Appropriation (2013/14 Estimates) Bill

Mr Speaker, I am not surprised that Damien O’Connor got that letter in to you late. He probably had another one in his drawer asking not to have an urgent debate, and he could not work out which one he should send in.

I rise to speak in favour of the Budget delivered by the Hon Bill English and against the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. This is a Budget that has seen the Government being able to project a surplus in the coming year, and I want to put on record my congratulations to the Hon Bill English, who has stuck to the course but has shown throughout the last 4 years considerable compassion for New Zealanders where there are needs, and, most particularly, that has been shown in the situation around Christchurch. This Budget committed a further $2 billion in extra funding to the recovery effort in Christchurch, bringing the Government’s contribution to that recovery to something around the $15 billion mark. The total recovery from all sources will now be in excess of $40 billion—a very large undertaking by any manner of means. The Government remains very committed to ensuring that we do get a good recovery result in Christchurch.

I want to just run through with the House not only some of the things that we have committed funding to but also some of the issues that we have previously committed funding to. So, first, in this Budget there is $900 million of new capital funding, which will go to Christchurch hospitals and their redevelopment. This is the biggest single hospital development in New Zealand’s history, and it is very appropriately being led by the Canterbury District Health Board, which is doing a great job in making sure that this new facility comes together extremely well. I want to thank the Hon Tony Ryall for his considerable efforts in making sure that this funding was available. Furthermore, there is a capital commitment to the justice and emergency precinct, and further commitments also to tertiary education. Once again, the hallmark of the legislation that we passed for the recovery in Canterbury is that each Minister in their own ministry has responsibility to contribute to that recovery. It has made my job as the overall Minister responsible so much easier, and I do want to thank the Ministers for the work that they continue to do.

We have also put money in this Budget into making sure that the anchor projects that were in the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, which was produced last year, do get under way. These are very big civic assets that add to the amenity of any city. The opportunity here is for Christchurch to have some very, very good buildings that will be strong, that will last and pass the test of time, and that will add value to our community.

In addition, we have put up money for the development of the Avon River precinct. People will be familiar with the Avon River, which wanders through the centre of Christchurch. We want the banks of that river to become far more accessible to people in Christchurch and to visitors to our city, and the Government has put up a fund of some $96 million to make that happen over the coming years. As private sector investors begin to build buildings—I want to acknowledge Antony Gough for getting first out of the blocks with the proposals he announced yesterday—there will be complementary design between those buildings and those riverbanks to ensure that we get the most splendid results possible.

The Earthquake Commission comes under a great deal of criticism, and we have funded it beyond the Natural Disaster Fund so that it can continue with the obligations that it now picks up in Christchurch. So far it has repaired over 38,000 homes. That is a very large number, albeit that it has taken a couple of years to do that. What it does let us do is get to the point where by the end of the year we would expect that number to be 50,000, and by the end of 2015 the entire repair job going to the Fletcher EQR office to be completed. Private insurers have got a role to play. They need to step up and do a lot more than they appear to be doing at the present time.

One of the things that we did early on was put up $1.7 billion to help families out of damaged homes in the worst affected areas of Christchurch. These are areas, essentially, where it is just so difficult to rebuild that it was much more desirable for people to make a difficult choice—a very difficult choice—to accept one of the Government offers and move on. I am pleased that nearly 6,700 households have accepted those offers and are moving on. We saw last Friday night on the Campbell Live television programme the happy faces of people who have been able to benefit from that programme by, in fact, relocating into new or second-purchased houses in far stronger areas. It was a little change from the novel John Campbell television programme. He is, I think, the self-appointed campaign manager for the Labour Party in Christchurch. It is disappointing that he does take that particular role, because I do not think that he actually represents the city terribly well with some of the stories he does put out there. I would just encourage him to keep looking—not too hard; not too hard, because you do not have to—to find some of the very good stories that exist for people in Canterbury.

We are coming into a local body election this year, and that does create some worries. I would simply say to anybody who is thinking of standing for the council, or taking a major leadership role that they might be elected to, to have a look at the finances—have a look at the finances—and do not be deceived by what you are being told by the people who are presenting those figures. That is a council that has significant challenges ahead of it, and some of the silly rhetoric that we are getting out of potential candidates is not going to help people in Christchurch move forward. We need to do that in a sensible fashion, and I am pleased that the Government is sticking by Canterbury and ensuring that things do move.

It is noteworthy that the economy in Canterbury last year grew by 5.6 percent, compared with the rest of New Zealand at 2.2 percent. We have got very good growth statistics, with a 6.8 percent rise in employment, and unemployment sitting at 4.3 percent. So there are some very, very good fundamentals. Essentially, local people are responding to the challenges in front of them and getting on with putting the city back together. I have got huge admiration for them. I do want to make it clear that it is the Prime Minister’s commitment, the Deputy Prime Minister’s commitment, and the commitment of the whole Cabinet and National caucus, as well as a great deal of the membership of this House, that sits in a most complementary fashion behind the work that local people do.

I do think, though, that it is worth looking at the public reaction to the Budget as a whole, which, by and large, has been very, very positive. I mentioned John Campbell before. Sadly, I now have to mention Paddy Gower, who had a very interesting take on some polling figures that were produced last week. He said that it was the Labour Party hoax over the electricity proposals that had got it up in the polls. I will simply say this. The National Government came into office in 2008. We had had at that time a 72 percent rise in the retail power price in just 8 years. We had had four crises in the electricity industry through that time, when people were asked to save, and the power companies profited all the way through that. We said that there was something wrong here. The first thing we did was get rid of the thermal ban. The second thing we did was embark on electricity market reform. When in 2010 those reforms kicked in, the Labour Party said that they would never work and that they would cause problems.

Well, firstly, power price increases have been at less than half the rate that they were under the Labour Government, and, secondly, in the last 3 years of the Labour Government the average amount of electricity generated from renewable sources was just 65 percent. Since 2010 the average amount of electricity generated from renewable sources has sat at 74 percent. That is a massive increase. What it means is that when power companies are faced with some opportunities to do things in a sensible way, they will choose to do that. The point that I make is that under all the smoke and mirrors from the Labour Party, there is a suggestion that there will be a $300 or $400 a year saving in electricity, which, frankly, cannot be proven and cannot be sustained as an argument. But then, of course, climate change charges will put $500 to $600 on the costs of every household. It is no surprise that the alternative to the excellent Budget brought down by Bill English has fallen on its face with the public. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is this a 10-minute call?

Ten minutes. I will give a call at 2 minutes to go.

Again today we had another typical announcement from the Prime Minister. He made an announcement of $2 million a year going into food in schools—just enough to get a headline but not enough to make a substantial difference. That is the way this Government operates. It knows it is in trouble on child poverty, it knows it is in trouble on housing, it knows it is in trouble on electricity, and what does it do? It just tinkers a little bit, but it never does anything sufficiently large or substantial to make a difference that will be significant.

This is the National Government’s—is it its fifth Budget? It is its fifth Budget, but it has not yet balanced one Budget. Labour ran nine Budgets, and we ran surpluses every time—every time. We actually had very substantial tax cuts for families with children, and we cut the corporate tax rate from 33c to 30c in the dollar and improved write-off for short-lived assets.

💬 Andrew Little: What of the Crown debt?

Well, over that same period, we reduced Crown debt, Mr Little. We reduced gross debt from 38 percent of GDP to 18 percent of GDP, and we got net debt down to zero.

What was National calling for at the time? It said it did not want the big surpluses that we ran; it wanted more tax cuts. What foolish behaviour that would have been. That would have left New Zealand in the same position that the United States, Great Britain, and most of Europe are facing as a consequence of having Governments that did there what National would have done here, had it been in charge, and that would be to fritter away those surpluses. As a consequence National would have had us in very, very difficult times at the moment. Even Bill English, who is not really a Labour Party supporter, was forced to acknowledge at the time he took office that this was the rainy day the Labour Government had been saving for. So this proud record that Labour has of fiscal responsibility goes back—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish.

—just about through every Labour Government that you have ever had. Dr Smith says “Rubbish”.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It is.

Dr Smith, who was the most fiscally irresponsible Prime Minister in your life? It was Mr Muldoon. Mr Muldoon is the only fiscally irresponsible Prime Minister that we have had. John Banks—who looks like he is on the phone over there—is the only one left here who was a supporter of Mr Muldoon, and I am not surprised that the ACT Party—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: He named his dog after him.

He named his dog after him. Well, that might be appropriate. He also modelled his own behaviour after him, because he tripled council debt when he was last the mayor. The Labour Party is not fiscally irresponsible. We have never been fiscally irresponsible, and our record shows that.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell the truth.

So this should not be a debate about austerity compared with Government spending.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Sorry. The member cannot say that phrase. There is a well-known Speaker’s ruling; 42/3. Do not do it again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I am sure that will not come off my time.

We had shiny pledges from the National Party in order to get into office. It promised us a brighter future. It said: “Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes. Not Your Loved Ones.” Since then 200,000 people have disappeared to Australia. Since then we have had electricity prices continuing to rise at double the rate of inflation. In fact, last year they went up by five times the rate of inflation. We have got rampant house price inflation.

We have got a two-speed economy, where some parts of the economy are thriving—i.e., the speculative economy. Speculative housing investment in Auckland is driving rampant house price inflation. And National does nothing about it because it has caused the problem. Forty percent of its income tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of income earners, and National is surprised that those people are out there trying to buy more and more houses, while a lot of people—in fact, the majority of young people—cannot afford even one. Not only that but National knows that it is a tax bias that is driving over-investment in property at the cost of jobs and the productive economy, but it does nothing about it.

We have got a two-speed economy in the regional sense, in that we have got some regions doing well and lots of regions doing poorly. We have got unemployment at over 15 percent amongst Pasifika and Māori groups. There is a two-speed economy for them. We have got a two-speed economy age-wise, with young people increasingly in insecure work, without secure work and career structures to keep them in New Zealand.

What has the Government done in terms of its promise to create 170,000 more jobs? We had Mr English, again, in the House today trying to say that it was something other than an election promise, when I have got here with me the advertisement that was on the television, which says “170,000 more jobs”. At the time of the Budget, where were they? The Government got only 8,000 more jobs. It was 162,000 behind. That is yet another broken promise from the National Party.

We have got rampant house price inflation. The Government is really spooked by the fact that the Labour Party has struck a chord with people. We have said that there is a need for some planning interventions, and the Government has brought forward some of those—indeed, it has overreacted in one part of it—but only after the Labour Party and the Auckland Council said that the Government has got to let it give effect to the Auckland Plan. But the Government does not have a clue as to how it is that you get on and build more houses. It is actually quite simple. You get on and you build more houses. But it will not do that. It does not have a clue as to how to solve this problem. It is blaming councils, which it is apt to do, and Nick Smith has been blaming councils—

💬 Phil Twyford: He’s the worst.

—saying that it is all the councils’ fault. He is the worst at it. He talks up a crisis, as he did with ACC. Blaming councils might take the heat off the Government, but it does not take the heat out of the problem.

We will be holding the Government to account on this problem because rampant house price inflation is set to continue. Indeed, it is an absolute indictment of this Government that the upside projection in this Budget—the upside projection in this Budget—is predicated on more house price inflation driving more debt and more debt-fuelled consumption. That is the great scenario in the Government’s Budget. That is the upside scenario in the Budget. Its growth strategy is to make the imbalances in the New Zealand economy worse.

Let us talk about the national overdraft. The national overdraft is our current account deficit. The national overdraft is something that Bill English said he was going to fix. He was going to rebalance the economy. But, under National, the national overdraft is already the worst in the developed world. Five years into its—

💬 Dr David Clark: Worse than Greece.

It is worse than in Greece. It is worse than in Greece. It is the worst in the developed world, according to the IMF. And every year from here it gets worse still until the end of the projection period. So National’s overdraft has us—instead of borrowing $10 billion extra overseas next year, or selling assets to overseas owners—going to $16 billion in the projection period. As Russel Norman said today in the House, there is an extra $60 billion of net international liabilities in the forecast period.

These guys could not run a bath—they could not run a bath. They have not got extra jobs. Electricity prices keep going up at twice the rate of inflation. And what do they do about all these things? Nothing. Because, you know, in the end, the National Party stands for vested interests. It stands for John Banks keeping secret the donations from Skycity. He is currently facing charges before the court in respect of that abysmal lack of judgment. We have the National Party giving New Zealand the misery of pokie machines in return for a shabby deal for a convention centre in Auckland.

💬 Hon John Banks: What’s happening to the polls?

What has happened in the polls? What has happened in the polls is that there has been a more than 10 percent two-party swing from National to Labour since the election. What has happened in the polls in terms of ACT is that we cannot find it. Polls have just about stopped reporting ACT, because it is under 1 percent. It is below the margin of error. That is what has happened in the polls.

This two-speed economy is not working for ordinary New Zealanders. That is why 200,000 people have left for Australia. Forty percent of them are between the ages of 18 and 30. They are our future—the young people. It is shameful—absolutely shameful—that they are leaving. We used to hear Bill English saying that the Government was sticking to a plan that is working. Well, that is gone. I have not heard those members skiting about the brighter future or saying “Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes. Not Your Loved Ones.”—all these flash slogans. They are all being proved wrong one by one, and as a consequence the shine continues to tarnish in respect of the National Party. This is a bad Budget. It does not address any of the fundamental problems of the New Zealand economy.

It is with huge pride that I endorse this Budget from Bill English, because if you look at all of the vital signs on which you should judge an economy, it is a Budget that is making great progress. Let us go through them. What is the rate of interest rates being faced by New Zealand households and businesses today, and how does that compare with what the previous Labour Government left? We have got an interest rate, in front-page ads today in the paper, of 4.9 percent—the lowest mortgage interest rates since I was in nappies in the 1960s. Mortgage interest rates were 9 percent when the members opposite left office, and that halving of interest rates is making an enormous difference to families and businesses throughout New Zealand.

Let us look at growth rates. How is New Zealand’s economic growth rate comparing throughout the world? The Budget shows a 3 percent growth rate. Name me a country—name me an OECD country—that has delivered a better, stronger economy under the most trying conditions since the Great Depression. You look at the UK—0.3 percent. You look at France—0.5 percent. You look at the United States—1.2 percent. There is only one country within the OECD whose growth rate is slightly better than New Zealand’s growth rate, and that is Australia. Anybody listening to the Budget last week in Australia or in our own country would know that they would rather be on this side of the Tasman.

Another key issue that you should test economic performance by is the cost of living. It impacts on every New Zealander. Members opposite want to highlight the odd element. One minute they were screaming last year: “Food prices are going out of control.” Actually, Statistics New Zealand shows that the cost of living for households in the last year has gone up by less than it did at any time in the last 15 years—any time in the last 15 years.

💬 Andrew Little: What about power prices?

Mr Andrew Little is interjecting there—

💬 Andrew Little: Five percent. Five percent last year.

What was the inflation rate after Labour had been in Government for 9 years? It was over 5 percent. New Zealand families could feel themselves going backwards. Their power prices were going up, their food prices were going up, the Government was spending like there was no tomorrow, and their charges were going up. Look at growth, look at inflation, look at jobs, look at mortgage interest rates—this is an outstanding Budget.

I was interested in Mr Parker’s contribution, in which he said that the Labour Party was good at fiscal discipline—good at fiscal discipline. Well, let us look at the numbers. I totalled up how much Labour had spent in new spending in its last five Budgets. In its last five Budgets how much had Labour spent? There was $14 billion of new spending—$14 billion of new spending—over its last five Budgets. I compare that with this Budget, which is Bill English’s fifth Budget. What is the total amount of new spending in each of those five Budgets? If we take the zero Budgets, when times were really tough, there was a total of $3 billion of new spending. Am I going to take a lecture on fiscal discipline from David Parker, when the record shows that the last Labour Government spent like there was no tomorrow, and left a huge wave—a decade—of deficits, at which Bill English has been beavering away, year in, year out? And now Bill English is going to balance the books.

I want to focus in on that question. How many OECD countries have been able to deliver a Budget in which they are going to balance the books? How many? How many?

💬 Hon Craig Foss: Just this one.

Well, actually, there were two. There was New Zealand and there was Australia, except that Australia delivered a Budget, with its hopeless Labor Party—with its hopeless Labor Party—where it had to declare a deficit of $20 billion. We know the UK has been in tough times. Actually, the deficit in the UK is bigger than the whole of the New Zealand economy—bigger than the whole of the New Zealand economy. I looked up the speeches from last year’s Budget. There was ridicule—ridicule—from members opposite at the idea that Bill English would be able to balance the books. They said it was a joke. They said he would never get there. You had all those speeches criticising his fiscal approach. Bill English has delivered the goods, and delivered them better than any other OECD country.

But I want to go further in saying that, absolutely, Bill English and John Key are sticking to a plan, despite all of the rhetoric from members opposite. Let us go through the things they said they would do and how they have delivered. We have got the mixed-ownership model. Yes, there have been a few headwinds. Yes, the Opposition has, disgracefully, done its best to sabotage the interests of New Zealand taxpayers in opposing that policy, but we have seen it through. We have seen a successful float of Mighty River Power. One thing we understand on this side of the House, which members opposite do not, is that a strong sharemarket is absolutely crucial to a successful economy. Can members opposite who want to sabotage our stock market—who want to sabotage it—tell me a successful economy that does not have a successful stock market? The silence is deafening. You see, we on this side of the House understand what is needed for a strong economy and what it is to deliver goods for New Zealanders.

But I also want to tell the story of this Budget, in that it does deal with the real issues facing New Zealand. I particularly want to talk about the initiatives on housing in this Budget. I do want to draw a contrast. I listened carefully to Mr Parker saying that house price inflation under this Government had been awful. So I went to the Parliamentary Library and I asked them for the figures on what was the average increase in house price from 2000 to 2008. The answer was an average of 9 percent per year—9 percent per year was what house prices went up by, Mr Little, when you were president of the Labour Party and Labour was in Government. And what is the average over the last 5 years? It was 9 percent under Labour, and what has been the average over the last 5 years? It was 2.1 percent—2.1 percent has been the average increase over the last 5 years.

💬 Andrew Little: What about last year? Tell us about last year.

But it is openly acknowledged that, particularly in the last year, house prices have moved—so the Budget has responded.

The interesting feature is this. The Productivity Commission, an initiative that we had with the ACT Party, produced a comprehensive report on what was needed to be done around improving house prices for New Zealanders. It said that we had to address land supply; that we had to address infrastructure costs; that we had to address the issues of materials costs and productivity in the sector, particularly in the area of skills; and that we had to deal with the compliance costs. Over the last month you have seen the Government, on every one of those five areas, announcing initiatives in each of those things.

I compare that with members opposite. Members opposite have opposed this Government on every attempt to fix the Resource Management Act roadblocks to getting affordable houses for ordinary New Zealanders—every single step—and we then hear the response from Labour. Is it not interesting? It says: “Well, if houses are not affordable, the answer is for the Government to run it, the Government to do it.” Well, Labour has got the same approach with the electricity sector. Labour members say: “Oh, the way to get good power prices is for the Government to run it.” Well, I am just waiting for the next Labour member to say to us that to get better food prices all we have to do is get the Government to buy all the damned supermarkets! It is a lunatic policy. It is a policy that is a huge risk to the future of the economy and we should not have a bar of it.

The other thing on which I want to compliment the Minister of Finance is the smart spending—careful but smart spending—in this Budget. Every member of this House knows that we need to grow our exports and our foreign exchange earnings. That is why the Budget commits $400 million to increased tourism, increased support for our exporters, increased investments in technology, and increased investments in areas like skills and apprenticeships—things that will make a difference.

The last point I want to make is that in every single area in which the New Zealand economy has opportunities for growth and jobs, members opposite, particularly with this mixed-ownership business between Labour and the Greens, say no. They say no to the convention centre. Right now there is an issue in my area with the industry of aquaculture, where we have got the Green Party opposing any growth of that industry and of jobs for my constituents. We have got the issue of Denniston mining, where you have had more positions than the Kama Sutra from the Labour Party on whether it supports or whether it opposes that. When it comes to irrigation, where does the Labour Party stand on the growth in irrigation? I have heard Mr Parker saying Labour is totally opposed.

This is a good Budget. This is a Budget about growth. This is a Budget that will give New Zealanders confidence about their future. We are in better shape than any other country in the world, and, by goodness, we should be proud and pass this Budget.

It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate. I want to begin by recalling that when I was a kid at primary school one of the resources that our teachers used was Aesop’s Fables.

💬 Hon John Banks: That was a long time ago, Kevin.

Yes, it was a long time ago, as Mr Banks said, and I do not know whether Aesop’s Fables is still featured in our primary school curriculum. My favourite was the tale of the grasshopper and the ant. I want to say that this year’s Budget confirms once again that this is a Government of grasshoppers. It is a Government that is focused on short-term gain, and, in particular, on short-term political gain, at the expense of future generations and at the long-term cost to this country.

There has been the disastrous asset sales programme. There has been the matter that has been discussed already this afternoon in this House, which is the $61 billion—$61 billion—increase in New Zealand’s net international debt. There has been the charter schools experiment with our children. There has been the constant prioritisation of economic activity and private profit over environmental considerations and over the legacy in our natural environment that we will leave our children. There has been this Government’s not only inaction on climate change but also unwinding of even the modest action that the previous Government had taken on climate change. It is a Government of grasshoppers.

If I can pay a backhanded compliment to my counterpart, the Minister of Health, it would be to say that he is a star in this Government of grasshoppers. He has genuinely increased funding and expenditure to some areas of the health budget, but at the cost of everything else and at the cost of future generations and the future health of New Zealand. Take, for example, elective surgery. The Minister has genuinely increased funding to elective surgery, and that is a great thing for people who will benefit from elective surgery—good on them—but he has done that at the expense of everything else, and elective surgery comprises perhaps 5 percent of what the health system actually does for New Zealanders. That cost to everything else comes also against a backdrop of a sinking lid on health funding, because in this year’s Budget, as the Government has done in every other Budget in its tenure, it has in real terms reduced the amount of funding that is going into the health sector. Within that sinking lid, there have been some winners, like elective surgery, and that means that everything else has had to find even more just to try to tread water, and it has been unable to do so.

