Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill, Appropriation (2011/12 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

I move, That the Appropriation (2011/12 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.

As I was saying, what a great Budget that was, and a fine Budget for our time. I want to congratulate the Minister of Finance on that Budget. I also want to thank the many people who are involved with it. I think all of us in the House appreciate that these things do not come together just on the whim of one or the work of one, so I want to acknowledge them as well. One thing I do want to say is that I really love the Budget application. I thought it was very much like the National Party—it was innovative, it was leading edge, and it was No. 1.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member, but could I just remind members that today all microphones are live. If members want the public to hear a circumstance in the House that the public may not be impressed by, just keep making a lot of noise and I suspect the public will not be impressed. So I just alert members that today, because of the sound system’s malfunction, members need to be just a little more circumspect about the level of interjection, the wittiness of interjection, and the intellectual content of interjection, because the public will judge what they hear. Normally they do not hear some of this stuff.

Intellectual interjections—I have not heard those yet, but I am conscious there is noise. I was talking about the iPhone Budget, the iPad Budget, and thinking again that it is a great Budget and a great Budget application. I just wanted to note as well that I have spent a lot of time on the Labour Party’s Budget application, Angry Birds. I want to thank the Labour Party for its application, Angry Birds. As we have just heard, Opposition members do a lot of squawking, ruffling their feathers, and throwing themselves at the Budget over and over again. You see, National is here because we are trying to build something—to build a brighter future—and these angry birds, as we heard earlier today, just continue to throw themselves, squawking, ruffling feathers, and they have all gone conspicuously silent at the moment.

These are tough times—these are tough times—and it is all about cutting your cloth to suit. This Government has maintained the services and prioritised those services for the people. This is a Budget that is responsible, it is a Budget that is focused on growth, it is a Budget that is about value for money, and it is a Budget about front-line services—a Budget that understands what the people want, and is open to engaging with the people.

💬 Chris Hipkins: But you don’t want bigger classes!

Oh, see—they continue. I must have run afoul of them there—I must have run afoul of them. I have noted in reading some of the other Budget speeches that there has been a lot of talk about Charles Dickens, coming from the Opposition members. But they have missed one of the more interesting characters. Wilkins Micawber was a character who knew all about the importance of careful financial management, and I am not really surprised that they are not familiar with him. Mr Micawber had an interesting philosophy, and to paraphrase, if I may read this, he said the difference between happiness and misery is whether you are spending 10c less than you earn or 10c more than you earn. The Opposition, and Labour in particular, has never subscribed to this idea. But every household in New Zealand understands what it means. Labour is happy to spend the extra 10c, the extra $10 million, the extra $100 million. So I reject outright the amendment put forward by the Opposition, which is working against this Budget. In itself it is illogical. The very amendment is illogical.

Opposition members complain. They complain that this Budget has not made the tough decisions, but then they are complaining because we have made the tough decisions. This is a Budget for the time, and it is an appropriate Budget. We could have taken the easy way—we could have taken the Labour Party way—to spend, spend, and spend some more. But then the bill comes and it is time to pay up—it is time to pay up. The people of Greece are learning this lesson a little bit late, but because of this Budget New Zealanders will not have to suffer the fate that Greece and other continental powers are suffering at the moment.

I want to turn my focus on to education.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Here we go again—throwing themselves at the wall. I want to focus on education, notably tertiary education. It is an area of great interest to me. It is an area where a number of friends and colleagues have raised their points and have been engaging across the sector over the last few weeks, asking questions. You know, there have been a lot of complaints coming from people, particularly those doing postgraduate degrees, be it masters or PhDs. And I note that change is always hard; I want to acknowledge to those postgraduate students that, yes, change is hard. But I want to put a bit of context around these changes, because there has been a lot of noise and a lot of, well, squawking—I think that seems to be the word of the day for them—around this. So the context around the changes: currently, if you study at the universities the Crown pays 70c in every dollar; 70 percent of course costs are already paid for by the taxpayer, by the Crown. We have interest-free student loans. They are available to all who choose to study—undergraduate or postgraduate. We also know that, effectively, between 40c and 50c in every dollar has to be written off on those student loans, a further cost—or a gift, if you like, of the Crown to those who are choosing to study.

We also know that there are a multitude of scholarships available to students from the private sector and from the public sector. I note that the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes were announced yesterday. So, already, we have a picture here of the generosity of the Crown, the generosity of the taxpayers to people who choose to study. As I said, 70c in every dollar goes towards their studies; interest-free student loans, a significant write-down on that; scholarships; and, of course, we still have 200 weeks of student allowance for those in undergraduate degrees, including those who choose to do honours. But I am aware that people are not happy, and I have to say, particularly to those students who are unhappy, I find that the generosity of the taxpayer really is nothing short of astonishing. If you look at it in that context, the giving that the taxpayer provides is nothing short of astonishing. But, of course, some people are still not happy.

💬 Jacinda Ardern: Is education a public good? Is it a public good, Simon?

And although I cannot fully hear the interjections, I am aware that some people are still not happy, because you realise there are about 20,000 people in this country who are doing masters or postgraduate degrees. That is 0.5 percent of the population. And what is being asked for here, in the complaints around this Budget to do with tertiary education, is that the 0.5 percent want more: they want more than 70 percent of their fees paid, they want more than 200 weeks of allowance, they want more than an interest-free student loan, they want more than the scholarships, they want more than the opportunities. As we well know, for most who do postgraduate studies there is opportunity to earn money through their teaching and tutorials, and so forth. I say this not just as someone who speaks in theory but someone who has done two postgraduate degrees. I am very conscious that you do this freely and through a choice. For the record, I did my first postgraduate degree while working full-time and studying part-time, because I was aware of the financial consideration. And, just to add to it, because I recall the Green Party making an emotional but empty series of statements, when I did my second postgraduate degree, I was doing that working full-time and studying full-time. You see, education is a choice, and choices can be made, and I for one as a postgraduate student have appreciated what the Crown has done.

As I wrap up I would like to say that in theory I would wish that everything was free. It would be great. But that is not the world that we live in. Only in Labour do they think that everything should be free. I am conscious we are only a few weeks away from the mid-winter Christmas, if you like, and Labour does have a Christmas list that is a mile long. But Santa is not going to pay for the bills and the gifts that Labour wants to give away, because in the real world we understand that grown-ups have to pay the bill. So we are not going to allow Labour to have people sit on its lap and demand gift after gift, because it is ultimately the taxpayer who is going to groan and pay the bill.

I come back to where I started: this is a sensible Budget. It is a Budget for its time. I am proud of the decisions that have been made. I am proud of the decisions that have been made in education, and particularly in the tertiary sector. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. That was the member for Tāmaki, Simon O’Connor, who was happy to support the loss of teachers in intermediates in his electorate. He is standing in front of this House promoting education and what the Government has done. National has framed its fourth Budget as a zero Budget, but a zero Budget is about zero hope, zero aspiration, and zero opportunity for the hard-working Kiwis struggling to make a living. They deserve more from a Budget than the one National dished out.

We know that 13 days is a very, very, very long time in politics. The Minister of Education stood up in this House during the Budget debate promoting great gains in education. Just 13 days later she had to not only retract but reverse and do a whole about-face on a policy that fundamentally impacted on children and parents in the delivery of education as people know it and want to preserve it in their communities. It was an epic blunder that needed to be fixed, and Labour members were happy that we raised those questions in the House to assure good-thinking New Zealanders that we were working with them on this issue.

The Minister claimed that the Government was focusing on quality, not quantity, in the form of the new staff ratios that it wanted to introduce, capping teacher numbers over the next 4-year period. Well, it simply did not stack up. As people worked through the detail and as we presented questions in the House to the Minister that could not be answered, more and more red flags went up as bastions of opposition in the schools and in our communities by parents who believe that their children deserve more. Parents were furious at the prospect that losing one or two teachers would fundamentally impact on the learning of their children. Why? Because they translated the National Government’s changes as larger class sizes, fewer teachers, and less opportunity for their children to get a really good chance in the classroom for one-on-one feedback from their teachers. They knew that it just did not make sense.

The Minister talked a big game, but she was short on detail. This became more and more evident as we started to understand the real effects of the policy that she was presenting to the House in Budget 2012. When she came to this House and introduced the fact that for years 7 and 8 technology teachers would be included in the new staff ratios, we were flabbergasted on this side of the House. Immediately, members on this side of the House were getting calls from intermediate schools saying: “She’s got it wrong. We’re not losing just two teachers; we could be losing up to eight teachers.” And that is not just about technology teachers; it is about delivering subjects like science, like art, like drama, like all sorts of technology subjects, like kapahaka, and like gifted learning. Then we had a whole lot of primary schools saying: “Well, actually, for our young learners it may mean a cut to the extent that we cannot deliver remedial maths or recovery reading to our youngest learners, who are often the ones who need it most.”

The Minister still stood in this Chamber and defended that policy to members on this side of the House as if it was a great gain in education, and we knew it was not. We knew that, fundamentally, children would miss out. Well, hello! It was not until the adjournment, when members of the Government went back into their own communities, that they were flooded with very angry National supporters who said, time and time again, that the Government had it wrong. Thirteen days later, right up until the end, the Minister was still defending this policy. One morning she was saying that the Government was not going to reverse the policy, the next minute she was saying that it would make a partial retraction, and then by day 13 she said it would reverse this policy. The heat was too hot, and she knew that the Government had got it wrong.

