GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa): It is always a privilege and a pleasure to rise and speak in this House, particularly in response to the Prime Minister's statement. I would like to carry on from what my honourable colleague Taito Phillip Field was saying. It is worth repeating that particular passage from the Prime Minister's statement: "Our Government's core mission is to build a confident and dynamic nation, based on an innovative, growing, smart economy which can deliver more jobs, more opportunities, and higher living standards, together with the resources to fund world-class public services, especially in health and education, and world-class infrastructure. The nation we seek to build is creative; it looks after its environment; it values diversity and tolerance; it takes its responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi seriously; and it is a good international citizen."

I would like Opposition members, particularly in the National Party, to reflect on their so-called glory days in the 1990s. When I shifted to the Wairarapa in 1990, I happened to be unemployed. I entered a Government-funded training scheme and was on a benefit. Lo and behold, along came Mrs Shipley, the Minister of Social Welfare at the time, and savagely slashed the benefits. As a victim at the sharp end of that particular policy development—which led on, of course, from the "Ruthanasia" days—I can tell members opposite that it was a very uncomfortable time. In the small rural town I lived in, and in which I still reside, those benefit cuts had a profound effect.

What did I discover when the good people of the Wairarapa had the good grace to privilege me with representing them here in this House? The Minister of Social Development, the Hon Steve Maharey, mentioned previously the social deficit that was left, particularly in rural and provincial areas of New Zealand. I can certainly cite the Wairarapa as being among those areas. Some of that deficit consisted of—and was born out of—those benefit cuts. What I also saw happening within the social service arena was the depletion of capacity within the very Government agencies in those regions that deserved support and uplifting by their betters, for whom they worked. I am talking about the offices of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, particularly in Masterton.

What have we most recently and publicly experienced in the Wairarapa? We have experienced some of the worst domestic violence – related crime—heinous crimes against our children. In some instances, officers of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in Masterton were involved with that. They have been stressed. They never recovered from the gutting that happened during the 1990s. When we came into Government in 1999, we made a pledge to start to rebuild—certainly out in the provincial areas of New Zealand—all that was ripped away.

Another instance I can cite from my own electorate is the Wairarapa Community Polytechnic, which we managed to save when this Government came into power. It was one of the first polytechnics up for the axe. There were a number of those under the National administration, but this Government managed to save our one and only tertiary institution in the Wairarapa. It still exists there today, under the banner of the Universal College of Learning Wairarapa, and I am very, very pleased about that.

In more recent times we have had some wonderful input into helping to build capacity in our area. It irks me that Dr Lynda Scott can sit over there and scoff at the efforts that the Minister of Health, under this Labour-led Government, has made in providing confidence that we will continue to have a hospital in Masterton, when even the former Deputy Prime Minister of the National Government and Minister of Health, the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech, was unable to provide that certainty. A $27.2 million injection provides certainty that that hospital will develop into the future, meeting the needs of the area. Two primary health organisations have opened in my area—in Dannevirke and, in January of this year, in the southern part of my electorate from Masterton south. That is great news for the health status of people in the Wairarapa.

As we talk about so-called racially-based policies coming out on the other side of the House, might I add that I have never known a Māori health organisation providing services that appeal to Māori to provide them exclusively to Māori. They have been there for all and sundry to access, and the only issue might be whether those who want to access them are quite happy to work within the wairua and the context of delivering to Māori. Those organisations never excluded non-Māori from accessing those services, and I assume it remains the same today.

This leads me towards highlighting, as some of our national newspapers have done, the kinds of policy—in fact, the one and only policy the National Party has been able to put out at the moment, which is hugely divisive to race relations in this country. Even the Sunday Star-Times said: "The voice of ignorance, narrow political advantage, and selfishness: the voice of Don Brash." Another quote—from the New Zealand Herald—was: "Nothing would be more divisive now than an attempt to enforce a one-nation charter … responsible leaders must acknowledge the aspirations of all elements of our society. Dr Brash will need to do better."

Dr Brash wants to take us back 4 years to the unfairness of the Employment Contracts Act, 14 years to the failed economic policies of the 1990s, 20 years to before we had a nuclear-free policy, and 164 years to when we did not have a treaty. Treating people fairly does not necessarily mean treating them exactly the same. "If you gave all plants in your garden the same amount of water, some of them would not survive" is a very quotable quote that should be remembered by members opposite.

What are some of Dr Brash's other comments on these matters? "Primary health organisations are racially funded," he says. A primary health organisation's funding is based on the needs of the community it is serving. On average, Māori life expectancy is 10 years less than that of Pa-keha-. They will need more health care services, and therefore attract more funding. Primary health organisations treating more elderly people get more funding than those with predominantly middle-aged communities, and no one seems to be objecting to that.

I quote Dr Brash again: "Scholarships for Māori are wrong." Māori have historically been underrepresented in higher education, especially in areas like medicine and dentistry. Scholarships have been used for many years as a positive way of getting greater access for Māori to those professions—just as they have been used in the past to encourage other groups, such as women. Māori students still have to meet the same standards as everybody else to graduate and practise. There is no exclusivity there.

Another quote from Dr Brash: "Māori get preferential local government consultation." Councils have to consult with all major groups in their communities on decisions that will affect them. The fact that councils have to consult with Māori does not mean that they have to consult with the rest of the community any less. No one is disadvantaged by the fact that councils have to consult with Māori.

The Labour Party is the party of the mainstream, the National Party is a party of the extreme, and I know which I would prefer. This party respects the name Georgina, but I would question very much what that party thinks of the member known as Georgina. From anything we have seen to date, they treat her with a total lack of respect.