David Shearer
Labour Leader

Address In Reply

21 December 2011

Mr Speaker,

I acknowledge you, and congratulate you, on your return to the role of Speaker.

I congratulate the two new members of Parliament who moved and seconded the Address in Reply, and I wish them well in this House.

I also want to start by congratulating the new ministers on the Government’s front bench and in Cabinet.

I also want to acknowledge the work of all the Canterbury MPs – including my Labour colleagues – whose efforts in adversity have made us proud.

The devastation in Christchurch demands that this House realize that as New Zealanders we have far more to unite us than to divide us.

We will continue to cast a vigilant eye – but we will always wish the greatest success for the government in its work there.

Just over three weeks ago the National Government and the Labour Opposition put our ideas in front of the people of New Zealand, and our side didn’t win.

And therefore Labour will be different in these coming three years.

We will turn a page.

We have a new, fresh, energized team of which I’m immensely proud.

But I also mean change that’s deeper than these fresh faces on the front bench.

Labour will listen. We will learn. And we will act.

That much I promise you.

I acknowledge that we must earn the right to lead this country in government in 2014.

And that’s exactly what we will do.

To do this we will change our focus and put all our energies into our vision for a New Zealand we can all aspire to.

Labour will support good ideas, wherever they come from.

But, we will not shirk for a moment from doing our job of scrutinizing the government and holding it to account.

We will stand up and fight whenever our Labour values are threatened and I have no doubt that we will have rich pickings over the next three years

But we will be constructive, too.

I reached out to the government on its ministerial committee on poverty because I believe that is a good idea.

The other day a woman came into my office – she was educated and motivated wanting to work. But for a variety of reasons, she’d fallen on tough times.

She came into my office hungry. Hungry. She was forced to swallow her dignity to visit her MP to ask for help.

Everyone else had turned her down – or couldn’t help in time.

This is not what anyone expects in NZ.

The Maori Party is right to force poverty into the Government’s line of sight.

And today I repeat my invitation to the Government: Make that committee a committee of this House.

The Prime Minister should know this is not an issue to play politics over.

I have witnessed horrific poverty, and believe me there is no excuse for poverty here in New Zealand.

So this is a sincere offer and I hope the Government sees fit to revisit its position.

Just as Labour will embrace good ideas when we see them, I urge the Government to do the same.

It's what New Zealanders want from us.

They showed it by their ringing endorsement of MMP.

It’s also how I have lived my life -finding constructive solutions to difficult problems.

Time and again, New Zealanders have told me they are sick of the petty political points scoring.

New Zealanders want us to get on with solving the very real problems we face:

• Recovering from global financial crisis and the impact on our people, and on our businesses.
That’s why we’re here.

• Rebuilding the houses and infrastructure, as well as the dreams and aspirations, for all those who call Canterbury home.
That’s what we’re here to do.

• Facing up to environmental threats; and facing up to inequality that’s growing faster here than anywhere in the Western world.
That’s the job we’re here for.

• Getting our books back under control.
That’s what New Zealand expects of us.

• Tackling the 20,000 teenaged New Zealanders who have left school, and who are not in work, not in training, not anywhere but headed for trouble.
That’s why we’re here.

New Zealanders expect us to apply ourselves as a Parliament to making New Zealand a better place to live, work and raise a family.

That's the deal. That’s why we’re here.

Under my leadership, I can promise you this: Labour will work tirelessly to play its part.

The Labour Party is turning a page.

This Labour Party will put growing the pie for all New Zealanders at the front of our agenda.

We cannot be content dividing an ever shrinking pie. It means growing the nation’s wealth.

Labour will grasp the mantle of economic leadership. We will look to expand opportunity for all New Zealanders, wherever they are born or whoever they are born to.

We must build an economy that produces good jobs and decent incomes.

That generates wealth and opportunity, without sacrificing our natural assets, our lifestyles or our communities.

That’s why I’m taking science and innovation.
That’s why I’m giving to our most senior spokespeople:
economic development, and small business, and regional development, and skills and training, and also environment and education…all on the front bench.

They’re all part of the same vision - to create the growing New Zealand we want, that will be clean, green and innovative.

Our agriculture and our primary industries are the backbone of our economy, and have been for generations, and will continue to be central.

But we can’t multiply our dairy industry five times or more to catch Australia’s economy.

Nor can we rely on our tourist industry alone.

