United Future
Paul Adams

GENERAL DEBATE

We need to learn to celebrate our income-producing successes, just as we do our sporting successes. As the Government earns no money through its own means, it can spend only money that other people have had to work very hard to earn. United Future acknowledges those who pay their taxes and thanks them for the hard work they have done.

The Government carries a huge responsibility to spend wisely the taxes that have been collected from those who work in our land. Members should make no mistake: the Government hands out no money of its own; it gives to others only money that somebody else has laboured long and hard to earn. Once we understand that principle, it gives us a greater appreciation for the workers in our land.

With regard to our welfare state, it concerns me that some in this House have the misconception that giving money to the poor will solve all their problems. That simply is not true. The only way out of poverty is to provide opportunity and to teach people to work. Success is not something one chases; it is something one has constantly to put forth the effort for. It will then come when one least expects it. Sadly, most people do not understand that.

A great proverb states that there is much food in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste. The Suzuki method of learning music brings some understanding as to what that proverb means. Suzuki understood the principle that a child learns far more quickly by observation than by instruction. Therefore, children can learn to play a musical instrument long before they can understand, or read, a note of music. Yet in many homes around our country, children are growing up with no role model to teach them how to work. Therefore, injustice is robbing them of the skills and ability to learn how to work and, consequently, obtain the skills that, if applied, would take them out of the poverty trap.

In my own life, I have discovered that the only place reward comes before work is in the dictionary. The “haves” and the “have-nots” can normally be traced back to the “dids” and the “did-nots”. Success is neither magical nor mysterious; it is the natural consequence of applying life’s basic fundamentals. My concern with the expansion of the welfare state and the breakdown of the family is about where the role models and examples are that we so desperately need to show our young ones, by example, the way to lead a successful and fulfilling life. Positive habits are learnt in the same way as negative habits—through practice. Yet what example do many see? I am concerned about the habits we are forcing people to practice if we continue to pay people to do nothing. People may forget what we said, but they never forget how we make them feel. I want to be part of building a nation of workers, not a nation dependent on welfare, because I know people feel good after a good day’s work.

I trust that over the years that lie ahead of us we will work together, with a heart of compassion for the less fortunate yet never lose sight of the responsibility we have to train people in their younger years in the way they should go, so that when they are older they will not have forgotten but, rather, will have the ability to pass on skills to others so that New Zealand will be recognised again as the greatest place in the world to live and to raise a family. That is why United Future will always labour with others with a common vision for a great future for our nation.