of time on long-term council community plans. Those plans have been done independently and under huge consultation. I commend the councils for the work they have done with the community to come to some sort of agreement as to what it wants in a long-term plan and how it can be achieved.

When this bill was first introduced it stated that the councils would have local area management plans, which were then changed to local area plans. Now we have local area plans instead of local area management plans—just so we are all clear. How the local area plans will be reported on and how they fit in with the long-term council community plans is what I think should be of importance to the region. What is of most concern is that the community has already worked out what it wants in a 10-year plan. Members of the community have already set down what direction they want. They have voted in an appropriate council, and their concern is how what they want will actually be achieved.

It is quite interesting; I was reading a press release from the Waitakere City Council on 10 March—just 2 days ago. The council is quite clearly talking about its budget deliberations. Councillor Janet Clews is quoted throughout the press release. She is a councillor whom I have a lot of respect for, and she has earned a lot of respect throughout the community. She is chair of Waitakere City Council’s long-term council community plan and annual plan special committee. She talks about budget deliberations and about what needs to be done over a period of time. The press statement quite clearly states: “While the Annual Plan sets the council’s budget for the coming financial year the long-term council community plan (LTTCP) outlines the direction and spending intentions for the next 10 years.” She then says: “It is important that the public know this is the third year of the LTCCP … We are reviewing work and projects that have already been consulted on and agreed, so we can’t deviate a long way from that plan.” The council cannot deviate a long way from the plan that was decided on in 2006. Yet it now wants to introduce a law that will deviate from the plan. It is so concerned about this issue that it will deviate from the long-term council community plan, which it spent so much time consulting its community on. That seems absolutely ludicrous, and National certainly has questions around how it can be possible and how it can make sense.

Looking at how the councils will report back—under Part 3—I found it ironic to be reading an email from our mayor, Bob Harvey. He is a good man and a gutsy man, and always puts a smile on someone’s face, even though he is a former president of the party on the other side of the House—but good on him. He says point-blank in the email that ONTRACK owns this land, that it tends to be a law unto itself, and that there is nothing we can do. The council is trying in this bill to have legislation that will state point-blank what people can do with private land, but, in another breath, the mayor is turning round and saying about ONTRACK, with which the community has a huge issue with regards to the proposed railway maintenance depot: “Sorry, we cannot do anything. It’s private land. It’s not owned by us.”

Gordon Copeland: It’s a double standard.

PAULA BENNETT: It is; it is a complete and utter double standard. It is hypocrisy at its best when the council turns round and says it cannot do anything about something that the community does not want, that will actually disturb residents in a local area, because it is on private land owned by ONTRACK.

PAULA BENNETT (National) : I will stick with Part 3. I wish to speak about the monitoring and reporting on certain matters relating to the heritage area, and I think there is a good chance that I will not take the full 5 minutes.

The monitoring and reporting is about working towards achieving the objectives set out in the bill. So it is about the progress made towards achieving the objectives, and it is that I would like to stress.

The question I have for Lynne Pillay, the member in the chair, concerns how we will monitor and report on the natural and historic resources in respect of their intrinsic worth and their benefit for, use by, and enjoyment by people. How will we report and monitor when we are talking about such things as the quietness and the darkness of the ranges? Will council officials sit out in the ranges with a decibel rating machine, deciding how loud it is and whether it is acceptable? If we are going to have that—because the objective is about the quietness and the darkness of the ranges—then the question is whether the council has already done that. We must have something to report against. So are we in a situation where the natural landscape; the intrinsic value, worth, and benefit; and the quietness and darkness of the ranges will be reported and monitored by councillors or council officials who go out and measure it? How will they do that?

We simply cannot have a provision that says we will monitor and report certain matters relating to the objectives when the objectives are stated in such waffly language that means nothing, and when the matters are something we cannot actually monitor and report against. I am just taking three examples, and they are quite easy ones: the quietness of the ranges, the darkness of the ranges, and their intrinsic worth and value, which are terms used in the objectives of the bill. How will we report and monitor progress on these objectives, and how have we reported and monitored on the area to date so we can say what we are monitoring against? That is my question.