Yet our economy is slowly declining in relation to others.

Forty years ago meat exports paid our pharmaceutical bill 18 times over – today, it pays for them just seven times over.

But the Government’s strategy goes something like this: as China and Asia grow richer they will demand a higher protein diet.

We grow protein, therefore we’re ideally positioned.

That’s not a strategy. It’s a hope.

It’s a hope that we won’t have to change so that we can keep doing more or less the same thing we’ve done since the 1960s.

I want to unleash New Zealand’s innovation and see New Zealand create global businesses.

A couple of years ago, I bumped into Sean Simpson a guy who had founded a company called Lanzatech.

It had developed some clever technology to turn waste gas from steel mill smoke stacks into liquid fuel.

The potential is huge.

If China converts just half of its steel mills to use Sean’s technology, it will generate 20% of their liquid fuel needs.

That’s worth billions and it’s a New Zealand company.

And that science and expertise is not just in manufacturing but in agriculture too.

The potential is amongst us. We just don’t recognize it - unlike other countries.

Others countries have made these changes before us.

Less than 20 years ago Finland was in a similar position to ours - a narrowly-based economy, high unemployment, a tanking stock market.

Its economic future was dire.

They elected a new Prime Minister who told them: only the Finnish people could fix their own problems.

Only their brains and talent were going to take them forward.

And from there they set about making change.

They took bold decisions.

They created global, world-beating businesses through their own innovation and talent.

And today they sit near the top of the OECD.

The most important change they made was their attitude.

New Zealand faces a more glacial decline than Finland did, but a decline nevertheless.

And if they can change, so can we.

So the reason I profoundly disagree with this government’s direction is that it is just drifting along.

It’s not creating the clean, green and clever New Zealand I am talking about.

They don’t have good ideas, or a plan for New Zealand.

People have become disillusioned and as a result they are leaving in record numbers for Australia in the last year.

They don’t have a vision for changing New Zealand, or for growing our country, or for investing in our people.

Therefore they end up without the money for services they need and deserve.

National is not fixing our problems.

They’re not creating a New Zealand of the future. Therefore people don’t have decent wages.

One-quarter of those showing up to the Salvation Army for help, have jobs – but their pay is too low.

We have to change.

When two-thirds of all business leaders think this government has no direction, then we know there is something wrong.

We are a proud nation of hard working souls, and we need to shape our own future.
I think of those people working really hard. Two jobs, self-employed, often working for around the minimum wage trying to get ahead.

They need our support.

We are an inventive people. We have great ideas. But too often we fail to commercialise them.

Or we sell out to global interests and let overseas investors reap the rewards of our hard work and innovation.

The economy Labour wants to build is going to leverage our global competitive advantages.

It will leverage off our environment – as I have mentioned.

But it also needs to leverage off education. This is an area that I’m particularly passionate about.

We need a school system that gives our children the confidence and skills to be leaders in a new economy.

It’s too easy for a school leaver to drift out of school, and they’re lost.

But we need them.

The pathway between school and tertiary training is broken for too many of our young people and they are falling through the cracks.

A third of our Māori and Pasifika kids – for example – leave school with no qualifications.

Lifting those kids back into training is expensive and takes a huge effort.

We cannot afford them to fail in the first place.

That part of our education system needs an overhaul.

Education is the best plan that exists anywhere in the world to open opportunities and offer new chances.

I want to unleash New Zealand’s innovative drive and determination. To help Kiwi companies make the most of every opportunity to take New Zealand global.

But if we look at the Speech from the Throne - where are the ideas?

There were no ideas to create the smart, innovative and prosperous New Zealand we need.

There were no ideas to keep future generations of Kiwis from simply packing up and taking their skills, qualifications and energy with them.

It turns out that ultimately National's big idea boils down to these three short words: sell it off.

That’s it. That’s the big idea.

And I say to this House, New Zealanders know in their heart of hearts that “sell it off” is the last resort of a government that has run out of ideas.

We can’t get richer by selling our inheritance.

It only leaves us worse off.

Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

The Government doesn’t even know how much they’re going to get for selling them.

But they are happy to pay a hundred million dollars in fees to foreign advisers helping to sell them.

I can think of much better uses for a hundred million dollars.

Getting more sick kids to the doctor.

Putting new technology and extra teachers in our schools.

More science investment to tackle our agricultural emissions.

