Thursday, 17 May 2018
Volume 729
Sitting date: 17 May 2018
THURSDAY, 17 MAY 2018
THURSDAY, 17 MAY 2018
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
Bills
Supplementary Estimates documents
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I hereby present the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2018.
SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House.
Budget Documents
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I hereby present the Budget 2018 speech, the Budget at a Glance, the Budget Responsibility Rules, the Fiscal Strategy Report, the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, the Summary of Initiatives in Budget 2018, and the Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2019.
SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.
Appropriation (2018/19 Estimates) Bill
First Reading
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2018/19 Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.
Bill read a first time.
Budget Statement
Second Reading
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2018/19 Estimates) Bill be now read a second time.
Foundations for the Future
Mr Speaker, I move that the Appropriation (2018/19 Estimates) Bill be now read a second time.
Introduction and 100-Day Plan
I am delighted to present this Coalition Government’s first Budget.
Budget 2018 sets out the first steps in a plan for transformation – a transformation of our economy, a transformation of our public services, and a transformation of the way we work together to improve the lives of all New Zealanders.
This is a Government that does things [a little bit] differently. You can expect our Budgets to look a little different also.
We are committed to being responsible – not just fiscally, but socially and environmentally.
Budget 2018 lays the foundations for New Zealanders to have better lives in the [future].
This starts with making sure that all New Zealanders have access to the high quality public services they need and deserve – such as health, education and housing.
It also means shifting the settings of our economy to face the challenges of the future – lifting productivity, making a just transition to a more sustainable low carbon economy, and adapting to a rapidly changing world of work.
This Government is determined to ride the leading edge of these waves of change. If we are to stay ahead, we know we need a good plan, and we [know we] need to work together as a country.
Our Government has a clear vision. Our priorities and intentions were set out for all to see in the Speech from the Throne and in our 100-Day Plan.
Our priorities are different from the previous government. We are determined to turn the page on the ideology of individualism and a hands-off approach to our economy that has left [far] too many people behind.
Our first action was to reverse the untargeted tax cuts proposed by the previous government, so that we could deliver on our commitments to improve the lives of middle and low-income New Zealanders.
We have already delivered a significant programme of reforms:
Our Families Package will see $5.5 billion over the next four years focused on improving the living standards of those who need it most. When fully rolled out by 2021, this Package will see 384,000 families better off by an average of $75 per week;
From July 1 this year, the Best Start payment of $60 per week will begin for every new born child in their first year and will continue for many thousands in their second and third years;
Also on the first of July, the Winter Energy Payment begins, helping superannuitants and those on main benefits meet their heating costs by providing $450 for a single person or $700 per couple;
The minimum wage increased to $16.50 an hour from April, and this will rise in phases to $20 an hour by 2021;
Paid parental leave has been extended, rising from 18 weeks, to 22 and then to 26 weeks by 2020;
The KiwiBuild programme has been established to deliver affordable housing;
The Healthy Homes Guarantee Act has been passed to ensure that all rentals are warm and dry;
We restarted payments into the NZ Superannuation Fund, after [nine years of] no government contributions … ;
We have fully funded the first year of our fees-free post-school education and training policy; and
We introduced the Prime Minister’s Child Poverty Reduction Bill to set the targets and measures for making a significant and sustained drop in child poverty.
Those are just a few of the policies we have already made a start on, and paid for already.
There is of course still much to be done.
Transformation takes time. It cannot happen all at once. One Budget cannot instantly fix nine years of complacency and neglect. We have to balance our ambitious goals with our responsibility for fiscal sustainability.
Budget 2018 sets out the foundations of this Coalition Government’s plan for the next three years, and looks towards the next thirty years for New Zealand.
I would like to acknowledge the work of the partners in this Government. The Labour Party is proud to work with our Coalition partner New Zealand First and our Confidence and Supply Partner the Green Party. These Parties come from different traditions but [we] are bound together by a shared purpose to improve the lives of all New Zealanders and across future generations. Our agreed commitments will continue to be our guiding force across this term of government, and they will be delivered.
Economic and Fiscal Outlook
We want an economy, an environment and a society which are sustainable, productive and inclusive. These will be the strong foundations for our future.
We must make our economy more sustainable for future generations. This means caring for our environment as a core value, not as an after-thought. It means transitioning in a just and deliberate manner towards a low carbon economy.
To transform the economy we have to be more productive. We have to work smarter, build our skills and resilience, explore new innovations and adapt to change. We cannot continue to rely on merely increasing our population, exporting raw commodities and an overheated housing market to drive economic growth.
Our economy must be … inclusive, too. This means a society where everyone has an equal chance to fulfil their potential, to contribute, and to live meaningful, connected, healthy and fulfilling lives.
Ultimately we want New Zealand to be a place where everyone has a fair go, and where we show kindness and understanding to one another.
It is clear to me that no one in New Zealand wants a society where people have to live in a car or on the street, where children go to school with no shoes or no lunch, where our transport systems are clogged, our hospitals unhealthy, our prisons overflowing, and our education system overwhelmed.
Yet, despite our solid economic growth, that is the place New Zealand finds itself in today. It is not the New Zealand way and it is not acceptable to this Government.
Our plan will grow and share our prosperity, so that our whole society is lifted up, and everyone has access to good quality healthcare, education, housing, and other social services.
That is why, in this Budget, the Government is prioritising those investments that will rebuild the critical social and physical infrastructure in New Zealand, and address the long-term challenges we face.
At the same time, we are committed to living within our means, and having a buffer to deal with the risks and shocks that can come upon a small country sitting on the faultlines of the Pacific.
Mr Speaker, the outlook for the economy is positive.
The Treasury forecasts economic growth of about 3 percent per annum on average over the next four years. Wages are forecast to rise by an average of 3.1 percent over the forecast period, with real terms average wage increases in each year.
Unemployment is expected to fall to 4.1 percent in late 2019, in line with the Government’s target of reducing unemployment to 4 percent by the end of this term.
Stronger-than-expected revenue is being generated from economic and employment growth. This [does give] us breathing space to properly consider any changes needed to our tax system.
As promised, we have … established a Tax Working Group to recommend how to create a better balance in our tax system. Getting these signals right is a vital step towards improving the long-term sustainability and productivity of the economy.
Budget 2018 begins steps to restore tax fairness. More funding is being given to Inland Revenue to crack down on tax dodgers. This is expected to recover more than $183 million over the next four years.
Other recently announced initiatives will reduce distortion in the tax system. These include ring-fencing rental losses and closing the loophole on offshore companies avoiding GST on low-value goods sold locally.
We must manage the country’s finances responsibly for … future generations. This Budget delivers an operating surplus for 2017/18 of $3.1 billion rising in 2018/19 to $3.7 billion, with surpluses reaching an estimated $7.3 billion by 2022.
These surpluses allow us to reduce debt. The Budget Responsibility Rules commit us to reducing the level of net core Crown debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years of taking office.
The Treasury forecasts that net core Crown debt will reduce to 19.1 percent of GDP by 2021/22, giving us a good buffer for issues that we are yet to see the full consequences of, such as the Mycoplasma bovis cattle disease.
We are also delivering on our Budget Responsibility Rules by keeping government expenditure below 30 percent of GDP. Core Crown expenses are expected to track at … 28 percent of GDP each year through to 2022.
Keeping to these rules allows us to make significant and sustained investments in our future.
The new spending announced today is enabled by more tax revenue than previously forecast, some previously announced tax changes, reprioritising some spending, and taking a more responsible approach to debt reduction. We are slowing down the debt repayment track of the previous government by two years.
Responsible fiscal management and a strong economy give us the space to increase the new operating spending allowance from the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update to $2.8 billion for this year, and the new capital … allowance to $3.8 billion. The allowances for the remaining years of the forecast period have also been increased to reflect the cost pressures that will need to be met in coming years.
All together this means that over the next four years we have about $24 billion more than the previous government had planned to invest in infrastructure and social services, so we can repair the deficits that are undermining our economy and communities.
This will lay the foundations for our economic and social transformation.
Rebuilding Core Public Services
This Government recognises that strong economic indicators are only part of the story. We will not continue the trend of declaring success while at the same time underfunding the services we … rely on. This Government is committed to properly funding [our] core public services.
Rebuilding our health services is the top priority for this Budget.
Health will receive a huge boost in new operating funding with $3.2 billion more over the next four years.
This begins the journey to rebuild a health system that has simply not been given the resources to meet the demands of population growth and an ageing population over recent years.
An increase of $2.3 billion for District Health Boards will enable our hospitals and health services to provide quality care at all times to those who need it. This funding means there will be more money for services, such as mental health, the opportunity to update technology and take pressure off over-worked staff. This is the bread and butter funding that makes our hospitals and health services work well, and that has been neglected for too long.
Today that changes.
We are also announcing $750 million of new capital for health projects. Last year that equivalent investment was just $150 million. Today’s investment is the biggest commitment to rebuilding health infrastructure in a decade. This Budget also sets aside funding for the design work for a brand new hospital in Dunedin.
Mr Speaker
Today I want to speak directly to the dedicated professionals who work in our health system: You have carried the burden of a system that was unable to cope with the demands it faced. Thank you for your service and your dedication. Together, we begin a journey today to re-build our health services.
This Government wants to improve access to affordable, high quality health services for young people and for those most in need. That’s why our first step today is extending access to Very Low Cost GP visits to all Community Service Card holders.
At the same time, we’re extending the Community Services Card to all Housing New Zealand tenants and those receiving an accommodation supplement or income-related rent subsidy, so more people become eligible for cheaper doctor visits.
This will make doctor visits approximately $20 to $30 cheaper for more than half a million people.
As promised as part of our agreement with New Zealand First, free doctors’ visits will be available to everyone under the age of 14, and their after-hours care and prescriptions will also be free.
Many other health initiatives will be funded through today’s Budget.
A further $126 million will be invested into elective surgery.
This Budget [also] finally addresses a significant unfairness for community midwives. I am pleased to announce the investment of $103.6 million which will see an 8.9 percent catchup increase in fees and improved working conditions for over 1,400 health professionals over the next four years.
We also recognise a rising demand for air ambulance services which are a critical part of how we respond to health emergencies. In this Budget close to $83 million in new funding will go towards these services.
We [also] want to save more lives by detecting illness and disease earlier when it can be more successfully treated. This Budget allocates $67 million to further extend the National Bowel Screening Programme.
This Government is concerned about mental health and young people in particular. We have already announced an Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction to identify gaps and what more is needed. New Zealanders can expect to see more funding given to mental health in future Budgets, after the Inquiry has [released its findings].
In the meantime, in this Budget, as part of our Confidence and Supply agreement with the Green Party, we are putting $10.5 million towards a pilot programme to develop integrated mental health therapies for young people. We are also extending the nurses in schools programme to all public decile four schools around New Zealand. We have already funded additional support for young people in Kaikōura and Canterbury who have been affected by the earthquakes.
Mr Speaker
In Education, this Budget provides $1.6 billion in new operating funding over four years. This new operating funding is a 45 percent increase on last year’s Budget.
New funding will address increasing demand for early childhood education and roll growth. We will provide $590 million to better support the early learning needs of 200,000 children. This will be the first universal adjustment for early childhood … services in a decade.
Schools will receive a $203.6 million boost to their operating funding, to keep up with the growing number of students and help meet rising costs. This funding amounts to a 27 percent increase from the equivalent funding provided in last year’s Budget.
We are also providing for an additional 1,500 teachers in our primary and secondary schools across the country over the next four years.
Another $395.8 million will be injected in new capital funding for better schools and to build hundreds of … classrooms.
As part of this we are continuing the Christchurch Schools Rebuild programme. Budget 2018 will contribute $62 million of new capital funding and more than $16 million of new operating funding for these schools.
The new funding announced today includes a long overdue boost for learning support to help all young people participate in education. Learning Support operating funding will go up by more than $272.8 million over the next four years.
To the parents of children with additional and complex learning needs, I want you to know we have heard you. In addition to announcements already made by the Prime Minister, we are providing $133 million to the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme, to support an additional 1,000 students from next year.
I am [also] very pleased to announce that teacher aide funding will receive an extra $59.3 million through this investment.
We want more inclusive schools – so every child with additional needs and learning difficulties can truly participate in school life.
New funding will support this Government’s work on long-term strategic plans for the education system. Too much of our education policy is … stuck in a 20th century mindset. To this end we are reviewing Tomorrow’s Schools and NCEA, and we want a continuous focus on raising achievement for Māori and Pasifika learners.
In this Budget a new programme, Te Kawa Matakura, championed by the Hon Kelvin Davis, will be developed for students who exhibit excellence in Te Ao Māori.
In the tertiary area, we have already fully funded the first year of our fees-free post-school training and education policy. We want people from all backgrounds to be able to go on to training and education at any time. This is not just about those going [from school to university]. It’s about more apprentices and more in-work training. It’s about providing more opportunities for a wider range of New Zealanders to train and re-train as the world of work changes.
The most prosperous countries in the world tend to be those that invest the most in education. Better education leads to better lives, and today we begin those investments with new energy.
Mr Speaker
This Government is determined to take action on the housing crisis and the scourge of homelessness which has emerged in this country.
In December’s mini-Budget we allocated $2.1 billion for our ambitious KiwiBuild programme to deliver 100,000 long-overdue affordable houses built across the country, including 50,000 in Auckland over the next 10 years.
Budget 2018 commits more than $1 billion in new funding to go towards Housing, including $369 million in new capital funding.
The different priorities of this Government are never clearer than in housing. One of our first actions was to stop the state house sell-off.
Today, I am announcing that this Government is taking serious action to increase the supply of public housing by investing $234.4 million in operating funding for Housing New Zealand and Community Housing Providers. This will provide more than 6,000 homes [—in fact, 6,400 homes—] over the next four years.
We are working with councils to deliver more houses. For instance, the Tāmaki Regeneration Company, which is jointly owned by the Government and Auckland Council, will be given another $300 million to provide about 700 state houses, as well as another 1,400 houses in Tāmaki for the open market.
These will be new, warm and dry houses. Too many of our homes are cold and damp, leading to preventable diseases. A new programme to make Kiwi homes healthier will provide $143 million to go towards grants for those on lower incomes to insulate and heat their homes. Investing in warmer homes simply makes sense.
This Government is determined that never again will New Zealand be reported as having the worst homelessness in the OECD.
In this Budget, our Government will support more than 1,400 of New Zealand’s most vulnerable homeless people and families through the Housing First programme …
Housing First supports people who have been homeless for a long time or who face multiple and complex issues. We recognise it is much easier for people to address issues like mental health, or drug addiction, once they are housed.
This programme aims to end homelessness for people, not just manage it.
Mr Speaker
All these plans announced today, as well as the Families Package, will help to lift children out of poverty.
This Government is committed to a bold plan to reduce poverty and material hardship for our children, so that New Zealand truly becomes the best place in the world to be a child. The initiatives we have already put in place will lift tens of thousands of children out of poverty. But we know that we have more to do.
The Prime Minister’s Child Poverty Reduction Bill is at the heart of our plan. It requires a strategy with bold new targets to be set to reduce child poverty over 10 years. We want to ensure constant progress towards improving the lives of children in New Zealand.
Two new expert units are being established within the Prime Minister’s Department … The Child Poverty Unit and the Child Wellbeing Unit will advise on policies and develop the overall strategy [for] the wellbeing of all children.
We want New Zealanders’ help on this and there will be widespread public consultation on the plan and the priorities … this year.
Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, will receive an additional $141.6 million over the next four years so more children and young people receive the care they need.
Grandparents raising … grandchildren and other caregivers will get extra support - we are entitling them to the same clothing allowance as foster carers.
In a country as wealthy as ours, there is no reason why any child living here should suffer in poverty. It is time we started putting children first. If we improve the wellbeing of … children, we will be a rich society indeed.
Sustainable Economic Development
We are focused on playing our part to support generating prosperity and sustainable economic development.
To that end, we are prioritising infrastructure.
You will have heard already about this Government’s plans for transport. This will see increased investment in regional roads, rail, walking, cycling and safety. This will impact right across New Zealand.
Together with the Auckland Council, we recently unveiled a record investment of $28 billion under a new 10-year funding package. Traffic congestion in Auckland is costing $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Our package will free up our biggest city.
Budget 2018 also includes further funding for reinstating the Main North Line following the Kaikōura earthquakes and more funding for KiwiRail.
Mr Speaker
It is time, once and for all, for the people of Canterbury to be properly supported in the regeneration of their community.
I am proud to announce that this Budget provides a $300 million Acceleration Fund for critical projects. This will see faster progress on the residential red zone and a multi-use arena. Cantabrians have waited too long and this Government is determined we will play our part in making these vital projects a reality.
We are also launching an independent inquiry into the performance of the Earthquake Commission to ensure lessons are learned from the aftermath of the earthquakes.
As promised, this Budget also provides new funding to establish and operate a tribunal to resolve unsettled residential insurance disputes arising from the Canterbury earthquakes.
Mr Speaker
It is vital [that] our economy [is] prepared for the future. This will require a new approach with fresh thinking. As Albert Einstein is reported to have said: “No problem can be solved by the same kind of thinking that created it.”
This is why Budget 2018 gives a major boost to innovation, with $1 billion over four years to finance a tax incentive for more Research & Development by Kiwi businesses. We have committed through the Coalition Agreement with New Zealand First to lifting our Research & Development spending as a country by 50 percent – to 2 percent of GDP inside 10 years.
This is about future-proofing our economy.
We are also building on Labour’s Future of Work Commission to ensure we can face the future with confidence, built on a resilient and adaptable economy. We will establish a tripartite forum with Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions to advance projects that will improve business use of technology, create more productive workplaces, improve skills and training and support a just transition to the rapidly changing world of work.
A range of digital and data initiatives are funded in this Budget, including New Zealand’s first Chief Technology Officer. Crucial investment will also be made to counter major cyber threats.
This Budget provides support to small businesses. In particular the introduction of e-invoicing will see small businesses able to be paid on time and ensure better cashflow.
Mr Speaker
We want to support the value the primary sector brings to New Zealand’s economy.
The Ministry for Primary Industries will receive new operating funding of $38 million over four years so it can better keep New Zealand safe from pests and diseases, ensuring the food we produce is safe and our natural resources sustainable.
This Government wants to work alongside farmers and rural communities to provide leadership in sustainability. This Budget gives $15 million more in operating funding over the next four years to the Sustainable Farming Fund to develop cleaner, smarter farming.
This Government is determined to strengthen our biosecurity system after years of neglect. Budget 2018 will give $9.3 million in new operating funding over the next four years to improve systems to better manage the risks.
Mr Speaker
Our provinces need to thrive if New Zealand is to do well.
This Budget formally establishes the $1 billion per year Provincial Growth Fund to support growth in the regions …
This Fund represents the single biggest investment in the regions of New Zealand in our lifetimes. It aims to enhance economic development opportunities, create sustainable jobs, contribute to community wellbeing, lift the productivity potential of [our] regions, and help [New Zealand meet our] climate change targets.