Let me ask this: did the Minister, in fact, ask for the necessary information of officials to ensure that prior to making this decision the Government had got all the information it needed to assure itself that it was not going to fundamentally impact on the delivery of education in the communities? If she did ask for the information, did Cabinet override that advice? We have not had any answers on that front. Or did she deliberately ignore that information? Time and time again, when we were asking questions of the Minister in this House on that particular issue, she managed to evade some detail on some very important questions.

💬 Maggie Barry: Listen to the answers.

But parents deserve an answer. Parents deserve an answer. That member should be listening to constituents in her own electorate, who were equally as angry on this particular issue. That member was happy to go out and promote a policy that would fundamentally see the loss of teachers in intermediate schools in many electorates throughout the country.

Labour said it would reverse this ridiculous policy, because it did not stack up. Putting more children into a class and more pressure on a teacher to teach those children and give quality feedback would cause only more stress, and National was not listening to them. We did. We said very early on in the piece that we would reverse it.

The Minister needs to spell out her plan about how National will invest in quality teaching, because this is an important aspiration. It should be done. But now that the Government has reversed the policy on larger class sizes, I ask whether it will retract from its investments in improving the quality of teaching. There is no answer. Not a word. Not a sigh. Not anything. Members on that side of the House have their heads down. Continuing to invest in quality teaching, we believe, is an important thing to do, but the Minister will need to demonstrate where she will now find savings from, because that particular investment is essential.

The other part of the humiliating reversal that she had to do and backtrack on was really supported by the words of young people themselves. I suspect that once the anger of parents moved into the domain of supportive evidence from teachers and then was translated through children, they started to get upset about the prospect of losing technology teachers. This is how they explained it at Kōwhai Intermediate School: “The good thing about technology classes is that they’re a fun way to learn things that you may need to do when you’re older.” They also said: “In primary schools they don’t offer technology.” and “Creativity and practical skills are an important part of education.” But here is the point that I think National members might want to hear. Students at Kōwhai Intermediate School said: “Getting good grades in other subjects is important, but people who make a difference in the world usually have a unique way of looking at things. You cannot be one of these people without creativity, and that is what technology classes deliver.” Here is a Government that says, on the one hand, that it wants a brighter future for all New Zealanders, but then it cuts technology teachers in our intermediate schools and limits the opportunity for our children to be able to take up courses that teach creative innovation. The Government got it wrong. We are happy to see the reversal.

There are so many other areas in which things do not add up. We see increased funding for private schools since 2009—$14 million extra every year since National has come into Government. What is happening there? In last year’s Budget $21.8 million went into public-private partnership business case modelling, and we still have not got any detail on exactly how much has been spent on the Hobsonville public-private partnership project. In adult and community education a further $4 million has been cut from universities, affecting their ability to offer things like language programmes and computer skills. Here is a Government that is cut, cut, cutting and limiting the opportunities in a whole lot of areas for people to continue to thrive in education.

Finally, I will respond to the member for Tāmaki, who talked about student allowances. We do believe on this side of the House that postgraduate study is important. Limiting access to a student allowance to only 200 weeks will affect those who cannot afford to go into postgraduate study. We will see a lot of people who are unable to take up the opportunity to continue to improve their skills because of a decision that this Government has made. We do not support it. The fourth Budget for National has got it wrong in education. National should be ashamed about what it was proposing to do, pulling the wool over parents’ eyes. Parents are not stupid. We are glad we supported them on that fundamental issue of giving our children the very best in education. Kia ora.

I must say that was an awfully long 10 minutes. I thought about taking a point of order and questioning whether or not the clock had stopped, but everybody is allowed to have their say in Parliament, and that is a marvellous thing.

This is a great Budget, particularly when one looks around the world and sees what is happening elsewhere. When we look around we often like to compare ourselves with Australia. Of course, in Australia they do mining and resources—the sorts of things the Opposition would not have us touch, but it is happy to take the income that comes from them. But, actually, what this Budget has been able to do is to continue down the great path that the National-led Government, along with our colleagues in the ACT Party, United Future, and the Māori Party, has been able to deliver.

I look at the law and order and justice areas—and they are the ones that I am most concerned with—and at what we have seen in a time when there has been a global financial crisis and a recession. We came into Government and the country had been in recession for the last three quarters. We were told that what would happen is that there would be an increase in crime, that crime would go up, that we would run out of prison beds, and that we would be in a terrible situation. And we came in and we found that there had been these new prisons built by the previous Labour Government—and they are extremely flash, I have to say; extremely flash—but it needed a lot of work to put those double bunks in, and that seemed to sort out quite a few of our issues.

Then, of course, we brought in a private prison—private management—which seems to be fantastic, really—

💬 Chris Hipkins: How many people have escaped from it?

The member over there, Mr Hipkins, seems to have forgotten that there were two escapes from Waikeria Prison just the other day, which, of course, is State run. Of course, in the private sector when one of Serco’s prisoners escapes it costs them $150,000. But nobody pays in the public sector.

What we have seen is actually a situation where the crime rate has come down. It is now at the same level as it was in 1982—1982—and in amongst all of that we have also seen the prison population start to fall in a sustained way for the first time since the 1930s. So instead of Labour, which was constantly having to catch up with more prison beds, this Government has got the situation where we have now announced the closure of two prisons, Wellington’s Mt Crawford prison and New Plymouth Prison, which should never have been used for housing people in today’s world. We would not have had to use them if we had been left with enough beds by the previous Government. But anyway, those are just some of the success stories.

We can also say there are 600 more police on the beat—600 more front-line police. There is now DNA testing for serious offenders, and there are tools to seize the proceeds of crime. That has been a great success. Serious criminals and repeat offenders are being kept behind bars longer with no bail or parole eligibility. It was this party—this party—along with our coalition partners United Future and the ACT Party that brought through the Search and Surveillance Act, which should have been done years ago. It was first started in about 2007, but, unfortunately, some parties in this House decided they were going to play politics with this most important issue and were quite happy to leave the police out there unable to deal with methamphetamine dealers and the like. Shame on them for not taking the right stance.

What we have seen, though, in amongst all of that is this Prime Minister take on the role of saying that he wanted to tackle methamphetamine in this country, and he has done so with outstanding results. He has made sure that departments have worked together and that Ministers have worked together, and there has been a coordinated approach. So instead of the previous Labour Government’s approach of saying: “Oh, we can’t do anything about it, because it might upset their rights.” or some other nonsense like that, what we have seen is coordinated work across the police, the Customs Service, justice, health, and the prison system to make sure we deal with this issue. We are now starting to see some really good improvement, but the battle is still not over. There is still more work to do.

We have also seen the road toll come down to the lowest it has been in 50 years, and that is about very smart road policing. It is also about new road safety initiatives and better public awareness as well, so congratulations to all those people involved in that; they have made us very proud. We have had 18 new public safety laws passed, we have over 6,000 families now protected by police safety orders, we have got prison escapes actually at the lowest levels ever, and we have 2,000 victims now supported through the offender levy—and, yes, there is more.

Under this Budget what we are seeing is not what we are seeing in many other similar countries around the world, which are seeing massive redundancies in police and massive loss of confidence in the safety of the public. We are actually seeing the police maintained at the level they have been at. Yes, they are constantly looking at how they can use technology to upgrade the way in which they work to be smarter, faster, and more effective in preventing crime in the first place. They have brought in the Policing Excellence programme, which has been a fantastic success, and it is going to keep going.

In addition, in the Ministry of Justice in particular we are looking at the work we are doing across the sector to make sure that we look at the “crime lines”, you could say, of those coming in through the pipeline, those coming into the justice system either in youth justice or elsewhere and ending up in the prison and probation area. What we are doing is that the Ministers are working together to make sure that what we do, and what our chief executives do, is constantly predicated on the need to bring crime further down, to bring youth crime down, and to bring down violent assaults. So this is better public service. This is actually about looking at how we can better manage the resources we have, how we can better react to the public, and how we can be smart in how we operate.

Coming up this year will be a completion of the review of the Family Court, and that is something that I am very passionate about, having practised for around 20 years, some of it in the family area. I have seen over the years many times when the Family Court has been used to abuse others, when children have not been put at the forefront of parents’ minds—sorry, my throat is going.

💬 Chris Hipkins: You wouldn’t be emotional?

No, definitely not. But what we have seen, actually, is a situation where children can be used by one parent to attack the other, and that is simply not acceptable. The State should not fund that sort of behaviour; the State should not be complicit in it. The State should be better than that, and that is what we expect to be.

In tertiary education we are continuing to target student assistance to where it is most needed and ensure better value for taxpayers. Simon O’Connor spoke about his two postgraduate degrees, both completed when he was working full-time and studying full-time. I feel like I could say that I sort of did the same too: in my first postgraduate degree, working full-time and studying part-time, and in my second, working full-time and studying part-time. It is hard to do it that way, but at the end of the day we did not owe anyone any money at the end of it. It is a tough road, but that is what happens. I think we have to be very careful what we do in tertiary education. We also have to be very careful with taxpayers’ money. We also have to understand that the people who are the panel beaters and the people who work in the supermarkets expect us to be careful with their tax money as well, and expect a decent return for it, and that means good education, good outcomes, and people contributing to the economy.

In essence and in conclusion, this is an excellent Budget, given very difficult financial times around the world. We just have to look at our friends in Europe to see what has happened there, and we are not just talking about Greece. There are other parts of Europe that are very badly affected, and not just Europe: the UK, parts of Australia, and parts of the United States. Some have been going through very, very tough times, much tougher than ours. We are very fortunate in where we are placed in the world, we are very fortunate to have a judicial system that is not corrupt, and we are very fortunate to have a police force that is not corrupt. All these things help to build confidence in the economy and confidence in business. However, we are a small country and we have to live within our means, and this Budget does.

