Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16386] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to stand and take a call in this Budget debate. There is another very appropriate saying about history which is that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We do not have to look very far back to see what the National Party would do under the current economic conditions and to realise just how true that epithet is. Someone sent me an email the other day. She said she had been watching a movie with a quote in it that she thought was very appropriate and that it fitted the National Party perfectly. What she could not understand was that her family was finding things so much easier. They were a Working for Families family and life had been a lot easier since the Working for Families tax cuts came in. They were benefiting from paid parental leave. They were benefiting from 20 hours’ free early childhood education. They no long had to think about whether they could afford to take their children to the doctor. They could take their children to the doctor and they could afford the prescriptions. 
This person asked how it was that speaker after speaker from the National Party kept getting up and going on about how bad things were and how much worse they were. She said there was a line in the movie where an American President said and I paraphrase: “I thought they just didn’t get it. The problem isn’t that they don’t get it; the problem is that they can’t sell it.” That is the truth about the National Party—those members cannot sell it. They cannot sell their arguments so they just make it up as they go along. Those members hope New Zealanders will not check that in fact when they say New Zealanders are doing a lot worse under a Labour-led Government New Zealanders are actually doing a lot better despite the very difficult economic conditions. 
I also sometimes wonder whether people remember what Budgets used to be like in this country. We have had nine Budgets from Dr Michael Cullen—nine very good Budgets. They are Budgets that have continued to invest in health education social services and infrastructure which are all the things that are important to New Zealanders. They are Budgets that have delivered a package of tax cuts—business tax cuts Working for Families KiwiSaver tax cuts for savers and now personal tax cuts. I wonder whether people remember what it used to be like when people were terrified of Budgets and when there would be queues at the petrol stations because people were worried that the petrol excise would go up in the Budget. People would be going out buying alcohol and cigarettes and worrying about where the cuts would come. I think that it is a testament to the Hon Dr Michael Cullen that people now look at the Budget as being a positive thing. They ask what will be in it for them and their families because we have had 9 years of good Budgets that have delivered for people in this country and this is in the context of incredibly uncertain international economic conditions. 
It must be pointed out how extraordinary it is to have a Budget like this at a time when in the history of this country National Governments have slashed Budgets when we have been in these kinds of economic conditions before. We have record food prices internationally with an 83 percent increase over the last 3 years. We have had the fall-out from the United States subprime mortgage crisis which despite the official cash rate in New Zealand not having shifted in just about the last year has impacted on our foreign-owned banks. They have moved our mortgage interest rates up and people are feeling that. 
We have record oil prices and Gerry Brownlee blamed the Government for that. I thought that that was very ironic coming from the party that supported the war in Iraq which is in part responsible for the higher oil prices. That is actually a very important point to consider because who knows whether there may in the future be more wars in the Middle East. We do not know what might happen. The people of New Zealand deserve to know from the National Party what its position would be on supporting another war like the war in Iraq which was not sanctioned by the United Nations. I think we deserve an answer on that. 
Also of course National is doing nothing about climate change. It is paying nothing but lip-service to climate change and to alternatives to oil in our economy. I reiterate that it is amazing to have a Budget like this that not only cuts personal tax rates but also continues to invest in health and education. It does not just continue the spending we already have but it continues to invest more in health in education and in social services where it is needed it continues to invest in infrastructure and also the Government has purchased back a major New Zealand asset—another one that it had to buy back when it all went pear-shaped: New Zealand rail. 
I want to highlight a point that the Hon Jim Anderton made that this is a Government that addresses major problems head-on. The Government has not avoided the issue of climate change. It is addressing it now through an emissions trading scheme through biofuels legislation and through energy conservation which it is doing with the Green Party. All that the National Party wants to do is delay delay delay. It does not want to do anything about climate change. We are seeing that on our select committees and we are seeing it in National’s announcements that it now no longer supports the legislation this Government is putting in place. 
Labour has also addressed the enormous problem of our having no capital in this country through the KiwiSaver scheme. The National Party has voted against KiwiSaver and its enhancements every time it has come on to the floor of this House. 
