Carter David: Budget Debate 
Carter David: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16561] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 We have had another 10-minute contribution from a Labour party member and there were two words we wanted to hear. There were two words that should have been delivered with enthusiasm by that member—the words “tax cuts”. That member could not bring himself to say with any enthusiasm the words “tax cuts”. He is typical of all the Labour members who have taken part in this debate. They do not believe in tax cuts they do not want to be delivering tax cuts and they have done it only out of desperation over the polls. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: We voted for them! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Mr Cunliffe yells out that they voted for them. We know he voted for them but we know he did not want to vote for them. I rise to support John Key’s motion before the House: “this House has no confidence in the Government led by Helen Clark because New Zealanders have had to wait far too long to see any changes to personal tax thresholds or any lowering of personal tax rates and over nine Budgets this Government has presided over a decline in New Zealand’s standard of living compared to the rest of the world.” I will certainly vote for that motion at the end of the debate today and I challenge every party to state their positions on that particular vote. I suspect it will be close. I suspect if the Government survives that vote it will be only because one or two parties come in to vote on one of the most important votes we have in this House—a vote of confidence or no confidence in a Government—and abstain. They are elected to be in Parliament but they will not have an opinion on whether they have confidence in the Government. That I suspect will certainly be the Green’s position and New Zealanders will want to reflect on that. At the next poll when they consider where to put their vote they ought to realise that if they vote for the Greens they are voting for a party that is likely to come back into Parliament and not know whether it can form an opinion as to whether it has confidence in a Government. 
When I reflect on the Budgets we have heard from the Labour Government over the last few years I find there has been a common pattern to most of them: they have all had a slogan. Members may remember that we started with “Moving New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD”. I have not heard that one for a while. Then we had “closing the gaps”. That sounds a bit like the London Underground does it not? We have forgotten about that one. Then we had “the knowledge wave”. 
Tim Groser 
: Never heard of it! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Oh no we had “the knowledge wave”. It meant a lot to Helen Clark until she realised she did not understand what it meant. Then we had “economic transformation”. Yes that was another one. Then we had “growth and innovation”. Then we had—I think it was last year’s slogan—“carbon neutrality”. As for a slogan for this Budget Helen Clark could not think of one; she has actually run out of ideas. But there was one she could have slipped in there—and it is something the National Party aspires to. It is “growth”. Do members know the figure that has grown the most under this Labour Government? It is the amount of money it takes off people to spend through bureaucracy. When Labour came into Government annual Government spending was around $36 billion. In nine Budgets it has gone up to $62 billion—nearly a 90 percent increase in the size of government in this country. New Zealanders can legitimately ask whether they are any better off because the Government’s size has effectively doubled. The answer from most New Zealanders to that is clearly—as acknowledged in the polls throughout the country at the moment—that they are certainly no better off and I suspect most New Zealanders know they are substantially worse off. If members do not like that slogan “growth” I have another one for Dr Cullen and for Helen Clark. Let us call it the “Valedictory Budget” because I am pretty sure that it will certainly be the last one that either of them ever has much to do with. 
The question that everybody in politics is asking—and I think we will get the answer to this over the weekend—is this. Will this Budget which begrudgingly delivers a tax cut of $16 a week to the average worker do anything to lift Labour in the polls? Tim Barnett says it all by the worried frown on his face today because I think he already knows that it has not worked out. Dr Cullen has not been genuine in delivering the tax cuts. No Labour member has stood in Parliament since the delivery of the Budget and spoken enthusiastically and genuinely about the need for those tax cuts. 
We even had the incredible position whereby the Budget was delivered and before the afternoon was over we were slammed into urgency to deliver tax cuts that do not come into place for a further 5 months. When Dr Cullen was asked: “Why put the House into urgency to deliver the tax cuts that don’t effectively come in for another 5 months?” he quite honestly said—and one has to admire him for this—that he would not trust himself to deliver them if they were not enshrined in legislation. He has a track record of doing that. He actually gave tax cuts in the lead-up to the last election and immediately after the election welshed on his word and took those tax cuts away. So that is why we have had to enshrine them in legislation—enthusiastically supported I might add by the National Party. National members keenly voted for that legislation. It was the likes of Mr Cunliffe who actually found it a little hard to swallow. But be that as it may they are there now. 
There is one specific group I want to acknowledge that has benefited because of the tax cuts in the Budget and that is the superannuitants. I think things have got a lot tougher for people in the New Zealand community who are over 65 years and rely entirely on superannuation to live. They have had a very inflationary Government causing food prices to continue to rise every time those people go into the supermarket. We have fuel at over $2 a litre which is not entirely the Government’s fault but certainly some of it is and those people have been hurting. If Dr Cullen had wanted to help those people he could have done so every year for the last 9 years simply by delivering tax cuts because as he and his Labour Party colleagues have finally realised their calculation of superannuation is based on after-tax wages. So every time we get tax cuts in this country—and under a sustained programme National would deliver them—the superannuitants of this country will be substantially better off. 
I will talk particularly on one or two issues around my portfolio area. I looked for the biggest single new spending initiative in the Budget for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. I am surprised and a bit ashamed to have to acknowledge this on behalf of Mr Anderton but the biggest new spending initiative is in regard to climate change policy advice and implementation. That expenditure goes from $27.4 million to $43.3 million. 
Tim Groser 
: How much? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: There will be $43.3 million to be spent on bureaucrats within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry alone to try to find out how the emissions trading scheme will work and how to implement it. Mr Groser laughs. I suspect if one looks at the Ministry for the Environment one will see that a similar appropriation will have been made there of another $30 million or $40 million— 
Tim Groser 
: But only $600 million for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: That must be because Mr Peters holds the trump card; it must be. Anyway in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry budget the biggest single new item is for more bureaucrats to figure out how to make the emissions trading scheme work which potentially could ruin New Zealand agriculture if it is passed in the form it is currently in before the select committee. One would have at least thought that the responsible thing to do was actually to get the bureaucrats to work out how the scheme would work before one passed the legislation! I would have thought that was fairly typical but clearly Labour does not. 
In conclusion this Budget could have set wonderful opportunities for New Zealand. It is at least an admission of the failure of the previous nine Budgets where tax cuts have been affordable. We finally get a little: $16 a week which depending on the price of cheese on the day is one one and a half or two blocks of cheese for the average worker. At least it is a step in the right direction; given a National Government after the next election it will be the first of many many tax cuts we will vote for.