There are a couple of things that the Minister of Justice, who has just resumed her seat, forgot to mention. Sure, the crime rate has come down. Perhaps that had something to do, Mrs Collins, with the 1,000 extra police officers on the front line that the Labour-led Government put on in its last term in office. Perhaps it had something to do with totally revamping the thoroughly inadequate, rundown prison system that we inherited from the last National Government. Perhaps it had something to do with the total overhaul of legislation for the Sentencing Act, the Parole Act, and the Proceeds of Crime Act. Perhaps it had something to do with that.

But what Mrs Collins has not told us is what this Budget is doing for policing. This Budget represents a real cut to police funding: 125 staffing positions cut, and that is just to begin with. Dozens of police stations, Mrs Collins, will close during this term. Do you know what I found out about my local police station? I found out that they might not close it, but they will close it to the public. They will close the police station to the public. What does that mean for community policing? I was standing there talking to a member of the police force who is also on the local community board when a woman biked up in distress and said that she had been sexually threatened by a man just down the road. In future, do you know what she will have to do? She will have to bike to Avondale. That is 9 kilometres away. Do you think she is going to report that crime? Do you think the police are going to be able to respond immediately to it? Not on your life. Police stations, mark my words, will close in their dozens, and that is the very opposite of what community policing is meant to be about. Then the Police Association told my colleague Kris Faafoi here that the Government is going to cut the pay of front-line police officers over the next 10 years—it is going to cut it. The previous Minister of Police boasts about how uncorrupt and competent our police force is, and she is largely right about that, but how is it going to help to cut their salaries?

But today I do not want to talk about that so much as about the evidence last week that we saw of National’s education policy to increase class sizes and to cut technology learning in our intermediate schools crashing and burning. What a humiliating backdown for Hekia Parata. What an embarrassment that was for her and the National Government. I will give you this guarantee. There will not be a single National MP who gets up and praises the National Government’s Budget policy on education. You know, the only thing I regret about the embarrassment that Hekia Parata faced was that the two major architects of that policy, John Key and Bill English, were nowhere to be seen when she had to front up and back down. They were nowhere to be seen.

Do not tell me, members of the National Government, that Bill English did not know exactly what that Budget policy meant. It was in the briefing paper to him as Minister last year—increase class sizes, it said. Then the Secretary to the Treasury, Gabriel Makhlouf, gave a speech just 2 months ago saying that the way to improve quality in education was to increase class sizes—increase class sizes. Did National members actually believe that? They parroted it for a fortnight. I bet we never hear it again from them.

I was looking at a copy of the Listener the other day from 28 May 2005. There was an interview with one Mr John Key. What was Mr Key saying? He was asked why he sent his children to private schools. He said, really, it is “for educational reasons. Their schools have smaller classes and are better resourced...”. That is what he said.

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: One rule.

One rule for Mr Key and for the majority of Cabinet who send their kids to private schools, and another rule for the rest of us, whose kids proudly go to public education in this country. I want to say that if it is good enough for kids in private schools to have small classes so they have more individual learning, then it is good enough for all of our children. If we have a philosophy as New Zealanders, a set of principles and ideology, it is the ideology of fairness. It says that some kids will come from privileged and wealthy backgrounds—fine. Other kids do not. But the really important thing is that every child should get equal opportunity. Every child should be able to achieve his or her potential. I will fight and fight and fight again against this National Government, which says it will put more money into private education, but for the kids who go to public schools it will increase their class sizes and close down their technology classes.

You know, I do not exempt Ms Parata from the blame of this policy altogether. She has a job as Minister of Education—I once did that job—and her job was to understand the policy that was being proposed, to subject it to scrutiny, and to make a judgment as to whether it was the right policy. [Interruption] I will ask Paul Goldsmith this question. If she knew the impact on intermediate schools, why did she not tell her colleagues?

💬 Paul Goldsmith: Is that a rhetorical question?

He has no answer—he has no answer. If she knew and she did not tell her colleagues, that was appallingly bad judgment. And if she did not know the consequences, that was simply incompetence and inadequacy on her part.

You know, we heard her going through the parroting of all of the explanations. Here is a commentator in Saturday’s New Zealand Herald: she was “spouting meaningless blather. Repeatedly mouthing platitudes …”. It is just not good enough to parrot a line. “The truth is”—and this is word for word—“that the Education Minister’s botched handling of the cost-cutting blunder, which initially would have seen some schools losing up to five teacher positions, has brutally exposed her political shortcomings.”

Under a Labour Government the education spokesperson is always on the front bench, and to get on the front bench you have to have political competence to be there. But we have seen anything but political competence from this Minister. This policy was a disgrace. It was a disgrace that she was hung out to dry by Bill English, who did not front up alongside her, despite the fact that he knew what that policy meant, and it was an equal disgrace from John Key to support a policy that was absolutely rejected by parents right across our community. It is strange, I often think, how a number of people in this House have benefited from the welfare State in their time of need, but when it comes to extending the hand of help to kids who have need today, they do not want to do it. They just want to cut; they want to make things worse.

John Key did say one thing that was interesting, on Newstalk ZB. He said that he is not arrogant enough not to listen to what people are saying. Well, I have got some advice for Mr Key. In every public opinion poll that has ever been held in this country, people have said that they do not want to see New Zealand flogging off its public assets. I wonder whether Mr Key is not arrogant enough to ignore their views, because those on the Finance and Expenditure Committee who have been going around the country over the last month or two time and again heard submissions from people utterly and emphatically opposed to the sale of assets. Why would you sell the best-performing assets that you have got? These are the assets that Treasury itself admits are so efficient that privatisation will not improve their efficiency. Why would you sell the assets that returned to us, 2 years ago, $700 million in 1 year, which, as John Key admitted, went towards our hospitals and our schools? Why would you hand over ownership of something that all of us as New Zealanders, as Kiwis, and as taxpayers own and benefit from to only those who can afford to pay for it? And why does the Government not admit that most of those shares, the cornerstone shareholding, will go into foreign ownership? That is what Treasury says in its briefing to the Government.

This was a zero Budget: zero extra spending, zero contribution to growth, zero vision, and zero hope. The only thing that it will continue to do is to send New Zealanders, the 1,000 a week who are leaving, out of this country and into Australia. One school in my electorate, which was mentioned in the paper this morning, Wesley Intermediate School, has lost 14 percent of its roll in the last year to Australia. This Government has failed, this Budget is a loser, and we are seeing the last term of this National Government.

What we have heard there, from the former leader of the Labour Party, is just so much negative claptrap, is it not? It is no wonder that that member was rejected by most New Zealanders at the 2011 election. It is because he was so negative. Here we have this Government, in the Budget of 2012, in very tough economic times, that has delivered a very pragmatic Budget for these economic times. When you look at the dark grey clouds gathering in Europe, and when you think about what those members on the other side of the House would do if they were sitting over here on the Treasury benches, we know what they would do. They would spend more and increase taxes. Our debt would just blow out and balloon, and we would end up in a situation like many countries in Europe now. Some of the countries over there have 50 percent unemployment. We see now Spain with a $100 billion bailout of its banks. These are the issues that New Zealand has to face. But over on the other side you hear Phil Goff, the former leader of the Labour Party, so negative. Where is the aspiration? Where is the positive talk? There is nothing. There is nothing from the Labour Opposition. Whereas under the stewardship of the finance Minister, Bill English, with the overwhelming support of our Prime Minister, we have delivered a Budget that has been difficult to bring together under these economic times, but where we have found new spending, reprioritised spending, of about $4.4 billion or $4.5 billion, reinvested into core public services.

Most New Zealanders know that we have to tighten our belts. Most New Zealanders know that we have to rein in debt. Most New Zealanders know that we have to lift productivity and grow the economy. That is why it is great, under this Government, that our economy has grown in nine out of the last 10 quarters. Is not that fantastic? We are growing. When you look at the countries that we like to compare ourselves with, and those that I have just talked about in Europe where they are not growing, New Zealand is growing. We are going to grow a lot more jobs; about 150,000 are forecast by Treasury in the next 4 years. In the last couple of years the economy has grown 60,000 jobs.

Just in the last week we had Minister Paula Bennett talking about unemployment and how that dropped considerably down to about 50,000 in May—fantastic—a drop of more than 3,500 in the last month. What is also topical is the young people who are getting back into employment. That peaked in January 2010 at about 23,500; now it is 13,500. Is that not fantastic? You heard from the Prime Minister today that about 20,000 people have moved off the unemployment benefit in the last couple of years. The economy is growing, and that is as a result of the tough decisions that have been made by this Government under the stewardship of the Minister of Finance, Bill English.

Think also about the vulnerable. Under tough economic times, we have supported those whom we needed to support—for example, those on Working for Families, and superannuitants. Superannuation is up by about 20 percent since 2008—fantastic. War pensions are up. And we have a real focus on getting even more people off the unemployment benefit and into work. Minister Paula Bennett is doing a fantastic job there. We need to support her. We need to ensure that these New Zealanders are able to perform in our modern-day economy. That is where it comes down to education. Yes, we have had a robust discussion about education. It has been interesting to hear all of the issues that have been raised—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Your policy crashed and burned. Just admit it.

—since the Budget was announced in the last few weeks. One of the things—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Two weeks and you had to withdraw it. That’s how bad it was.

