Budget Debate

I want to use my 5 minutes in this Budget debate to talk about the arts. From a quick Hansard search of the debate so far, I think I might be the only person in the whole debate to have done that so far.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Oh, you wait, Holly.

I am pleased to see that the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage is here.

This Budget allocates $282 million to arts, culture, and heritage. To put this in context this represents 0.33 percent of total spending in the Budget and 0.12 percent of GDP. It gives a sense, perhaps, of the value of the arts to this Government. The biggest and, indeed, the only increase in the Budget for arts, culture, and heritage is associated with marking the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings next year—$3.6 million for the National War Memorial and $700,000 for commonwealth war graves. It is absolutely right that we mark this anniversary appropriately. That complex chapter in our history needs to be appropriately recognised, and we need to have meaningful national conversations about what these events mean 100 years on. We saw some of this begin to happen on Anzac Day this year. So you will find no argument from the Greens against the inclusion of that extra funding to mark this important centenary. However, funding the commemoration of Gallipoli is not the same as funding the arts. If we remove those items related to World War I commemorations from the Budget, the spending on arts, culture, and heritage has actually fallen by 1.5 percent in Budget 2014.

This is not, as the Minister asserted a year ago, a golden age for the arts in New Zealand—far from it. I recently conducted an online survey of people working in the arts, culture, and heritage sector, because I wanted to know directly from those working in the area what the major issues facing the sector and facing them were. I was delighted and slightly overwhelmed to receive over 1,200 responses, most of which contained substantive policy suggestions and constructive engagement and ideas for fostering the arts in New Zealand. It seems that the creative sector was very keen to be heard, and not one person who filled in my survey said it was a golden age for the arts.

What they did say could be grouped into three clear themes.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Name them.

I will. The first was resources. Artists are very—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: No, the people—

There were 1,200 of them, Minister. It would take the rest of my call to list them all.

The first theme was resources. Artists are very worried about funding for their work. They feel that there are insufficient funds to go around and that the process of cobbling together funding from multiple sources can be time-consuming, confusing, stressful, and demoralising. The second theme was recognition. Artists feel that the arts are not adequately recognised both as a vital part of our economy and for their intrinsic social, cultural, and democratic benefit to the public. Choosing the arts as a vocation is not a well-respected career path in New Zealand. Despite the fact that we all benefit from the fact that some people make that difficult choice, it is not reflected in their experience, particularly when trying to deal with Work and Income. To have your choice of career respected whilst accessing the financial support needed is very difficult for people in this sector.

The final theme was reach. Artists said that as well as funding and promoting the arts themselves, effort needs to go into building audiences and customers for their work, because there is no point in making creative work that disappears off into a void. Fostering participation and appreciation of the arts is just as important as fostering creative work itself. So those are the three Rs. We could add another one as well—the regions—because another strong theme that emerged was that outside the main centres artists found it very difficult to forge a career in the arts or get recognition for their work.

I was keen to see whether any of these things would be reflected in the Budget. Unsurprisingly, I am sad to say, they were not. There were no new resources, as I have said. It was actually a fall in funding for the arts, if you take out the Gallipoli commemorations. There was no recognition. Not one person, certainly not the Minister, has put out a press release about what the Budget does for arts and culture. And there was nothing to assist artists to reach new areas. In fact, there was less funding in that area due to the funnelling of funds into the new Screen Production Incentive Grant in the previous financial year. Finally, for the regions—well, we saved the worst for last. Not only does the Budget contain nothing to foster community arts in provincial and regional New Zealand but it slashes funding for regional museums by 25 percent. That is a quarter less funding for regional museums, just like that.

The Government’s attitude towards the arts was best revealed in the now infamous comment by the Prime Minister, John Key, in a written endorsement to the New Zealand Literary Heritage Trail: “While our literary heroes may never challenge the glory and respect given to our All Blacks, we still need role models to inspire us.” I have news for the Prime Minister: our literary heroes, indeed all our creative heroes, already challenge the All Blacks, but they will not do more of it with the help of this Budget.

The resounding sense that I am left with in the week after the reading of Bill English’s sixth Budget is the extraordinary contrast that it represents. It represents a contrast between a party and a Government that are, first of all, united, that are effective, and that are a team that is 100 percent behind their leader, and the Opposition benches. It contrasts a party that is 100 percent focused on the things that actually matter to New Zealanders and to their families with parties that—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Can I just advise the House that members who do not have the floor do not have the right to interject on each other while another member is addressing the House. Courtesy is contagious, members.

As I was saying, the Budget contrasts a party and a Government that is 100 percent focused on the things that actually matter to New Zealanders and their families with a party that is content to spend its time focused on trivia, on scaremongering, and on conspiracy theories. It contrasts that with a country that is back in black after the terrible years of the global financial crisis, the terrible economic legacy that we were left by the previous Government, and, of course, the difficulties of the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes. It is a country that is back in black after picking up the 2009 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update, in which Treasury said that thanks to 9 years of Labour we were facing never-ending deficits. Treasury never believed, when we took office, that New Zealand would ever get back into surplus—ever.

💬 Andrew Little: You’re just making it up.

Read the pre-election update. Treasury said that we were facing never-ending deficits thanks to the Labour Government and its 9 years of economic mismanagement. But what we have is a country that is back in black, and we are back in black, in contrast to what we are seeing in Australia. As our Prime Minister has said on many occasions, if you want to know what a Labour-Greens Government would do to your economy, would do to your population, would do to jobs, and would do to families, it is called Australia, which is now facing ballooning Budget deficits and critical slashing of public expenditure. By contrast, we are a Government that every year, year on year, has put more money into education and into health, and has seen far better results.

This is Bill English’s sixth Budget, and did he not do a tremendous job? This Budget is a contrast to the wish list of Labour’s alternative Budget. It is a contrast to the unspecified, uncosted waffle that we see from the Opposition. If it had anything serious to offer to New Zealanders by way of contrast, it would have told us. But, no, it would far rather spend its time slinging mud down in the gutter with the rats. You have to wonder when the Opposition parties are going to learn. When are they going to learn that, actually, the measure of a Government’s success is not how good it is at taking money off New Zealanders and spraying it around? If that was the measure of success, if we judged our Governments by how much money they pulled out of the pockets of New Zealanders and threw around, then, no doubt, Labour would be the party we would want. If that is your test of success—who takes the most money out of your pocket and who can spend the most—then you would go to Labour.

💬 Andrew Little: Why did you delay the ACC cuts by a year?