Some of the other winners have been the areas that the Minister has prioritised through his health sector indicators. Look, I am not opposed to having indicators and targets for the health sector; I think that is actually a quite good approach. The UK has proved that that has been a particularly useful approach, in fact. But what the Minister does not seem to have understood, or perhaps he has understood and just does not care about, is that when the Minister sets targets for the health sector, those are the things that the sector will focus on, and there is an opportunity cost to everything. If the sector is focused on achieving those particular things, then it will be less focused on achieving everything else. What that means is that if the Minister is going to set indicators for the sector, if he is going to set targets, he has to be absolutely sure that he has set the right ones. Once again, what we see is a Minister who has set targets that fit the things that he prioritised when he was in Opposition, that fit the particular areas where he is able to make short-term political gain, and are not well suited to measuring the health sector’s preparedness for the long-term needs of New Zealanders.

Although there has been genuinely good progress on some of those health indicators that the Minister has set—and good on the sector for delivering on those—there are some other indicators that the Minister could have chosen. He could have chosen inequalities in health outcomes, for example, where the indicator would have shown that inequalities are increasing. The gap between, say, Māori New Zealanders and non-Māori New Zealanders in terms of their health status is getting greater and greater. That seems to me to be unacceptable. He could have chosen ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations. That is when someone gets admitted to hospital for something that could and should, arguably, have been prevented, either by public health services—those that aim to prevent diseases—or primary care services. Once again, this internationally recognised measure of how the sector is doing actually shows it is deteriorating. It is getting worse, and it is particularly getting worse for Māori and Pacific Island people. He could have chosen—let us see—readmission rates: unplanned readmissions to hospital after a hospital stay. He did not choose that. Actually, if he had done, that too would have shown that our health sector, against this internationally recognised indicator of performance, is, in fact, deteriorating. It is in trouble. It is getting worse, and it is particularly getting worse for Māori New Zealanders and for Pasifika New Zealanders.

He could have chosen obesity rates. New Zealand has the second-highest obesity rate in the OECD and it is getting worse. He could have chosen—let us see—diabetes rates. We have just seen data published that shows that one in four adult New Zealanders either has diabetes or has pre-diabetes—one in four. He could have chosen that, but he chose not to, perhaps because that, again, is getting worse, particularly for Māori New Zealanders and particularly for Pasifika New Zealanders. Actually, that one-in-four figure is even worse for older New Zealanders and for those groups that I have mentioned. The Minister has repeatedly chosen short-run political considerations over the long-term health of New Zealanders.

The word “tsunami” is overused in relation to chronic conditions, but I cannot actually think of a better word to describe the fact that there is going to be an absolute need among New Zealanders for health services related to the chronic conditions that are literally exploding in these populations that threaten to engulf our health services, and are already doing so. We are already seeing renal services—transplantation and dialysis—really struggling to cope with diabetes. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, asthma, depression, dementia—this Minister is doing almost nothing about those things.

A responsible Government, a Green Government, would be responding to the evidence. On obesity, for example, we would be using taxation measures to try to drive the eating and activity behaviour of New Zealanders. We would be putting restrictions on marketing and advertising of unhealthy foods. We would be ensuring that food in places that are controlled by the Government is healthy—like schools, for example. We would be undertaking a major promotion of healthy eating and physical activity for people of all ages, ensuring that what happens in schools is evidence-based. We would be ensuring that there would be a health workforce geared to meeting this growing demand.

In contrast, Minister Ryall has abandoned the healthy food requirements in schools. He has abandoned the healthy eating and healthy activity programmes. He has abandoned the “Get Checked” Diabetes Aotearoa programme and replaced it with something that, well, actually, we still have not seen yet. He has ruled out using market measures. He has ruled out using regulatory measures to control the food industry. He has appointed the food industry’s lobbyist to the Health Promotion Agency. He has left the Public Health Bill languishing at No. 64 on the Order Paper—a bill that was reported back by the Health Committee in June 2008 and has yet to receive its second reading. He has axed health promotion programmes in order to undertake his pet projects. He is a Minister who has prioritised short-run considerations ahead of long-term health gain for New Zealanders. It is time for a decent Minister of Health, and a reminder, I think, that in Aesop’s Fables, things did not work out so well for the grasshopper, and winter is coming.

We have an interesting contrast here in the House. An earlier Labour speaker was talking about a two-speed economy or something like that. Well, I think that member may have been half right. There are two speeds going on at the moment. There is forward and reverse. The National-ACT-United Future-Māori Party coalition Government is in forward mode, into growth, looking to the future to build a sustainable, real job growth, real export growth economy. We have a Labour-Greens Opposition, or where the fruit meets the loop, or where the Greens are leading Labour—we are not quite sure at the moment—backwards to reverse, to recession, to printing money, and to experimenting with all sorts of weird and wonderful things those members have read in the latest book somewhere.

This Budget continues the momentum towards solid and prudent management of the Crown accounts or the taxpayers’ account—the taxpayers’ balance sheet. The momentum continues towards surplus, towards actual surplus, the surplus that was laughed at by Opposition members not 1 year ago, the surplus that they questioned, the surplus that we are achieving that they blocked and voted against. They opposed every measure to achieve that surplus. The Opposition voted against every single measure to achieve surplus, to achieve an economy that can weather economic storms around the world. I am surprised that Mr Parker had the audacity to say in the paper: “Oh, yes, but Labour would have achieved a surplus itself, anyway.” How could that be? How could those members have done that when they have voted against every single measure to help achieve the surplus that is coming to fruition, as the documents show, next year?

The polls are showing that New Zealanders believe this Budget. They trust this Budget. They are continuing their support for the National-led Government and its prudent management of our accounts, of our economy, in these tough, tough times. Our economy needs to pay its way. New Zealand needs to pay its own way around the world. How do we do that? We have to manage our way through economic storms; we have to grow our economy through exports, exports, exports. Commentary over recent weeks has actually been very positive about the Budget. It has been very positive, indeed, and I will come back to that in a moment. But, actually, what was reflected in the polls the other night from both TV channels was that they showed an average, sustainable, and solid improvement in polling for the National-led Government.

Interestingly, though, just as an aside, when was the last time members saw a poll with National versus Labour? I cannot recall the good old days, if you like, of National versus Labour. It is now always National versus Labour-Greens, or National versus Greens-Labour. Which party is leading the charge and the debate in the Opposition? When was the last time any member of the public who is listening saw a poll with National versus Labour? There has not been one for quite some time. The Labour-Greens potential—well, the Opposition coalition—is a scary, scary thought, indeed. The recent lurch to the far left in the joint politburo announcement about the nationalisation of the power industry has gone down like a cup of the cold proverbial not only with most of New Zealand but actually with core, traditional Labour supporters. I actually do think some of them realise that and are wondering quite how they can get out of it.

Let us test some of the current rhetoric of Labour against what it was saying the last time it was in Government. The Hon Nick Smith was pointing to some of these points in his speech. We need to remember that Labour took New Zealand into recession 1 year before the global economic crisis—1 year—yet now it is talking up GDP growth and it has got all the answers. We must remember that, because that is what we should test some of its announcements on. Labour led New Zealand into recession 1 year before—before—the global economic crisis. Let us contrast that with New Zealand’s running at 3 percent GDP growth; contrast that with one of the best growth rates in the OECD.

It is quite interesting to actually just test the numbers. The pre-election update, or the December update—I cannot remember which one it was—in December 2008, revealed the decade of deficits of the previous Labour administration, so we must test Mr Parker’s rhetoric that “Oh, no, we would have got into surplus, of course, as well.”, yet the fiscal independent forecast in December 2008 was for a decade of deficits. Those cannot both be true. We have to test it. Interestingly, and quite weirdly, actually, inflation at the time, under Labour, was running near 5 percent—5 percent inflation under Labour. Currently, under National, it has been 0.9 percent for the last year. That means that the cost of living under Labour in its last year in Government was nearing 5 percent per annum. Under National, it is under 1 percent.

The cost of living is much cheaper under a National Government. Take mortgage rates, for instance. When Labour left office, floating mortgage rates were near 10 percent. Quite how Labour got floating mortgage rates through 10 percent, when growth was in recession, I do not know. I do not really know how it managed it, but it did. So New Zealand families’ mortgages under Labour were near double figures, at 10 percent. Currently, those same mortgages are under 5 percent. What an awesome result in 5 short years. That is what prudent management and solid, economically and fiscally responsible Budgets mean. They simply mean lower interest rates for longer for New Zealanders to afford their mortgages: National—sub - 5 percent mortgages; Labour—plus 10 percent mortgages; National—cost of living, 0.9 percent per annum; Labour—cost of living, 5 percent per annum.

All that means is that families struggle under Labour. Their mortgage rates are always higher under Labour. Thank goodness, for our children—thank God—New Zealand voted those members out in 2008. They are still in denial. There were 240,000 children in poverty under a Labour Government when it was running surpluses, and it was in recession, but inflation was at 5 percent and mortgage rates were at 10 percent. How dare they get up and talk about poverty when they were running an economy rampant with 10 percent mortgage rates. Absolutely outrageous!

So what are their latest solutions? Well, Labour has given up on having itself run the economy because now it is joint Labour-Greens, far-left announcements. Printing money—that will solve it. I do not know why Dr Michael Cullen did not think of that when he was the Minister of Finance. Printing money will solve all the problems, as the Labour-Greens coalition has recently announced. Quite why that was not offered when it was in Government, I do not know. Perhaps it was because most of them truly realised that it is absolute madness, it is inflationary, and it is essentially theft from future generations.

I just want to comment on one thing, in particular. New Zealand owes the world about $200 billion. It is incumbent on all of us that there is confidence in our capital markets and certainty about the New Zealand state of affairs so that the interest rates that we have to fund that are as low as possible for the Government, for our companies, and, of course, for our families. The economic grenade that Labour and the Greens threw all but 2 or 3 weeks ago about their crazy, far-left power policy actually adds to the risk premium of New Zealand. So that announcement actually means that mortgage rates for New Zealanders may well be slightly higher than they need to be because of the risk—the scary risk but the risk, none the less—of a far-left Labour-Greens coalition Government.

I go back again to my earlier point. When was the last time any poll showed Labour versus National? That is the record that should be tested. At least the Green speakers are leading the debate. They are making their points. Labour comes in quickly and behind now and tries to join, but we are now seeing what a Labour-Greens coalition Government could look like to the far left. This is a solid, prudent, manageable Budget continuing the momentum towards surplus, real growth, and real jobs. It is good for our families—interest rates are half what they once were under the Labour Government. There were 10 percent mortgage rates under Labour. They are at 5 percent under National. National is by far—by far—a better manager of the New Zealand economy.

To the members of the crochet club in Hawke’s Bay, that was the member for Tukituki. The meaning of such a word—tukituki—is to beat. If there is a Minister full of promise but very empty on delivery, it is the beaten member for Tukituki. His name is Mr Foss. His name is Mr Foss, which rhymes with dross. What we have just received was a lamentable and forgettable and very disappointing speech from a person of the Hawke’s Bay, whose region suffers 8.9 percent regional unemployment. Only my own area of Northland has a worse unemployment rate, reflective of the fact that we have to rely on Mr Sabin and Hone Harawira to actually advocate for it in a constituency seat.

Mr Foss is a person who actually represents what is wrong with this Budget. This is not a Budget for the low-waged citizens of New Zealand. This is a Budget for the over-hyped consumers of the sharemarket, the purchasers of services from the merchant bankers and those who are wiping their consciences clear as housing prices spiral out of control. There is not a glimmer of hope from that side of the House that that will be arrested. Let me just recap, before we talk about the Budget: dross, Foss, Tukituki, low-wage economy, 8.9 percent unemployment, Hawke’s Bay. That is the gift of this Budget to that part of New Zealand.

Let us talk a little bit more about unemployment. Unemployment is, without a doubt, the area where this Government will eventually fall and move to this side of the House. There are no jobs being created that meet the aspirations of our young people. We are into serious double-figure youth unemployment. I accept that the senior members on that side of the House cannot admit to this, but the majority of our regions that are dealing with significantly double-figure unemployment are busily encouraging their young people to leave those regions and go to Australia. They know that, it happens in their regions, and it is an indictment on the Government that the best it can deliver is a passage to Australia.

But it is worsened by one other thing, and the thing that eclipses that level of folly is the attitude shown by the current Minister of Māori Affairs. I cannot let “Huggie Bear” escape today. You cannot use small amounts of dough, which may actually contribute to the development of a bilingual nation—I have no idea, and he does not even know, himself—to mask the fact that Māori unemployment is approaching, in a number of our areas, 40 percent amongst the ages of 15 to 19, and 19 to 24. A thousand million grants to grow gardens at the back of the marae—and if they are not well-tended, let me tell you, they will have electric puha in them—cannot mask the fact that there has been abject failure by the current Minister of Māori Affairs on unemployment.

He can at least offer the defence that he does not understand it, because that is a brilliant defence; it is the truth. But members on this side do understand it. They understand that Government members have narrowed their attention and their resources to enrich a narrow caste of the New Zealand community. How have they done this? They are selling a pup to you and me, as New Zealanders, that the only way to resuscitate the capital markets in New Zealand is to take property, developed by countless generations of Kiwi taxpayers, and then gift it to a narrow range of Kiwis who may be possessed of either connection or a little bit of capital to purchase those shares.

That, in itself, is an indictment on the people who are speaking very, very grandiloquently about the power of the sharemarket. If it was that good, why do we need to come back and raid the larder of the Crown to resuscitate that particular part of the economy? It might be said that it is going to provide a broader range of opportunities for Kiwis to save. In Hawke’s Bay, with the low-wage economy, there are no savings available. Secondly, the narrow number of New Zealanders who have managed to buy into these shares shows that the broad number of Kiwis lack surplus money but, more important, they are struggling to pay on a week-by-week basis for the key necessities. That is why our power strategy, our power policy, is an absolute winner.

We will fight month by month until the next election, and I can guarantee that the polls that are already showing considerable support for that power strategy will increase in growth. A number might say, as Mr Nick Smith, I recall, and a host of others have said, it was dirty pool. This House, this group of parliamentarians, is entirely entitled to say that the regulatory framework governing this sector of the economy is going to change. Why is it that we get criticised for being up front about that when Government members change the regulatory framework for the casinos, and give them a tax holiday for 7 years, and then say that if you want to re-regulate in order to meet societal demands about the ills associated with gambling into the future, you are not allowed to do it until you compensate? Well, if that is what we are lumbered with, that is what will have to happen. But know this: the cost of that regulatory change is a John Key bill. That is not a Labour bill; it is a John Key bill.

Let us just go back here. Yes, we will re-regulate and improve, and indeed refine, the regulatory framework for the power industry. All that has been established, as more people become accustomed to that, is a new norm. That happens in all industries. Indeed, the fishing industry at the moment is going through a significant regulatory refinement process that is going to increase the costs associated with vessel ownership, with vessel purchases. So rather than just confine it to that part of the economy—because it is an essential service; the effect of power prices is systemic—it will drive the improvement on manufacturing, and drive the improvement on industry as they gain access to moderated prices, and it will substantially decrease the cost of power to the average householder. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and we will politick, we will campaign, and we will sell that policy to the citizens of New Zealand.

When you vote, when you exercise the privilege of being in a democratic country, first, you are a citizen, and second, you are a consumer. Therein lies the key difference in terms of what that party is saying about how it wants to run the economy. National wants to run it for a narrow range of power-obsessed, highly wealthy individuals who want to treat the rest of society, the rest of the community, in the context of power, as consumers to be fleeced. We will be changing that, without a doubt.

The final point I would like to make is that I actually do applaud the current Minister of Housing for moving into the territory and trying to colonise what we have won over the housing debate. The only reason that the Minister of Housing has moved into Auckland and sought to provide the chimera of a housing policy is that he knows that the policy originally announced by Annette King is a winner—100,000 houses. That improves supply; they increase the supply equation. But his policy is just going to generate more demand, without an improvement in supply. That will have only one impact—a further driving-up of prices.

Indeed, I understand that people who live in Herne Bay are now enjoying a new blessing. When I was at St Stephen’s School half of Ngāpuhi seemed to live in Herne Bay, but a Māori living in Herne Bay is very rare now. I understand that $2 million, if you are blessed enough to live in Herne Bay—and I know one or three who live in Herne Bay—is the average cost of a whare there. There is no way that that type of policy is going to generate a solution to the housing woes. It will happen only by increasing supply, and that is the essence of the Labour remedy. Kia ora tātou.

What a pleasure it is to rise in support of the Budget, particularly after listening to the previous speaker, Shane Jones. I think what you were listening to there was a leadership speech, but the problem with that was that the only ones listening were the members on this side of the House, because those on the other side of the House could not understand a single word that the Hon Shane Jones was saying, except when he reverted to the Labour type, which, of course, he struggles to agree with himself. What we are looking at, as other members have said, is a very, very stark contrast. It is a contrast between growth, forward movement, and a party that is focused on what makes the economy grow, what creates jobs, and what will create a better future for New Zealand, and a group, a mismatch of people, from the left. What did the Prime Minister say? It is a 51 percent - 49 percent shareholding between the Labour-Green parties, and no one really knows which one has the 51 percent share.

The issue confronting the country at the moment is how we grow an economy in what has been described—not by me, but by political commentators and economists around the world—as an economic crisis, an economic downturn, on a scale equal to the 1930s Depression. How do you grow an economy in that circumstance? We listened to the Opposition spokesman on finance, the Hon David Parker, talk earlier on about Labour’s track record in the management of the economy. Well, let us have a look at that for a moment. Let us test some of what Mr Parker said. Let us go back, as he did, to the 1980s, when you had the David Lange - Roger Douglas administration. Just remember, at that time we had a Prime Minister who said that the agriculture sector was a sunset industry. When you think about that in the context of today, when 70-odd percent of our export receipts come from that sector, it is a bizarre comment. It is a ridiculous comment. But what is so bizarre about it, even today, is that was the case then, when those comments were made. And what happened at the end of Labour’s tenure through the 1980s? Apart from the fact that it had three Prime Ministers in quick succession towards the end of it, we had the 1987 sharemarket collapse, we had the bailout of the BNZ, we had interest rates that peaked at 22 percent, and we had inflation rates that ran at 18 percent. This is the track record that Mr Parker was talking about. Let us have a look at some of those figures.

Then we had a change to the new, incoming Bolger National Government, which inherited the fiscal shambles. At the end of that Government’s period, the country was on a growth strategy again with growth rates of 4 percent, we had interest rates back down to the lowest level they had been since the early part of the 1960s, and we were on track for an economy that was growing. What happened then? Well, the Government changed in the late 1990s. And what did we end up with then? We ended up with the Clark-Cullen Government, the next Labour Government—once again checking this track record that Mr Parker spoke of. What happened at the end of that period? Well, we had interest rates back up to 10 percent. We had inflation growing at a rate that was unsustainable. We had export receipts in decline again—once again in decline. We had the best economic circumstances that the New Zealand economy had seen in about five generations, and what did we end up with? We ended up with the circumstances that this Government, the incoming Key Government, inherited, which was, once again, a fiscal outlook that had the Government heading towards 60 percent debt by 2020—a forecast 60 percent debt against GDP by 2020—and no prospect of Government surplus ever again. Well, if that is the track record Mr Parker wants to promote, then I invite him to promote that as strongly as he can over the next few months, because I think it is the best thing since sliced bread for the National Government.

So what have we got today? We have got the lowest interest rates in 40 years—the lowest interest rates in 40 years. What is it about our opponents that they cannot understand that? For mum and dad “Joe Hard-worker” out there, trying to own their first home, it is in the order of $300 to $400 a week compared with what it was when Labour was in power. We have got the lowest inflation we have had for a very long time, with the cost of living going up by less than 1 percent—under 1 percent. Food prices for a very, very long time have become more and more affordable for mum and dad “Joe Hard-worker” out there. What is it about that that Labour cannot understand?

💬 Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?

The member over there bays “Where are the jobs?”. Well, the end result of all of this fiscal growth is more investment. I heard the Hon Shane Jones talking about unemployment rates. Look at Taranaki—the area that this member here would condemn, and his colleague often does. Where are the jobs? The highest employment rate in New Zealand is in Taranaki. Why is that? Because of a strong, growing energy sector and a strong, growing agricultural sector. Those are both sectors that our Labour-Green opponents would attack, and let us just talk about what they have said they will do. They will introduce a capital gains tax, they will introduce an emissions trading tax, they will increase company tax, they will increase personal tax—

💬 Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?

—and they will do away with the 90-day trial period in employment, as the member keeps baying “Where are the jobs?”. They will do away with the 90-day trial period, they will increase ACC charges, and they will increase interest rates through higher Government spending and more Government borrowing. Those are the end results of a Labour administration over a period of time.

So what has this Government announced in its Budget in regard to jobs, as the member wants to know? A $130 million boost for Kiwi research and development start-ups. Budget 2013 is investing $130 million in Callaghan Innovation, encouraging business to invest more in research and development and to support new start-ups. What the member obviously cannot comprehend, and Labour never can, is this country is made up of small businesses that employ low numbers of people. So where would you invest money if you wanted to get more jobs? Is it in great Government expenditure or great Government employment schemes? I mean, this is Labour, which over the term of the Clark Government invested so much in the public sector that it doubled the office space for bureaucrats in Wellington. And what did that do for employment? What growth came out of that? What were the opportunities there?

What would Opposition members do in terms of opportunities and in terms of development, like what I have just said, in the energy sector? Well, they would reverse the Resource Management Act reforms that this Government is proposing and has already carried out. They have said they would do that. How would you develop an energy-efficient economy under those circumstances? In fact, what did happen under the Labour Government? We saw a massive increase in the use of fossil fuels for the generation of energy, because the development of sustainable energy production could not take place because of Resource Management Act or environmental constraints that were placed on those developments. Labour talks about growth in jobs and improving the economy, but what it would do towards the economy would be devastating.

In the Budget there is $80 million for irrigation. Is there any lower hanging fruit than what this would produce—producing more of what we are good at and where we have international markets to sell to? Right up the eastern belt of the whole of the South and North Islands—including in the Hawke’s Bay, which Hon Shane Jones, the previous speaker, spoke of—is where we could invest in irrigation. Of course, the cry from the Greens on this is “More dairy cows.” Well, when we put water into the Marlborough area, it was not dairy cows that were developed there; it was actually vineyards. If you were to go into Marlborough now and suggest—and Labour and the Greens are potentially mad enough to say that we should never have done it and there should not be vineyards in Marlborough. Where there used to be one sheep per 10 hectares in some of that very arid land, there are now intensive, world-renowned viticulture developments that have exports of $1.2 billion to the world and still have potential to grow.