—that the Opposition and Phil Goff, who is chipping in now, have not talked about in his negative rant is why the performance of our teachers is not improving. Why have we still got one in five children failing in our education system? Why has the tale of underachievement been constant under the Labour Government for 9 years? Now this Government is keen to address that to ensure that we lift the tale of underachievement. Why did we have our opponents so negative when we rolled out national standards? Why did we have that? That was because they were supporting the teacher unions. Now parents have plain reporting coming on to the kitchen table. They know how well their children are doing, and they know where to put the support for their children so that they can continue to lift the standards of numeracy and literacy.

What we have from the Opposition is no debate talking about why there has been a 13 percent increase in teacher roll growth over the last 10 years when the student roll growth has been about 2.5 percent. Teacher roll growth is up here, student roll growth is lower, yet the quality and the performance of our students coming out of our education system have not improved. That is where the debate now needs to focus on, in my opinion.

This has also been a great Budget for health—$435 million extra invested in health, and there is a lot more going into research and innovation, which is part of our economic growth agenda. We are also putting more money into our assets, as well. Think about what is happening in our State highway network up and down the country. Roads of national significance are going through the consenting process, which has been fast-tracked under this Government, like Transmission Gully and the Waterview Connection. All of these ones that would have probably taken about 5 years on average under the previous Government have now been put through an Environmental Protection Authority process of about 9 months.

My constituents in the Ōtaki electorate are saying “Bring it on for Transmission Gully, bring it on for the Kapiti Expressway, ensure that we can improve our safety performance on our State highway network, lift productivity, and continue to grow our regional economic growth.” But what we have from our opponents over there is such negative claptrap. They over there on “Planet Labour” are not aspirational at all. They have continued to worry about their leadership woes. It was interesting when I had a look at my Saturday Dominion Post. The interesting thing about the leadership woes in Labour continues. Here we are: “The man waiting in the wings”, Grant Robertson. There was a lovely story on Grant Robertson—just what, I am sure, David Shearer, the new leader, would not want. Is it not amazing, when you have the battle of the three Davids still ongoing, and here you have Grant Robertson, the deputy of David Shearer, having a blow-by-blow piece in C3 in the inside of the Saturday Dominion Post? What was interesting in here was that “Mr Robertson lives by three rules:”. The first one you might be interested to hear about is “treat others how you want to be treated”. Well, I would have thought it is ironic that Grant Robertson wants to treat David Shearer in this way, with a full-blown article with a heading saying “The man waiting in the wings”.

The Labour leadership woes continue. David Shearer continues to bumble, and stumble, and stammer, and stutter his way through interview after interview. Grant Robertson is loading the deckchairs up there in the office. He is getting his staff appointed in. Mark my words, by the end of the year Grant Robertson will be the next leader of the Labour Party.

Anyway, I will get back on to the issues about this very important Budget, which has been carefully crafted by the Minister of Finance and well received by most New Zealanders. The thing that I am very passionate about as Minister of Veterans’ Affairs is the 10 extra deployments that we announced in this Budget. It was hard to find any new money, but I put a pitch through Cabinet, and we managed to find $4.8 million for the 10 extra deployments. Those New Zealanders who have served in places like Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bougainville, Sudan, and south Lebanon will now be able to get a war disablement pension. It is a fantastic initiative, supported by this Government in tough economic times. Most important, as I wrap up, this is a Budget that has been well delivered, and well received by New Zealanders, and thank goodness we have got a decent Prime Minister in John Key.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise after the Hon Nathan Guy, as he finished on discussing the 10 extra deployments and the war disablement pensions that he was able to deliver through this Budget 2012.

As I start out, it is interesting to reflect on what has been happening around the globe in just the week that has been. Spain has applied for a €100 billion bailout of its banking system, which could see its public debt rise to over 90 percent of GDP. In that country alone, Spain, nearly 50 percent of its youth—25-year-olds and under—are unemployed, unable to find jobs, and without a future ahead of them. So to be able to stand here today in the context of what is happening in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal—in fact, Ireland and the UK as well—and debate this Budget, which Bill English has put forward, is a wonderful opportunity.

Let us put it in context in regard to those other countries. This Budget will keep Crown debt below 30 percent of GDP—30 percent. It is about 23 percent now, at its maximum rising to 28 to 30 percent of GDP. That is a wonderful position to be in as a country, particularly compared with those European nations. Our long-term objective by 2020 is to get that debt back down to 20 percent of GDP. We have set an objective of getting back to surplus in the 2014-15 year, and I am confident that that will happen, especially on the back of the fact that just last week Minister English announced that this year’s Budget deficit is over $1 billion less than we had forecast. This was for two key reasons—important reasons: firstly, increased revenue of about $700 million, but also, importantly, $300 million additional savings over and above what we forecast. That is a fantastic situation to be in.

On top of that, we see an announcement by Minister Paula Bennett saying that there are 20,000 additional jobs, and that the unemployment benefit numbers right now—today, in the middle of very difficult times—are the lowest they have been since 2009. On any basis this is a great space to be in.

In thinking about this Budget, I am calling it the “hard yards Budget”. It is where this Government is doing the hard yards to get us through and back to surplus, back to a position where our debt is starting to come back. It is a bit like the forwards in a rugby pack. This Budget is a props, hookers, and locks Budget, where they pick up the ball from the back, take just an extra yard, and get closer to that finishing line. This is not a wingers Budget or a full backs Budget.

💬 Paul Goldsmith: No show ponies.

This is not a show ponies Budget. This is a hard yards Budget that will return this country back to surplus, bringing our debt down. I think that is important.

Over and above all that, what we are seeing throughout the public sector is a revolution taking place. A quiet revolution is occurring. I want to thank public servants around the country for the job that they are doing to assist us in bringing this country back into surplus. But that is happening not only in the Public Service but in NGOs throughout the nation. In that regard, I wanted to focus on a couple of initiatives in my own electorate, back in Napier. One is around the Napier Kindergarten Association and an issue that came to the table a couple of Budgets ago. We introduced a policy that was not popular at that point in time where we capped the spend on teachers to an 80 percent level of qualified teachers at early childhood education centres. Rightly so, at the time the industry was up in arms about that and was concerned about that. I attended an AGM where the association was very concerned about that funding and what it would do to it.

But today I want to talk about the association’s AGM this year and what it has actually done. A year on from that, despite all the dramas that were predicted and all the issues that it thought might come into play, these are its profit and loss figures: in 2010 it was fortunate to make a $320,000 profit. Given all the concerns that were posed about the drop in funding, one would have thought that things would get a little bit more difficult. Well, the 2011 financial accounts show a $339,000 profit. So I want to congratulate that association on the wonderful job that it has done in very difficult times.

But here is the interesting point. This is how it achieved that result. I am going to read from its financial manager’s report. It says: “It’s important to note that in taking on and dealing with these issues, we are going to do a number of things. Strategies we employed to minimise the impact of the funding cuts included introducing Friday afternoon sessions, being open for the maximum number of days available to us, diversifying a couple of the kindergartens to all-day licences, and”—here is the real kicker—“being prudent with expenditure, renegotiating service costs where possible.” My goodness! Is that not terrible! These guys are to be congratulated because what they have done is, given the difficult times we are in, they have risen to the mark and have delivered. They have delivered the same, if not better, services with less money. That is something to be congratulated on, and I am proud that my kindergarten association has risen to the plate in that regard and delivered these amazing savings.

Outside of that, I want to talk about the ministries that I am proud to be now associated with as Minister, and the efforts they are making in that evolutionary process to deliver better services to the public and with less money. I start with tourism, where Kevin Bowler at Tourism New Zealand, Liz MacPherson at the Ministry of Economic Development, and their teams are doing a magnificent job. They have refocused the strategy to continue to drive additional tourists to our nation, while the segments around the world—as Europe backs off, China rises, Asia rises. They are refocusing their strategy, reinforcing the “100% Pure New Zealand” brand, which is superb. But, importantly, here is what they have really done, which is exciting. They have raised an additional $25 million from the private sector for partnership funding—$25 million. They are using that money to support the promotion of New Zealand and to increase tourism opportunities here in New Zealand. That is fantastic.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management is ably led by John Hamilton, and he is doing a wonderful job there. It has delivered a 6 percent efficiency gain to the Government, and that will help us to drive this Budget—this hard yards Budget that I was previously talking about. But while doing that, the ministry is still delivering superb services. It is focusing on lifting the capability of our 16 regions. Through that, I just want to thank those regions that have had to deal with severe weather events since I have been the Minister of Civil Defence, particularly Nelson, Taranaki, and Northland.

My larger ministry, which is the Department of Internal Affairs, is a wonderful ministry. It really is the heart and soul of New Zealand. It deals with citizenship on the one side through to censorship on the other. And those guys in the censorship compliance unit, as I said when I stood and took a question in the House recently, did a wonderful job in bringing those 55 people to task and saving those 12 children. These guys work in a tough environment and are doing a great job.

One of the wonderful opportunities we have in the Department of Internal Affairs is to deliver on result area No. 10. It is one of the 10 results that the Prime Minister has put his hand on the table and said that we will be held accountable for doing these things, such as lifting the level of early childhood education to 98 percent of children and getting National Certificate of Educational Achievement pass rates from around 68 percent, where they are now, to 85 percent. But result area No. 10 is where I have some responsibility. That is about giving New Zealanders the opportunity to have a much stronger digital interface with the Government, and making it easier for them to work with the Government in a digital environment. We have a range of projects that I am proud to see the department delivering on in that regard, allowing citizens to have a stronger relationship with the Government. There are a couple that I have announced just recently that will see huge savings. Last week alone we confirmed an IBM contract that will see significant savings in the order of $250 million over a 10-year period. There are huge savings with the one.govt network, which will see $400 million to $600 million in savings. I mean, this is real money that we can deliver back into education and health and deliver more surgical operations and better education for our kids.

