Peters Winston: Budget Debate 
Peters Winston: Budget Debate 
[Volume:617;Page:13406] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 We gave no such undertaking and I do not mind if people wish to interject while I am speaking. 
I want to tell New Zealanders today that they have just heard it. They have just heard another duel of wits between unarmed economic opponents—two tired old parties that have run out of ideas or to paraphrase a former United States President they have sort of lost that vision thing. There are the same old economic arguments one with a socialist twist and one with a reactionary twist from Treasury. Budgets are supposed to be a time when Governments account for their stewardship and the economy and they outline plans for the future. All we have had is leaks and leaks; all the spin and all the hype. 
That is why I want to move the following amendment to the amendment:  
That the amendment be amended by omitting all the words after the word “House” and inserting the following words: “has no confidence in the Labour minority Government and records with regret that this Government has failed to provide leadership and policy to enhance New Zealand’s export performance and per capita incomes has failed to address New Zealand’s burgeoning balance of payments deficit has failed to deal with escalating crime has failed to provide sufficient numbers of police has failed to deliver a first world health system has failed to curb the burgeoning Treaty of Waitangi industry has done nothing to stop excessive immigration and does nothing to lay the foundations for building a better more prosperous nation for future generations of New Zealanders.”  
What we have heard today is the back-end of a month of leaks and propaganda. This is a Budget to buy votes not a Budget to build a better future for this country. It is a pork barrel Budget aimed at one thing—just keeping oh so definitely political power. It is a cynical statement signed by a cynical group of people. If a public company in this country had published such a document it would be tagged by the auditors. 
The Government boasted of a $7 billion surplus but then it could not prove it had one. Where is the money? Where is the cash? What does a surplus in New Zealand mean any more and what does it mean these days? In the real world people would be saying that it was cooking the books—it was doing an Enron. This duplicity simply would not be tolerated in any other First World country. Worst of all not only does it give false hope to naive National which is calling for extravagant tax cuts for all its rich mates but it gives ordinary people false hope that this Budget will deliver something of substance to them now. This is not a Budget of opportunity. It is simply a Budget for opportunists—political opportunists—and it showed today in the way Government members cheered every small thing that would take away people’s self-reliance and independence. 
Here is the truth. The same slide to dependency that began in 1984 will continue while prospects for real growth and real returns diminish. The core of this Budget and all the hype proves it. It is not about self-reliance. It is about how they can control people’s lives. The Government seems content to let our economy drift along aimlessly on the backs of people importing. It is about people importing this economy and about consumption rather than a prosperous way to the future. 
This Government does not guarantee better educational standards better health services better housing services or ensure that New Zealanders are in real First World jobs with prospects for a real future. The people of this country—the working families—want hope. They do not want slogans. They want something back from their investment— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: They don’t get anything here! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member is right. They got nothing back today other than “if you vote for us we might give you this.” They see a Government that has taken them for granted these past 4 years and is now saying: “We will give you a little back but only if you vote for us.” 
 Labour today lost the plot as it has these last 6 months. After all this is taxpayers’ money that it is talking about. It is hard-earned and ordinary people who pay First World taxes expect to get First World services. Let us ask ourselves some simple questions: will this Budget bring First World incomes from better salaries and wages for New Zealanders? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No it will not. It tries to do that by welfare. Does it seek to make New Zealanders self-reliant and independent of Government? No it corrodes self-reliance and corrupts independence of will and action. Is this Budget pro-business? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No it simply does not care about an environment to nurture and sustain business and small business in particular. Is the Budget pro-development and pro-infrastructure? No. It is pro-consumption. Apparently in New Zealand we are supposed to eat our way to health. That is the new strategy. Is the Budget pro-education and pro-student? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No. We live in a society where students sometimes graduate owing over $3000 for every year they have lived—$75000 $80000. What does the Government do? Nothing. This is a high-cost high-tax Government that taxes New Zealanders more than any other Government in our history. The figures prove it. People must be asking themselves where the real Budget is that we never heard about today. Where was it in the telephone books of information? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: It wasn’t here before. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I will tell members where it is right now. It is right here. It was hidden in telephone books of hype and spin but we have found it. We have the hidden Budget right here and we will present part of it on behalf of the long-suffering New Zealand taxpayer and citizen. First of all there are tens of thousands of unwanted overstayers and at least one convicted million-dollar terrorist living here legally at the taxpayers’ expense. I have here a cheque from the real Budget which goes to Ahmed Zaoui and his associates. As members can see it is a blank cheque. It is for the lifetime support of Ahmed Zaoui Mrs Zaoui Uncle and Auntie Zaoui Grandpa Zaoui and all the other friends relations and bogus asylum-seekers refugees and flotsam that have arrived here in the past 4 years. Labour says: “Te Papa. Make our place your place and we won’t spare the expense.” 