What we have in this Budget, the Bill English Budget, the John Key - led Government Budget, is a strategy for strong growth going forward, a formula for success, and a formula for jobs. I strongly support the Budget.

Kia ora.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Talofa lava.

Talofa lava. Well, what a lot of rhetoric we have just heard. I do not think even Shane Ardern, the member himself, believes much of it. He might well believe that his Government has spent money in certain areas, but he knows very, very well that its record of job creation is so poor that it is an embarrassment—it is an embarrassment around this House.

He wanted to raise the issue of Labour’s track record, and I will happily raise that issue again. Under the Labour Governments since the War we have had a 3.7 percent average growth rate. Under National it has been 2.9 percent. There is a considerable difference between those two numbers in real terms for real New Zealanders. Labour grows the economy consistently. National stalls it. Under this Government real wages have dropped—real wages have dropped, median wages. The New Zealander, “Joe New Zealander”, is really feeling the pinch, and it is as a result of the policies of this Government.

Let us go back to the 2010 tax cuts. Forty percent of the value of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of people—40 percent went to the top 10 percent. The bottom 20 percent of people got just 2 percent of the value of those tax cuts. That is typical of this Government. This Budget does nothing to change that picture. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This is a Government that is creating a two-speed economy, with a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots.

This Budget, if it does anything to raise average wages, has attempted to do it one Mighty River Power director at a time. That is the way this Government approaches it. It looks out for those who have vested interests and those who are its mates. It looks to transfer some money to them, but the average New Zealander, “Joe Normal”, is struggling. The average New Zealander can no longer dream of owning their own house. The average New Zealander can no longer dream of having a decent job, because this Government is destroying those jobs, it is creating unemployment, and it is driving wages down in real terms.

This Government has created the worst current account deficit in the developed world.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: No. Look at your own record.

Mr Smith disputes that, but this Government has created the worst current account deficit in the developed world. It is worse than Greece’s. It is worse than Greece’s, the IMF tells us. This Government has brought about a credit downgrade. It has had New Zealand’s credit downgraded. Kiwibank is on notice now. This Government does not know how to manage an economy and that is the real shame. This Budget was another opportunity to address the structural issues in New Zealand. Those opportunities are flying by, and, with them, New Zealand’s chances of raising its place in the world, of creating a better standard of living for its citizens. This Government is taking the country backwards. Let us remind ourselves that this Government is the Government with the worst economic record of any Government in this country in the last 50 years. This Government’s only idea is to sell off the best revenue-generating assets. That is its only vision for this economy.

Labour would do things differently. We have announced our NZ Power policy. That would bring businesses’ power bills down by 5 to 7 percent. It would put an extra $200 or $300 in Kiwis’ pockets. It is a sensible policy. It is a policy that is about taking New Zealand forward. We would put in affordable housing. We would create 10,000 new houses over the next 10 years, and that too would create jobs. Not only would it make an affordable house an affordable dream for New Zealanders, it also would create jobs.

Let us remind ourselves that these things that we have now—these situations where housing is unaffordable and power prices keep going up—are things that can be fixed. We know from Professor Wolak’s report that there was $4.2 billion worth of price gouging in the New Zealand energy market between 2001 and 2007—$4.2 billion worth of price gouging. We have been told by academics and we have been told by those who have researched this that this is a pattern in New Zealand, and that the market does not work. When a recession hits and the rest of the world’s power prices go down, they go up in New Zealand. Something is wrong here, and it can be fixed. We know that markets are good when they do the bidding of the people—of the citizens. When the markets do not do the bidding of the citizens, they make terrible masters, and this needs to be corrected through effective regulation so that businesses can thrive and citizens can thrive. There is a problem here that needs to fixed. This Government is sitting on its hands and not doing anything about it.

I have just returned from a trip to the United States. It was a tremendous privilege to go on this trip. I went with the Eisenhower Fellowship. President Eisenhower created as his legacy an international exchange. Many Presidents have created large libraries in their own states, but President Eisenhower wanted an international exchange. I have been a fortunate beneficiary of this. It has been a terrific learning experience. One of the lessons I brought back is about the importance of fairness as a cultural value in New Zealand. New Zealanders believe in fairness. They believe everybody should have the opportunity to get ahead; it is part of what makes New Zealand a great place to live. Sir Paul Callaghan used to talk about the importance of New Zealand being a place where talent wants to live, as part of a strategy for economic growth. This growing gap between rich and poor in New Zealand drives us in the opposite direction, I am afraid. This undermines our reputation for fairness. People want to come back to New Zealand once they have had overseas experience, because they want to go to a hospital where they do not have to bring out a cheque book. They want access to justice for all citizens so that there is a sense of fairness in society. They want to know that they can get a great education at their local schools. We want to live in a fair society.

What is also true is that people in other countries admire this sense of fairness that New Zealand has. It is part of what gives us a privileged place in international trade negotiations. People want to hear New Zealand’s voice because we speak impartially, we speak independently, and we speak about fairness. This Budget, which drives this two-speed economy that the Government has been creating, goes further toward undermining this international reputation for fairness. It is not good for us as a people, it is not good for our citizens, and it is also not good for our country. It undermines the reputation we have that gives us that privileged place at the international trade negotiation table. We need to be at that table if our economy is going to grow. We need to be at that table, because we want to be a part of those discussions.

The Government’s mates are jacking things up. We know that the casinos are getting extra funding, we know that Goldman Sachs is profiting from the sale of assets, and we know that the wealthiest New Zealanders have had those tax cuts. This is not the recipe for a fairer society. This is not a recipe for the kind of society we want to live in and that, actually, most of the world aspires to live in. We have the largest gap between rich and poor in this country that we have had since records have existed. We are becoming an economy of the haves and have-nots.

Thirty thousand jobs were lost last year, and 1,000 people in my home city moved from Dunedin to Australia permanently because of the policies of this Government. We have had a 10 percent drop in the last 4 years in non - primary sector manufacturing in this country. The policies of this Government have been undermining our exporters. When I left New Zealand, Mighty River Power was 100 percent Kiwi-owned. Now, 49 percent of Mighty River Power is owned by just 2.5 percent of New Zealanders. This is a two-speed economy where some Kiwis are getting ahead, and some are being left behind.

We need a Government that is prepared to bring in pro-growth tax reform. We need to take out the investment distortion that pushes money towards properties, creates housing bubbles, and creates people farming for capital gains rather than for profitability. We need tax reform that makes our country more profitable. We need tax reform that promotes research and development. We need universal KiwiSaver so that we are more like Australia, which has $1.3 trillion in savings. Its savings regime brings back its own financial markets expertise from overseas. When its young people go overseas, they have something to come back to, because they have a successful industry there.

New Zealand, unfortunately, has suffered under National Governments that have not had a long-term vision. They have focused on the short term, they have focused on making sure that their mates are looked after, and the rest of New Zealand are missing out. They are not interested in creating a society for all of us; they are interested only in a few of their mates. That is why this Budget is a terrible Budget, which does nothing that is in the interest of ordinary New Zealanders, and I think this is a Budget that needs to be condemned.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of this great Budget, and interesting to follow on from David Clark, who has been studying in the United States for the past few weeks. I had hoped that he would come back to New Zealand better informed and with some fresh ideas, but instead we have the same old monotonous line about our record over the last 50 years.

💬 Dr David Clark: Which is the worst of any Government.

Well, hello, Mr Clark, the global financial crisis has been the worst crisis internationally for 70-odd years, but the good news is that this Budget confirms that New Zealand is on the right track. Our growth is amongst the best in the OECD, unemployment is falling, real wages are rising, inflation is subdued, interest rates are the lowest in decades, and the Government books will be returning to surplus in 2014 and 2015 as we promised. Sure, these are not boom times. Retailers in Newmarket and around Auckland and New Zealand are still facing headwinds. Everybody know that. But most fair-minded New Zealanders agree that the results of this Budget are indeed promising and relatively good in a difficult international context.

That good result was by no means guaranteed. It is easy to forget that when John Key and National entered Government at the end of 2008—when I was still happily writing books in Auckland—in the early years of the global financial crisis, Treasury projected 10 years of deficits and rising debt. The previous Government had increased spending by an amazing 50 percent over a short period. The New Zealand Government’s books were pregnant with expensive new schemes that were never properly funded, which led New Zealand to have deficits projected for 10 years. So to have turned that round, so that this year’s deficit will be less than 1 percent of GDP and next year will yield a surplus, is an achievement of which we can all be proud. Contrast that with Australia, which has just announced a $20 billion deficit this year, and with many other comparable countries such as the United States and the UK, where there is no end in sight to deficits—it is a remarkable achievement for New Zealand.

I hear the Labour members opposite saying that they would have done the same. Yeah, right! We do not believe that for a moment. They have opposed every control and limit that we have placed on spending—every scheme that we have tried to get spending under control they have opposed. Perhaps their idea is just to increase taxes. Well, how is that working in France? Not very well, as far as I can see. Maybe they think a capital gains tax on productive businesses is a good idea, but I certainly do not see that that is a good way to increase and promote savings in this country, which they say they are concerned about.

I am particularly proud overall that the adjustment that we have made in this Budget has been achieved without resort to the excessive austerity that we have seen in other parts of the world. The return to surplus has been achieved carefully, without undermining growth, and while we continue to support the most vulnerable in New Zealand society. There have been no gimmicks. This Government holds to the traditional notion that a country has to earn its money—it cannot simply print it—and that the only way to pay our way in the world is to produce goods and services that free consumers out there want to buy. So this Government has focused on doing the basics well. It is about building a productive and competitive economy.

I am happy to take the House through the core elements of the Business Growth Agenda, which people have heard about a number of times over the last few years. It focuses on what businesses need to grow and thereby increase exports and employ New Zealanders with good high-paying jobs. It is about ensuring access to export markets, and innovation—more of which I will talk about later. It is about skilled and safe workforces, such as trade training schemes, which we are investing a lot of money in. It is about access to capital markets and we have given a shot in the arm to that area with the Mighty River Power flotation. It is about natural resources—and we are hearing about the Denniston Plateau right at the moment, again opposed by the Greens and their friends in Labour—and infrastructure. The Waterview tunnel, of which we had the sod-turning only a few days ago, will reduce traffic enormously on the streets of Epsom and throughout Auckland and is a very good example of the investment that we are making in infrastructure in this country.

As well as those things, it is all about delivering better public services without increasing spending in most areas. A good example of that is in the area of police where recorded crime is at a 24-year low in this country and we are rolling out new technology for front-line police officers, but the baseline funding for police has not been increased. Instead, police have found more efficient and effective ways of doing their jobs and generating savings that we can reinvest.

Governments should be judged on the quality of what they achieve rather than the vast amounts they spend, and this Government has understood that, as every other business person who has to survive on their wits has understood that for a long time. Health and education once more received the lion’s share of the new spending in the Budget, and considerable resources, some $200 million, are also being pumped into science and innovation.

We are signalling that ACC levy cuts that will benefit families and businesses across New Zealand will be coming in the next couple of years. We are expecting a $300 million reduction in 2014-15 and around about a billion the following year. As a small business operator myself in the past, I know how painful ACC levies are—the invoices always arrive at the most inconvenient time. I am very proud to be part of a Government that—because of the improved performance of the way that we have managed ACC that led to better rehabilitation rates—can sustainably reduce those levies over time, and I hope we can go further on that score.

This Budget also includes the proceeds of the first partial asset sale—some $1.7 billion for Mighty River Power—and that money is going into the Future Investment Fund for investment in new capital assets such as the redeveloped hospitals in Christchurch. That partial asset sale allows us to have these new assets without borrowing more on global markets and thereby reduces our vulnerability to a sudden change of sentiment in these dangerous times. I have no doubt, as well, that the scrutiny of the share market will improve the business performance of Mighty River Power and, over time, the electricity market in general.

I am still shocked, frankly, by the proposal of the Labour Party and the Greens over power. I expect that sort of thing from the Greens, but I had thought that, since the 1980s, there has been an understanding within the major parties of this country that heavy-handed regulation had failed in the 1970s, and that markets were the best way to get an efficient system in power and education. But Labour seems to have withdrawn from that basic understanding, and I am shocked and deeply saddened by that.

The real focus also in the Budget has been on supporting low-income families. Budget 2013 signals our intent to grow the social housing sector. As well, a further $100 million has been invested in warmer, healthier homes for those in need. Already there are some 215,000 homes across the country from deep in the south up into the north that are warmer because of this Government’s scheme. So I am proud to be a part of that.

Addressing Auckland’s housing affordability issues was another part of this Budget, and rightly so. My aunt in Feilding might well ask why on earth she should care about Auckland house prices when they are cheap down there. Well, the answer is that she will care if runaway house prices in Auckland lead to higher interest rates for all New Zealanders. And she certainly would care if those higher interest rates, if they were to come sooner than they needed to, led to the New Zealand dollar being higher than it needs to be, putting further pressure on the economy as a whole. So getting on top of Auckland housing affordability and the bubble that we are potentially seeing in Auckland with 12 percent growth in the past year is an important focus of this Budget.

It is a real worry that thousands of Aucklanders are struggling to progress up the housing ladder. So the Government’s housing response has been grounded in the work of the Productivity Commission and it is focused, particularly, upon increasing the supply of land. Constantly we hear people denying that there is a link between rigid land supply policies and house prices, but you only have to look at the evidence: the availability of sections in Auckland has plummeted over the past 10 years and the price of sections has increased over the past 5 years from about $100,000 to $325,000 today.

We are currently building only 4,000 houses when we need 13,000-odd, so the Government’s Budget initiatives on housing and the housing accord that it signed with Auckland Council and is working on with Auckland Council provide a circuit breaker to get some pace and momentum back into addressing housing supply in the Auckland region. I am sure that will make a real difference to the lives of many Aucklanders who are wanting to get on to that housing ladder.

National is building towards a stronger, more stable economy and it continues to work on building a brighter future for all New Zealanders. I commend the Budget to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Talofa lava—in recognition of Samoan Language Week—to all of our folks who are out there watching. I am pleased to rise to oppose this dreadful Budget. We have had 5 years of this National Government, and when it came to power we heard all the promises about the brighter future, and that it would be creating jobs, lifting wages, growing the economy, and making New Zealand a better place to live. Well, those promises have turned out to be absolutely false. After 5 years John Key has let New Zealanders down. But he has not let down all Kiwis. No, he has looked after the movie moguls, the casino operators, and those with capital and a wealth base underneath them—and that is the base of the National Party. But he has not looked after all Kiwis, and that is why National has created this two-speed economy.

The speakers opposite have spoken about how they have got this momentum going and that we on this side of the House are going to be sending New Zealand backwards. Well, that is totally misinformed because they have got a complete mix-up between speed and direction. If they wanted to turn things round and go forward, they will be going backwards, and that is exactly where they have taken our country. If we look at the actual failures of this National Government, it has been appalling. Members opposite talked about rebalancing the economy, and delivering more export growth. That is what we all want; we definitely want more export growth. That is what we need to move forward as a country. We need to get our tradable sector thriving. We need to grow those exports and sell our wares to the world and make some money.

But what has happened under this Government? We, as a country, have seen the worst current account deficit in the whole world—No. 1 in the world. That means we are spending more on imports and on interest than what we are earning as a country. If that is rebalancing the economy, well, I do not really know what planet Mr English is on, because that has been an absolute failure and it is only going to be getting worse. The projections are that that will be getting worse. It is a very dangerous sign for our country and for our economy, because, as we know, worldwide countries are debasing their currencies. We have got asset bubbles that are blowing up all over the place. We have got stock markets that are blowing up, all based on printing-press money from the big, major countries around the world. This is putting a huge amount of pressure on our whole financial system. Everything is teetering on the edge, and this Government does not want to know about it, but when the bubble pops—like all bubbles do; they will pop at some stage—it is going to signal a huge blow, not only to our economy but to the global economy.

I think we need to be mindful of that, because members opposite are talking about how great it has been that there have been record-low interest rates. Sure, we welcome low interest rates, but the reason the interest rates are low is because the world economy and our economy have been so sick. That is why. You lower the interest rates because you want to try to rev up things. The problem is that we have had going on 7 years of record-low interest rates, and ours are really high compared with the rest of the world, and yet it has not actually generated economic growth, because this Government has been more concerned with looking after its own base—its own rich, elite, select group of the National Party support base—than it has been towards looking after all of the whānau across Aotearoa. So that is a very dangerous situation that we find ourselves in. When interest rates do rise, it is actually going to catch out a lot of people.

This Government has been so concerned, so preoccupied, about reaching surplus in 2014 that it has forgotten about the finances of everyday Kiwis. Everyday Kiwis are actually struggling—we are maxed out; we, as our current account deficit shows, are more indebted than ever—and that is putting huge pressure on families, and that is why we have got this two-speed economy.

But the two-speed economy does not apply just in terms of household finances; we are seeing it right across the whole country. If we look at it geographically, there is definitely a North Island - South Island spread going on there. I am actually quite fortunate in that I cover a huge electorate. I cover the whole of the South Island, and there are some regions that are actually doing quite well, in relation to their agricultural and pastoral sectors, so I commend that. But if you look at the regions in the North Island, particularly in the far north—Hawke’s Bay, Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and the area covered by that electorate—there are huge amounts of inequality happening up there. They are struggling, and this Government has not had a plan to really help those regions. It has neglected the regions, and that is why we are seeing such terribly high unemployment numbers coming through.

We also see that the two-speed economy is applicable age-wise. Younger New Zealanders are being locked out of that homeownership. They would like to aspire to owning their own home and getting on that property ladder, but the way that the property bubbles are going—again, the properties are being held by that wealthy class who have the capital and the wealth base and who want the tax-free capital gains—is preventing young people, the new generation coming through, from actually getting on that property ladder. It is all because this Government has sent the wrong signals. It has skewed the whole property ownership model because of the fact that it is encouraging property bubbles to occur, through the fact that we have had a low-interest rate environment, no capital gains tax, and the like. Again, that does put a lot of pressure on those young people who want to get there. But the older generation—who are obviously looking out for their own retirement and they want to hold on to, and charge the rent on, private rental accommodation—want to generate an income for themselves going into the future. So we have a real mismatch there, caused by this Government, between our young generation and our older generation in terms of property ownership.

Then, of course, what it comes down to is that this two-speed economy is around fairness. We have seen the largest growth in inequality in this country under this National Government. Income disparity is at its widest, and it is very much pronounced when we look at the Māori community itself. That is the electorate I represent. When you see the deprivation and the hardship out there, it does break your heart. It can be addressed. I know that the Prime Minister made the announcement about providing some support for the food in schools programme. Although we support that, why has it taken so long? We had the Budget—what—over a week ago, and the Government sort of signalled it prior to the Budget, but then there was nothing in the Budget itself, and now we have had to wait another week and a half and then something has come out. I think something must be up around the National Government Cabinet table, because it has taken too long for that to come through.

What it shows is that there is incredible hardship and poverty out there. We have 270,000 children living in poverty. That is just way too much. The rising unemployment rates among Māori people are absolutely horrendous. When I look at the unemployment rates for Māori and Pacific Islanders—basically, 14 percent for Māori and 15.2 percent for Pacific Islanders—those are horrendous unemployment rates that apply to all of us, to all Māori and all Pacific people right across the board. We have to change this Government so we can actually address those issues, because I fear that if we continue down this track put down in this Budget, it is not going to be able to really address those pressing issues that are really desperate cries coming out from those hard-working families out there.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that I mentioned before that there is a preoccupation with surplus in this Budget. The Government thinks that by 2014 it can get to the surplus, when, at the end of the day, it has been constructed on bogus numbers—bogus numbers—because we see that there is approximately $3 billion worth of numbers in that Budget that are a complete sham. I am talking about the overcharging from ACC of $700 million, the so-called $1.1 billion of extra corporate tax, which the Government thinks is going to suddenly appear, and I am talking about the tax credits that it has booked in as revenue and no one knows where they are going to come from. So this is a dreadful Budget, we oppose it 100 percent, and we look forward to getting rid of this Government. Kia ora tātou.

Poor old Rino Tirikatene. Look, he is a nice bloke, but that was absolutely dreadful. I mean, how misinformed. What is going on in that caucus over there? He had nothing good to say about the Budget. He could not even agree with David Parker, his finance spokesman, who said that getting to surplus is the right thing to do. So Labour Party members cannot even get one crucial message right about this Budget.

What I can tell you is that when you look at the Budget, it tells a very clear story. There have been 4½ years of very difficult economic conditions, which the National Government has shepherded the country through. It has not been easy. We had to have a couple of zero Budgets, but we are now building momentum with this Budget, and it tells a very good story. If you do not believe me, you have got to just look at the external validation that the New Zealand economy is getting—that objective feedback. So Standard and Poor’s says that this is the ninth-best place in the world to hold debt. So actually this is a very good place to invest. The IMF, just the day before the Budget, came out and said that the New Zealand Government is absolutely on the right track with its policies. It pretty much said: “Don’t change those policy settings. Don’t go back to the policy settings of the Labour Government, because it was getting New Zealand into deep, deep shtick.”

💬 Hon Member: Who said that?

That was the IMF.

If you look at what was happening when Labour was holding the purse strings, you will see that it was spending like Topsy—it was spending like Topsy. What was happening was that the growth of the Public Service was going out of control. When we came into Government we had a look at those books, and we said that New Zealand could not continue like that. Debt has been a problem—$70 billion now—but do you know what it would have been under Labour if it had continued with those policies? It would be $170 billion, and that is a fact. The Labour Government was out of control. We inherited a situation where debt was heading to 60 percent of GDP, so we had to do something, and we had to do it very, very quickly.

Look at the environment we are in now. We have the lowest interest rates for 50 years—50 years—inflation is just less than 1 percent over the last year, and wages are growing at 2 percent over the last year and are projected to grow real incomes in nominal terms by 20 percent over the next 4 years against the background of 9 percent inflation. So, actually, there is more money in people’s pockets at the same time as mortgages are cheaper.

We are in a very, very good position, but the one danger on the horizon is the far-left Government that Labour and the Greens would deliver, because, as John Key said—

💬 Darien Fenton: Ha, ha!

They might laugh on the Labour side, but David Shearer has wrapped himself in the Greens. There is no question about it. These dangerous left-wing fundamentalists, these Bolsheviks like David Clendon over there, are going to be there with the Labour Party if it gets the chance to be in Government. You would have someone like Russel Norman as the Minister of Finance. He will be printing money. Labour knows it can never get into power unless it promises things like the finance portfolio to Russel Norman. You will have Metiria Turei—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

—running the transport or environment portfolios. Seriously, it is going to be really, really bad. This election is going to be a contest between the centre-right and the far left, and for New Zealanders that is going to be very, very scary. You can actually see five Labour members and one Green here in the Chamber, and there is not a day of business experience between them. Is that not frightening?

