Williamson Maurice: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williamson Maurice: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 30 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2683. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I intend to title my speech today “Contra vera nihil obstat” which is Latin for “Against fact there is no argument.” Today I want to present just a few facts to the Labour Opposition that I think will fair and squarely contradict so much of the waffle and the debate that has gone on without actually allowing the facts to ever interfere with a good story. I was proud to sit in this House for my 25th Budget in the Parliament and to listen to Bill English present a Budget in some of the most difficult economic times I have ever experienced in this country and to still keep the ship well and truly afloat with a good direction on it and with a good forecast for the future. It is not a future like Greece has got not a future like Portugal or others that are on the verge of straight collapse have got but actually has things like growth rates. I want to remind members of them because I was looking through the comparison of growth rates and for those people out there who do not think economic growth matters you are wrong. Economic growth is vital for a nation or you will never be able to fund the services such as education and health that are required. So I had a look at the world’s economic forecasts for growth and I think they are really important.  
In the Budget we are forecasting even with a zero Budget and all the constraints that we face around 3 percent economic growth per annum. You would have to say if the others were doing 4 5 or 6 percent that New Zealand is a failure and we should be embarrassed. So I had a look. Let me have a look at the growth rates that are forecast. In Europe—and I am talking about Europe as a whole—the whole of Europe’s economic growth forecast is for around 0.5 percent. That is a sixth of what we are forecasting. The United Kingdom is doing a little bit better; it has about 1 percent economic growth—1 percent. Japan that mighty economic powerhouse of the past has 1.5 percent and the United States and Canada which again are countries we used to look to and go “Wow!” are on just 2 percent. At a time when New Zealand has come through some of its worst economic conditions when the global financial crisis has wiped out a whole lot of the financial institutions and others to be forecasting 3 percent growth is outstanding.  
I want to remind members what the four key priorities out of the Government’s policy and out of the Budget were and then go through them. First of all was the responsibility for managing the Government’s finances. I think that some of the initiatives that Bill English has taken in recent years such as the tax switch have been fantastic for this nation and I am really proud that we have done so. What I want to do is counteract a few of the absolute myths that lie out there about our tax system. You know what the one is that I bet you members on this side of the House hear almost daily? It is: “I reckon the rich should pay more—I reckon the rich should pay more.” Well let me give you the numbers and these are out of the fact sheet from the Budget so that members can work out whether that is true or not. If we take the number of people in New Zealand who earn over $150000—oh and by the way I had better make sure that these numbers do not include the Working for Families subsidies coming back because they would make these numbers even worse in terms of what I am about to tell the House. If we take those people who earn over $150000 in this country there are only 2 percent of income earners who do. Only 2 percent and what do they pay of the income tax take? Nineteen percent of the income tax. If you want to take the cumulative effect— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Well fair enough.  
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes it is fair enough but do not argue that the rich do not pay their share—do not argue that the rich do not pay their share. Two percent of income earners pay 19 percent. Let us take the cumulative numbers for the $100000 and above category; there is a bigger number in that category. About 6 percent of all New Zealanders earn over $100000 and they pay 34 percent—6 percent pay 34 percent—of the tax. I am not saying that is wrong— 
Hon Annette King 
: Yes you are.  
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No I am not. I am not saying that is wrong. What I am saying is do not say that the rich do not pay their share because 6 percent pay 34 percent and that member had better get with the programme. Let me say again that if you put the corrections for the transfers back to the lower incomes of Working for Families those numbers get even worse. Based on a calculation I saw from David Farrar last year when he put those payments back into the schedule it comes to something like the top 10 percent of income earners paying 90 percent of all net income tax.  
I have to say that this Budget was a great Budget but for a number of other reasons. For example the Government has decided that there are areas where we could really put in some expenditure and get a fantastic return. One of those would be science and innovation. I was really really delighted when I heard the finance Minister reading the Budget and putting $385 million over 4 years into science and innovation. That is more than $1.3 billion a year we will now be spending. That is a $385 million increase so we will be spending about $1.3 billion a year by 2015-16 on science and innovation developing products developing services and developing smart things we can sell to the world. There is not a member of this House who does not accept—actually no I exclude the Greens because on “Planet Green” they do not accept even this—the idea that New Zealand can make its future only by selling at the high end of the value-added product line and we will never make our existence or our survival by selling at the bottom end of the whatever.  
If I talk about the parties and their views a bit what I want to talk about now are those sorts of big headline issues. In the Budget and leading up to the Budget for the last few years the National Government has made some very strong calls about making the economy work. First of all is intensification and development of our agriculture sector—things like irrigation. If members do not understand the impact of irrigation they need to just go out and start watering a bit of their grass for a few days just in the same spot and watch what happens to the productive nature of land if you can irrigate it. If you can irrigate huge tracts of the South Island for example using the water from the rivers and so on guess what? That is where we would get our economic growth. That is where we would get our ability to pay for a whole lot of the services that members of this House want the country to have yet the Labour Opposition and the Greens on “Planet Green” are all opposed to intensification and opposed to the irrigation schemes.  
Now we come to one of the things that I think is a real cracker here. We regularly as clockwork get from the other side of the House the comparison with Australia about how well Australia is doing and how hopeless we are getting—you know that “Planet Australia” is just booming and “Planet New Zealand” is failing. Well guess what? Wayne Swan Australia’s Treasurer will tell you this if you ask him. He will tell you straight away that the biggest driver of the Australian economy is mining and mineral resources. In fact they openly admit across the Tasman that they have got a dual economy. Their normal economy is pretty flat. It is pretty dull there is unemployment and it is struggling. But what is bringing them into the sunshine what is keeping them going is their minerals and their mining. Well I agree with Wayne Swan. I cannot believe I am saying it but I agree with a Labor Minister in the Australian Government. Wayne Swan was right. But what do we get here? We want to compare ourselves to Australia we want to have the same levels of employment and we want those young unskilled Maori and Pacific Islanders to have jobs but oh we are not prepared to mine any of our minerals—no no no! We will let them do it. Well guess what? Where will those young people go for a job? They will have to go there if we cannot do the mining and mineral exploration and no wonder there is a drift because of that limitation.  
 And then we get members in this House saying how dreadful welfare reform is. I do not know how anybody can think that the social welfare system we have right now which is paying hundreds of thousands of working-age people to do nothing is acceptable. I agree with a welfare system being there to help the vulnerable. I agree with it being there to help those in need. I agree with it being a handout for only a short period but it has to be a hand up over a longer period. I congratulate Paula Bennett the Minister for Social Development on the work she is doing trying to get some real sanity into our welfare debate and trying to get some real outcomes so that those people on welfare are actually looked after. I think this is a great Budget. I am proud of it and I am delighted.