This year the Provincial Growth Fund will be made up of $684.2 million of operating expenditure and $315.8 million of capital expenditure. This includes significant investment in the One Billion Trees programme and support for regional rail projects.
The Budget also sets aside funding for the establishment of the New Zealand Forestry Service. Our investment in forestry will help us to deal with climate change, lift our economy and provide employment.
Mr Speaker
This Government wants to be a … leader on climate change in urgently reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases. We will introduce a legally binding emissions reduction target and emissions budgets to keep New Zealand on track to this goal. We will establish an Independent Climate Commission to recommend emissions budgets and provide advice.
It is possible and necessary for New Zealand to transition to our goal of a net zero emissions economy by 2050. This will require some major changes, but we can do this if we work together.
This Government also sees the opportunity that this transition provides. Budget 2018 sets aside $100 million of new capital funding for the Green Investment Fund to kickstart investment in assets and technology to reduce carbon emissions.
This Fund, which is the result of the Confidence and Supply Agreement between Labour and the Green Party, will help a just transition to a more sustainable economy that will ultimately create jobs in new, clean industries.
There are other environmental challenges to [face].
After years of neglect this Government is going to make significant … investments in conservation, delivering on our promise to protect New Zealand’s distinctive native wildlife, plants, and landscapes.
Budget 2018 delivers more than $181 million in new operating funding for conservation initiatives over the next four years.
Predators such as possums, rats, and mice, are firmly in our sights with more than $81 million going towards predator control. Money will also be set aside for biodiversity initiatives and conservation staff numbers will increase, with better management of popular visitor areas.
Mr Speaker
A big part of any economy is the work force. We wish to make sure New Zealand has the workers it needs, in the places it most needs them. And we want to make sure wages and conditions are fair and workers are treated with dignity and respect. It is our view that the growing gap between the highest and lowest paid is counter to New Zealanders’ values.
Work is underway on developing lists of regional skills and labour shortages. We want an immigration system that really works for New Zealand. We want to match migrant skills to the regions and industries where they are needed most. We want to ensure that any genuine skill shortages are filled, with immigration levels that are sustainable.
We also want to stop any exploitation of workers. The Budget significantly increases the number of labour inspectors. It provides $34 million over the next four years to strengthen border security and improve screening to prevent people trafficking.
This Budget also provides funding for more support for refugees and to ease pressures at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre.
Mr Speaker
Budget 2018 includes significant funding to support New Zealand’s role and voice in the world. We know that the relationships and influence we develop are critical to our economy in terms of trade and broader economic development.
This Government is committed to restoring the capability of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to advance our cause in the world.
We are committed to our role as a leader in the Pacific and to supporting our region to meet the challenges of climate change and enjoy sustainable economic development. We will lift New Zealand’s contribution through a $714 million boost over four years.
Funding will also be provided to enable New Zealand to host two major events: the 36th America’s Cup and APEC in 2021.
New Zealand’s Defence Force will be able to make more meaningful contributions to global security and peacekeeping, and better respond to natural disasters, with a $345 million operating funding boost to the Defence and Veterans portfolios over the next four years, [this includes,] in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development, funding to expand the Limited Service Volunteer programme for young people under 25.
Building Stronger Communities
Mr Speaker
This Government is committed to making our communities safer. We want to reduce crime and [we want to] slow growth in the prison population.
We are increasing the Police budget by $298.8 million over four years so we can recruit more Police officers towards the goal of an additional 1800 police as provided for in the Coalition Agreement between Labour and New Zealand First.
We’re also giving Police and Customs the staff and resources they need to crack down on gangs and organised crime and drug trafficking. We want Police to have the time to investigate crime and deal with the underlying causes of offending, as well as focusing on victims and improving their connections with support services.
This Government is committed to doing things differently when it comes to criminal justice. We know that the approach that has delivered to New Zealand one of the worst incarceration rates in the world, cannot go on. Our goal is to stop the spiralling prison population and reduce it by 30 percent over the next 15 years.
Budget 2018 begins this journey. We will invest in improved reintegration programmes including housing and support for training and development and better support people on probation and community sentences.
To respond to unavoidable short-term pressures, this Budget will fund accommodation for 600 more prisoner places in rapid-build modular units. Meanwhile, initiatives are being developed to reduce the number of people in prison, while keeping New Zealanders safe.
We are [also] looking to improve youth justice … Another $139.5 million will be provided over four years to go towards … allowing 17-year-olds to be included in the youth justice system. Oranga Tamariki will be funded for a year’s trial to improve the Family Group conference process for tamariki Māori. Support for frontline family violence services and for survivors of sexual abuse will also increase.
This Government wants a more effective, efficient and humane justice system.
Mr Speaker
New Zealand should be a nation in which all communities are valued and empowered; a nation of fairness and equal opportunity.
This Government will work with Māori in pursuit of their aspirations for sustainable economic development, better health, better housing, and better education for their rangatahi.
Budget 2018 includes an additional $37 million over four years for Māori Development, with a focus on papakāinga housing, development of Māori land, and providing training opportunities and support to rangatahi who are not in education, employment or training.
The Budget also provides $11.5 million of additional funding over four years to investigate and process the growing number of claims for recognition of customary rights under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act.
We will support the teaching of te reo Māori in schools. This Budget provides $11.4 million of new funding over the next four years for initiatives to provide more teachers with the necessary training and resources.
Mr Speaker
This Government recognises that the arts, culture and heritage make a significant contribution to our identity as a country and a people.
Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Heritage New Zealand and the New Zealand Music Commission are all supported with new funding in this Budget.
This Budget begins the establishment of [a] modern public broadcasting [environment] for New Zealand. We have set aside $15 million to implement the initial recommendations of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Public Media. Further funding will follow in future Budgets to ensure New Zealanders hear and see their own stories and creative talent.
Sharing Prosperity and Measuring Success
These are just some of the main items in the first of three Budgets this Government will deliver in this term.
As I said, this Government does things a little differently. And that will be reflected in future Budgets.
We have already signalled our intention to take a wellbeing approach to Budget 2019. Changes to the Budget and the process for developing it will be announced later in the year and detailed in the Government’s Budget Policy Statement for 2019.
These changes are about measuring success differently. In the past we have used GDP and traditional fiscal indicators as the only signs of success. And yet, real success means much more for New Zealand and New Zealanders.
Of course, a strong economy is important. But we must not lose sight of why it is important. And it is most important for allowing [all of us] to have better lives.
That is why our Government is making a formal change to move beyond narrow measures of economic growth and broaden the scope and definitions of progress and success.
Next year we will be the first nation in the world to deliver a Wellbeing Budget reporting our annual progress against a range of measures that highlight the health and well-being of our people, our environment and our communities. We will use the Living Standards Framework developed by the New Zealand Treasury to help [deliver] our Budget, and to measure our success.
Mr Speaker
Budget 2018 represents the shared desire of the three parties that make up this Government to improve the lives of New Zealanders.
We will work with New Zealanders to create a sustainable, productive and inclusive economy, environment and society.
We recognise that it cannot happen all at once, as we balance all the different priorities. But we have a clear plan. We know what needs to be done and we are getting on with it.
In our plan, all Kiwis help to grow prosperity and get to share in it. They get the means to provide for themselves and their families, and to be able to live in warm, dry and safe homes. New Zealanders will have a health system which itself is healthy, an education system which has the resources to meet the needs of all learners, a transport system that flows freely and safely, and an environment which is protected and where we lead again on climate change.
I want to thank again the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand for joining the Labour Party in this journey.
This Government will always remember what matters most.
He Aha Te Mea Nui o Te Ao?
He Tāngata, He Tāngata, He Tāngata.
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
BUDGET DEBATE
BUDGET DEBATE
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That all the words after “That” be omitted and the following words inserted: “this House has no confidence in the Government led by Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern, because this Budget shows they are a Government that is borrowing more, taxing more and spending more—but has no plans for how we as a country can earn more.”
The tragedy is that today it could have been a great Budget, from the legacy gifted to that Government by this former Government, by hard-working New Zealanders all over the country, and by the National Party. Government books are incredibly strong, the economy is growing, and there’s serious investment in public services. Grant Robertson has an enviable position for really any Finance Minister all around the Western World.
But instead of acknowledging this fine legacy, this is—what does Grant Robertson call it?—the “rebuild Budget”. The “rebuild Budget”. Life’s so hard for Grant Robertson—just ask him. Rebuild what, exactly? Ten thousand new jobs have been created every year for the last couple of years. More New Zealanders—2.6 million New Zealanders—in work than we’ve seen ever before, and the lowest unemployment since the global financial crisis. Minimum wages up every year. Three straight years of GDP growth of over 3 percent.
When this Government took office they inherited a bustling, dynamic economy, improving the lives of everyday New Zealanders, and a country that is more confident, prosperous, and outward-looking—an exciting New Zealand to live in. I’ll give them a real “rebuild Budget”, not a fake one. In 2008, through the global financial crisis, earthquakes, decades of deficits, we had a plan. We supported New Zealanders. We invested in social services. We had sensible economic policies, and we delivered rising surpluses and falling debt. Labour, I might add, voted against every single initiative that we put up. Grant Robertson—you’re welcome.
Sadly, this Budget, enabled by us, takes us as a country precisely in the wrong direction, and down exactly the wrong path, and that’s because the Government is not happy with the state of the finances. For Grant Robertson, enough is never enough. It’s a tax and spend, it’s a borrow and hope Budget, and through what is really a special form of incompetence they’re still managing to break nearly all of their promises.
Let’s look at tax. Let’s look at tax, Winston Peters. They promised—the Prime Minister prior to the election promised no new taxes in the next term. Now it’s “Why have one when you can have half a dozen of them; let’s tax this”, Jacinda Ardern. Regional fuel tax—$600 million over four years. Excise tax—a billion dollars. An Amazon GST tax—over $200 million. A brightline extension of around $300 million, not to mention a capital gains tax they’ll legislate for before the next election—you mark my words, Mr Speaker—and, I’m sure, many more.
And that’s, ultimately, because Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson think they can spend people’s money in New Zealand better than those people can. There is more than $2 billion more in tax over the next four years; whereas we were giving families—hard-working New Zealand families—a thousand dollars back in their pocket in tax relief. What a stark contrast.
Borrowing—$10.8 billion in additional debt. It was going to be $56 billion—$56 billion in debt. Well, that’s not enough for Grant Robertson. He’s taken that out—wait for it—to $67 billion debt. But, actually, it’s worse than that. He’s hidden another six—it’s $73 billion in debt, as a result, for this country. What does that mean? Well, it doesn’t just mean a few more cheese rolls for Grant Robertson. It is $10,000 more in debt for every single household in New Zealand—$10,000 more in debt for every single household in New Zealand—and another $800 million in debt servicing and interest over the next four years. Where was your press release on that, Grant Robertson, in the Budget packet?
It’s worse than that: like I said, $6 billion more that snuck off into Housing New Zealand, the New Zealand Transport Agency, and the Crown Infrastructure Partners. There is $17 billion of borrowing from this Budget; a $7 billion blowout from Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern, and Winston Peters, and he’s increased his allowances. That takes—it’s another little secret—the debt to GDP to over 20 percent. He might as well, Grant Robertson, have breached his Budget responsibility rules. That interest, those payments, would be enough to meet the promises they’ve broken, whether it’s cheaper universal GP visits or 1,800 more on the beat, or maybe—maybe—funding health like they said they would, like they promised New Zealanders they would, whereas, what we’ve seen is, one example of many—mental health, no $100 million. All the talk in the election; no real funding for mental health. And that’s not to mention the small things—the children’s camps, the rural health services that aren’t there.
Then we get, with all that taxing and all that borrowing, to the spending—the spending that they’re doing from the strongest books, the taxing, and borrowing. Forty billion dollars they have to spend over the next four years. Will they spend it well? We borrowed to get New Zealand through the global financial crisis, through earthquakes, through the worst of issues. They are taxing, borrowing, spending when the economy and their books are the strongest we’ve seen in a generation.
Where’s it going? A billion dollars for diplomats, not doctors. It’s not “Let’s do this.” It’s “Winston made us do this.” “We didn’t realise we’d have to do this.”, says Grant Robertson. And all the hard-working families in New Zealand won’t get what it was they were promised. Also, when Winston Peters goes to the Islands, he’s carried up on a throne above their heads, into the villages. Well, how about “New Zealand first”, Winston Peters, or is carpet in Stockholm more important?
There’s a rash of other bad spending choices. There he is—Shane Jones. A billion dollars a year, and so far what’s it delivered?
Hon Member: A roundabout.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: A roundabout to his house—a roundabout to his house. The tragedy is it won’t create sustainable jobs.
Hon David Parker: Oh yes it will.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: What it’s going to see is trinkets in the regions, David Parker, by killing oil and gas, by gutting roading funding, and farming. There’s $2.8 billion for free fees. But here’s another little thing hidden away in the Budget documents: hundreds fewer students going to those universities and polytechs. Not only—and the rationale of that funding to get more students, it doesn’t just not mean more; it means fewer.
Winter energy payments, worth a billion dollars, even if you’re a millionaire. A baby bonus, worth a lot, even if you’re a millionaire. And they have the audacity to say that we’re in a funding crisis. New Zealanders know a crisis when they see one, and they saw one actually in 2008, when we came in. Michael Cullen had been spending like a drunken sailor, but New Zealanders had to go offshore, to Australia, for basic operations. That was a crisis, and we fixed it. Any fool can spend, but spraying and walking away won’t do it. We’ll ensure there’s results from the spending that we will do.
And here is the worst part, the indictment on this Budget: they’re borrowing more, they’re taxing more, they are spending more—and there’s less on health. There is less on health in this Budget. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Page 9—$770 million, $812 million, $804 million, $797 million in the next four years. Sorry, what did we spend? It was $880 million. And that was Grant Robertson’s top priority. A billion dollars for diplomats, and Kelvin Davis can’t even fund more in health spending. What a disgrace.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Health cuts under Labour.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Health cuts. Well, Gerry Brownlee says, “Health cuts”. Pharmac—$200 million less than they had. Did you know that, Kelvin Davis? I doubt he did—I doubt he did. Shame on you, Kelvin Davis. And I’ve gone through this document—I’ve gone through this document. Dunedin Hospital—I seek it here, I seek it there, I seek it nearly everywhere. Where is it, David Clark? Oh, David Clark says they’re designing it. David Clark promised New Zealand and his constituents that he would fund the hospital faster than we would, and it’s not in this Budget. Tax and spend, borrow and hope, because they hope we don’t notice that they’re managing to break a raft of promises, because they did no work in Opposition, and they’ve got no real plans of substance today.
Let’s take KiwiBuild—the flagship policy from this Government. Where is Phil Twyford? Look up, Phil. Flagship policy, emblematic of this Government—that’s why nothing about it stacks up. They did no work and they’ve got no real plan. What did they promise? It was 100,000 homes and $2 billion of spending. And already Phil Twyford is raising the white flag—simply going to buy the developments already happening, and slap a sticker on them that says KiwiBuild. Well, that’s a hoax; that’s spin. Phil Twyford, that’s “KiwiFraud”. Be clear, Prime Minister; we will hold you to account for those 100,000 additional homes that you said on the campaign trail—that Phil Twyford said that he would deliver.
And then we come to law and order, another doozy in this Budget. What did they promise? Stuart Nash—1,800 sworn front-line police officers. Now it’s something—what is it, 1,100? 1,200? I don’t know, but it ain’t 1,800—mostly delivered by us, what’s there. I know what that is: that’s a broken promise by this Government. “Let’s not do this”—or not much of it, anyway, Stuart Nash.
But it’s worse than that, because, sadly, in this country, to keep New Zealanders safe, every now and again you do have to build a prison. I’ve looked through these documents—
Hon Andrew Little: Yeah, every two or three years, though, for your lot.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Oh, Andrew Little doesn’t think they need to build a prison—we know where he stands on this. He’s been told not to say anything, but he couldn’t help himself. Well, I’ve looked through the Budget documents, and I can’t see one—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order!
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —and with the forecast prison muster, that’s a real issue. So I say, when the Prime Minister stands to give her speech, I’ve got just one question I want an answer for: will there be more serious sexual, violent, and drug offenders living next to hard-working New Zealand families? There are a few important requirements of being a Prime Minister, and keeping New Zealand families safe is one of them.
This is a Budget that’s awash with cash for carpets in Stockholm, for the children of millionaires, for racehorses—$4.8 million for Winston’s mates—for “KiwiFraud”, and there’s still a huge amount that could and should have been done, such as cheaper universal doctor visits, the police, a prison, and biosecurity. Damien O’Connor, for years, has said what a disgrace the level of funding in biosecurity has been. What was it again—about $6 million?
Hon Amy Adams: Nine.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Nine million over four years. That’s right—$9 million over four years; all talk, no action. What a waste of time. What a waste of space.
Two hundred less—$200 million less for Pharmac; a design of Dunedin, but no building—nothing there. Tax and spend, borrow and hope, while breaking promises along the way, the biggest one being all the rhetoric, all the talk of crisis in health, and less money than National put in when we were in Government. This is a Government with no plan, with 100 working groups—Grant Robertson announced another two in his speech. He literally did; we’re at 102 and counting.
And it’s worse than that, in fact, because they’ve got policies that are killing business confidence in this country and will slow down the economy. Everything we did was about making the boat go faster, and they’ve pulled anchor. They’ve put the anchor in, and the rope—well, there’s a lot of rope, but over time it will tighten, and lower growth is coming because business confidence points the way, David Parker, Grant Robertson. You can’t do all the things that this Government is doing and not expect it to have an effect.
Industrial law changes—by the way, on industrial law changes, I’m glad we’ve actually got a Budget, because everyone was on strike. Industrial law changes will slow down growth. Immigration changes will slow down growth. Overseas investment changes will slow down growth. Fewer roads and higher taxes will slow down growth. Tax Working Group changes will slow down growth. Shutting down oil and gas will slow down growth. And, frankly, anything David Parker or Damien O’Connor say about farming will slow down the growth in this country.
This Government is an almighty handbrake on New Zealand’s growth and economy. They’ve been gifted a very strong legacy, but the real job of this Budget should have been to deliver strong Budgets in the future, and they’ve got absolutely no plan to do that. It’s an epic fail in this Budget.
With all that legacy—more taxing, more spending, more borrowing—there’s more costs on hard-working New Zealanders. Who are the losers from this Budget? They’re families in New Zealand. They’re not getting universally cheaper doctor visits; they’re getting $1,000 less in cancelled tax cuts; they’re receiving $700 that they’ll have to pay when they pump their gas around New Zealand; and the impact from expensive policies on rent are in the hundreds of dollars—some $2,500 less that they will be receiving all around New Zealand. Don’t talk to me about a squeezed middle, Prime Minister; this Government is squeezing them hard and it’s going to hurt.