💬 Hon Member: Rubbish.

That reflects the reality of what you would get with a Labour Government, and they are saying: “Rubbish.”

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Well, it is absolutely true. David Clendon is getting more excited than I have ever seen him in the House, and the Assistant Speaker is trying to bring the debate back to him, but this is the reality. We are facing a situation where, if those people opposite ever got hold of the Treasury benches, New Zealand would be in a huge power of trouble.

This is a very, very good Budget. We have set out our four priorities very, very clearly. We are going to be in surplus by next year—a $75 million surplus. It is thin, but it is there, and that is what 4½ years of fiscal discipline brings you. This year we have a deficit of $2 billion. Back in 2010 we had an $18.7 billion deficit. When you look at where we are positioned compared to Australia—they have got a deficit of A$20 billion this year—we are in a very, very good position.

The Opposition can go on about the state of the economy, but the fact is that we, and the Australians, have grown at the fastest rate in the OECD over the past year—the fastest rate. Over the next year we are going to be growing at 3 percent. No one is going to be growing faster in the OECD. The eurozone is really down the gurgler, as is the UK, the US, and Japan. We are very, very well positioned. There have been 50,000 new jobs over the past 2 years. Unemployment has gone from 6.8 percent to 6.2 percent.

We are hearing from Labour a lot of whinging, we are hearing a lot of misinformed comment, but we are not getting one comment about what it would do better. In fact, we are not even getting a comment about what it would do—full stop. It is going to be very clear where the balance lies. You have got a Government with a very sound economic record, which is getting us—

💬 Clare Curran: We’re going to bring down power bills; that’s what we’re going to do.

Ah! Getting down power bills. Labour reckons it is going to get down power bills by regulating and nationalising the electricity industry. Well, good luck with that, because that is going to take us back to blackouts. That is not going to be the way forward. That is going to totally stop new generation, and it is going to be incredibly bad for the economy.

I can tell you what is going to happen if these people opposite were ever in charge—it would be an end to inward investment in New Zealand, because these people do not like the Chinese. They were very clear about that during the whole Shanghai Pengxin Group episode. They spoke out about it on the basis of political opportunism, and that is very, very dangerous for New Zealand. But I think what you will see if these people ever get the chance to get close to the Treasury benches is a big change in those ratings from people like Standard and Poor’s. You will see the IMF—

💬 Darien Fenton: Doom and gloom.

When the IMF sees hard-bitten unionists like Darien Fenton over there getting anywhere near the immigration portfolio, stopping the inflow of skills and stopping the inflow of capital, investment will fly from New Zealand. There is no question about it—it will leave. There is no question.

We focused very much on our priorities: getting back into surplus, economic growth, and this is interesting—[Interruption]

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Pay attention.

Yes. We are growing the economy, getting the skills here that we need in New Zealand, encouraging new apprenticeships and new skills, getting people down to Christchurch, and making a firm commitment to rebuilding Christchurch. The impact that Christchurch has had is actually incredible, but we have willingly said it is very, very important that we rebuild New Zealand’s second-biggest city. The Government’s contribution is $15 billion out of a total rebuild of $40 billion, and that has gone up quite considerably from $30 billion. Despite that, we are still going to hit surplus.

What I can say is that if those people opposite reckon they are going to get down debt, rebuild schools, build hospitals, and fund fast broadband, where is the money going to come from? They are going to stop partial share floats.

💬 Hon Members: That’s right.

Yes. “That’s right.”, they say. They are proud of it. This is how economically illiterate those people opposite are. They need to explain—and I am looking forward to the next speaker getting up to explain—

💬 Darien Fenton: There’s more than one way.

Darien Fenton, when you are Associate Minister of Finance—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member has now brought the Chair into the debate four times.

Oh, come on. When that member, Darien Fenton, is Associate Minister of Finance and she cancels partial shares—

💬 Darien Fenton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not wish to be picky, but, as we observe it in one language, it would also be nice if the member would call me by my proper name. It is “Dar-rien”, not “Darry-en”.

I thought Darien was going to get up and deny that she was going to be the Associate Minister of Finance, and, in fact, many members from both sides might have agreed with that. Anyway, one thing we have learnt from the Labour contribution in this debate is how to pronounce Darien Fenton’s name.

What I would say is that if Labour is going to stop partial share floats, where is it going to get the money from? It is concerned about debt, but it is going to have to borrow more. Or is it going to go down to Christchurch and say: “No, we’re not going to rebuild Megan Woods’ Christchurch Hospital, we’re not going to rebuild schools, and we’re not going to put in fast broadband, because we’re not going to borrow the money, and we’re not going to raise money for the Future Investment Fund.” So, basically, what you are going to have with those people is more debt, and you are going to have investment flying out the door. When that member from Dunedin who has just come in, David Clark, says that nonsense about the worst economic record in 50 years, he is telling a gross mistruth.

💬 Dr David Clark: The worst economic record in 50 years of any Government.

Here he goes. That is the only contribution he can make. In conclusion, it is a very good Budget, we are going ahead well, the economy is growing, and New Zealand is on the right track. New Zealand, do not put it all at risk. Kia ora.

Before I call the next member, I just want to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 27/5(1). The use of the word “you”—and the member did it three or four times during that debate—is not to be used in debate because it brings the Chair into it.

Talofa lava.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): O a mai oe? Now I’ve got you!

Now you have got me.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Manuia fa’afetai.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a lot of froth, bubble, bogus claims, and excuses have come out of the mouths of the members on the other side of the House, the Government speakers, today. Bill English today promised 60,000 new jobs in the 2013 Budget, but 2 years ago he promised 170,000 jobs. The truth is that there are no jobs. Our unemployment rates continue to go up. Since this Government has been in power, 41,000 more people have become out of work. I draw your attention—if you can see the bar graph in the document I am holding up—to the grey column, which is what was projected for jobs. The blue column is where there have been some jobs.

John Key’s and Bill English’s and Steven Joyce’s ghost jobs—their ghost job promises—will be their undoing. There are no jobs in the regions. There are certainly none in the southern part of New Zealand, because this Government is delivering a two-speed economy that is advantaging the people whom it likes, and the parts of New Zealand that it likes, and disadvantaging our regions. It is disadvantaging our young people and our exporters and entrenching inequalities. It is morally wrong to entrench inequality. It is wrong for our kids, and it is wrong for a country that considers itself to be egalitarian. It is wrong economically, and it is not only wrong but stupid. An economy has to work for the ordinary person so that they have got a job, so that they can stay in New Zealand, so that their families will thrive, and so that they will pay tax, they will spend, they will invest their wage, and they will help our economy to stay on track. Otherwise, what happens is that they leave. They become disenfranchised or they leave.

Our economy has to also work for manufacturing. We have to make things. We have to make things and export them, to be a productive economy. It is not rocket science. Instead, we are hollowing out our manufacturing base, and the loss of so many middle-income skilled jobs has made New Zealand a very unequal society.

Why is this Government propping up its mates at Skycity and not lifting a finger to support manufacturing businesses like the Hillside railway workshops in Dunedin? Just what New Zealand businesses are going to benefit from the Government’s new pretend procurement policy, which was announced after a significant manufacturing outlet with more than 100 skilled jobs was allowed to go down the gurgler?

This Government is not benefiting our regions, and it is not benefiting the increasing number of working poor and elderly who are struggling with low incomes and rising costs of living. Most of all, though, it is not benefiting our young people—our future workforce, our future. That is the area in which entrenched inequality policies are criminal in nature, because they are doing us harm.

Although the national average for youth not in education, employment, or training is 14 percent, Dunedin has a rate of 34 percent. The number of people participating in training programmes in Otago has dropped by 24 percent, or 1,805 people, since December 2008. Why? Not because of the demand but because the number of funded places has dropped. Seventy percent of the Dunedin South electorate earns less than $40,000 a year. The median income in Dunedin city is $19,400, compared with the national median of $24,400. In Otago it is marginally higher at $21,600, compared with that national median of $24,400.

The average power bill in Otago is almost $3,000, which is acknowledged by the ministry itself as probably being too low. Since November 2008 power bills in Otago have increased by 25 percent. In 2010 an Otago University study calculated that 30 percent of households in Dunedin are living in fuel poverty. Fuel poverty is a recognised measurement whereby the household spending on power equates to 10 percent or more of income. That figure of 30 percent sounds right at least, and it could be higher.

Thank God that Labour’s NZ Power policy will reduce average household power bills by 10 percent a year and lower the cost to businesses by up to 7 percent a year, because that means something to the ordinary person. It means something to them. It is concrete. It is not froth and bogus promises. It will mean something to the 70 percent of people in my electorate who earn under $40,000 a year, and who may be spending up to $4,000 a year on electricity and living in fuel poverty.

We have got to have a new approach. We have got to have a major rethink on how to grow jobs, wealth, and fairness. The fact is that the merchant banking outlook has failed. The way the National Government looks at this has failed. Clinging to that way harms people. It does us harm. It does not help the economy. The new outlook is industrial. This view holds that economic growth must be based in a real economy, a productive economy, where people actually make things and where businesses create products and services that bring real growth and real jobs, not speculation. But, unfortunately, National still views the economy through that lens of merchant banking, which has dominated the Western World for the last 30 years. It has to change. The productive economy requires a productive workforce and a skilled workforce for the jobs of the future. It is a digital world that we live in now, and we have to equip our kids for the digital workforce.

Another huge issue of concern for all of our communities—and where that two-speed economy is so stark—is the growing digital divide in our economy. This Government should be putting its heart and soul into equipping our kids to be the workforce of the future. But, again, what it is doing is entrenching a digital divide. We cannot have a digital divide. It will kill our future economy. If we are not providing our kids and their families with access to digital literacy, we will kill our future economy.

It is estimated by the most up-to-date data that around 20 percent of New Zealand households currently do not have a computer. Computers in Homes has estimated that there are 100,000 families with dependent children who do not have access to a computer at home. Those unconnected homes are predominantly in lower socio-economic areas. They are often home to Pasifika and Māori families, where children cannot participate equitably in digital learning and using technology and where programmes such as Computers in Homes, Computer Clubhouse, and Aotearoa People’s Network Kaharoa do great work in increasing digital literacy; but where their success is sporadic because of limited and uncertain funding. Well, it is about to become more limited, more sporadic, and more uncertain.

When Nikki Kaye was made a Minister and given special responsibility for digital education, she said that she wanted New Zealand to lead the world, and her vision was to enable more children to have access to online learning and resources. Well, access to infrastructure is great if you can afford it, and great if you actually do have the access. Hidden in the Budget was a nasty and an unnecessary cut. It was a cut to Computers in Homes through the digital literacy fund—a cut of $1.7 million, which could affect more than 1,000 families a year. In the last 12 years Computers in Homes has supported more than 10,000 families in this country. It supports communities in 17 different regions across the country, from the far north to Otago. It has widespread support and flow-on effects. For every $1 invested by the Government, another $2 is invested by the community and by local businesses.

It is an absolute travesty that this is being cut. This is mean-spirited, it is unnecessary, and it is a cut to the heart of an initiative that is making inroads into closing the gaps in increasing inequality. Cuts like these affect people who need the help the most, while 100,000 families with no computer access have bleaker prospects. This is truly a two-speed economy—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Her time has expired.

Today I want to pay tribute to the New Zealand public. I want to pay tribute to them in that they do not fall for the little traps that keep being thrown at them by the Opposition, which I think is known as speaking from both sides of your mouth. They know that when reality strikes, Governments have to change their whole policy mix. So when the National Party was campaigning in the 2008 election and promising to do a certain number of things, black storm clouds were just beginning to gather on the economic horizon. It was called the global financial crisis. What I do not understand in this House is that members on the opposite side have not got how to handle something when such an event occurs.

I know that if I had promised my kids that they would all get new plasma screens for their bedrooms at Christmas, and then during the year I lost my job, my wife lost her job, we were on welfare, and we were struggling to even pay for food, and so on, do you know what we would have to say? Every New Zealand family knows what they would say to the kids: “We just cannot do it. Sorry, we thought we could and things were looking good, but events outside of our control have occurred and we just cannot do it.” And yet it is almost like over in happy “Labour Land” that the global financial crisis did not occur. It did not happen. Why has unemployment gone up from where it was when Labour was in power? Well, it is very simple: the whole world melted down. But the good news is that the New Zealand economy got the least battering of just about any country I know. That is through sound, prudent fiscal management by Bill English and the team, who said: “Look, it is going to be rough. It is going to be tough, but we have got to try to withstand some of the real sharpness of the peaks and the troughs that will come at us, but without going in and doing some of the harsh cuttings of the welfare budgets that other Governments have done in the past when times have got tough.”

The Labour-Greens Opposition sits there as if the global financial crisis never happened. So they will be getting up, and I have heard them today, saying: “Where are all the jobs? When we were in power, we had this level of employment, and now look how bad it is.” Well, I can tell you that under the policy mix that we inherited in 2008, had we stayed on just the Labour Party policy mix platform, this country would now be calling to the IMF to come in and totally bail us out. I think this country owes a huge debt of gratitude to Bill English for having steered us through 5 years of some of the most difficult economic times. By the way, if you did not think the global financial crisis was the biggest smack around the whole world could have been dealt—we were sort of on our knees and trying to get through it—along came a series of devastating earthquakes that caused $40 billion worth of damage, which no one could see coming.

But what I find really hard to get through is that sort of duplicity of view that we hear from the other side. For example, the Greens will spend half of their day saying that our economy is not functioning and that people are heading off to Australia, and asking why are we not doing as well as Australia. But the other half of their debate is saying that they do not want minerals, mining, petroleum, and taking stuff out of the ground. Well, that is the only reason Australia has been a success. The only reason Australia—

💬 Catherine Delahunty: No, it’s not.

It is true. It is the only reason the Australian economy—it has a two-tier economy. Its ordinary economy is going slower than ours. In fact, the forecast levels of growth for New Zealand are better than for Australia. Have a look at the Budget that the Australian Labor Government brought down a couple of weeks before ours. It is appalling. There is a $22 billion deficit within that Budget. Australia is really struggling because commodity prices for all of the stuff that it rips out of the ground are falling. But you just cannot run the policy that the Greens do, which is that we should match Australia. We should be economically as good as it is and doing as well as it is. But we should not do all the things that it is doing, like taking minerals and so on out of it.

I think it is enough for us to have a duplicitous view of the world from the Greens, but today I saw something that I have never seen before. I saw a member of Parliament who even disagreed with himself. Damien O’Connor wrote letters saying that we have got to do the mining on the Denniston Plateau, and then said that it is all wrong and we should not be doing it. It is the first time in my 27 years in this House that I have actually ever seen a member of Parliament debating with himself and losing on both counts.

It applies to the Labour Party, as well. If you look at direct foreign investment, you see that there is no question that if we want this economy to function well, we need direct foreign investment. We need foreigners to bring their skills and their capital in here to grow it. There is just no doubt about that. What happened when Labour was in power? Let us take the sale of foreign lands because I cop this all the time. It is dreadful to be selling land to foreigners, OK—dreadful. Well, the National Government is a babe in the woods compared with them. I feel embarrassed. Total land sold to foreigners under a National Government is about 100,000 hectares. Total land sold to foreigners under the Labour Government was 666,000 hectares. That is about six times what we have done. That is what I said. I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed—

💬 Tracey Martin: You don’t know because there’s no register for it. No register for it so you haven’t any idea how much land has been sold underneath a house in Auckland.

There is somebody over there going off like a demented chook; I cannot quite tell what they are saying. But all I can say is Helen Clark sells 55,000 hectares—55,000 hectares—to Shania Twain, and then goes down and walks across the farm with the cameras. Are we not wonderful? Then it comes to selling 6,000 hectares to the Shanghai Pengxin Group and it is evil. They are foreigners—we cannot do it. Well, Shania Twain was from Canada. I reckon that makes her a foreigner. Maybe you do not, Mr Speaker, and maybe Helen Clark did not, but I think Shania Twain was a foreigner. And it is the same when Labour sold 350,000 hectares of forestry land, and then it could—

💬 Tracey Martin: If you’re not a New Zealander, you shouldn’t be able to buy land. No matter where you’re from, you shouldn’t be able to buy land if you’re a foreigner.

Could somebody get her some medication? She is really in pain over there. She is really suffering. You need to help her out somebody. Get a medic kit. All I can say is that Labour sold 350,000 hectares of forestry land in 1 year, and then we sell a few thousand and somehow it is wrong. I want Phil Goff, when he gets up, because I know he is getting up next, to explain to this House how it can be all right for Labour to sell six times as much land to foreigners as we do but it is now wrong and evil, and how Labour could have supported the building of a convention centre in Auckland that, I think, was a third of the size of the one that is planned, but with the same number of pokie machines with it. Again, Helen Clark paraded on the stage about what a great deal we have got for you, and then Steven Joyce goes and gets a convention centre three times that size, which the private sector will put its own money at risk to build, and with only the same number of pokies. Oh, and by the way there is a sinking lid on the number of pokie machines in New Zealand, so the total number of pokies is dropping. But somehow it is evil. I just do not understand how it can be all right in one case but it can be wrong in another.

Labour sold just about everything that moved when it was in office in the 1980s, but it now says that it is awful, it is evil, and it is wrong. I just still do not understand how the public—well, actually the good news is that the public do not the fall for it, and that is showing in the polls. It is showing in their response to this House when we are doing legislation. Parties that get up and try to be all things to all people when their history and their track record shows the exact opposite of what they are calling for are never going to convince the New Zealand public. No, Mr Goff, 2 more minutes of this and then you can get up—2 more minutes.

So I want to talk about Labour’s alternative policies, and the first thing I had to do with the research was struggle to find what the alternative policy is. I do not actually—[Interruption]—well, no, no, they should be well known, but we do not know. We have got a couple, though. It certainly wants to have a much more dramatic and harsh emissions trading scheme. It thinks ours was a little toy poodle, and it thinks that industry and emitters should be really, really paying the price. Well, that will be good for economic growth, would it not? Let us really put the boot into the productive sector. It really, really wants to do it. By the way, also, households pay a big number of moneys towards any emissions trading scheme and Labour’s scheme would make it a lot more. It wants to introduce a capital gains tax. Is that not fascinating? A capital gains tax. So it socks everybody, then it is going to exempt the family home, then it is going to exempt this, and so on. It ends up so that it will be business and rural farming that will be hit so hard. That is really good for the productive sector, right? Is that how we grow the economy? I do not think so.

There are a couple of others. It wants to abandon some of the sensible monetary policy—I think this is mainly the Greens, but remember the Greens co-leader Russel Norman will be the finance Minister in the coalition and just print money. Mr Goff laughs. If that is not going to be the case, he should tell us. If Russel Norman is not going to be the finance Minister, then just say so. I hear nothing—I hear nothing. Is Russel Norman going to be the—see, Opposition members will not even answer it. He wants to back the truck up to the Beehive, unload a swag of printers, fill it up with printing ink, and just print off the money. That has even been stamped best before 1990 in Eastern Europe.

I am proud of this Government, I am proud of the Budget, and I think Bill English will go down in the history of this country as being one of the best Ministers of Finance we have ever had.

I would like to answer a few questions posed to the House by the gay icon on the other side. I want to bring a few facts into it. Maurice Williamson knows this. He knows it, and he will smile when I give him the answers, because he knew them already. First of all, if New Zealand came out well from the global financial crisis, it was because of the state that a Labour Government, after 9 years, left this country in. If he does not accept my word for this, I am quoting from a document from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury, and the State Services Commission. Produced in November 2011, it is called Better Public Services, and it said this: “Although New Zealand entered the global economic downturn with a stronger financial position than most OECD countries …”. Bill English said it, did he not, just after becoming Minister of Finance? He said: “This is the rainy day that [New Zealand] has been saving for.” What was he talking about? He was talking about a Labour Government, because he had only just become the Minister of Finance.

Why was New Zealand in a good shape, Maurice Williamson? It was in a good shape because we had paid down our debt when you, Mr Williamson, were talking about spending it on tax cuts. So we had net zero debt for New Zealand when we went into the recession. We had the lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD. One other thing, Mr Williamson: we had just signed a trade agreement for free trade with China and the ASEAN countries. Our exports have trebled since I signed that agreement in Beijing—trebled to $6 billion. We were safe from the worst effects of the downturn in Europe and the United States. That is why this country is in good shape: 9 years of surpluses from a Labour Government—9 years of surpluses—net zero debt, the lowest unemployment rate in the Western World, and trade agreements with China and with Asia. That is the answer to your question, Mr Williamson; not what you were making up as you went along.

You ask about the capital gains tax as if this was something extraordinary. We are almost the only country in the OECD that does not have one. The Reserve Bank has proposed it. Treasury has proposed it. The International Monetary Fund has proposed it. The World Bank has proposed it. In his heart, Maurice Williamson knows it is the right thing to do—knows it is the right thing to do—and he is smiling now, because he knows I am telling the truth. That is enough of Maurice Williamson.

I want to talk about the things that are really important to New Zealanders. You know, New Zealanders do not ask for much. They do not actually even expect much, and, even so, they have been disappointed by what this Government has delivered them. What do they want? They want a job, they want a home, they want a good education for their kids, and they want a fair go. None of those things are unreasonable, but that is what the ordinary Kiwi wants: a job, a home, a decent education for their kids, and the Government to give them a fair go. This Government, in this Budget, has delivered none of those things.

Let us go through them. Regarding jobs, 146,000 New Zealanders are out of work—146,000. In my city of Auckland, it is 7.3 percent, but in the parts of the electorate where I have Pasifika communities living, it is around 15 percent. For their kids, it is one in three not in work. This Government has not delivered on its promises. The 2010 Budget promised 170,000 jobs, and John Key mimicked the Budget. He said: “We will deliver 170,000 jobs by 2014.” He made the same promise in 2011, as did the Budget. Twice in a row—170,000 jobs. When he went to the people of New Zealand at the election in 2011, what did he promise? He promised 170,000 new jobs. What does Treasury tell us in this Budget? What does it tell us, Mr Coleman? It tells us that you are breaking the promise, and that you will fall short of that target that you promised three times through your leader and your finance Minister by 61,000 jobs. Three times they promised it, every promise a broken promise, and one-third of the teenage Pasifika kids in my electorate stay out of work.

