O'Connor Simon: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4126. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Yawn. What a speech we have just heard then from the Labour Party member Iain Lees-Galloway—what a speech. We hear yelling and screaming in order to try to replace good reasonable argument. In fact those members are not sure what they are saying. They are just going to yell it louder. Conspiracy theories around revolts and so forth and yet one just had to look at the Labour Party caucus on Budget day as its leader—well its current leader—gave a speech. The heads were hung in shame and with much concern and embarrassment I am sure. It was very reflective one would say of their own party. We also hear now from the previous speaker more metaphors being given. We heard a whole lot from the leader of the Labour Party when he gave his Budget speech. He was having a crack at some of our communities talking about seven veils. He was floundering around and flapping his arms. Now we have got analogies to do with North Korea South Korea and wars. I think for me it is just the sign of a Labour Party that is out of touch but also a Labour Party that is out of touch with its history.Very early on in the debate today we were challenged on this side of the House by the Hon Annette King and the Labour Party about understanding our history. This was in particular relation to the benefit cuts and so forth of the 1990s that National went through. They were trying to rail against what we are doing now. This is the first time in 42 years that real benefit rates have risen. This is under a National Government. We were getting lectured from the other side that we do not understand our history. So a little bit of history for the Labour Party of course is that the likes of Annette King and others were in a Government years before us railing against the cuts that happened in the 1990s. Yet they did not do one thing to change it. These were people who in their time in Government did nothing to change it. In fact the likes of Annette King were in Government before National came into Government in the 1990s and they did absolutely nothing. I encourage the Labour Party to look at its own history—its own inept history—and its action of doing absolutely nothing and then have the audacity to come into this House and challenge us.What was delivered last week by Bill English was a great Budget. It has gone down very well in Tāmaki. In fact a lot of the changes and debates currently going on before the House are well accepted in Tāmaki that very strong blue seat. I am very pleased that the members and constituents are behind what we are doing. This is a Budget I would argue that is ultimately about caring. It is about caring for people at the beginning of life through their life and at the end of life. I want to touch on two elements of care. The first is around the health budget—obviously as a member of Parliament in the first instance but also as the chair of the Health Committee. The health budget has now reached a record high of $15.9 billion. I think it is one example of the level of care that this Government shows to continue to increase the health budget. Elements within it like $12.4 million to extend the bowel cancer screening project are I think very very important. We have seen some really good signs there. There has been $98 million announced to increase elective surgery. We have a very proud record in this Government of increasing the level of elective surgery. There are now tens of thousands more surgeries being done. Many in this House will know from their own experience and certainly Kiwis in general will know that these surgeries make an enormous difference.But what I am particularly pleased about is an extra $76.1 million to be invested over 4 years in the area of hospice and palliative care. A big part of that spend is actually to assist hospices to reach out into the community to provide palliative care at the end of life. I think that is fundamentally important. More often than not people will think about hospices or end of life and think about it as people in little bedrooms hooked up to machines and being pumped full of drugs. That is not the case in most circumstances. The work of hospices and palliative care is often in homes providing pharmacological treatments and the counselling support the love and the generosity that is required. I think it is just absolutely tremendous that this Government is putting even more money into that space. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the wonderful volunteers and workers at the Eastern Bays Hospice in my electorate particularly those who work in the dove shop raising funds again to support their fellow Kiwis in need of pain relief particularly at the end of life. I am particularly pleased about this spend because I personally think that caring for the most vulnerable in our society is critically important.We are a Government that cares for those who are suffering who are unwell and who are frightened and scared. It is a big part of why I support this Government. For many who will know my background I have spent a considerable amount of my life working in the community and voluntary sector caring for people. I proudly stand on this side of the House as a National Party member and support the decisions this Government makes around care. When I talk about care I am talking about genuine heartfelt care—care that talks about compassion in the truest sense. Compassion that talks about suffering with people—not that I am wanting to go into a Latin derivation but “compassion” means “to suffer with” and to be with them. That is my understanding of care.I want to touch just briefly on the question of euthanasia because it keeps cropping up in these spaces. People will talk about euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide as caring and compassionate. I want to go on the record very clearly to say that is fundamentally incorrect. I would like to make some points for the record here in the House today. I do not do this just as a member of Parliament or someone of a particular religious persuasion but as someone who has also spent a lot of time in his life—if I can speak in the third person—studying these serious philosophical questions. I do it too because constituents often lament—and you hear it in the media asking who is going to talk about this issue. Again I want to go on the record very clearly to say that I unambiguously oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in this country. It is not genuine care and it is not genuine compassion.There is no such thing as a right to die. There is a right to life. Those of us who have worked with people to the end of their days understand the fight that is in there to preserve life. There is no such thing—and I say this as a rights theorist—as a right to die. There is an illusion when people talk about choice in these areas. The fundamental thing with something like euthanasia—and this is the opposite to what we are talking about around good palliative care—is that the choice is being given to others. We are all free agents to exercise how we want in our choices but something like euthanasia is giving the choice to others to make for us. Again I think this is a fundamental problem we need to consider. I also just want to add finishing on this little part—because it is a heavy topic but it is one that is often shied away from in talking about the heavy issues. I want to say to those in our vulnerable sectors particularly those with disabilities that I and I am sure many in this House stand beside you when you watch and hear these discussions with concern. I want to say very clearly to you in those communities that I believe in genuine care and genuine compassion and the need for us to stand beside you. So I am very proud of a Government that has put more and more money into palliative care to provide that assistance.I am also very pleased about the welfare reforms. I read some opinionator on Stuff who said that those on the centre-right are people who “generally despise the poor”. I thought that was just a shocking shocking statement. In fact I would challenge that writer who says basically that we on the centre-right generally despise the poor to write down all the stuff that she has ever done to support people and I will do the same. I would be pretty sure whose list is going to be longer. I am very proud to stand in this House—Sue Moroney: The arrogance. How arrogant!SIMON O’CONNOR: —actually not arrogant—and to back a real record of experience. It does not mean that I am any different from any other New Zealander but I back the work that I have done supporting people in the hospitals and in the hospices on the drug scene people in the homeless shelters and the counselling that is required and the people on Karangahape Road struggling with issues of their prostitution or their sexuality—genuinely working with these people. It does not mean that I stand here and have all the answers by any means but I derive from them some experience that informs the way that I think. Really important and what the left misses is that we then marry that up with training in academics which asks: “Why do I feel what I do and how can I express that in words that can be understood?”. That is one of the fundamental differences between this side of the House and the other side of the House. This side of the House has genuine experience genuine learning and brings them together and attempts to help New Zealanders as best we can. We have seen it with the marvellous Budget bringing in extra money to help the most vulnerable in our society. Amongst those are families with children. Again I said at the start that this is the first time since 1972 when benefits have actually been increased—not by a Labour Government but by a National Government. I am very proud to be part of a Government that genuinely cares.