Actually, the reason the polls are telling the story that they are—Mr Little, for all your shouting—is because what actually matters is the results you get for New Zealanders. When New Zealanders come and talk to me, they do not talk to me about what the non-departmental appropriation in the Police spend is. They ask me: “Are we safe on the streets? Will my kids get a good education? Can I get a new hip or a new knee when I need it? Will my kids get a job?”. Those are the things that they talk to me about. On every single one of those, this Government and everyone in it can stand proudly and say “Thanks to 6 years of prudent economic management, absolutely, your children have a much better chance now of getting a job. Absolutely, you have a far better chance of getting a new hip or a new knee if you need it. Absolutely, your children are going to be in a much better position of getting the world-leading education that all five out of five of our students deserve. Absolutely, you are safer on the streets.” That is what matters to New Zealanders, and, even in these tough times, that is exactly what we have delivered.

One of the most important things I think we have done and that you are now really starting to see pay off is setting what we call the Better Public Services targets, where, for the first time, we said to our public sector agencies that what we actually really care about and what we are going to measure you on is whether you are making a difference in the things that matter. We have said to the health sector that what we want to know is whether people are getting elective surgery sooner, whether they are getting cancer treatment in New Zealand, and whether they are getting breast cancer treatment and rheumatic fever treatment. Are your children getting access to the education that they need, are there good reporting standards for parents, and are more children getting into early childhood education places? And they are. We have said to the police that we want to know whether New Zealanders are safer. That is what we are going to judge you on as an agency. They have responded stupendously well. That is actually what matters.

Any party that stands up and says “We can do better because we would spend more money.” misses the point entirely. People care about whether we are delivering better results. We can stand here 6 years in and say: “We have absolutely better health, absolutely the safest streets for 33 years, absolutely better education, and absolutely more chance of getting a job.” That is what New Zealanders care about. This year’s Budget now shows a record of more than $15 billion going into our health sector. As Minister Ryall has just said, it is not about the number, but what it shows you is that we are also getting 40,000 more hip, knee, and other elective surgeries every year. Forty thousand people a year are getting the surgeries that they need but were going to be denied under the Labour-Greens Opposition.

I want to talk for a minute about Canterbury, the area that I am from. I want to reflect on the fact that Gerry Brownlee is doing a tremendous job in what has to be one of the hardest portfolios in our Government. For a period of time I was lucky enough to act as his associate. I have now passed that responsibility to Nicky Wagner, and I know she will do a tremendous job. But let us look at Canterbury. This Budget puts another $50 million into helping the Canterbury recovery. That takes our total to $15.4 billion of support for Cantabrians. We are standing behind our second-largest city. We promised we would, and we are. I want to take a moment to look at some of the statistics out of Canterbury. As of now, we are looking at 53,500 houses fully completed under the Earthquake Commission programme. Another 47,000 emergency repairs have been completed. We are currently seeing 90 homes a day completed under the Earthquake Commission programme—90 homes a day. In fact, the Government is spending $9 million every day on rebuild receipts in Canterbury—$9 million a day.

Let me talk for a moment about the environment, because this Budget continues this Government’s real commitment to making sure we actually get results in the environment—not talk, not rhetoric, not running us down in the international media for political points, but actual results. This is a Government that is delivering the most rigorous national system of freshwater management the country will ever have seen. We were committed to that from day one of coming into Government, and all the way through it has been a core part of our programme. This year’s Budget commits another $20 million of new funding to making sure that that water programme is delivered and supported. If there is one thing that we have learnt through this process, it is that you have got to have good information underpinning good community processes if you are going to get good, resilient results.

What we have seen from other previous Governments that like to talk about the environment was that they talked a big game, but did nothing—nada, zero. Were there ever any mandatory requirements on councils to lift water quality? Not one. Was there ever a study of what the allocation picture was in New Zealand? Not one. Did they even ask the question of what water was coming out of our water bodies and what contaminants were in them? No, of course they did not. They just sat back and said: “That’s a council issue, but isn’t it terrible?”. This Government is delivering. It has put another $20 million in in this Budget alone. This is a Government that is going to see real environmental achievements thanks to the support of John Key, the National-led team, and Bill English’s sixth Budget. We are back in black, and that means that New Zealanders have choices and the opportunity to get ahead, and that is why they are continuing to support the John Key - led Government.

I call the honourable member Andrew Little—an opportunity to make a contribution.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is an opportunity that I relish and seek to serve the good people of New Plymouth and Taranaki well in. I want to start by saying this: there is nothing greater in this country than National Party members’ capacity for self-delusion. They have come here, day after day, since last Thursday, spinning a yarn that even they know to be totally untrue. They talk about the state of the economy. They forget that the last Labour Government produced nine surpluses in a row, built up the Cullen fund, built up the ACC fund to nearly $11 billion over its time, restored the health of that organisation, and delivered the lowest level of unemployment in the OECD. They forget all that.

They forget Bill English’s own endorsement that said that because of the state of the economy, New Zealand was well poised to face the consequences of the global financial crisis. They forget conveniently that New Zealand suffered a drought in the period 2007-08, which caused the economy to slow down. Apparently, it is the Labour Party of New Zealand that controls the weather in this country! The Labour Party is held responsible for that. National Party members—all of them who have stood up to speak—know that they have spoken absolute rubbish about the state of the economy that they claim to have inherited in 2008. The truth is that the last Labour Government conducted itself and its economic stewardship with aplomb.

The other misleading area that the members of this Government keep talking about is justice and the crime rate. Well, that balloon was popped some weeks ago at a symposium organised and hosted by no less a person than the Minister of Justice. One of the imported experts from Britain said that there is nothing that is happening in the crime statistics that politicians can take responsibility for and that there were other factors that were driving the lower reported crime rate—not the least of which was the fact that most cars now have security systems, car alarms, and all that sort of stuff.

But here is the other thing. We know that in this country something else is happening. That is that the way crimes are managed at the front line is changing. You talk to any front-line police officer, you talk to any police prosecuting sergeant, or you talk to any Crown solicitor, and they will tell you that it is not too flash and that the pressure is on them. The pressure is on them to reduce the number of charges, to wind back the charges, to prosecute less, and to try to get that guilty plea for the more minimal charge. That is what is happening in New Zealand today.

What that means for the victims of crime in this country is that they are not getting justice, because the people who are inflicting their evil ways upon victims are not being properly called to account. Soon, at some point in the future, because of the measures of this Government and the justice sector—it will not be too far away—a person who has a record of criminal offending that is not properly recorded in our crime statistics or on his or her crime record will appear before a judge on a bail application, the judge will have flawed information on which to make a risk assessment and will let the person out, and that person will reoffend while on bail and potentially inflict very serious harm on an unwitting citizen.

That is how much this Government cares about justice and the victims of crime in this country. It does not care at all. It does not care at all. You have only to look and see what is happening with justice spending in this Budget: $40 million less, and legal aid slashed—and not just family legal aid, which is what we were told was going to be cut because the new, magic family law system was going to solve all family disputes in an instant, but, actually, criminal legal aid is being cut back as well. This is not a Budget for justice; this is a Budget for injustice.

