Dean Jacqui: Budget Debate 
Dean Jacqui: Budget Debate 
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JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 My voice might be a funny this evening for which I apologise but I am afraid the content of this speech is not funny. This is a Budget in which agriculture does not rate a mention except of course to slash the sustainable farming fund. Shame on the Government! I represent plenty of farmers and I can tell members that they are not impressed either. 
I was thinking about those 300 people who leave New Zealand each and every week—people who are lured over the ditch—as the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand becomes a gaping chasm and I thought that for the socialist city-dwellers who sit opposite the Labour MPs 300 people might not mean too much. After all in cities people are everywhere right? People are on every street. They are clogging all the roads with their cars they are filling the malls and they are filling the rugby stadiums. People are spilling out of schools and out of supermarkets. So 300 people probably does not seem so much to our socialist friends. This head-in-the-sand Government is probably not noticing this mass exodus of people because clearly it has absolutely no idea what to do about it. 
It is interesting that in question time in the House whenever the heat goes on Government members and they are called to account for their actions they blame us. It is always National’s fault. It is so easy is it not to blame somebody else? But hang on they have had 7 years in Government. Have they learnt nothing about how to govern a country? Can they not yet grasp the business of Government? Why do they not take responsibility for those 300 people who leave New Zealand each and every week? The reason is that they do not particularly care. There are plenty more people where they come from in their cities. But much more tellingly they do not have the slightest idea of what to do about it. They simply do not have a plan. 
 Well I care about losing those 300 people. This is what it means to me in heartland New Zealand to lose 300 people every week. If Queenstown were to lose 300 people per week it would empty out in 40 weeks. That is 10 months. Every 10 months we lose the population of Queenstown or if we put it another way every 17 weeks of net loss we lose the population of Wanaka. Every 4 months of net population loss is Wanaka gone. A few people here and there leaving the cities does not leave too much of a gap. We still see people in supermarkets and queuing up for their middle-class welfare. But I can tell members opposite—and they would not know this—that losing our brightest youngters losing our tradespeople and losing our professionals overseas is hurting provincial New Zealand. What is the Government’s answer? What is the vision in the Budget? I cannot find one. 
Jo Goodhew 
: There isn’t one. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well I have looked and I cannot find one. Government members talk the talk about transforming New Zealand but in the time it took to deliver the Budget speech a couple of planeloads of Kiwis headed off to Australia to take advantage of higher wages and lower taxes. Why would people in small businesses not want to go somewhere else? They are squeezed by compliance costs; they are squeezed by accident compensation levies; they are squeezed by Holidays Act provisions; and they are squeezed by the Employment Relations Act. What is Minister Lianne Dalziel’s vision? It is a review! She is going to do a review—big fat deal! Do members know what would really benefit small businesses in New Zealand? The introduction of a 90-day probation period for new employees. A while ago a young guy phoned me— 
Bob Clarkson 
: A young guy phoned you did he? 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Yes I know it was good. He phoned me to talk about his business. Normally it is just an old guy called my husband but it was a young guy who wanted to talk about his business. He and his wife run a rural agricultural contracting business around Wanaka. The demand from farmers—the farmers that this Government does not care a jot about but I do—is there to expand their business. But because of the Holidays Act because of occupational safety and health regulations because of accident compensation levies because of the price of diesel and because of the risk of employing someone under the Employment Relations Act they decided it was just too hard to take on any workers so the business will have to remain just him and his wife and he really regrets that. 
National MP Wayne Mapp’s member’s bill to introduce a 90-day no-fault probation period between employers and employees would achieve so much. It would encourage small employers to have a go to give somebody a chance to grow their business and more important it would give young people who may have been unemployed for a long time a chance. Is that not a whole lot more constructive than a review? National’s policy is a whole lot more visionary. 
I have had a few phone calls from people in my electorate who got a little bit excited about the increase of $1.3 billion in the State highway roading programme. I will tell the House why they got excited. The Kawarau Bridge just out of Queenstown is a little single-lane bridge that serves the needs of locals and tourists. That bridge fails to meet the needs of the fastest growing region in New Zealand. I have to tell members that Queenstown’s roading problems are not the same as Auckland’s they are not the same as Hamilton’s and they are not the same as Wellington’s but they do need to be addressed if Queenstown is to continue to make a significant contribution to New Zealand’s economy through tourism. 
Queenstown people were hugely disappointed to learn that in Transit’s draft 10-year plan put out in April the Kawarau Bridge replacement project was not even in the planning stage. But they said: “Never mind it will be OK. The Minister of Transport said we should just wait for the Budget. A couple of years ago in his submission to Transit the then MP for Otago David Parker said that unless something was done about the Kawarau Bridge soon Queenstown would be a complete shambles. He should eat his words. 
As members can imagine there is a high level of expectation that some of that extra $1.3 billion will be put towards Queenstown’s roading problem. So in the Minister of Transport’s release in the Budget under appendix A “Projects to be advanced due to today's $1.3 billion funding package” right down at the very bottom I find this: “In addition: Transit NZ is also investigating a number of other improvement projects.” Right down at the very bottom of that small list is State Highway 66A Queenstown. Well whoop-de-doo that is exactly where Transit was in its draft plan. I say to the Government that I love the idea but I am waiting and I want to see it deliver for Queenstown. This Budget is boring. It does nothing for hard-working New Zealanders for the wealth creators of Otago and New Zealand.