Appropriation (2013/14 Estimates) Bill

Here we are, discussing and debating the fifth Budget of the National-led Government, and I have to say that every single day in this House the difference becomes clearer and clearer. I could be talking about the polls, of course, which are also becoming clearer and clearer about what New Zealanders want, but I am not. I could be talking about the difference between the factions in the Labour Party, because every day they become clearer and clearer, but I am not. What I am talking about is the very clear difference that the New Zealand public can now see between what this Government is continuing to deliver, has delivered for the last 5 years, and what Budget 2013 is a continuation of—the solid, sensible, caring, and progressive management of this Government, which has got New Zealand on the right path—and what the Labour-Greens coalition would condemn this country to. That is what is becoming clearer and clearer in the minds of New Zealanders, and I welcome it, actually. I welcome Labour tethering itself, hitching its cart, to the Green horse, because that is showing New Zealanders very clearly the real risks that they face if they were to put that lot in charge of this country.

Bill English, in this Budget, has New Zealand on track. He has us on track to get back to surplus. He has this year, in this Budget, shown us that this year we are looking at a deficit of around $2 billion, when Australia, that mighty, powerful nation across the Ditch, which is always held up to us as the beacon of all things good, has announced, under its Labor Government, a $20 billion deficit. We are on track to a $2 billion deficit this year and a return to surplus, as promised, in 2014-15. Bill English is delivering us steady growth—in fact, growth rates that are the envy of most of the rest of the world, and are bettered only by Australia. He has delivered us continually reducing debt projections, remembering that we inherited from the Labour Government never-ending deficits. We were facing a country that would never ever get back to a surplus—never get back to surplus. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The Speaker will not allow a speaker on their feet to be drowned out. This is Parliament; it is not a public house.

Thank you, Mr Robertson. I enjoy their bleating. It shows just how much the truth hurts them. Bill English has us on track to get back to surplus. That is a remarkable feat. We see falling unemployment, we see record low interest rates, and we see the lowest rates of crime in 30 years. That is what sensible management means. That is what a caring, progressive Government that is focused on what matters and that does want a brighter future for all New Zealanders means.

What is the difference between the alternative and the options New Zealand faces? What would a Labour-Green regime deliver to this country? Well, what we do know is that those parties continue every day to show us, without doubt, without question, that they would take more money out of the pockets of New Zealanders to spend on inflated bureaucracy, working groups, more red tape, more spending, and more debt, because that is all they know, it is all they deliver, and it is their only way of functioning. It seems to me that they are genetically hard-wired to focus on what they can take and what they can spend. Every utterance that we hear from Labour and the Greens is about how much they can take and how much they can spend—not one word, not one policy, not one contribution, not one press release, and not one speech about how they are going to contribute to getting the New Zealand productive sector up and running, providing the jobs, providing the incomes, and providing the opportunities for New Zealanders.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Come on, Amy. You don’t even believe this crap. You don’t even believe this rubbish from the research unit. You just don’t believe it. Look like you believe it. You’ve got no idea.

You see, David Cunliffe still does not get it. David Cunliffe still thinks that Government spending is the fix for all our worries. If a Government can tax you more and spend more on bureaucracy, then everything will be well. The Labour Party still thinks there is a magic money machine and magic beans that it can spend, and that it can just keep on spending, keep on taxing, and keep on borrowing. That will not matter. Never mind that under a Labour-Green Government, under the settings that those parties left us with and the ruination that they gave to this economy, right now we would be looking at $100 billion more debt—$100 billion more debt, that is the future they want for young New Zealanders. That is the future they want to condemn every young New Zealander to—a $100 billion debt burden around their necks. We will not do that. We will manage this economy sensibly. We have done so for 5 years, and we will continue to.

That is why you have people like the IMF coming out and saying that New Zealand has got it right. New Zealand has got economic and political settings that are right and that other countries should be looking to. That is a significant milestone. That is why our interest rates are low. If you want to talk about making living affordable for New Zealanders, the best thing we can do—Mr Assistant Speaker, I apologise for bringing you into the debate—the best thing this country can do, is ensure that we have sensible policies, low debt, and low interest rates, and that the settings are right so that businesses can create jobs and are incentivised to invest. That is one of the core reasons that we in this party and in this Government are focused on reforming the Resource Management Act, to ensure that while it protects our environment it also provides the certainty and the streamlined processes that mean that we can have housing that we can afford, that we can create jobs in our cities and in our towns, and that we can do it in a way that is not simply a fest of billing for the consultants, the lawyers, and the planners who have built up around the industry that this has become.

We have got to have good outcomes, but we know that in the last 2 years alone these over-bloated, cumbersome, litigious processes have meant that at least $800 million worth of projects have not gone ahead. That is jobs. So every time one of the Opposition comes into this House and says “Where are the jobs?”, I say to them “How about you support fixing some of the roadblocks to creating those jobs? How about you get on board with the Government and say that we can do better, that we can have settings that look after our environment and still provide certainty and opportunities to invest?”. But, no, Labour wants to oppose it. In fact, the Labour Party has already come out and said that, if elected, it would repeal all the improvements to the Resource Management Act, which is interesting, really, because it is saying that it would rather keep the inefficient, bloated, expensive, litigious system that we have than support any sensible change.