I am proud of what is happening with this Budget. We are driving revolutionary change, and this is an exciting time for New Zealanders. Thank you.

I seek leave to table letters from students at Papatoetoe Intermediate School to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education regarding what the school perceived as the impact of the cuts—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is no objection.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table letters from students at Morrinsville Intermediate School, again given to me by hand to be tabled in the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

On 5 June the Prime Minister sent out a letter to residents in the Christchurch East electorate. It was done electorate by electorate, whether or not the Government had a constituency MP representing that electorate. John Key sent it out in his name, and he said that the rebuild of Greater Christchurch was central to the plan that was set out in Budget 2012. The Government’s narrative around the earthquake recovery in Christchurch or greater Christchurch as it refers to it—because, of course, Waimakariri District Council and Selwyn District Council are included within the greater Christchurch area—was very clear. The Government is putting a lot of money into the rebuild of Christchurch, and that means that it does not have money available for other things that have suddenly become the “nice-to-haves”. The people of Christchurch are actually sick and tired of this Government using them as an excuse to sell our country’s assets and to do things like put extra taxes on our newspaper delivery kids. The newspaper deliver kids in Christchurch have had a pretty hard job of it getting through the streets after all the earthquake damage, and finding their pockets being picked by the Government to make up the nickels and dimes in this sort of Budget is absolutely unreasonable.

But for the Government to talk about what is happening in Christchurch as an excuse for what it is doing to the rest of the country is intolerable, given what we have already experienced in Christchurch. It is about time that we were allowed to speak the truth in this House about what has really been going on, as the Government has entirely politicised the situation in Christchurch to its own advantage—even from the moment that it chose the corporate colours for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. What colours do you think most people in New Zealand would associate with Canterbury? It would be red and black, would it not? You would expect the corporate colours of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority to be red and black. Actually they were going to be red and black. The Minister had a special jacket made—red and black with the label CERA on the front of it—very shortly after the February earthquake. After the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority had been set up he had that red and black jacket on. But guess which corporate colour it settled on? It settled on blue. What association does blue have with Christchurch? None—absolutely none. So it was a subliminal message. There are those who say colours do not matter, but actually, in Christchurch, colours do matter, because if your property is red zoned, or green zoned—now with a blue tinge over the top of it—then it certainly does matter. It matters to your equity. It matters to your future. It matters to any decisions that you can make. It matters to your relationship with your insurance company. There is nothing that matters more in Christchurch at the moment than colours. National started the colour regime with its own decision to put the National Party brand on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. The subliminal message is that the National Government is rebuilding Christchurch. Canterbury cannot even own its own recovery with its own colours leading the way, red and black.

That is something that Labour would restate straight away, and that is that red and black would be leading the recovery. We would let the people of Canterbury own their own recovery. We would not have a top-down Government department and a Government Minister actually controlling the recovery of our city and making all of these decisions without any engagement with the people. We would put a layer of governance between the Minister and Roger Sutton, who is the head of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, which would become a State-owned enterprise or an independent Crown entity, in order for it to be able to do its job properly, which is to facilitate the recovery. It is something that has got to be owned by the people, with a proper sense of engagement with the people, so that they can be involved in it.

Let us have a look at what the Government is saying in its narrative. It has set aside $5.5 billion for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund and then goes on to say that more than $3.4 billion of the recovery fund will have been spent by next year. Well, that is not true. We know that that is not true, because, in fact, we have done the sums. The Government has thrown everything into the $5.5 billion that it can possibly find. It has got $4 million to establish the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, $3 million for the royal commission of inquiry, $23 million for work that was already done before the 22 February earthquake even happened, a $5 million donation to the Red Cross Society Inc., $20 million on the national controller and civil defence costs, and $100 million for the AMI contingency, which originally was $300 million - odd.

Then it has added in what it would have to pay for its own asset repairs—schools and State highways. That is in there. It is over $80 million so far and increasing. Of course there is the total amount allocated to repairing local infrastructure—$1.6 billion over 5 years—which represents the 60 percent of the cost the Crown is already liable for under the pre-existing arrangements between central government and local government in the case of a natural disaster.

When we analyse the Budget numbers we discover that the Government had shifted just over $1 billion from the forecasts allocated in the pre-election fiscal update to the yet-to-be-allocated category and then claimed that as part of the $2.17 billion projected spend this year. I am afraid that is just smoke and mirrors, and that is what the Government has been doing with this. The reality is that the Government has really played tricks with people’s confidence over a serious disaster and I think it should be held to account for doing that.

Of course in this letter it goes on to repeat all of these other things over and over again. The Government has “repaired over 15,500 homes”. Well, it has not paid for that. That is being paid for by either the Earthquake Commission or the insurance industry, so that is not something that the Government has had to pay for. Twelve thousand square metres of road have been repaired. Well, actually that is included in the sum it has already mentioned, and also the additional amount on installing drinking-water pipe, waste-water pipe, and demolishing 80 percent of unsafe buildings. Those things are all paid for out of other budgets, and so it is just restating it. The Government has purchase offers to more than 6000 residential red zone homeowners, and two-thirds have been accepted, but it does not say that the underlying assumption was that 100 percent would accept option one. Actually, 25 percent of those who have accepted one of the options have accepted option one. So its assumptions are completely wrong and it has not done the numbers again. It is not telling people the truth. It is not being up front with people, and this should be the most open and transparent process. There should be open engagement with the people.

It is fast tracking planning permission to make thousands of new residential sections available in new subdivisions on safe land. Well, when do they come? Too late for the people who have to move out of the red zone. Not one single one of those sections will be available to rebuild on by April next year—not one of those that they have fast tracked the planning permission for. Then it is completing the infrastructure repairs and undertaking a further amount each month on average. Again, that is restating the figure it has already included in the original figures. But then what does it do? It says that you can have your say now. It is time for you to have your say, and let us just restate our position on this. The letter says: “Pease tick the three aspects of the Government’s commitment to rebuilding greater Christchurch that are most important to you:”. So, of course, it is reinforcing to the public that the Government has got this commitment to rebuilding greater Christchurch, and that is because the National Government is doing it. It is not facilitating people to do it for themselves.

But then it goes on to say this: “Please tick one of the following options: I ALWAYS support the following political party: United Future, Green, Maori, Labour, National, Act, NZ First. OR I USUALLY support the following political party:”, and it has set out the political parties again. Then it says “OR I don’t support any political party in particular.” Then it says: “Privacy notice. Supplying this information is voluntary. The information is being collected by National MPs in their capacity as Members of Parliament to be used for electorate and related activity.” Well, this letter is for Wigram. The other one that I have got here is for Christchurch East. I am afraid that Megan Woods is the MP for Wigram, and I am the MP for Christchurch East, but it suggests that people go to “Our Christchurch Central MP Nicky Wagner”, who is “available to assist you with constituency issues”. Nicky Wagner will not help her own constituents with these issues and, in fact, we have had to take up the work that she has left behind. So what—

💬 Chris Hipkins: The taxpayer paid for that.

And the taxpayer has paid for this to go out there to find out how people are voting, and to actually finally come clean and show that National has been entirely political about this from start to finish. It has not worked with the people about the issues that really matter. What I am concerned about is that we have got people who now live in different parts of electorates who have to put up with this over and over again. This photograph is of red zone land; this photograph is of green-blue land. It is not fair that the Government will not work with the people in order to ensure that they understand what is going on.

I would like to seek leave of the House to table an example of the correspondence that the Rt Hon John Key has put into my electorate of Christchurch East.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not. Leave is granted.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

There was a speech that focused on the burning issues of the day, did it not—the colours of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority! Goodness me! In this debate I just want to talk about the issue of fiscal policy in general and the fairness of our tax system. I find myself in the unusual position of reflecting back on Budget 2010, and the reason for that is the many references made in this House to the cost of tax cuts for those in the upper income bracket—in particular, the references from Dr Norman, who has gone on ad nauseam over the last month about his belief that the National Government’s tax cuts in 2010, far from being fiscally neutral, actually cost “$2 billion and counting”. I have got no ability to say whether or not that figure is correct, but whether or not it is, it is certainly not the full story. In fact, it seems that Dr Norman may have been taking some policy advice from the former member Stuart Nash. Remember Mr Nash in this House last year talking about farming incomes?

💬 Hon Amy Adams: That’s right.

That is right—remember? He talked about gross incomes. Never mind that that is not what one pays tax on. One pays tax on net incomes. Well, Dr Norman is telling half the story really, really well, because whether or not the cost of the tax cuts to the upper income earners was $2 billion, that was just one element of about 13 or more separate levers to fiscal policy that this Government has made, including increases to GST that have resulted in upper income earners paying much, much more of that tax, the removal of depreciation on residential and commercial rentals, and the closure of a number of loopholes that were unintended consequences that benefited upper income earners in tax transfers like Working for Families, student allowances, and child support. Those loopholes were actually introduced by Labour and supported by the Greens. But the biggest one—the biggest one of all—was that the difference between the trust top tax rate and the top personal rates was so wide. I remember the Tax Working Group actually said that in the past we had one of the least distortionary tax systems in the OECD, and then we went from that to one of the most distortionary under Labour.

