Clark David: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18232. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): On the topic of retirement I was actually in Tauranga not so long ago. The view was expressed to me by members of the electorate there that they will be very glad when that member Simon Bridges retires. A number of people said that to me. It was not just people who had heard about his conversations about the Bradford reforms as to why power prices were still so high where he said “Well after 15 years they just need a bit more time to bed in.” It was not that comment that they were complaining about; it was his more recent gaffes.What that member forgets though of course is that people matter—people matter. He asks how much insulating houses would cost—how much it would cost. He is always looking for the cost of everything and he understands the value of nothing—absolutely nothing. Saving lives is of no consequence. The news I have for that member is that insulating homes is actually likely to save costs in our health system. There is plenty of academic research out of the University of Otago—an absolutely tip-top university with an international reputation—that proves that investment in healthy housing saves health costs many times over down the line. That member would do well to read some of that research especially with his portfolio responsibilities. But I do not intend to dwell too long on him because when he does retire and Rachel Jones takes over his seat—the excellent excellent Labour candidate whom we have in Tauranga Rachel Jones—we will see some really good policy from that part of the country. He is not universally disliked. [Interruption] No no. In fact I heard Michael Woodhouse claiming him as his second cousin just the other day. So there are a few fans out there. There are a few fans.I rise to speak about this Budget here. Mr Cunliffe has moved a motion for a vote of no confidence in the Government which says: “I move That all words after ‘that’ be omitted and replaced with: ‘this House has no confidence in a Government that has failed to put people first; that has widened gaps where too many of our children grow up in poverty; that has failed to provide enough good jobs and has lowered incomes; a Government that has no vision for our nation’s long-term wellbeing but is mired in politics as usual.’ ” That does sum it up. That does sum it up. Mr Cunliffe has hit the nail on the head. This is a “fudge-it Budget”. It is a Budget that has fudged its way into surplus. It has got a finance Minister behind it who has been dotting thei’s and crossing thet’s shifting things this way and that in order to make sure that his vanity is preserved in a Budget that just crosses the line.Of course we forget too often that Labour produced nine surpluses in its 9 years in Government and this is this Government’s very first surplus in 6 years. It got there of course by keeping ACC levies $120 million higher than they needed to be by disguising $375 million worth of New Zealand Transport Agency spending as a zero-interest loan and by spending $560 million less on local infrastructure for the Canterbury rebuild than it did last year. There is a bunch more fudges in there. We know there were soft loans to local councils and iwi that are listed as a specific fiscal risk by Treasury. We know that its KiwiSaver auto-enrolment scheme which cost up to $290 million was pushed out for as long as it remains a threat to the Government’s constructed surplus. We know there are caregiver employment conditions that loom as a cost to the Government—back-pay relating to equal pay claims and the Minimum Wage Act. All of these things are swept under the carpet because a surplus was all that this Government had its eyes on because it had never ever had one before.This is a Government with the worst economic record in 50 years. You can see why it was so desperate to get there. But it was at the expense of vision. Labour would have got there but we would have got there with a vision for the future. That is the difference between this side of the House and that side. It had no plan. It is widening the gap between rich and poor it is watching the situation get worse it is watching fewer andfewer New Zealanders get their first home and those members are content to sit there accept their salaries and do nothing. The Labour Government will be more hands-on. We will bring down power prices with our NZ Power plan. We will make sure there are new houses on the market. We will bring in pro-growth tax reform in the form of a capital gains tax. We have a vision for a New Zealand with better jobs and with more jobs.Today I want to take a bit of time to speak about another crazy thing that is wedged in this Budget document and that is the cuts that the Government is hoping to make to the poison helpline. The 0800 POISON helpline is set to be merged under the Government’s current plan into a combined helpline withHealthlineQuitline the Alcohol Drug Helpline the National Depression Initiative problem gambling support and so on. This is an emergency service. Seconds count. When a child is unconscious lying on the floor convulsing or frothing at the mouth and a parent picks up the phone and dials 0800 POISON they are expecting to have expert help. There are toxicologists on the line immediately and they are able to sort the problem. Those who have called the line have been surveyed and 90 percent of them said that if they had not got through on the 0800 POISON line they would have gone straight to accident and emergency. You cannot blame them but seconds count. The paramedics and the ambulance would be ringing the 0800 POISON line as well. This is the line that this Government is proposing to roll in with other lines. That could cost lives. It could cost lives. The National Poisons Centre has operated successfully out of Dunedin for 50 years. It is trusted across the country and it should not be rolled into one line.The database that supports it is updated constantly with product formulas and brand names that are unique to New Zealand. The people who answer the phones are expert toxicologists who update the database. They know their stuff like the back of their hand. They also know New Zealand place names. They know how far you are from a hospital. In one of the proposals being looked at one of the prospective tenders is fromMedibank an Australian company. It is right now having conversations with the otherhelplines in what looks like a deal behind closed doors to take over the service. Again we are seeing these jobs go off to Australia for a closed-door deal that looks remarkably like the Skycity deal where there was one provider that had the inside running that had the information on the service and that was looking to bring things together to deliver a service on behalf of the Government.You have got to ask why. You have got to ask what is going on there because it makes no sense. The poison helpline answers 80 percent of its calls within 20 seconds. Nowhere else in the world has a poison helpline been integrated as far as we know with otherhelplines. It is against the World Health Organization’s best practice guidelines. Why on earth would we go down that track? We do not want to move into the Third World in respect of the emergency services we provide. Why is the Minister of Health taking us down that track? I have got an online petition. You can sign up. It is linked to the Labour Party website. It has already surpassed our 2500 signature target in 2 days. It is gaining signatures rapidly because New Zealanders are worried about their children. They are worried about the child who swallows some unidentified pills or takes something out of the garden shed and who is lying there unconscious. They know and they trust that that number on the packet—that 0800 POISON number—will be answered by an expert and that they will get immediate help. Why the Government would want to do without that I do not know.This Government seems content to select the New Zealand services that will get cut across the public sector and to let the services provided for every New Zealander run down whilst the richest 10 percent—the wealthiest 10 percent—get tax breaks and those in middle New Zealand struggle. They struggle. Forty-six percent of middle NewZealanders did not get a wage rise last year. This is a Government that is content to say that we have got a rock star economy. It says that we have got a rock star economy. Well those gains are not being shared and New Zealanders are starting to say “What’s going on here? Where is Mr Key’s ambition?”. Well it turns out that that ambition is for the wealthiest New Zealanders and for them to take home more and more and more. Many of the wealthiest New Zealanders are quite happy to share and I bet that many of the wealthiest New Zealanders will be keen to see the poison helpline stay as well.The Government needs to answer some questions about the poison helpline. The onus of proof is on the Government. How will the service be improved by having triage and critical seconds wasted while a desperate parent is on the line trying to explain what is going on? How will less money be spent if you bring inMedibank or another provider over the top? The service is nearly half subsidised by the University of Otago. It will not want to take the risk of producing a data bank where it is open to litigation when the line is run by another provider. Well it would be nuts to do so. Why on earth is the Government proposing to go against World Health Organization best-practice guidelines? Why on earth is it wanting to do that? Why is it wanting to make New Zealand an outlier by doing away with a world-class service? Where is the transparency in this process?I urge New Zealand citizens to go to the labour.org.nz website and sign the petition to save the 0800 POISON number. It is a world-class service. It needs to be preserved. Questions need to be answered by the Minister of Health. In these supplementary estimates money is swishing around in relation to thesehelplines. The Minister needs to take a call and explain why the Government is doing this to New Zealanders.