Do you know what else that would mean? It would mean that the Labour Party has announced that it opposes our including in the Resource Management Act the protection of New Zealand from natural hazards. That is one of the changes that we want to make to Part 2, and yet we have already got the Labour Party coming out and saying that it opposes that and that if it was elected, it would reverse that. Here we are with the Labour Party. Labour members are sitting there, telling New Zealand that they do not want in the Resource Management Act the protection of New Zealand from the risks of natural hazards. I think that is appalling, I think it is disgraceful, and I think it shows how they are willing to play politics and to do and say whatever they can to get back into power, where they can continue to borrow, spend, and ruin the future of this country. They are shameless. They are not looking out for the best interests of this country. If they were, they would be looking to support sensible, meaningful improvements.

This morning I have been up in Kāpiti announcing the beginning of the build of ultra-fast broadband in Kāpiti, in Levin, in Gisborne, and in Upper Hutt, because we are interested in supporting rural and provincial New Zealand. We know that we can make significant gains by ensuring that rural and provincial New Zealand is connected and can do business from anywhere in this country; that our children in the smallest town or the smallest rural community can access the best resources not only in New Zealand but in the world; that our patients can get access to health care from wherever they are, through high-speed video hook-ups and telehealth initiatives; and that our businesses can conduct business around the world, recruit staff, work from home, and sell into markets anywhere in the world. This is transformational. It is transformational infrastructure that this Government is backing, and Labour voted against it because Labour does not support rural New Zealand and it does not support families in small-town New Zealand getting ahead, and the National Government does.

But it does not stop there. We are rolling out ultra-fast broadband. We are supporting better water infrastructure. We are supporting better roading networks to ensure that our goods can get to market. We have put in place, for the first time, an exclusive economic zone protection regime. Nine years under Labour and the Greens—did they care about putting rules in place to protect the exclusive economic zone? Absolutely not—absolutely not. The National-led Government is the one that introduced rules to protect the exclusive economic zone. The National-led Government is the one that introduced the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. The National-led Government is the one that introduced the Waste Minimisation Act and is reducing waste in our landfills. This is a Government of action; that is a Government of ruination.

There were three points in the speech that has just been made by the Minister Amy Adams. There are two points of agreement, and one of clarification. Firstly, she said that every day the difference between the parties on that side and this side becomes clearer, and I say “Thank God for that.” New Zealanders are not that stupid. They know that that side has delivered empty promises of 170,000 new jobs, and promises of prosperity—for whom? The second thing—and I will agree with her—is that the Government thinks that it will reach surplus in 2014-15. That may be the case, but the question is for whom. It will not be for the average Kiwi, I can tell you that, but for your greedy, wealthy mates—Mr Assistant Speaker, not yours, but National’s. The third point is the outrageous exaggeration that we would have incurred $100 billion in debt for this country.

Bill English admitted in the House today that the National Government will incur a debt of $61 billion for this country—$61 billion—under his current plan. The previous speaker, Amy Adams, also made great claims about how the Government had rebalanced and done great things for the productive sector, and what the Resource Management Act is going to do. I will quote Business and Economic Research Ltd: “Growth in the non-tradeable or inward-facing side of the economy has outstripped the tradeable sector, which has not really grown at all over the past four years.” Those are the facts. The National Government—the wonderful champion of the farming and productive sectors—has done absolutely nothing to assist with their growth and development. Those facts speak for themselves. The tradable sector is the sector that Bill English said when he came in in 2009 he was going to rebalance the economy to benefit, and, in fact, in 2010—I think a colleague in the House today said—he mentioned rebalancing so many times in his Budget speech. He does not mention it now, because the only rebalancing that is being done under the National Government is to tip the table in favour of all those people who have wealth and who have privilege. It is not even possible for the crumbs to fall up the table to those poor people who do not have any capital. It has not just been hands-off; it has been hands-on in favour of the wealthy. This Budget does absolutely nothing to rebalance the economy either in favour of the tradable sector or in a way that helps the average, hard-working Kiwi.

We have a two-speed economy. We have an economy for the haves, and another economy for the have-nots. We have had tax cuts for the rich from the first Budget of the National Government, and we had GST imposed on the poor. On every single thing they spend money on, they have paid more GST and more tax. The wealthy, on the other hand, can siphon off money into areas where GST is not incurred—that one single advantage. We have had increased opportunities for people importing into this country under the high dollar, and we have had increasing barriers and hurdles and challenges for anyone exporting. Where, Mr English, is the help for the tradable sector in that area? We have had increasing profits for home speculators and decreasing opportunities for the average New Zealander to buy a home. Well, we had in the last Budget some token movement, the Government says, in favour of those people struggling to buy a home. We know that it simply will not work. You need to build houses on the ground, not simply make it harder for people coming in at the bottom end to buy a house. That is what the Government has done with the new deposit ratios.

The National Party says it has plans. In fact, the previous speaker, Amy Adams, said a wonderful thing about spending on infrastructure. Well, there are roading plans for projects of National Party significance, but they are all around the cities, not out in the rural areas, and we had no further funding in that area from this Budget. Ask the regional council chairs and the mayors in the South Island what they think about the current system of allocating funding for roading. They are being squeezed. They know that the productive areas of Southland, out on the West Coast, and in Canterbury are not getting the funding for roading that they should do.