We would do things very differently. We’d ensure that the boat was going faster; we wouldn’t drop anchor on New Zealanders. We know it’s hard-working Kiwis that make up the economy—it’s the mechanics and the midwives—and we would empower them and then get out of their way. We would reduce tax when we can, we’d borrow less, we’d have sensible not wasteful—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order!
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —spending, and we’ll keep our promises by ensuring we promise what we’ve planned for, and we don’t promise what we haven’t. With our plan, we won’t need a working group every couple of days.
This Government has been gifted the best legacy from another Government in a generation. They are awash with cash, but they’re still taxing more, they’re borrowing more, they’re spending more, and they’re hoping, and they’re killing the confidence of this country’s economy along the way. They’re breaking promises and they’re dropping anchor on New Zealand’s economy. The top priority—
Hon Phil Twyford: You’re repeating yourself.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The top priority, Phil Twyford, in this Budget—where there was a crisis!—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order!
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —is health spending, and they are spending less in health. What an indictment on this country.
This is a rhetoric over reality Budget, and the National Party will be ready with a plan to pick up the pieces in 2½ years’ time.
SPEAKER: Before I call the Prime Minister, I am going to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 125/4. That applies to people on both sides of the House, and I would have expected senior Ministers to know better.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I do have a few things I’d like to say in response to the Leader of the Opposition’s 19 minutes and 30 seconds of shouting, but I’ve got a few things I would first like to address to our Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson. Budgets, even when designed to serve an entire country, an entire population, are still a very personal thing. Behind every single dollar is a story, and behind every single dollar is an unmet need. No decision in this Budget was ever taken lightly. No decision was ever flippant or less important than the other. Each was considered, it was prioritised, and it was balanced to form some firm foundations for the future. So I want to thank Grant Robertson for never losing sight of those important decisions in every single step of this Budget.
I also want to thank our coalition partner, New Zealand First, and our confidence and supply partner, the New Zealand Green Party, for helping us deliver this Budget. I am proud of this Budget. I am proud of this coalition Government. I am proud that we’ve been put in this position to deliver for New Zealanders today, and I thank them for the opportunity.
Now, I have heard this Budget accused of many things. In fact, I’ve heard it called many, many things. Before we came into this debating chamber today, it was called “the brain drain Budget”. Now, I can only imagine that was somehow a reference to some of the activity in this debating chamber in recent times, and all I can say is that it’s not our fault Bill English left.
Apparently—and I heard this reference today—it’s also the “spray and walk away Budget”. Now, actually, that one I’m going to give you. At first, I thought it was metaphorical, until I reminded myself that this is a cleaning product for algae and mould removal. Rather than a gibe, it may be a legitimate tip from the Leader of the Opposition to clean up our rivers and our hospitals. It is, however, a shame that the rest of the mess will take more than 30 seconds to repair.
It was somewhat of a confused response, though, from the Leader of the Opposition today. On the one hand, he claims we are spending too much; on the other, we are not spending enough. What I will say is that this side of the House will not be lectured on debt, not when that last Government borrowed almost $50 billion in total in their time in office. I have to give credit where credit is due. They also claim they inherited a crisis. By that, they must mean the continual nine years of surpluses and the net Crown debt that was next to zero, because otherwise they would have borrowed more—absolutely.
Then there was the doozy that I heard in the Leader of the Opposition’s comments today. He asked probably the most pertinent question of his entire speech: rebuild what? Well, let’s start with New Zealand’s reputation, shall we—a place that we can be proud of again, a place where you can be guaranteed a roof over your head, where you have decent health services.
I just want to address this claim from that side of the House that, somehow, they spent more investing into health than this coalition Government has. Let me address that. They’re clearly including the more than $1.5 billion for the Terranova settlement in that calculation. That is not an apples with apples comparison, and we all remember that agreement. It was the one that was forced out of them through the courts to give a fair deal to carers. Now, of course we support that, but to somehow claim that constitutes a boost to district health boards (DHBs) is factually incorrect. If we are comparing apples with apples, on this side of the House it’s $3.2 billion, versus $2.3 billion on that side. This is the most significant increase that you’re going to see for our DHBs, and they know it.
The same goes for capital spending: $750 million—the biggest single investment in capital spending for health in any given year in over a decade. For a point of comparison, it was $150 million from that side of the House last Budget. I am happy to debate this Budget, but let’s debate the facts, not the Facebook memes.
Ultimately, if you ask me the question: rebuild what? We’re rebuilding a Government that thinks about people—that thinks about people and puts them at the heart of our decision making. On that side of the House, there’s a lot of “shouty-shouty” and not a lot of “planny-planny”.
I’ve been through a lot of Budgets. In fact, this is my 10th in this House, but there were several more when I worked around this building and this precinct, so I know a Budget that will make a difference when I see it—one that makes the kind of substantive changes that we need. I remember the Budget that restored income-related rents. I remember the Budget of 2004, that established Working for Families. And I have read the legacy of the Budgets that created the “cradle to grave” concepts of State housing and of health and education provision. The theme through all of those, as I’ve said, has always been people—a drive to make sure that communities have all their needs met so they can thrive, and that they have decent incomes, decent health, and decent education. These are all the foundations for a strong future, and that is the foundation of this Budget.
We didn’t waste any time delivering on that vision. In fact, we didn’t even wait for this Budget. We got a little ahead of ourselves, and in December we introduced and passed our mini-Budget. I want to reflect on that today, because we are building on that here. We came in knowing that families from all walks of life were doing it tough; that people who had decent work still felt like they weren’t going anywhere. People who had precarious work were worried that there would be one bill that could tip them into disaster, and there were those that were doing OK but not OK enough to ever own their own home. That was why we introduced the Families Package, so that we could ease the pressure on them—and not just with a tax cut that might give them a little bit, but others a lot, but the kind of change that means 385,000 families, from the time it is fully rolled out, will get on average $75 a week. That’s why we also introduced the winter energy payment for over-65s and those on Government support, and it’s also why we put that substantial investment into KiwiBuild.
Now, we could have made a political decision. We could have come in as a Government in October and said, “We’re going to hold all of that over—that $5.5 billion of spending on families. We’re going to hold on to that so we can have a big bang in our Budget.” We could have made a political decision, but we made a decision for people. We delivered it as fast as we could, so that in 6 weeks’ time those families will see that benefit. That was the right decision.
Today, we continue that work on some of those long-term problems, and we’re doing it with fresh thinking and a new energy, and we’re going to need that energy because we’re not just setting the foundations for the next three years. Too much short-term thinking has led us to the problems we find ourselves in. We need a plan for the next 10 years, the next 20 years, the next 30 years. We need to make big decisions around the kind of services we’ll need, what kind of workplaces we’ll have, and how to grow those opportunities in our towns as much as our cities. We need to plan for an education system that is dynamic, that’s adaptable, and that fits those changing needs; a plan to protect and support our environment, and a plan to build an economy that supports all of that. Now, we are a Government that is facing those challenges boldly, who has that plan, and who is continuing that work today.
Today, we shift the focus of Government from electoral cycles to generational ones. Now, you could say I have a rather more personal reason for doing that, because in 15 or 20 or 30 years’ time, I want my child to look back on the history books and judge me and this Government favourably, rather than deciding to change their name. If we’re not here for kids or for the future of the country they live in, then why are we here? And if our Budget isn’t about people, then what is it for? And on both counts this Government is happy to be judged. So let’s talk about those foundations.
I want to start with education. If you want to build a future for the next generation, that is the place to start. It’s our job and the job of this Government to make sure education provides children with the future that they need and deserve. Budget 2018 is a major step in our plan to rebuild education so that any child, regardless of how wealthy their parents are, what language they speak, or their ability or disability, has the right to a world-class education. They need an excellent start, and that starts with early childhood education. That is why this Government’s Budget includes the first universal increase in funding for early childhood education services in a decade. It’s why we are employing 1,500 more teachers, it’s why we’re investing in Te Reo Māori in schools, and it’s why we’ve given our schools a much-needed boost in operating funding. It’s why the ongoing resourcing scheme, teacher-aides, and deaf and hearing-impaired students all get more support. We want a local school to be the best school that a child can attend, and because education and our teachers have the power to change everything, what better foundations to rebuild?
There is no question, though, that we can hardly expect our children to learn if they are hungry, if their home is cold or damp, or if they don’t have a place to study. We know that poverty plays a role in a child’s ability to learn, and that’s why that December package was so carefully targeted to lift tens of thousands of children out of poverty. And it’s why we’re holding ourselves to account on child well-being. But we know we need to do more. We need to address the single biggest cost that a family faces, and that is the roof over their heads. We need more houses. Now, the market has not done that—not on its own and not in the numbers we need or the standard that we need. The hands-off, “she’ll be right” approach has denied too many children their own bed, their own home. It’s driven down Māori homeownership, it’s driven down homeownership across the board, and it’s fast threatening the futures for a number of Kiwis, especially those in their older years who don’t have that security. We are getting on with the rebuild of houses ourselves.
Last December, in our mini-Budget, we committed to spending $2 billion to get cracking on affordable homes. In today’s Budget we’re investing in an additional 6,400 State and community homes and putting $15 million into papakāinga housing. This is about providing warm, dry, safe homes for the next generation and for this generation. It might take us a few years, but imagine where we would be today if, a few years ago, the Government of the day had decided that they were to intervene where they saw failure, that they wouldn’t be afraid of setting big goals, and that they wouldn’t give up on homeownership. Where would we be today? Quite simply, when it comes to housing we have only two options: we could stick with the status quo or we could try. Now, I take up the Leader of the Opposition’s challenge. I would rather be a Prime Minister that tried and missed than a Prime Minister that never tried at all and conceded before we picked up a hammer.
Education and a roof over your head—they’re cold comfort if you don’t have the most basic thing: your health. It’s easy to take your health for granted, until it’s gone. And perhaps—perhaps—that’s how the last side of the House treated the health system. We cannot take it for granted. Our DHBs face deficit, our workforce feels unsafe, our hospitals are crying out for investment, and we have heard that.
Now, I will be the first to admit that when it comes to health, we will always need to do more, especially when our demographic is changing and technology is increasing. But today we will begin the rebuild with an extra $2.2 billion into DHBs over four years—the largest increase in a decade. This is a Government that wants to make sure that if something happens to your health—to your health or your family’s health—you can have a decent hospital visit; you’ll have well-supported staff and you’ll get the care you deserve.
But, of course, we always want to get in early, and intervention always remains the best approach for health. It is our intention to make accessing the doctor cheaper for everyone, but in this Budget we are starting with the half a million Kiwis who need it the most. They won’t just get $10 off their GP visit; they will pay $20 to $30 less for those visits. We’ve also made it free for every 13-year-old in the country—56,000 of them—to visit the doctor and pick up their prescriptions. Now every child under 14 has access to free healthcare, and I acknowledge New Zealand First. We’re also making a start on our pledge around nurses in schools, and, of course, we need to build up that nurse workforce as we roll out that policy, but we’re getting started with 24,000 high school students with the nurse in schools programme.
But whether it’s health, housing, or education, our motivation this Budget has been rebuilding services for people. Those needs come in many forms, and the challenges of meeting them have been significant.
Now, I want to give you an example. I’m honoured to be the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. There are a raft of things I wanted to do in this area. It didn’t take me long, though, as Minister, to realise that my extensive plans were going to be quite hard to roll out and deliver, when the ministry I needed to deliver them had received no baseline increase in funding for going on 10 years. Now, the impact of that was telling. It wasn’t a matter of losing staff in Auckland, although that happened, or not filling vacancies, although that happened too. They couldn’t even afford SEEMail, the secure email system used by Government departments. They were literally walking documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Treasury.
I tell this story for two reasons: to illustrate that there have been challenges every single place you look, but also to share a message with our creative sector, our storytellers, our place-makers, those who give us an extra dynamic sense of ourselves and our well-being. We have a lot of work to do. Today, I’m rebuilding the foundations so we can start the work on Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment, on career pathways, on the screen industry plan, and on access issues, and I remain committed to all of it.
This Budget is one that’s had to juggle a number of competing priorities, but investing in our people and our future does not have to come at the expense of growing our prosperity. This Budget recognises, in fact, that if you want decent services, if you want to invest in people, we need an economy that works for us and for people. On that front, we were not willing to sit back and see what happens. We want to drive towards greater productivity, higher wages, a workforce where we invest in their skills so they’re adaptable and resilient, so we have thriving regions and more trade, and that means getting on with building the environment to make all of that happen.
That’s why we invested in people representing our trade needs abroad. That’s why we invested in the Green Party initiative of establishing a Green investment fund. It’s why we’re creating tax incentives for research and development, removing the barriers to further training and education. It’s why New Zealand First and this Government delivered the Provincial Growth Fund. Strong foundations for the future mean building an economy that delivers for its people, and that does not happen by chance.
There’s one more foundation I want to speak of today, and that is that you cannot claim you have a successful economy or country if you are not supporting your environment. This is a Government who recognises that. We are striving towards that zero-carbon economy, investing in biodiversity, and planting plenty of trees.
I said in the beginning that I’ve sat through many Budgets, and this is my 10th. I’ve always said you can tell what kind of Government you’re looking at by the kind of Budget that they deliver. What kind of Budget is this? One from a stable and confident Government. What kind of Budget is this? I hope it sends the message that we are prepared, that we’ve delivered a surplus because we’re prepared for the horizon. I hope it says that we are thinking about more than three years, that whether it’s growing jobs or protecting the environment, you need a plan. I hope it says that we know the basics are important, and I hope it says we have built the foundations for the future. I commend this Budget to the House.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Mr Speaker—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Before the member starts, I think there were 17 occasions during the Prime Minister’s speech where, notwithstanding a warning, Mr Brownlee interjected. He is to cease and not interject at all during this speech.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it’d be useful, sir, if you explain to the House what Standing Order you’re calling on to stop a member speaking in this House.
SPEAKER: Order! I referred the member earlier to the Speaker’s ruling—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Standing Order.
SPEAKER: I’m referring the member to Speaker’s ruling 125/4. It is a longstanding one; it has been enforced by Speakers in the House before. It might’ve been a long time since the member’s been in Opposition, but he should know it, and I did warn senior members on the Government side of its existence earlier. I will have no further discussion of this.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This is about a Budget building foundations. It’s fact not fiction; real not fake news—like someone I’m just seeing going. A little over six months ago, we made a decision to go with the Labour Party in a coalition Government, and today’s speech by Mr Robertson reinforces the reasons why we did. We congratulate Mr Robertson and Prime Minister Ardern for today announcing our plans for a fairer, more prosperous future for all New Zealanders.
Mr Grant Robertson’s first Budget will be remembered for the foundations announced today, investments to release our country’s potential, and starting the job of restoring capacity across public services after nine long years of National’s woeful neglect. Now, I can say, Mr Robertson, as you were reading out that Budget, the National Party clearly got a deluge of mail today, because they all had their heads down the whole time from start to finish, because it must be painful to have to admit that they were so derelict in their duty of running a balanced, fair economy.
It’s a Budget that reflects the significant priorities of the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and, indeed, the priorities of the Green Party as well. It’s a Budget that reflects the unique make-up of the first truly MMP Government. I say that because I was in an MMP Government once—in fact, the first one—where they did their best to derail the party that put them there in the first place. Oh yes, I remember very well, and I remember some of the characters sitting over there now—guilty as anything, still at the grindstone behind Simon, sharpening up their knives and waiting for the next takeover merchant. It’s a truly MMP Budget.
In response to the concerns expressed at the last September election: it’s a Budget supported—and I’m saying this to my colleagues in the media—by the vast majority of New Zealand voters. New Zealand First, as you know, has been a committed and constructive partner—as we said we would be—during the last six months, and we set out, all of us, to make a positive difference to the people’s lives, and the Budget of this country in 2018 demonstrates that. It’s for changing direction. It’s not for a modified status quo, and it’s not for thinking you can tweak and somehow get by with trickle-down. Now, the Opposition leader should know that. I wanted to say how clear it was, and how pleasing it was, to hear a Budget that actually explained things with a simplicity of language.
Now, the mantra of the National Party in this campaign for this Budget is going to be making the claim that New Zealand is awash with money.
Chris Bishop: That’s right.
Hon Member: That’s right.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Who said “That’s right.”?
Hon Members: We all did.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, one of them did. The rest are not putting their hand up. Who said “That’s right”——New Zealand’s awash with money?
Chris Bishop: I did.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Chris Bishop. That’s why he’s number 37 in their caucus. Mr Bishop, you’re not going to get a promotion. I know you have more brains than that, but you’re not going to get more than 37 in your caucus if you talk and think like that.
Can I just say it was clear as daylight that the National Party had been hiding the costing—$20 billion, for example, when it comes to the Defence Force, was a fiscal risk. It wasn’t even budgeted for. Then he had a frigate that was overrun by, and costing, $148 million, and they kept it quiet from the public from July last year all the way to election day. Then the shocking rundown of the health sector, referred to by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance—with the woeful neglect of Middlemore Hospital merely the most obvious symbol of neglect and under-investment. And, you know, such perfidy defines the National Party’s last nine years.
As for the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak, well that happened three months before the last election and what did they do? Well, nothing. And every day this man, Nathan Guy, who was responsible for it, responsible for doing nothing about border security—there weren’t 150 border security breaches; there were 173 on their watch. And he has the effrontery—which probably tells me that too much of something from the cow’s tail got in his ear when he was farming—he thinks he can come down here and everybody will forget that he was the man with the DNA, the fingerprint, the thumb print, and blood all over it. He is the man responsible. But no, no; not him—he’s so arrogant he thinks he can come back to this House every day and start charging the new Minister, a decent Minister of Agriculture—a decent Minister of Agriculture. He thinks he can attack him. Amazing!
Can I just say, you know, National’s grandiose transport plans—none of them were within the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) funding. The superhighway from Whangarei to Warkworth, not one cent was in the NZTA funding. Not these people. They go around and they think they can flimflam some country folk by saying that if it wasn’t for us, we’d have a superhighway. Now, my friend Mr Twyford knows that that is—to use an agricultural term—bulldust. No money for the Dunedin Hospital. No, it was going to be a public-private partnership. Who was the private entity? They didn’t know—but they said it anyway. Whangarei Boys’ High School—$62 million. The voters asked: how are you going to pay for it? They said a public-private partnership. Now, what is this, a bank? No, it’s something of fiction that’s nothing until you establish it. So they never had any money for it. No, they didn’t. No money for more police, for the surge in prison numbers, and for the multibillion-dollar infrastructure deficit, and billions of dollars in the fiscal hole for education. They weren’t awash with money. They just weren’t responsible. They thought they could disguise it.
Now, you know, National was a marketing operation based upon spin and not much else. Where is John Key? Anybody up there know? Where is Mr Key—“Mr Spray and Walk Away”? Where’s Bill English? Where is Steven Joyce? Where is Jonathan Coleman?
Hon Maggie Barry: Where’s Andrew Williams?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I beg your pardon?
