General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Tomorrow the Minister of Finance will deliver his sixth Budget. New Zealanders will want to see some real serious thinking in that Budget and some straight talking, because up till now—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Where’s the horse?

There is no requirement to declare a horse, so stop the deceit, stop the lies, stop the character assassination, know the law, and do not be a dummy like Tau Henare, saying any old thing. You will not win on character assassination, and, gentlemen, we are in no hurry to ease your pain. We are in no hurry to skewer you like the tired elephant you are. We are going to do it tomorrow, the next day, and next week, and we will see who is right or wrong. [Interruption]

I have heard that sort of claim before. Where is the evidence? Let me tell you, if you go back over a long history, we have never ever failed to get home. Back to the point—oh, by the way, there was a former Prime Minister—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. He is enjoying a very robust debate, but the level of noise coming from the right-hand back corner is now excessive, and I require it to be toned down substantially.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. They will be far more hysterical than that, I can promise you. But I know what nervous looks like—laughing above the desk, knees knocking below it. There was a former Prime Minister who said: “He says he’s got a smoking gun; all he’s got is a cap gun.” That man was David Lange. The Minister was Wētere. When I got back from Hawaii I proved it categorically, as I will that Judith Collins deceived the House, the public, and, worst of all, those lowly cannon fodder products at the back, who are shrieking about the results of this. You mark my words, because failure, when we are after someone who has committed a grave breach of privilege and a conflict of interest, is not in our handbook.

But back to the point. They are going to say tomorrow: “You have had the pain; now here is the gain.” When did we last hear that we have had the pain and now here is the gain? All the spin and all the hype and all the nonsensical types of answers you just heard from Nick Smith—what hysterical nonsense! No one knows, but Nick knows. Young Nick should not even be there. He should not be there. There are almost 150,000 unemployed. On top of that, there are another 100,000 looking for more work—underutilised, underemployed ordinary Kiwis are being squeezed.

Soon Mr Henare will know what being squeezed is, because he will not be able to get a job. If he was so good, why did they give him the bum’s rush? This is a man who is meant to be esteemed in Māoridom. We have a show for Māori that is on at the weekend, Marae, and who turned up? That well-known Māori, Jami-Lee Ross: “I am in Parliament now—tell me, what is my iwi?”. Oh, Claudette Hauiti. Oh, over there; the most senior Minister at the time—where was Hekia? Oh, she could not turn up on Marae. You know why? It would not matter who turned up, it was going to be a cakewalk from the start, and it was.

At the end of last year—[Interruption] Look, I appreciate this. I know that, really, you are loving this, but, you know, it is imperilling your career. I know you are loving it, but it is going to imperil your career. Back at home your relations are saying to you: “Boys, don’t be silly. You’re going to get taken apart, and we’ll have to find a job for you on 21 September. Why did you not pay attention to Winston when he told you? You are on a hiding to nothing in this campaign.”

I tell you what: you cannot get away with spin and bumf and all the other things, when, in fact, people in New Zealand want, tomorrow afternoon, a plan that will diversify our economy. They want a plan that gives our people hope for the future and says to our young people: “Stay in New Zealand, because it will be great one day soon.” But they will never get that plan from National. So, as they say in Māoridom, it is time for a new net to go fishing, and go fishing we will.

When the Hon Winston Peters stood up to speak this afternoon, momentarily my faith in miracles was restored, because everyone knows that if you have got a bad flu, it can take you days to get over it, but somehow he appears to have shaken that flu overnight. But then, as his speech progressed, he told us all by his actions and by his words that he was in a delirium, which must mean that the flu still has a great grip upon him. And what was it that sent him off the rails of looking like he was a miraculously cured victim of the flu? It was the mention of a racehorse—the mention of which, of course, is not in the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament. I would put it there because it is—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You went to great lengths yesterday to stop me from making a statement just like that, excepting that the difference is that you are not required to declare a horse in a pecuniary interest declaration. He knows that. He has seen enough to know that, so tell him to stop making vile accusations.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just take this opportunity to remind all members that if they feel there is an issue with any member’s pecuniary interests, it should not be raised on the floor of this House; it should be raised directly with the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament.

Well, I will have to apologise. I will have to apologise for mentioning that particular piece of sporting equipment that was not put in the pecuniary interests register. He is probably right.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Can we just proceed with the debate.

The member is probably right, but I would note that that horse has earned a lot of money, and none of that was declared either. That, of course, is not unusual for Mr Peters.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: One thing we do know is that Gerry wasn’t the jockey.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before the member starts, I will just wait for a bit of silence so I can hear the point of order.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He made a further statement, which is demonstrably untrue, that the horse made a lot of money and that that was not declared either. Can I just say that I bought the horse in a charitable auction, did not seek a tax rebate, and lost a packet on it. It is a total lie.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: And I sympathise with the member. This is a general debate. It is a robust debate, but I again remind members, including the Hon Gerry Brownlee, that it is unhelpful to refer to issues around the register of pecuniary interests. There is a proper way to do that, established by the review of the Standing Orders of 2010, now incorporated in the Standing Orders.