We have got in education a determination by a pig-headed Government to put in place National Party standards. Well, the Government sold it very quietly as “national standards”, but they are National Party standards. The parents out there who think that kindly thought that they are getting some equal opportunity to measure their child against someone from another island or another school or whatever, north to south, east to west, have simply been hoodwinked once again. We have seen recently—and there are delays, I understand, in publishing the first outcomes of the National Party standards in education—what we call “moderation”, e-asTTle, and now a new PaCT tool. If you talk to principals in your electorate—and there might be a few over there who do—they are horrified with the manipulation of the National Party standards in education, which will undermine the goodwill, the high quality, and the commitment in education that have driven our system to be one of the best in the world. It is stupidity.

We need a Government with a plan. What we have got at the moment is a Minister of Finance and a Prime Minister who think they are steering the economy in the right direction. Well, the analogy I use is of putting someone in a trolley cart at the top of a hill—we put them up there with zero Government debt—giving them the ropes, and letting gravity take the trolley downhill. Mr English thinks that steering around the corners is achieving the goal. The fact is that we need a Government that drives the economy, not just steers it. That is what Labour will do. In driving an economy, we will be utilising more technology than a trolley cart, not relying solely on gravity to take us forward, and not thinking that just steering around the corners is going to deliver the benefits to this country into the future. We need someone driving—someone who can brake, can accelerate, can overcome the hurdles, can compensate for the inevitable challenges that are thrown up in front of this country in an economic sense. But Bill English thinks that the market and gravity will take this country to where it needs to go. It will not. That is why we have a plan. The National Party has never had a plan. It relies on the market and it relies on its mates to deliver it the best outcomes. The only thing the National Government has done for the tradable sector or the trading sector is increase the turnover on the New Zealand Exchange by allowing, firstly, Fonterra units, and by then putting our assets on to the New Zealand Exchange so that traders can make a small profit and a small fortune.

The tradable sector that needs help is the farmers out there. What did this Budget do for them? Well, in biosecurity we saw a cut of $6 million to front-line services. People have not picked up on this yet, but they will, because in the agribusiness sector biosecurity has been identified time and time again as the No. 1 threat to our economy, to our biodiversity, to every single part of our economy that relies on tourism and relies on primary production, and, indeed, to protecting our biodiversity. This Government has just cut the funding to biosecurity. It has done well to try to bury that in the Budget, but it will become apparent. Its first Budget cut was $2 million, and then it has tried to make that up by the restructuring of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry into the Ministry for Primary Industries, cutting out a few people in policy, and saying that all is well. Last week exposed the flaws and the problems within the Ministry for Primary Industries. The next weeks will expose the flaws in biosecurity, because this Government has cut the funding.

The Novopay debacle has put the joint system of computer control and information sharing—the Joint Border Management System—on hold. The Government has even mucked up that. But front-line biosecurity systems have been cut because of this Budget, and our economy is at risk. There are 1.5 million tonnes of palm kernel coming into this country every year from countries where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic. Mark my words, this Government has failed in the area of biosecurity. It has failed to protect primary producers up and down this country. We are sitting on a knife edge. If we do not keep out some of those pests and diseases, this economy will collapse, and it will be the National Government that will be responsible for that.

The opportunities for all New Zealanders presented by this Budget are exciting, and I say that not lightly. The opportunities presented in this Budget for all New Zealand are exciting, and I am proud to be part of this Government—absolutely proud. This Government is prepared to grab the opportunities that will enable all Kiwis to benefit from this Budget. We are delivering that through our clear plan—a clear plan to rebuild Christchurch, to responsibly manage the Government’s finances, to build a more competitive and productive economy, and to deliver better public services.

The crazy thing is that the Opposition—Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First—will vote against every part of this Budget. So let us go through it in some detail: to rebuild Christchurch, one of our principal objectives—the Opposition will vote against it.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Failed. Too slow. Not enough. People are dissatisfied. Don’t hold that up as an example. That’s a failure.

It will vote against the $40 billion that this country will spend down in Christchurch, through this Government, to put that beautiful city back on her feet. And Mr Denis O’Rourke will vote against that. He will vote against Christchurch and helping to get her back on her feet in this Budget. Shame on you, Mr O’Rourke. Let us think about that for a moment, because it is a huge investment from this country. Forty billion dollars is about $100,000 per citizen down in Christchurch. It is something we have to do as a country. But the Opposition, including New Zealand First, will vote against this.

The second part of our plan for all New Zealanders is to responsibly manage the Government’s finances. In that regard I think we are making great progress, albeit there is still work to do. Just a few years ago we were staring down the barrel of an $18 billion deficit, and 2014-15 will see us get across the line into a surplus position. If we are able to achieve that, we will be one of the few Western countries in the world to be able to achieve it. That is absolutely fantastic. It is proved by the facts, the actuals. We are actually improving on the forecasts. We are holding our expenses on track, and our revenue is actually above and better than what we are forecasting. That is on the back of 3 percent growth last year, and growth is forecast to go forward again. That will allow us to keep our debt down.