I want to talk about jobs, wages, and the regions. I spend my out-of-Parliament work time in a region that is claimed by this Government to be loved by it, and a region that it considers to be very important. But this Government is doing nothing for the regions. It is doing nothing for Taranaki. Its sole achievement, after 6 years of being represented by a National MP in New Plymouth, is to expand a 100-metre bridge, when so much more is being asked for and demanded by people. The expansion of a 100-metre bridge is all that the people of New Plymouth have to show for, after 6 years of being represented by a National MP.

What we see in New Plymouth and Taranaki now is good businesses closing and jobs going. These are jobs in heavy engineering, the mainstay of the Taranaki economy for so long—jobs out of Fitzroy Yachts, jobs out of Fitzroy Engineering Group, jobs out of Tenix, and jobs out of Pace Engineering. That industry is under severe pressure because this Government does not care about the regions. It does not put money into the regions. It does not care about Taranaki’s roads. It does not care if people in regions like Taranaki are unemployed and lose their jobs.

While we are talking about unemployment and young people, talking about the young unemployed, let us talk about the comments of the MP for New Plymouth in the House just the other night when he claimed that things were going gangbusters—he said that things were going well. Well, the reality is that they are not. Taranaki’s unemployment rate is higher than the national average. It was 6.5 percent in March this year, and jobs are still being lost.

You look at what the Government is not investing in that is crying out for investment. Roading is one of them. People might make a bit of a joke about me banging on in this House about State Highway 3. It is a crucial arterial road for Taranaki, and it is totally neglected by this Government—totally neglected. The Government has nothing to say about it, and even less to do about it. The road is crying out for attention. It is a road on which countless people have died in the years during which this Government has been in power, and nothing gets done about the underlying problems. Nothing gets done about the poor paving, the poor roading, the poor alignment, the lack of shoulders, or the crumbling cliff faces on the cavernous areas that the road goes through. This Government does not care about it. That is an area that needs attention.

A Government that cared about regions like Taranaki would not stand aside and just cheer on what the private sector is doing in the oil and gas industry, as important as that is. It would know that it has a responsibility to do things as well, to look after the roading, to look after the port, to look after the other infrastructure in that region, to get alongside those big infrastructure businesses like the port, and others, and to make sure that the investment is continuing, that people are being kept in good work, and that the heavy engineering industry is being supported.

The Government would care about its manufacturing policy and make sure it had a manufacturing policy that meant that complex, sophisticated gear, goods, and structures could continue to be manufactured here rather than shutting down our heavy engineering industry the same way that it is doing with forestry and sending good jobs overseas, which is what it is doing. This Government’s performance in the regions is atrocious. This Government’s performance on jobs in the regions is appalling. That is why this Government is running out of time and why people in regions like Taranaki have given up and no longer have confidence in it.

I want to talk quickly about wages. There is one thing that this Government does not talk about, because it is guilty of not doing it, and that is lifting wages in this country. Last year 46 percent of wage and salary earners—nearly half of the entire New Zealand workforce—did not get a pay rise, at a time of a growing economy. Oh, the Government members are very good at standing up and crowing about 3 percent economic growth. They are very good at crowing about the fact that there are more hours being worked and that earnings have gone up, but ask about what is happening with people’s wage rates and whether people are getting a pay increase. They have got nothing to say about it because they do not actually care. They do not actually care that with a growing economy, that is the very time people should be getting pay rises. Nearly half the workforce in New Zealand cannot get pay rises, because our system is busted, broken, and people cannot get them. Now, in regions like Taranaki, we see not only that those who cannot get pay rises do not get them but that good people—the ones who are getting decent pay rises—are now losing their jobs.

This Government’s record is appalling. This Budget has nothing to do for it, nothing to say about it, and the members opposite, from this Government, should hang their heads in shame. The Government’s performance is appalling. It has no economic development plan. It has no regional development plan. It does not care about the regions. The regions are suffering. But come September that will change because the people in the regions know that there are people on this side of the House who care about the fortunes of the regions, who care about what happens to jobs and families and good citizens in the regions—regions like Taranaki—and who will be a Government that will do something about it and lift wealth, share the wealth, share the national income, and make this a fairer and more just country.

I want to begin by paying tribute to Shane Jones. He was an opponent, not an enemy. I very much enjoyed getting to know him when we both went to Israel together on a parliamentary exchange in 2007. He was a great orator, he was a staunch defender of growth and progress, and he was a very hard worker. He was what I would say was a great social democrat in the Peter Fraser tradition, as opposed to those in the Labour Party caucus today who are lefties in what you could call the Michael Foot or Tony Benn tradition.

Sitting on the left-hand side of Shane yesterday was Hone Harawira, who is, hopefully, about to accept the torch from Shane to work hard for his people in the north, but I do not really hold my breath for that. Shane really did work extremely hard for the good folk up in the north, and I want to acknowledge publicly the tremendous assistance he gave me over my 5½ years as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations in Te Hiku o te Ika, and more recently with Ngāpuhi. Hone Harawira comes down to Parliament and gives hellfire and brimstone speeches, but, in contrast to his reputation as a headline hussy, Shane really got stuck in and worked well behind the scenes because he knew the potential benefits of Treaty settlements in the north. I want to say to his successor, Kelvin Davis, that I will be very happy to work with him in a bipartisan way to see a settlement with Ngāpuhi.

I say also to Mr Little—one of the few on the other side of the House whom I happen to respect—that I do think he has absolutely ignored the regional benefit assistance that comes from Treaty settlements. If you look at the Taranaki region, for example, and if you look at the forthcoming settlements with Ngā Ruahine and Te Ātiawa, you have got almost a couple of hundred million dollars going into the New Plymouth region. That sort of money is not to be sneezed at. Moreover, iwi are playing a very important role in housing—for example, Ngāti Whātua’s Weymouth social housing project. An important aspect of our regional development from a Māori affairs point of view is the work that we are doing on the reform of the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. If we get that right, then it will be worth billions of dollars to the country. So all this pro forma Labour Party research unit nonsense about how we ignore the regions does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny, regardless of how you look at it.

This Budget has been accurately described as a Budget for families. That is clear from the extensions to paid parental leave and the increase in the new child tax credit. The Budget is most important, however, because Mr English has kept the home fires burning—indeed, he has fanned the flames. He has made New Zealand a better place to raise a family again. He is bringing New Zealanders home. Under the previous administration, a football stadium - full of New Zealanders—over 40,000—were leaving for Australia every year. Now not only are more New Zealanders staying; with net immigration to Australia only 200 in April, we are seeing the return of sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who had never seen their grandparents before.