This Budget also includes $700 million for the Fast Forward initiative for investment in research science and technology in our crucial agriculture areas which also goes into the climate change area. There is more money for student support for students at tertiary institutions and $400 million for non-governmental organisations that are providing essential services. We know that if they were not there on the ground doing it Governments would have to provide these services and frankly I believe that these people provide those services far better than we could. We want to support them and in this Budget we have. 
Labour is continuing the retrofitting of State houses which means that people will have healthier homes and that automatically impacts on our health bill as well. There is $500 million for a broadband package that will deliver far more to this country and particularly to rural and provincial New Zealand than the National Party’s proposal which is $1.5 billion to be delivered by Telecom. I doubt whether there is anyone in rural or provincial New Zealand who thinks that that has worked in the past and will work in the future. We need a contestable fund that has a mix of technologies because what works way out in the back of beyond will not be the same as what works in inner-city Auckland and that is what this Government is delivering and it is doing it for a third of the price. In my opinion we will reach far more people far more quickly than under the National Party’s proposal. 
On a personal note I am really happy to see the $30 million transport funding for regional development initiatives for Tairawhiti and Northland. This is money that has gone down really well in the past to help with forestry roading. I know there was a concern in my community that that funding might not continue but it has. Our council was absolutely ecstatic that this Government has continued to support provincial New Zealand for the things that it sometimes finds difficult to fund with a very low ratepayer base. 
That sector is also very happy with the $36 million for coastal shipping. It is very important to us. We have a very good port and we have a train line that goes right up to the port. Coastal shipping is an important part of an integrated transport system and with the buy-back of New Zealand rail that will go a long way towards taking a lot of those trucks off our roads which drive many of us nuts as we are driving around. 
Of course the eternal question is what the National Party would do. It is huge on criticism although on the day its members were so taken aback by the scope of the Budget that they were unable to come up with anything until their research unit had sent out all the new key lines. What would they do? It is not too much for the people of this country to ask what an alternative Government would do 5 or 6 months out from a general election. The Labour Party did it when it was in Opposition so that people could clearly see the difference between the two parties. People knew what a Labour Government would deliver. The National Party does not want to tell us because its members know that it is likely to be unpopular and they want to minimise the impact. 
They talk a lot about the public sector. Let us not forget that on election night in 1999 it took so long to count all the votes because our public sector was so decimated that it did not even have the capacity to count the votes on that night. They had to get contractors in to brief incoming Ministers because they did not have the capacity to do it themselves. 
Maybe that is because the National Party was hands-off. Its members think the market is going to deliver anything—the visible hand of the market will do it all. The fact is that we need a strong public sector and this Government has delivered more doctors more nurses more teachers more police and the people who support them behind the scenes. 
Let us compare what happened in 1998 when National cut the rate of superannuation stopped more investment in health and education and sold State assets with what a Labour-led Government has done. It has raised the level of superannuation invested more in health and education and bought back a State asset. The fact is that Labour knows that when the economy turns south that is when the country needs a Government the most. A Labour-led Government will not desert New Zealanders at a time when they need it the most. Now is the time when New Zealanders need cheaper doctors’ visits cheaper prescriptions and 20 hours’ free early childhood education. Costs are increasing beyond our control—food prices oil prices—and now is when New Zealanders need to know that they have a Government that will not take away the things that have made their lives affordable. 
Of course I am also talking about Working for Families. There is silence from the National Party on this. One of the things the National Party hates the most about this Budget is that Labour has shown that an economy can be strong and it can be fair. It has put paid to all the untruths National members told us in the 1990s about having to do things. The fact is they did not have to do what they did in the 1990s; they chose to do it. This Labour-led Government has shown that we chose to save money to put the surpluses aside when the times were good knowing that when the times were bad New Zealanders would need a Government that would continue to provide them with the services that they need and we did that. Michael Cullen came under incredible pressure in this House to squander the surpluses and he did not do so. Now at a time when the economy is slowing we are able to look New Zealanders in the eye and say: “We will not desert you. A Labour-led Government will be there when you need us providing the services that you put us into Government to provide and we will continue to do that beyond this election.” People are going to see past the “Emperor With No Clothes” on the other side of the House.