So for Mr Damien O’Connor to stand and say that this Budget would not benefit all New Zealanders is absolute rubbish. It will hold our debt at no higher than 38 percent of GDP, and then we have a goal of getting it back down to 20 percent. And Mr O’Rourke, again, will vote against that in this Budget. Shame on you, Mr O’Rourke.

What that is actually delivering, and the really exciting thing—because it is tough; often employment is an indicator lagging behind economic growth—is what we saw in the first quarter of this year. It is exciting news: the unemployment rate dropping from 6.9 percent down to 6.2 percent. That meant 38,000 additional jobs—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: How many percent above your targets was that?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: What about the 170,000?

—into the economy in the first quarter. Opposition members do not like that, do they? It does not go with their story, to see us actually delivering jobs. And, again, they will vote against that. In terms of restoring the economy back to surplus, Opposition members—Mr O’Rourke, Labour, and the Greens—are against it. They do not want us back in surplus, they do not want us bringing our debt back, and they do not want the economy growing.

The third part of our plan for all New Zealanders is to build a more competitive and productive economy. That is being driven strongly by our Business Growth Agenda. Today I want to focus particularly on building export markets, because that is a big and important focus of growing the economy. I want to focus particularly on my responsibilities as Associate Minister of Tourism in that regard. As a country we have now set a goal of getting from 30 percent to 40 percent of GDP through our exports. That is a huge task to take on, but tourism can deliver strongly in that area.

Our Business Growth Agenda has a number of initiatives that we have been ticking off as we go forward, including a real focus on growing the Asian markets. That is exciting. The opportunities out of Asia are just absolutely fantastic. We are spending $10 million per year on a major events fund, to bring events to this country. New Zealand First will vote against that as well. We have got a convention centre off the ground, and not only in Auckland; we have got convention centre plans for Christchurch and for Queenstown. The Opposition will vote against them.

Our Māori Tourism Action Plan is very exciting. The leveraging of the Hobbit movies has been huge for this country, and is actually growing more tourism, particularly from our traditional markets such as Germany. We have rolled out the Cycle Trail—a $50 million investment into one of the most exciting tourism initiatives that we have ever seen in this country.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: You’ve got to be joking.

Just to go out and ride—try this, Mr O’Rourke. Go out and try cycling on one of these. I know it would be difficult for you, but actually go and try it, and see the New Zealanders and the international tourists who are just loving that. We are also bringing new and improved airline services into the country, with the likes of Hawaiian Airlines flying in here now, giving us direct routes up into mainland United States.

That is what we have been doing. The exciting thing is that this Budget delivers $158 million on top of our existing spend into the tourist industry. That is phenomenal—a 40 percent increase in the Budget. And do you know why that is? This initiative will drive growth across our country. It will drive the opportunities that we are trying to achieve through our plan. We are actually investing in this for all New Zealanders. So let us have a quick look at that. There is $24.5 million to support growth in our existing markets. So we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater; we still have markets like the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Japan, Germany, Australia, and China—our key traditional markets—and we are going to invest more money to bring those markets to New Zealand.

The exciting news is the investment of $44.5 million into three emerging markets—three new emerging markets—of India, Indonesia, and Latin America. These are wonderful opportunities. I know that my colleague here Mr Bakshi is really excited about the opportunity to bring lots of Indian tourists down here to New Zealand, on our shoulder season. I think that is fantastic. They do not tend to come here so much in the middle of our main season but in the shoulder season. That helps us to grow the markets.

We are investing $20 million to target high-value spending visitors, because the trend historically in the last few years has been more visitors but actually lower spending, so we really want to focus on that high-value end of the market. We are investing $34 million to bring new business events down here, to support the convention centres and to support a range of events throughout the country, which, again, are exciting opportunities to grow the economy, to grow our export dollars. But, also, another $28 million is part of that $158 million for the tourism growth partnership, investing and helping to add value to the tourism industry, and, once again, grow our export earnings from that. The Opposition will vote against that initiative. It will vote against jobs in this country. It is unbelievable.

I just want to finish with the fourth plank of our plan, and that is to deliver better public services. Once again, the Opposition will vote against this as well. Despite tough economic times, the Government has held itself accountable to lift service levels across the State sector. I mean, when you are faced with many departments—such as my own, the Department of Internal Affairs; a wonderful department—that have had to deliver service increases in a period when they have also had to deliver an 8 to 10 percent efficiency dividend, that is a remarkable achievement, and I want to compliment my team at the Department of Internal Affairs on what they have been able to achieve. But during the same period they have also rolled out some pretty amazing new services. A good example is the passports online service, which just yesterday achieved 70,000 online renewals—

💬 Hon Member: How many?

—within a 5-month period—70,000. That is at a 19 percent reduction on the level of cost for passports than we previously did, and, actually, it is, on average, a 3-day turn-round time. That is a remarkable achievement.

💬 Simon O’Connor: How much?

It took 3 days, on average, to turn round those passports. So this Budget will also deliver some key funding in there for result area 10, which my department is responsible for. Our goal there is to lift the ability for all Kiwis to liaise, to work with Government, on an online system. So our aim is to get the common transactions up to 70 percent of citizens using that system by 2017. We have got specific funding in the Budget to do that—$2.9 million of collaborative funding across the departments to work together to deliver better services for this country, and we are seeing great results. Already, within about 18 months we have seen an increase from 29 percent to 41 percent of people using online Government services. That is absolutely magic.