This is a Budget that will be welcomed by families, and its benefits are clear—support for parents, and the reunion of loved ones. I can fully understand why the Labour Party is not all that happy with it. In fact, the other day in the House, on Tuesday afternoon, I said to Paula Bennett, my bench mate, that the Labour Party members seemed very unhappy that afternoon. She said: “Well, they’ve just had a caucus meeting—they’ve had to spend a couple of hours in one another’s company.” I think that is the truth of the matter. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Andrew Little, for example, is very unhappy, because he wants to be Labour’s candidate in the marginal seat of Rongotai and enjoy my company in the campaign, and, of course, because he wants to be leader. Under the previous leadership of Phil Goff, David Shearer, and David Cunliffe, they have all been unhappy. Every time they dump their old leader and anoint a new one, there is a fresh wave of new tribulation. David Cunliffe is unhappy because Shane Jones is jumping ship. Phil Goff is unhappy because he did not jump ship a little while ago. I must say that I am not a psychiatrist, so I do not understand why Trevor Mallard is always unhappy. Labour used to be unhappy that the Greens were fringe extremists tarnishing their centrist brand; now Labour is unhappy that the Greens are about to overtake it as the party of Opposition. Labour used to be unhappy under Phil Goff and David Shearer. Labour was being led by a man under the thumb of his advisers, afraid to be himself—

💬 Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that the member has run out of good things to say about his own Government’s Budget, but this is the Budget debate, and I have not heard in the last 3 minutes—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look, there have been some wide-ranging views expressed in the last 14 hours. The Minister is coming to a conclusion—oh no, he is not—but I invite the Hon Christopher Finlayson to continue.

David Shearer was a man under the thumb of his advisers and constantly undermined by Grant Robertson—well, that is the one constant thing in the Labour Party. But the Labour Party wants me to talk about policy. I have been talking about Treaty settlements, the reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act.

Let us come on to an area that Holly Walker and I are interested in, because Grant Robertson was not interested in it as the Labour spokesperson. It was nice to see Jeanette Fitzsimons in the gallery this afternoon. Those were the days when the Green Party was the nice party. I regret it has descended to be the nasty party, but I have to tell you that it is also the erroneous party. I want to say—

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Why do you say that?

Why do I say that? I say that because, for example, on Budget day Holly Walker tweeted that the regional museums’ funding had been cut by 25 percent. No, she was wrong. She had simply misread the appropriations and did not realise that last year’s actual spend included money carried through from the previous year. The actual annual regional museums’ funding is exactly the same. I called yesterday—I have to tell Holly Walker—for applications for over $6 million in funding.

She also tweeted that the heritage funding was down by 23 percent on Budget day—wrong again. She had misread the appropriations. She did not realise that heritage was now in two separate appropriations, with one dedicated to the World War I centenary commemorations, and that the amount had increased overall. World War I commemorations are among the most important pieces of work that I am working on at the moment. I know the Greens do not like any kind of recognition along those lines, but these are important matters, and it is important, I say to Holly Walker, that we look after this particular period in our country’s history very carefully. I have to say to Holly Walker that the arts continue to go from strength to strength. It truly is a golden age of the arts. Te Papa has received further capital spending from the Future Investment Fund, recognising the national museum and art gallery, but Holly Walker ignored this. We have provided $8 million in capital spending this year, after the neglect of the previous Clark administration, to deal with important issues of depreciation, and we are working steadily on the Te Papa North concept, which is going to be fabulous as well.

The National War Memorial Park is being fully funded. This is going to be exciting. The extension is nearly complete, along with the under-grounding, in order to provide a peaceful and contemplative place and to stop car fumes from polluting Mt Cook School, as had been envisaged by the previous Government. I will say to Holly Walker, and she should listen, that the National War Memorial Park will also have numerous cycle paths. I know how important they are to the Greens. This Budget really does have something for everyone.

This golden age follows on from the successful reform of the Arts Council recently and of the Historic Places Trust, and in my outreaching and bipartisan way I acknowledge the contribution of Catherine Delahunty there. There is the review of the orchestral sector, the partnership between the Government and the Film Archive—which Holly Walker ignored—and the fiscal implications of that, New Zealand’s tremendous guest of honour year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the saving of the film sector from trade union thugs and making it internationally competitive. There is so much to talk about in the arts, and that is why I was so disappointed that Holly Walker’s figures were all wrong. She has ignored the fact that the arts are doing very, very well under this Government. If I have got any advice to offer Holly Walker, for whom I have enormous affection and respect, may I say that she would be much better off concentrating on her lobbying legislation, rather than wasting the time of the House raising ignorant and incorrect facts about this wonderful area that I am so very proud to be the Minister of.

The Minister of Finance opened this debate by saying what a privilege it was to deliver his sixth Budget. In response, New Zealanders will make sure he is unable to deliver a seventh, because his Government’s budgetary policies are taking us down the road of traditional macroeconomic policy: short-sighted in time, mired in 20th century ideology, and limited in 21st century vision. I say this to the Hon Chris Finlayson, and he should listen: it is the great-uncle of all Budgets, cynical in tone, and mercantilist in nature.

The Budget has one laudable component: it aspires to eliminate the current account deficit and enter a new era of surplus. That is a necessary aspiration, and the Government is on target towards a wafer-thin surplus, which it is claiming as the ticket to electoral victory this year. This nutrient-thin cake is sugared with the icing of vanishingly small social handouts to families. This is designed to have the Government appear as a benign patriarch—a better and brighter future for all New Zealanders. That future, according to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, revolves around growth.

The transparent shortcoming of this election Budget is that it is intrinsically flawed. It is flawed because it wilfully disregards the difference between sustained growth and a sustainable economy. The Government cites as its overarching objective the goal of what it calls sustained growth. What could be better than sustained growth? The concept conjures up a poster image of jobs, health, and education, all in the context of stable interest and exchange rates and a wizard-like balancing of the books.

Now and again the Minister used the phrase “sustainable growth” in lieu of “sustained growth”, without seeming to know the difference. That is a problem because the concept of sustained growth is flawed. A sustained trend simply means a continuing trend. We can have sustained growth. That just means it is aspiring to go on for ever. We can have sustained growth for a while that is unsustainable—so-called sustained growth that goes on and on until it breaches the carrying capacity to sustain it.

We cannot have infinite material growth on a finite planet. That, in fact, is already occurring at the global level. The ecological footprint breached Earth’s bioproductive capacity in the early 1980s. That curve has continued upward ever since. That curve has continued, with the growth in global population and per capita consumption continuing remorselessly. It is a new form of sustained growth—sustained but not sustainable.

What does that mean for the national economy, our macroeconomic planning, and our budgetary judgment for 2014? It means that when we come to formulate our priorities, we must begin with the goal of sustainability, rather than sustained growth. It may be that sustained growth can occur within the context of sustainability, but if it cannot, it must not be the goal.