Well, that is an interesting interpretation. I might say that he is not the only victim in the House—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is the member now raising a point of order or continuing the debate?

No, I am just saying that Mr Peters is not the only victim in the House of some misrepresentation. I never actually tried to be a jockey, as it happens, recognising my own shortcomings. I was far too disappointed by the fact that the Royal New Zealand Ballet would not consider me either.

Tomorrow Bill English will deliver his sixth Budget. He does so at a time when we have had about a couple of weeks—3, 4, 5, 6 weeks—in this House where Opposition parties have tried to attack the Government on a number of issues that relate very little to the daily lives of New Zealanders. What New Zealanders respond to are things like the insulation programme, the rheumatic fever programme, the immunisation programme, the achievement-focused education system that we are working towards, the fact that more young people now gain qualifications beyond secondary school, the lowest crime statistics in decades in New Zealand at the moment, the 84,000 new jobs created in the last few years, and a Budget likely to return to surplus. Those are the sorts of things that New Zealanders look towards. They look towards the fact that the Government has stood in difficult times with the people of Christchurch to effect a recovery there. They look to the fact that there are 15,000 people off welfare now and in work. These are the reasons why New Zealanders are responding so well to the current Government.

We have only to look at question time today and the questions that were asked of Ministers by our opponents to understand that that is a party over there that is nowhere near ready to be in Government—nowhere near ready to be in Government. It was interesting that Labour members were asking the Hon Bill English about Labour’s own policy, which, of course, in most cases, has been disastrously presented to the people of New Zealand. Mr English talked about the debacle over the policy that Ms Ardern had something to do with.

There is, of course, Labour’s cornerstone policy, which is getting on top of interest rates for homeowners. We still do not know how much David Parker would take out of the pockets of working New Zealanders to effect an interest rate change or a reduced official cash rate. We know that 1 percent of KiwiSaver brings in about $400 million. We know that to drop the official cash rate it is necessary to save about $2.5 billion. So that would imply that the Labour Party, should it be in Government and should it effect this policy, would take a further 6 percent out of the pockets of New Zealanders at a time when they are at the peak of their working years. The Labour Party members sit over there shaking their heads saying “No, no, that can’t be right.” It is the same as when David Parker stands up and says that a Labour Government will return surpluses and will reduce unemployment to 4 percent but it is not going to support anything that will help it achieve that. That is why Labour is in terrible trouble in the polls. And tomorrow it will only get worse.

Far from being in terrible trouble in the polls, we have the gap narrowing. The last but one poll, the Roy Morgan poll, had Labour-Greens well ahead of National. The poll that was out today from Fairfax had the gap narrowing between National and Labour-Greens by 2 percent. ACT is gone, Dunne is down, the Māori Party is discredited, and the National Party has run out of coalition parties. That is why everyone in New Zealand and all the commentators know that it is all on for the election and that it is too close to call.

We know that New Zealanders do not like rising inequality. We know that New Zealanders know overwhelmingly that it is getting worse. Three-quarters of New Zealanders think the gaps are getting wider. The Government denies that. It denies it despite the fact that we have got the lowest homeownership rate in 50 years and still dropping. It denies it despite the fact that 46 percent of New Zealanders got no increase in their wage rates last year—46 percent. Even on average, across the whole of the economy, including the rich-listers and everyone who got an increase in the amount they earn, wage rates went up by 1.6 percent when inflation was 1.5 percent. In other words, the benefits of growth are not getting through to everyday New Zealanders, and New Zealanders are sick of that.

They hate the cronyism of National. Judith Collins sits every week in this House, and John Key defends her. He comes out and pretends that there was a perceived conflict of interest, when there was a real conflict of interest when she was feathering the nest of her own family. She was feathering the nest of her own family by taking advantage of her ministerial position to advantage Oravida, of which her husband is a director, in China. That is importing into New Zealand standards that New Zealanders do not want. They do not want those standards imported into New Zealand, and the Prime Minister defends it and pretends that the $50,000 donation that he got through Oravida was for some independent charity rather than for the National Party.

The Government pretends that it inherited a cot-case of an economy from the Labour Party, but it inherited amongst the lowest unemployment in the world, and zero net Government debt. In fact, there were positive assets to the tune of 5 percent of GDP.

💬 Hon Annette King: What did Bill English say?

Bill English said that the recession and the Christchurch earthquakes happened at a time when—this was the rainy day that Governments had been saving for.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who said that?

Bill English said that. Since then we have had inequality rising. We are getting back to Budget surplus, and that is a good thing after five deficits. Labour would be doing it, too, but a good economy needs to do more than that.