Not 100 million for advice on selling the assets.

That’s a terrible plan.

And how much is New Zealand going to get for pushing on with this sell off?

The government says the assets will sell for somewhere between 5 billion dollars and 7 billion dollars.

That’s a $2 billion dollar difference.

That might be chump change for the National Party, but it represents what they’re happy to risk by selling at the bottom of the market.

We’re in the middle of the most unstable global financial conditions since the Great Depression.

None of us here have lived in more threatening economic times internationally.

The economic forecast is dire – and they want to sell off our assets.

Would anyone here sell their house at the bottom of the market?

Before the election they said they would delay the asset sales if the conditions weren’t right.

But the day after Ministers were sworn in, they put Mighty River on the block.

The day after.

The global financial conditions are worse - but they’re plunging ahead anyway.

Selling Mighty River won’t create a cleaner, greener, smarter New Zealand.

It won’t help families and communities.

It won’t help to make a more inclusive New Zealand, or more opportunity.

And that’s why Labour is going to lead the campaign up and down the country against selling out those assets.

The asset sales are just ideology, not the change New Zealand needs.

Not a vision to help 157,000 unemployed New Zealanders into productive employment so they can pay taxes.

And so they can play their full part in their communities.

The Government has no such vision.

On the Treasury’s own figures, more people will be out of work in 2014 than when National took office.

What a searing indictment.

Six years, and unemployment will be up and not down.

More people on the dole, not fewer.

I want to make this clear pledge:

If officials ever presented me with a set of projections that showed unemployment worse in six years - I would change my policies.

Six years and the problem gets worse not better?

That is failure and that is what failure looks like.

That’s a testament to a lack of ideas and a plan.

I want to remind this House of some profound words I heard here recently, about why we are in parliament.

“Once in office, you've got to do something. That is why having a plan matters.”

That’s very true advice.

And it came from that side of the House.

It came from Simon Power as he signed off from here.

Those words are – and were – words of warning to that Government.

It’s wrong to just drift along, as this government is doing.

It’s wrong to think you can take New Zealand forward without a vision for the New Zealand you are trying to create.

And therefore Mr Speaker, the Opposition has no confidence in the programme the Government has outlined.

And that’s why I move an amendment as follows:

That the following words be added to the Address: “and the National-led Government will sell New Zealand’s assets against the will of the public;

the Government has no ideas to create jobs or a clean and innovative New Zealand,

that the Government is widening the gap between the very rich and the rest and therefore this House has no confidence in the National-led government.

Mr Speaker,

The National Government used to talk about its aspiration for New Zealand.

But that aspiration is now frail and feeble, and all but gone.

Now what they aspire to is a low-wage New Zealand that where there is opportunity for just a few.

They used to say that our best and brightest would no longer need to leave New Zealand to get ahead.

But people are leaving faster today than ever before.

They used to talk about a step-change in the economy.

But they have taken a step-back and our economy has been downgraded.

We have never owed more as a country in our history.

We have never had a government ready to do less and create less.

But we must change.

Labour will listen to good ideas.

We will get behind policies that are right for NZ – no matter who puts them forward.

We will be constructive but we will oppose with all our energy those policies that will undermine a clean, clever future that will weaken our families and communities.

New Zealand needs a renewed direction.

We are all about to go on holiday. I wish you all well.

Personally, I’ll be spending much of that catching up with people in the pubs, clubs and camping grounds around the country.

But I’m planning on a few days to head north to a near-deserted beach, for some fishing and surfing.

Sitting on a board, waiting for that wave, looking down into clear water and back to a white beach, it’s magic.

These are the experiences that tie us to NZ. We can all think of places that are special to us.

But a beautiful place isn’t enough to hold our young here. That won’t bring the most talented to live here – just to visit.

We need innovation, exciting businesses and real opportunities.

We need reward for hard work and creativity.

Imagine a NZ that is not only green and unspoiled, but also home to creative ideas and world-leading technology.

Imagine a New Zealand known the world over for smart thinking and really smart businesses taking the world by storm.

Imagine a NZ that is compassionate towards those who need a hand up, that is independent and make up its own mind on global issues based on its own values.

That’s a country I’d love to live in.

That’s a country I’d love to lead as head of a Labour Government.

That’s why we need to make change.

That’s why we need to turn a new page.

And that’s the change Labour stands for.

ENDS

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