Hon Maggie Barry: Where’s all your people?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, “Myrtle Rust” knows. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order!
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The expert on weeds knows, then. The expert on weeds knows. Where is Jonathan Coleman? Well, they all packed it in because once National’s marketing flimflam collapsed so did their commitment—once National’s flimflam had collapsed so did their commitment. Steven Joyce’s final act, his $11.6 billion fiscal hole, was born out of a deep sense of cynicism and people saw through it.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Go and read the documents.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Somebody over there, I think it was Nick English—was it Nick English?
SPEAKER: Order!
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Nick Smith. He got there because of Bill English. But Nick Smith said he was right. He said Steven Joyce’s $11.6 billion fiscal hole was right.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s why you broke the promises.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You know, Mr Smith? If I was as tired as you, I’d give up and go home. I really would. I’d quit. I’d find a new career before it’s too late—before it’s too late. Sitting there every day shouting out “Answer the question.” is so tiresome, is so bald, and it’s so age-istic that it probably befalls you. But the member should be very worried about his future. He’s only there on sufferance.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: At least I won my seat.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, he says, “At least, I won my seat.” Look, actually, one of my great shames is I went down to Richmond way back in 1990 and I packed the place out with 600 people, to campaign for him. I had to explain to them—you were so young—that Pitt the Younger was 24 when he became the Prime Minister of England. But I forgot to say that the candidate we had for the National Party at the time, namely Nick Smith, was still in nappies. I feel sorry for when I did that, because I owe a big apology to the people of this country.
Worse is National’s descent into fake news. Whether they’re pretending to pour resources into areas of need when they did not or perniciously making stuff up about the Government’s plans, it’s clear we’ve reached a new low in our politics. Mr Steven Joyce had a Damascus moment, a voluntary admission of how short National’s budgetary plans were. That can be the only reason why he came up with $11.6 billion: because they weren’t spending it. Whatever the cause, the Key-English Government’s legacy will be their underfunded and under-delivered promises and chronic underperformance. Now it’s down to fake news and fake announcements. We’ve reached a new low in politics.
I remember Holland—not personally, of course; Holyoake—personally, of course; and Muldoon. And do you know what? Against them, against these guys, those men had honour. Mr Bridges does not. As Michael Bloomberg recently warned, and I’ll quote him, “The only thing more dangerous than dishonest politicians who have no respect for the law is a chorus of enablers who defend their every lie.” There are plenty here that I see today. Bloomberg went on to say, “The greatest threat to democracy isn’t communism, jihadism, or any other external force or foreign power; it’s our own willingness to tolerate dishonesty in service of party and in pursuit of power.” He could have written that about the National Party, because that’s exactly what we heard today.
National’s temporary leader for Tauranga and for the National Party leadership would do well to heed these words. He’ll not make any headway until he cuts out the faux outrage and fake news and offers a mea culpa for the poor performance of him and his predecessors. Take, for example, over the period of the last Government trade declined as a percentage of GDP from 30 percent to 27 percent. They were promising they were building trade and it fell from 30 to 27 percent, and what does the National Party leader say in response to the budget for foreign affairs and trade so critically needed? He says we’ve got our priorities wrong.
So what would his priorities be about making wealth offshore?
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Doctors before diplomats.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He had none. They got rid of 100 top-line trade and diplomatic specialists offshore—100. And there Mr Smith sits there, with all that propped-up taxpayer support for all his useless years in this Parliament, and he laughs and smiles as though that’s a good outcome.
Mr Bridges’ speech today reinforces why he is failing: no vision, no plan, and no ideas; just carping and whining. It was poorly delivered—should have been touched up by a speech therapist as to the pronunciation—by a desperate pretender. The last man to believe in trickle-down economics—which even the Fred Astaire of the South Pacific, the member for Epsom, calls an imaginary friend—is sliding into insignificance. No wonder Mr Bridges is showing early signs of relevance deprivation syndrome, and it’s a safe prediction that it’ll only get worse for him, because many voters—many more voters—dislike his leadership as those who merely tolerate him.
Voters see, you see, there’s no leader. He offers no vision, and his sole achievement to date is to rip apart the previous bipartisan approach of this country as a hallmark of our politics when it came to foreign policy. It was always above politics. But not this fellow—so desperate he attacks the very issue that he himself created: a huge disparity. He may believe, as he said last week, that it’s a waste of money trying to compete with others in the Pacific, but our partners in the region and those outside it disagree with him. Hopelessness and resignation are Mr Bridges’ raison d’être, but they are not mine, they are not my colleagues’, and they are not those of our country’s partners who want to work with New Zealand to make a difference in our own backyard to our economic security, and, indeed, our personal security.
New Zealanders look for a Government which offers fresh direction—for a Government which offers energy and drive, and—dare I say it, Mr Smith—youth. They look for leaders who offer stability, they look for leaders who offer substance, and Budget 2018 demonstrates the coalition Government is delivering on these expectations. The speech by the Leader of the Opposition exposes the dismal state of leadership of the National Party. They were so bad they had a leadership contest and not one of them was rating 1 percent. Not one was rating 1 percent before they ran in the leadership contest—not one of them. So it shows how desperate they are.
It was a speech devoid of ideas, riddled with clichés, and speeches like that are why they created the word “vacuous”.
Hon Tim Macindoe: What’s the current poll rating? “Mr 1 percent.”
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Let me tell you, sunshine, I’m here after all these years because we know how to get a poll up, but not that failure—not that member there. He was a Minister for three months—back to the backbench; he’ll never be back again. Speeches like that were the reason why they invented the word “vacuous”, and here is what the voting public has concluded about the leader of the National Party: what you see is what you get and what you get is “Mr Simon Slick Bridges”, “Mr Simon Soundbite Bridges”, “Mr Simon One-way Bridges”, and, yes, “Mr Simon Short-term Bridges”.
Budget 2018 showcases New Zealand First and other parties who are the heart of this Government. We’re making a positive difference to voters across our portfolios through making better investment choices, achieving better policy outcomes, and by restoring lost capacity in areas where it’s desperately needed.
I leave shortly for Japan in the next couple of hours. Why? Because we need to beef up our trading relationship—and, indeed, every relationship we’ve got in the Pacific. And, next week, we’ll be off to China. Again, unlike that group there, we’re out to grow our exports so that money comes back to the families in New Zealand—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell us about TPP.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —and we can finance good economic policy and good social policy. And I’ll even finance a mouthguard, if I can afford to spare the money, to bring back for Mr Smith.
In regional economic development, we’ve got the Provincial Growth Fund. We’re planting a billion trees. We’ve got a port study, because we’re going to connect up our port value and our port assets and our transport assets in this country. We’ve got a new forestry service starting in regional New Zealand.
We’ve got, for example, the things that also matter in defence. That’s a substantial boost in a critical area, which means that our defence capacity in the Pacific—so desperately needed by so many Pacific Islands and by the Pacific itself—can now show up responsibly.
We’re going to see, of course, 1,800 new front-line police, but it doesn’t stop there. My colleague, the Minister for—
Chris Bishop: No, you’re not—five years, not three.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no. Now I want to tell Mr Bishop that my colleague the Minister of Police ensured that it didn’t stop there. There’s also 480 backup office staff.
Chris Bishop: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah, yeah, yeah—yes; exactly. Tell me, what was that member’s party’s record? Declining numbers against population. Mr Nash has come around and it’s a dramatic turn-around, and I expect that to be the last stupid question I hear from “Number 37” in the National Party caucus.
Whether it be Oranga Tamariki, whether it be health funding—district health boards so much in debt—being attended to, or doctors visits for under-14s, this is a change in the outcomes so desperately needed by this country.
In foreign affairs, what we released last week, we’ll be going on in that respect. But, you know, I’ve got to say this to my colleagues and the Prime Minister: we should have got more. If you realise the problems that we face out there and how they’ve been subject to such long neglect, we should have got more, but we’re not dissatisfied or un-humble about it. But I hope that in the next few Budgets, we’ll do better.
The reality is, you see, we inherited a portfolio where our multilateral aid had fallen to the lowest in the OECD. In all those countries, we were the lowest in the OECD. Look at the chart, and there’s New Zealand at the very bottom. Well, we’re going to turn that around because, in the end, we believe in international rules, sound Government, and international protocols. A small country like ours desperately needs that to be promoted, and we’ve got to spend money getting ourselves into that right frame of influence. As for racing, well, we’re going to turn racing around, and we’re doing so dramatically with some revised policies.
But, in conclusion, could I just say this: we’re going to make New Zealand great again. We’re going to make a great economy. We’re going to make that economy great for the regions. We’re going to make sure that it’ll be great for young New Zealanders to gain employment. We’re going to make sure that it’s going to be great for exports but that the money is shared, at the end, by everyone.
For nine long years, the old truths about businessmen and businesswomen being the backbone of the country and the regions being the fertile and broad countryside support for the big cities were forgotten by National, and so the Labour - New Zealand First coalition Government, supported by the Greens, has taken its first steps to effect a transformation in our economy and prospects. The adaptive work will take longer than one Budget, but today a strong foundation has been laid. You know, we know there’s much more work to do, and we look forward to fulfilling and continuing our role as a constructive force in the coalition to achieve positive change for our supporters and, indeed, for all New Zealanders. For those National Party supporters so despairing of the Opposition, my words to them are “Hang on, because help’s still on its way.”
Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): E Te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Ki a koutou ōku hoa pāremata huri noa i te Whare, ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa.
[Thank you, Mr Speaker. To my parliamentary colleagues all around the House, greetings for the new financial year to you all.]
It makes me immensely proud, and it makes my Green colleagues immensely proud, to be a part of this Government and to have had a hand in the development of this Budget—the Greens’ first Budget in Government—and to be laying the foundations for a truly sustainable economy, a healthy environment, and a fair society. This is a Budget for every Kiwi—and every takahē and every kākā and every kereru—because this Budget recognises that our natural heritage, our natural capital, is the source of our prosperity, and we will only continue to prosper if we continue to protect it. This is a Budget that says that “100% Pure New Zealand” is not just some empty marketing slogan. It is what we stand for—it’s who we are.
This is a Budget that has New Zealanders’ well-being at its heart, that has fairness and equity at its heart. This is a Budget that has a heart, and it lays the foundation for the country that we aspire to be.
The Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party outlines a policy programme organised under the headings of a “Sustainable Economy”, a “Fair Society”, and a “Healthy Environment”, and today’s Budget delivers on that vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. It lays the foundation for a sustainable economy, with $11 million put aside over the next four years to establish an independent climate change commission. That commission and the zero carbon Act will guide the country on the path to a net zero emissions economy over the coming three decades.
But the biggest step that we are taking today on that path towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy is an investment of $100 million of new capital into a green investment fund. I want to acknowledge the vision of my predecessor Dr Russel Norman, who campaigned in 2011 and in 2014 for that green investment fund—a State-owned but fully commercial operation. With that fund, we are laying the foundation not just for a clean, green economy but a more productive, a more innovative, economy, full of new, high-tech, high-income jobs. This fund will drive private capital into that economy over the coming decades.
And much of that value in the new economy will come, as it always has in New Zealand, from our farmers. We all know that climate change represents a huge challenge for our agricultural sector. We know that. But it also represents an enormous opportunity if we work out how to become the world’s first net-zero producer of food and sell not just the food but the intellectual property behind it to the rest of the world. That’s why our confidence and supply agreement recognises that farmers and rural communities must be supported in that transition that New Zealand must make.
This has long been a theme for the Green Party—a strong economy, based on environmentally sound food production, was a deep passion of Green Party founding co-leader Rod Donald. So I am delighted that in today’s Budget there is $15 million over the next four years for the Sustainable Farming Fund. And I want to thank the Hon Damien O’Connor for working with us to deliver that.
A lot of farmers are already taking some great strides forward by reducing their environmental impact and, at the same time, increasing their profitability, and our Government will support farmers to do more of that good work. That is how we are investing in the sustainable economy. That is how we are investing in our future.
But we’re also investing in a healthy environment and credit, I have to say, must go to our incredibly committed conservation Minister, the Hon Eugenie Sage, who, rumour has it, was actually born in a Department of Conservation hut. She deserves credit because she has secured the largest increase in operational funding for conservation in a generation—more than $180 million to safeguard our natural heritage and to fight the predators that threaten our native species with extinction. More than $81 million of that alone over the next four years will go to vital predator control work.
It is said that in every Budget there are winners and losers, and the winners in this Budget are kiwi and kākā and kererū and the losers are rats and stoats and possums. This Budget lays the foundation for the Department of Conservation to lead the charge—to lead the charge—against our country’s biodiversity crisis. And all three Government parties are ambitious for New Zealand to invest in nature because of its importance to our economy, to our well-being, and to who we are.
We are also investing together in a fair society. And I have to say, the most telling indicator of a fair society is the way that we treat those less fortunate than ourselves. Our confidence and supply agreement calls for an overhaul of a welfare system that punishes people at the bottom of the heap and treats them like second-class citizens for the crime of being poor. This Budget starts the ball rolling with $1.5 million to establish a root-and-branch review of a system that is not working.
But the biggest move that our Government is making against poverty actually took place before this Budget got rolling—the $5.5 billion Families Package that our Government passed at the end of last year was the greatest investment in tackling poverty since Ruth Richardson’s “mother of all Budgets” helped to turn New Zealand into the most unequal society in the OECD. And our former colleague Metiria Turei—she coined her welfare overhaul proposal last year as the “Budget for all mothers”. Well, last year’s Families Package doesn’t completely reverse the damage that Ruth Richardson did, but it is a good start.
Another fundamentally important part of being a fair society is the mental health and well-being of its citizens, and I want to thank the Hon Dr David Clark for working with us to commit over $10 million over the next three years to piloting youth mental health services for 18-25 year olds.
But the biggest contribution to a fair society in today’s Budget is the revival of the scheme to end energy poverty and ensure that every New Zealander has a warm, dry home. And, again, this isn’t new to the Green Party. Home insulation was a cause that former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons first fought for and won back in 2009. And, yes, that was won under a National Government, but then the same National Government wound down the scheme before the job was done, and they did that even though they knew at the time that for every dollar spent warming a child’s home you save $6 in health bills, and power bills, and economic productivity. It was a ridiculous decision—not to mention all of the value that you get out of just having a better quality of life. So today I want to thank the Minister of Energy and Resources, Dr Megan Woods, for her work in securing $142.5 million to finish the job that we started 10 years ago.
I also want to thank Gareth Hughes for his leadership in our caucus on this work as well, because as of this winter—as of this winter—more New Zealanders will be able to better insulate and better heat their homes. And for people on benefits and people on New Zealand superannuation, this Budget delivers a much-needed winter warm-up payment to help them pay their power bills in the winter or buy a load of firewood. Well, Jeanette, if you’re watching, that one’s for you.
The Greens are making a contribution to this Government above and beyond the terms of our confidence and supply agreement as well, and particularly in the domain of women and children. In her capacity as the Minister for Women, the Hon Julie Anne Genter has secured funding in this Budget to ensure that we can all celebrate the 125 years that New Zealand has had women’s suffrage. But by far, her greatest contribution in this Budget is actually in her role as the Associate Minister of Health, where she is overseeing the package for midwives worth $103 million.
Jan Logie is the first member of the executive in our country’s history with specific responsibility for addressing domestic and sexual violence issues. She’s won $2 million to get the ball rolling on an all-of-Government approach to finally tackle the horrendous blight that that is on our nation’s character. We are proud to be members of a Government that is putting $76 million into restoring front-line services for victims of family violence, with $7.5 million for sexual abuse assessment and treatment services. It was appalling that that funding was cut in the first place—astounding.
Let me also acknowledge the $12.5 million budgeted over the next four years to support teachers to develop Te Reo Māori skills and offer our tamariki the change to embrace this taonga. That commitment speaks to the Greens’ kaupapa of honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We will always keep the hope alive that one day we all grow up fluent in at least our two spoken languages.
As the Minister of Statistics I am delighted to be playing a role in the Prime Minister’s programme to reduce child poverty in New Zealand as well. Statistics New Zealand will receive $20 million in Budget 2018 to increase the size of the household economic survey. This will help us to understand the problem much better than we do at the moment, and it will help us direct resources much more effectively to solving it.
Hon Andrew Little: It’ll really count.
Hon JAMES SHAW: It will count. It will count. This Government is committed to basing our decisions on good information. That is why in today’s Budget we’ve announced our intention to establish an independent fiscal institution. This will provide the public with non-partisan, non-political assessments of Government economic forecasts and cost political parties’ campaign promises. We want New Zealanders and politicians debating the merit of ideas, not just who can use a calculator better.
Budget 2018 represents over half a billion dollars of investment in the priorities outlined in the Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement—over half a billion dollars of operational and capital expenditure. This is the single largest investment in a sustainable economy, a fair society, and a healthy environment that the Greens have been able to achieve in a Budget in the nearly 20 years that we have been in Parliament.
This investment actually pales in comparison to an investment decision in an announcement that was made a couple of weeks back. I am talking about the transformational changes that the Hon Julie Anne Genter and the Hon Phil Twyford are making in the domain of transport. The Green Party has campaigned for fast and efficient transport, to free up congestion and reduce pollution in our main cities, since we were founded nearly 30 years ago.
I remember my first campaign was for the Wellington City Council in 1992. I ran with Sue Kedgley and Celia Wade-Brown, and we stood on a platform and campaigned for light rail from the Wellington Railway Station out to the airport. Now, through our confidence and supply agreement, in this Budget we have got nearly $14 billion going to green transport. There is a billion-dollar fund for bikes and walking; $5 billion for rapid transit; $7 billion for public transport. It has taken nearly 30 years to get started, but as the old guy in the Mainland cheese ads used to say: “Good things take time.”
Finally—finally—our main cities can look forward to less congested streets, greater productivity, and a better quality of life for the people who live there. And we are just getting started.
I look at this Budget with a great deal of satisfaction, but also with the knowledge that we are only at the beginning. There is a great deal more work to do. This Budget lays strong foundations for the next three years, for the next 10 years, and for the next 30 years. Let me tell you, I’m looking forward to building on those foundations next year, and for years to come.
Today’s Budget delivers on seven of the 20 priorities in our confidence and supply agreement. It delivers on conservation, on the green investment fund, on support for sustainable farming, on home insulation, on access to mental health services, on reform of our welfare system, and on establishing an independent climate change commission. I and my Green Party colleagues support this Budget. We commend it to the House. We stand ready to provide the ideas and the vision and the energy to build on it for the future. The investments that are being made here today are investments in a better, a more resilient, a more sustainable future for all New Zealanders, and for this beautiful land that we call home.
Nō reira kia kaha, e tū, kia mau.
[Therefore let us be strong, upstanding, and ready.]
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): What a sad day for New Zealand, when a transformational Budget is promised, and a Budget of taxing and spending on marginal voters is delivered. There is nothing transformational about taxing a group of people the Government believes—in fact, should be fairly confident now—will not vote for it, in order to give that money to groups of people that it believes will vote for it.
