Hutchison Paul: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18194. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): It is a great pleasure to take a call on this excellent Budget 2014 and what a coincidence it is that Annette King has just spoken about figures. She was the Minister of Health who presided over a doubling of the health budget over 9 years when there was a decrease in productivity and a decrease in surgical operations. Under this Government in just under 5 years there has been an increase in surgical procedures of 40000 per year. It is all very well for Mrs King to talk about more money. Health systems around the world are characterised by almost infinite demand but finite resources. Mrs King would never have enough money to be able to organise a health system properly whereas under National over the last 5 years we have seen huge gains in productivity and huge tangible gains in immunisation and surgical procedures; in radiation therapy which has become world standard; and in public health.But I just want to say that this Budget is a Budget worth celebrating and from right around the country we have heard commentators say how excellent it has been. In the electorate of Hunua which I represent just about every sector has been totally totally delighted by the Budget whether it has been the teachers whether it has been the farmers whether it has been the business people or whether it has been the doctors and the nurses. The business people of New Zealand have been very pleased by the National Government because it has set a very clear agenda and it has kept to its promises. One of its major objectives was to achieve a surplus and that is indeed what it has done.But it is quite extraordinary that Mr Parker the finance spokesperson for the Labour Opposition is suggesting that Labour too would have achieved a surplus. Well we all know that Mr Parker and Mr Cunliffe are prisoners to the Greens and the unions—to the Marxists and the socialists. They would spend more they would borrow more they would tax more and there is no way on earth that they would achieve a surplus under the current pressures that are facing them. The only way that the Greens and Labour could generate a surplus would be if they were to bring out Russel Norman’s franking machine—the money-printing machine—and away they would go. He was the champion of quantitative easing and what a shambles that would be.It is a curious coincidence of biology that we have just learnt that a little creature called the Tasmanian devil has become an endangered species. But if one really thinks about it the Tasmanian devil would cause absolute chaos if it was let loose in NewZealand. In fact I did get a description of it: “Its spine-chilling screeches black colour and reputed bad temper led the early European settlers to call this creature The Devil.” But really the Greens and Labour are a huge danger to the financial stability and sustainability of New Zealand and I am glad to report that the good people of Hunua absolutely recognise that fact.The doctors and the nurses around New Zealand are very much welcoming this Budget. Free access or taxpayer-funded access—there is no such thing as free access—for children is the best way to get early treatment and avoid hospitalisation. We have people like Dr Nikki Turner from the Child Poverty Action Group who is also head of the Immunisation Advisory Centre and has been campaigning for this for years and she is delighted that the National Government has delivered. We have got people like Professor Innes Asher a very distinguished academic from Starship who has written many papers on the fact that if children can be treated early for skin infections often they can afford lifesaving treatment which goes on for months for very very serious skin infections. This is a win-win. This is a win for the children and a win for the scarce health dollar.The farmers in Hunua have welcomed this Budget. They have welcomed it because the taxation base is broad and reasonably low. Hopefully it may go down even less but the clear signal is reward for effort. Inflation is 1.6 percent economic growth is destined to rise above 3.5 percent and interest rates remain relatively low. There is significant investment going into innovation and science in the agricultural sector and furthermore there is an investment of $40 million more into irrigation and water storage. I must say that up in the area that I live in in Hunua the drought this year has been worse than the drought last year and yet we have the Labour Party and the Greens opposed to more irrigation and opposed to water storage at a time when it is absolutely crucial for the backbone of our economy—the farmers the horticulturalists—to ensure that they do have access to water.The teachers in Hunua are also extremely pleased because they have seen an investment of a further $858 million over 4 years making a total of $10.1 billion in early childhood primary and secondary education. Indeed there will always be people like Annette King wanting more. But of particular interest to me and I would say the Health Committee is taking an investment approach in the very early years to allow children the maximum chance to achieve their full potential but also expecting them to exercise individual responsibility as adults. It was great to hear that there is a further $155 million for early childhood education which brings the total in New Zealand to $1.5 billion on early childhood education. That is something we would never have dreamt of 10 years ago but it will allow something like 98 percent of all children to be able to receive that early childhood education.There is no doubt that very early investment pays off and the Health Committee has indeed shown that in its latest inquiry and that has been backed up by international experts such as the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Professor James Heckman who has shown beyond doubt that front-loading pays off hugely compared with investment later on in life. There is no doubt that this National Government having put in place the Children’s Action Plan the Vulnerable Children Bill and the newborn legislation—they are all part of the investment approach. The $500 million package for families and children is far superior to the scattergun undirected half a billion dollar announcement that Mr Cunliffe made at the beginning of the year. Much of that would have been wasted. Personally I would challenge any Government anywhere in the world to keep focusing on the investment approach in the very early years whether that be through gold-standard services in reproductive health education maternity or postnatal care or in the area of nutrition.There was another great announcement by the Minister of Finance which was that the healthy New Zealand package to concentrate on exercise and good nutrition will be rolled out around New Zealand. This 2014-15 Budget can only be described as a littlebeaut.