We need to get money into the pockets of people through decent jobs and high wages. We need to restore the Kiwi dream of owning your own home. The Labour Party policy package is linked up and achieves those things. We have more money going into universal KiwiSaver, and through that, with a variable savings rate, people save more and pay less in interest. That in turn takes pressure off the exchange rate. That enables our exporters to thrive and to employ people in secure, high-value jobs. We have got that money going into the right parts of the economy through our capital gains tax, which takes money out the speculative economy and puts it into the productive economy and grows jobs. We encourage innovation through a research and development tax credit, and more productive investment through accelerated depreciation tax breaks, so that we can lift wages. Then we make sure that under fair labour laws people who are working New Zealanders get their fair share.

We do not forget about the vulnerable. We know that parents with young children need a better start in life. Our Best Start package improves the incomes of all families with young children—particularly in later years for our lowest-income families—and so it should, because we have got 280,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand. That is a disgrace. Then we had the Minister of Finance, Bill English, today pretending that income gaps are not increasing in New Zealand, when both the census data and the 20-year-old data series from the University of Otago prove otherwise. People will have a positive choice to vote Labour at the next election.

Hello, Mr Speaker, and kia ora. It is great that we have New Zealand Sign Language Week this week. This is also Budget week, and this will be the opportunity for our Government to present the sixth Budget of six extremely good Budgets, each appropriate to the circumstances of the year in which each Budget has been announced, and I am absolutely expecting that to continue to be the case tomorrow.

The Budget will demonstrate the approach that our Government has taken under John Key’s leadership and the prudent yet strategic approach in which our Budgets have been managed by Bill English. We have steered our country out of the troughs of the recession and the global financial crisis and the mess left by the previous Government, and we have driven our country towards a much stronger future. We have understood that we have to invest in sustainable infrastructure—in roads and broadband—in those things that make a difference for building a productive economy, and, most specifically, in education.

As my colleague Gerry Brownlee has already indicated, what New Zealanders are interested in is how strong the economy is, how it supports the development of jobs—84,000 this year—and how we make sure that we support those who need us most. That is what the Minister for Social Development has been doing by taking a very strong investment focus. This year alone we have seen 15,000 New Zealanders go off the benefit and into work, because we understand the dignity and respect that goes with work.

How do we get better-paying jobs? Well, actually, we have to invest in better skills and in better education. Our National-led Government understands that investing in an excellent education for every child and every young New Zealander is what sustainably grows an economy, is what sustainably gives them the opportunity of having choice in their lives, and is what sustainably grows the backbone of our country. We understand the importance of education, and we put our money where our mouth is.

Over the last 5 years in the area of early childhood education we have been focused on how we get more of our new entrants having a good-quality early learning experience. We are almost at 96 percent, which is getting towards our target of 98 percent. Over the last 5 years early childhood education has seen an increase in funding, despite the Opposition’s inability to understand, through numeracy skills, that going from $800 million to $1.1 billion in investment is nearly a 75 percent increase. No matter how much the Opposition says that that is a cut, no one else in New Zealand sees how, when you almost double a budget, it can be a cut. But, despite that, all power to the Opposition to argue that a 74 percent increase is actually a cut.

Overall, Vote Education is now at $9.7 billion, which is the biggest it has ever been. We have got more kids staying at school, more kids taking more subjects, and more kids leaving school with a qualification that gives them the opportunity to lead stronger, more productive lives and to get the skills and opportunities that had been denied under a previously mediocre and weak commitment to education. The Labour Opposition members look up. That is still the case now, because when in our living history has education moved off the front bench, as it has done under that Opposition, and on to the second row? That is how important this Opposition thinks education actually is. So we have $9.7 billion invested in—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Hang on, they gave you the portfolio.

And here we have, shouting from the other side, the former Minister who presided over the closing of nearly 300 schools. We have focused on how we invest. There is $1.1 billion being invested in Christchurch, where 115 schools will benefit from that. Across our country, $359 million is being invested to create better jobs, better career pathways, for the people who make the most difference in schools, and they are the teachers. Under the policy announced pre-Budget by the Prime Minister, 12,500 teachers will get the opportunity to share their expertise across classrooms. They will get the opportunity to have the best and brightest stay in classrooms. Nearly 300 principals will get the opportunity to mentor and grow the strength of our 2,500 principals across the country. That is how much members on this side of the House care about education. We have grown the investment in it every year at every level of education because we know that that is the biggest contribution you can make to a young person—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Last week I advised the House that the recent US National Climate Assessment report described climate change as no longer a distant threat but a clear and present danger, and that that report was a corroboration of the Global Assessment Report by the United Nations a few months earlier. So we now have it officially on record that climate change is a present threat to humankind. I do not think it is possible to understate the magnitude of the threat we are facing. It is a clear and present danger in the form of the extreme weather events we have been witnessing these past few years. On the strength of a 0.8 degree temperature rise, we are witnessing the likes of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the United States and Haiyan in the Philippines, along with floods in Asia and the Americas, forest fires in Russia and Australia, and heatwaves and droughts in Europe and elsewhere, including here.