On top of that, there is additional funding of $14.5 billion to roll out the igovt or the RealMe service, which will, once again, leverage up online services for this country, delivering better services for New Zealanders. And, once again, the Opposition will vote against that. I am excited about this Budget, I am excited about the future for New Zealand, and I think that the opportunities ahead of us for our country are like never before. Thank you.

The objectives of the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill are a major Budget issue, and housing, as we all know, is a major concern in many parts of New Zealand. The bill represents the Government’s solutions to fix the housing crisis in this country. It is, of course, about time that the Government acted. It has fiddled while the housing market in New Zealand burns hot, especially in Auckland and Christchurch and several other places. Very few first home seekers can now afford to even dream of buying a home in this country. The great Kiwi expectation of a homeowning democracy lies in ashes. The Government is now belatedly trying to conjure up a phoenix from those ashes, but it is far too little and it is far too late.

The basic problem with the Government’s actions is that they are under-reactive to a huge problem suddenly realised. It is based on simple expediency rather than a balanced approach. It favours developers’ agendas and sidelines local democracy. It is ad hoc rather than strategic. It is careless about good planning, and substitutes it with quick-fix band-aid solutions. It is superficial rather than well considered. It is short term and not an enduring long-term plan, which New Zealand needs. No doubt profiteers are already buying up land that might be used for special housing areas.

The Government has assumed that freeing up the land supply will work. But will that really mean lower home prices? Will it even mean that the rate of increase of home prices will be curbed? There is no apparent research upon which the Government has based that assumption that freeing up land for development will really assist with housing affordability, and it is housing affordability that is the real issue. First home owners will see no real assistance to them buying a first home in the Budget provisions that have been presented to us.

But there is some good. New Zealand First supports the concept of special housing areas in regions or districts identified by the Minister of Housing on the basis of the criteria proposed, but it would allow special housing areas only on the basis of a genuine accord with local government, or where there is genuine disagreement and not contrived disagreement by the Minister acting alone. Because the Minister alone will have the power to create special housing areas if there is no accord, it is necessary that such accords be genuinely negotiated and that councils not be bullied into them.

The way the bill is drafted, it will be an “agree or else” scenario for councils, so an important question arises as to what constitutes disagreement, because it is that fact of disagreement that empowers the Minister to act alone. The bill should therefore state clearly that both the Minister and the council concerned have concluded on reasonable grounds that an accord is not possible, and the bill falls short on those issues. There should also be a provision for partial or limited accords so that the Minister cannot simply assume the power to act alone on the basis of perhaps a single point of disagreement when there is agreement on most matters. We would want to see at least some opportunity for local, public consultation by the council before finalising an agreement, even if consultation is more limited than might usually be expected.

We would also expect that the special housing areas would be approved within the established Resource Management Act principles, rather than within the compromised bill the Government is currently pushing on to us. We see no need for the panic measures of the kind promoted by the Government in the proposed legislation. Our main concern would be the loss of local democracy, with too much power given to the Minister of Housing. Of course, we in Christchurch are very, very used to that in the current circumstances.

In practice, developers would be looking for quick, ticky-tacky developments rather than quality housing. There is a risk that developers would continue to optimise profits, with large houses on large sections, not the modest housing that New Zealand needs and that first home owners can afford. We also do not see any reference or intention to try to integrate these special housing areas into transport, health, and other strategies, when New Zealand needs a much more integrated policy framework for all of those things. In other words, it is not a strategic approach; it is a quick-fix, ad hoc approach.

New Zealand First would also oppose the width of the proposals concerning plan changes. We think these are too likely to completely compromise district plans. They need to be consistent with plan objectives. Coming from Christchurch, I would have to say that we should be learning lessons from that city. There were far too many developments there for housing in inappropriate areas—housing built in areas that we all knew were subject to liquefaction, subject to ground damage, subject to rockfall in an earthquake, subject to sea level rise, or subject to flooding. The developments should not have gone on in those places. So it is very important that these sorts of proposals for special housing areas should be consistent with the objectives in district plans, otherwise we are going to risk repeating the mistakes that we have seen the effects of in the city of Christchurch.

Overall, we think that we need to balance speed—which is needed—with quality, because that is just as important a consideration. Although the special housing areas are an appropriate measure—but only with the amendments I have suggested—I would ask how this measure alone would really help homeowners seeking their first homes. How would it help them to provide the deposit that is necessary? How would it help them even if they could find a deposit to finance a new home? The answer is that there is actually nothing in the Government’s proposals that goes anywhere near far enough to adequately address those sorts of issues. The expectation that making more land available within district or city plans will bring prices down enough is fraught. It addresses only availability, and only in a limited way. It does not adequately address affordability at all. Supply alone will not result in solving the affordability issue.

Much more is needed, and New Zealand First has much more comprehensive policies for housing. Our first objective is to simply see that homeownership is within the reach of all New Zealanders. We would set up a special purpose agency for those purposes, and we believe it should establish a land bank—land actually purchased by the Government to make it available for housing in the proposed special housing areas. We want to see long-term agreements for sale and purchase made available to first home seekers at an initial concessionary interest rate so that they can buy a section without having to come up with the full capital cost up front. They could then pay it off over 25 years, and they would get title to the land so that they could then borrow from their bank to build a home on the section.

