Hon Phil Goff Jobs & families Leader of the NZ Labour Party labour.org.nz SPEECH TO THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE Energy Events Centre, Rotorua, 10AM Sunday, 13 September 2009. Eng a mana, e nga reo, e nga iwi o te motu. Tena koutou katoa. Talofa lava, malo e leilei, fakalofa lahi atu, kia orana, taloha ni. Namaste, assalam alicum, niman hou. Warm Pacific greetings. Can I acknowledge and thank Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia, for being with us today. Andrew Little and Moira Coatsworth, President and Senior Vice President of the party. Annette King, deputy leader - and I could not ask for a better one, or a better friend. My wife Mary, whom I fell in love with when I was 18, and my partner since we were teenagers. Too often she shoulders my obligations for me when Iʼm not there. Caucus colleagues, delegates and guests. I want to tell you the story of the woman who taught me why I should be Labour. When I was a child, she told me about the years of the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, when jobs were scarce, money was tight and times were hard for families. She and her husband migrated to New Zealand wanting the same things that have brought so many people to this country – a better life for themselves and their kids. She wanted her kids to learn skills that would ensure they had work. She wanted them to grow up not knowing hunger, homelessness, nor poverty in old age. She hoped that by working hard, they could build a good life for her children and grandchildren. But those plans didnʼt work out. 1 Ten years after arriving in New Zealand her husband, a World War One veteran who had fought on the Somme and been a prisoner of war, died. The year was 1934. Losing her husband, and the income he brought to the family, meant they also lost their home because they could no longer afford the mortgage payments. She scrubbed floors for others to try to make ends meet for the family. She wondered how she could properly feed her family, and feared the rent bill. Feared the cost of taking her kids to the doctor. A year later, Michael Joseph Savage and the first Labour Government were elected and reached out a helping hand to a family who really needed it. The Labour Party stood beside her when she needed it, and she never forgot that. That woman was my grandmother. And today she would have been proud that her grandson had the privilege of standing here as leader of the Labour Party. Her story is a guiding light today because, although times have changed, Labourʼs values endure: We stand for a fair and decent society that gives all our kids the best start in life and helps them realise their full potential. We are committed to a New Zealand where everyone who is able to work can get a job. A New Zealand where families have a home to call their own and healthcare is based on need rather than the ability to pay for it. We are committed to taking care of our natural environment, committed to promoting strong values and an independent voice in the world. Those are my values. Those will be the values of my leadership of the New Zealand Labour Party. The party of a fair go for everyone. The party of people who aspire to a better life for themselves and their families. We stand against privilege. We stand for those who work hard to make their lives better. We stand for the people who rely on hard work and fair pay to make ends meet. We put people first. 2 Ordinary New Zealanders, whose stories drew me to Labour, and whom we are still here to represent. I went to school at Papatoetoe High. I celebrated growing up in a community where the local state school had great teachers and provided an education at least as good as a private school. I joined the Labour Party the same year I joined the workforce. I was sixteen and had just moved out of home. I got a job at Westfield Freezing Works on the chain. I used the money I earned to put myself through university, and buy a Norton Commando. I learned a lot from the guys I worked with. And I never forgot that the taxes they paid helped meet the cost of my education. I learned that working hard was necessary to achieve what you wanted to in life. But I also knew that a boy from Mt Roskill and South Auckland could seize the opportunities. The cornerstone of the Labour Party is the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people. Labour lost office last year because we didnʼt make clear enough that our priority was to help ordinary New Zealand families make progress in their lives. We got elected three times in a row because we did a great job on the things that did matter to people. We did a great job of producing the lowest level of unemployment in recent history, and brought back apprenticeships. We put an end to asset sales. We bought back Air New Zealand and Kiwirail. When the pressure was on to get involved in the war in Iraq, we kept New Zealand out - and our decision was right. We brought in Working For Families and KiwiSaver. We made doctorsʼ visits cheaper. We did a lot that was right and we are all proud of that. We werenʼt voted out for what we did right. We were voted out because they thought we were getting distracted by sideshows. The Winston Petersʼ funding saga. The Electoral Finance Act. Errant MPs. Smacking. Lightbulbs. Shower heads. 3 It makes us uncomfortable to admit that we got these wrong - but if we are to win back the trust of New Zealanders we need to acknowledge and learn from reality. On occasion, we got it wrong and I am sorry for that. We weren't listening enough. Itʼs easy to make excuses, but what people want us to do is to focus on their priorities. Under my leadership, Labour will focus on what we do best: • A commitment to jobs and a vibrant, modern economy needed to sustain them. • A commitment to high standards of health and education. • A belief in strong communities. We are at our best when we focus on helping working New Zealanders to achieve their dreams. Our job is not to judge peopleʼs lifestyles. Our job is to open doorways to tomorrow. New Zealanders are right to have high expectations of what our country can be in the future while they deal with the daily reality of getting by. They are right to expect better times ahead when itʼs a struggle to pay bills, and have something left over at the end of the week. Labour will be there for them. We will be there for families who are working hard and just canʼt get ahead. Weʼll be there for superannuitants who have contributed all their lives but are worried that government cuts to super funding might now jeopardise their incomes. We will be there for families like the young couple living in Christchurch whose winter power bills were over $400. Even with both of them working, they are struggling to pay it. Thatʼs something we got wrong in the last government. Power bills rose relentlessly and we didnʼt fix the system. Itʼs not right that last week a power company paid $230 million in dividends to government while people struggled with their bills. Those dividends were effectively financed by a highly regressive tax because it falls hardest on those least able to pay. The power companies mostly belong to us. They should work for us. 4 Labour can and will stop price gouging. We will not demand excessive dividends coming back into state coffers above what is needed for investment in new generation. And we will stand resolutely against Nationalʼs plan to privatise the power companies. That would just see profits rise further and go into the pockets of private and overseas owners. We need to deliver for hard-working families. Families who have had a gutsful of reckless and greedy people who mismanaged the the finance companies which went broke, robbing elderly and hard-working New Zealanders of their life savings. Kiwis who know there is something wrong when millions of dollars can be paid in bonuses to chief executives even while profits are falling and workers are losing their jobs with no redundancy payments. Labourʼs priority is to put people first. The public judge us by our priorities. I want my leadership to be measured by improving the start we give children. I will make it a priority to improve the quality of life that kids will have. Labour will support good parents and we will expect parents to do their bit too. I want more children to grow up in stable loving families, with good parents, with a steady income, a good home, and health care when they need it. I know I didnʼt get everything right as a parent - like most parents I know, I want to be a better grandparent than than I was a parent. But I know that good parents do all they can to make sure their children have a better future. Itʼs not just about what the government does - itʼs about the huge responsibility parents have when they have a child. Thatʼs why I get outraged about the twelve thousand children a year who get abused.