So although there was a reduction in the top personal tax rate in 2012 to remove that distortion, it is completely incorrect to say that that had a cost of $2 billion. I much prefer to refer to the more independent and non-partisan commentaries of the accounting firm of Deloitte, which in its 2011 Budget report confirmed that the 2010 tax switch was “indeed fiscally neutral according to the tax bands”. As far as I am concerned, that argument was over more than a year ago. Dr Norman can go on and on and on all he likes, but that does not make it any more true. Indeed, those changes that we made meant that three-quarters of New Zealanders pay a top personal marginal tax rate of 17.5 percent. Half of all households pay no net tax at all, and 17 percent—17 percent—of households pay 97 percent of the net income tax burden in this country.

But Labour and the Greens say 97 percent is not enough. They would want to put that top tax rate back up and punish hard-working New Zealanders even more. We know what they would do with those tax increases. The cuts actually gave New Zealanders a choice, and those cuts came across the board. They had a choice to either spend them, save them, or reduce debt with them. We now know what they did with them. They saved them and they reduced debt with them, because our savings rate is going up and our private debt is going down. But Labour and the Greens do not think that the public should have a right to decide what to do with their money. They think they know better than the public how the public should spend their money. So they went to the electorate last year and they said: “We are going to take those cuts back off you. We are going to take that tax cut back off you, because we know better how to spend it.” Well, I think the electorate spoke very clearly about what it thought about that policy. It spoke then and it spoke now—

💬 Andrew Little: You’re making it up!

I would like to know what that member thinks I am making up, because absolutely every one of these things has been verified. The people around him are not making any noises about it, because they know what the truth of it is. They know what the positive impact of those tax cuts and fiscal prudence was. And that is what the electorate knew too, because this Government does not treat the electorate like idiots. We can go to the electorate with tough decisions like partial floats, like the mixed-ownership model—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Like class sizes.

—yes, like class sizes—that is right. And, OK, maybe there is another discussion still to be had, but at least we are listening. At least we are listening, and that is a damn sight more than the public is doing to the policies of those members. Who knows what those policies are? There is no alternative being thrown up except tax, borrow, and spend. I think the public has spoken very clearly about that.

One of the things New Zealanders hold very dear is feeling safe in their homes. It is one of those things that my constituents hold very dear. In fact, I know a number of people move to the South Island and to small towns in the South Island because that is where they feel safe. They feel safe going about their business, they feel safe on the roads, and they feel safe in their homes, and that is something that I believe we will want for all New Zealanders all throughout New Zealand.

That is why National embarked, when it came into Government, on a comprehensive programme of reform to protect our communities: to protect everybody in New Zealand on the roads, at work, and in their homes, to prevent crime happening to New Zealanders, and to put victims at the heart of the justice system. In the time that the National Government has been in power we have passed 80 new laws to do with the safety of New Zealanders. We have introduced pieces of legislation like the offender levy, where $50 is taken from offenders and put towards the victims of crime. I was looking for the latest figure of how much has been gained from the offender levy, and I am afraid I cannot find it. It is not to hand, but I know that it is a significant amount and I know that that offender levy is making a real difference to the victims of crime in New Zealand.

This Government has given victims more say in court with victim impact statements. This Government has put 600 more police on the beat—on the front line—in the small towns and the cities throughout New Zealand. This Government has provided tools to seize the proceeds of crime. Again, the amount recovered from the proceeds of crime is indeed significant and that money is, in turn, being put to good use. This Government has brought in tougher sentencing and parole laws and now is looking at bail laws for all New Zealanders. We have tackled gangs, we have tackled P, and we are making significant gains on the importation of precursors of P. This Government has also worked on road safety and we now have the lowest road toll in 50 years.

But, of course, that is not enough. Budget 2012 has a strong focus once again—and I am very pleased to see it—on law and order. Recorded crime is now at a 15-year low, and the crime rate, which is set at a rate per 100,000 of population, is at a 30-year low. Those are figures that are to be celebrated, but, according to the Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, Anne Tolley, much more needs to be done. What a great attitude from our Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections. This is a Minister and a Government committed to making our communities safer, with a focus now on prevention—that is, preventing crime from happening and also reducing crime.

Budget 2012 supports this target for safer communities for New Zealanders. It supports this target and builds on the achievement of less crime. This Budget reprioritises $65 million in operating expenditure over the next 4 years and this expenditure is targeted in certain directions. There will be 33,000 offenders, including remand prisoners, accessing drug and alcohol treatment.

This Government has already banned smoking in our prisons. It was probably about 1½ years ago that smoking was banned in our prisons—a move that has been reported to us in the Law and Order Committee as an outstanding success. There is cleaner air both for officers and for inmates alike, improved health—of course—as a consequence of no smoke in the air, and a decrease in standover tactics now that tobacco has been removed as a currency. I will never forget the day when the Department of Corrections came to the Law and Order Committee and showed us a video and photographs of fires in prisons. Prisoners wad up their bedding, sheets, or paper, light it with their cigarette lighters, throw it out into the corridor, and watch the ensuing mayhem, placing not only corrections officers themselves but other prisoners at risk as the corrections officers scramble to put out those fires. The incidence of fires is now virtually nil, and so it would be fair to say that prisons are now a safer place for officers and inmates alike.

The Corrections Amendment Bill has passed its first reading. This is a bill that will remove red tape, allowing our prisons to operate more effectively, and also, importantly, that makes improvements to both drug testing and strip-searching procedures. All these are measures to make our prison environments safer for all those who have to live and work in them.

Budget 2012 provides for more rehabilitation places. Again, the Law and Order Committee is to travel to Rimutaka Prison this week to have a look at this, and I extend a welcome to any other members of Parliament who would like to come. It is a select committee trip, but it is open to any other members who are interested in law and order issues and who would like to take part in this visit. This visit will have a look at rehabilitation programmes at work. These programmes are designed to equip prisoners with the skills to face the world outside prison when they get released. As part of Budget 2012 there will be 2,950 more prisoners in education and training. There has already been a 45 percent increase in New Zealand Qualifications Authority credits gained by prisoners in trades training and work skills. It is pretty obvious, is it not? The more work skills a prisoner has and the more trades training skills a prisoner has, the greater the likelihood of getting employment on release; it is much enhanced. So, too, is there less likelihood of prisoners reoffending and ending right back where they began: in prison. It is notable, particularly following the contribution by the member who was so fixated on the colour red in a previous contribution, that in Christchurch there are 130 new places for trades training. Of course, those are skills that are going to be sorely needed in the future in Christchurch, and those skills are around building, carpentry, and those practical skills that are going to be sorely needed.

Corrections has looked very carefully at the way it operates, as part of an expenditure review, and has identified the best investments with a view to reducing reoffending. By seriously addressing these contributors of crime—things like drug and alcohol addiction and lack of literacy and numeracy skills—we can reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

Budget 2012 supports the police in working smarter and better. Of course, by working more efficiently, the police are providing a better public service to taxpayers, which is a very strong focus of this Government, and they have a real impact on crime rates in New Zealand. Police Minister Anne Tolley announced the Prevention First strategy late last year, which outlines how police aim to prevent crime before it happens. Most important, it puts the victim first, ultimately making New Zealand a safer place to work and to live. The strategy also aims to reduce the number of crashes on our roads, to give police greater control of the criminal environment, to put the police on top, and to provide a better service, once again, to victims. The Prevention First strategy puts prevention of crime at the forefront of police security. It allows police to be more proactive and work in a planned way. I was interested to hear a policeman say to me that gone are the days when the police car leaves the police station, tosses a coin, and then decides whether to turn left or right. Those days are gone. Now police are working more effectively and smarter.

Budget 2012 supports front-line police with the provision of new technologies, which gives them faster access to information so that they can make better decisions when they are out on the road and facing crime. As the Prevention First and Policing Excellence programmes continue to be rolled out, police are on course to reach the target of a 13 percent reduction in crime by 2014-15. That is a big goal. This Budget supports that.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Appropriation Bill and the 2012 Budget. Whatever this Budget is a future for, it is not a Budget for the future of New Zealand. It is miserly, it is penny-pinching, and it offers nothing for future wealth creation and future wealth building for New Zealand. What we have seen in this Budget—the headline issues for this Budget—is a tax on paper boys, we have seen shifting the goalposts for elderly in their retirement and the support they get for their retirement homes, we have seen more cuts in front-line services, and we have seen a lot of rhetoric accompanying the Budget, saying how wonderful it is for the future of New Zealand. It is all Alice-in-Wonderland stuff. It is head-in-the-sand stuff. It is out of touch. But the education changes that were announced in this Budget—or, rather, not announced, but presumed and implied—are something else again.

Let us recount what happened in relation to those education changes. The Treasury Secretary was deployed for the softening-up process. So he gave the interview and he gave the speech that signalled that class size was not the issue and that there would be changes in the Budget and changes in financing for education. Nobody knew what was happening. No signal was given about the precise changes. What has become quite apparent since the delivery of the Budget is that if Cabinet Ministers knew, or even if some of them knew, none of them asked the question and none of them reminded, or told, their colleagues about what the impact was going to be on the schools in their electorates and the schools around the country. No one asked the question.

The sector itself did not know until the day before, or even the day of, the Budget. I met intermediate school principals who did not know what the impact was going to be until the morning of the Budget. That is how closely guarded this secret was. So the education changes in the Budget were much less Alice in Wonderland and much more “malice in blunderland”. That is what that was about.

Budget 2012 offers nothing for the future of New Zealand. Where in the Budget is the foundation for future wealth creation? Where is the acceptance of the real and very serious and difficult problems facing New Zealand on, for example, superannuation financing and funding? What we do have from this Government and its economic and finance policy is partially selling State-owned enterprises—the State assets—a policy that we know is short-changing New Zealand in the long term. Even Treasury, in its more honest moments, tells us that the yield, in terms of a sale price for those State assets, will not make up for the return that the Government gets on those in the longer term. And we are not selling just State assets; now we are down to selling policy. So when it comes to gambling and when it comes to a convention centre in Auckland, we will fund that through selling policy.