The long-term danger is greater still. Three scientific studies recently released give testimony to this. A report by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of California finds that six major glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming. Six glaciers eaten away from below by the warming waters round the ice continent are flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea, according to satellite data for the past two decades. According to the lead author, a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into “a state of irreversible retreat”. The glaciers hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 1.2 metres over a period of centuries. According to the lead author, this has “passed the point of no return”. A separate study by the University of Washington focuses on one of these glaciers. The Thwaites Glacier acts as a linchpin on the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to cause another 3 to 4 metres of sea level rise.

A third study, by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, conveys new findings on East Antarctica, which contains 10 times more ice than West Antarctica. According to the head of Potsdam’s global adaptation strategies project: “Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its … counterpart in the East might also be at risk. … We have probably overestimated the stability of East Antarctica so far.” If half of the so-called ice cork were to melt, the discharge would begin and could lead to a sea level rise of another 3 to 4 metres over the long term.

Of course, the United Nations’ Fifth Assessment Report stretches out just one century, to 2100. Its 100-year scenario is of a rise by 0.26 to 0.82 metres, but scientists have known that ice melt in Antarctica will occur over centuries and as far out as 1,000 years. This raises the question: how far out should humanity be concerned as a result of the consequence of its own actions? I suggest indefinitely—as far out as the human mind can contemplate—because we temporary custodians today have no right to set a sunset clause on the human future. I invite my National colleagues in the Chamber to read from their script that this is alarmist nonsense. They are the same MPs who failed to turn up to the parliamentary briefing our Kiwi scientists gave on these issues just last October.

To the extent that such ice melt is irreversible, we must begin to learn to adapt. But above all we must up our game on mitigation, reducing emissions—very far and very fast. Why should we care today about future generations? For those who have to ask the question, there is a ready and equally self-interested answer. It is because the clear and present danger applies to New Zealand’s way of life. It puts today’s economy, today’s jobs, the homes we live in today, and the local environment we enjoy today at risk—today. This Government’s policies are making things worse and putting New Zealand at risk through its inaction—today. The Green Party is moving, as we enter the forthcoming election campaign, to make climate protection one of our highest priorities.

Very little of what has gone on in this Chamber in the last week or so would have had any connection with New Zealanders, who would generally be reviled by the mud-slinging, the abuse, the name-calling, and all of the vituperation and retribution that seem to have become the stock in trade of parliamentary debate in recent times. Perhaps it is forgivable in the smallest extent by the pending election, but it is not justifiable nor is it appreciated by the bulk of New Zealanders.

For most New Zealanders the challenge is a very simple one. This country has come out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression—the global financial crisis. We have been through 5 or 6 very difficult, tough years, where the Minister of Finance and the Government have shown considerable discipline in terms of both their spending policies and the direction of overall economic policies. Now, instead of name-calling and catcalling and rumour-mongering, what New Zealanders are looking forward to is a dividend on the investment they made in 2008 and 2011 when they elected this Government to office. They expect to see in tomorrow’s Budget some signs of progress for the future, of steps that give them confidence in the decisions they have to make in their lives to give opportunity and the prospect of hope to their children.

One area I want to talk about, which I think is very critical to the future of this country, is tertiary education. I think it is time to take a more radical approach to the issue of funding tertiary education. The current system of a fees-based system paid by the contributor, the student, supplemented in some cases, but by no means all, by a system of student allowances and student loans, has, I think, had its day. The fact that we have large student loan indebtedness and we are doing all we can, quite properly, to recover that debt suggests that a continuation of the same sort of policy is simply a repetition of what we have done previously.

Maybe the way forward is to turn the system on its head, to abolish student allowances completely—because not all students are currently eligible—and to use the money thus saved to reduce, and if not reduce then eliminate, the tertiary fees that they pay. So you would get a system, with some modest additional investment from the Government, of tertiary education returning to essentially being free to the user. But students are then responsible for their living costs and their course costs throughout, and that will be where the loan system, in a much more disciplined way, could take some effect. Carrying on the way we are will simply produce more indebtedness and more problems for people trying to recover from that indebtedness and trying to make a long-term contribution to New Zealand.

There is another area I think is worth considering. For many New Zealanders the option of tertiary education simply is not there, because there is no family history of a tertiary education. The family does not have that in their, if you like, set of horizons about what their children might do. I think there is scope for considering some form of incentive to enable first-time entrants from families who have not previously been in the tertiary education system to come in and to benefit. That is the way you broaden the basis of the system. That is the way you give access to those who may well be currently excluded, but it is also the way you make it clear that tertiary education is not the preserve of the elite but an opportunity for all to participate. As a consequence, not only do you broaden the base of education and achievement and the ability for people to make a contribution to our society that is positive and long term but you encourage future generations as well.

