Little Andrew: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 22 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18269. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is an opportunity that I relish and seek to serve the good people of New Plymouth and Taranaki well in. I want to start by saying this: there is nothing greater in this country than National Party members’ capacity for self-delusion. They have come here day after day since last Thursday spinning a yarn that even they know to be totally untrue. They talk about the state of the economy. They forget that the last Labour Government produced nine surpluses in a row built up the Cullen fund built up the ACC fund to nearly $11 billion over its time restored the health of that organisation and delivered the lowest level of unemployment in the OECD. They forget all that.They forget Bill English’s own endorsement that said that because of the state of the economy New Zealand was well poised to face the consequences of the global financial crisis. They forget conveniently that New Zealand suffered a drought in the period 2007-08 which caused the economy to slow down. Apparently it is the Labour Party of New Zealand that controls the weather in this country! The Labour Party is held responsible for that. National Party members—all of them who have stood up to speak—know that they have spoken absolute rubbish about the state of the economy that they claim to have inherited in 2008. The truth is that the last Labour Government conducted itself and its economic stewardship with aplomb.The other misleading area that the members of this Government keep talking about is justice and the crime rate. Well that balloon was popped some weeks ago at a symposium organised and hosted by no less a person than the Minister of Justice. One of the imported experts from Britain said that there is nothing that is happening in the crime statistics that politicians can take responsibility for and that there were other factors that were driving the lower reported crime rate—not the least of which was the fact that most cars now have security systems car alarms and all that sort of stuff.But here is the other thing. We know that in this country something else is happening. That is that the way crimes are managed at the front line is changing. You talk to any front-line police officer you talk to any police prosecuting sergeant or you talk to any Crown solicitor and they will tell you that it is not too flash and that the pressure is on them. The pressure is on them to reduce the number of charges to wind back the charges to prosecute less and to try to get that guilty plea for the more minimal charge. That is what is happening in New Zealand today.What that means for the victims of crime in this country is that they are not getting justice because the people who are inflicting their evil ways upon victims are not being properly called to account. Soon at some point in the future because of the measures of this Government and the justice sector—it will not be too far away—a person who has a record of criminal offending that is not properly recorded in our crime statistics or on his or her crime record will appear before a judge on a bail application the judge will have flawed information on which to make a risk assessment and will let the person out and that person will reoffend while on bail and potentially inflict very serious harm on an unwitting citizen.That is how much this Government cares about justice and the victims of crime in this country. It does not care at all. It does not care at all. You have only to look and see what is happening with justice spending in this Budget: $40 million less and legal aid slashed—and not just family legal aid which is what we were told was going to be cut because the new magic family law system was going to solve all family disputes in an instant but actually criminal legal aid is being cut back as well. This is not a Budget for justice; this is a Budget for injustice.I want to talk about jobs wages and the regions. I spend my out-of-Parliament work time in a region that is claimed by this Government to be loved by it and a region that it considers to be very important. But this Government is doing nothing for the regions. Itis doing nothing for Taranaki. Its sole achievement after 6 years of being represented by a National MP in New Plymouth is to expand a 100-metre bridge when so much more is being asked for and demanded by people. The expansion of a 100-metre bridge is all that the people of New Plymouth have to show for after 6 years of being represented by a National MP.What we see in New Plymouth and Taranaki now is good businesses closing and jobs going. These are jobs in heavy engineering the mainstay of the Taranaki economy for so long—jobs out of Fitzroy Yachts jobs out of Fitzroy Engineering Group jobs out ofTenix and jobs out of Pace Engineering. That industry is under severe pressure because this Government does not care about the regions. It does not put money into the regions. It does not care aboutTaranaki’s roads. It does not care if people in regions like Taranaki are unemployed and lose their jobs.While we are talking about unemployment and young people talking about the young unemployed let us talk about the comments of the MP for New Plymouth in the House just the other night when he claimed that things were going gangbusters—he said that things were going well. Well the reality is that they are not.Taranaki’s unemployment rate is higher than the national average. It was 6.5 percent in March this year and jobs are still being lost.You look at what the Government is not investing in that is crying out for investment. Roading is one of them. People might make a bit of a joke about me banging on in this House about State Highway 3. It is a crucial arterial road for Taranaki and it is totally neglected by this Government—totally neglected. The Government has nothing to say about it and even less to do about it. The road is crying out for attention. It is a road on which countless people have died in the years during which this Government has been in power and nothing gets done about the underlying problems. Nothing gets done about the poor paving the poor roading the poor alignment the lack of shoulders or the crumbling cliff faces on the cavernous areas that the road goes through. This Government does not care about it. That is an area that needs attention.A Government that cared about regions like Taranaki would not stand aside and just cheer on what the private sector is doing in the oil and gas industry as important as that is. It would know that it has a responsibility to do things as well to look after the roading to look after the port to look after the other infrastructure in that region to get alongside those big infrastructure businesses like the port and others and to make sure that the investment is continuing that people are being kept in good work and that the heavy engineering industry is being supported.The Government would care about its manufacturing policy and make sure it had a manufacturing policy that meant that complex sophisticated gear goods and structures could continue to be manufactured here rather than shutting down our heavy engineering industry the same way that it is doing with forestry and sending good jobs overseas which is what it is doing. This Government’s performance in the regions is atrocious. This Government’s performance on jobs in the regions is appalling. That is why this Government is running out of time and why people in regions like Taranaki have given up and no longer have confidence in it.I want to talk quickly about wages. There is one thing that this Government does not talk about because it is guilty of not doing it and that is lifting wages in this country. Last year 46 percent of wage and salary earners—nearly half of the entire New Zealand workforce—did not get a pay rise at a time of a growing economy. Oh the Government members are very good at standing up and crowing about 3 percent economic growth. They are very good at crowing about the fact that there are more hours being worked and that earnings have gone up but ask about what is happening with people’s wagerates and whether people are getting a pay increase. They have got nothing to say about it because they do not actually care. They do not actually care that with a growing economy that is the very time people should be getting pay rises. Nearly half the workforce in New Zealand cannot get pay rises because our system is busted broken and people cannot get them. Now in regions like Taranaki we see not only that those who cannot get pay rises do not get them but that good people—the ones who are getting decent pay rises—are now losing their jobs.This Government’s record is appalling. This Budget has nothing to do for it nothing to say about it and the members opposite from this Government should hang their heads in shame. The Government’s performance is appalling. It has no economic development plan. It has no regional development plan. It does not care about the regions. The regions are suffering. But come September that will change because the people in the regions know that there are people on this side of the House who care about the fortunes of the regions who care about what happens to jobs and families and good citizens in the regions—regions like Taranaki—and who will be a Government that will do something about it and lift wealth share the wealth share the national income and make this a fairer and more just country.