If ever there was a matter that was a case of “malice in blunderland”, surely it must be ACC. I want to take a few moments to talk about the ACC issue, because this is serious. ACC is a very important institution in this country. It is 38 years old this year. It has been fundamental to good health and safety and to good rehabilitation and recovery for injured workers and for injured people, and it is very important. It has long held a high degree of public trust and confidence. Its genesis was in a bipartisan decision of this Parliament to say that something had to change to provide for those who are injured by accident.

It is unbelievable that many members opposite, in their speeches on the Budget so far in this debate, have referred to the wonderful ACC reforms engendered by this Government. So I want to talk about some of those ACC reforms, because what we have now is this important New Zealand institution with its reputation in tatters, all because of the approach this Government has taken in relation to ACC.

The rot started under the previous Minister. One of the biggest political cons of a generation was when this Government announced and declared and persuaded everybody that ACC was in financial crisis. Never mind that for nearly 10 years ACC had been generating surpluses of $1 billion. Never mind that at that time it had reserves of nearly $11 billion. The Government announced that there was a financial crisis, so it got rid of many board members and installed its specially recruited chairman, John Judge, who now is no longer on the ACC board, at least. It recruited John Judge. It hiked up the levies, totally unnecessarily, and when it got a backlash from the bikies, whose bikes it could not crush, it had to backtrack at least on that part of it.

It hiked up the levies, and what has the impact of that been? What has the impact of that been? Well, up to about 2008-09, ACC generated surpluses of about $1 billion. It used to spend about $2.5 billion to $3 billion on looking after people, on paying for their medical treatment and medical costs, and on paying their compensation. Well, do you know what happened last year? What happened last year was that ACC produced a surplus of $3.5 billion. And do you know what it spent on looking after people? Do you know what it spent on the medical treatment and the care of people, and compensation? It spent $2.9 billion. It generated a surplus greater than what it spent on every claimant who needed medical care and treatment and who needed earnings-related compensation. That is what it did.

The National Government was so embarrassed about it that just before the election, lo and behold, it announced a reduction in the levies. That is how embarrassed it was about its big mistake. But the mistake did not stop there.

💬 Michael Woodhouse: Just apologise.

It will never apologise about it. It will never apologise about it, because this is a Government that, according to its own operations manual, does no wrong—it does no wrong, apart from Nick Smith. Nick Smith did admit that he did wrong, and he did the honourable thing and stood down, but no other Minister has done the same thing.

That was not the end of National’s ACC reforms. It put John Judge in for a reason. It wanted to shake up the corporation. It wanted to get into a programme of cost-cutting, penny-pinching, and miserliness, and it wanted to push back on legitimate claimants—people who had been injured through no fault of their own. It pushed back. One of those people happened to be one of its own—Bronwyn Pullar, aided and abetted by another one of its own, Michelle Boag. Of course, hell hath no fury like a scorned ACC claimant who is a member of the National Party. And that is what happened.

So what we had were the ACC reforms promoted by this Government to get rid of a good board and a good chair, hike up the levies unnecessarily, declare there is a financial crisis, get into a dreadful programme of penny-pinching and cost-cutting, and push back on legitimate claimants who are suffering, who are in pain, and who are just doing what every New Zealander has done for the last 38 years, and that is to look to ACC for help and support. The Government has created a culture of disentitlement, and then cut back on those things that are needed to manage claimants’ personal information needs carefully. Now we have an organisation whose reputation is in tatters, where privacy breaches are endemic, and where people are getting knocked back. These people are suffering, exasperated, distressed, and depressed because of what this Government’s ACC reforms have done.

The question is where the Minister is on this. Where is the Minister on this? What has she done? In the House today, when asked what she had done and what her actions were, she told us what everybody else had done. But what has she done?

Her challenge now is, having got rid of John Judge, to issue a new set of instructions. Forget what the last Minister said, forget what Nick Smith said, and issue a new set of instructions. Unfortunately, she has to issue them to Paula Rebstock, so we do not know how much change there is going to be for this.

But here is the challenge to the Minister: issue a new set of instructions. Tell your new board chair that we want an ACC that cares about the people who come to it for help and support. Look after those people, examine the claims, but look after those people, and make sure that nobody who is entitled to support and assistance from ACC is disentitled, rejected, denied, thrown out into the cold, and left to battle the behemoth of ACC on their own, as so many are at the moment. Issue a new instruction. Say we want a culture change, and make a difference, because never has a very important public institution in New Zealand, which is so important to the life of New Zealand and the life of New Zealanders, come under such sustained attack from the people to whom it is so important. Never has a public institution come under such sustained neglect from the Minister who is responsible for it.

So that is the challenge. I look forward to this Government doing something new and good for ACC, because that will be a change from the past 3½ years.

I am very proud to stand and take a call in this Budget 2012 debate. Over the last couple of weeks since Budget day I have been taking the Budget to the people of the Taupō electorate, which I am enormously proud to represent. I have had post-Budget coffee catch-ups in places like Tirau, Pūtāruru, Tokoroa, Cambridge, Taupō, and Tūrangi. One of the things that has been quite interesting is that I have been surprised at the fact that there have not actually been many people who have been turning up with lots of questions to ask. I firmly believe that that is because they know that this is a Budget for our times. This is a Budget that is sensible, that is moderate, that is balanced, and that perfectly fits the times we are in. It sets the path back to surplus, but, more important, it has that balance right in terms of protecting those who need protection, and also making sure that we have an economy that is heading in the right direction and that is growing, albeit slowly—slowly and steadily. That is why I am proud of this Budget.

One of the things that has been really important is to remind the people of my community about the broader context in which this Budget was delivered. I am staggered that some on the other side of the House tend to forget some of the major economic issues that this Government has faced. It came in after 9 years of Labour to not only a recession already under way, a global financial crisis, a continuing environment where there is still uncertainty in Europe, and a space that is changing by the day but also the destructive earthquakes in Canterbury, which have come with a price tag to the Crown of $20 billion. That side of the House tends to forget that that is the context in which this Budget has been set.

The reality is that although we would like to have really certain times in front of us, they are not, and they are not going to be for quite some time. So this is a Budget that has taken that into consideration. But we have still managed to put new spending into the areas that matter—new spending into areas like science and innovation, new spending into health, new spending into education, and new spending into reducing areas, like my colleague Jacqui Dean spoke about before, in terms of getting on top of crime. These are the things that people in my electorate say are important. So this Government is spending the money exactly where New Zealanders want it to be spent. We are managing the finances tightly, we are building a more competitive environment, we are making sure that the recipe is in place for businesses to grow, and we are rebuilding Canterbury, getting that city and that region back on its feet, all the while with international challenges still in front of us.

It is really interesting because what we are spending in Budget 2012 is exactly what New Zealanders are asking for—exactly what New Zealanders are asking for. However, we are spending through savings. That should be no surprise to anyone in this House, if they are in direct contact with the people they represent, because that is exactly what individuals, families, businesses, and community organisations are doing up and down this country. They do not have new wads of money that float through their doors on a daily basis. They are making do with what they have, and that is exactly what this Government is demonstrating. It is not a “slash-and-burn Budget”; it is a responsible Budget. We have a very tight constraint on the spending we have, and we are spending new spending on the areas that count to New Zealanders.

If we look at health, for example, there is $1.5 billion going into health. Where is some of that spending going? Well, it is going into things like faster treatment for people who have cancer. If anyone in this House has dealt with or spent time with someone in that situation, they know that that is important to ordinary New Zealanders. So that is the priority on this side of the House, and that is exactly what we are doing.

In terms of welfare reform, the approach that this Government is taking is saying: “Well, actually, we might have to spend a bit more money up front.” Spending the money up front to get families and individuals out of poverty and out of the welfare benefit trap is worth it. That is another area that New Zealanders up and down this country are saying they are supportive of. They support exactly what this Government is doing. New Zealanders are supporting exactly what we are doing.

Let us talk education.

💬 Andrew Little: Yeah, yeah, quick.

Yes, absolutely. I am very pleased to talk about education. I am very proud to be part of this side of the House and to be part of a party that has an unrelenting focus on lifting student achievement—unrelenting, unrelenting. Do you want me to say it again? Student achievement is the focus of this Government—absolutely. In this one—

💬 Phil Twyford: How about those class sizes, then?

Yes, absolutely. I am more than happy to talk about the class sizes. What happened was that parents told us that they were concerned about where that might go. So what did we do? What did we do? We responded exactly to the feedback that we were given. And do you know what I have had since then? I have had texts, I have had emails, and I have had phone calls from people saying: “Thank you. Thank you for listening.” Do you know why members on that side of the House are so plugged in about it? It is because they never listened. They never listened. They never responded. They are so out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders. They cannot handle the fact that we are willing to say: “OK, let’s say we are focusing on student achievement.” That side of the House clearly did not do it, because it left one in five children behind, and we are not willing to do that. We are not willing to leave one in five of our young people behind. That is clearly demonstrated in some of the results and some of the targets that we have set in our public services. Members opposite are going quiet.

In early childhood education, 98 percent participation is what we have set for our young people. If you ask any primary school teacher who teaches a new entrant class what makes the difference in terms of them teaching those children, the answer is that it is early childhood education—absolutely. And we have been spending more money than Labour ever spent in 9 years in Government.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Quite wrong.

