Ririnui Mita: Budget Debate 
Ririnui Mita: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5981] 
MITA RIRINUI (NZ Labour—Waiariki) 
: 
Otira te wahi tuatahi ano tautoko ake nga mihi ki to tatou rangatira kua huri ai ki tua o te arai. Koi ra a Rihari Mangu. Kua hinga atu nei a hoki atu na ki tona wa kainga tenei te mihi ake poroporoaki nei ki a ia. 
[ 
The first thing indeed is to endorse the tributes made to our respected one who has passed beyond the veil. I am referring to Richard Mangu. He has fallen and has returned to his homeland. I greet him and bid him farewell 
.] 
I join with previous speakers of the Government in expressing condolences to the family of Richard Mangu who I believe was employed by VIP Transport since 1974. I met the man on several occasions and found him a very pleasant person. My condolences to his family. 
There is a reason that I am speaking in this debate at 5 to 10 on a Wednesday night. As they say we in the Government always save the best for last. I was very intrigued by the speeches from National Party members prior to the dinner break. It is true there is a lot of division amongst their ranks because every member who spoke had a different point of view in terms of the Budget. I shall give members some of those views. Dr Don Brash reckons that the Government spends too much. Dr Linda Scott said that it spends too little. Future National Party leader Simon Power had some very strong views on the Budget. However I was kind of intrigued by his infatuation with Helen Clark’s photograph. He has two of them in his pocket one from 1999 and one from 2002. I know that he has aspirations for leadership but surely he does not need to copy the leadership style of Helen Clark the Prime Minister. Maybe in the future he will find that such a leadership style is of benefit to him but I have to say that he will have a very long wait. [ 
Interruption 
] There are no models in the National Party for him to follow—that was going to be my next point.  
Also I was very very surprised to hear a person like Shane Ardern say that the worst thing he could find about the Budget was that there was a $4 billion surplus. If that is bad then having money in the bank is bad also. National is a party that wants to spend it all today and never mind tomorrow. National members want to spend it on this generation and to hell with the next. The previous speaker Dr Paul Hutchison said that the morning after the Budget he heard a lot of commentators condemn this fourth Budget of Dr Michael Cullen. I also read some of the comments the morning after and this is a very very profound one from a very well-known political commentator Mr Colin James who said: “Traditional Labour within the constraints of prudent budgeting and with genuflections to a high-skills economy—that’s Michael Cullen’s fourth Budget.” How much of an endorsement can one get? I shall go through some of the details of those genuflections. We are talking about a highly skilled well-educated fully employed future nation. The interjections from members across the House are not being heard above all the praise for this Government and its fourth Budget. 
In particular I want to speak about the commitments this Government has made to the treaty education programme. I say that because at the moment the Justice and Electoral Committee is in the process of hearing submissions on the Supreme Court Bill. What has become apparent during this process is that very few people understand what the treaty is and what it means to us as a nation—more so Opposition members in this House. I do not know whether they refused or just do not want to learn about the treaty or whether there is something in their party manifesto that says that they cannot and shall not and will never have anything to do with nation building as far as the treaty is concerned. 
Debate interrupted.