Ardern Jacinda: Budget Debate 
Ardern Jacinda: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19173] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I will begin my speech addressing the Government’s latest Budget by reviewing some of the claims we have heard in this House from Government members beginning with those made this afternoon. I find it quite extraordinary that we continually hear the contradiction from Government members that first somehow Labour was fiscally unrestrained and spent every single surplus that it ever managed to create. That is patently not true. In fact when National was in Opposition it spent most of its time trying to coax Labour into spending the surpluses which we did not and which is why we are now in the situation we are in. We would be in a much worse place had Labour not exercised the restraint that it did. The second point that was continually made and that I have heard in this House is that Labour chucked the surplus at unnecessary programmes. When I challenged a Government member to name those programmes they were named as KiwiSaver and Working for Families. If the Government absolutely believed that those programmes were unnecessary programmes then why did it not get rid of them? Why in this Budget did it not get rid of them? I would wager it is because the Government actually understands that Working for Families is a targeted tax credit aimed at those who need it most and that KiwiSaver not only was necessary but also continues to be the one thing that I think prevents us from being in a potential superannuation crisis. That is the reason why continually tinkering with it undermines the stability of the system. That is the major issue that I have with the Government’s changes to KiwiSaver not least the fact that it was actually breaking a promise it had made to the New Zealand public. 
I will make two extra points. I have heard I do not know how many times in this House the statement that this was a Budget for the times and that Kiwis and households would expect the Government to do what they would do themselves. Well it is not a hypothetical; households are doing it themselves. When there is a 4.6 percent increase in prices and only a 1.9 percent increase in wages families are doing it tough. They are facing incredibly hard times due to not just the increase in prices as a consequence of an increase in GST but also increases in ACC levies tertiary education and the price of going to the doctor. Almost anywhere one turns one will find an increase in the cost of living for Kiwis. Kiwi families are having to budget. The expectation when families sit down and look at their budgets is not only to find places where they can exercise a little bit of extra restraint and pull back a bit of unnecessary spending but also to look for a way out which the Government has not done. Families look for a plan to try to remove the tight conditions that they are facing. We know that a lot of New Zealanders are in fact doing that. I do not think that mums and dads looking for second and third jobs is necessarily the best answer in the world because that puts pressure on their families but that is what they are doing. We know from the household labour force survey that 20 percent of people in part-time jobs want full-time jobs. Half of them are working two if not three jobs just to survive. They are desperately trying to find a way out; this Government is not. That is the difference. That is the difference between the average Kiwi household and what the Government did with this Budget. 
The third point I will make is that Bill English continually tells this House that this Government has taken the sharp edges off the recession. I do not believe that for a second. We have a $16.7 billion deficit but we have more than trouble in our books. We have extraordinarily high unemployment in New Zealand. It has nearly doubled since 2008. We have had a larger increase in unemployment than the US the UK and Australia—all our comparable nations. It is hard to survive on the minimum wage in this country let alone on an unemployment benefit. Yet that is what has happened as a result of there being a lack of a plan to turn round this recession to bring us out of recession and to deal with our deficit. If that is not the sharp edge of the sword of a recession then I do not know what is. If being unemployed and trying to survive and raise a family on an unemployment benefit in New Zealand is not the sharp edge of a recession then I challenge Bill English to tell me what is. If having no job—being one of those 1000 Kiwis who queued outside a Countdown in Hamilton for a mere 140 jobs or being one of the 2700 people who queued outside a supermarket in Mount Roskill for 150 jobs—is not to feel the sharp edge of a recession then I do not know what is. 
What about the 50 percent of young Maori and Pacific Island males who are leaving school without any plan to move into work education or training—50 percent of Maori and Pasifika boys are doing absolutely nothing. They are just part of the 77000 young people not in education employment or training. The Government can tell me that that is just a small blip in the programme but it has jumped from 58000 just in the last quarter. If that is not the sharp edge of a recession then again Bill English needs to tell me what is because his criteria are skewed. 
Long-term unemployment has also tripled since National came in. I have to be honest; there has been a response from the Government on this. It was Future Focus. It was its apparent welfare reforms and it was somehow going to help people into work. I ask how making people reapply for an unemployment benefit does anything tangible to help them into work. Paula Bennett boasted today that 3600 people have moved off a benefit but we do not know where they are. We do not know what they are doing. All we know is that they have not moved into a job. Those 3600 people may be producing a short-term saving for this Government in terms of unemployment benefits but we will suffer the long-term consequences of potential criminality and of those people being completely marginalised and no longer engaged with our system at all. If those people are not required to walk through a Work and Income door every day or every week to sit down with a work broker who is trying to get them into work training or education then that is our loss. That becomes our loss not to mention the lost potential of those people who now have no support let alone any potential to move into supported employment education or training. It is a recipe for disaster and that is what these welfare reforms have delivered for us. 
But what about the Government’s response in the Budget to our unemployment situation which is as I have outlined a perfect storm? The Government has predicted that—and Treasury has not refuted it—170000 jobs will be created over the next several years as a result of this Budget. I say “as a result” because the Prime Minister wavers between saying that and saying that this prediction is just following a trend rather than being a consequence of any direct initiatives in the Budget but contradictions are all over the place. On one hand when we ask the Government what initiatives it has implemented to tackle unemployment the Prime Minister stands up and says that national standards will deliver us those jobs. If it is not national standards then he says that it is early childhood education and if it is not that then it is simply interest rates. The Government says that interest rates are the one thing that will deliver us 170000 jobs. That is classic trickle down. I do not buy it I have never bought it and the last Budget demonstrated that it is already not working. 
I absolutely accept that the private sector in New Zealand is generating the majority of jobs. I am not disputing that not for a second. But that does not mean that the Government has no role to work alongside employers and the private sector to stimulate job creation. The first example is that exporters are crying out for greater stability of the dollar—crying out for it—and if we were able to deliver that we know that it would increase our exports and thereby increase our jobs. 
In respect of investment in research and development PricewaterhouseCoopers has told us that that would contribute billions of dollars to our economy if the Government was willing to incentivise it. All of that is the Government playing a role in stimulating job creation via the public sector. It is much more active: not only does it allow the private sector its role in job creation but also it does not allow the Government to get away with the excuse in a recession of washing its hands of any responsibility for putting Kiwis into work. That is exactly what the Government has done. It is exactly what the Budget has demonstrated. 
This is the challenge I put to the Government: if it believes it is all on those in the private sector then why will it not listen to them? Why will it not listen to the cries they are making not only for assistance in these areas but also for the Government to work alongside Kiwis to make sure that they are skilled trained and ready for the workforce instead of slashing $90 million out of this critical area. This is not just trickle down; it is blatant irresponsibility and it is an example of the sharpest edges of the recession.