When we start to think about the steps forward that I hope this Budget tomorrow will indicate, in terms of our having turned the economic corner, then it is important to start to think about how we utilise the fruits of those long-term gains to the benefit of the people whom we are elected to serve. I say one thing as I close: the expectation of New Zealanders is that we contribute positively. It is not that we carry on in the way that this House has been doing in recent times. I think we have reached new lows, and the danger is that there is an even lower floor to be set if we continue as we are. Tomorrow provides an opportunity to move forward with some optimism. I hope that the Minister and the Government take it and that Parliament responds accordingly.

The Prime Minister stood up in the House today and, as he often does, told us of the terrible things he inherited from the Labour Government. They were terrible things like the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD and zero net debt—shocking things that cause so much difficulty for the National Government. The Prime Minister is fond of talking about people’s horses. Well, John Key’s horse of hypocrisy is tied up at “Debt Mountain”, where he has borrowed $57.7 billion since he came into Government. That is nearly $60 billion borrowed by this Government.

We on this side of the House will not take being lectured by that side of the House about who is a good fiscal manager, about who is delivering on the economy. The Labour Party is proud that on average for 5 years we held unemployment under 4 percent, and we will do it again. We will be a Government that puts people at the centre of the economy. Not speculators, not big interests, not the wealthy few, not the mates of Ministers, but ordinary, everyday New Zealanders will be given a chance and an opportunity.

Tomorrow the Government has the opportunity to deliver to New Zealanders. It has the opportunity to deliver to 147,000 New Zealanders who are out of work and want a job. It has got the opportunity to deliver to the 46 percent of salary and wage earners who did not get a pay rise last year while the bosses at the top end did. It has got an opportunity to deliver to the 285,000 children who live in poverty in New Zealand. That is a figure that the Prime Minister tried to deny today. He tried to not take responsibility for it. He could deliver for them tomorrow. He could deliver for the 40,000 children hospitalised with skin infections and respiratory illnesses caused by the cold, damp homes they live in. He could deliver for them tomorrow. He could deliver for the thousands of first-home buyers who have missed out on getting on to the property ladder under his Government—but he will not.

He will not deliver for them, because tomorrow will be Bill English’s sixth big let-down. It will be the sixth time that the wealthy few get prioritised over the ordinary people of New Zealand. It will be the sixth time that Bill English will come to a Budget, magically find money for private schools and magically find money for tax cuts for the rich, but not find money to deliver to New Zealanders so that everyone gets a good start in life.

On this side of the House we have set the policy agenda. We have come out with KiwiBuild. We have come out with NZ Power. They will help get people into homes and improve the cost of living. We have come up with the Best Start policy, which will genuinely give all New Zealanders a best start. Sue Moroney has her bill for 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. Labour has led the policy agenda, and National has lagged behind. Tomorrow National might try to come up with something to mimic Labour’s policies, but it will not go far enough. It will not deliver opportunity for all New Zealanders.

What I can promise New Zealanders today is that the first Budget of the Labour Government next year will put people first. We will ensure that all New Zealanders get a fair go by reforming monetary policy and by ensuring that everybody pays their fair share with a tax policy where higher-income earners actually pay their tax and actually pay their fair share, and where we have a capital gains tax that takes the speculators out and gives first-home buyers a chance. That will be an economy where people come first, not the wealthy few and the speculators over there. Tomorrow is an opportunity for this Government, but it will be one more big Bill English fail.

As we move into the Budget tomorrow, I want to rise and congratulate the team at Radio New Zealand. You may ask why I would start my speech with congratulations to Radio New Zealand. Well, the reason is that Radio New Zealand appeared before the Commerce Committee last week for its financial review. The chair and chief executive of that august institution reported a significant turn-round in the business. They reported that staff morale was high, that the funding was secure for 18 months, and that the opportunities for growth were unprecedented. This is after 6 years of no baseline increase.

The response from the Opposition members to that improvement in Radio New Zealand was revealing. They were simply incredulous. How could one of their favourite organisations be in better shape after 6 years with no baseline increases? That philosophy, that approach to businesses goes to the heart of why that side of the House should never ever take the Treasury benches. Their total philosophy is that the only way we can improve organisations is to spend more—to spend more. That is the only way to get out of a hole. But Radio New Zealand is in good shape. It has transformed from an inefficient bureaucracy to a modern, lean business that has a very bright future. That is the same thing that has occurred across the State sector with the policies of this National Government. It is a fantastic way forward and it is a good entry to the Budget.