National’s four priorities in this Budget were identified as responsible management of public finances, a more productive and competitive economy, delivery of better public services, and the Christchurch rebuild. By way of contrast, let us consider one overriding Budget priority—responsible management of the nation’s economy in the context of global sustainability. Let us consider four supporting goals to that. One, responsible public finances towards a balanced, net international investment position; two, higher economic productivity; three, better public services for greater social equity and higher quality of life, as measured by the genuine progress indicator; and, four, the Christchurch rebuild.

Bill English ended his last Budget statement with the comment that “New Zealand is among the first developed countries to achieve a return to normal economic settings.”, but the global economy is on anything but normal economic settings. Bill English may wish it were, but it is not and never will be again. Until we regard ourselves as ecological stewards in our budgetary planning, until we regard ourselves as being responsible for sustainability above all else, those economic settings will never again be normal. That is what is so deeply flawed in this 2014 Budget.

I call Jan Logie—5 minutes.

This Budget delivered a small fiscal surplus, but today I would like to share with this House some stories from the community on the human cost of this Government’s decision to prioritise tax cuts for the wealthy. This Government has offered crumbs to some of the poor and has told the newborn babies of beneficiaries that they are not even allowed up to the table, let alone allowed their fair share of the pie.

Disabled people are amongst the poorest people in New Zealand. Last year the Government changed the law, to deny equal human rights to family members caring for them, thereby compounding their family poverty. This year, within the income support budget, we have seen further cuts specifically targeting people with disabilities. In 2012 the Government slashed the disability allowance by $37 million—9.2 percent—by removing funding for some medicines and alternative treatments, cutting funded services for beneficiaries, and reducing numbers getting the allowance. Last year we saw the disability assistance budget underspent by $2 million, and now the Government is cutting that budget line again by a bit more than $5 million. This is despite rising costs. It costs more to achieve a normal standard of living if you have a disability. In fact, research shows that it can cost over $2,500 a week more just to have a normal standard of living if you have a significant disability. There are obviously other funding sources for people, but not for everyone, and there are widely acknowledged gaps between health, ACC, and Work and Income.

Many people whom I have spoken to who have disabilities say they have lost considerable amounts of money per week from their benefits over the last couple of years. There is a general consensus that what they receive from Work and Income does not cover anything like the real costs of living with a disability. To get the disability allowance you need to provide receipts. But if you cannot afford to cover the cost of the item in the first place, you cannot claim for it. Further, some things have now been deemed standard costs and not disability costs, and they will not be paid for. Disabled people are now having to regularly visit their doctor to verify their disability, which they then have to pay for, and their doctor’s diagnosis is not uncommonly overridden by Work and Income staff, “employed experts”, who may have no expertise at all in that health area.

I have heard from one person who told me about getting a urinary tract infection because he is supplied with only four leg bags per annum, when the recommended minimum is eight. There are other people I have heard from who have developed infections and pneumonia because they do not have internal temperature regulation and they cannot afford to heat their homes properly. I have heard from people who have disabilities who are significantly underweight because they can afford only one meal a day. I have been told by a health practitioner that they had a patient with mental health problems who was so stressed by the Work and Income system that it had induced a psychotic episode that put them into hospital. I have been told by more than one person that they have been told, against the policy, that they can claim up to only two incontinence pads a day. Where is the dignity? It is clear, from the stories that I am hearing, that although problems are not universal, they are common enough that, to be sure, real harm is occurring. These are stories of some Dickensian nightmare.

The Government is reducing budgets in the face of hardship. Although some Work and Income staff are doing their best, the reduced funding, lack of expertise, and an entire goal to reduce the Government’s welfare liability, instead of supporting people in need, means people are suffering severe indignities. The Government’s line, in response to these challenges, is usually that the Greens would just leave people to rot on the benefit. This is not true. We would ensure that people can live in dignity, and we would implement a proactive equal employment opportunities policy, an agenda, to remove the barriers to employment. We believe that most New Zealanders would be happy to pay for that.

I understand the next call is a split call. I call the Hon Maurice Williamson.

It is a split call, and because it is only 5 minutes my intention is to focus on only one issue, and that is the issue of Bill English and his six Budgets. Budget 2014 did not just happen; Budget 2014 was the result of 6 long, hard-working years to get the country to where it is. It is quite clear that when we came into office the world was about to go through the most catastrophic global financial crisis that it has had ever since the Great Depression.

Members on the other side and members of the Post Primary Teachers Association and the teachers union are often going on—I actually think quite rightly—about how you cannot judge a teacher just by the results of their classes, because if they happen to be teaching a decile 10 class with rich parents and lots of resources, it is a lot easier than if they are teaching a decile 1 class where the kids do not have those resources. I hear about that all the time from the other side. That same comparison works with finance Ministers. If they are preparing Budgets when there are times of abundance and surplus and world growth, as Michael Cullen had—no wonder he was able to produce such surpluses he did not know what to do with them. He had to set up things like the Cullen fund because the world was just growing.

But New Zealanders know that in 2008 a global financial crisis hit the world and countries much bigger than us, much stronger than us, took a battering. Go to Europe and have a look at its big economies that just had their guts ripped out from them. My credit today goes to a finance Minister of a very small economy of only 4 million people, who took a look at the future and said: “We are going to have to do some amazing, amazing accounting work to keep our books in balance and to finally get some surplus.” He said he was not going to do the harsh “Let us put all the pain and suffering back onto the people of New Zealand.”, so he took the rough edges off it, he got under way with his first Budget in 2009, and the sixth Budget in 2014 is a resulting culmination of that.

But it was not even that easy. He only just got going into that 6-year cycle when along came the biggest disaster this country has ever had called the Canterbury earthquakes. Billions of dollars of damage was done to the economy on top of the global financial crisis. The good news is—and I say it is really good news—that the vast bulk of the voting public out there understand the circumstances that the National Government has had to work under to get us to where we are. They understand that the pain could have been way more severe but Bill English’s prudent fiscal management cut the rough edges off it. They know when they look across the Ditch to Australia just what an appallingly managed economy can look like, and they see the pain and the suffering that is going on. And now the time has come for them to make a decision about the future.

I have told this House many times, and I will say it to members again: elections are not won and lost on 457 different items; they are lost and won on one major split. Is it “Is the Government tired and clapped out, and is it time for it to go?” or is it “Don’t put it all at risk, because this lot have done a good job.”? I have been around this place a long time. I have seen when those “time for a change” tsunamis come. I saw one come in for Labour in 1990, and no matter what it did, it got wiped out. Trevor Mallard went, Phil Goff went, Annette King went—it just wiped them out. I have been on the receiving end of one in 1999 under Jenny Shipley. No matter what we did we got wiped out. But do I detect anything like a “time for a change” move out there? No, I do not. In fact, there is not even the embryo of a “time for a change” move, but there is a huge concern about the “Don’t put it all at risk.”