I have to make a few comments on the earlier speeches. James Shaw tried very hard. He used up 15 of his 20 minutes, and I’ll give him a little bit of advice: too much of his speech is about process. What he should have learnt now, after six months of being a Minister, is that when the bureaucrats are promising you an office here and a process there and an oversight over there, you know that you’re not going to get any results. What you’re going to get is a whole lot of process, and your own bureaucrats are taking you for a ride. So I’m afraid to say to James Shaw that he’s being taken for a ride by his own bureaucrats and everything that he’s delivering in this Budget.
I also couldn’t help but notice that his speech was almost entirely directed at the Green Party and its legacy and the membership, which makes you wonder if James Shaw is not having trouble at t’mill with the Green Party. I won’t be surprised, considering what they haven’t got out of this Budget because of one person: Winston Peters.
Sadly, I missed the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ speech, but I could have told you what it would say, because it has not changed for 40 years. What a tragedy of a political career, to have such nice hair, such nice teeth, such a great voice, and yet have achieved so little. As Oliver Cromwell might say to Winston Peters if he was here today, “Be gone. You have sat there far too long for any good you have done lately.” Anyhow, I must get back to the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, who I thought gave a very fine gladiatorial speech, well suited to the amphitheatre of Parliament. But there’s a problem with it. Every policy he criticised, and those that I’m about to discuss, were possible because they had been left in place over nine long years, as the legacy of Helen Clark’s Labour Government.
Interest-free student loans are now back as fees-free because there was no reform. Pensions at 65 will continue because, given the chance, there was no reform. What about KiwiBuild? Not so different from what the previous Government was trying to do; Working for Families, back as the winter energy payment and back as an expanded Families Package because the communism by stealth was not removed by the previous Government.
I say to my colleagues in the National Party that the tragedy of our time in Government was not that we lost power; it’s that we didn’t use enough of it when we had it, and now this Government is further expanding the ratchet of Government and taxing and taking more of our money.
But the person that really needs comments addressed to him is Grant Robertson. Make no mistake; this is a Budget that is not about transformation. Transformation would be about changing the way the Government operates, to deliver better services, better outcomes, and better rules and regulations so that New Zealanders can get on with pursuing their dreams.
Take the idea of a fees-free tertiary education. If you’re 18 years old and you live in New Zealand and you’re going to get a higher education, you are one of the luckiest people who have ever lived, since we climbed down from the trees. In the history of humanity, 18-year-old New Zealanders getting a tertiary education are the luckiest humans who have ever lived. They are the people that this Government believes are in need of Government largesse. I put it to you that this is the first evidence that this Government’s Budget is not about transformation; it is about taxing money off one group of people who won’t vote for the Government—I can guarantee to the Government now that net taxpayers will not like this one bit—taking that money and giving it to groups of people that the Government thinks will vote for it. That’s how they do politics in South America. It is not the way to run a country.
What about KiwiBuild? We have a serious problem. There is a need for transformation around housing in this country. There is a need to fix the fundamental problem, which is this: we fail, as a country, to produce houses at the rate that we produced them in the 1970s. With vastly inferior technology, New Zealanders built twice as many homes 40 years ago, when Winston Peters was with it, than they build today, in 2018. That’s the fundamental problem. The problems are well identified. They relate to the supply of land. They relate to the funding of infrastructure. They relate to the building consent process.
So what is transformational in this Budget about saying that the Government is going to tax people and pump more money into a housing market with limited supply, but do nothing about all of the rules and regulations and lack of land and lack of efficient infrastructure funding that mean we have a shortage in the first place? Pumping more money into a supply-constrained market is not going to improve the housing situation; it is simply going to ensure that we actually have higher prices and fewer houses.
What about the Provincial Growth Fund? More proof that this Budget is all about taxing one group of people who won’t vote for the Government, and giving it to groups of people that the Government hopes will vote for it—in this case wistfully hoped for by Winston Peters, in the regions.
What about the winter energy payment? This one doesn’t quite make sense, because it’s giving money to millionaires and high-income earners, without any targeting whatsoever. So, for once, the Government doesn’t target money at people it thinks will vote for it; it just sprays it around completely aimlessly.
What about the New Zealand Superannuation Fund? They’ve re-continued contributions. We have 23 percent of Government debt, and the Government is giving the New Zealand Superannuation Fund money to play the sharemarket at what may well be the end of the longest growth cycle in the postwar world. That is nuts. How many people out there with mortgage debt play the sharemarket, believing they can consistently beat their mortgage rate by playing with international equities? That is what this Government is now doing with New Zealanders’ money. What they should have done is acknowledge that people are living longer and they are working longer. They should have raised the age of superannuation, and given real fairness to younger generations of New Zealanders.
What about the $24 billion of additional revenue over four years that this Government will have—$24 billion? In everyday life, if one finds something that belongs to someone else, that they did not expect to have, the right thing to do is give it back to the rightful owner. There is room in this Budget to give back $24 billion of taxes over the coming four years to the people that earned the money in the first place. What would that mean? That would mean a top income tax rate of 25c in the dollar. That would mean taking the 17.5 percent rate down to 15 percent. That would mean taking the 10.5 percent rate down to 10 percent. Every single New Zealander could have received a tax cut in this Budget, but instead it is going to be sprayed around cynically at groups of people that this Government believes will vote for it.
It is a sad day, because the Government has recognised the need for transformation. It recognises the need for transformation in housing. It recognises the need for transformation in education. It recognises the need for transformation in transport and in healthcare. But, sadly, this Budget is delivering no such transformation whatsoever. This Government is delivering, in this Budget, a lolly scramble of money to special-interest groups—be they tertiary students, be they people in particular regions, be they people who are feeling a bit cold in the winter, despite being millionaires—in the hope that people will vote for the Government in order to get other people’s money.
That is not transformation. That is what every single Government, since Richard Seddon, has tried to do in the history of this country. If we want real transformation, if we want to actually address the long-term problems that this country confronts, if we want to transform the way that the Government operates to deliver a better tomorrow for all New Zealanders, then the conclusion is crystal clear. People in 2020 will have to vote ACT.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Deputy Leader—Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Unfortunately, the last 10 minutes are 10 minutes of my life I can’t reclaim. That was a speech spoken by somebody who’s never ever been outside of his little Epsom bubble and actually seen the hardship, the lack of housing, the homelessness, and the poverty in the areas such as Tai Tokerau that I represent.
Let me just start by acknowledging the Prime Minister for her bold vision—her bold vision for housing, her bold vision for health, her bold vision for education, her bold vision for children, and her bold vision for people. As my colleague Grant Robertson ended his Budget speech by saying “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”—
Hon Judith Collins: Oh, what a cliché.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —this is a Budget for people. I hear the Opposition over there upset that they’re still not on this side. What they don’t realise is that the majority of New Zealanders actually abandoned what they stand for.
But let me just acknowledge Grant Robertson, the Minister of Finance, for his hard work in delivering a Budget that brings this Government’s vision to life. I just want to acknowledge also, on this side of the House, all of our MPs across the coalition Government, our confidence and supply partners, but also my fellow Māori Ministers and our Māori MPs from our party, from the Green Party, and from New Zealand First.
This Budget is proof that when you have strong Māori representation across the board and in every corner of Government and Parliament, you can do great things for our people.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do like to do great things, but please don’t bring me into the debate.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: We are bringing positive, stable, and energetic Government. We are laying the foundations for the future and, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, we are having to patch up nine years of woeful neglect. It was only when we were going through this Budget process that we saw the extent of the neglect in the health system and in the education system. You don’t have to drive far around New Zealand—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; not you. We don’t have to drive very far around New Zealand to see the woeful housing and homelessness situation.
This Budget 2018 delivers for Māori. It delivers on the promises made by our Prime Minister both at Waitangi and at Rātana. If there’s an enduring image from Waitangi, it is the image of the Prime Minister leaning over a hot barbecue serving the people, and it’s about time we had a Prime Minister that actually served the people and not just their own self interests. She promised that this Government would be a caring Government, a Government that put people at the centre, and a Government that would introduce this uniquely Māori concept of manaakitanga—in other words, compassion; compassion for the people. Regardless of who they are and where they live, this is a Budget for everybody. Nine years of neglect by the previous National Government has come across in housing, in education, and in healthcare, and it has hurt our people the most. I’m proud to stand here and say that Budget 2018 is where we start to bring manaakitanga back to the Government. So this Budget delivers for whānau and our tamariki.
One of the most enduring messages that the Prime Minister said is that we could have made the political decision to hold off our Families Package—$5.5 billion worth of spending—until today so that we could have this big burst. But what is more important to our Prime Minister and more important to our finance Minister is that we deliver that Families Package of $5.5 billion worth of spending as soon as we possibly could so that our people didn’t have to wait just for us to get a political hit. We had to deliver for them when they needed it.
The Families Package—$5.5 billion—contributes $1.2 billion for Māori. That’s over four years. It’s to help whānau with accommodation supplements. It’s to help with the winter energy payments. Now, we all know—especially those of us on our side of the House—kaumātua and kuia who struggle with the heating. We know those kaumātua and kuia who would prefer to switch off the heater and go to bed at about 6 o’clock in the evening rather than endure the shame of not being able to pay their power bills. We know, on this side, because we’re connected to our people; the people on the other side would not have a clue, because they are out of touch.
The Families Package boosts Working for Families. It’s created the Best Start payment. The Families Package will help over 181,000 Māori children living in poverty, and we are extremely proud of that. It’s going to help over 12,000 Māori that are estimated to be living in severe housing deprivation.
We also acknowledge the many kaumātua and kuia who are actually proxy parents for their grandchildren. Now, I experienced this and saw this as a principal up in the far north—
Hon Judith Collins: Urgh.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —the grandparents who are—and I hear, over here, them sighing because they don’t have any idea about how people are affected around the country. That’s a shame on those people over there who are sighing and making out like it’s not an issue, because it is an issue. It’s a very real issue to people.
So grandparents are having to act as parents, but they never ever got funded to help with the needs of their children, so Budget 2018 provides $104.9 million of operating funds over four years for clothing allowances for children, supported by the orphans allowance and unsupported child’s benefit. We know about half of these carers are our people—they are Māori. As we know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs says that if you don’t have air, if you don’t have water, if you don’t have food, and if you don’t have clothing and warmth, you are not able to reach your full potential.
This Budget shows we care about the future of our rangatahi. We’re investing $14 million into enhancing education and employment outcomes for rangatahi. We have said, as a Government, we want to do things differently. The new approach is an example of how we’re using new and innovative ways to support rangatahi across the education and employment pathway, but this fund targets rangatahi who are most disengaged by supporting those aged between 15 and 24 that aren’t in education, employment, or training. We’re taking a whānau-centred and community-led approach, which will bring together an all-encompassing support network for the rangatahi to achieve their aspirations.
I’m really proud to be delivering for Māori education needs. We have three initiatives that are going to help Māori education. The first is Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori—
Hon David Bennett: What happened to Waikeria, Kelvin?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —which is fulfilling our promise, Mr Bennett—me whakarongo koe kia mōhio ai koe taku korero [you have to listen so that you know what I’m saying]—to integrate Te Reo Māori into the curriculum by 2025. That’s $11.4 million that will go. It’ll help teachers—online support; it will help the Te Reo Māori teacher networks; and it will deliver guidelines and resources towards teaching. We’re going to have a big education event for teachers who wish to speak Te Reo Māori. We are delivering for our people there.
Then, of course, there’s Te Kawa Matakura—something totally new, something totally unique in New Zealand, where, for the first time, we are going to develop a uniquely Māori qualification that measures Māori achievement in mātauranga Māori, because at the moment we want our young people to achieve success as Māori. Now, how does saying I’ve got NCEA alone deliver that? So we’re delivering a uniquely Māori qualification that’s going to help Māori to achieve as Māori. We’d really like the Opposition to get on board with this new qualification, because all they’ve done in the past is ram unwanted reforms down our educational throats. National standards was a failure—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Oh, thank goodness that’s finished. Oh, wasn’t it dire. Now, that member who’s resumed his seat, Mr Kelvin Davis, has boasted that this Budget delivers for Māori. Well, if only. There are two Māori I saw it delivering for. One was the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and the other was the Hon Shane Jones. They’re the only two Māori I can see who got anything out of this Budget—and, by goodness, are they smirking. They certainly didn’t give anything to anybody else.
I’m going to start off by saying this: I have a bone to pick with the Rt Hon Bill English, because he shouldn’t have left the economy in such a good state. It’s all his fault, for letting these people—these fools in charge—come in and just borrow and spend and tax and spend. This Budget is a fail—it’s an epic fail. I’ll tell you why it’s a fail. Have a look at “KiwiFail”—“KiwiFail”, otherwise known as KiwiBuild: 100,000 homes we’re being promised over 10 years. We’re down to 1,000 in one year. You cannot build 100,000 homes in 10 years with 1,000 in the first year.
I can see why the Prime Minister today—and I’ve got a bone to pick with her too. She stood up here and she said, in Parliament, that she wanted to be proud of New Zealand. So she’s not proud of New Zealand is what she was telling us? She said we should be looking at and rebuilding our international reputation—that’s what she said. That’s more important to her than anyone else. Well, I’ve got news for her, this new Prime Minister: I’m proud of New Zealand. Everyone on this side of the House is proud of New Zealand, and we don’t need some group of schoolkids in Paris to tell us we should be proud of New Zealand. This country is a great country.
And I’ve got news for the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the big winner out of this Budget. He said he wanted to make New Zealand great again. Apart from the obvious stealing of someone else’s slogan, this country is great, Mr Peters. This country is the best and the greatest little country in the world, and the only thing that could make it greater would be getting rid of him and his Government. Everything else is pretty fine.
I want them to have a little bit more aspiration in their Budget. They started off by saying that KiwiBuild was going to add to the residential market. It turns out they’re just going to take some developments that were failing, they’re going to stick a KiwiBuild sticker on it, and they’re going to call it “a KiwiBuild we’ve built for you house”. The trouble with that is dear old Treasury. I mean, they’re so pesky when you’re in Government, aren’t they, really? They come along and they go and burst your little bubble. Well, what they’re saying in here, in this Budget Economic and Fiscal Update dated today, is that, actually, we’re going to have half the residential building activity going on than they planned six months ago—half. We’re going from 5 billion to 2.5 billion. That is an epic fail—even more than Phil Twyford’s told us about. It is a total fail of this Government and this Budget.
Let’s get to some more of these fails, shall we? Health: we heard today a big skite—the biggest health budget ever. But when the Hon Simon Bridges pointed out—very reasonably I thought, and in very nice tones—to the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern that no, no, actually, we gave more to health to last year than what she has this year, she came back with some sort of talk about, “Well, it was only the TerraNova settlement.” I’m sorry; these are the people who work in the hospitals, who work in the rest homes—
Kiritapu Allan: You tried not to pay them, though!
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —and the people who do the job, and she thinks they’re “only”. I guess the next thing we’re going to have is an announcement from Ms Kiri Allan from somewhere or other that they’re not actually decent jobs. I bet they’re going to say that. So Jacinda Ardern might think they’re “only”, but, actually, some of us on this side of the House think they’re good people and they deserve a decent salary.
Now, let’s have a look at one of the other little housing epic fails, shall we? How are they going to pay for these new State houses they say they’re going to build? Well, let me tell you how, because I know you want to hear. Well, they’re not going to borrow themselves; they’re going to make old Housing New Zealand do the borrowing. So Housing New Zealand has to go into hock for $2.9 billion to private lenders—so, in other words, international banks. You know those foreign banks—those ones? You know the ones. They’re going to have to borrow because they’re still going to take the dividend from Housing New Zealand. You remember all those years and years of “How can the National Government take dividends?” And then, as part of that as well, what they’re doing—
Chris Bishop: That can’t be true.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: It is true, Mr Bishop—it is true! The other thing they’re doing is they’re going to make Housing New Zealand pay for these houses as well as borrow almost $3 billion on their books—against some of the houses for the poorest people in New Zealand, they’re going to take $900 million off Housing New Zealand to help pay for this. So that’s $900 million that’s not available to carpet homes, to deal with insulation, to look after people in them. It’s $900 million not available for looking after people who are the poorest New Zealanders. And that Government over there thinks they’re doing just fine, and “let’s all skite about how we want to make New Zealand great again.” It was great until they came in.
Let’s have a look at the oil and gas industry—let’s have a look at that. Let’s all get on a plane to Paris to go and announce to a group of school kids that we’re better and more virtuous than anyone else in the world, because just like France, we’re going to stop all oil and gas exploration. Well, what a great announcement, except, of course, France has never had oil and gas exploration. And so, really, why didn’t Jacinda Ardern just say, “I’ll tell you what. We’re going to stop all our nuclear power plants.” It was exactly as effective in terms of France, because of course, France relies on nuclear power. They are actually exporters of nuclear power. So while she’s off there virtue signalling and destroying 8,000 jobs in the Taranaki province alone—high-paying jobs worth twice any other jobs—what’s she doing? She’s going around saying, “Let’s do over our own energy and resources industry so that we can all look good on the international stage.” And that’s what she told us today: it’s all about the international stage. I remember another Prime Minister who was very interested in the international stage, she did very well in the UN. But I don’t know if that’s what her plans are.
Let’s have a look at this billion dollars a year for tertiary students. You know, remember the election promise of first year tertiary education being free? Sensible people have said to me, “Well, if you’re going to do something like that, wouldn’t you do it on the fourth year? Wouldn’t you do it on the third year? Wouldn’t you do it on the year when they’re actually doing something?” So how many more students are going into tertiary education now with one year free? Tell me—tell me. Any of you—guesses? Well, I’m going to tell you. There’s no more; there’s actually 900 fewer—900 fewer for a billion dollars a year. Now, that is what you get when you’ve got a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade guy in charge of finance—[Interruption] The only people who can. But a billion dollars for a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade!
You see, when we were in Government—we came into Government in 2008 and we came into the global financial crisis. We were told—we were shouted at from this side of the House—that we would have a decade of deficits. That’s what they thought they were leaving us. And, by goodness, did they do everything that they could! That’s what we were told. We had to borrow. We had to borrow as a Government because we had to borrow. Otherwise people would have lost their benefits. The poor would have been poorer. We did everything and we increased the real value of benefits for our most poor New Zealanders. We did that during really tough times. This lot have come into Government when we’ve left them surplus—so much money in there for them—and what have they done? They’re borrowing some more, and, of course, they’ve got Housing New Zealand borrowing—for goodness’ sake. Seventy-three billion dollars’ worth of borrowing through Government agencies, under a Government that should be awash with cash, and they’re spending everything.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you so much for this opportunity, Madam Speaker. It’s usually an honour to stand up after the former Minister Judith Collins, but it was incoherent and a yelling ramble that I couldn’t quite focus on.