The next cheque is for a one-way ticket for the fat cats and their fellow travellers on the treaty gravy train. I have a few of these cheques. This is the secret Budget. We say to the fat cats in the treaty gravy-train industry that they have been making millions milking grievances whilst genuine Maori claimants miss out. Under both National behind me and Labour they have made buckets of cash whilst the Maori they claim to act for are lucky to get a kia ora or a “kia oree”. We say that they might have a ticket to ride but the last train to the Waitangi station has just left. 
Education is very important in New Zealand. It is so important to the future of this country that this Government is giving it away. Here is the cheque I am referring to: it is a never-ending cheque to tens and tens of thousands of foreign students whilst New Zealand students suffer in their own country. In keeping with Labour’s global one-world vision and on behalf of taxpayers the Government is donating much of our tertiary education system to foreigners. Why have 100 New Zealand graduates when we can have 100000 foreign graduates courtesy of the New Zealand taxpayer? The Government says to those young New Zealanders trying to get an education: “Tough get another loan! The banks are open get another loan!” We say that education should be an investment not a cost. It should be an investment in New Zealand not in Asia or anywhere else. We owe our young people better than that. 
Another group in our society has been given a big boost by this Budget today. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Who’s that? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is the violent offenders the drug dealers the fraudsters the rapists and the predators in our society. They have been given a great deal today and that contribution is tangible support of this Government’s motto: “Crime does pay”. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: What about the victims? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well if by some freakish accident offenders do go to jail there is extra money to pay for State-recruited “comfort women” to provide all the comforts of home. Jails used to be a place where we punished people; now they are State-run motels with a bit on the side inside. There is no amount on this cheque but it is a “get out of jail free” pass and here it is on the back. [ 
Interruption 
] Especially from the poor boy. 
Marc Alexander 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I notice that the Rt Hon Winston Peters is actually signing the cheques he is holding up. It is his signature that is appearing on the cheques. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order and the member knows it. I will adjust the member’s speaking time. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: They do not miss much in the United Future party. They never miss a trick—until it comes to coalition negotiations then it is roll over play the poodle put out the welcome mat and become a doormat. 
I cannot let this chance go by without thanking Australia our nearest neighbour for trying to maintain a First World health system for New Zealand. It would be churlish not to mention it. Our next cheque is made out to the Australian health system and it is coming out in large doses. It is supposed to be a secret but the real reason this Government bought back Air New Zealand was so that it could fly our sick people to Australia—planeloads of them thousands and thousands of them. The cancer patients will be followed by the heart patients then the ear nose and throat patients then cataract surgery patients to name but a few. 
 This in a once-great country is acceptable to those people on the Government benches because they think that by reason of their social engineering they will make it back into office at the next election. It is a fact that it is soon to become Government policy that all sick people will go to Australia and then New Zealand will be disease-free. I bet Don Brash is killing himself that he did not think of that first. 
But he and Simon Power have also run up a fair-sized account with Uncle Sam. National has an account rendered to pay for nuclear policy and defence advice to Don Brash and Simon Power. New Zealanders will have to pay if National ever gets the chance to be in Government. We know that National would sell this country out. The price to pay is New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation and our ban on nuclear ships. However this is a price we are not prepared to pay. New Zealand is not prepared by any means to pay the cheque National has made out to Uncle Sam. We will have this cheque stopped tomorrow before either Uncle Sam or Don Brash get it. To be honest this cheque will be stopped—to borrow a very secret phrase—before lunchtime. 
Whilst we are on the subject of collecting let me present a cheque to the police and transport Ministers on behalf of all New Zealand motorists who are using our roads today. This cheque is to pay for the doubling of the size of our police force so that it catches real crime and to send the traffic tax-gatherers back to the Land Transport Safety Authority for the rest of their days. We in New Zealand are sick of watching criminals getting away and winning and going free and crime paying whilst the police hide in bushes with speed cameras. New Zealand First will change all that. After the next election the police will wage war on criminals not on little old ladies going to church. 