I want to talk about the Budget and, I guess, the policies, because that gives us the opportunity to contrast quite different policies as we get into the next few days. Most particularly, I want to focus on Mr Cunliffe’s approach to getting the unemployment rate down. Right now, after a recession and significant issues that this Government has faced, the unemployment rate has reduced from 7.2 percent down to 6 percent. I predict that over the next few months it will be into the 5 percent range. Unemployment is coming down, and it is coming down under the policies of this Government. So let us look. His goal is to bring unemployment down to 4 percent, but it is actually an oxymoron—Labour policies and low unemployment. Here are just three policies where we differ quite significantly.

The first is capital gains tax. The deputy leader of the Labour Party stood up just before and said that the aim is to take money from the speculative industries and put it into the productive sector of the economy. What Labour forgets to tell you is that it will also tax small-business owners. It does not tell you that in the policy. Actually, if you are a small-business owner, you have been in the business for 15 years, and your business is worth under $200,000, then you may be exempted. But guess what! Most businesses that employ lots of people are worth a lot more than $200,000, which means they will be subject to a capital gains tax, as well. That is totally counter-productive to reducing unemployment. It is a disincentive for businesses to go out and invest. That is a fact.

Secondly, the other side of the House wants to lift marginal tax rates. It wants to tax the higher-income earners in this country—the rainmakers, the people who go out and employ people. It wants to tax them more. We do not. We want to bring taxes down over time. Again, it is oxymoronic. Why would someone go out and work their guts out when that side of the House wants to tax them more? It wants to discourage them from going out and employing people.

The last policy I want to reflect on as we lead into the Budget is around the differences of our unemployment law. We introduced a wonderful policy—the 90-day grievance-free period—which has promoted much employment in this country. That side of the House wants to axe it. It wants to get rid of it. What is that going to do? It is going to discourage good employers from having a crack at a new employee and encouraging them to come into their business.

So, just those three policies alone are totally counter-intuitive to Labour’s goal of bringing unemployment down to 4 percent. On this side of the House we back businesses. We are going to have a strong Budget that brings unemployment down. We are going to be back in surplus. It is going to be a fantastic Budget, and I am going to be proud to be part of the party that presents it.

I love New Zealand. I stood for Parliament for the Green Party because I am passionate about finding solutions to the long-term problems we face. There is no question that we are facing some pretty big challenges. We heard from Dr Kennedy Graham earlier about the clear and present danger caused by human-caused climate change. This is not a subject that is up for debate. We know it is happening, and we know it is caused by us and our use of fossil fuels and our deforestation. We have no choice—either we change what we are doing or nature will change what we are doing for us. But we can change what we are doing and be better off.

The National Government does not seem to believe that this is possible. It wants us to keep doing more of the same—the things that will make climate change worse, that pollute our rivers, that threaten our beaches, and that increase the gap between the wealthy and the poor. National says that is just reality. The reality is we cannot afford to keep doing more of the same thing in the long term. The reality is that we have fantastic opportunities to green our economy, which will create jobs and make New Zealand an even better place to live. That is what the Green Party is here for.

The National Party would have New Zealanders believe that the Greens are against jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. We want high-wage jobs in a cleantech economy. There is a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers I would like to quote: “The potential economic gains from low carbon development are too significant to be ignored. … with the right policies, the clean technology sector in New Zealand could be worth between NZ$7.5 billion and NZ$22 billion to the economy by 2015.” So how do we do this? How do we decouple economic prosperity from resource depletion and fossil fuel use? We need the right policies. We need to remove the barriers to investment in clean technology. That is why our co-leader Russel Norman yesterday announced the policy initiative called the Green Investment Bank. This is just the first of a suite of positive initiatives we will be announcing in the run-up to the election in order to get New Zealand on the right track—that is, creating good jobs in a high-tech, low-carbon economy.

What is the Green Investment Bank? It is Government-owned, but it is a for-profit investment bank that will specialise in projects that increase sustainability. It will cost the Government about $120 million over 3 years to set up. We can fund that by raising our royalties on oil and mining up to international averages. It will be financially self-sustaining and it will earn good returns. Like the Superannuation Fund, it will be entirely independent of the Government. This is not a new or radical idea. Like most Green Party policies, it has been done successfully overseas. The oldest example is in Germany. The State-owned, self-financing bank there has grown to be one of the most successful investment banks in the world, investing $73 billion in projects worldwide, one-third of which have an environmental or climate protection dimension. Green investment banks can be found in Japan, Malaysia, and three of the larger states in the United States, including California and New York, and the Conservative Government in the United Kingdom recently established a green investment bank there.

The Green Investment Bank is a perfect example of an opportunity for New Zealand to create smart, green jobs that will benefit us all in the long term. It is proven, it is practical, it is forward-looking, and it deals with the reality of climate change and our need to transition to a low-carbon economy. It is in sharp contrast to the National Government’s strategy of doing more of the same—more mining, more oil drilling, more motorways, more traffic, more dairy cows, and more raw logs—leaving us completely vulnerable to external shocks, to rising oil prices, and to high costs for the transportation system that we have right now. We are vulnerable to the challenge of climate change and rising oil prices, and we have the opportunity to reduce that vulnerability and leave all New Zealanders better off.