So let’s just talk some facts. I just got some good news and I’ll bring that to the debate. We saw some media releases just now from Export New Zealand and Business New Zealand welcoming the announcements from this Government today, talking about the billion dollars of R & D tax credit and the money that this Government is spending on foreign affairs. What a surprise that might be to that side of the House—that Export New Zealand and Business New Zealand welcome some genuine investment in our foreign affairs programme around the world. I didn’t have time to read the full story, but let’s picture this: actually sending out good people on behalf of New Zealand to engage with the rest of the world to tell them what it is we’re about, what we represent, and what we have to offer. Funnily enough, our exporters are excited about that prospect. And what does that mean? That means our exporters are going to export more. It’s a funny thing. It’s a complicated equation for the other side of the House, but greater advocacy will lead to greater exports, which will lead to more income, and hey, more jobs, guys. This is all good. This is fantastic.
So, look, I should’ve taken the first opportunity I could to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson today. I think not only has he done a superb job with the production of this Budget but, actually, ladies and gentlemen, the job he has undertaken in preparing this Budget, the work that he has done with the Ministers from across this coalition Government, with our support partners there, has been a fantastic reflection of the commitment from this Government to get the job done and do—let’s put it as bluntly as I can—a fantastic job for the people of New Zealand. This has been a great Budget.
So, in the general election, New Zealanders voted, and there’s—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: They voted for National.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: There we go, there’s one of them. Nick Smith pipes up like—we arranged this, didn’t we? We arranged this, Nick Smith. It’s like you push a button and there he is. I hate to tell you this, Mr Smith, but the majority of New Zealanders voted for this coalition Government here, and that means what we have on this side of the House, Mr Smith, is one of the most representative Governments this House, this Parliament, has seen in its entire history, and it’s a wonderful thing to be a part of, Mr Smith. Although—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: How many people have ever employed anybody? How many from small business?
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: My brain is tuned to tune you out. Ha, ha!
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hope it’s not me.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: No—oh, no, never you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You see how quick that was? The political party opposite was, unlike this Government—and I commend the Prime Minister on her choice of words today. At least we are willing to set those targets and fail. But we have those aspirations—
Chris Penk: And you will—and you will.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Oh, see, there we go—there we go. It’s like another button was pushed. See, this is the difference here. This side of the House is willing to acknowledge that there are issues. Take a housing crisis, for example, ladies and gentlemen. Over there, for what? Five, six years, they knew—they knew—it was happening. They knew what was going to happen and how bad it was going to get.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Trebled the house build rate.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: In fact, that man over there is particularly responsible for the lack of response from that side of the House. What we see here on this side is a Government that’s saying yes, actually, there is a blimmin housing crisis, and we need to act and we need to do something about it right now instead of sending out media spin to say, “There is no crisis; calm down. Don’t worry about all the homeless—oh, by the way, let’s spend $140,000 a day”—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Let’s build more houses.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Mr Smith, you over there—that party over there, ladies and gentlemen, spent $140,000 a day, for months on end, on motels and hotel rooms for New Zealand’s homeless after you sold off the—not you, Madam Deputy Speaker; my apologies—after that party sold off the very houses those people were living in.
Kiritapu Allan: Shame.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Shame—absolute shame. Let’s try and be more positive, shall we, because I’m getting tired of picking on an easy target.
This Government is adamant that we will support New Zealanders. This Budget is a reflection of that. We will bring opportunity back from the four corners of the world, and that report I read out to the House is a reflection of the response from the market itself out there—businesses who are excited about the possibilities. We are bringing that opportunity back from the four—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is that why business confidence has collapsed?
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Oh, I’ve piqued his attention again. And what else we are doing—so the four corners of the world, we’re bringing it back to New Zealand with an actual foreign affairs and trade programme, and what do you know?
Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s called “Pacific First”, not New Zealand First.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: We, unlike that party over there, believe in the regions, Mr Smith, and so they are the recipients of $1 billion per annum for the next three years, and already we’re seeing the fruits of that labour. The regions have been neglected for far too long, and this Government knows it and we are working already to turning that around.
We have committed to growing a strong economy, a balanced economy with clear commitment to being fiscally responsible and providing certainty. So, again, let’s just look at some of those basics there in terms of the economic situation that we’re dealing with: 3.2 percent growth over the next few years—projected growth—unemployment rates coming down to 4.1 percent next year—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: All your hard work!
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —and, actually—thank you, Dr Nick Smith; it is a lot to do with all of our hard work on this side of the House. Thank you for acknowledging that.
So we are about supporting regional economies, increasing exports, lifting wages, and underpinning all of this with a commitment to delivering greater fairness in our society. This Government is keen to futureproof our economy, to have both sustainability and environmental sustainability to go along with it, because I think it was the Rt Hon Winston Peters who said a smart economy, a good economy, cannot ignore its environment, and we will not do that.
Look, I think it was Mr Robertson as well who quoted Einstein about the fact that—he is reported to have said no problem can be solved by the same kind of thinking that created it. So New Zealand First, when we went into negotiations, asked the fundamental question: can we change this? Can we make a real difference?
Chris Bishop: He should’ve quoted you!
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: And the obvious answer, Mr Bishop, was—well, we couldn’t with that side of the House. The only way we’re going to get real change is with this side of the House here—with our friends, with our colleagues, with these hard-working people who are dedicated to New Zealand. So New Zealanders need to be reminded of the contrast in approach.
The utter desolation left by the National Party is everywhere you look. They get angry every time we remind people of it, and, I noted, Gerry Brownlee yelled out, “Just fix it.” “Just fix it.”, he yelled out, afraid that the awful truth of their neglect will get through to the people of New Zealand: district health boards that were underfunded—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Twelve new hospitals.
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —capital expenditure forecasts needing $12 billion, Dr Smith, and what did you allocate in last year’s Budget? Not even one percent of that—$12 billion, and you guys weren’t going to spend a bean on capital expenditure over the next 10 years. Twelve billion dollars—you didn’t even start it.
Actually, let’s finish on that because that is the indictment I put on that side of the House. Unfortunately, the best example of this is the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. What they saw on that side of the House were cost savings—short-term, closed, short-sighted Budget cost savings. Yet what we have now—they saw it on the day. They said “Today, we’re going to save some money.” but they didn’t look at tomorrow. They didn’t look at the next day, and now our agriculture Minister, our primary industries Minister, is having to clean up your mess, and I commend him for doing a good job.
This is a great Budget and I truly am proud to be a member of a Government that is working for all New Zealand. Thank you very much.
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): It didn’t take New Zealand First long to start clapping like trained seals, did it? They used to sit over there, and they’re all the tough men of the Parliament, standing up for the regions—
Rt Hon David Carter: Ron Mark didn’t clap.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: Oh, no, Ron Mark didn’t clap. He’s still hurting a little bit. Tracey Martin’s still hurting a little bit too, and the Labour Party will be hurting for signing up to Winston Peters. We were smarter—we were smarter; we didn’t do that. Fletcher Tabuteau—when I walked into the Chamber, I heard him talking about more exports, more exports apparently. He’s the guy that sat on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for month after month opposing free-trade agreements. If he really cared about exporters, he would have been supporting free-trade agreements. But no, New Zealand First hate free-trade agreements. They don’t support the exporters. They don’t support the regions either. The Budget they’ve signed up to and the coalition Government that they’ve signed up to will see the regions deserting them and it will see their vote going down, and I suspect they’re going to be questioning their decision making leading up to this Budget.
The reason why this Budget is going to be a fail for New Zealanders is because it will lead to more tax, it will lead to more borrowing, and it will lead to more spending that won’t grow the economy, it won’t grow jobs, and it will hurt New Zealanders in the back pocket. I’m pleased that I came in and am speaking after a New Zealand First member, because the big win for New Zealand First is not trees, it’s not provincial growth; it’s nothing like that. It’s not jobs. Their big success in this Budget is diplomats. Their big success in this Budget is lining the carpets of embassies, seeing more diplomats getting out there, ensuring that the people that Winston Peters likes hanging out with get some support, when it’s actually people that go to the doctor that won’t get the support that was promised by the Labour Party. It’s people in the regions that need jobs and need support and need education that won’t get the support from the Labour Party. New Zealanders will be paying more in the back pocket for that.
The jobs that were being seen under National in sectors like the oil and gas industry and the agricultural industry, they are being hurt by this Government, and this Budget is an example of that. We were seeing 10,000 jobs a month being created under the National-led Government. We saw us getting the books back in order. We saw growth in the economy. Grant Robertson, whilst he’s been able to deliver a Budget that he feels proud about, the fact is he was able to deliver a Budget because we got the books back in order, we set the circumstances up, we ensured that there was growth for New Zealanders.
Greg O’Connor: No, we’re paying the bills now, man—we’re paying your bills.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: There’s Greg O’Connor. He used to be the man that cared about police officers—no longer. Greg O’Connor, you’re failing the police. Greg O’Connor, you are a failure to the New Zealand Police. [Interruption]
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! Mr O’Connor, there is a Standing Order that says you cannot interject from a seat other than your normal seat in order to get an advantage. A normal interjection is fine, but that is way over the top. I do apologise for interrupting.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: Oh, no, I don’t mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, because he’s failed New Zealand police officers. He used to be the big champion of New Zealand police officers, but here he is now, a Labour MP—sorry, Mr O’Connor, you’re now accountable because the Labour Party promised police officers on the street; they promised 1,800 new cops. They’re not delivering. Stuart Nash has no idea how many there’ll be, how much it will cost, or when it will be delivered over.
The New Zealand Police and people in New Zealand are being failed by this Government on law and order policies. Greg O’Connor, now the MP for—which electorate?—Ōhāriu; Greg O’Connor’s people are now living in a less safe country, because they won’t build prisons and they’re going to let people out. They believe in letting people out and letting them out on bail.
Hon Andrew Little: Disgraceful.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: Disgraceful. Andrew Little—I liked him. He was far better as Leader of the Opposition. Andrew Little did a better speech as the leader of the Labour Party during the last Budget than Jacinda Ardern did. She was the great hope for the Labour Party. Well, I actually enjoyed Andrew’s speech last year better, but Andrew’s now moved down the rankings a bit, and he’s the guy that’s going to be leading—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Full name—full name.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: Oh, sorry, Andrew Little. Andrew Little, the former Leader of the Opposition, now justice Minister, is about to let people out on bail and go out and commit crimes that will hurt New Zealanders. That’s the legacy that he’s going to be leaving New Zealanders when they’ve spent three years in Government.
I want to turn to the transport sector, because that’s an area that I care quite passionately about, and I know something that New Zealanders care passionately about too is how much tax they’re going to be having to spend. Transport’s not a big winner in the Budget speech, because a lot of the transport work’s already been going on. The key element of Labour’s transport plan is ramping up fuel taxes. New Zealanders will be paying more—$25c a litre—in extra fuel taxes under Labour’s policies. People out there in the regions are going to be hurt by seeing their taxes having to be spent at the petrol pump more. They’re not going to see the infrastructure improvements. They’re not going to see the roading that would lead to economic growth. They’re not going to see the projects that would lead to jobs being created in the regions, and they’re not going to be seeing success for them on the transport basis.
Hon Julie Anne Genter: Aucklanders are fucking thankful that someone’s finally going to get some rapid transit network.
JAMI-LEE ROSS: The big transport plan for the Labour Party is a light rail system—trams running down Dominion Road. That’s right, Julie Anne Genter. You’ve done well: trams down Dominion Road. That’ll be great for the people that she likes to have coffee with in those cafes in Ponsonby, but the people living in the regions that have to pay the taxes for those trams running down Dominion Road—they’re going to be paying more, they’re not going to be seeing more roads, they’re not going to be seeing more transport benefits for them. Yes, they’re putting more into safety; I admit that. They’re putting more into safety, but they’re still taxing people to fund trams down Dominion Road. The Green Party did well out of that particular transport plan.
The New Zealand First Party have failed the regions. So when people in Waikato—they were expecting more roading. They will be paying more in taxes at the petrol pump. Well, will they see their road? No, they won’t. Will they ride the Dominion Road trams? No, they won’t. The people in Christchurch—they’re expecting more Christchurch roading improvements. They’ll be paying more at the petrol pump. Will they be seeing more roads? No, they won’t, but they’ll be paying for those Dominion Road trams. The people in Tauranga that were expecting the Tauranga Northern Link to go ahead: will they see that Tauranga Northern Link go ahead? No, they won’t. They’ll be paying more in tax for Dominion Road trams. So people around the country are going to feel ripped off by this Government when it comes to transport. Every time they go to the petrol pump and they see petrol prices heading towards $2.50, $3 a litre, they can blame the Labour Government for making it even worse.
Phil Twyford admitted the figures in the House. We questioned him in the House on his transport figures. He admitted that there was a $5.35 billion cut in transport funding when it came to State highway improvements. Sure, he doesn’t like roads of national significance, but they led to economic growth, they led to economic opportunities for the regions, and they led to safer roads for New Zealanders to drive on. When those people from the New Zealand First Party go up and swan around in Northland, they should talk to people about whether they’re happy with the transport policies of this Government when it comes to Northland, because they’re not. They’re not getting the roads they need, they’re not getting the economic opportunity, they’re not going to see jobs, and they’re not going to see success for their community. That’s why this Government will continue to fail New Zealanders.
I also want to talk about health, because health is supposedly, according to Grant Robertson, the big winner in this Budget. They’re putting less extra funding in than we did last year. Supposedly, we were the big failures in health. Well, I’d have to say the country will be hoping that Jonathan Coleman comes back to Parliament, because he did a far better job than David Clark ever did. The supposed gap in health funding that they campaigned on, that they said they’re going to put into extra district health board funding, that they said they’d put into mental health funding—it’s not there. It’s not there.
The health sector would have been better off with a National-led Government. The health sector would have been better off, people would have had more operations, people would have had more access to doctors, and people would have had better hospitals had a National-led Government been here. Labour has broken their promise in health, just like they’ve broken their promise in tax, just like they’ve broken their promise about what they’d be delivering for New Zealanders.
So this is a Budget of broken promises. This is a Budget where the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Party Government is failing New Zealanders. It’s a Government that’s delivered a Budget that will see more people paying more in tax, at the petrol pump, and in other forms. They won’t see the job creation, they won’t see the economic growth, and they will feel let down by this Government.
I was proud to be a National member of the National-led Government under John Key and Bill English as we delivered Budgets that took us through difficult times but invested in those priority areas. It was a Government that delivered surpluses in the end, a Government that was able to get the books back in order. We were delivering better education opportunities for young people, we were delivering more operations for New Zealanders, we were delivering more jobs for Kiwi families, and we were delivering what would have, effectively, been a tax cut for every single New Zealander. So when people look at this Budget and they see the failure on the other side and they compare what they could have had, they’re going to be disappointed with what they do have under this Government. Three years’ time, Simon Bridges as Prime Minister—it’ll be a totally different Budget under a National-led Government.
MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Madam Deputy Speaker, I’d just like to let the previous member, Jami-Lee Ross, know I’ve just ordered him some lunch because he sounded a bit “hangry” in that whole speech there. Some food is on its way, Jami-Lee Ross. Likewise, the Leader of the Opposition couldn’t believe what he was hearing today, couldn’t believe the positive turn that this Government has taken, to the point where he had to call it a fake Budget. But let me reassure the Opposition that this is real. This is happening, this is not a dream, there is nothing wrong with their television sets, and the red pill won’t do anything, because this is reality.
This is what a real Government looks like: a Government with purpose, a Government which takes positive action, a Government which is united, focused, and getting things done. This Budget begins the process of rebuilding our public services that the previous Government broke, restoring our health and education systems, putting in place the foundations for our future, and, importantly, putting in place the foundations for a green future.
But I can see why some of the members opposite are confused and a bit hungry. You see, a real Government builds houses and actually shelters our people without a home. Instead, National stuffed around as rents and house prices exploded. A real Government funds hospitals to deliver the best healthcare in the world to our people. Instead, National blew smoke rings while mould ruined the walls of Middlemore Hospital, the hospital where I have given birth to three of my babies. A real Government funds front-line family violence services to ensure victims of domestic violence can get help when they actually need it. National stood by while Relationships Aotearoa folded, Shakti Wellington had to beg for funding, and Christchurch lost its only Rape Crisis centre. A real Government gives our kids the best start in life and a world-class education.
Hon Jacqui Dean: Yeah, by closing down Roxburgh health camp.
MARAMA DAVIDSON: National closed 24 schools—you did—in Christchurch and gave their principals colour-coded name tags to tell them about it. A real Government thinks the justice system is actually for delivering justice, not for feeding Māori and Pasifika men and women to the private prison industry. This is what we campaigned for—a real Government, a Government that takes action rather than kicking the tyres; a Government that builds, not a Government that shuts things down.
Sometimes people ask why the Green Party didn’t go into coalition with National. Well, let’s see; let’s have a look. Why don’t we just focus on the environmental stuff? OK, but National would never have put an expiry date on oil and gas exploration. They would never have stopped subsidising massive polluting irrigation schemes. They would never have delivered a Budget like this. Being Green means understanding how our social and economic systems fuel the destruction of our environment. National see the symptoms but pretend there is no disease. They want to clean up local beaches—oh, yes—but ignore where the rubbish actually came from. They want to take a walk-run along a pretty river, but ignore why they can’t actually swim in it. They can’t see the forest for the trees. We in the Green Party, on the other hand, love the forest and the trees.
This Budget contains the largest ever allocation for Green projects. That’s something we’re pretty proud of. After 21 years in Opposition, we are now delivering in Government. Our Green Investment Fund will inspire home-grown solutions to climate change. The Department of Conservation’s largest ever funding increase since 2002 will go a long way to reversing National’s cuts and will save thousands of our precious plants and wildlife. We’re also supporting our farmers to use land and water in a way that will protect those living systems for generations to come, with a big boost in funding to the Sustainable Farming Fund.
We are getting the ball rolling on setting up a new dedicated agent for domestic and sexual violence, an issue this Government takes seriously. We’re helping out families on low incomes to get their homes warm and dry—fancy that!—with insulation that will stop kids getting sick from the cold and the damp.
The environment doesn’t sit in a box on a shelf, also. Mama Nature—she’s all around us. She affects our lives, and our lives affect her every minute of the day. Mama Nature binds our universe together, folks. The issues facing our environment, our water and air, and our native species—trees and birds and fish and frogs—are all connected to the issues facing our society.
Poverty and homelessness, low wages and high rents, the mental health crisis, violence, and discrimination; they all have their roots in an economic system—which isn’t broken. No, it’s working exactly as it intended: siphoning off the wealth we all create into the hands of a few people who missed kindy the day we were taught to share.
This Budget is all about sharing. We are looking at the largest redistribution of wealth since the “mother of all Budgets”, but it’s more Robin Hood than Ruth Richardson. Helping those in need who need it the most—that’s what a real Government does. That’s why we are so proud to be voting for a Budget that shifts 58,000 tamariki and their whānau out of poverty, a Budget that delivers the largest ever increase in funding for health, education, and housing; a Budget that funds an extra 1,300 teachers to help our children. The social issues so dear to the heart of so many of us in the Greens are central to this Budget.
