Hughes Darren: Budget Debate 
Hughes Darren: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9542] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 What a great pleasure it is to follow David Carter—the one-time failed finance spokesperson for the National Party. National has had him participate in the Budget debate even though he took National members into the 2002 election as their finance spokesperson only to be promptly sacked afterwards. That speech summed up exactly why that man is a three-time loser to Ruth Dyson in the South Island. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: He could get a part in  
The Munsters 
. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Gosche thinks that he could get a part in  
The Munsters 
. I am not sure whether it is the new hairdo or what it is but I am not going down that track because all we are hearing so far from the National Party is the same old Tory arrogance that we expect to hear from those members when they think they are doing all right. But we will make sure by putting up solid policy on the Government side of the House that people will have a real choice. They will see that substance counts for quite a lot as opposed to this nonsense of style that we tend to see from the National Party. 
When I was watching John Key give his right of reply to the Budget speech it seemed as if he was trying to do a stand-up comedy routine at the National caucus party. It was as if the speech was intended only to make the National backbenchers laugh. This is the man who is offering himself as an alternative Prime Minister—he had not one specific policy. We heard from National’s deputy leader today who is meant to be the guy with all the substance—the co-leader. He could not offer us anything either. It was all talk and no substance. 
So I am proud to stand up and support a Budget that is very very heavy on substance and on focusing on this country’s future. Clearly the Budget takes a very long-term view of where our country is heading and I think that is important. There is a temptation when Budgets come up for all of politics to stop and look at it as though this one single event this 1-hour speech will be the answer to every single problem that ever existed in New Zealand. Of course we know our country’s challenges are far more complex than that. But Budgets do set a scene. If there is one thing I am grateful to Dr Cullen for in this Budget it is that it sets a scene for a proper national debate about how we lift our savings rate and how we try to make sure that New Zealanders have a stake in their future. That is the thing I think this Budget will be remembered for and it is what I want to talk about this afternoon. 
But I quickly want to say that one of the local issues I was so pleased to see in the Budget as the member of Parliament for Otaki is the fantastic investment that will be made into rail in the Wellington region which will see electrification of our rail line through to Waikanae and substantial double tracking from MacKays Crossing through to Waikanae. The long-term goal I have for my electorate is that we will see a substantially double-tracked and electrified rail line that will run from Wellington City right through to Palmerston North City thereby giving the districts of Horowhenua and Kapiti in the middle economic educational and employment opportunities. I think that putting that money into the rail system as we are doing is very important. I know there has been a lot of discussion about Auckland but the one I am most interested in is the Wellington investment including putting in more stock and making sure that the infrastructure including tracks and electrification is done. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I hear David Carter interjecting. Of course David Carter’s party in the last Government sold the railways and everything with them so that National’s mates from Fay Richwhite could roll all the money out of them and force this Government to come back buy it for $1 and put substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money into making sure the tracks were up to date. I am glad we are doing that. But it is a bit rich for National members to come down to the House and complain about too much Government spending when it is their own legacy of neglect and betrayal of the people of this country that forces us to put hundreds of millions of dollars—given to us by taxpayers and entrusted to us by them—into the rail network. 
National Party members of course will not be able to wait to jump on to these trains. After the next election that is how most of them will have to get to work. But the point is that we are investing in our public resources and infrastructure once again and I am glad about it because I know what a difference that makes for my constituents. It will be great to continue to see that happen. So I support it. I think it is great. I want to know from National Party members—the Auckland and Wellington people—whether they are going to vote for or against the rail improvements. I think they will vote against them. But they will go out around the country and say that they think the Government should be doing far more about transport. Yet when it does and when its members bring transport measures to the House they are not interested in supporting them. 
Clearly the key aspect of the Budget is the KiwiSaver extension. It is in this area that I think there is a real economic opportunity for New Zealand to turn round a pretty shameful savings rate. We have spoken in this House before in the different contributions of different members about the fact that for every $1 a New Zealand household earns we are spending about $1.18. We cannot continue to go on like that. 
Hon David Carter 
: What did that member say about Mike Moore? 