We love New Zealand. The Green Party is here to look after our precious environment and to ensure that all of our people have great opportunities for good jobs well into the long term, well into the future. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I am very excited that tomorrow our superb Minister of Finance, the Hon Bill English, will be delivering his sixth Budget under this National Government. It will provide momentum to keep this country moving forward and will stand in stark contrast to our poor cousins across the Tasman, who have had to face harsh austerity measures and heavy cutbacks in the investment on their public services. The reason that the Australian Government is in such a poor state and that its finances are sliding downhill is very, very simple—that is, years of Labor and Greens misrule. The Labour and Green parties here in New Zealand similarly offer no real substance, no real alternative. They can only sling mud.

I am sure that the New Zealand public will welcome this sensible, sound, and stable National Government taking steps to lock in the very hard-won progress that the households, businesses, and, in fact, all hard-working New Zealanders are achieving. The public also want to see this Government’s accounts back in surplus, back in the black, instead of the decade of deficits that was the inheritance of this Government from the previous Labour one. We are starting to see the pay-off from National’s good work. Good GDP growth rates have meant that 84,000 new jobs have been created in the economy and real wages are rising. And the future is brighter yet. Here in Wellington, in the home of the core public services, things are going well. Unlike the Opposition, I do not disparage our hard-working public servants who are innovative in finding new ways to deliver on improving services to the public whilst operating in an environment of constrained spending.

Obviously, the lion’s share of new measures will be announced in the Budget tomorrow, but there have been a few announcements already made that I would like to refer to. I support any message that helps grow New Zealand’s exports of innovative products and services. Wellington is a creative hub for New Zealand, be it movie making, software design, or even our craft beer industry. So I am delighted that as part of the Business Growth Agenda the Prime Minister and Minister Groser have announced an extra $69 million over 4 years for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to boost New Zealand’s trade support teams in China, South America, and the Middle East. Trade and Enterprise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and those other agencies that support New Zealand firms selling their products offshore deserve our congratulations and our thanks for the increases in trade that they have achieved alongside those hard-working people in the private sector over the past few years. As an ex - Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade employee who had a couple of postings to the Middle East, I think it is absolutely fantastic that the Government is investing in giving even more support to exporters in these challenging but highly lucrative markets.

I also welcome an excellent measure that supports some of the most dedicated servants of State who have often taken huge risks to safeguard our country—that is, the veterans of the armed forces. Today’s announcement by Minister Woodhouse of a $60 million investment in veterans support services is simply wonderful, in my view. Extending the veterans pension to every single one of those who have served, once they reach 65 years of age, is the right thing to do. An extra 16,000 veterans will be recognised for their service to the country. I say to Labour members opposite that it is an utter disgrace that they are considering raising the age of eligibility for the veterans pension to 67 years of age. There are members over there who know that that is the wrong thing to do, and they should be standing up to their leader on that particular issue for those who have sacrificed to ensure our freedoms.

Another announcement that I particularly welcome is the extra $10.4 million over 2 years to support front-line sexual violence services. For those members who do not think that such issues as human trafficking are a problem in our country, I would invite them to read this paper by Shimal Sataiya and Mark Calderwood of Waikato University: Critical Analysis of Child Trafficking in New Zealand. We need to take urgent action on this scourge. The situation in Nigeria with Boko Haram is not unique to that area. There are issues here in New Zealand. We are investing in that area. That is the right thing to do. I welcome that initiative, as will New Zealanders tomorrow. Thank you.

On the eve of the Budget I wish we had a Labour Government, and at the next Budget we will. We will be looking at opportunity for all New Zealanders. It will be a Budget that will ensure all New Zealanders can participate to their full potential. But that is not what New Zealand looks like at the moment. On any measure, inequality is increasing under this National Government. I find it fascinating to see how sensitive members on the other side are on this issue, because they know this to be true. In question time today we saw them all ducking and diving. They do not believe that figure and they do not agree with that figure. Even figures from entirely reputable sources—they do not agree with those figures. Well, not only are they out of touch; they are actually trying to hide the facts.

I just want to note that on many reputable figures, including on OECD measures, the evidence is quite clear: New Zealand has high income inequality. In fact, Bill English seemed to say, as a matter of some pride, that even though we are one of the worst for inequality in the OECD, we are stable at that position. Well, hello, that is not good enough. We want to do much, much better and we want New Zealand to go back to being a more equal country, a country where every New Zealander can get ahead, where every child has opportunity. The Prime Minister does not even agree with the figures confirmed by Treasury that 285,000 children are living in poverty, which is actually 45,000 more than when National took office. Of course, the Salvation Army scored the National Government a D—a D—on that particular measure. So those figures are there for everybody to see.