The cost breakdown for a new home is about 36 percent for the average cost of a section, 4 percent for consents and permits, and the remaining 60 percent for the house itself and associated costs. So under the New Zealand First policy, a first home seeker would be able to avoid over one-third of the total capital cost up front, with the long-term agreement for sale and purchase of the land on the initial concessionary rate of 2 percent that we propose. We also think that there needs to be a comprehensive New Zealand housing strategy addressing a whole range of things, such as the role of the Earthquake Commission; compulsory insurance; quality housing provisions such as earthquake-proofing, leakproofing, and insulation; and a whole range of other things. In the end, New Zealand First will support the bill, because there is some good in it, but it does not go far enough. It is a move in the right direction—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.

This Budget tells us something very critical about this Parliament. It compares the parties that have a vision for New Zealand with the parties opposite, which are visionless for New Zealand. I say they are visionless for New Zealand because they oppose everything this Government tries to do to help grow the economy, and they oppose everything this Government tries to do to help New Zealanders get back into jobs.

This National-led Government is all about getting on with the job. We are all about helping to grow the economy. We are all about helping to cut red tape for New Zealanders and seeing more New Zealanders get back into work. The contrast on the other side, and what we have heard throughout this whole debate, is a Green-Labour-led option under which New Zealanders would see a recipe for more debt and more inflation in the economy. Those parties would be printing a whole lot more money to really stymie the economy, and we would see even more Government intervention in the lives of New Zealanders.

The New Zealand public has shown us, through a number of opinion polls now, that they absolutely approve of this Government’s proposals for the future. They absolutely approve of the Budget that Bill English has put together for New Zealanders. It is a good Budget. It is a good Budget because it shows us on a track back to surplus. It shows us carefully managing the economy.

We like to hear from Opposition members, because they are often deluded when they talk about the economy. They like to think that the global financial crisis did not exist. They like to think that Labour has a plan that would have succeeded. Well, actually, the plan that Labour had, which it left this Government with, was a plan for a whole lot more debt. It was a plan that would have left New Zealanders with a decade’s worth of projected deficit. If Opposition members do not want to admit it, they should just look at some of the graphs that came out with the Budget. The projected debt in the 2020s, under this Government, looks to be about 10 percent of GDP. In the 2020s, under the plan left by Michael Cullen and the Opposition, debt was projected to reach 60 percent of GDP.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Zero Crown debt—that’s what you inherited.

No, no, Mr Cosgrove. No, no, Mr Cosgrove. You need to spend some more time in Waimakariri. Actually, debt was expected to be 60 percent of GDP in the 2020s. Have a look at the graphs. He is deluded—he is deluded. He just does not understand. He cannot read a graph.

The party opposite left us with a decade’s worth of projected deficits. It would not have been good for New Zealand. We are getting back to surplus next year. David Parker likes to joke around with us and say that, actually, Labour would have got back to surplus as well. The only way that Labour would have got back to surplus would be with Russel Norman’s printing machine. That is the only way it would have got back to surplus. Russel Norman would have printed all the money that it needed, so that it would not have to rack up the debt.

Fortunately for New Zealand, Michael Cullen had not thought about printing more money, but had Labour ever coalesced with the Greens and had Russel Norman as Minister of Finance—which is probably what we will see in about 10 years’ time—there would have been a whole lot more money printed. Yes, it might have got us back to surplus, but it would have been at the expense of New Zealanders, who would have seen huge inflation, and it would not have been good.

Business confidence is improving in this country. Our companies are becoming more competitive. Wages are growing and inflation is low. We have excellent growth, considering the economic circumstances that the world has found itself in. New Zealanders are approving of that plan. New Zealanders are seeing more jobs created. Almost 60,000 new jobs have been created in the economy.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Where? Where? Ninety thousand kids unemployed.

Mr Cosgrove wants to ask where the jobs are. Well, let us just go through the list of things that Mr Cosgrove and his mates on the other side oppose. These are the job creation schemes that they oppose. Every time we want to come up with ideas for new jobs, those members oppose them. They oppose the Auckland convention centre, which is going to see thousands of jobs created. They are opposed to that. The Hobbit law—they were opposed to that. That saw a whole lot of jobs created. They are opposed to everything that Amy Adams wants to do in the resource management sector that will make it easier for businesses to operate and that will make it easier for New Zealanders to employ people. They are opposed to oil and gas exploration. If the Greens ever get into Government, the whole of Northland will probably be shut down, because there will be no road to get up to Northland, and everything that the people up there want to do to try to create jobs will be shut down as well. The Opposition wants to see more costs go on to New Zealand businesses through the emissions trading scheme, and it opposes jobs being created in many of the manufacturing areas. A Labour-led Government would be a disaster for New Zealand. This country knows that the Budget and the track that we are on are good for New Zealand, and it absolutely supports it.