DARREN HUGHES 
: David Carter chips in. The only thing he has to say is to talk about somebody who left Parliament in 1997. We are here trying to talk about the future. Members might recall that Mike Moore supported a savings scheme for New Zealand. Mike Moore actually campaigned on that. He was a member of the 1972 Labour Government that put in place the Kirk savings scheme which if it had been kept in place would have billions of dollars in it today. I am glad David Carter brought that up. It was the Muldoon Government which came in in 1975 that ripped apart that pension plan and by doing so ensured that all the money we could have available to us today as a country has gone. National Party members have had one chance in the lifetime of most adults in New Zealand to rip apart our pension savings for our country. They are not going to get the same chance to do it again because for us it is not just about being in Government for power unlike those arrogant Tories over there; it is about high principle and doing something right and proper for the future of this country. With KiwiSaver we are going to put that in again. 
We know that household debt has doubled in the last 5 years. We are concerned about that. We know we have to try to achieve a generational culture change around saving and putting KiwiSaver in place starting on 1 July will make a huge difference for ordinary people. Of course KiwiSaver was good on its own. The KiwiSaver scheme we campaigned on in 2005 was fantastic but Michael Cullen has made it even better by making sure that the Government puts money from its resources into people’s individual savings accounts so that it does not overheat the economy but does have an effect on broadening the capital markets of the economy and making sure that people have extra money for their retirement. Employers are to make a contribution as well and that will be a good thing. 
National members of course are so opposed to that. Yet in all their speeches they talk about how wonderful life is in Australia. Mr Chauvel will tell me what percentage Australian employers put into savings in Australia. 
Charles Chauvel 
: 9 percent. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: It is 9 percent. Here we are asking employers to put in a maximum when it is rolled out of 4 percent of which we will front up with $20 to help them out. Employers in Australia the country so lauded by Tory Opposition members have to put in much more than 4 percent; in fact they have to put in 9 percent. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Chauvel has pointed out that there is a payroll tax there as well. 
Let us take someone who is on the average wage—the kind of person whom the Labour Government has always been worried about worked for and delivered to. That person earns $35000 a year and puts in $27 a week out of his or her own salary the Government puts in $20 and his or her boss puts in $27. But of the $27 that that person’s boss puts in he or she gets $20 back from the Government as a tax credit. So the cost to the boss is $7 a week. There is $1000 that gets put in when people start their KiwiSaver fund. That means that by the end of the first year when it is fully rolled out a saver on the average wage would have nearly $5000 in the KiwiSaver account of which the worker has put in only $1400. The employer so strongly defended by the National Party which voted against employers getting a tax cut just last week—the bosses whom the National Party is so keen on looking after—will have put in only $362 of that $4850. So we can see just from that one example of a person struggling to get by on the average wage in New Zealand that for the cost of $1400 a year he or she will get $4850 into their account to help them get ready for the age of 65. I think it is fantastic. 
In the business area of course we have lowered the corporate tax rate to 30c. We have the research and development tax credit of 15 percent and it does not matter whether or not businesses are making a profit—they get that 15 percent back. We have changed the amount that people can donate to charities. We have taken off the limit for the rebate in that regard. We have put a lot of extra money into offshore investments and offshore market assistance which I think will be of help to our manufacturing sector. We have increased superannuation by $40 for a married couple a fortnight and $26 for a single person. In this Budget we have put money into aged care to try to lift the wages of those people who work in residential care facilities and do home-based care for people in our communities which will mean that our lowest-paid New Zealanders will be helped out in a big way. 
National Party members talk all of a sudden with their typical Tory arrogance of this new-found concern about low-income people but where were they when we were putting up the minimum wage from the $7 that they left it at to the $11.25 it is today and hopefully to the $12 it will be next year? Those members opposed it. Where were they when we were introducing 4 weeks’ annual leave for workers and when we were introducing the primary health organisations in order to halve the cost of going to the doctor and lowering the cost of pharmaceuticals to $3? Where were they when the Government introduced the Employment Relations Act to make workplace fairness a reality for working families and working people so that they could get a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work? Where was the National Party when we were guaranteeing the pension to be delivered to people at age 65 at 65 percent of the average wage for married couples? 
The National Party opposed all those things just like its members opposed interest-free student loans. They opposed New Zealand being nuclear-free they opposed the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and they opposed income-related rents for State house tenants only for us now to find that they support these great policies. They said at the last election that these policies were a bribe and that they were corrupt and terrible. They are now in support of them. My point in saying that is simply this. For all the crocodile tears being shed by the National Party about KiwiSaver during this Budget debate I just say to members to wait. Give it time. Within a year it will be National Party policy. Those members have no ideas of their own. They adopt Labour policies. How can we trust people who change their minds so easily?