Bill English has delivered to this National-led Government the most amazing set of six Budgets and put us in a spectacularly good position for the future. The general public of this country will thank him for many years to come for being the best ever Minister of Finance under the worst possible conditions he could have ever experienced.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak to this Budget debate and, along with my colleague who has just resumed his seat, the Hon Maurice Williamson, congratulate the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and our Prime Minister on another effective Budget for New Zealanders. It is a Budget that has family and children at its centre. It is a Budget that leads to a surplus in 2015. And it is a Budget that at its core focuses on the issues that really matter to all New Zealanders, and they are health, education, jobs, housing, economic growth, and, above all, living within our means.

There is $173 million on paid parental leave. That is for supporting children, when they are at their most vulnerable, and families during what may be difficult times, and we are there to support them. There is the $90 million on free doctors visits and prescriptions for kids under 13. Over 400,000 kids will benefit, and 45,000 of these will be Pacific. Again, we are there to support them.

The feedback I have been getting in Maungakiekie and from Pacific communities is that this Budget is good for our families and can help with tight family budgets. It shows that National cares about the vulnerable, it cares about those who are in need, and it cares about those families who are struggling. We know that healthy kids are better able to learn, grow, and develop. That is also why we are investing a further $150 million into early childhood education. You see, our children deserve the best start to life, and this Government is delivering on that promise. For Pasifika that means the number of early childhood education centres has increased by 9 percent to 96 early childhood education centres across this country. The number of children enrolled has increased 12 percent in the last 5 years, and now there are over 3,100 children participating in early childhood education. The number of teachers for Pacific children has gone up 30 percent under this National administration, and there are now over 1,900 early childhood teachers across this country.

This Budget is about more jobs. We expect another 172,000 jobs by 2018. In only this last year we have had 84,000 jobs added and created in our country and, again, 7,900 of these are for Pacific people. What that shows is that a job promotes self-reliance, it promotes independence, and it promotes the ability of all New Zealanders to feed, clothe, and develop and nurture their families. Average wages have gone up $3,000 in the past 2 years, and they are forecast to increase by another $7,600 by 2018. For Pacific people the average weekly earnings have gone up 14 percent, or $94, in the last 5 years. There have been low increases in the cost of living. We know that wages will have grown by 13.9 percent by 2018, and inflation will grow by only 9.8 percent. This Budget is about families and our children. This Budget is about New Zealand getting to surplus, and it is about the issues that matter to all New Zealanders.

On 20 September, New Zealanders will have a decision to make. Will they vote in a Government that has a record of success and a vision for a great New Zealand, or will they vote in a rabid Opposition that is divided and devoid of good ideas? I say they will vote in the National Government again. They trust this National Government to look after all New Zealanders: those who are vulnerable, those who are in need, and those who require help. Thank you.

I understand that the next call is a split call—the Hon Damien O’Connor.

Today the Parliamentary Library had a promotion of agricultural industries. As we walked into Bellamy’s, I could not help but borrow this iconic symbol, the sheep, to raise in this House today. This country was built off the back of the proud sheep. Wool was worth the value of gold in the 1950s and is still a core part of one of our biggest industries, the meat industry. But the sheep, unfortunately, is not the brightest of animals. Like the National Party, it has this terrible tendency to follow its leader blindly. When the leader is an international money trader, it is little wonder that that party fails to come up with any vision or any long-term plan for the future of the New Zealand economy.

Can I say that this is a Budget of wasted opportunities, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the meat industry itself. Can I say that the Budget fails to do anything to drive down our overvalued New Zealand dollar. It fails to do anything to curb ever-increasing interest rates and bank profits, which continue to climb. The Budget desperately manipulates figures to come up with a so-called surplus. The social and economic deficit in this Budget will become apparent over the next few years.

From a rural perspective, the jobs we desperately need are still in many ways linked to our proud sheep. But, thankfully, we are a little more intelligent than National. What we are seeing in the sheep industry is that carcases are now being exported to China. We see dryland areas being converted into dairy. We see that pasture-fed protein is now changing to grain-fed protein. That is a lost opportunity because the Minister for Primary Industries in the Government continues to be a sheep instead of becoming the shepherd. It is about time Minister Guy became the shepherd and gave some guidance to an industry where thousands of workers up and down this country are fearful of their jobs because of the declining meat industry.

Communities are at risk. Thousands of Māori workers and thousands of other Kiwis up and down New Zealand who have kept our country going are now at risk because of the declining industry and the fact that that Government did nothing. The Government threw money at the meat industry; it offered no guidance. Its Primary Growth Partnership grant system in the Budget has allocated the best part of $350 million to the meat industry, with little or no accountability. The Auditor-General is investigating that now, and I look forward to the outcome of that. The Primary Growth Partnership grants are an insult to every taxpayer because the Government is giving money to its mates and pretending that it is going to do something to revive the meat industry and give security to those workers up and down this country.

This country desperately needs a Labour Government with vision, a Labour Government—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Ha, ha!

Mr Henare would do well to go and read not Labour Party propaganda or wisdom but the New Zealand Farmers Weekly of this week. Labour’s monetary policy is sound. Until we sort out our monetary policy, no export industry can have security, and no export industry can invest in the way it needs to and know that it will get a fair return. If I can quote from the wisdom of the New Zealand Farmers Weekly, it said that the dollar “is 5-15% higher than is justified by the country’s earning potential.” and is costing us $9 billion a year in export earnings. That would pay off a lot of this debt of $56 billion. In summary, can I quote that “Labour’s plan is not perfect.”—we do not claim that—“But it should reduce dependence on foreign lenders and their expensive money and push the currency down to more export-friendly levels. And for that, it deserves farmers’ backing.” The reason the National Government will not intervene is because it is led by a money trader, and that Government, like this thing here, is a bunch of sheep and will take this country down the gurgler unless we change the Government and put Labour in power.

The Hon Nanaia Mahuta—5 minutes.

National’s Budget 2014 is more rhetoric than reality. The very rich are getting richer and the very poor are finding it much harder. I am from a little town called Ngāruawāhia—many of you might know it—and we just tell it how it is. Many of us in this House have heard stories from nurses, from teachers, from social workers, from road workers, from subbies, from people at the checkouts. They are asking why they are working harder for longer for less. They know, actually, that the National Government has not provided the brighter future that it promised.

On 20 September 2014 people will be turning out to hold this Government accountable. This Budget has not delivered to them. In fact, people are sitting at home listening to this debate and saying that actually it is easy to balance the books when you sell off State assets. It is easy to balance the books when you sell off State assets, but what have we got to show for it?

I want to highlight several things about this Budget. There is no long-term plan for New Zealanders that will deliver a brighter future that is more sustainable, delivering better jobs for higher wages. This Budget does not address the serious challenges of inequality and poverty that families across the country are feeling in very real ways. This Budget does not leverage towards opportunities where the Māori economy can make a significant contribution. Where the rubber hits the road and where normal people at home judge whether or not this Budget is successful is on the issue of jobs.