I am glad that the previous speaker, Denis O’Rourke, touched on housing, because I am actually quite excited about the plan that this Government has for housing affordability in New Zealand. It has a plan for housing affordability particularly in Auckland, through the Auckland Housing Accord legislation. I heard an unusual comment from Denis O’Rourke. He tried to tell us that land supply has almost no impact at all on house prices. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment put out a very good document recently. It was about residential land availability in Auckland. It had an excellent graph. I am sure that it will be difficult for members to see across the House. Clayton Cosgrove probably does not have his glasses on. He might want to put them on. The document has a very good graph, which pretty much shows that as the land availability in Auckland slowly declined, through the land strangulation policies of local government, the cost of land in Auckland gradually increased.

It is not hard to see that housing supply actually has a very big impact on the cost of land. You know, the Opposition likes to think that it is going to be able to provide houses for Aucklanders at $300,000 each. Actually, roughly, right now, section costs are about $325,000 per section, but we are working on it. We are working on it because we recognise that land supply is a big issue. We recognise that we need to have more houses coming on board for New Zealanders.

The Auckland Housing Accord that has been agreed with Len Brown and the legislation that is going through Parliament will be hugely beneficial for New Zealanders. I am disappointed—I am disappointed—that some parties in this House are opposed to that, because the reality is that we need to build more houses in Auckland. We need to build more houses in New Zealand. At the moment, roughly only 3,500 houses are being built in Auckland every year. That simply is not enough. We are going to pretty much triple that—actually, quadruple that—to an average of 13,000 houses per year to be built under the housing accord that has been signed with the Auckland Council.

I have heard some comments about the legislation that is going through, and there has been some discussion out there. I simply say to those members in Auckland and those members of the Auckland Council who are opposed to the Auckland Housing Accord and the legislation that we just have to get on with the job. We need to stop fluffing around. We need to stop delaying addressing the housing issues in Auckland, and, actually, working together with the Auckland Council is the best way to achieve that. But this Government knows that if local government is not prepared to come on board and work as intensively as needs to be done to address the housing issues in New Zealand, then we will just have to box on ahead and get it done for it.

New Zealanders do not want to see any more delays. New Zealanders do not want to see the housing issue being left for much longer. New Zealanders, and particularly Aucklanders and the types of people whom I represent in my electorate of Botany, want to see more houses coming on board. They want to see more land being made available, and they want to see red tape being cut. They do not want to see a continuation of the delays and the problems that we have had in the past. Land strangulation policies in Auckland, where local government, through the Resource Management Act process, has deliberately decided it wants to constrain the availability of land for Aucklanders, have absolutely led to a lack of supply of land, which has led to housing costs increasing, which has led to a poor situation for New Zealanders.

We are working on addressing the cost of building materials. We are also working on addressing some of the social housing issues that we have got. There is a remarkable programme that Minister Smith is working on to get more bedrooms and more State housing coming on board. We are spending a whole lot of money to insulate housing. We have got a very good story to tell about housing. It is going to be hugely beneficial for New Zealanders in the future. I challenge the Opposition to get on board. I challenge the Opposition to stop saying no to everything. I challenge the Opposition to stop saying no to more growth. [Interruption] I tell Rajen Prasad to realise that New Zealanders want more growth and they want more jobs. They do not want more debt, they do not want the printing of money, and they do not want a Labour-Greens Government.

I will tell you what this Opposition will say no to. It will say that, no, it is not good enough that there are 146,000 people unemployed. This Opposition will stand with New Zealanders and say that, no, it is not good enough that there are 90,000 young people not in education or training. This Opposition will say that, no, it is not good enough that this Government did not get off its backside and utilise what is a disaster in Christchurch but what is also a major opportunity, and what is also the world’s biggest training scheme, to train the 30,000 or 40,000 apprentices, say, that we need in Christchurch. Three years from that disaster they would have finished their apprenticeships and be the tradespeople we need, rather than businesses, as they do now, because they cannot wait for this Government to wake up, having to import our Irish brothers and sisters, our Filipino brothers and sisters, and others to come to fill the skills gap because this Government was asleep at the wheel and would not take advantage of the opportunity out of that tragedy. So we say no to that member Jami-Lee Ross to those things.

In 2008, when that crowd over there took office, it said that we were going to have—remember—the brighter future. There was a grand plan. There was a vision. Remember all those wonderful little commercials with the Prime Minister at, I think it was, the local private school—ironic though that is. At the same time as it throws a couple of million bucks to kids who need a feed in the morning, it gives 11 million bucks in the Budget to private schools. That is one thing. But remember the vision. Remember the brighter future. This, apparently, is the party of sound, financial managers. This is the party, it said, that understands our new business. This is the party that could run businesses like State-owned enterprises. Well, I am glad the Minister for State Owned Enterprises is in here. That man could not run a bath, let alone a State-owned enterprise, with his mismanagement of, for instance, Solid Energy. He grins away over there in his little Cheshire cat way. You sad little man. That man was asleep on the couch in his office in the Beehive as the Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit and Treasury kept telling him for over 2 years that Solid Energy, which under a Labour administration was an export award - winning company returning tens of millions of dollars to the taxpayer every year, was in trouble. He could have woken up, picked up the newspaper, and worked out that the international price of coal was going down the gurgler. He could have then picked up the phone and called his former mate—his former mate, after he was shafted—Mr Palmer and said: “What’s plan B? How are we going to consolidate this asset, preserve it, and make sure that it is OK for the taxpayer in these tough financial times?”.

