Goodhew Jo: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoodhew Jo: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10454. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector):Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker and to the House as well. This evening as we debate the Budget and as we actually set out our particular views on how New Zealand is going I want to convey to the House the view of the constituents in my electorate. The constituents of Rangitata responded to the Budget in very even measure. The reports in the paper generally speaking said that this is a sensible strong Budget—a Budget that continues down a sensible path without rocking the boat because actually New Zealand has been through a very rocky couple of years.It would appear to me that the Opposition members around the House have little or no comprehension of the actual effects of the global financial crisis. If I were to comment on some of the speakers who have preceded me I would still shake my head in wonderment at the stories of monkeys and spraying cold water. The incomprehensible analogies that the New Zealand First member Richard Prosser treated the House to tonight were interspersed with stories about cuts to police budgets that bore no resemblance to the facts. In fact under this Government we have had a 5.9 percent drop in recorded crime 18 new public safety laws passed 6000 families protected by police safety orders—a personal favourite of mine because it adds an extra tool to the toolbox to protect women and children in their homes—and a record number of prisoners engaged in training. This particular foursome I am going to describe as being part of a theme of the National Government.We are not continually spending more and more and more money throwing lollies at the electorate. In fact what we as a Government are doing under the stewardship of John Key and our finance Minister is making sure that the money that the members of this House have paid in taxes and that the members of my constituency have paid in taxes is treated with the respect that that money deserves. That money deserves to be spent wisely sensibly and carefully because it does not belong to the Government; it belongs to the people of New Zealand.We have had many successes of which it appears that the member for the New Zealand First Party is unaware. We have seen crime fall by 17 percent in my own electorate. That is phenomenal. I tell you that that is about police on the beat police on the streets and smart police working with their community and getting fantastic results. This Government has introduced technology to the police so that they can do thousands and thousands more hours of police work out in the community instead of back at the office.We are a very different Government from the previous Government. As I said we do not throw money around; we try to make it work better for us. The member who spoke prior to me Phil Twyford ascribes to the old Labour doctrine that the Government solves everything the Government builds everything that needs to be built and the Government creates every job that is worthy of having. But actually guess what? Jobs created by Governments are not sustainable jobs. Jobs created by businesses that are growing are sustainable jobs. The previous Government controlled business. The previous Government wants to control the marketplace with borrow with tax and with spend and for good measure—with its partners in crime the Green Party—it is going toprint money as well. The ill-thought-out and rushed policies from the far-left bloc Labour and the Greens are transparently vote-seeking missiles. But the one thing about that is that the vote-seeking missiles are heading for heat and I tell you that the electorate is not showing it any heat. In fact the electorate indeed is cold to its ideas.Under National we are concentrating on four main themes. I am going to repeat them because New Zealanders are coming to understand that this truly is what is important to New Zealand. We are responsibly managing the Government’s finances and I have given examples already. A more competitive and productive economy grows jobs in the economy. We have had the global financial crisis and that crisis has in fact dampened much of New Zealand. But we are no longer on that path to destruction that we were on under a Labour Government where we had at least 10 years of deficits and were looking at a horrendous debt for the children who follow me and the members of this House.In delivering Better Public Services we are looking at fine-tuning and addressing all of the money we spend and making sure that we get a very good deal with it. When it comes to rebuilding Christchurch our second-largest city—in fact the largest city in the South Island and so close to my home electorate—we are completely committed to that. There is a lot of job growth happening in Christchurch but from my own personal perspective I am disturbed that the job growth is happening mainly for men. So the work that I am doing with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is to zero in on finding more jobs and encouraging women into non-traditional trades and into some of the jobs that the rebuild is creating.I now want to spend a little bit of time talking about the health budget and what the health budget is actually doing for New Zealanders. There has been a huge change in the health sector. The huge change I can put down I think to a couple of things. First of all the health Minister’s “Better sooner more convenient care” theme which is now right across the health sector. But also part of that is actually about involving clinicians in the decisions. What we have seen as a result of that is a phenomenal impact on what is actually being achieved within the health sector. We have been delivering the sort of health care that matters most to New Zealanders and at the same time New Zealanders have responded by becoming more and more secure in their knowledge that the health sector works for them. This year there are 35000 more elective surgeries than there were in 2008 and there are free visits to the doctor for under-sixes day or night. Immunisation is indeed one of my favourites as it was Dr Hutchison’s in that 93 percent of 2-year-olds are fully immunised up from 74 percent back in 2008. Actually it is not so long ago under the previous Government that it was 67 percent. There are 1000 more doctors and 2000 more nurses but even more important is that we have 45000 children at nearly 200 schools taking part in the rheumatic fever prevention programme. Rheumatic fever was apparently a priority under the previous Government. It is just that nothing happened during that time.In New Zealand these days if a patient is going to receive chemotherapy or radiotherapy then they get it in New Zealand. Far gone are the days when they travelled to Australia more often than we cared to admit. There are 56000 more Well Child checks and 24/7 funding for PlunketLine. When I talked to Plunket in my electorate recently it asked me what it could do better and I said that whenever anyone talks to me about Plunket I never get any complaints; the only time I ever hear anything at a public meeting is when someone says: “Can we have more of Plunket?”. So it is absolutely delighted that this Government funded PlunketLine 24/7. I believe that it was Helen Clark who cut it. There are 56000 more Well Child checks.Then we also have the amazing turn-round where no longer do we have beds in corridors in emergency departments. Sometimes patients were on those beds—on thosetrolleys really—for days at a time. Now we have 93 percent of patients in emergency departments seen treated or discharged within 6 hours. But this Budget brought more—$14.7 billion in total health spending. That is up. There is $1.6 billion extra for new initiatives and to meet population pressures. There is $70 million for aged-care and dementia services and even more money $48 million more for elective operations. We are concentrating on the non-surgical aspects as well with more money $35.5 million for heart disease and diabetes checks. Then I note the screening service which is my own particular responsibility. There is an extra $25 million for preventive screening services such as breast cancer screening.This Government is doing its level best to use the New Zealand public’s taxpayer funds to the very very best effect and New Zealanders are not missing out. Today’s announcements for vulnerable children and the money we are spending on vulnerable families mean that this Government and this Budget is entirely for all New Zealanders not just some. Thank you.