Street Maryan: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Street Maryan: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19537] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 National had 9 years in Opposition to come up with a decent plan for lifting our economy and driving it ahead into the future. It had 9 years to come up with a prescription that might have been innovative and might have given members opposite something to talk about. As it is National members have nothing to say so we are getting cliché upon cliché. Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga gave a speech that was so full of clichés and so lacking in substance that it was an embarrassment. What we have from this Government is a vacuum where its economic policy ought to be—a complete vacuum. After 9 years of sitting around with nothing better to do except think up how National might run the country if it was given the opportunity to do so it cannot come up with anything other than the same old prescription—the same old failed policies—of the 1990s: sell State assets drive wages down provide tax cuts for the wealthy then hope and pray. We have had nothing new in this Budget or in the supplementary estimates which is after all the thing under discussion at the moment. 
We have not had one new idea out of this Government on which we could base some hope for the future. A cycleway does not count. It does not cut it especially if people live in Nelson and the cycleway is designed to go round the latest open-cast mine on Dun Mountain which is excavating more fossil fuels. Are people meant to be attracted to cycling round such a thing? In the time National has been in power and even for the 9 years before that when it had time to think up policies it has not come up with anything remotely credible or usable to underpin the future direction for our economy and for New Zealanders. 
I will now talk about asset sales. This is one of those poverty-stricken ideas that this Government has put up pretending to go to the country on 26 November seeking a mandate for asset sales when in fact all the apparatus for the selling off of State-owned enterprises is being put in place now. Regardless of the fact that the Government does not yet have a mandate from New Zealanders for that purpose it is going ahead. But it is a major con. Every family knows that if we hock off the family silver we can do it only once.  
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: This may be a source of ennui to members opposite but everybody in New Zealand understands it which is why the policy is disapproved of two to one by New Zealanders. This Government would have people believe that mums and dads will be able to buy a share in State-owned enterprises that they already own. When those assets are sold there will be no more dividends. 
Let us have a look at some of the figures relating to these assets. For example the four State-owned energy companies returned $732 million to the Crown last year. Those were the dividends to the Crown: $732 million from the four State-owned energy companies that this Government intends to sell. What could we get for that sum of money? We could get over 10000 teachers 12000 police officers 33000 hip replacements or nearly 70000 university placements. We could get a lot with that money so why would we sell lucrative State-owned assets when they will inevitably go into foreign ownership? Why would we sell those assets when they are good earners and when those dividends can be placed into interests that benefit New Zealanders? 
The Acting Secretary to the Treasury said that the growth forecasts in the Budget are too optimistic. It is part of the con of this Government to say that good times are just round the corner. We just heard the previous speaker Tau Henare say that. 
On top of that National says that a way to get there is for every New Zealand family to come up with $4000 in order to buy some shares in State-owned assets which they already own as taxpayers. Where will people get that money from? When I look at the families who are struggling to get by in Nelson and there are many of them—Nick Smith does not talk to them but I do—I see that they are not the mums and dads who can afford to buy shares in a State-owned enterprise. They cannot afford to buy those shares.  
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Their KiwiSaver. What do you think they’re saving into their KiwiSaver?  
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: If they are contributing to KiwiSaver as the member opposite interjects that is as much as they can do and it would be better if they were saving into that scheme. Why should they have to pay twice for an asset that they already own as taxpayers? Those assets are already earning money for them and for the Government to put into things that benefit Kiwi families more. 
The other area where there is clearly a lack of a plan and a lack of anything substantial from this Government is in the area of jobs: job creation job security and higher wages. In fact the latest idea that the Government has come up with is to lower wages for young people. That is not a plan for economic recovery; that is a plan to displace older people from a very tight labour market. That is not a plan to increase skills or to put young people on a firm footing for training higher skills and inevitably higher wages over time. This idea to lower wages instead of increase them beggars belief. How can it possibly be useful to the New Zealand economy? Has National given up on the idea of matching Australia? This takes us way backwards. It takes us backwards. It does not promote growth; it promotes displacing one older worker with a younger worker when in fact the answer lies in more training and more apprenticeships in the first instance. 
When Labour left office we had 14500 young people either having gone through or in the middle of Modern Apprenticeships—14500. What did National do as usual when it came into Government? It cut Modern Apprenticeships. Employers did not appreciate it. Young people did not appreciate it. We have an escalation in youth unemployment as a result. Now this Government wants to trumpet the fact that it has more people in tertiary institutions. I am sorry but they are not new places that this Government is paying for. They are places that the institutions were already carrying anyway so let us not have any skiting on that score. 
Having had 9 years to work out a prescription for pulling this economy through a difficult time the Government has come up with nothing of any consequence or value. Thank you.