The answers are not rocket science. Why are we importing tens of thousands of skilled tradesmen into this country when tens of thousands of our kids are out of work? Why will the Government not turn the dole into a payment to encourage employers to take on apprentices? Why will we not give jobs to our young people who are on the dole, out of work, without hope? Because this Government—what did it do with skills training? It cut skills training. It did not grow it; it cut it.

Then, about manufacturing in New Zealand—manufacturing has got a really important role to play, and what has this Government done? It has jacked up the dollar value to a point where our manufacturers are going out of business because they cannot compete with a dollar that is overvalued, Treasury says, by 20 per cent. Where is the guts in this Government to actually say that we need a new approach to monetary policy? We need to say that the Reserve Bank should be looking at jobs and it should be looking at the exchange rate, not just the inflation rate. It will not change the monetary policy by broadening the objectives and the representation on the board of the bank.

Then there is the question of investment policy. Where are people putting their money? They are not putting it into Mighty River Power. Mighty River Power is selling for less than what you floated it for a couple of weeks ago. They are putting it into speculation, because it is easy to put money into housing. You can make a lot of money out of it and you do not pay tax when you sell it, so you have a tax-free income. It is a speculator’s paradise in New Zealand. It is great for the speculators. They are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and who is paying that money? The low-income families with their kids, desperate to actually achieve the New Zealand dream of a home of their own. What happens to those families? When I bought my first home, the price of that house in Auckland was three times my annual wage. Today it is 10 times the average wage of that young family desperate to get into a home of their own. What is the Government and this Budget doing about it? Absolutely nothing. There is no commitment to an affordable housing policy, and no commitment to cracking down on speculation through a capital gains tax.

Why are we not getting jobs? Because there are not the savings. I heard the Prime Minister this afternoon talk about KiwiSaver as if it was his idea. I think National voted against it. Certainly, it has done nothing to make it universal, which would create an investment basis for jobs in this country.

But I want to come back to housing. If you get a housing programme going, it does two things. Firstly, it gets people into homes of their own. That used to be a National Party principle—the property-owning democracy. Now you cannot do it. The speculators will own 50 houses and the young families will not get a chance for a home of their own. Labour is talking about KiwiBuild, setting up a fund funded by homeownership bonds rolled over that would allow us to create 10,000 houses a year, with all of the jobs and all of the skills training that that involves, and the opportunity for people to own their own homes. Labour would put a warrant of fitness on rental housing.

The Government comes out with its insulation policy. I can get cheap insulation for my house on my income, but most of the low-income families in our country live in flats. The lowest take-up for insulating homes was from rental properties. Those are the families with low wages, living in cold, damp, and unhealthy conditions, with absenteeism from work because they are sick too often and absenteeism from school because they are not well, and they fall behind in their learning. Why has the Government not done something about that as a warrant of fitness for rental housing? That would really make a difference.

The other thing that is obvious is lower power prices. You know, the Wolak report said that the power companies were making a killing out of power prices. They were gouging to the extent, he said, of $4.2 billion. When will the National Government realise that the Bradford reforms have failed? Simon Bridges got up and said that they have not had long enough—they have not had long enough. They have had 16 years and they have failed. It is time that we actually gave some of the dividend back from the power stations that our forebears and my father-in-law helped build, by giving it back to New Zealand consumers by way of cuts to the price of their electricity. What difference would it make to a low-income family to have their power bill cut by $300 a year? A huge amount of difference, and we will do it.

Under the National Government, New Zealand is on the right track. This Government is doing exactly what we said we would do and we are delivering in areas that matter to New Zealanders. This Budget is a Budget that delivers for New Zealanders.

After-tax wages have risen by 22 percent since September 2008, when we became the Government. Economic growth rose by 3 percent last year. That is a significant rise against a global financial crisis where other countries around the world are literally floundering. Here in New Zealand we achieved 3 percent growth in the last financial year, forecasting around 2.5 percent in difficult economic times. The cost of living in New Zealand has experienced the lowest rises since 1999 and mortgage interest rates are the lowest since 1965. The New Zealand economy is in good shape under Bill English and John Key.

This Government has got four priorities for our economy: responsibly managing the Government’s finances, building a more competitive and a more productive economy, delivering better public services, and, arguably, to a South Island member of Parliament, the fourth imperative is rebuilding Christchurch. I want to spend a bit of time talking about that, but first of all I want to put some stakes in the ground, refuting some of the rather unwise comments made by some members across the House. Clare Curran, that luminary from Dunedin, said that there are no jobs in the regions. Well, come on. That kind of language might work in South Dunedin, but this is Parliament. This is where we want to have some reasoned debate, and I am going to tell that member exactly why comments like that do not help her cause and do not help her party’s cause.

Under the Better Public Services initiative the Ministerial Committee on Poverty has endorsed a number of important initiatives to help low-income families. Those include $100 million over 3 years for the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart healthy homes programme. That programme targets low-income households, particularly those with children with health needs, for home insulation. What did Labour do in the 9 years it was in power? Phil Goff just spent 8 of his 10 minutes taking credit for the state that the New Zealand economy is in in 2013. Well, the news is, Phil Goff, that those guys went out of Government 5 years ago. You cannot keep taking credit for stuff you did way back in history. That is so last century.

This Government has put more than $21 million aside over the next 4 years for rheumatic fever prevention. That is significant for the health and welfare of our children. There is an extra $1.5 million for budgeting services in 2013-14, in addition, it has to be said, to the $8.9 million that was provided for in the previous financial year. This next one is good. There is a whiteware procurement programme that will enable people on benefits to purchase new appliances under warranty using repayable Ministry of Social Development payments. That is a significant help. It is just a small portion of the Budget, but it is a significant help to low-income families and people on benefit.

The trial on Housing New Zealand properties for a warrant of fitness programme for rental housing—where was Labour? Where was Labour, in its 9 years of surplus that it keeps talking about? Where was Labour in helping low-income families? Where were those members with the insulation programme? They were absolutely nowhere. Labour was content for low-income households to live in cold, damp social housing, and what did it do about it? It did nothing.

I want to go on to some welfare measures. There will be $188 million over the next 4 years for the next stage of welfare reform to help more New Zealanders off benefit and into work. Of course, this follows a $287 million investment in last year’s Budget, so it is increases year on year. You see, Labour members are yelling because they do not actually care about this stuff. What they care about is going back to the glory days—they think—of the 9 years under Helen Clark, when they squandered the economic opportunities they had. They do not actually care about the fact that here is a Government that is providing assistance to low-income New Zealanders and providing assistance to people on a benefit, and that has a very strong focus on getting those people who are on a benefit off that benefit and into jobs.

There will be 354 extra Work and Income staff to provide intensive help and support. I know from recent history in my own home town of Ōāmaru that when the Summit Wool Spinners mill closed, Work and Income did a magnificent job. It rallied around those people who were made redundant from a regional response—

💬 Clare Curran: Have they got jobs?

And I am happy to say to Clare Curran, who asks “Have they got jobs?”, that, yes, they have. Most of those people have got jobs—60 of them—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Oh, she’s so disappointed.

I know, she does not like to hear it. It does not suit that member’s agenda. But I can tell that member that 60 of those workers at Summit Wool Spinners have been re-engaged by Canterbury Spinners and that a significant proportion of the other workers have found work either by themselves or through the assistance of Work and Income. That is not good news to the other side of the House, because those members do not like to hear this stuff, but, actually, Government agencies such as Work and Income are providing a magnificent job in supporting the workers back into jobs. Labour members do not like to hear it, because they love shouting, they love pulling this country down, and they love people being poor and downtrodden, but when they see a Government that is actually prepared to put a stake in the ground and do something about it, they simply do not like it, because it does not suit their purposes.

I am going to go on now to talk a little bit about health, because that is something that is quite important to people, obviously not only in my electorate but all over New Zealand. There will be a further $1.6 billion for new health initiatives. Again, Labour members, when they are not yelling, have gone quiet. They do not like this initiative, because it is there to actually help people.

I will tell the House how this new initiative, this $106 billion—I wish—this $1.6 billion is going to be allocated. Over the next 4 years there will be $70 million for aged-care and dementia services. We know that New Zealand has an ageing population. We know that it is incredibly difficult for the State to provide services, and so that $70 million will go a long way, particularly in the area of dementia services. There will be $35.5 million for diabetes and heart disease. We know very well that we have a problem in New Zealand with growing rates of diabetes and growing rates of heart disease. There will be $100 million in this Budget over the next 4 years to meet population changes and cost pressures in disability support services. I do hope some of that money will be allocated into my part of New Zealand. I certainly will be advocating for that to happen. There will be $48 million for more elective operations, such as for hip replacements and cataracts. This is real assistance for New Zealanders. This should be celebrated across the House. This is extra cataract surgeries in south and north Dunedin. This is more hip operations in south and north Dunedin. Gosh, you would think those members might be quite pleased about that.

I just want to talk a little bit in my final moments about the strong focus that this Government has got on the recovery for Christchurch. There is going to be an additional $2.1 billion for Christchurch’s recovery. We know that Christchurch has been through a terrible event. We know also that the people of Christchurch are incredibly resilient and are getting on with life and rebuilding Christchurch. This Government is committed to assisting those people in Christchurch in rebuilding their lives and rebuilding the economy of the second-largest city in New Zealand and the largest city in the South Island, and the tourism gateway to other parts of New Zealand, such as Wānaka and Southland.

I want to finish my speech with just a couple of figures. I am reading from a document from Invest Christchurch, which is the Christchurch Central Development Unit. I just want to say that Canterbury is attracting business from around the rest of New Zealand. I quote from this document: “Inland Revenue data at April 2013 show a ‘positive net internal migration of business’.”, and also: “Canterbury is attracting employees to job opportunities.” So I go back to Clare Curran, who said—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Her time has expired.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in this slightly bizarre debate. I sometimes wonder whether the listeners who are familiar with George Orwell will be weighing up whether the Budget is really Nineteen Eighty-Four or Animal Farm. It is a bit hard to tell which. Also, I do have to comment on the attack on South Dunedin. It was quite odd to say that someone from South Dunedin can talk like this but not in Parliament, implying that Parliament is the real world? I find that really odd. We all claim we are in the real world, but I think South Dunedin has its feet on the ground in a way that Parliament possibly does not. Parliament, despite our aspirations to be in touch with reality, has a certain unreality about it, and so did the Budget.

The thing I want to talk about in terms of the Budget, as laudable as some of the things may be, is that there was a huge elephant in the room—actually a herd of elephants, trampling around the room, as usual, standing on each other, trying to find spare room, because they were being ignored, and trying not to gore each other in the process. There were many issues associated with poverty that were not addressed. But there was also this thing that was not mentioned, called the environment—this thing that actually we all depend on for our life, for everything. We cannot get food and water without it, but it was not addressed in a 21st century Budget in a so-called modern country. There was no addressing of the issue of the environment.

All around the world, countries everywhere recognise we are facing the greatest ecological crisis that we have ever faced as a species. It is self-created, which some of us are still in denial about. There was nothing. There was silence. It is very Orwellian when some people ignore the issues that are screaming out, because they cannot see a way of leading with any vision to solve those issues. They think that if we continue with business as usual and just ignore them, they will all go away. But they will not, and they cannot, and we have a responsibility to do a whole lot better than was done in the Budget with that absolute howling silence on the issues of the environment.

However, I want to briefly address a couple of Budget issues in this speech. One is to do with the $90 million that was spent on charter schools in the education budget, and the other is the money that was set aside for the family carers and the Budget bill that pushed that through under urgency. That would have to be a lowlight in the history of the Parliament. It is perhaps one of the most disingenuous, discriminatory, and unbelievably cruel pieces of legislation, masquerading as a Budget, that was not going to assist anybody. But I will refer to that later.

Starting with charter schools and the $90 million in the Budget, it was a nice little sum, considering that there was no mandate for it and that nobody at the last election asked for it, except for the ACT Party. I am not saying they are nobodies; they are certainly not everybody, but they are the only people who actually wanted it. When the evidence, which is a rare word these days in education, is looked at for the results globally of charter schools, in terms of creating educational equity and improvement of children’s learning, the very best that you can say is that the results are mixed. If you go through Stanford University and all the other research, the results in the United Kingdom and the USA at the very best can only be called mixed.

So why is the Budget giving money for a bunch of experiments from religious fundamentalists to people who also could use the special character provisions or the kura kaupapa provisions? What about the other groups of people, who may not be religious fundamentalists, who have been seduced into thinking that they will get more money and more autonomy by signing up to this latest failed fashion for the screwed-up notion that competition improves children’s learning? Competition works well in sports teams, but it does not improve children’s learning. This may be news to the National Government, but actually children learn through working with a supportive professional, with a registered teacher, with family, and with each other, through cooperation. Learning is a collective and collaborative experience. It is not a competition.

However, the reason we have got this $90 million being wasted is that the ACT-National coalition agreement says it should. It also works really well for the Government with its meme that the public education system is a failure. If a decision has been made to present a system as a failure, then you really need to spend money on it and create models that you would ensure at the beginning, initially at least, will succeed. That is what the charter schools are all about.

I think there is nobody who thinks that the education system is perfect and that it has delivered for everybody. But as to the idea that a model based on a contract where unregistered teachers and a sponsor who does not have to have an educational background is going to succeed better, when the results from overseas are clear that it does not, that is just not evidence-based. It is just ideological and political agreement between the National Party and the ACT Party. It certainly suits the National agenda, when you look at its history with the educational system since 2008. It is not going to work, but does it really matter, because they have made their agreement? Well, of course, it does matter because those children who are going to charter schools, if they are not counselled out because they cannot meet the statistics, are going to be put in a very vulnerable position because the very particular version of charter schools that we are funding—and this will come up tomorrow in the House—supported by the Budget, is based on some very bizarre ideas.

One idea is that the schools do not have to have registered teachers. On the one hand, we put a lot of effort and energy into improving the Education Review Office, the Teachers Council, registration processes, and making sure we protect children from inappropriate behaviour in schools. On the other hand, we throw up our hands and say: “Hey, let’s bring in charter schools. They don’t have to abide by any of the rules, just so long as they meet the contract.” That is where the business meme in education gets sicker and sicker, because all it says is to “meet the contract”. If you can produce the data at the end of the day, they do not care how you do it. They do not care whether the teacher is registered. They do not care how many hours the students are expected to be at school. They do not care what means are used, so long as they meet the contract.

There is no scrutiny that is going help. There is not going to be an overview by any external body. There is going to be a contract that will be a secret between the Ministry of Education—probably the Secretary for Education—and the contractor. This, to me, is Orwellian because our children are not lab rats and because the Budget is wasting precious educational dollars on something that at best is called “mixed”, in terms of success.

When we have got programmes that have been proven to work, we should support them—for example, Te Kotahitanga has been proven to work. It would be quite a good idea if instead of taking out the core element—the facilitators in schools—because they are too expensive, we actually invest in those programmes and then we will start to get results, such as they have at Melville High School and Kerikeri High School. If the Government does not know about those, I suggest it goes and talks to those schools to find out how it is working for Māori and Pacific students. That is what we call evidence.

However, given my short call I will make a brief mention of the other Budget disaster that I wanted to focus on, amongst the many—and I am spoilt for choice—and that is the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) that was forced through the House, as part of the Budget. I think the reason it was forced through under urgency, as part of the Budget, is that probably very few support parties could have stomached it if it had not been. It is a unique bill. The Budget has allocated $23 million per year for 3 years for perhaps 1,600 families, who can be paid less than all other carers, who can be paid for only 40 hours’ work a week, and who basically, if they are not able to get that funding and want to complain about any aspect of the Government’s new policy, will be unable to do so because there is a discriminatory clause in the bill. A most extraordinary discrimination has been entrenched in the bill, and it has been commented on far and wide. That is why I have called the bill the “Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad, Shut Up Bill”, because that is really what it is about.

The only reason there was any money put aside for this in the Budget is that the Government had lost in every court in the land. The Government did not do it to become internationally recognised as people who really like to defend people. The Government did it because it could, and it is wrong. Thank you.

For all those people listening, that was Catherine Delahunty. Catherine Delahunty will be the next Labour spokesperson on Treaty issues, so watch this space. She will be the spokesperson for the Labour Party very soon, as the Labour Party gives away another policy area to the Green Party—

💬 Dr David Clark: Expecting a change of Government?

No, I said “spokesperson”, which does not mean anything more than that. We have back in the House the man who is known, and will be known in his political career, for yelling out one phrase. For 5 years he has yelled out one phrase. Nobody can actually remember it, but he has been known for the one phrase. The “One-Phrase Bandit”—it is good to see you back and I am sure that we are going to hear you yelling out across the House for the next few months.

This Budget is a good Budget. It is a great Budget for New Zealand. It is a Budget that we should be proud of, and it is a Budget that the Opposition should be afraid of. This is a Budget that has gone down well on the streets of New Zealand, because people know the reality of the world that we live in and they know that this is a good Budget.

💬 Holly Walker: Dipton doesn’t need it.

It is a good Budget for New Zealand, Holly Walker.

Let us have a look at some of the speeches we have had today. I want to go back to Phil Goff. I thought Phil Goff made a great speech for Labour. That was the best speech to come from Labour on this debate. Phil Goff is the Kevin Rudd of the Labour Party, and he should be back leading the Labour Opposition. Why is Labour not getting together and getting Phil Goff back into leadership? He was better than anyone else Labour has put up.

That was a good speech from Phil Goff, but it is a speech that was wrong. Phil Goff talked about some good things like the free trade agreement with China—yes, very good. Nobody disputes that that has been very important for New Zealand going forward. That is not a bad thing. The New Zealand First Party will disagree, but it disagrees with anything to do with trade. Phil Goff made a very good point about that, but when you look at what he said, he did not tell you the full facts. The full facts are that the last Labour Government put New Zealand into recession before the rest of the world. The rest of the world was pumping, and New Zealand was going into recession because of the policies the last Labour Government enacted. Those policies, as the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman said, would have meant a $170 billion deficit for New Zealand going forward, for which we would have had to borrow. If those policies had been continued in the manner they were put forward, that would have been a disgrace and the destruction of the New Zealand economy.

That has not happened. There has been good, solid, responsible fiscal management by this Government in the last 5 years.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: And the public knows that.

Maurice Williamson talked about that, and Maurice Williamson was right: the public know that. The public know that there was a time when we needed responsible management, and that is what has been delivered. They are thankful for that and they are thankful to Bill English and the team for delivering that. That is something that the Opposition needs to be aware of. The New Zealand First Party can laugh over there, but it does not even know what fiscal management is, let alone working out what is responsible. That party has had no responsibility at all; it just sits there and tries to take the worst out of everything.

One thing Phil Goff did talk about was the KiwiBuild programme. That was the great building programme that, I think, David Shearer announced at the end of last year. Then did he not have to come back and say: “Oh, no, those numbers aren’t actually quite right. We can’t actually do those houses for that price. That actually wouldn’t be the reality of what would happen.”? Labour had to backtrack on the one policy it built itself upon, and say that it could not actually deliver the houses. National, on the other hand, has worked constructively with Auckland City. We have worked together to deliver a plan that will increase the housing and the brownfields and greenfields developments in our biggest city. There is nothing wrong with having a big city in Auckland. The Opposition—the Green Party certainly does not want a big city in Auckland, and the Labour Party is talking about trying to stop it.

New Zealand needs a city of that size and scale to be competitive. Imagine a New Zealand that did not have a city that was equivalent to Sydney or Melbourne. If we do not have a city of that nature, we cannot provide jobs and opportunities for our young people and we cannot provide the institutions of higher learning that will be at the scale and size to be competitive with other countries. If you look at the modern world, the world that is coming about, based in the Asian basin of the Pacific Basin, there are cities like Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The size and the scale of those cities is important for the future of our country going forward. New Zealand cannot compete if we do not have an Auckland that is in that realm.

💬 Catherine Delahunty: Crime-ridden.

We will get a city in that realm. The Green Party says it is a crime-ridden city. That is not true. Crime has gone down. Crime statistics have gone down under this Government. You look at the statistics around that. Do not make up things in this House; talk about the reality and what is truthful.

💬 Tracey Martin: Have you even seen your region? You’re sucking the life out of your region and putting everything into Auckland.

This is New Zealand First: “… sucking the life out of our region.” When was a New Zealand First MP ever in our region to actually see what is happening? I say to that member that our region is doing very well. We are doing well off the back of Auckland’s growth, off the back of our growth and our export industries, and off the back of the investment that this Government has made in our region. I see a member here from Northland. People of Northland understand that this is important for their region as well, because that is going to be another growth area, once the plans of the National Government become a reality.

This is a Budget that puts New Zealand back into surplus in 2014-15. That is crucial for New Zealanders. The other crucial thing for New Zealanders is that their interest rates remain low for as long as possible. This Government will deliver that. On the other side of the Table, had the Opposition been in, your interest rates would be much higher. You would have a low dollar, do not get me wrong. The dollar would be at 40c if there were a Labour-Greens Government. That would be the rest of the world saying: “Your economy is in tragic downfall because you’ve got bad economic management.” The Russel Norman approach to economics would give you a 40c dollar, but at the same time he would give you interest rates of 9 percent to 10 percent, and at the same time he would give you a higher unemployment rate, and at the same time this country would not grow.

Under this National Government you have seen growth of 3 percent—growth of 3 percent, which is great in this modern economy of the world, where you have seen—

💬 Moana Mackey: Oh!

A lot of Western countries are finding it very difficult to get growth. The member over there from somewhere over near Gisborne—she is a list member from over there—is arguing about that. Those are good growth rates. Compared with the rates of other Western countries such as Australia and America, we are at the top of the countries that are growing in the Western World. The National Government has delivered that for New Zealanders, and at a time of delivering low interest rates, which are crucial for New Zealanders. That provides jobs, that provides security, and that provides the investment going forward.

The National Government has delivered in health care and in education. The new initiatives in that area—which Jacqui Dean talked about in a very strong and positive way—are all good for New Zealanders going forward. We are rebuilding Christchurch, a major city that had major destruction with the earthquake. The Labour and Green parties tend to ignore the fact that there was a world recession, and they ignore the fact that Christchurch needed rebuilding. It is all right to stand up there and say what they do about delivering all these things, but the reality is we had to deliver those two initiatives, and we have done that.

This is a good Budget for New Zealand. This is a good Budget for New Zealanders out there. People recognise and understand that. They understand that this Government and this country have had to be careful with their money—just like they have had to—to make the right choices and to work towards building a stronger country going forward. This Budget is a strong Budget, which indicates and shows that strength of the New Zealand economy and this National Government. Thank you.