We cannot let this occasion pass without acknowledging each and every New Zealand taxpayer. They work hard they pay their taxes and they hope they will get a return on their investment in the State. New Zealand people expect to have a decent health system a decent education system a welfare system if things go wrong a roading system that can carry some cars and a rail system that functions. New Zealand taxpayers give the New Zealand Government billions of dollars and we say it is time they got something back. So here is a cheque for one trillion dollars for the long-suffering hard-working New Zealand taxpayer. Unfortunately there are parties in Parliament that have no intention of giving the taxpayer a fair go and they still are in the majority so I am going to cut up this cheque I am holding. That is the way it is so bad luck to the ordinary taxpayers! 
There are some in Parliament who believe that the needs of the rich and powerful are more important than the needs of ordinary people. We say to the elderly people of New Zealand to New Zealanders who are anxious about their incomes and disturbed about the standard of their health care who are fretting for their safety in their own homes and are concerned about their security hang on because help is on its way. 
We say to the students who have left and are leaving our universities with debts three times their age with more debt than their parents have—parents who have jobs while they are without a job—hang on because help is on its way. 
We say to the hard-working families—families where a working spouse is no longer an option but compulsory who are doing their best to bring up their children whilst they make ends meet and who are now being forced even more to rely on welfare and Government handouts—do not give up yet. 
We say to the small-businessmen and women who pay their hard-earned taxes whilst coping with every type of unnecessary compliance cost who carry all the risks and have to suffer the ignominy of having a group of pseudo-academics telling them they know best do not throw in the towel. Help is on its way. 
We say to exporters—the most critical part of our economy the most vital people in this country who look every day at their opponents abroad with envy at all the help they get from sympathetic Governments while they get nothing—do not stop competing and do not feel that no one understands your plight. Hang on because help is on its way. 
We say to the tens of thousands of Maori those who are great citizens who work hard and contribute to this once-great nation only to suffer the paternalism and the scorn of some within this House who treat them with pervasive unworthiness to be strong—kia kaha. Do not slip back now. Hang on help is on its way. 
We say to every New Zealander who is a patriot who still believes in New Zealand despite all the evidence to the contrary who is alarmed at the state of economic decline as we slide into the Third World—and our per capita incomes prove it—that sometimes it seems as though nothing can be done. But do not abandon all hope; do not abandon ambition. Hang on because help is on its way. 
For in this Parliament there is a party that understands their hopes and dreams and believes that New Zealanders and their former glory can be regained. Do not abandon the good fight because at next year’s election—and every poll from hereon will prove it—New Zealand First will become the next Government. That Government is committed to putting New Zealand and New Zealanders first. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I would like to congratulate the Labour-Progressive Government on its Working for Families package. It is 5 years late it does not go far enough and it discriminates against some children because of the origin of their parents’ income. But it is worthy of support and it certainly defines the difference between Labour and National. The last major welfare reforming Budget was in 1991 when National cut the benefits of those who were already on the lowest incomes and abolished the universal family benefit. Today’s Budget goes some way but not all the way towards reversing those cuts and addressing the poverty they compounded. National and its sometimes ally ACT still have blind faith in the ability of the marketplace to meet everyone’s needs. Of course that is nonsense. This package shows that Labour not only accepts that the State has a responsibility to look after its citizens but is finally taking serious action to do so. Although we are angry that past Budget surpluses have been built on the backs of kids living in poverty and we would have liked more money to be used right now to end that indictment we are pleased to hear Dr Cullen’s predictions that today’s package will significantly reduce child poverty and we hope it will prove to be so. This is definitely a Budget for families and we applaud that. 
It is also good news that there are measures in the Budget that will make the transition from a benefit to paid employment easier. A likely consequence of those initiatives is that the labour participation rate will increase which ironically undermines one of Michael Cullen’s arguments in favour of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—that is that there will not be enough future workers to support us when we retire. I accept the Government’s assurances that no one will be worse off as a result of these reforms despite the base rate of some benefits actually dropping. What we are concerned about is that beneficiaries without children will hardly be better off. Ever since National slashed the benefits 13 years ago beneficiaries have been struggling and they all deserve at least an extra $20 a week each. 