When National were in Government, they were so focused on their surplus that they ignored the massive moral deficit they were creating: families living in cars, kids going to school hungry, nurses and midwives and care workers underpaid and overworked, toxic rivers, dying kauri, and dead dolphins. But this is a real Government, and this is a very good first Budget. Is it perfect? It’s a great start, and we have to start somewhere. We have to set a strong foundation for all the amazing things this Government is going to achieve, and today we are turning the waka around and pointing it in a new and better direction.
I look at how far we’ve already come, and I am so proud to be part of this Government. We have ensured that every rental will be warm, dry, and well ventilated; we have a massive plan to fix Auckland’s transport issues by supporting light rail, bus lanes, cycleways, and cars, too; and we have delivered real justice and aroha to the families of the “Pike 29”. I get really excited when I think about everything else we will do: Green policies, like including a rent-to-own scheme in KiwiBuild so everyone has a shot at owning their own home; more services for mental health and for drug and alcohol addiction; overhauling our broken welfare system so it focuses on helping people, not reading their Tinder profiles; and policies that Labour and New Zealand First bring to the table, like free doctors visits for under-14s, increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and planting one billion trees. They can see the forest, too.
This Government will transform Aotearoa into the country we know it can be: a country where all kids grow up in warm, dry homes in healthy, vibrant cities and towns, where they can swim in the local river and drink water from the tap without getting sick; a country where everyone who works has a decent income and a good life, and where paid employment is not the only kind of work we acknowledge and value; a country which honours and does more than just honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi as our founding document; and a country which leads the world in tackling the global problems of climate change, inequality, and injustice. That’s what a real Government does—this is why we’re here. We’re not just managing things until the next election; we are governing for the next century and planning for the world our mokopuna will inherit, one built on love and community and kaitiakitanga.
We are making decisions that will have real impacts for real people—parents who can spend more time with baby after they’re born, people struggling to pay the power bill in winter; victims of domestic violence—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.
Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look, I am pleased to speak in this Budget debate, but I do have to admit something. I have to admit that I was wrong. I told a range of people that this would probably be one of the largest chunks of cash ever for Vote Education, and what is the reality? Less than a 5 percent increase in education.
What I’m going to tell the House today is: a litany of broken promises. They are many, and that’s why we’re hearing from the sector. They are disappointed. They are angry. This is a Government that went to the election claiming that they were going to do things like have free iPads and devices for every child, modern learning environments for every school, counsellors, career services, and all of these things, and where are they? They’re not there. The only holes that were actually true when Chris Hipkins was talking about them are the ones that exist because they’re not there in his Budget. That is the reality even in school property alone. He went out there and said there was this $1.1 billion hole, but the fact is that National took our school property portfolio from $3.5 billion to $5 billion, and in this Budget, he spent $3 million more than National. That is ridiculous. In the Auckland education property growth plan alone, we were looking at a spend of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
But, again, this commitment over 12 years to provide 30,000 schools with modern learning environments—where is it? Chris Hipkins, come down to the House and tell New Zealand where that commitment is in the Budget. When it comes to learning support, we are pleased—
Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I’m just concerned that that member referred to a member who wasn’t here, making it very obvious.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I appreciate the intervention.
Hon NIKKI KAYE: When it comes to learning support, yes, we are pleased that there is additional funding for learning support. National increased learning support funding by 30 percent. But what did the Labour Party manifesto say? It said it would uncap the ongoing resourcing scheme (ORS) funding. That means that everybody who needs it could get access. That’s not what this Budget delivered.
When it comes to the school leavers, they promised—let’s hear it—$170 million for a school leavers’ package. Guess how much was there? $1.7 million—100 times less. This is a Budget of broken promises.
Where are the night classes and other adult learning opportunities? Where is the fund that supports senior citizens to adapt to changing technology? Where is the special education needs coordinator funding? Where is the sufficient speech and language therapist funding? Where is the independent disputes resolution tribunal? Where is the College of Educational Leadership?
Again, I have people contacting me saying, “What on earth happened here?” The Prime Minister stands up and says that she cares about vulnerable kids at the same time as they’re scrapping partnership schools and getting rid of national standards, and then, in this Budget, they have failed to deliver on a number of core education commitments.
Where is the reinstatement of extra funding for early childhood education (ECE) centres that employ 100 percent qualified? Where is the young entrepreneurs policy allowing New Zealanders aged 18 to 23—where is restoring the eligibility of students in long courses such as medicine?
Tracey Martin—again, we acknowledge the funding in terms of learning support. But, as part of the coalition agreement, it’s pretty clear today that what this Budget is about is not only broken promises from Labour—or partially completed promises—but the fact that New Zealand First have not delivered on their coalition agreement. Where is the reinstatement for computers in homes? Where is the restarting of the Te Kotahitanga teacher professional development initiative?
This is my point: at a time when they have billions and billions of dollars of cash, for Vote Education to receive a less than 5 percent increase, to have had a Minister engaging in fake news—claiming $1.1 billion holes in school property, not delivering on modern learning environments for every school in New Zealand but then spending about $3 million more in the area of growth—is outrageous. And I want Chris Hipkins to come down to this House—
Hon Member: Oh!
Hon NIKKI KAYE: OK. I would like Chris Hipkins to go out to New Zealanders—to go out there on national television—and talk about where these education initiatives are and why they have not been delivered. I am not the only one that’s saying this, because what we also know is in areas like the operations grant, again, we heard from Labour for so many years about how it wasn’t enough.
This is a Budget which is really disappointing and for some people they are actually quite angry because they feel misled. They actually feel misled. They believe there was a Labour Party education manifesto document promising night classes, promising more counsellors in schools, promising 100 percent qualified, promising a device and iPad for every child, and promising modern learning environments, but the reality is—and this is what this Budget should be called. It is not a rebuild Budget. The reality is we did way more with way little.
This is the reality Budget. The reality Budget is the fact that Labour’s costings were way out. The fact that they’ve had to manufacture holes, which is business as usual, and the reality is that they can’t deliver on their promises. This Budget is about a whole range of broken promises or partial promises.
And I want to also make this point. When it came to Māori and Pasifika achievement, National was a Government that saw massive lifts in Māori and Pasifika achievement. And we had targeted funds—for instance, last year in early childhood education—that were focused around some of our most vulnerable children. Erica Stanford had a great bill around scrapping the decile system and providing more targeted funding.
But what is this Budget also about? It is about missed opportunities and a lack of focus on some of our children with their most complex needs, but also the most disadvantaged. What we know is that, in a period of six months, not only have they let us down in terms of all of these promises but when it comes to some of our most vulnerable children—whether it’s partnership schools, whether it’s national standards going, whether it’s the lack of targeted funding in this Budget, whether it’s the inability to scrap the decile and provide a new system, whether it’s speech and language therapists—the rhetoric and the statements that they’ve previously made don’t match up.
We on this side of the House are absolutely focused on those children having those opportunities. We on this side of the House are absolutely focused on lifting achievement. We are focused on reform and system change and we managed to, as well, increase Vote Education from $8 billion to $11 billion under our time in office. And at a time when they are awash with cash—billions more from additional revenue—at a time when they have billions more, education is the major failure in the Budget. It gets less than a 5 percent increase.
And, again, we’ve had radio silence from the Minister. We can’t understand why all of these manifesto commitments are not being delivered. We can’t understand why the school leavers’ kit went from $170 million to $1.7 million. The reality is that Chris Hipkins lost out to a range of other Cabinet Ministers.
And who did he lose out to? He lost out to embassies in Stockholm. He lost out to foreign diplomats. So the facts are that a whole lot children—some disadvantaged children—have not got the funding that they need, or schools’ operations grants haven’t increased enough, or we don’t have the level of support for counsellors or other support services in schools, because Winston Peters got a few extra diplomats across the world. So no longer will we accept any of the excuses that we get. To put it in perspective—to put it in a really basic perspective—you’re talking tens of millions of dollars for school operation grants, yet Winston Peters gets hundreds and millions of dollars for diplomats. That is actually another major point about this Budget: not only is it a Budget of broken promises, not only is it a Budget of partial things being delivered—it is a Budget of blowouts but it’s also a Budget of priorities. At a time of billions of dollars of extra cash, education is the poor cousin to a whole range of portfolios.
The fact is the Prime Minister can no longer stand up in this House and say that children are the centre of this Government, because 2,500 schools and thousands of early childhood education centres are saying “Where is the cash for education?” That’s what’s happening. I’ve got them in my in-box—a whole lot of schools, principals, NZEI Te Riu Roa, unions. Everyone is saying, with billions—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Your time has expired.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I was going to launch straight into my speech, but I think it would be disrespectful not to acknowledge some of the speakers that have spoken before me. I want to start with the Hon Simon Bridges, Leader of the Opposition. I go to his comment about this being a “fake Budget”. Well, I just want to assure the Hon Simon Bridges that there is nothing fake about this. The only thing that’s fake in this House is the perception that that side is trying to give that they’re unified behind their leader.
I also want to reflect on Judith Collins’ comments. A number of times during her speech she said “When we were in Government …”—telling stories of old, when they were in Government. I just want to remind her that when they were in Government we had the highest levels of homelessness in the OECD. We had enduring poverty amongst our children that they never resolved or addressed, so perhaps keep those stories for an intimate group.
Can I also refer to Jami-Lee’s speech—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Proper names please.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: —Jami-Lee Ross’s speech, sorry. It was probably one of the angriest speeches in this House—yelling at New Zealand that “this is what they’re missing out on.” I don’t think anyone could watch that speech and feel like they were missing out on anything, in fact.
Finally, I just want to reflect on the Hon Nikki Kaye’s speech and her criticism of our education policy. I just remind her that whilst she was the Minister of Education there were buildings falling down around her all across the country, that she did nothing to address. So perhaps, before throwing stones, reflect a little a bit on what was happening when she was Minister.
Now, putting all that aside, I just want to say how much I’m enjoying being part of this Government. It’s been mentioned here in the House today about this wonderful three-way partnership we have going on with our coalition partner over there, with our confidence and supply partners over here. I just want to say that the process that we go through to make decisions is robust. There are amazing minds behind the scenes making the decisions, and I just want to say that this is a fabulous Government, and I think that’s reflected today in the Budget that we’ve got.
We’ve already heard in this House from the Minister of Finance, who has done a brilliant job on this Budget by the way. This Government is rolling out a comprehensive plan to address the challenges we face as a nation. Many of the challenges are due to the fact that we had a Government who neglected this country for nine years. I want to say that Vote Social Development is a pivotal part of that work.
The social development portfolio is necessarily broad. At its core, it’s about ensuring individuals, families, and communities have the support and resources they need to be secure and safe and resilient, and to meet their potential. We all know—everyone in this House knows—that’s complex and challenging work. That’s why we’re focused on the needs and the rights of people receiving benefits, as well as expanding that focus to meet the needs of the working poor, to meet the needs of disabled people, to meet the needs of students, and of course to meet the needs of our children.
This year’s social development budget commitments are built on three pillars. The first pillar is to rebuild what was neglected and to protect our ability to operate in times of crisis. One of the areas we had to do that in was in respect of improving the resilience of the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) critical systems, where we’ve had to direct $35 million worth of funding—$35 million worth of funding—because the infrastructure in place has flaws, and if there is a disaster in the Wellington region, then 1.1 million clients receiving or relying on MSD could be affected. For 20 days, potentially, the IT systems could be offline. What is that like when you come into this job and you see that is the case? Of course, a responsible Government is going to respond immediately.
The second pillar is to take action now to alleviate the very real suffering we’re seeing in our communities. This Government didn’t wait for the Budget to do that; we did that in our first 100 days by introducing a Families Package worth $5.3 billion. We need to remind that side of the House that it’s not just about what’s been announced as part of this Budget; it’s what we did immediately to alleviate the poverty that we’ve been watching unfold under their watch.
From 1 July we’ll be implementing the winter energy payment to help individuals and families heat their homes over winter. That payment alone will be providing an extra $443 million worth of support for people on a benefit or superannuation for 2018-19. We’ve been criticised for giving this to superannuitants. They don’t want us to provide a winter energy payment to superannuitants; they say that it’s not targeted enough. Yet they were willing to give $400 million worth of tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners in the package that they tried to sell but failed to sell to New Zealanders. That’s just one of many parts of the Families Package.
As part of this Budget we’re investing $79.82 million in supporting our communities, including the long-overdue amount of $76 million over four years to stabilise and strengthen family violence services. They put nothing into front-line family violence services whilst they were in Government. Ten years of no funding increases, and now what we’re going to see is an immediate 30 percent increase for 150 services providing family violence support. Talking about taking action now, I want to point out that under the previous Government, the cost of GP visits rose by 44 percent. This has made visiting a healthcare professional out of reach for many low-income New Zealanders. Through this Budget, all Housing New Zealand tenants and New Zealanders that receive an accommodation supplement or an income-related rent subsidy will now be eligible for a community services card. All cardholders will also have access to lower-cost GP fees. That’s estimated to benefit 540,000 New Zealanders—540,000 New Zealanders—and that’s another move that I’m proud of.
In this Budget, we’re putting $23.15 million towards supporting our young people in the Limited Service Volunteers programme, and I acknowledge my colleague over there Ron Mark, and also with respect to the youth health and well-being survey—one of the most valuable surveys to specifically inform how Government can design policy that meets the needs of our diverse youth population.
I’ve talked about two of the pillars and given a couple of examples. I want to talk about the third pillar. The third pillar of the social development budget is looking towards the future, through a sustained effort to address poverty and support the well-being of New Zealanders. The third pillar will include significant changes to our welfare system, and I know many in the social sector are eager to see this happen. But the work is too important for knee-jerk decisions.
This Government is committed to the welfare system. This Government is committed to overhauling the welfare system, which was part of our confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party, and it’s an initiative that is unreservedly backed by this Government.
As the Minister for Social Development, I want to make sure that we take a careful, considered approach that will have long-lasting benefits for future generations. We know that any changes that we make on this side of the House have to be enduring.
On this side of the House, we believe that New Zealand should be a place where everyone can live with dignity and children have the best start in life. But at this point that is an aspiration, and we can do much better. We want to ensure that the welfare system is doing the job it was established to do, providing real support for New Zealanders at the times in their life when they need it most. Over the last nine years, we have seen the welfare system get further and further away from this. What that side of the House seems to forget is that the welfare system is there for all New Zealanders—all New Zealanders—and 1.1 million New Zealanders per year will access the support of the Ministry of Social Development; 1.1 million. Disabled people, students, our senior citizens, sole parents, young people—all New Zealanders deserve to be treated with respect when they access our welfare system.
I want to touch on the fact that we are working on improving the culture that was undermined by that Government over nine years, to ensure that the people that walk through that door get the respect they deserve. I just want to say—I’m running out of time, and I’m not going to get to say everything I wanted to say in this speech. But all of these changes that have been announced and spoken about in this House today will go a long way to addressing the needs of New Zealanders.
As you can see from Budget 2018, this is a Government that actually cares about people. We know that fixing long-term problems requires fresh thinking and energy, and we’re committed to creating change that will give all New Zealanders a chance for a better future. Budget 2018 is a major step towards that goal.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I really don’t know where to begin. I thought I was going to be the one member of this side of the House that had to come down to the House and at least give the Government some credit—some credit—for their increases in Vote Health, because boy they talked a good game.
The Minister of Finance called this the “rebuilding Budget”. The Leader of the Opposition, quite rightly, said, “Rebuilding what?” Well, I certainly know what they’re not rebuilding. It’s not Dunedin Hospital and it’s not going to be for a very long time. The Minister of Health, who is from the electorate the hospital is in, petitioned this Parliament last year, imploring the previous Government to start the build, before the last election. He has official documents that say they were prepared to put stakes in the ground this year, ahead of their resource consent. There we go; Mr McClay has it. [Member holds up a sketch] It’s designed; let’s get on with it.
What do we have? At least I thought they were going to bring the building back on to the balance sheet. They decided they didn’t want a public-private partnership. They were going to put a $1.4 billion asset on the balance sheet. But when? So I ask: if this is rebuilding, then I’d hate to see it if they weren’t doing that. The really disappointing thing about Vote Health is that we were all expecting a really big bump in the appropriation. Remember those big descriptions of how the previous Government had failed to fund health? And the gap was getting wider and wider and wider.
At least in the first year, there should have been some attempt to close the gap. Do you know what happened to the gap? It got wider. By their own definition, they have underfunded health. Unbelievable! I could not believe my eyes. I spent 40 minutes looking through the Budget. Surely there had to be something there—a line that was hiding something. Not a single thing. Let me just go through a few of the lines. [Interruption] Here he is. The “Rebuild Minister” said “nobody in Dunedin”. Nobody will be calling that Minister the “Rebuild Minister”.
Last year, the district health boards (DHBs) got $439 million for cost pressures. That’s really just to keep the lights on. That was a 4.2 percent increase in their appropriation from the previous year. This year, the increase is 4.1 percent. The disappointing thing about that is that 10 of the 20 DHBs are getting a smaller percentage increase than they got last year.
Let me go through it, because the members whose constituencies are near these DHBs will be interested to know that, sadly for Simon Bridges, the Bay of Plenty District Health Board, Canterbury District Health Board, Capital and Coast District Health Board, Lakes District Health Board, South Canterbury District Health Board, Tairāwhiti District Health Board, Taranaki District Health Board, Waikato District Health Board, Waitematā District Health Board, and Whanganui District Health Board are all getting a smaller percentage increase than the previous National Government gave them.
So I think to myself: there must be something else in here. There must be something buried in the Budget. Remember the $100 million of reprioritised mental health spending? Those great initiatives that the previous Government came out and said “This is going to make a real difference to people’s lives.”—mostly young men and women in this country, with some great initiatives that the previous Government introduced, and they were going to reprioritise it. Where is it? Tumbleweed—it’s gone. I will grant that they have done some. They have put the mental health resource into Canterbury schools—that’s $25 million. They did meet their confidence and supply commitment to the Green Party to put in money for free counselling for under 25s—that’s about the only coalition commitment they’ve met. There’s another $65 million that’s disappeared out of mental health and has not come back.
Take Pharmac funding. We’re all looking aghast at a $200 million hole in the Budget for drug funding. Alzheimer’s New Zealand; the rare disorders group that keeps asking Dr Clark for a meeting—just a meeting. All they want to do is put their case. Doors are closed in the Beehive to the rare disorders group. And what did they say? Well, they’ve reprioritised that to the district health boards. That’s really interesting, because if one goes through the individual DHB lines, there’s a plus line and a minus line. There isn’t a single extra dollar in the individual DHBs for the drug funding that they took off Pharmac—give with one hand, take away with another.