Talofa lava. I want to thank the previous speaker, David Bennett, for the comedy routine that we have just had just before the dinner break. I think it will send us all off in good humour. It does seem to be my problem that I end up following that member quite often, although it does provide one with quite a lot of good material, including the phrase “going forward”, which I counted six times during that speech. I would like to ask the member whether he truly believes he is going forward, because I think that is probably not the case.

💬 David Bennett: Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a point of order?

💬 David Bennett: No. I have been asked a question; I would like to respond to it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no.

This Budget is definitely not going forward; it is definitely a going-backwards and looking-backwards Budget. I want to say in the 1 minute or the few seconds I have left before the dinner break how disappointing it is after 5 years—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

As I was saying before the break, when I had 1 minute to speak, this Budget is extremely disappointing. It is disappointing. After 5 years of a National Government—5 years—and the fifth Budget of this Government, the only word you can use to describe it is “disappointing”.

The Government is propping up its mates at Skycity and in the big end of town. It has not lifted a finger in this Budget to help grow real, sustainable, well-paid, decent jobs. There is nothing in this Budget for those affected by the entrenched two-speed economy we have been debating today. There is nothing in this Budget for the tens of thousands of out-of-work New Zealanders. There is nothing in this Budget to give hope or support to hollowed-out regions and unaffordable cities. Our young people are out of work in large numbers and have been consigned to youth wages, and they are expected, under this Government, to be grateful to be paid a pittance.

After five Budgets of this Government, incomes and wealth are ever more concentrated in the hands of a few. Chief executive officers these days are paid sickeningly huge salaries that are, on average, 35 times the size of a median Kiwi wage. There is something wrong with that. Today the top 20 percent of the population earns five times as much as the bottom 20 percent, and yet two in five seriously deprived children have working parents on inadequate incomes. So this is not just about people out of work; it is about people who are working who are not earning a decent living.

Even this Government has finally admitted that child poverty is a problem. It has started to talk about it today and about dealing with some of the symptoms. But what was interesting was when John Key admitted that the food in schools programme would be here to stay, meaning that he expects that the high levels of child poverty that we have today are going to become a permanent feature of New Zealand society, at least under the National Government.

Inequality in New Zealand has worsened. That started with National’s tax cuts for the rich in its very first Budget. It had the cheek, after holding a Job Summit—remember the Job Summit; it went nowhere—in its first Budget to give 40 percent of its income tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners. The ongoing refusal of National to address the gaping hole in our tax structures—the lack of a capital gains tax—is just making it worse.

Hard-working New Zealanders who are struggling, who are doing their best to find work, to upskill, will be disappointed in this fifth Budget of the National Government. There is nothing in this Budget for families who have to work two jobs and still cannot make ends meet. There is nothing in this Budget for out-of-work New Zealanders who are desperate to get a job. And it breaks promises—again. At the last election John Key promised New Zealanders that his Building a Brighter Future plan would create 170,000 new jobs over 4 years. That sounded great. That sounded great, but National promises and promises, and, in fact, it makes the same promise over and over again.

The first time we heard it was in Budget 2010—3 years ago. What John Key promised then was more than 170,000 jobs from 2010 to 2014. Promise No. 2, in Budget 2011, was that 170,000 new jobs would be created from 2010 to 2015—extending it to 5 years. Promise No. 3, in 2011, was the National Party election manifesto or election material. The National Party went out and did it again—170,000 new jobs over the next 4 years. That has been promised three times, but the truth is that all National can promise in this Budget is that unemployment will reduce by a pretty pitiful 15,000 jobs over 4 years to 131,000 people out of work. I am sure that makes them feel a lot better, those people who have not got jobs, but it simply is not good enough. It is cold comfort to those 146,000 people around the country who are unemployed. That is 41,000 more people out of work since National came to power. I call that a disgrace.

💬 Sue Moroney: It is a disgrace.

It is a disgrace. It seems that job growth is always just around the corner. But every Budget that we see, Treasury has to downgrade its forecasts. It is now predicting that National will fall 61,000 jobs short of its promise.

Meanwhile, the jobs market is not getting any better. In May Fonterra announced 300 job losses. A leaked Air New Zealand document shows that it may cut 150 jobs, and it is actually looking to contract out all of its flight attendants at the moment so it can cut wages. The Department of Conservation confirmed the job losses at 72. There are 70 jobs to go at Tait Communications, and 50 at Tower Insurance. Solid Energy has 105 added to the ones that it had—another 400 last year—as a result of National’s mismanagement.

In Auckland, where I come from, unemployment actually rose to 7.3 percent in the March quarter. In Northland it is 10 percent. In Wellington it is 6.8 percent. The only thing that is holding up the unemployment figures is the Christchurch rebuild. But it is not creating jobs. The economy under Bill English and John Key is not creating jobs other than those in the Christchurch rebuild. They have no idea about how to get the economy back on track. They are sitting by and watching as people opt out of the labour market. They are giving up—it is just too hard to find a job—or they are going off overseas.

Under John Key’s brighter future it is easy to see where the money is going: special deals for Skycity and employment laws for sale to movie moguls. I want to talk about that in particular. That deal was supposed to be for the good of New Zealanders, but yesterday we heard that Weta Digital is seeking to bring in 526 foreign workers. That is on top of the 369 workers it was able to employ from offshore last year. That is nearly a thousand jobs. Where is the responsibility—where is the requirement from this Government—on Weta Digital, with the taxpayer-funded benefits that that industry is getting, to train New Zealanders to do the work? There is not one. Weta Digital will be back next year asking for another 500 workers from overseas. There are some highly skilled jobs, but there are many that New Zealanders could do without much training, such as crew services, accounts, and publicity.

The Government’s response to all of this is a dreadful Budget. It is to sell the assets and take them out of the hands and ownership of New Zealanders and to help its mates again.

The last thing I would like to say is that on the North Shore, where I work as a list member, I have been asking questions about the number of people who have been approaching Work and Income for support to pay their power and gas bills. The House would be surprised at these numbers. In Maggie Barry’s and Jonathan Coleman’s areas there are something like 487. In the Rodney District, where Mark Mitchell works, there are 968. That is 1,455 people who have applied for help to pay their power bills, yet this Government can talk only about selling assets. It has no ideas about how to make life better for New Zealanders. It has no idea about how to get people into work to make life better for them. It is looking after its mates. This is a disgraceful Budget.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on Budget 2013—an excellent Budget. We have just heard Darien Fenton saying she was a little disappointed with it. Well, we have growth at 3 percent, unemployment at 6.2 percent and coming down, inflation at 0.9 percent, and balancing the books by 2014-15—this is the envy of the OECD. This was a fantastic Budget and it certainly shows what a lack of insight that member, Darien Fenton, has, because this is a great achievement. It is a great achievement because of the extraordinary level of prudential financial management to get it through. It is a great achievement because of the history of the global financial crisis along with the other misfortunes New Zealand suffered: the earthquakes, the droughts, and the various other factors that have been of concern. And it is a great achievement given that under Labour’s spending trajectory nothing like this would have ever happened. If we look at Labour’s spending trajectory, if we look at the absolute financial mismanagement through those 9 long years, we see that net debt would have exceeded 60 percent of GDP by the early 2020s—60 percent of GDP by the early 2020s. But under the excellent management of National and the Minister of Finance, Bill English, we are going to have net debt peaking at 28.7 percent of GDP and by 2021 it will have fallen to 17.6 percent of GDP.

It is absolutely frightening to contemplate what a Labour-Green coalition would do. I was reading the National Business Review just the other day and it was commenting about what that former Tasmanian Marxist Russel Norman would do. What would he do? He would print money. And what would be the result of that? Up would go interest rates, up would go inflation, and that would hurt every single small business across the face of New Zealand, as well as every single individual. And who is donkey deep with Russel Norman? None other than the Labour Party—none other than the Labour Party.

I want to talk on two important trends. These relate to health and to science and innovation research and development. Under National, both are tracking absolutely in the right direction. Under Labour, sadly, both tracked in the wrong direction. Under Labour, during those 9 long, unfortunate years, health spending rose 7.2 percent year after year after year: $6 billion in 2000 to $12 billion in 2008. But the problem was that productivity declined—productivity absolutely declined. This was absolutely, simply unsustainable, and the fact is that if we had gone on in that spending trajectory, health as core Crown spending would have been 60 percent of core Crown spending. Even Ian Powell of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, a well-known lefty, made the point only the other day that Labour was absolutely hopeless operationally—absolutely hopeless. All one has to do is look at the latest New Zealand Doctor magazine to see that. But it is important to realise that between 1950 and 2012 health spending has actually gone up 442 percent, with the biggest incline between 2000 and 2008—absolutely the fact. Per capita GDP has gone up during that time by 142 percent—totally unsustainable under Labour. But under the excellent National Government, since 2009 the rate of increase of health spending has lowered.

But the big difference between National and Labour is that under National productivity has increased, outcomes have increased, and there has been spectacular success with the health targets—spectacular success. Let us have a look at immunisation. Under Labour, in 2007, only 67 percent of 2-year-olds were immunised. That was Third World. Today it is 95 percent—95 percent of 2-year-olds are fully immunised. In 2007, under Labour, the cancer waiting lists took months. People were going to Australia after waiting 2 or 3 months in New Zealand. Families were totally suffering. This was under Labour in 2007. Today 100 percent of people needing radiotherapy are treated within 4 weeks. That is best world practice. That is best world practice, gold standard treatment. That is absolutely fantastic, and, of course, elective surgery spending has increased by $35 million per year since 2008.

But let us have a look at the achievements in science research and development, which is obviously a very vital lever to economic growth. Under Labour, both public and private investment in science research and development as a percentage of GDP remained static. Under National, public investment in science research and development has increased 7 percent per year—7 percent per year—over the last 4 years. National has chosen to invest in a carefully designed grant system, which has palpably increased private investment in research and development, from a low under Labour of 0.35 percent of GDP up to about 0.6 percent already, and heading towards an aspirational 1 percent. This compares with Labour, which was hell-bent on putting in a tax credit of 300 million bucks a year, which would be well known right throughout the world to be rorted. This, clearly, was totally the opposite direction.

I do now want, just for a moment, to speak about the public health services, which have received the largest increase of funding in the Budget. The National Government, despite the global economic recession, has focused on increased investment in health, in education, and in science research and development over the last 5 years. This is in sharp contrast to many European countries. But Budget 2013 is making available $1.6 billion more for health over the next 4 years, $250 million for the district health boards, year in year out, over the next 4 years, and new funding, on average, is $352 million per year.

I just want to end by saying how pleased I am about the $4.3 million to improve care and men’s awareness of prostate cancer. The Health Committee carried out an inquiry into early detection and treatment of prostate cancer in 2011-12, and I want to specifically congratulate Professor Nacey and his colleagues, who were in the Prostate Cancer Taskforce and who worked so well. For years nothing was done and there was huge confusion about this cancer, which affects 3,000 men per year in New Zealand, but National has taken up the inquiry and has put it into action, and we now have a quality improvement programme relating to the early detection and treatment of prostate cancer in New Zealand. This is a very positive thing. This is a very positive Budget.

I am pleased to rise from the cross benches—from the moderate, sensible middle ground, it could be said—on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in this Budget debate, and to take a call on Vote Police. It is with some sense of déjà vu that I rise. Looking back at my speech to the House in August of last year, I find that very little has changed in terms of the lack of proper regard accorded to the police by this inadequate Government and this inadequate Budget. The bottom line for the New Zealand Police in this Budget is that there has been a cut of almost $36 million from the previous year’s appropriation—$35,799,000, to be precise. The Government can spin that any way it likes, but a cut is a cut. A reduction is a reduction—$36 million, give or take, off the budget from one year to the next represents an actual net fiscal loss. This is a mathematical reality, which is impossible to fudge. The police have $36 million less to work with this year than it had last year.

In these times of rising crime, when we should be spending more on the police and not less, the Government is cutting the budget. In these days, when more and more experienced police officers are leaving the force, are becoming disillusioned with the job of policing in New Zealand, and are jumping the Ditch to Australia in droves to work as police officers across the Tasman, where pay rates are realistic and resourcing is actually adequate, the Government is cutting the budget.

This Government has fallen into a trap. It has fallen into the classic trap of believing its own propaganda. This Government has been telling us for so long now—it has told us so often and for so long—that crime rates are falling that it has actually begun to believe that this is so. But it is not so. Crime rates are rising. Crime is increasing steadily, as it always does when fundamental mismanagement of the economy results in lean times and hardship for many ordinary people. Ordinary people turn to crime, and regular criminals get worse. People stop reporting crime—ordinary people stop reporting crimes, because they know nothing will be done about them. The police do not have sufficient resources to investigate and everybody knows it—the people know it, the victims of crime know it, the crims know it, and so do the police themselves. The regular cops on the beat, who, day by day, are becoming frustrated to the point of leaving for Australia, know it too, and the Government is cutting the budget. In the face of all this, this Government is cutting the budget—$36 million from the bottom line. Why? Has it forgotten? Is this Government so out of touch with reality that it does not remember, or never knew, why policing is important, and why it is that people need to be protected?

Someone sent me an anecdote just this morning. Someone sent me a story that illustrates this very subject very well. It purports to be from Psychology 101 or somebody’s interpretation of it. At any rate, if you start with a cage containing five monkeys, and inside the cage you hang a banana on a string from the top and then place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt at climbing towards the banana, with the same result—all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now you put the cold water away. Then you remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all the other monkeys beat him up. After another attempt at the banana, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another one of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Then you replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by a fourth, then a fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys who are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs; neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water; nevertheless, none of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana. Why, one might ask. Because in their minds that is the way it has always been.

That is how Government operates, and it is why, from time to time, all of the monkeys need to be replaced at the same time. Perhaps that is what is wrong with this Government. I am not suggesting for one minute that the members of the Government are monkeys, not even in jest—not even in jest. It is a metaphor; that is all. This is a serious matter. Some time in the not too distant past, this National Party, which forms this Government, abandoned its roots and took to promoting neo-liberal economic ideology. Since then, members have come and gone, members have joined and resigned—they have been a part of that party and then left again. Today, as a result, there are too few members of the Government who remember being sprayed with cold water. There are too few within the Government’s ranks who remember the cold water of the electorates’ backlash, and who remember the beatings given to the National Party in 1999 and 2002. Too many of the Government’s members have forgotten why they are supposed to be there, or perhaps they never knew. Too many of them appear to have no understanding of what it is that the Government is supposed to do.

As Abraham Lincoln put it: “The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.” This National Government appears to have forgotten that fact, or perhaps too many of its members never knew it. It is a fact that society needs to be safe, that people need to be safe. It is a fact that the people, the citizens of society, have a right to be protected from the actions of criminals. They have a right to expect that they will be protected and their families and property will be protected, and for that to happen the police need to be properly resourced. We need to have enough police officers and we need them to be out in the streets and out on patrol. We do not need fewer police. We do not need them to be stuck in back offices doing paperwork because the support budgets have been cut. We need more police out on the beat, more police who are actually available to investigate burglaries of property crimes.

We need more police on checkpoints, breath-testing drunk-drivers before they crash, before they kill and maim innocent people. We do not need fewer cops and fewer cars because the operation’s budget has been slashed. It is not good enough for this Government to hide behind the excuse that less is being spent this year because some new police stations were built last year and we do not need any more of them. That is a red herring and a disingenuous explanation. It is not good enough for them to hide behind that excuse when we still have too many unsolved burglaries and too many drunk-drivers on the roads and too many cops being assaulted and beaten and shot at and stabbed. Too many good cops are giving up in frustration and leaving for Australia, when we still have under-manning and sole-charge rural stations, and people not reporting crime because they know that it will never be investigated.

It is not good enough that this Government is cutting money from the police budget when it should be being increased. Perhaps it is time to replace all the members of the Government at the same time, just like the monkeys in the cage. Perhaps it is time to replace them with a New Zealand First Government, which will accord the police the recognition and resourcing that it requires and that we all deserve. This is a dreadful Budget, and the reduction in Vote Police is as incomprehensible as it is irresponsible. New Zealand First condemns this Budget and we urge the House to do the same. Thank you.

I think it is appropriate that I stand up and take a call on the Budget, considering that it is within Vote Social Development, and I am responsible for more than a third of all Government spending.

Vote Social Development is spending a total of $22.23 billion on social support and services for New Zealand over the 2013-14 year. This broadly maintains the same funding from the previous year, although there is an increase of about 3 percent. There have been some key movements. We are certainly seeing an increase in superannuation, as we see the results of keeping it at 66 percent, and the need for those who are older.

Just to run through some of those bigger numbers so that people have got them, we are spending about $8 billion a year on benefits—on welfare for the working-age population. It is broken down into many aspects, but we now spend about $1.2 billion—and rising, as we said, to about $1.3 billion—just on accommodation supplements. About 40 percent of that goes to those who are on benefits, but actually a lot more goes to those who are on lower incomes, and it is a way that we support people who are struggling in some areas and cannot afford to pay their rent and their mortgages. If you take the overall spend and include income-related rents, this Government, over the next year, will spend around $1.9 billion on accommodation supplements and income-related rents for those who are, as I say, on lower incomes and/or benefits, which do seem to come hand in hand.

We are investing another $188.6 million in welfare reform. I would like to go into that in a bit more detail than perhaps we have done in the past, but I am going to come back to it because I want to stick to some of the stuff that we have announced that gets overlooked pretty quickly.

The Confidential Listening and Assistance Service—we get the Department of Internal Affairs to administer the funding for it—is really important for those who have suffered historical abuse. It was actually started under the Labour Government in 2008, and we have stuck with it and have now extended that funding for another 2 years. It is for those people who, quite frankly, certainly have the most horrific stories that I have ever heard. You can see that path that they have been on. What the Confidential Listening and Assistance Service does is give them a place to express that, and, actually, it is a really important part of their healing. Many will tell you that it is the first time they have been listened to and believed, and have actually felt that they have had the State listening, which is the way that it happens. The service is also able to wrap support around them.

In line with that, we have also put substantial money into addressing historical grievances—about $16 million additional, from memory; I will find the figure as I am talking. That $16 million goes a long way to addressing historical abuse claims. The truth of the matter is that when these people go to court, the State actually wins because it is too hard for those people to prove that all those years ago the abuse took place, and because it is too hard to prove how much of it is from the previous hurt that led to them being in care and how much of it is from the horrific abuse that some suffered while in care.

What we have done, certainly, with the leadership of me and the Attorney-General, is that we have said that wherever possible we would like to err on the side of paying people out. So if it is a certain point in time, they were in certain institutions, and we had evidence that there was other abuse and neglect there, then we would like to see these people be able to move on with their lives, and wherever we can, we actually pay out. From memory we have about 1,000 claims. We have settled about 265, and we have another whole lot that are still in train and still working their way through. Hence we need to put more money in and need to see those people have what I think is quite minimal closure, to be honest. In some respects it feels quite trivial, but it makes a big difference to them and their lives.

The other thing we have done is we have continued funding of $5.6 million for family violence response coordination. We have also put more into budgeting advice services, and that is temporary. We already put in about $9 million a year. That is more than double the funding over the last 4 years, but we see that they need some help in the interim. But that needs a complete review, so we need to look at the current policy. Is it working? Are we are getting unintended consequences or the consequences that we intended; if so, how is it affecting them, and do we need to look at more sustainable funding options for them going forward?

The other initiative, of course, is what we have already heard today, which is food in schools. It is really positive to see it being accessible to all decile 1 to 4 schools for 5 days a week—Weet-Bix and milk, which will make a big difference, I think. A lot is being said today about whose fault it is and why these kids are hungry, and I can stand here and pontificate for a long time on what the causes might be and why that is, but at the end of the day, any member who stands in a classroom and sees hungry kids who are fidgeting, unable to learn, and unable to get that kind of support to get that little brain switched on will see that it makes sense that we are stepping up and expanding a programme that is already there.

We have also talked about KidsCan. I think it is important that we are more than tripling its funding. We give $150,000 now; we are actually going to $500,000 a year over the next 3 years. That funding goes towards those other items. One that I thought was really important as a mum myself is around lice treatment. Lice can be really hard to get rid of at times, and it can be very expensive to purchase those treatments and keep up with them. So seeing that treatment come through from KidsCan and seeing that it is able to step in do those sorts of services, I think, makes a big difference.

The other thing I want to touch on is microfinance and whiteware. There was a bit of derogatory from the Opposition when we said that we were going to look at a procurement model for whiteware, where the truth of the matter is that we spend nearly $11 million a year in giving special-needs grants to those on benefits. They actually pay it back, so it is a loan. Effectively, what is happening far, far too often for my liking and for the liking of those who work with these people is that they buy poor-quality second-hand goods with no warranties or guarantees. The goods then break down and the people have not got the money to fix them. They go and borrow another loan, and they are still paying off the one that they bought originally. It just seems to be a really hard cycle for them.

What we have discovered is that the average price that they are paying is around $420 for, as I say, predominantly second-hand goods. I reckon we can get them a new machine at that kind of price with a warranty of 2 years that is actually installed in their home. The old machine is taken away and they actually have a much better service, and it is much better that they are not having to re-borrow again and again and again. I just think it makes sense. We have seen substantial changes and alarm in previous years where I changed the procurement model for that. I think it will make a difference.

Microfinance is something that I personally am particularly interested in. I think life is tough on a benefit, but, actually, people can do it, and that is made evident by the fact that 50 percent of those on welfare actually do not go for special-needs grants or additional payments. But when something goes wrong, it is hard to manage. We far too often see people borrowing from loan sharks and from others, and getting themselves into financial difficulty and unable to pay it back. The kinds of questions, though, that we need to go through over the next few months—and we want to do that in partnership with the community, in partnership with banks and others—are about what sort of lending we want to do. Are we the lender of first choice or the lender of last choice? Are we looking at consolidating people’s loans from loan sharks or should we not be doing that because it almost incentivises? Are they low-interest or are they no-interest? Are we taking on the loan sharks in some respects in their own business and saying “Come and borrow from this kind of microfinance service.”, or not? Those questions are what we are going to work our way through as we go through it.