We are also concerned that the in-work payments obviously discriminate against the children of families whose parents rely on a benefit whether it is the domestic purposes benefit the unemployment benefit superannuation or the student allowance. We understand the intention of the payment which recognises that going to work involves extra costs such as transport and clothing but we echo the concerns of the Child Poverty Action Group which urged the Government not to punish children because their parents were getting State support. The Government has partially recognised that discrimination by extending the in-work payment entitlement to those on accident compensation. Yet it has not extended the payment to parents in full-time study even though they face equivalent extra costs to those in the workforce. 
I would particularly like to congratulate the Government on ending the ridiculous situation whereby as soon as beneficiaries started jobs their accommodation supplement was cut. That was an extraordinary disincentive to make the transition to employment and the new situation will be welcomed by those who receive an accommodation benefit. But it leaves a big question mark over why the Government has not changed the abatement regime for those beneficiaries who are not getting an accommodation allowance. Being able to earn only $80 a week before one’s benefit starts to be cut is no incentive to get a job. 
Three important initiatives are missing from today’s family package. The first is a universal child benefit which should be paid to every primary caregiver regardless of family income. A universal child benefit is still needed in New Zealand despite the increases in family support announced today. Unless everyone gets a universal benefit we are concerned that not all families will get what they are entitled to under family support because they are not aware they are eligible and more important that some families will get more than they are entitled to because they have underestimated their incomes and will then be faced with an unaffordable debt at the end of the tax year. 
There is also good and bad news for students in this Budget. I would like to acknowledge that 43000 students will be better off as a result of the parental income threshold being increased. On the other hand the Government is taking the extraordinary step of axing the accommodation allowance for married students under the age of 25. Are they now expected to get divorced and go back to living with their parents? If the Government is serious about investing in people and if it wants young New Zealanders to be committed to our country rather than to take their talents and energy off shore it should make the student allowance universal. Instead it is forcing students into debt—a debt that has now reached $7 billion and has more than doubled since Labour came into office. What is more as a result of the Future Directions package students will have to borrow more because it will be harder for them to get any work when they are not studying as more beneficiaries will now have a greater incentive to enter the workforce. For that reason alone this Budget should have included a universal student allowance. At the same time that the Government is sending a signal that it is worth going to work it should be sending a signal that it is worth getting a tertiary education or training. We should be telling young New Zealanders that we value them that we want them to contribute to society and that we will support them during their studies. 
There is no such thing as a free lunch; the question is whether students pay now or pay later. The Green philosophy is that we are all better off if we know that our society will support us when we are young old or sick and that in turn we are expected to contribute to the community chest when we are well and working. We are concerned not just about the plight of individual students. We are concerned about the impact that student debt is having on the whole economy and on our society. Young couples with student debt are putting off buying their first homes because they cannot bridge the deposit gap and meet mortgage repayments. They are also putting off having children because they feel they cannot afford to. That is a ticking bomb that will explode when those couples retire. They will still be paying off their mortgages or trying to pay market rent out of their New Zealand superannuation but they will have no private savings to back them up. In some cases they will actually still be paying off their student debt as well. Meanwhile there will be fewer of the new workers Dr Cullen needs to pay taxes because those families have delayed having children. 
While we support the family package the question needs to be asked: is it the best long-term way to ensure families have enough to live on? I said at the outset that the State has a responsibility to look after its citizens. I also maintain that employers have a moral responsibility to pay their staff a living wage. Even before today’s package the Government was paying over $750 million in the form of family support tax credits subsidies grants and allowances to people in the workforce. Today’s package increases that level of support considerably. There is a strong argument that that is corporate welfare because it subsidises employers who pay their staff less than it costs to bring up a family in decency. That is why the Government should be lifting the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour and taking the lead on the matter of pay equity by implementing it in the public service—starting with nurses right now. 