Let us look around. In our regions there have been a number of job losses, which do not just affect individuals; they affect whānau. In places like Northland, the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, and Manawatū, look at the statistics. They tell a very different story to the one that the Government is trying to have you believe. The regions are suffering. There have not been solutions to grow more jobs in those places where families really need the opportunities. They need to be backed.

In the area of our kids, yes the Budget did provide for free health care for under-13-year-olds, but that is only if you can access those services. Go to places along the East Coast in Meka Whaitiri’s electorate, Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and you actually have to get to the place where the doctor is to be able to access those free health care services. Go to Kāwhia—people will tell you the same thing. Go to Manurewa, where the doctors are already oversubscribed from dealing with a number of vulnerable users, and they will tell you they are already under pressure. Will this funding deliver extra doctors in our clinics? Can the Government answer that? If you are going to provide free health care for under-13-year-olds where it matters, then it has to be about delivering into areas where there are high needs and vulnerability and to those communities where there are a number of factors that limit access to free health care.

In the area of homes, what we see is a solution from the Government where it is transferring the responsibility for social housing to the third sector. It is transferring the responsibility for social housing to the third sector and stepping back and away from that responsibility. To me, that does not sound like upholding the opportunity for people to have affordable rentals; that is passing on the problem. And that is what is happening here under this Government and its Budget. In fact, what is also happening in the space of housing is that homeownership is a distant prospect for low and middle income earners who are scrimping and saving to try to get a 5 percent deposit, let alone a 10 percent deposit. It is a very real challenge.

If this Government is going to stand up and promote a Budget that is delivering on the fronts of jobs, kids, and homes, on all three counts it has failed miserably. There are serious challenges. You cannot just put a plaster on a wound that is beginning to fester. That wound is inequality and poverty. This Government will be judged on 20 September by the way in which it helps the most vulnerable in our society. Alongside my colleagues in the Labour team, I say that they have failed miserably.

Finally, on the issue of Treaty settlements can I say that if this was a Budget that delivered opportunity to leverage off Treaty settlements, we would see far different solutions than the ones coming from the Government. The Government is rushing through Treaty settlements. There will be aspects that will come back to challenge this Government and make it accountable for what it is doing in this space. The Budget has failed those most in need abysmally, and the Government will be held to account.

It is a great privilege to stand and take a call in this Budget debate today. We in this National-led Government are very proud of our 2014-15 Budget. We are very proud of its family focus, including $500 million of support for New Zealand families, which has found favour with New Zealanders right across the country. In my own electorate of East Coast, which has many families struggling to make ends meet and too many communities with very high social deprivation, the free doctors visits for children up to the age of 13 have been welcomed. I would say that they have been extremely welcomed, and I have had numerous phone calls into my office. Also as an area where many women are working one, two, or, in some cases, three seasonal jobs, the expansion of the criteria for paid parental leave has also met a great need as we seek to support newborns and their mums in those early weeks and months.

We in this National-led Government are extremely proud of our Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance, who have steered this country through some of the toughest economic times ever seen since 1931. We have been very lucky to have the leadership that we have had from John Key and Bill English. We in this National-led Government are very proud that we are to be finally back in surplus, ahead of most of the developed world, without having to have made the savage cuts that we have seen our friends around the world have to make in countries like the US, the UK, and then, just recently, our closest neighbour, Australia.

How wise our leaders were to resist the calls from the Opposition—Labour and the Greens—to spray millions and millions of dollars around to artificially stimulate the economy to create jobs. They were largely make-work jobs that Opposition members were talking about. That was what they were begging us to do at the time. They are not saying that now, of course. Now they are saying that they would have done the same as us, that they would have been fiscally responsible, etc. But, actually, in this House they opposed every single change that this Government made to try to restrain Government spending, which had got out of control under the previous Labour Government. But, look, let us face it: the Opposition never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.

This Budget delivers so much to our communities in ways that we know will make a tremendous difference, like $22 million to budgeting services. What a great job our budgeting services around the country do. I know that in Gisborne and Whakatāne, as a result of our welfare reforms, their offices have been working with more and more families. They have welcomed the extra resources, because that enables them to make huge changes and differences in the lives of some of New Zealand’s families.

An amount of $33 million will go to help the most vulnerable in our community, the children who are at the greatest risk of being bashed, of being beaten, and, in some cases, of being killed. I was delighted that the Minister for Social Development today announced those extra Children’s Teams. Two of them are coming into my electorate—one in Gisborne and one in Whakatāne. Both communities have a dreadful record of vulnerable children being hurt by those who should be taking care of them.

We in this National-led Government are proud that Budget 2014 builds on the hugely successful results in recent years in reducing crime and reducing reoffending, to make sure that we have fewer victims out in our communities and that more New Zealanders can feel safe in their homes, in their communities, and in their workplaces. I want to put it on record here today that the police and corrections will continue to target their resources to where they know they will make the most difference, and they will work smarter. They will work smarter because that is what it is all about. It is very clear that the Opposition does not understand that. It thinks that if you throw more money at something, it is going to get better results. We know that that is not the way it works. We know that we can deliver better public services by actually working smarter. Certainly in the justice sector we are seeing that on a daily basis—working together and working smarter. The Opposition does not understand that.

Can I say here today that the police’s core operating budget is being maintained at $1.46 billion in 2014-15. I know that the Opposition has tried to make much of some expenditure from last year that has not been carried over into the 2014-15 year and has described it as cuts. Well, that is just not true. Restructuring human resources and finance, implementing the Criminal Procedure Act, a road policing underspend, sending more people off to the Solomons—these are things that happen just once, so why on earth would you carry over the funding for that into another year? I know that it is really difficult to read Budget figures when you are in Opposition and they are just looking for a quick headline, but, actually, the facts are that the police’s baseline funding has been maintained. And we have seen over the last 4 years, as the police budget has been maintained, that they have worked hard to reduce recorded crime to a 30-year low. We have seen a reduction in crime of 20 percent, and they have done that by working together and working smarter.

We have heard the Labour Opposition criticising the police for that. Opposition members minimise the effort that the police have put into reducing those crime rates, by saying that it is happening all around the world. Well, I can tell you that it is not happening around the world to the extent that it is in New Zealand. We are world leaders. Our police are doing a fantastic job, and they deserve the support of every member of this House to pat them on the back. People out and about tell me that foot patrols—having more police wandering around in the central business district, keeping an eye on what is happening, and out and about in vulnerable neighbourhoods—make them feel safe and actually stop crime from happening in the first place. This is about how we work smarter and support our police to deliver safe communities.