I want to talk about Work and Income and the changes that are happening there. There is $188.6 million new going into Work and Income. One that has not been talked about much is that $16.4 million of that is actually a work bonus. That is for people on sole parent support or people on the new supported living payment who go off their benefit and do not have work expectations, so that they can retain some of their benefit over time. It is a huge transition going from benefit to work, and often the pay cycles do not add up nicely. What we are saying is that your benefit will decrease by $100 a week even though you have started in a job, so that you can actually have a little bit of time to manage and get yourself into that new world. We project that that will cost us $16.4 million, but I think it is a good investment.

What we are also doing is employing 354 new staff within Work and Income. I heard New Zealand First today saying how shocking that is and how awful it is, and if the number on the unemployment benefit is going down, then why do we need them? For the very reason, actually, that the numbers on sole parent support and those on the current invalid’s benefit, now the new supported living payment, are not going down at the same levels. They need intensive support that works alongside of them. We need to bring case loads down, and to do that we need to be putting more staff on the front line. Forty of those staff will be going into the contact centre, 100 will be in administration roles that are actually taking away a lot of that work from the front line, and the others, of course, about 214 of them, will be on the front line and making a big difference.

We are also putting money into making sure that we have got money for drug testing so that we can help out with the cost there.

This is a big package. I could speak far longer than 10 minutes on this as it is so significant, but this is making a real difference for people on the ground, and I am really proud to deliver it.

Talofa lava lau afioga, Mr Speaker. E muamua ‘ona ou fa’aali atu. ‘O le vaiaso taua lenei. ‘O le vaiaso ‘e fa’ataua ai le gagana Samoa. ‘O le gagana Samoa ‘ua gagana ‘e le to’atele i totonu ‘o Aukilani. ‘Ou te fa’atalofa atu i la’u pule’aga i Te Atatū. ‘Ma tagata Samoa ‘uma i Nu’u Sila. ‘O le gagana Samoa ‘o se ‘auro ‘e fa’ataua aua le fa’alelei atili mo tupulaga i tausaga i luma. ‘E tatau ‘i le malo ‘ona pasia ni tulafono ‘e mafai ai ‘ona fa’amalosia nei fa’amoemoe. Fa’amanuia mai le Atua i le Palemene atoa. Fa’afetai lava lau Afioga, Mr Speaker. Soifua.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. First I must inform you, this is an important week. It is the week we celebrate the Samoan language. The Samoan language is spoken by many people, especially in Auckland. I greet my constituents in Te Atatū, and all the Samoan people throughout New Zealand. The Samoan language is a treasure we must nurture for generations into the future. Let the Government enact laws so that these intentions can be materialised. Blessings to the whole Parliament. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Blessings.]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Malo.

Soifua.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Fa‘afetai lava.

It is Samoan Language Week. Samoan is the third most spoken language in our nation. I believe that it is a treasure that we should nurture and safeguard for future generations.

I am going to talk about housing in this Budget debate. This afternoon David Parker made a comment that I thought was a typically shrewd observation. He said that the announcements that the Government made around housing in the Budget were typical John Key: big enough to get a headline, but not big enough to make any impact on the problem—not big enough to make a difference. I think it is absolutely plain for anybody in New Zealand today to see that we have a housing crisis, particularly in certain centres like Auckland, Christchurch, the Bay of Plenty, Queenstown, and Nelson, where housing affordability is at its worst. But we also have a housing stock as a nation that is so inadequate and so substandard that it is causing too many of our children to die preventable deaths from rheumatic fever, from asthma, and from meningococcal disease.

The housing market has failed. It is in a terrible state. The consequence of that is that we have seen plummeting rates of homeownership. We used to have, only a couple of decades ago, one of the highest rates of homeownership in this country, and we were proud of that as a nation. Homeownership is dropping rapidly, and it has fallen from 75 percent across the country down to 65 percent only in the last decade. For people under 40, it has dropped down to percentages in the high 30s.

There are all sorts of consequences. It is not just homeownership and the fact that a whole generation of New Zealanders today is locked out of the housing market. The dysfunction in the housing market has terrible knock-on effects for people all the way down the chain. So people who two decades ago would reasonably have expected to own their own homes are now renting. People who were renters have now been pushed to the bottom of the market and are often living in substandard private rental accommodation. There is such an inadequate number of Housing New Zealand social housing units available that people who would normally have expected to get a State house are now often homeless and are living in sleepouts, in Skyline garages, and—I see it every day in west Auckland—in caravan parks. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a housing crisis for our nation.

The Government made two big announcements in the Budget, and one of them was around the reform of social housing. Only National would spend weeks talking up the fact that its Budget was going to put people into affordable housing, and then announce that one of the centrepieces of its Budget announcement was to boot out 3,000 State house tenants, and in the worst housing affordability crisis in living memory—in living memory. The housing shortage and affordability crisis has never been this bad, yet National’s great policy centrepiece in this Budget is to boot out 3,000 State house tenants. Only the National Party would do that.

The Hon Nick Smith, the Minister of Housing, announced that the income-related rental subsidy, which is currently used by Housing New Zealand, is going to be transferred across to the community housing sector. Along with that, he announced his plan to transfer a number of State houses to community housing non-government organisations. On the face of it, it is probably not a bad idea. But in the context of the worst housing crisis in living memory, in the context of terrible shortages, what this Government is doing—transferring the subsidy across to the community housing sector and introducing reviewable tenancies, which will create tremendous insecurity among State house tenants—is everything but the obvious thing, and that is to build more State houses.

I know that the National Party does not like Housing New Zealand. It has never liked it. The National Party and its predecessors have not been comfortable with the idea of State-provided social housing since the days of Richard Seddon, let alone through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In the 1990s the National Government sold off 13,000 State houses. Well, it is at it again. It is at it again. It is running down Housing New Zealand. It is transferring its assets and many of its functions and powers away from the organisation. Nick Smith wants Housing New Zealand to be simply another tenancy manager, competing with the community housing sector to provide this service. National is up to its old tricks. It is offloading what is a fundamental responsibility of the State, and that is to provide quality income-related social housing rentals for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. All that it is doing is shuffling the deckchairs around on the Titanic. It is doing everything but the obvious thing, and that is to build more social housing.

The second big announcement that John Key made in the Budget was the so-called Auckland Housing Accord. There is to be legislation that would provide a legal framework for the Housing Accord that the Government has negotiated with Auckland Council, and a framework that would allow the Government to do this with councils all around the country. On the face of it, it is an attempt to tackle the extreme housing unaffordability problems that Auckland faces. But the problem, as was made absolutely clear in question time today, when David Shearer was questioning the Prime Minister, is that this Government has no way of guaranteeing that a single affordable house will be built as a result of its policy. The Government has nothing to say. The Prime Minister was completely unable to give the House any kind of explanation or reassurance that any affordable houses would be built as a result of its policy. All the so-called accord does is cherry-pick a couple of aspects of the Auckland Unitary Plan—that is, it brings in a supply of greenfield land into the land supply more quickly than it otherwise would have done, and it fast tracks the Resource Management Act consenting for affordable housing.

Those are two of a whole long list of things that are at the root of the housing affordability crisis. The Government wants us to believe that tinkering with the Resource Management Act will solve the crisis. Well, it will not. It just will not cut the mustard. And it is very clear that just bringing in some more greenfield land into the system will likely result in the construction of more houses that will sell for three-quarters of a million dollars on the fringes of the city. That is not what is needed. It will not put a single Kiwi family into affordable homes.

The one thing that the Government needs to do is pick up a hammer and build some affordable housing. We have a shortage. There is a supply crisis. There are not enough affordable homes. The industry has seized up. It is not building affordable homes, because for the builders and the developers there is no margin in it for them. What the Government needs to do is roll up its sleeves and build affordable housing, as the Labour Party will do when in Government from the end of next year, with our KiwiBuild policy. We will build 10,000 modern, affordable starter homes every year for a decade, and while we are doing that we will drive down the costs. We will use the scale of KiwiBuild to drive productivity improvements, to do deals with suppliers, to reform the building and construction industry, to drive down the costs of the construction of new homes, and to provide a lasting solution.

This Government, in its housing announcements, basically created a charade. Nick Smith’s job as the Minister of Housing has been to convey a sense of activity that he is doing something, but the Government is doing everything but what it needs to do, and that is pick up a hammer and actually build some affordable houses. Thank you.

Fa‘afetai lava.

Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to the House as well. This evening, as we debate the Budget and as we actually set out our particular views on how New Zealand is going, I want to convey to the House the view of the constituents in my electorate. The constituents of Rangitata responded to the Budget in very even measure. The reports in the paper, generally speaking, said that this is a sensible, strong Budget—a Budget that continues down a sensible path without rocking the boat, because, actually, New Zealand has been through a very rocky couple of years.

It would appear to me that the Opposition members around the House have little or no comprehension of the actual effects of the global financial crisis. If I were to comment on some of the speakers who have preceded me, I would still shake my head in wonderment at the stories of monkeys and spraying cold water. The incomprehensible analogies that the New Zealand First member Richard Prosser treated the House to tonight were interspersed with stories about cuts to police budgets that bore no resemblance to the facts. In fact, under this Government, we have had a 5.9 percent drop in recorded crime, 18 new public safety laws passed, 6,000 families protected by police safety orders—a personal favourite of mine because it adds an extra tool to the toolbox to protect women and children in their homes—and a record number of prisoners engaged in training. This particular foursome I am going to describe as being part of a theme of the National Government.

We are not continually spending more and more and more money throwing lollies at the electorate. In fact, what we as a Government are doing, under the stewardship of John Key and our finance Minister, is making sure that the money that the members of this House have paid in taxes and that the members of my constituency have paid in taxes is treated with the respect that that money deserves. That money deserves to be spent wisely, sensibly, and carefully, because it does not belong to the Government; it belongs to the people of New Zealand.

We have had many successes of which it appears that the member for the New Zealand First Party is unaware. We have seen crime fall by 17 percent in my own electorate. That is phenomenal. I tell you that that is about police on the beat, police on the streets, and smart police working with their community and getting fantastic results. This Government has introduced technology to the police so that they can do thousands and thousands more hours of police work out in the community instead of back at the office.

We are a very different Government from the previous Government. As I said, we do not throw money around; we try to make it work better for us. The member who spoke prior to me, Phil Twyford, ascribes to the old Labour doctrine that the Government solves everything, the Government builds everything that needs to be built, and the Government creates every job that is worthy of having. But, actually, guess what? Jobs created by Governments are not sustainable jobs. Jobs created by businesses that are growing are sustainable jobs. The previous Government controlled business. The previous Government wants to control the marketplace with borrow, with tax, and with spend, and for good measure—with its partners in crime the Green Party—it is going to print money as well. The ill-thought-out and rushed policies from the far-left bloc, Labour and the Greens, are transparently vote-seeking missiles. But the one thing about that is that the vote-seeking missiles are heading for heat, and I tell you that the electorate is not showing it any heat. In fact, the electorate indeed is cold to its ideas.

Under National we are concentrating on four main themes. I am going to repeat them because New Zealanders are coming to understand that this truly is what is important to New Zealand. We are responsibly managing the Government’s finances and I have given examples already. A more competitive and productive economy grows jobs in the economy. We have had the global financial crisis, and that crisis has, in fact, dampened much of New Zealand. But we are no longer on that path to destruction that we were on under a Labour Government, where we had at least 10 years of deficits and were looking at a horrendous debt for the children who follow me and the members of this House.

In delivering Better Public Services we are looking at fine-tuning and addressing all of the money we spend, and making sure that we get a very good deal with it. When it comes to rebuilding Christchurch, our second-largest city—in fact, the largest city in the South Island and so close to my home electorate—we are completely committed to that. There is a lot of job growth happening in Christchurch, but from my own personal perspective, I am disturbed that the job growth is happening mainly for men. So the work that I am doing with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is to zero in on finding more jobs and encouraging women into non-traditional trades and into some of the jobs that the rebuild is creating.

I now want to spend a little bit of time talking about the health budget and what the health budget is actually doing for New Zealanders. There has been a huge change in the health sector. The huge change I can put down, I think, to a couple of things. First of all, the health Minister’s “Better, sooner, more convenient care” theme, which is now right across the health sector. But also part of that is actually about involving clinicians in the decisions. What we have seen as a result of that is a phenomenal impact on what is actually being achieved within the health sector. We have been delivering the sort of health care that matters most to New Zealanders, and at the same time New Zealanders have responded by becoming more and more secure in their knowledge that the health sector works for them. This year there are 35,000 more elective surgeries than there were in 2008, and there are free visits to the doctor for under-sixes, day or night. Immunisation is indeed one of my favourites, as it was Dr Hutchison’s, in that 93 percent of 2-year-olds are fully immunised, up from 74 percent back in 2008. Actually, it is not so long ago, under the previous Government, that it was 67 percent. There are 1,000 more doctors and 2,000 more nurses, but even more important is that we have 45,000 children at nearly 200 schools taking part in the rheumatic fever prevention programme. Rheumatic fever was apparently a priority under the previous Government. It is just that nothing happened during that time.

In New Zealand these days, if a patient is going to receive chemotherapy or radiotherapy, then they get it in New Zealand. Far gone are the days when they travelled to Australia more often than we cared to admit. There are 56,000 more Well Child checks, and 24/7 funding for PlunketLine. When I talked to Plunket in my electorate recently, it asked me what it could do better and I said that whenever anyone talks to me about Plunket, I never get any complaints; the only time I ever hear anything at a public meeting is when someone says: “Can we have more of Plunket?”. So it is absolutely delighted that this Government funded PlunketLine 24/7. I believe that it was Helen Clark who cut it. There are 56,000 more Well Child checks.

Then we also have the amazing turn-round where no longer do we have beds in corridors in emergency departments. Sometimes patients were on those beds—on those trolleys, really—for days at a time. Now we have 93 percent of patients in emergency departments seen, treated, or discharged within 6 hours. But this Budget brought more—$14.7 billion in total health spending. That is up. There is $1.6 billion extra for new initiatives and to meet population pressures. There is $70 million for aged-care and dementia services, and even more money, $48 million more, for elective operations. We are concentrating on the non-surgical aspects, as well, with more money, $35.5 million, for heart disease and diabetes checks. Then I note the screening service, which is my own particular responsibility. There is an extra $25 million for preventive screening services such as breast cancer screening.

This Government is doing its level best to use the New Zealand public’s taxpayer funds to the very, very best effect, and New Zealanders are not missing out. Today’s announcements for vulnerable children and the money we are spending on vulnerable families mean that this Government and this Budget is entirely for all New Zealanders, not just some. Thank you.

Tēnā koe. Malo le soifua. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa. I would like to acknowledge that it is Samoan Language Week, which is particularly relevant for me and my electorate of Manurewa, where 32 percent of my community is Pacific and 28 percent is Māori. But within the context of those school-age children, 75 percent are Māori-Pacific.

Like my colleague Phil Twyford, I want to talk about housing and the relationship between housing and health, and how it relates to the educational outcomes of our children. I would like to begin with a quote from Gandhi, actually, which is: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Why is it relevant? Well, it is relevant to my electorate when I look at some statistics. I have been reading More Than Churches, Rugby & Festivals: A Report on the State of Pasifika People in New Zealand, which was produced by Ronji Tanielu and Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army. It makes very interesting reading, because what it says—and I want to reiterate some of the statistics that Phil talked about—is that 67 percent of New Zealanders own their own home. In my electorate of Manurewa, it is less than 50 percent. What is relevant is that 37 percent of Pacific people own their own home. There is a huge disparity if we look at the general population and who owns their homes, and then the relevance, I guess, of that statistic to my electorate, because what I do know is that 58 percent of Pacific people rent.

When I think about my electorate of Manurewa, I think about what a home represents. For me, it represents a stable base where I can learn my language, learn my culture, and be fed, and where, for me, my parents ensured that my basic needs were met. Unless we all have a stable home, it is very difficult to then go out into this vast world and fulfil our potential. The relevance to my electorate, actually, is when I look at rates of transience. All of my schools collect data, and one of the most shocking statistics that I have come across in my time as the MP for Manurewa is from Takanini School. Linda Kelly is the principal there, and at one stage she had 120 percent transience. You may ask how you can have 120 percent transience. She had some children who were there—they left. They came back, and they left. One child went to nine different primary schools in 1 year.

What is the relevance of that? The relevance of that in terms of the electorate work I do is that we see between 120 and 140 people every month come into my electorate office, and 16 percent of those people have housing problems. The people who come to my electorate office usually come because they are living in cars, they are living in a garage, or they have been booted out of their home because they cannot pay the power.

I have a community that lives on the breadline. Because they live on the breadline, having a stable home is incredibly important, and, as I have said, if families do not have a stable home, then that affects their children’s ability to learn.

When I look at the housing stock across the board, we have approximately 67,000 Housing New Zealand houses. Under this Government’s watch, that has not increased at all. The relevance to my community is that between 1996 and 2006 the population of Manurewa increased by 35 percent. If the population of Manurewa is increasing by 35 percent but the housing stocks have basically not increased at all, the relevance, when I look at my population, is that if I look at my 29 schools—and this is an indicator of need—I have 14 decile 1 schools, nine decile 2 schools, and four decile 3 schools. So 27 of my 29 schools are deciles 1, 2, and 3. What that means is that my community is living in poverty. My community has families that either are living off the benefit or, if they are working, are working in jobs that pay them the minimum wage.

What is the relevance of the National Government’s policies to improving the lives of the most vulnerable members of society? As my colleague Phil Twyford said, it is absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. In fact, the communities of South Auckland, where predominantly Māori and Pacific people live, are not better off under this Government. I have huge concerns about the provision of basic services to our community.

I look at that relevance, then, to health, and I look at the rheumatic fever statistics. We have approximately 200 people who die every year because of rheumatic fever - related illnesses—200 people. There is a report from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service and its medical officer of health, Katherine Jackson. What is the relevance of that to statistics in Auckland? It is that 60 percent of the people who suffer from rheumatic fever are Pacific and 35 percent are Māori, so we know this is a Māori-Pacific disease related to the quality—or lack—of housing that they have.

I find this appalling. I find it appalling that the Government’s response to those statistics is to treat the symptom in one way. We are going to find out the kids who have strep A and then we will give them basic antibiotics, but they will continue to live in those cold, damp houses, and, at the end of the day, unless we address the underlying cause of rheumatic fever, which is the quality of the housing stock, then nothing is going to change.

When I look at the priorities of this Government, they are not to address the needs of Māori and Pacific communities; they are to continue to have health targets where the Government can pat itself on the back because we can get elective services through, and we can do a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with preventing some of the illnesses that are disproportionately affecting Māori and Pacific people.

I am on the Health Committee. One of the pieces of information that we have got before our select committee is about the provision of general practitioners, midwives, and obstetricians. What we do know is that the Counties Manukau District Health Board has 13.5 percent of births in New Zealand. Nearly 9,000 children are born in South Auckland every year, and guess what? They are mostly Māori and Pacific. How does that translate to this Government’s provision of those basic services—general practitioners, midwives, and obstetricians? We have 293 general practitioners in South Auckland, which means, if you compare it with the number of children born and the number of general practitioners there are in the country, South Auckland gets 8 percent of the general practitioners that we have in New Zealand. In terms of the midwife count, we get 5.3 percent of the midwives in New Zealand. In terms of obstetricians, we get 4 percent of the obstetricians in New Zealand.

If this Government really wants to make a difference, what it would do is ensure that there was some benchmarking in terms of what the provision of general practitioners, midwives, and obstetricians should be, and it would also ensure that those resources, those clinical resources, went to communities in South Auckland. You kind of wonder why it is not going to address this issue.

What this means is that our families, our parents, are not choosing not to take their children to a doctor and they are not choosing for them not to be immunised. The reality is that where our most vulnerable community members live, those services are not provided. Where they are, they are not provided to the level of need for those communities.

So for me, when I look at my role as an MP in a community that is high Māori and high Pacific, I think about the priorities that this Government has and the priorities in electorates like mine, and I think that, actually, it does not care, because if it did care, it would start to address some of these systemic problems. It would make sure that these basic resources were provided, because what we do know is that every child has equal potential to be successful. If they do not have access to those basic resources, then they are not going to be on a learning and development pathway so that they can be full citizens of our country. Thank you. I just want to conclude, fa‘afetai. Ia manuia le Vaiaso o le Gagana Sāmoa. Kia ora.

Malo le soifua maua ma lagi e mama lau afioga le taitaile fono nei o le palmene o Niu Sila Aotearoa.

[Greetings to you, the Honourable Mr Speaker of the House of Representatives of Aotearoa, New Zealand.]

Good evening, Mr Assistant Speaker. Good evening to our guests in the gallery and to all those listening across this country and watching this debate. Budget 2013 is about building momentum. Budget 2013 is about leadership, it is about stewardship, and it is about a vision for this country to go forward. For that I commend the Hon Bill English for bringing this Budget to the House and for bringing his steady, conservative leadership to our country. It is built on the four previous Budgets of this John Key - led National Government. It is about responsibly managing the books and the accounts of this country. It is about building a competitive and productive economy and delivering better public services, as well as rebuilding Christchurch.

I want to just answer my friend and colleague Louisa Wall from across the aisle about access to health services before I do talk about what is pertinent within this Budget. There are many general practitioner services throughout South Auckland, where she is the member of Parliament for Manurewa. They are very low-cost access practices where children, by and large, receive free access to health care, to primary care, and where the maximum amount paid is quite a low-code payment. It was a policy that was implemented by the Labour Government and it was continued by this National-led Government, so I do beg to differ around the access to services not only across South Auckland but also including in my own electorate of Maungakiekie.

What we inherited 5 years ago was an economy teetering on the brink of a collapse. There was forecast a decade of deficits going forward. The global financial crisis was beginning to hit. Many countries across Europe, particularly, were suffering quite distressing circumstances financially, where high unemployment rates were the order of the day. So what this National-led Government has done by coming in and rescuing the finances of this country is we have now got to the point where we have some of the lowest interest rates in the Western hemisphere, where we have the lowest inflation rate in the civil world, of under 1 percent, and where our economy is actually in the sort of top 12 countries in terms of economic growth.

You might ask why that is important. Why is it important that growth stimulates this economy? It is because growth produces jobs. It produces jobs. As far as my constituents in Maungakiekie are concerned, when I go out and door-knock and when I go out to the markets and talk to business owners and I talk to schoolkids and residents, what they are after is an economy that produces jobs for their parents, where their parents are able to look after the kids, feed them, clothe them, and get them educated and where they can enjoy the Kiwi lifestyle that many of us—many of us across this country—have become accustomed to over the years.