I can understand why some business people would oppose that when they face increasing competition from sweatshop imports. It is simply not fair that the Government on the one hand increases the minimum wage introduces 4 weeks’ annual leave and sets good health and safety standards and environmental conditions for New Zealand businesses and their staff and on the other hand forces those businesses to compete with importers who can buy goods that are made in appalling conditions by sweatshop workers. More and more companies are simply giving up. Yesterday’s announcement by Sunbeam that it is closing its electric blanket factory in Palmerston North with the loss of 122 jobs is yet another example of a company shutting its New Zealand manufacturing base and shifting production to China. Many more will follow if the Labour Government succeeds in its attempt to negotiate free-trade agreements with Thailand and China and forces through its unilateral tariff cuts. Its making work pay strategy will also fall flat if the only jobs available for beneficiaries are those working at the checkout or waiting on tables because our manufacturers have disappeared off shore. Despite those concerns the Green Party will be supporting the future directions legislation when it is introduced under urgency later this afternoon. 
 We are less impressed with other aspects of the Budget and we remain fundamentally opposed to the Government’s policy of allowing the commercial release of genetically engineered crops in New Zealand. Therefore I move  
That the amendment to the amendment be amended by omitting all the words after the word “has” and inserting the following: “no confidence in the Labour led minority Government because despite there being some positive initiatives in the budget its continued failure to take adequate measures to protect New Zealand from the release of genetically engineered organisms exposes our health our environment and our economy to significant and quite unnecessary risks 
.” Keeping New Zealand GE free is as fundamental to the Green Party as keeping our country nuclear-free. The Labour Government of the 1980s was propelled into legislating against nuclear weapons and nuclear power by public opposition to their use. My greatest disappointment in this Labour Government is that it has refused to listen to overwhelming public opposition including opposition from its own supporters to genetic engineering. Despite Labour’s intransigence we remain optimistic that New Zealand will stay GE free. There is no sign of any company being foolish enough to apply to commercially release a crop here and the GE industry is in worldwide retreat because nobody willingly wants to buy its products. Monsanto’s decision to shelve its GE wheat marks the beginning of the end for GE food crops. 
Genetically engineered organisms are only one of the threats facing our economy our society and our environment. Today’s Budget does little to prepare New Zealand for many of the predictable and not-so-predictable challenges ahead.  
The Day After Tomorrow  
may only be a film but the environmental backlash it portrays is very real. Man-made climate change has already been held responsible for the growing number of extreme weather events. To its credit the Labour Government has acknowledged the need to tackle that global problem by signing up to the Kyoto Protocol. On Tuesday Dr Cullen said in the House that it was very important for members to address the issue of climate change because it may well have an impact on the economy. Despite increasing evidence that that is the case today’s Budget does little to either future-proof the economy or improve the way we treat the environment. In fact some policies such as making our economy more dependent on exports make us more vulnerable rather than more self-reliant. Only the ACT party rejects the reality of climate change. That issue is too serious to wait until the biggest offender the United States of America takes off its blinkers and commits to reducing its use of fossil fuels. 
The other reality is that fossil fuels by their very nature are finite. New Zealand knows that very well as we face up to the Maui gasfield running out 70 years before it should have run out because the Government at the time squandered that precious resource. It is not just environmentalists who are sounding warnings. The chief executives of the big oil companies have made it clear that the world demand for oil is about to exceed supply. Yes there is still a lot of oil in the ground but we are consuming four barrels for every one that is discovered. Soon we will not be pumping it out of the ground fast enough to fill our tanks. The rapidly expanding Chinese economy is speeding up that depletion. As we import more and more goods from China it is using more and more oil in manufacturing transport and travel. The impact of an oil crisis in New Zealand will be dramatic. The latest trade figures announced today show that the cost of crude oil and petroleum imports is up 84 percent compared with April 2003. We are on an unsustainable path of fossil fuel - dependent economic growth and free trade is driving us faster towards the edge of the cliff. 
New Zealand can and should change course before it is too late. The celebrated scientist Professor James Lovelock one of the first researchers to sound the alarm about the threat from the greenhouse effect said on National Radio yesterday that New Zealand could be the first place in the world —after Iceland that is—to get all its energy from renewable sources. The Green Party and its predecessor the Values Party have been pushing the message of energy efficiency and renewable energy for over 30 years and we will keep pushing it until those in power listen or until we have the power to make the necessary changes. This Budget was an important opportunity to protect New Zealanders from sharply rising energy costs by investing in demand management solar power and wind power. The arguments for investing in sustainable energy now in order to insure us against a bleak future are compelling. Last year’s dry winter and this year’s South Island transmission shambles are warnings of what lies ahead which is why the Greens are disappointed that the Government has not taken heed of those warnings by seriously investing more on energy security in this Budget. 