Budget 2014 also supports the Prime Minister’s Better Public Services targets to reduce reoffending rates by 25 percent by 2017. Corrections are doing a fantastic job. They have increased drug and alcohol rehabilitation places both for prisoners and for those who are serving community sentences, alongside providing much, much greater access to education and skills training, because we know that those are the things that will make a difference to the lives of those people as they finish their sentences and go back into our communities. Seven and a half thousand prisoners leave prison and go back into our communities. The Government invested $96 million over 4 years to increase that rehabilitation, and we now have 9,300 fewer victims of crime a year as a result of a 12.5 percent reduction in reoffending. That is making an enormous difference to the lives both of the offenders and of the people in their communities.

We in the National-led Government are proud of our justice sector, and we back it. We applaud its hard work and its dedication, and we encourage the sector in its desire to work smarter and to deliver better results and safer communities. We know that cash is not king, as our colleague Shane Jones talked about last night. Cash is not king. When it comes to public services, it is the results that count. It is better results for New Zealanders, and in the justice sector it is better results so that people can feel safe living in their communities. I am proud to be part of a National-led Government, standing and delivering the 2014 Budget.

It is a privilege to be able to just wind up this Budget debate as the Government looks to a confidence vote with some confidence. I was very pleased to hear Minister Tolley’s speech, because she, along with other Ministers, has done an excellent job over the last 6 years now—almost 6 years—of providing better public services when we have had a tight budget, and we have done it again this year. At a time when the Government is spending less new money, by a large factor, than the previous Labour Government, we are seeing improvements in those kinds of issues that are at the core of the purpose of our public services. This is a Government that seeks to resolve problems and reduce misery, not fund a system that feeds off it.

That is where the Labour Party is. The Labour Party believes in State monopolies that fund services that feed off misery. Labour does not want problems solved, because if you have less misery, you have less Government. That is a key to this Budget.

Under this Budget the Government will spend 30 percent of GDP—down from 35 percent just 4 years ago. We have been able to control expenditure not by slashing and burning but by understanding the core drivers of criminal behaviour, of educational failure, and of social dysfunction, and starting to act on them. I say “starting” because it is pretty clear that the changes we are bringing about in public services are only just getting going and the benefits are only just starting to flow. There is so much more to be done. That is why we have a surplus. We have a surplus because what works in our communities works for the Government’s books. Less crime, less spend—you get a surplus. More educational achievement, less remedial teaching—you get a surplus. That is what is working. That is in the context of a growing economy.

We are having a confidence vote. This is a confident Budget for a confident country—a Budget for a country that knows where it is going from a Government that knows what it is doing. That is why it is going to win the confidence vote in this Parliament. It is because it is in the context of an economy that is growing and New Zealanders beginning to understand that all New Zealanders can share in the benefits of that growth. This time around, it is New Zealand families with young children. That is the product not of any particular big decision in this Budget or in the previous five from the John Key - led National Government; it is a product of considered and consistent change over time, always working towards sustained economic growth that can deliver dividends to New Zealand households year after year. New Zealanders do not really measure growth in terms of GDP. They measure it in terms of better job security—and it is a lot better now than it has been for a long time—and whether their incomes are likely to rise. If we achieve, if New Zealand achieves—

💬 Andrew Little: You’ve got a pretty bad start so far—46 percent can’t get a pay rise.

It is interesting that the member keeps quoting that, because that is about the average in most years, including when he was in Government. In any given year when Labour was in Government, 45 percent of the workforce did not get a pay rise. But I will tell you what they were doing. I will tell you what was happening. They were paying interest rates of 10 percent for first-home mortgages. The cost of living was going up. Inflation by 2007-08 was 5 percent, and today it is less than 2 percent. So they had no wage rises, interest rates were going through the roof to 10 percent, and the cost of living was going up by 5 percent.

💬 Andrew Little: What are you doing to lift wages?

OK, well, let us discuss some of the member’s proposals that came up in this Budget debate. Here is one. Here is a question: what is the Labour Party’s immigration policy? All I would say is: “Don’t ask Labour because it doesn’t know.” I think, as Phil Twyford said, it was going to cut immigration to a net 5,000. So I expect that this weekend at the ethnic functions in Auckland, Labour members will be getting up in front of the Indian community and saying “There’s far too many of you. We’re going to cut the number. We’re going to slash the number—no more Indians.” Then, because they are true to their word, they will be going off to the Chinese celebration and saying “Ah, too many Asians in housing auctions around Auckland. They’re all Chinese. We’re going to slash the numbers.” And then they are going to go down to the Pasifika function. That is right, and they are going to say “No more family members from the Pacific Islands.” That is because Phil Twyford and David Cunliffe said on the radio: “We are going to slash immigration in order to control the housing market.”

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: That’s what that means.

It is not just what it means; it is what they said. It is what they said. Labour’s immigration policy is to slash migrant inflows. I think it is a bit weird. I think it is a bit weird from a party that has traditionally regarded itself as the representative of the migrant communities. But we will be there, Ms Collins will be there, Sam Lotu-Iiga will be there, Kanwal Bakshi will be there, and they will write down what Grant Robertson says to those people. But then it is not weird when you think about what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: What are they saying?

I will tell you what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders. They are saying—I thought you might be interested—“We’ve got this really bright new idea, which is to increase KiwiSaver contributions so that the Chinese buyers don’t have to pay higher interest rates.” OK? Or: “So that the Indian buyers do not have to pay higher interest rates.” So we have asked a simple question: by how much would you need to increase KiwiSaver contributions in a compulsory scheme to offset a 1 percent increase in interest rates?

💬 Chris Auchinvole: And what do they say?

They do not know, so we have done our own calculation and it is 15 percent—15 percent. So the Labour members in the weekend are going to be out in the Ōtara market, saying to women who have the second job in a household and are doing 25 hours’ cleaning in the middle of the night during the week in order to feed their family: “You have to join compulsory super, and we are going to take 9 percent of your gross income off you. That’s not enough, because when the Chinese drive the interest rates up, we’re going to put it up to 15 percent.”, and we will be listening. What a stupid, dangerous, unfair policy. Apparently slashing immigration and forcing low-income people to save money they do not have is Labour’s response to the Budget. I used to think Labour was lazy, but I did not think it was that silly. I really did not.

I am looking forward to campaigning in South Auckland with the growing interest from the Pasifika vote. We can stand up and say that jobs are growing, wages are rising, and Labour will stand up and say “We are going to slash your take-home pay and make sure your family cannot come to New Zealand.” But do you know what Labour will do? It will say something completely different. As usual, we will have no idea what its policy is, because in here, in the office buildings, and on Radio New Zealand National it says compulsory superannuation and slashed migration, but when the members get out in the suburbs of Auckland, I do not know what they will be saying. They will be sounding like Martin Luther King. That is what they will do—

Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. This debate has concluded. The question is that the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon David Cunliffe, be agreed to.