This morning 2,300,000 people went to work in this country. Over 2.3 million people went to work in New Zealand this morning, and that is more than at any other time in our history—any other time in our history. We know that 50,000 jobs have been created over the last couple of years, and it is not because of the Government, by the way. All that this Government does is set a framework, set an environment, from which jobs can be created. Often those jobs are created by the private sector. So we have got a situation today where the unemployment rate has dipped down to 6.2 percent, the household income has risen by 20 percent in the past 4 years, and where superannuitants—[Interruption] Members opposite know this. Superannuitants’ real incomes have gone up by more over the last 5 years than they ever did under the Labour Government—more than ever under the Labour Government.

What I want to focus on is export growth. Export growth is the key to delivering jobs in this economy. Mr Mallard knows, because he was a Minister in the last Government. In the last 5 years of the last Labour Government, exports contracted in 5 consecutive years under the Labour Government—in 5 consecutive years—but we know that under this Government we have grown the export sector. We have had a compound annual average of 4.6 percent over the past 4 years—4.6 percent. That is a record that we can be proud of as a National Government, and it is a record that creates jobs.

I have just come back from the United States, where we had a trade mission. I was with some iconic Kiwi companies like Vista—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Name-dropper.

—like Orion Health—and Mr Mallard knows this, but he denies it. But let me talk to you about Vista. Vista is a cinema-ticketing software company. Mr Mallard knows it, but Mr Jones and Mr Cosgrove were there and they have seen these companies. This company in 2008 had a revenue of $11 million, and today that company now generates sales of over $38 million, which is three and a half times what it was. Under the National Government, under this environment—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: And how did they get started?

—under the framework that we have set, it has more than tripled its revenue. But it gets better, Mr Mallard. It gets better. Its profits have almost tripled, from $3.5 million to $10 million, and its employees—Mr Mallard will like this, because he was formerly a Minister of Labour; he will like this—have gone from numbering 38 to 175 under the 5 years of this National Government. This is another success story of an export-driven company that is supported by this Government, that is nurtured by this Government, and that is encouraged by this National Government to expand and export goods.

Orion Health—$150 million—is another company that, under this Government and the conditions that we have set, is really thriving in the United States of America. When we have opened up more trade routes, when we have negotiated more free-trade agreements, whether it is—

💬 Louisa Wall: And the relevance to the Pacific community in Samoan Language Week is?

—yes, the Trans-Pacific Partnership with America and with Canada and with Japan, Viet Nam, and Malaysia—when those markets are opened up, we can expect more export-led growth in this economy.

I just want to make one more point around why this Budget is delivering for New Zealanders, and it is in the area of housing. The Hon Nick Smith has brought a package of reforms to this House that addresses one of the key issues of our times, and that is around housing affordability. Under the Labour Government between 1999 and 2008—

💬 Louisa Wall: 200 premature deaths every year.

—and Louisa Wall knows this. She knows this. Under those 9 years average house prices in Auckland went up by 91 percent, which is two and a half times the rate they are going up under this National Government—two and a half times the rate. So what we are doing as a Government is providing land supply. We have set up an inquiry that will look at building material and construction costs and look at how productivity in the housing sector could be improved. The Productivity Commission, in its report, stated quite clearly, Louisa Wall—and you know this—that land supply was the critical issue in terms of unlocking housing affordability, both in Auckland and around the country. So this reform is going to speed up consents, it is going to release more land for development, and it is going to put more Aucklanders into homes in the next 3 years than was ever accomplished under the Labour Government.

So I return to just summarise that this Budget is, again, about managing finances and it is about addressing matters that really are important to New Zealanders. It is about an education system that is robust and growing. It is about a health system that can be relied upon and trusted. But, most of all, it is about creating jobs for families who want to look after their own, who want to be independent of the State, and who are confident and optimistic and give hope to those who want to get out there and produce for our country. Thank you.

What an absolute load of rubbish we just listened to from Sam Lotu-Iiga. I tell you what, that was ridiculous to hear. Let us hear some facts, shall we. This Government promised 170,000 new jobs. How many did it deliver? Just 8,000 new jobs—just 8,000—and now it has promised another 170,000 jobs, so I guess we can expect another very little from this Government. It might be all well and good for that member to sit there and say that this is the Government’s priority. It is clearly not. Do you know what this Government is? This is a Government of the 2 percent, for the 2 percent—of the 2 percent, for the 2 percent. We saw that set out very clearly in this Government’s Budget, through all of not just its social policy spending, which I want to talk about shortly, but its general priorities.

I think it was obvious when Bill English, in the lead-up to the Budget release, said that there is no solution to child poverty. That is what he said—that there is no solution to child poverty. That is a typical attitude of this Government, that if you do not bother to find out whether something exists, then you do not have to worry about trying to fix it. “There’s no solution to child poverty.”, says Bill English and that is clearly what the Government believes. If you look at its Budget, and certainly if you look at the Government response to the Children’s Commissioner’s report, it is obvious that the Government has no intention either of understanding the scale of the problem or of addressing it.

I have to say it was quite a shock to see the Government’s response to the Children’s Commissioner’s report Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand. This report came out late last year. It was worked on by a significant number of New Zealanders with a very high level of expertise on the broad range of issues to do with child poverty, including tax issues, income, and housing. It is a very significant report and it has many, many recommendations that provide the solutions to child poverty. Well, what do we have? A thin, meagre little response from the so-called Ministerial Committee on Poverty that was set up in Government, which has done virtually nothing. It is a tiny little, meagre report that provides no real solutions. Do you know what? The Children’s Commissioner’s report said: “Government, you are failing our kids. Government, you are not doing enough to make sure that our kids are protected from the worst ravages of poverty, and that’s why we have a quarter of a million children living in severe poverty. So Government, here are some solutions that you can take on board to fix the problem.” The report says that the response from Government is simply to set out all the things it has been doing. The Government’s response is: “Well, we did all these things.” Yes, we know, and we were told very clearly that they have failed.

But there are no new solutions in this meagre, meagre response. We saw how this was reflected in the Budget. Today we had the food in schools announcement, and I will come back to that in a moment. But what was in the Budget that really gives some clear indication? I will tell you. The sum of $5 million a year has been set aside to fund charter schools that will funnel the poorest and most vulnerable kids into schools where there are unqualified teachers who can teach any kind of curriculum, any kind of crazy curriculum that they want, and subject those kids to that experiment. The sum of $5 million a year is a lot of money. What do the kids who need food in schools, the kids who go to school hungry, get from this Government? Do you think they get $5 million a year? Do you think they get $4 million a year? Maybe $3 million a year, maybe half of that budget? No, there is not even $2 million a year from this miserly, mean Government, which simply did it just because it knows that there is public pressure on the Government to do something about food in schools.

It would still rather give money away to private enterprise, to privatise the public education system, and subject vulnerable kids to unqualified teachers and an unformed curriculum, and spend much more money on doing that. Do you know what else the Government will spend money on? Wanganui Collegiate School alone gets $3 million a year. This Government was very happy to integrate that school and to provide it with even more money. This is a private school that costs a great deal to attend, and it is for the very elite. They get $3 million a year. What about the hundreds of thousands of kids who go to school hungry? Nope, they do not get even that. Therein lies this Government’s priorities. It will give money to private enterprise, it will give money to private schools, but when it comes to the kids who really need support, well, they will not get anything. They get hardly anything under this Government. They get just the meagre crumbs from the table that John Key and the Skycity executives were dining at when they did a $400 million deal—a $400 million deal that will be paid for off the back of problem gambling and human misery.

We know whom this Government is standing up for. We know that it has got people whom it really wants to support, communities that it believes are very important, and it will be here to protect them. Who are they? They are the miserable 2 percent, a tiny proportion of our community, when the majority of New Zealanders are suffering real hardship. It is not just the poor, not just the very poor. We are talking about the middle classes here. We are talking about people who have formed the backbone of New Zealand’s economy, the backbone of New Zealand’s community, who have relied for generations on quality public services to help provide them and their children with the ability to step up to a better economic situation, to greater wealth and greater stability. But this Government is degrading the status of the middle classes, and at the same time it is forcing vulnerable and poorer families into even worse difficulty, and then providing the maximum that it can get away with to the top 2 percent.

Why do we not just have a look again at this Government’s response, because one of the issues that has been really huge for all communities around the country, including the middle classes of course, is housing and homeownership. There is a wide variety of issues around housing, including the provision of affordable housing. The Green Party has produced the Home for Life programme, which is specifically designed to provide support for young families to be able to own their own home through a progressive ownership system, like the old family benefit system that we used to have in the old days, so that these young families can get a real step up. We also provide in that programme a warrant of fitness for rental homes, so that those families who are trapped in the private rental market will at least know that the homes they rent will be warm and dry. These were all provisions and ideas that were provided in the solutions to child poverty report, particularly the warrant of fitness that is provided in the report.

Do we want to have a look at what the Government has said about housing in its response, what the Government has written? It is worthwhile noting that solutions to child poverty report from the Children’s Commissioner comes with a 73-page working paper of analysis, evidence, ideas, and recommendations—73 pages, on housing alone, sit behind this report. Do you want to know what the Government’s response is? Its response to this report is a whole two paragraphs that it has written on safe and healthy homes, compared with a 75-page report from experts in New Zealand about how to provide solutions to child poverty through housing. Do you know what is in that report, what they talk about? The only thing the Government talks about in the entirety of this proposal—this response to child poverty—on housing is the home insulation programme. That is it. That is all it has got. The fact is that it has a home insulation scheme that was driven by the Green Party, led by the Green Party, and built by the Green Party, for a number of years now. The only reason that that home insulation scheme is still in this year’s Budget is that we have been pestering and pestering this Government for more than a year in order to get it.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They’ve cut the money in half.

That is right, Mr Mallard. Mr Mallard is quite right. This Government cut that fund—not just in half, Mr Mallard, but by two-thirds. The Government cut it by two-thirds because it did not want it. This Government did not want to insulate New Zealanders’ homes. It does not want to insulate New Zealanders’ homes and it does not want to feed kids in school either, so it will do the barest minimum that it thinks it can get away with.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They want higher power prices. That’s why.

Absolutely, Mr Mallard. This Government wants higher power prices. It wants kids living in cold, damp homes, and it wants them to go hungry. The evidence for that is in this Budget and it is in this response to this critical report on solutions to child poverty. There are two measly pages on housing, and only about the Green Party’s home insulation fund. We are absolutely proud of that fund. We know that it will work for people and for children. We wanted it to be much stronger and much bigger than it is, and we are deeply disappointed that this Government has been so meagre in its approach. But we also know that, like the food in schools programme and like home insulation, the evidence proves itself. The public are out there campaigning for it. They want it, they know that it works, and they are putting pressure on this Government to make changes. I want to acknowledge that people power. I want to acknowledge all of those communities—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but her time has expired.

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the “miserable, miserly” National Government. This is the Government that—contrary to “Miss Glossy” over there, who has a very fast way with the facts—has spent $100 million in Budget 2013 to insulate a further 46,000 homes. We are so miserly that we are spending $21.3 million to reduce rheumatic fever in children, so miserly that we are spending $189 million on welfare reform and on providing more front-line staff—do not go away; you come here and listen to the truth. We are spending money on health care you can rely on—$14.7 billion in total in this Budget. We are spending $1.6 billion in Budget 2013 for new initiatives so as to meet population pressure. We are such a miserly Government that we are spending a total of $12.4 billion on education in 2013-14. We are spending $173 million in early childhood education. We are so miserly we are spending $215 million to help improve our schools and to ensure kids get the basic qualifications they need! We are spending $130 million on tertiary education. Really miserly, are we not!

I would say to Louisa Wall that an individual’s present circumstances do not determine where they can go; they merely determine where they start. I am a sailor, a sport I enjoy, and I know that it is always possible to reach your target by simply trimming your sails to the wind. That is why I believe this to be a damn good Budget. It offers the lowest inflation since 1999, it offered 3 percent growth last year, our mortgage rates are the lowest in 50 years, and our after-tax wages are up 22 percent since 2008. Our communities know that, and that is reflected in the most recent political polls that I have noticed over the last few days. People know—contrary to what was said by Green speaker Metiria Turei—that 50,000 more jobs now exist in the economy than were in place 2 years ago. This economy is being responsibly managed. The Government is going to have its finances back in order by 2014-15.

Our objective and this Budget’s objective is to have a more productive and competitive economy. This fifth National Budget shows the Government’s books are in good shape, because the Government chose sound fiscal and economic policies and is sticking to them. That is why the National Government had such a good turnout last week in Dannevirke, when the Prime Minister came to meet the Chamber of Commerce and to visit industries like Metalform (Dannevirke); to view the old freezing works at Ōringi, which is running really well; and to observe how Norsewear had morphed itself into the Kiwi Sock Company and is now employing 17 people, as against nine people when the policies of the Labour Government tipped that company off the edge.

Budget 2013 forecasts an operating surplus before gains and losses of about $75 million in 2014-15—a very sharp contrast to the sort of outcome that we would get from a Green Government that printed money or a Labour Government with a capital gains tax. New Zealand needs to pay its way in the world through increased trade and investment if we are to create jobs and opportunities for hard-working Kiwis, stretching in my electorate from Pirinoa in the south to Dannevirke and Ōtāne in the north.

Under our Business Growth Agenda the Government will lift exports by 40 percent of GDP by 2025. This target is an important part of our plan to build a more competitive and productive economy. Budget 2013 builds on the Business Growth Agenda by investing and growing New Zealand exports and boosting our overseas profile and international competitiveness through a $100 million—or $400 million over 4 years—internationally focused growth package. This is not something a miserly Government would do. The new spending will be invested in extra research and development assistance to businesses and supporting new start-ups—about $106 million over 4 years. We are going to invest in public science—about $93 million over 4 years.

We are going to provide additional funding for high-value tourism—$38 million in 2013-14, increasing to $40 million a year from 2014-15, when our economy will be back in surplus. There are more resources for marketing New Zealand to international students—$40 million over 4 years. That is a market that already contributes more than $2 billion to our economy each year. For the marketing of New Zealand under the New Zealand Story there will be $2 million in 2013-14. These are not the actions of a miserly Government, as asserted by the Greens and Labour.

To meet the target of 40 percent by 2025, the value of New Zealand exports needs to double. This requires nominal export growth of between about 6.7 and 7.6 percent in 2025. I believe that the productive sector, as exists in the Wairarapa electorate, will seriously contribute to that. Government statistics show that our nominal export of goods and services has been growing by a compound average of 4.6 percent over the last 4 years. These things are possible because of a sensible, hard-working, moderate Government and sensible financial policies. These things are possible despite the international headwinds, which you can see in Europe, where unemployment rates are up over 25 percent, for example, in Spain, and where if you are 25 or under, you are 50 to 54 percent likely to be unemployed. We are nowhere near that space, because we have sensible policies.

The aim of the internationally focused growth package is to help accelerate this trend over the medium term and, in particular, to build on the opportunities that exist in China, India, Burma, South Asia, Latin America, and also the Middle East. Along with its mates the Greens, Labour is promoting policy ideas that would stunt New Zealand’s growth. I listen to that regularly at Finance and Expenditure Committee meetings, where I hear Mr Cunliffe talking about the introduction of his capital gains tax. On top of that, it is opposed to all initiatives that would create growth in jobs and boost incomes.

I think that Labour is the anti-growth party. It wants to bring in a capital gains tax on every business and on every farm in my electorate. The Greens want to print money to lower the dollar, to force households to pay an extra $500 a year under an emissions trading scheme, and to borrow more and spend more. In the view of the Labour Party and the Green Party this stuff, money, grows on trees. I think that in their rush to appeal to the political left—those who have just left the gallery—they are ignoring the economic impact of their ideas.

Labour’s latest plan—Mr Mallard’s latest plan—on electricity is playing politics with the value of New Zealand’s economic assets, and the Opposition does not care whom it affects. Even Mr Damien O’Connor from the West Coast electorate can see the stupidity of Labour policies, as Nick Smith pointed out in the House this afternoon. Labour clearly has not thought through the consequences of discouraging investment and savings both for KiwiSavers and for the jobs for all policy that pretty much everyone agrees will not work. I think that our policies are very good. I think the Budget is outstanding. I look forward to this country and the economy moving forward, and people getting into a much better space over the next 5 years of this Government. Thank you.

It is great to have an opportunity to take a call in this Budget debate. It is great to have the opportunity to speak in Parliament on behalf of so many of our countrymen and women who cannot speak for themselves. Under National, New Zealand is going backwards. At the last election, John Key promised 170,000 new jobs. It sounded great, but the reality has been all too different. Here is the Minister for Economic Development wandering in for the jobs machine, finally showing up in the Budget debate. He knows that the unemployment statistics are that there are 146,000 people still out of work. We say to New Zealanders that we on the Opposition benches are here in this debate for you. We are here for you.

What we have over there is a Government that is not governing for all the people of New Zealand. It is for the rich, not the poor, and, arguably, for the old, not the young. The game that has been played here in this Budget is plain for all to see. It is a tight Budget that lacks strategy and that has zero vision. What it does have is a fig leaf of social policy, like food in schools, done at a trivial, pathetic scale that is nothing more than public relations spin. It is bad for New Zealanders, it is bad for New Zealand, it is bad social policy, and it is also bad economics. It is bad because the Government and the Minister of Finance seem to be unfixably confused about what their job actually is in a Budget.

Labour knows about running surpluses. We ran nine surpluses out of nine. National has not run one yet—has not run one fiscal surplus yet. It is just absolutely craving to run one. But you know what? Although we would run one too, it is not the right question. The question here is not about balancing the Government’s books at the expense of New Zealanders’ books; it should be about growing the pie for the whole country, about getting those New Zealanders who are out of work back in jobs, and about giving hope to the 270,000 New Zealand children growing up in poverty, not about tokenism, Minister—not tokenism.

National has put all its political credentials, its hope for the 2014 election, on one magical number: reaching fiscal surplus. It cannot do even that right. It is a bogus surplus. It does not come within $1 billion of breaking even, and here are the simple facts why. The surplus is not wafer-thin; it comes only from massaging the numbers to an extent that I have never seen in my time in Parliament, because if the Government did not do that, it would have to admit failure in the one goal that it set itself. For example, over $1 billion more than is needed is being collected from ACC levies. Officials advised the Government to give the $1 billion back. It is keeping $700 million and giving $300 million back to New Zealanders, and without that $700 million we would not be within a bull’s roar of breaking even. The Government is collecting an extra $900 million in petrol tax from people’s pockets. That is a tax increase on everyday New Zealanders who cannot afford it, but without it there is no surplus.

But here is the really interesting stuff. On page 30 of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update are the revenue forecasts. I have to read those, as revenue spokesman for Labour. They are very interesting, because in the year in which the Government is so desperate to reach surplus we see a sudden spike of $400 million in something called tax loss offsets, which appear from nowhere and are never seen again—only in that 1 year when the Government thinks it is going to make a $75 million surplus. That is swamped by this magic $400 million piece of fairy dust that appears from nowhere and disappears again. Well, is that the only magic in the revenue figures? I am afraid not. Employees’ compensation jumps from an increase of $500 million to $1.1 billion. Guess what! This is in the year in which the Government is desperate to make surplus. And then it tails off again. Corporate profits rise from $300 million to $1.1 billion and then drop again to only $200 million. The point is that if all of these extraordinary coincidences—these funny-money rubber numbers—did not all occur simultaneously, there would be no surplus.

💬 Andrew Little: It’s boom bust.

Yes, it is boom and bust, as my colleague says. It actually belongs in the fiction section of the library. Then the next job was to go back to the estimates of appropriations for the Inland Revenue Department. As most New Zealanders will be aware, the Government has committed itself to spending between $1 billion and $1.5 billion on the Inland Revenue Department’s computer system rebuild. That is very interesting. How much is in the Budget documents for the Inland Revenue Department’s computer system? Zero, zip, nil, nada, nothing. How could that be? Is it because it is capital, not operating spend? No, because there is no line here for the operating costs for the interest on that capital. The Government has just left it out. How could it forget to include a $1 billion liability? Here we are not talking about Peter Dunne—he is a billion and a half dollar liability. It had to add $500 million of flux because it does not know whether it can get the project over the line. Because the Government could not quantify it because it was so horrific, it thought it had an excuse to leave it out all together, and then claim that it has a $75 million surplus. The viewers will see Ministers in the front row nattering to each other. That is a sign of extreme nervousness: people who hardly talk to each other, the rivals for John Key’s job, pretending to be civil because they know that what the Opposition is saying is true. They know that there is no surplus in this Budget. It is a creation of magic accounting worthy of Merrill Lynch, by coincidence.

Refusing to lower excessive ACC levies, kicking out forecast expenditure from $1.2 billion forecast down to $1 billion even, magicking another $200 million towards the surplus that does not exist—yet another condition that, if they did not all occur simultaneously, would not get the Government over that line. You know when the Government is really desperate when warring Ministers have to call backbenchers to the front row to make them feel better because they cannot stand the heat in the House, they cannot stand the argument, they cannot stand the truth. They know that they are condemned by their own Budget documents. They know that there is a magic $400 million fillip at just the right time, once only in history, in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update. They know that they are holding on to $1 billion worth of ACC levies. They know that they have been manipulating the books.

It is time for a whole new approach—

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Ha, ha!

—because the world is changing. Oh, Judith Collins thinks that is about her. Well, she has been taking advice from Simon Lusk, apparently, the bagman of the ugly right. Poor old Aaron Gilmore got hit by a freight train and it was not Steven Joyce’s face on it; it was somebody else’s. We will let the public decide. The nervous laughter from the Government benches continues.

In behind here we have got two views of the economy. We have got a merchant banker’s view. They think that it is all about the financial economy. And we have got the Labour Party view, which has grown up in working New Zealand and which knows that it is about getting the economic engine running and people back in jobs—real jobs with real industries based on real strategy, not one-off transactions that are dependent on busting the law or selling it off to foreign movie moguls or casinos. New Zealanders deserve better than that.

It is my pleasure to also be fisheries spokesperson for Labour. I have just been to a very interesting presentation on the launch today of Seafood New Zealand. It has a game plan to grow that industry, and we think we can back it. But that is based on real work, real jobs, sustainable use of resources, and building towards a much better future. It is not a one-off pokie transaction that Mr Joyce prides himself on. That will be his career high—playing second fiddle to a gambler in order to sell the law for a bunch of pokie machines. Welcome to the big time, Minister. Was that all worth it? Is that the best you could do?

Where is the strategy in this Budget? I end where I started. It is not good for people, it is not good for the economy, and the numbers do not stack up.

I move, That the debate be now adjourned.