I want to talk about Auckland. I am a proud Aucklander. I am based in the Maungakiekie electorate, and we have seen reports that under National there are two Aucklands. In fact, the New Zealand Herald talked about a tale of two cities. It was not talking about Charles Dickens’ book A Tale of Two Cities, although there may be some parallels there, one of the main themes in that book being about social justice. That book talked about two cities: London and Paris. In this case we are talking about within Auckland. The article compared people living in the eastern suburbs—in the Ōrākei area, Mission Bay, and St Heliers, where incomes were up significantly—with those living in Māngere and Ōtāhuhu, where incomes have actually fallen. The net effect of that, according to the Salvation Army, is something like a 19 percent drop for people already on a low income, and those people have got an even worse standard of living. That is all under this National Government and that is putting communities under significant stress.

I want to reflect on the fact that in the Maungakiekie electorate, where I work, I can see those inequalities, and I am not the only one. If the Government thinks that New Zealanders are not seeing this, it is very wrong on that matter. New Zealanders do see it. There was a survey quoted earlier where 75 percent of New Zealanders believed that inequality was increasing. Of course, Bill English said: “Well, it doesn’t matter what they think. It’s just not right.” Well, actually, they see it with their own eyes. They see it in terms of family members struggling. They see it in terms of people unable to put food on the table. They see it in terms of their own children unable to even contemplate buying a house. They see it with loan sharks proliferating all around the city of Auckland. Forty-six percent of workers saw no increase in their pay rate in the 12 months to March and yet costs keep going up. That is something the Government wants to try to deny but those figures are correct: 46 percent saw no increase. We need to focus on jobs and we need to focus on lifting wages, and that will happen under a Labour Government.

Housing is the other big issue. Homeownership is plummeting, and that is most pronounced in Auckland. I just want to remind people about the member of Parliament for Maungakiekie, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. He said that there were 1,100 homes under $500,000 in Maungakiekie and that $130,000 as a deposit was not out of reach. That is how out of touch the National Government is. Those figures are clearly not correct. Those assertions are not correct. Housing is a significant problem. We have senior citizens worried about being chucked out of their houses. I have talked to people with heart problems and with cancer who are being ripped out of their Housing New Zealand properties as we speak. There is a shortage of housing throughout that electorate. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this general debate today. I begin by congratulating our Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance on their leadership in managing the New Zealand economy outstandingly. We in the National Party were handed over an economy that was in a dismal state, a country where most of the skilled youth were inclined to migrate to Australia because they could not see a future for themselves in their own country. Not only was our talented and skilled labour force migrating out of New Zealand, we were failing to attract skilled migrants to our shores.

It is with great pride today that each of us in the National Party can share with you and with all New Zealanders that due to the strong leadership provided by the Prime Minister, John Key, and the pragmatic approach taken by our finance Minister, Bill English, they have turned New Zealand into what not too long ago was described as, and as noted by an economist from HSBC, the rock star economy.

In case anyone in the Opposition feels that this was an easy task, let me be blunt and say that it took a lot of hard work in the past almost 6 years, to undo the damage that was done by our Opposition colleagues when they were in Government. It is because of this hard work that we are optimistic that our economy is on the right track to reach our goal of a Budget surplus this year.

Our migrant community has played an active role in the success of our economy. At the start of my speech I alluded to Kiwis leaving the shores of New Zealand for Australia because, in their opinion, Australia can provide a better lifestyle. The Australian Government yesterday presented its Budget for 2014-15, and from what any common person can understand, the Government in Australia has to address a number of challenges through that Budget. The challenges posed to the Australian economy are without doubt due to the reckless spending by the previous Australian Labor-Green coalition Government. A recent study by Deutsche Bank says that Australia is one of the most expensive countries in the world. The Australian Prime Minister has said that the Budget presented by the finance Minister is a problem-solving Budget because Australia has very serious problems of debt and deficit stretching as far as the eye can see, but that it is also a nation-building Budget.

Therefore, I urge all New Zealanders to seriously consider the pragmatic work done by the National Party Government in the past 6 years and start to imagine the negative consequences that a Labour-Green Government can have on the 6 years of hard work done by the National Government. In India there is a saying “Jitne chadar ho utne peer phelana.”, which means to live within one’s own means. We in the National Party believe in living within our own means. By comparison, all other Opposition colleagues do not share the same thought and have a shared spending plan, like the recent opening of the Green Investment Bank. The question they have to ask themselves is, of course: where is the money coming from?

Here I would like to share that the migrants who come over here have got dreams to be successful. I would like to give an example. Some of my fellow Indians started as taxi drivers, but today I see a lot of them are progressing. They are going into the trucking business, and here I would like to quote the latest survey by the ANZ Heavy Traffic Index. The index, which reflects our truck movement on 11 roads, selected because they have historically given good indications of economic activities at the time, rose 0.5 percent just in the last month. To me, this is a very encouraging statistic as this means that despite—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.