Pillay Lynne: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Pillay Lynne: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13649. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I have a message for all New Zealanders: they are better off under a Labour-led Government. This is a Government that delivers that is committed to growth that is committed to providing the best start in life for our younger citizens and that is committed to creating job opportunities through training apprenticeships and support for businesses. It is committed to investing big time in health right across the spectrum and is committed to fairness and opportunity for workers through fairer labour laws fairer health and safety laws and paid parental leave. It is committed to safer and affordable housing to safer communities and to security for our citizens in retirement. This Budget will take New Zealand ahead. It is good for families and good for the economy. It is a Budget based on growth and opportunity and it will assist New Zealanders into work and make work pay. Budget 2004 helps low and middle income families by lifting family support and family tax credits by changing the abatement levels for family income assistance and by replacing the child tax credit with a large in-work payment for working families. It is about providing fairness and security to low to middle income families and enabling them to provide the best opportunity for their children’s start in life. 
This Budget includes extra investments in education and health. There are big improvements for childcare—the rates of subsidy will increase significantly with many more families now being eligible for the subsidies. There has been another dramatic improvement in early childhood education with another $365 million to be invested over 4 years. Labour is continuing to make tertiary education more affordable. From next year we will spend another $110 million on student support which will benefit 36000 students. We will double the number of knee and hip operations. There will be more State houses and better living standards for New Zealand families. Half a billion dollars will be spent over the next 4 years on strengthening our already good economic performance. The spending on economic development tourism research and trade promotion has increased by over 25 percent since this Government took office as opposed to the hands-off laissez-faire approach of the previous Government. Industry training Modern Apprenticeships and expansions to the Gateway programme are all increasing under this Government—another major success story. The scrapping of the Apprenticeship Act by National and the drop in skill levels for over a decade was a crime. 
 This Budget is affordable and fiscally responsible. Under this Government we will have another guaranteed $2.1 billion go into the Superannuation Fund which will look after those of us who are 50 now—something that members on the Opposition side of the House cannot guarantee. 
Simon Power 
: Surely not! You’re not 50! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I know many members on the Opposition side of the House are 50 but there are a few over here on the Government side as well. We know as a Government that investing in people pays and that is what we are intent on doing. If what we are delivering for low to middle income earners was done under National’s tax-cut regime we would have a taxation regime of 9.5c in the dollar. That is even less than ACT’s crazy policy. The question is this: what would go under National? What would get cut? Would it be health education superannuation training housing or law and order? The answer is that it would be the lot. The greatest investment that we are making is in people and when our families package is fully in force more than a whopping 60 percent of working families will be an average of $66 a week better off. 
Over its two terms this Government has focused on providing long-term guaranteed funding that provides a strong and an effective public health service. All up nearly $10 billion will be spent on health in the coming year. That is a whopping 20 percent of our total Government spending. We will not go back to the 1990s when the care of New Zealand was handed over to the free market and Kiwis’ health suffered. That philosophy has not worked anywhere else in the world and it certainly will not work in New Zealand. Affordable primary health-care is growing all the time. At the moment one in four Kiwis gets cheaper health-care as a result of that. That number will continue to grow. From October 2003 all 6 to 17-year-olds enrolled in primary health organisations in New Zealand were funded to receive reduced-cost health-care and from 1 July that will be extended to over-65-year-olds enrolled in primary health organisations. They will get low-cost health-care and will pay only $3 for prescriptions. That is good news. As well twice as many hip and knee replacement operations will be performed in the next 4 years. That will enable over 9000 New Zealanders each year to regain their physical independence. Once again that is an example of investing in people and of how that pays and is to the benefit of all New Zealanders. 
We are also continuing to fight P. We are allocating another $39 million over the next 4 years including another police team to bust P labs. Let us wait because there is more! In terms of family violence we are setting aside nearly $15 million over 4 years for the creation of four family safety teams which will provide a collaborative approach to dealing with family violence issues. 
We have heard the bleating from the Opposition side of the House and the silly claims like the tired old dancing Cossacks routine. That is so old-fashioned. It did not strike a nerve; it struck a sense of humour. I like a party that can laugh at itself and at its tired old ideas—a party that can dredge up the tired old dancing Cossacks routine and present it as if it is somehow credible. We know that National’s credibility is zilch in terms of ordinary New Zealanders. We know that the claims that those members will deliver on a lower tax-rate regime are simply untrue. We know that cutting spending on training and apprenticeships and cutting support for workers did not pay off. We know that that party is floundering and that it is going back in time with its leader. National is being led to the sad old rhetoric of the past; it cannot help itself. It has not presented one new idea—not one! It has not presented any policy. Why? Because it does not have any. Every time that National members murmur a bit of policy they get a reaction to it from the populace and they think: “Yeech! That doesn’t look too good. We’ll back off and we’ll change our minds.” National members may laugh but they are panicking. 
This Government is delivering. We are delivering to all New Zealanders. We are proud to do so and we are not a joke.