GP visit funding—now, we knew there would be a massive backdown on the commitment that they made in the fiscal plan and in the Speech from the Throne. Every New Zealander was going to get a $10 reduction in their GP fees. And guess what we heard today? They fought a lot of the National Party’s policy that we campaigned on last year, and they’ve implemented it. They are going to increase the number of people who are eligible for community services cards who actually get it, and they’re going to reduce the fees. So if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’m flattered.
But how on earth are you going to appropriate the $74 million they’ve put in for that? Goodness only knows. The components of the appropriations say this: “Very Low Cost Access: budget not yet known. Care Plus: budget not yet known. Free under-13s: budget not yet known. System level measures: budget not yet known. Other: not yet known.” It’s a finger in the air; they don’t know what they’re going to do for GP fees reduction.
Now, I want to congratulate the midwives for their success—the one group in the country that actually had a bit of success out of this Government because Dr Clark was terrified—terrified—of what would happen if he went back to Dunedin without that. So it’s an 8.9 percent bump—sounds pretty good. Sound pretty good. Well done to the midwives. They deserve it; we all think that. But it’s flatlined over four years, and unless they get more than that, that will constitute a 2.2 percent increase in midwifery funding per year for the next four years. Is that going to be enough to stop those midwives going across to Australia or leaving the profession altogether?
And I ask the Government this: what is the point—what is the point—of spending $2.8 billion on fees-free for tertiary students if our doctors, our nurses, and our midwives are going to take off on graduation or don’t see a future in the profession? They must be funded. Dr Clark talked big—talked big in Opposition. This is anaemic. This is an absolute disgrace. Nobody can look at the vote on health and say this is anything like the tub-thumping rhetoric that we heard from Labour in Opposition. Labour in Government—high expectations—[Interruption]
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Just to remind the member.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —nothing here, not even a hidden appropriation for in-between Budget contingencies; can’t find it in Vote Finance. This is it—a 4.1 percent increase that’ll be barely enough for our DHBs to keep the lights on, let alone the expectations that that Minister has raised with every doctor, every nurse, every midwife, and every allied health professional in the country. They deserved better, and the Minister knows it.
What about the other agreements in health, according to the coalition agreement? Three hundred GP training places—maybe it’s here, maybe it’s not. Where are the 300 GP training places, or is that also a broken promise, Minister? Where are, in the coalition agreement—and Mr Mark will be very interested in this one, I’m sure—the free annual health and eye checks for seniors that Labour and New Zealand First signed up to only six months ago? Tumbleweed. Not there. What about extending the breast screening programme to senior women in New Zealand up to the age of 74? Can’t find it. I’d really like the Minister to point it out to me, because there’s very, very little here—$3.9 billion was the number the National Government invested last year in health over four years; this year: $3.2 billion.
But the biggest hunt of all, for me, is the hunt for Dunedin Hospital. We’ve heard a lot about Dunedin Hospital down my way. I’d run a gauntlet and a Labour Party campaign to get ahead of the decision the previous Government made to commit to three things: whatever Dunedin Hospital needed, it would get; the medical school wasn’t going anywhere; and tertiary services would be maintained—unequivocal. They said they will do better, they will do it quicker, they will do it on the balance sheet—
Hon Dr David Clark: That’s right—and we will.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: “And we will”—well, there’s a message for the Minister: platitudes and promises don’t provide hospitals. Platitudes and promises don’t pay the bills for the nurses, the midwives, and the allied health professionals. This is the most disappointing part of an incredibly disappointing Budget. Even I thought this was going to be better—that the gap might close a little bit; not a jot, and they need to explain to New Zealanders why.
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Madam Assistant Speaker, there’s a saying: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Look, I’m not going to comment too closely on the previous member Michael Woodhouse’s speech, but a couple of things I will say. There is money set aside for the planning of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild; of course, we’re not going to put that number in anywhere other than in a contingency because you do not reveal how much you’re going to pay contractors before you’ve contracted them. I would have thought they’d understood that, but clearly not. That party over there claims to understand business, but they simply do not.
The other thing that they’ve claimed is that, somehow, last year’s Budget was bigger for health. But if you look at the Vote Health lines, last year they put aside 551 for Vote Health; this year you’ll see it’s 774. They’ve added in some other numbers from somewhere. This magical accounting they’ve done—somehow they’ve pumped up the healthcare out there. I think what they’ve done is they’ve tried to put the Terranova settlement in there—the settlement that they fought through the court system and paid money to Crown Law and others to fight all the way and eventually capitulated on. I think they’ve tried to add that into the health budget that they’re talking about from last year, even though it’s not in Vote Health and they crawled over broken glass and were forced to deliver it. I just have to address those things.
I mainly want to talk about our positive plan. This is very exciting. It’s not every day you get to announce $3.2 billion worth of new spending in your portfolio. This Budget is the biggest for a decade. The last time there was operating spending like this it was the end of the three-year track, in their very first year in Government, when they inherited a three-year funding track from Labour. That’s the last time we had this much operating spending in health—nine years ago. On top of that, we’ve got capital spending—the biggest in over a decade. This is a big Budget for health—$2.3 billion for the district health boards (DHBs).
What we’re doing in this Budget is three main things. First of all, we’re getting on with fixing our hospitals. Rot and mould are well-known now, unfortunately, at Middlemore Hospital. There are so many building issues across our whole hospital system because of neglect. The closest they got with capital investment was when they came to do something for the Canterbury rebuild, and even that doesn’t come close to what we’re putting in this Budget. Last year, for example, only $150 million went into capital. We’re putting in $750 million—biggest in a decade; biggest in a decade—and that is because we care about the public delivery of health. We are going to fix our hospitals. These rundown hospitals, through years of under-investment—we are going to do something about it, and it’s just the start too.
We’re going to make it also easier for people to get the care they need when they need it. Thanks to the coalition agreement between Labour and New Zealand First, 13-year-olds across the country will get free doctors visits, free prescriptions, and free after-hours care. Thank you, New Zealand First. That is a great call. Under-14s will get free doctors care under this Budget.
On top of that, we’re slashing the costs for over 500,000 New Zealanders—the most vulnerable—to get cheaper doctors visits. For some of those people, the doctors visit will get $50 cheaper—$50 cheaper. For many, it will be $20 to $30 cheaper—for over half a million New Zealanders. We’re extending the range of people that can get the community services card, and then they will have access to what is currently the case for Very Low Cost Access Scheme members. That is a fantastic move. It is the start of addressing the issue of unaffordability of doctors care. Doctors visits went up 44 percent under the last Government. We’re doing something about it. Not only are those people able to get the care when they need it and where they need it but they will also keep costs out of the system further down the track, because they won’t get sick unnecessarily.
This is a Budget that cares about people and starts the progress towards delivering more affordable care for everyone—quality care in a quality health system, with hospitals that are being fixed.
Budget 2018 gets real about the costs of an ageing and growing population. This Budget funds DHBs properly for the first time in ages. The staff working in our hospitals have been doing it under increasingly stressful conditions. They’ve been stretched further and further with the under-investment from those people over there when they were in Government. Those health workers, I want to thank them today. I want to thank the allied health workers, the nurses and doctors who, for the last nine years in that increasingly stressed, underfunded environment, have continued to provide services for New Zealanders. Thank you all, on behalf of New Zealand. We really appreciate it.
We’re going to invest properly now in healthcare. It’s too long since that last happened. It is too long since our DHBs were funded properly, so we are going to invest $2.3 billion over the next four years to make sure we are getting real about an ageing and growing population.
I want to speak to a couple of the other initiatives that we’ve got under way. One of them is rolling out more nurses in our secondary schools. Decile 4 schools will receive the nurses in schools programme—a proven programme. There’s evidence behind it—research out of Auckland University. We’ll roll that out, and a further 24,000 secondary students will get access to the nurses in schools programmes and the mental health and other benefits that go with that proven programme.
We’re also doing a pilot on mental health for talking therapies, free counselling, and an evidence-based therapy service for young adults aged 18 to 25. That pilot will be rolled out in one location so we can learn from it. It’s based on England’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.
The Disability Support Services fund gets the biggest boost in a decade—over $200 million over four years—to make sure that we are providing care for those who are caring. We are fixing up the problems of that previous Government. We are making sure we’re covering population growth, ageing, cost pressures, and the cost of the In-Between Travel Settlement so that we have a sustainable workforce, so that they are properly looked after, so that they don’t have to go and quit their job caring for others to stack shelves in a supermarket because it pays better and they can feed their families, and so that they can do the job that they are good at, the job they care about, and care for others. The Disability Support Services budget gets a well-needed boost this time around.
We’re also rolling out the next stage of the National Bowel Screening Programme. Bowel screening saves lives. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the developed world, and we are determined to continue to roll out that programme. Despite the challenges and problems that we’ve found in the lack of planning by the previous Government for this programme, we’re getting on with delivering better bowel screening services. Five more DHBs will receive those services, and into the money we’ve put the costs also for a national coordination centre for bowel screening regional centres and a national IT solution. We’re rolling that programme out for New Zealanders.
Midwifery: $103 million over four years. We want to support those midwives. Those midwives reached out. I have never received so much personal mail in my life—“Dear David”. We listened. As a Government we heard those midwives. We know they have been operating under pressure, and they have been under pressure for a very long time—for nine long years. We have provided some money which will be a catch-up—effectively, an 8.9 percent catch-up that for 1,400 lead maternity carers brings them up to the level currently in DHBs for midwives there. There’s also some money within that $103 million that will go towards supporting midwives who are out there in the field delivering babies for really long periods of time—a really long and challenging pregnancy. Currently, when a midwife helps out in that situation, they have to split their payment if they hand over to another midwife, after sometimes more than 12 hours in a delivery. That just doesn’t seem right, so we’ve put some money aside to address that issue.
Air ambulances—here’s another thing that we’re getting on and sorting out. They didn’t sort it out. The average age of the air ambulance fleet in New Zealand is 29 years old—29 years. Even the gold-standard air ambulances will no longer have parts available in five to seven years. We need to get on and address this issue. We can’t sit on our hands any longer; we need to fix it up. We’re putting $82 million over four years into air ambulance services so that every region, no matter how small, can have access to a proper double-engine helicopter where patients can be treated during the flight by highly qualified clinical staff. I want to thank the current air ambulance service, which has done a great job. We are planning for the future, making sure we continue to improve clinical outcomes, strengthen existing service levels, and begin a programme of modernisation in our air ambulance fleet.
There is so much more in this Budget but I’m just so proud of the money we’re investing in health. It is long overdue. It is good to be on this side of the House, to actually deliver for New Zealanders the healthcare that they expect and deserve. We’re fixing our hospitals, we’re making it easier for people to get care when they need it with cheaper doctors visits for around 600,000 New Zealanders. Budget 2018 gets real about the challenges of an ageing and growing population by funding our health services better. I am so proud to be on this side of the House investing in the healthcare that New Zealanders deserve and expect.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): What a great day for the Opposition. And it gets better and better with every Government speech. I have never seen a more flat Government after the delivery of a Budget. Look at the body language on the other side of the House. They know it’s a flop—they know it’s a flop.
If I can just refer to the Hon Dr David Clark, because he followed our health spokesperson, the Hon Michael Woodhouse. Michael Woodhouse said, “Nurses deserve more pay.” David Clark interjected: “What a load of rubbish.”—that’s what he said. That’s how out of touch that Minister is already with his own sector. He’s going to get a lot of “Dear David” letters from now on from nurses right around the country. When asked whether they need more money, when promised they need more money by our National spokesperson, David Clark says “What a load of rubbish.”
I can tell by looking at the Government today that they know Grant Robertson has blown it. We’ve been seeing the commentary from the analysts, from the business community, and from the New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa, and they’re all saying, “This Budget is a flop.” It’s a flop, and that rests with one Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson.
I’ve been around a few of these Budgets and it’s a great day—there’s the sense of excitement, the sense of anticipation. But I knew the Government was in trouble when Mr Robertson started his speech today. Go back and have a look at it. He spent the first ten minutes re-announcing what he had announced in his December mini-Budget, back in December. You cannot keep re-announcing announcements time after time after time and getting away with it. That’s what I will remember that speech for. You cannot continue to promise things like a winter energy payment in December and then be back in the House today saying, “We can’t do it in May, but we might be able to do it in July”. That’s what Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister, said. I’ve got a message for her: do your homework first, before you announce a policy.
But the other interesting thing about Grant Robertson’s speech: how many times was the word KiwiBuild mentioned? I can tell you: once. Grant Robertson didn’t want to talk about Mr Twyford’s promise to build 100,000 new homes, because we know it’s a “KiwiFail” policy. This is a “KiwiFail” Budget. Mr Twyford is fast becoming persona non grata in the Labour caucus, because he’s overpromised—
Hon Andrew Little: We love him—we love him.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well, Andrew Little says, “We love him.” Well, he’s the only one that says that to me. When I talk to his colleagues outside this place, he’s the only one who says that to me.
I’ve seen these Budget cycles before. If you go back to 1990-99, they were difficult years for any Government, but when National left Government in 1999, the books were sound, and what we saw is the pattern we’re seeing now, when Labour will come in and spend their money, throw it around—no effective challenge to their expenditure. Look at the health Budget at the time of the Government from 2000 to 2008. More and more money put into health, fewer and fewer operations—
Kieran McAnulty: That’s right.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: —Mr McAnulty—and more and more patients in New Zealand going to Australia to be treated. That’s the legacy of Labour to 2008. And then we get to the last decade, the National Government, and, again, the economy has been left in a very sound position. Labour and New Zealand First have spent the last couple of weeks saying that we didn’t leave enough money in the kitty, and that has been proved to be absolutely wrong. They talked about unappropriated money for health and unappropriated money for education—that’s wrong. The problem is Labour overpromised in the election campaign. They don’t know how to do Budgets, they overpromise, and now they can’t deliver.
So what you see in this Budget is what we’ve seen in every Budget I’ve ever seen delivered by Labour. It’s about increasing taxes, it’s about increasing spending, it’s about borrowing more money, and hoping—hoping, hoping—that there’s no huge natural disasters like earthquakes, or crises the Asian financial crisis or global financial crisis, that they’ll have to deal with. Increase taxes, spend more money, borrow more money, and hope. That’s what this Government’s about.
Having left them in a very sound financial position, let the next Labour speaker rise to his feet—the Hon David Parker—and tell this House why borrowing has to go from $56 million to $73 million. Why borrow more money when the tax take is already going up—$2 billion more in the tax take than was expected, and that’s because a sound economy was left by the previous Government.
So where’s all this additional money going? Well, Labour said this Budget was about health, and yet we listened to that excellent speech from the Hon Simon Bridges, and he points out that $3.2 billion, the big expenditure item by Labour, is less—less—than National had in its last Budget.
I had a quick look through the media pack, and that’s really interesting stuff. The Hon Clare Curran—
Hon Members: Ha, ha!
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: We shouldn’t laugh, but she is spending $15 million on a ministerial advisory group to advise on how to “support … contribution of public media to an informed democracy.” Does that sound like $15 million? The Hon David Parker—he spends $3.1 million setting up a unit to watch the oversight of the Resource Management Act. The doozy of them all, the Hon Shane Jones: a one billion - dollar slush fund, and let me tell the Hon Shane Jones that New Zealanders will see that like they should. The Rt Hon Winston Peters: $714 million to the Pacific in official development assistance. I thought New Zealand First used to stand for New Zealanders first. It does not—it does not and did not. And then, the best one of the lot, to prove that the Rt Hon Winston Peters has the negotiating power, the Budget allows $4.8 million over the next four years for tax deductions that can be claimed for the cost of high-quality horses acquired with the intention to breed. Well, I’ve owned a few horses in my day. They were high-quality when I bought them; they were a dead loss by the time they went to dog tucker.
This is a shocking Budget. I was full of anticipation. I was expecting the Government to be able to do a lot better. When I consider the way the speech was delivered by Grant Robertson, it was perfunctory; it’s got to be. That’s the way Ministers of Finance have to deliver their speech. We then had one of the best Opposition leader speeches I’ve seen in the 23 Budgets I’ve had the opportunity and the privilege to observe. And then we had the Prime Minister. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her more flat in my days—never seen her more flat in my days. Then we had the Rt Hon Winston Peters delivering his, I think, 20 minutes of—well, it was gibberish, really. I couldn’t understand a word of it—an incomprehensible, incomprehensible speech
Brett Hudson: I thought it was the most coherent he’s been in years.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well, my friend said it was the most clear he’s been in years. Well, no, I’ve heard him answer and ask a lot of questions in this House. That was a shocking speech from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.
This Budget will go down as a flop. There was a huge opportunity to set a clear agenda, but what this Government has done is put a mark on itself. The same as the previous Labour Government, it’s about raising taxes and spending recklessly without any regard for the hard-working New Zealanders who pay those taxes. When that runs short, they borrow more money. Bring on the next election and let’s change it.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Economic Development): Poor David Carter—poor David Carter! Grant Robertson only mentioned the word “KiwiBuild” once. Well, actually, most people in this House and most New Zealanders only need to be told the word “KiwiBuild” once and they understand what it means. Poor old David Carter! That’s the man who sat on the other side, or actually sat in the Speaker’s seat as part of the last Government, when over nine long years they couldn’t utter the words “housing crisis” once—not once—despite the fact that New Zealand has the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD, the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s, and people living under hedges and in cars; children doing their homework by the light of a van. That is the shameless state in which this country was left by the outgoing National Government.
As for these calls—talk about the prior Labour Government somehow having left a fiscal mess. His predecessor, Bill English, had the good grace to admit in 2008 when elected that “The global financial crisis hit. This is the rainy day that Governments had been saving for.”, because the Labour Government had run nine surpluses in a row and had reduced net Government debt from 18 percent of GDP to what, when you included financial zeros?
Hon Members: Zero.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Zero. Of course, National then changed the measurement and excluded financial assets because they stopped contributing to the super fund.
This Budget starts the rebuilding of New Zealand from the foundations up: in housing, in health, in education, and in addressing poverty—addressing poverty that is so entrenched in New Zealand that we have Third World diseases proliferating in New Zealand like Third World countries, with rheumatic fever being an example.
I want to move to the positive things for the economy here: $1 billion in research and development (R & D) tax credits. That’s tax cuts for businesses investing in research and development to help lift New Zealand’s R & D spend from 1.3 percent to 2 percent of GDP in 10 years. The billion-dollar Provincial Growth Fund, that National sneer at because they know it’s going to be their undoing at the next election, will lift productivity and exports from the regions. The $100 billion green growth capital fund that the Greens have been promoting is going to help in this transition to a more productive, cleaner economy.
Those three initiatives will lift the productivity of the New Zealand economy. They will lift exports. They will lift incomes. They will lift the wages of people who work all throughout New Zealand. They will lift the profitability of New Zealand’s business, and they will get New Zealand’s exports going up, after 10 years of decline when they went from 30 percent down to 27 percent of GDP under the last Government.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.