Spending absolutely has increased, and that side of the House just cannot handle it. What else have we set in terms of targets? The next one—and I am happy to say that it is ambitious—is to have 85 percent of our school leavers leave with National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 by 2016. That is going to be tough. That is going to be a challenge. But does this side of the House shy away from a challenge like that? Absolutely not, because it is worth it. This side of the House is focused on results.

One of the results that my colleague Jacqui Dean talked about in the area of law and order, which is another area that is particularly important to the people of the Taupō electorate, is keeping our families and our communities safer. If you look at the target that we have set in terms of reducing prisoner reoffending, if we reduce that by 25 percent, that translates to 18,500 fewer victims every year—18,500 fewer victims. That is the sort of thing that this side of the House is focused on, and that is why New Zealanders are supporting what we are doing. They trust that our Budget, our plan, will get the results that they are interested in.

I am proud of Budget 2012. I am proud of what we have delivered, despite being in tough times. I recognise, listening to my constituents on a daily basis, that individuals, families, businesses, and communities have been doing it tough. I recognise that, and I hear it nearly daily. But this side of the House, unlike those who live on “Planet Labour”, does not want to wish away the recession. We are not pretending that there is no global financial crisis. We are not pretending that Canterbury does not come with a $20 billion price tag. We are actually taking the actions, slowly, surely, moderately, sensibly, and deliberately, which will get New Zealand where we all want it to be. Things are getting better. Our economy is growing slowly and surely. The number of jobs is growing—17,000 in Christchurch alone. Business confidence is growing. Our major export markets of Asia and Australia are growing—

Order! Your time has expired.

It is an honour and privilege to talk to this Budget 2012 debate. The context in which we assess this debate is to look back at 3½ years of this Government, and what did we inherit? We inherited an economy that had some of the highest interest rates in the world—over 10 percent. Labour’s grave legacy was 5 consecutive years of contracting exports. Treasury forecasts were particularly grim, with predictions of deficits that would go out over 10 years.

The prolonged global economic recession, the Christchurch earthquake, and Labour’s economic mismanagement have led to a long, dark night in our history. However, after a long, dark night, this Budget represents morning again in New Zealand. It is morning again in New Zealand because this Budget will balance the Government’s books by the year 2015. It is morning again in New Zealand because this Budget delivers better Government services. It is morning again in New Zealand as this Budget builds a more productive and competitive economy.

Under this National Government, the economy has steadily built up to the point where this morning 2,230,000 New Zealanders went to work—more than at any time in our history. Interest rates are at historic lows, under 5 percent today, whereas they were over 10 percent in 2008. Finally, inflation was over 5 percent in mid-2008, and it is now at a low of 2.1 percent.

The Opposition has asked in this debate why it is important to balance the books. Well, it is important because as we look around the world, there are danger signs of countries where out-of-control debt has brought nations to their knees. In Greece, where crazy debt levels have led to a €130 billion rescue package for an economy that is only—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise. I know that we are having problems with our speaker system and getting people’s voices out uninterrupted to the world, but I think there has been an overcompensation. If you could ask—

💬 Tim Macindoe: This is not a point of order.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: If you could ask for the system to be turned down a little in the House. I am a member who is slightly hard of hearing and I will have trouble staying in here, at that volume.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that message has percolated to those who might do that.

In Spain, unemployment has hit 24 percent. The banking sector is in crisis there, facing serious downgrades and an imminent recession. But this National Government will not allow that situation to happen here. It is through fiscally responsible policies, prudent economic management, and sound, common-sense leadership that we will make this country bolder, brighter, and better again.

So you may ask what this Budget does to balance the books. Well, we have closed tax loopholes around livestock and mixed-use assets to save $293 million over 4 years. We have removed tax credits where they were no longer serving their purpose, and this will save $117 million. But what is critical is that net core Crown debt will remain below 30 percent, which is a gold standard compared with other developed countries. Significantly, we are reprioritising $4.4 billion over the next 4 years to ensure that New Zealanders receive better public services in health, education, social services, and science and innovation. Why are we doing this? We are doing this because these are the areas that matter to New Zealanders most.

What has been clear in this debate is the ideological differences between those tired Opposition benchers and the Government’s aspirational benchers. In a Harvard study, economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna investigated policies aimed at stimulating the economy in 21 countries, between 1970 and 2007. Their conclusions were unequivocal, and I will quote: “Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based on spending increases.” They added that spending cuts are much more effective than tax increases—

I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time for this debate has now concluded. I call on the Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, in reply if he wishes.

It has been interesting just to hear the Budget debate wandering along. I must say that the attitude the Labour Opposition brought to the House today is pretty much the one that it has carried throughout the debate. There is no focus, no real energy, and no sustained intellectual effort that illustrates any attempt to get to grips with the way the economic world has changed and where Budget 2012 fits into that. In fact, you would think with the way the Opposition turned up to the House today that it must have made some announcement a while ago and then turned round and changed its mind on it. That is what you would think had happened. I cannot recall an Opposition that was meant to be opposed to a Budget coming into the House with such a weak performance as today’s. It was unbelievable, actually, and reflects a kind of lassitude that can be explained only by the profound depression the Opposition members must feel at their inability to get a grip on political debate—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Resign.

—as my colleague has suggested before, I think, the Opposition should resign. I can tell you one reason why that is. The Labour Party, in particular, and to some extent the Green Party are quite disorientated by the way this Budget deals with public services. There is a lot of commentary about the general economy, and I can come back to that, but—

💬 Chris Hipkins: Deals to public services.

Well, that is exactly my point—that is exactly my point. The New Zealand centre-left parties have been waiting around for when the wolf rips off its sheep’s clothing, sacks half the Public Service, and shuts the hospitals, and then they will get their diet of media stories that enable them to put their feet up and say: “The world is the way we always thought it would be. The nasty Nats don’t care about anybody. We do, and in the end they’ll vote for us.” It is not happening.

A striking feature of this Budget and the election campaign is that all those people who at the ballot box actually do support the Labour Party are working so constructively with the Government on public services and on solving our social problems that we did not hear a word of criticism—not in the election campaign, and not around this Budget—with one exception. That was over the pupil-teacher ratio, and that was so obvious because it was exceptional. [Interruption] Clearly, the member does not know what Budgets used to be like when they were tight. Everybody complained about everything in the Public Service, but not now, because this Budget includes large investments in aspects of public services that the previous Labour Government, disgracefully, neglected or incompetently messed up.

But, actually, no one really cares about what Labour did, because there are a whole lot of people out there constructively engaged with the National - John Key - led Government on, for instance, taking some serious action about long-term welfare dependency. Labour members wrung their hands about it while it got worse throughout the most favourable employment conditions in a generation. The centre-left who support Labour now realise that writing strategies and wringing your hands does not work, and they are constructively engaged with this Government, with this Cabinet, in major change in how we deal with welfare issues, health issues, and education issues.

I will give just one very simple example, which is immunisation rates. For 30 years immunisation rates, particularly among Māori and Pacific children, those who need it most, have been below 70 percent, and today they are above 90 percent—above 90 percent—not because of strategies, workshops, and consultants but simply because this Government said: “We don’t accept that. We think it can be better, and if we tell people it can be better, they’ll do the job.” The public health service has done a fantastic job of lifting those immunisation rates. There is now no difference in immunisation rates between Pākehā children and Māori children, even in difficult areas like the Bay of Plenty. That is just one example. It did not actually take a lot more money, but it did take some more money.

The other examples are particularly around welfare, where the bankruptcy of the New Zealand Labour Party is becoming more obvious by the day. Not a single idea has it contested around the single biggest allocation of funding in this Budget, which is well over $250 million to welfare reform—not a word, not a word. The reason is that Labour has no idea how to deal with it, how to put up a better idea, or how to politically contest what National is doing. What we are doing is moving on from the dreadful passivity of the previous Labour Government, which said: “Because we care about our most vulnerable people, we don’t actually have to do anything to stop them being vulnerable.” The sneaking suspicion is that what drives the Labour Party is that it wants people to be dependent, because then it needs to get them a State house, and it then needs to have workshops, consultants, and statisticians running a whole industry talking about it.

This Government believes that people do not need to be vulnerable. They are not there as fodder for our political machine, like they are fodder for the Labour Party political machine. We have committed over a quarter of a billion dollars in this zero Budget to doing more to help more people whom we believe can move out of dependency. The other benefit of it might be that they then stop voting for Labour. Would that not be fantastic? That would be a real measure of success.

That is why the Budget debate has been a bit lacklustre, because the once-great Labour Party has nothing to say that is relevant to the issues of the day. Labour members just harp on with decades-old slogans and hope that somehow we will stuff up public services enough that that will feed their political strategy. It has not happened despite 4 years of tight Budgets. We will deliver more and better public services for less, and the delivery system that supports the Labour Party in the ballot box supports us—this Government—in the work it is doing and in what it wants to achieve for New Zealanders who depend on us.

In a context of global uncertainty and a bumpy and slow recovery in the New Zealand economy, this Budget is a sensible one. It is a sensible one. It is another step along the path of rebuilding the growth capacity of this economy, building on the resilience of so many New Zealanders who have done a fantastic job of adapting to the way the world has changed. At times they are frustrated and at times they are impatient, but at all times they are resilient, making the changes they need to make so they can secure their jobs, have viable households, get their debt down, and look to the future with some aspiration. This Government has never lost its sense of aspiration through these more difficult times, and we look forward to presenting a Budget next year that builds further on the aspirations we have for a brighter future.