Well, the truth is that that Minister, just like this Budget, tinkered around, minced around, did not listen to the advice, knew it, and possibly did not read the reports, and, as a result, we now know that his Government and his Prime Minister are now considering letting the whole show fall over. If that was not bad enough, there is $395 million and counting down the gurgler thanks to his mismanagement, and over 500 jobs lost. The last speaker talked about job creation and he talked about some programmes—a convention centre. But he also was going to list for us all these jobs that have been created. Remember the cycleway? I think there were a fish and chip shop and a bike shop that got a few jobs out of that. That went out the window. New Zealand was going to be the international financial centre of excellence—remember that? Well, that went out the window as well. So there are 146,000 people on the scrap heap in a two-speed economy in this country—some of the people doing very well; many of our people doing very badly and scraping for it—as a legacy of this Government. There are 500 Solid Energy workers and counting down the gurgler. No more can Tony Ryall or John Key or Bill English ever claim to be sound financial managers, when they went to sleep and watched a company, the people’s asset, go down the gurgler. The last speaker talked about an auction. Well, I predict this. Solid Energy will be the biggest fire sale that we have seen in our time as they allow that company to tip over.

It is true that New Zealand is in a two-speed regime, a two-speed economy. It is the case that we now have the haves and the have-nots—big time. Let us look at jobs and the amount of jobs created. Well, since Steven Joyce became tertiary education and employment Minister, the Government says that there have been a few thousand jobs created. Where were the brighter future and the grand plan to actually assist the 146,000 people who are on the scrap heap thanks to these guys? This is a Government that inherited zero Crown debt. The last speaker—I cannot remember his name—talked about debt. Well, I will tell you what the Government inherited: zero Crown debt and 9 years of surpluses—not projections, not rumours, not spin, but facts—zero Crown debt and 9 years of surpluses, which the Government then mismanaged and squandered. So those members cannot stand up today and crow about being sound financial managers, when you look at their litany of disasters, particularly the State-owned enterprise Minister, who will go down in history as the worst State-owned enterprise Minister in living history. Since the promulgation of State-owned enterprises as a piece of legislation, he is the worst and biggest mismanager of State-owned enterprises. He sat there and twiddled his little thumbs, he did not listen to the advice, he did nothing, and people are paying for that, of course.

Then we look at things like housing affordability, which is skyrocketing all over the country. We cannot blame the earthquake for what is happening in Auckland or other parts of the country. If you look at the earthquake in Christchurch and the so-called grand plan, I say to those members over there that 3 years down the track there is still a large number of the population where I live who are hurting because they cannot get their Earthquake Commission claims, because they cannot unlock their insurance money, and because they cannot actually take charge—not through inability or through laziness or anything like that—and they simply cannot get their hands on the levers to take control of their own lives.

But what does this crowd do in the Budget? Well, not a lot—a bit of money sprinkled here and a bit of money sprinkled there. In some ways, you could call this Budget a bit of a “Holyoake Budget”, because old “Kiwi Keith” was known to be a tinkerer. He tinkered around the edges. I think he is a sort of hero for the Prime Minister. But “Kiwi Keith” and Sir Keith Holyoake’s Government took the record for just tinkering around the edges, doing a few populist things, not actually upsetting the apple cart, and just mowing along—you know, “She’ll be right. We can hoodwink the people.”

Look at child poverty. Child poverty is a disgrace in this country. We have five measures, I am told—five, I believe—to actually gauge and measure the extent of child poverty, although I do think that if you walk around the streets of many of our cities, or most or all of our cities, you can get a pretty good gauge very, very quickly. It is a disgrace. There is a saying that if you measure it, you can do something about it, because you actually know the quantum of the problem. But this crowd gets up and will not even use a measure of child poverty. It will not even take the abacus out, in Gerry Brownlee’s case, or the calculator, and actually say: “We will measure the quantum that is child poverty. We will put a definition around it, we will measure it, we will front it, and we will do something about it because we know the extent that it is.” These guys will not do even that. They get up in the House day after day and just simply refuse to use any measure to calculate the disgrace that they have put in place in this country in respect of child poverty.

Action is needed, we know, around superannuation. Superannuation costs have already increased from $7.3 billion in 2008 to $10.2 billion this year. We know that the cost of superannuation will exceed the cost of primary, secondary, and tertiary education within 2 years, yet what is the Government’s answer to that? I have been in the United States recently with colleagues from across the House. It is a huge issue in the United States. That country is just starting to grapple with how it deals with its key entitlement programme. Here this Government believes that the way you secure superannuation is to just let it go and let it blow out, whereas we on this side of the House say that it needs to be reformed, it needs to be protected, and it needs to be stabilised. But we have got to make a few hard decisions for people my age and a wee bit younger, in terms of what contribution we make.

So I ask where is the vision? I say to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises, who will jump up in a second and take a call, that this is his opportunity, as the worst Minister for State Owned Enterprises in our history, who has presided over more mismanagement than any other, to actually explain why it was he was asleep at the wheel, why it was—the wrist will be OK, mate—that he did nothing, why it was that he took no advice, why it is that he will not be accountable, and why it is that he will not even front to the media with some answers, because, Minister, people want answers. They want to know why it is that there is $395 million that they will have to cough up, and why over 500 people and counting are unemployed because of his mismanagement.

I move, That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.