Of course it is good news that there is an extra $2.6 million to assist low-income families to make their homes more energy efficient and $200000 to encourage greater use of solar water heating. But those amounts are so pathetic that I am sure the Minister is embarrassed to claim them as victories for sustainability. They pale into insignificance against the $1.2 billion that Meridian Energy was planning to spend on its destructive Project Aqua scheme. What is needed instead is for the Government to take a lead by immediately calling for tenders to install solar water heating in all Government buildings where it is cost-effective to do so. A 5-year programme to put solar panels into State houses hospitals prisons schools and office buildings would not only reduce energy demand but save the Government money. Free solar hot water would also cut the power bills for State house tenants. While we obviously support the Working for Families package it is an end-of-pipe solution to the problem of income inadequacy which will only get bigger as power prices inevitably rise. A more creative solution would be to help people to reduce their energy costs. The scaling-up of the manufacturing and installation industries resulting from such an initiative would bring down the price of solar heaters for private homeowners and landlords. The Government could also support “solar mortgages” to enable homeowners and private tenants as well as the whole country to get the benefits of upfront energy savings while paying off the capital cost from those savings. Exactly the same approach could be taken to insulating homes so that they are warm dry and healthy. 
The Government has also missed the opportunity to seriously invest in sustainable transport infrastructure in the Budget. We acknowledge and support the Government buy-back of the rail track and the commitment to spend $200 million on fixing the mess caused by the private operators and we are obviously very pleased to have jointly developed and to be now implementing the New Zealand Transport Strategy with the Government. But what we want now is an integrated and a safe responsive and sustainable land transport system and New Zealand - owned and operated coastal shipping services. What we do not need is to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. The National Party’s solution to New Zealand’s present and future transport problems seems to be to build more motorways and to create more congestion. The Greens hate traffic jams. We hate people being stuck in cars when they would rather be at work at school or at home. We want to ensure that businesses can get goods from one end of the country to the other efficiently and in particular we want to solve Auckland’s traffic gridlock. National’s vision for Auckland’s transport is simply a repeat of the 50-year-old motorway madness that created the present problems. It would be an economic suicide note for Auckland at a time of worsening climate change oil depletion and rising concern about air quality. National has not noticed this but the rest of the world has realised that more roads means more cars more pollution and more congestion. 
Instead New Zealand needs first-class public transport services in the cities and throughout the country and we need a first-class rail freight service in order to get heavy freight off the roads and back on the track. We therefore call on the Government to make extra capital available to fix buckled rail tracks faster than it is planning to do to expand Wellington’s commuter rail for example by double-tracking where it is needed and electrifying the track north of Paraparaumu and to commit to stage 2 and beyond of Auckland’s commuter rail network. Transfund New Zealand should also be pushed to fund the rail projects such as spur lines and freight transfer stations that are waiting on its books. We know that the alternatives to roading scheme has $31 million in that fund but it is still not being spent. We welcome that money and we welcome the extra $22 million for passenger transport but we urge the Government to stop Transfund from dragging the chain on rail and to give Transfund a clear message that it is time to act. 
Dr Cullen will ask where the money is to come from for that. He will not be surprised to hear me answer that first up it should come from his beloved New Zealand Superannuation Fund. I know he has been crowing that the fund has done well in the last quarter but I remind him that the net market values of the international equity investments of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund were still worth $31 million less at the end of March than they were when they were first invested in October 2001. In other words gambling our retirement on the international sharemarket is a risk and the more that is gambled the bigger is the risk. What is the use of owning shares in companies like Enron and WorldCom when our motorways are gridlocked our trains do not run on time and the lights go out at night? 
Does this Budget prepare New Zealand for the day after tomorrow? No it does not. The Government needs to kick its fixation with economic growth and instead to focus on sustainability self-reliance and the quality of life. Even Dr Cullen acknowledges that New Zealanders rightly believe that success is defined as much by their quality of life a better environment and more effective health and education services as it is by a narrowly defined economic performance. If he really believes that why is there not a serious increase in funding for biodiversity in the conservation vote? Instead total biodiversity funding has been cut in this Budget at the very time when the Department of Conservation is struggling to fund its new Operation Ark programme for protecting threatened species. There is not a single new environmental initiative in the Budget. Dr Cullen may have rescued some of our children from poverty but he has failed to provide them with a sustainable future.