Posted by Staff in From the House, Speech at 15:31

PAULA BENNETT (National) : Well, we have finally had it; we have been building up to it for the last couple of weeks. We were told when we came back from the adjournment that there would be big hits—that attacks from the left would be hitting the right. And we were told to brace ourselves for the moment when Labour members would come at us, at National, and that we should be prepared for that. So we fronted up on the first day after the adjournment. We came in and sat here, and we wondered where they were. The Labour members were not to be heard; they could barely be seen. In fact, they sat there, grey, dishevelled, and not quite sure what to do with themselves. So we have got through the situation. We have held them to account for yet another few days, and today I think we had the attack. I think today, I tell my colleagues, we saw the attack, and was it not like being hit with a wet bus ticket? Was it not actually just a little sad? The Labour members ran out a few lines—the lines had obviously been passed around them from the research people, and they had been told to mention the cap on the costs of general practitioner visits. We have just heard some good lines from the member who spoke before me, who said “Labour, one; National, tired” or something a bit like that.
But the fact that we all have to accept is that the Labour members over there are nervous. They have a Cabinet reshuffle coming up, they are not sure about their jobs, and no one knows who is standing. We have members of Parliament who ran for councils, with some getting in and some not getting in. We can ask who will be standing as Labour candidates next time, and the announcement of that has been bumped backwards. Then we have a Cabinet reshuffle to be announced as well as that. There is too much on the minds of Labour members for them to be worried about what is actually going on over on this side of the House. So the attack has been all on. We have had “Angry Ruth Dyson”, and Ruth Dyson does “angry” pretty well, we have to say. Well, I think it was the best we could see.
But I am going to enter into this debate by saying I make absolutely no apology for demanding, on behalf of New Zealanders, that they get some of their own money back. And I will stand up here—and I stand here proudly on behalf of the National Party—and say I make no apology for asking for some of New Zealanders’ money to be put back in their own pockets. Quite frankly, they deserve it. Australian workers have received their share of the Australian Government’s Budget surpluses and back-to-back tax cuts, and now it is New Zealanders’ turn. There should be no more “chewing gum tax cuts”: no more taking tax cuts away from people when they wanted them, and no more thinking that something can be dangled before people in an election year and made to count.
The arrogance of the Labour Party is starting to trickle through. So we hear some Australians will be receiving only 20 bucks a week. Let us talk about what average New Zealanders—perhaps parents with a family of two—could do with $20 a week. The reality is that with that sort of money they could buy three loaves of bread,—which would equal $5.49—500g of butter, a bag of apples, and some peanut butter, and they could feed their family lunch for a week. A couple could feed their family their school lunches for a week. That is what some of those families might choose to do; those families might choose to do that for themselves. But at no point does this Labour Government think that it can have a sense of trust in people—that people could spend that 20 bucks for the benefit of themselves and their own families. At no point is there a level of respect for the fact that New Zealanders might actually do what is best for themselves and their own families.
We stand in front of New Zealanders today and say to them that welfare dependency is not fair on them. We stand in front of New Zealanders today and say to them that they know what is best for themselves and their families. Even some of those who are currently welfare dependent, and even some of those who are struggling from week to week, will look us in the eye and nod in agreement with that. They know that they can do better for themselves if given the chance, and if given a little bit of respect. So I say: “Give the money back!”. It is not rocket science; it is not very hard to do, although one would think it was. One would think Dr Cullen had to reach into his own pocket and hand out his own money. It is time that a timely reminder was put to the Labour Government that the money is New Zealand taxpayers’ money, and that the Government should take only what is needed in order for it to get by. The issue is as simple as that.

Posted by Staff in From the House, Speech at 12:22