Gilmore Aaron: Appropriation (2011/12 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Gilmore Aaron: Appropriation (2011/12 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
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AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 It is an absolute pleasure to stand and speak after that prior speaker because that woman previously was the Minister of Commerce in a Labour Government that oversaw the loss of $2 billion of finance companies. That woman over there only a few months ago publicly said in the  
Dominion Post 
— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I think I can anticipate the member. There is a courtesy to refer to members by their name or their title. What the member said is not acceptable. It is unparliamentary and I ask the member to withdraw that comment and to apologise for it. 
AARON GILMORE 
: I withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker. I was not quite sure what the bit was. I will carry on— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Carry on and make no comment on my ruling. 
AARON GILMORE 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Labour members have either no idea or no plan. They keep talking about us and saying we have no plan. But I look across the House at those members over there who are trying to create jobs for themselves because in a few months’ time they may need one. The Budget put forward by the Government is one that will create 170000 jobs for the people of New Zealand. They say look at those people over there and they turn round and say we need to create more jobs for the people of New Zealand. That is what our Budget does. It creates 170000 new jobs. 
Stuart Nash 
: Where from Aaron? 
AARON GILMORE 
: I say to the member Mr Nash that he should look in the Christchurch 
 Press 
. In the Christchurch  
Press  
this Saturday prior there were 17 pages of jobs there were 15 pages the week before and 22 pages the week before that I tell Mr Nash. I say for the member over there that if Labour keeps polling at 27 percent or 26 percent he will need a job. He can come down to Christchurch because we employ people in Christchurch. We understand real businesses. It is our party that understands the real nature of wealth creation. 
I look across to the members on the other side of the House and I wonder how many of them have created a business have put their own capital at risk and have thought about the nature of how to do that. Mr Burns has to his credit. Mr Burns has created a vineyard. Things are not doing so well in the vineyard sector right now but that is not his fault. He has put his capital at risk and he has created a business. I congratulate the member on doing that. But most Labour members have not done that. 
To be frank their numbers at best are illogical. Labour members talk about our tax switch and say that we put up taxes on the poor by putting up GST and when we reduce income tax they say that is a bad thing. They forget the whole full story. We put up taxes on the rich foreign corporations like Shell BP and the banks by changing the thin capitalisation rules but they do not talk about that. We are collecting more money from those rich foreign corporates than at any other time. They do not talk about the changes we made in the property sector to stop the rort that was occurring in that sector. If members do not believe me they should talk to any property investor or developer in Wanaka and Queenstown about the breakdown that has occurred as a result of the Inland Revenue Department stopping the rorts on property speculation down there. Members opposite have gone quiet because they do not like it. 
If we look at the numbers and the impact of the change in GST the reality is that it impacts on the rich more than it does on the poor. Rich people spend more money and because they spend more money they pay more in GST than people on low incomes. The vast majority of people who earn under $45000 a year do not pay income tax. [ 
Interruption 
] Labour members do not like it because they know it is true. 
I want to touch on the issue of assets. Opposition members are of the belief that selling an asset is bad it does not matter what kind of asset it is. We believe that if we have a better thing to put our money into then selling our assets makes perfect sense. It is like an entrepreneurial tradesman who decides he wants to sell some of his assets to put money into his business because the return from his business will be better. That is what we are doing. We are going to build more Government assets than ever before. 
Stuart Nash 
: What prisons? 
AARON GILMORE 
: No I tell Mr Robertson that we are going to build schools new hospitals and roads—all those things that create wealth not public sector jobs— 
Grant Robertson 
: I don’t care what you’re saying. It was Stuart. 
AARON GILMORE 
: —for Mr Robertson and his friends. We believe that in relation to creating wealth we have to put it in the right productive sense. We believe that if we can sell some of the things we have get some cash and put that cash into things that create more wealth then that is a good thing. We believe that creates jobs. And in turn we believe that creates opportunities for the mums and dads out there to put their money into things that are sensible. The alternative is that we either do not invest in schools hospitals and roads or we borrow the money which is what Labour members would do. They would borrow more money put our credit rating at risk and put up the mortgage rates for the mums and dads and businesses out there and what will they do? 
Stuart Nash 
: That makes no sense. 
AARON GILMORE 
: I can tell Mr Nash that they will leave their businesses. 
Stuart Nash 
: You’re not speaking any sense. 
AARON GILMORE 
: The only person speaking sense at the moment is me. When we look at it the Labour Party put up this idea of a capital gains tax. It put up this idea of a tax-free threshold. It also put up the idea of putting up tax on the so-called wealthy. What they forget to tell us is that that funds only those particular switches. It does not fund all the other promises it has put forward. Labour has promised hundreds of millions for early childhood education and all its other promises. We have not heard about those. If we ask Mr Cunliffe he turns round and says: “Don’t you worry we have a plan.” So we would incur even more taxes some time in the future. Labour has a lolly bag of promises and a big empty bag to try to fund them. 
We heard the last speaker talk about research and development tax credits. We had a research and development tax credit under the last Government and it did not work. The only people who made money out of that were my friends in the accounting sector. Every single one of my friends who are partners in New Zealand accounting firms thought that the last Government’s research and development tax credit was fantastic for their bank balances and terrible for the bank balances of companies up and down New Zealand. It was an absolute economic voodoo that was put forward. 
The Budget that has been put forward here has some wonderful things for my community in Christchurch. It has $5.5 billion of Government money that will go to rebuild those things in my community that are broken. I think that is a good thing whether it is the road outside my parents’ house the sewer down the road from my own house the high school that I went to or the shops that are further down the road. We need to rebuild our communities in Christchurch because it is our country’s second-biggest city. In fact my region of Canterbury creates more economic wealth than any other region in New Zealand relative to population bar one and that is the good people of Southland. 
I have a theory just returning to the issue of State assets that members opposite believe that if there is a dividend return that is more than the after-tax return of the cost of debt then it make sense to keep doing that for ever. There is a thing called risk and many Nobel Prize winners throughout the world have won many awards for putting forward the point that that is absolute bunkum. The reality is that we have to take into account the equity risk cost of capital not the debt risk of capital. I know that Mr Cunliffe is not here right now and that is a bit of a shame. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! 
AARON GILMORE 
: I am sorry Mr Deputy Speaker I understand— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member cannot refer to the absence of a member. I ask the member to withdraw that comment. 
AARON GILMORE 
: I withdraw that comment. The issue is that very very few members on the other side of the House actually understand the reality. Those members would have us believe that they could go out and borrow a billion dollars put it in some productive investment and pay the bank at a 6 7 or 8 percent cost on that debt and that the returns they will get back on that equity investment make sense. If they truly believed that Stuart Nash would not have taken money from his own superannuation scheme and bought a property. He would have put it into a productive enterprise. 
The reality is that the Labour Party believes that the most productive enterprise in New Zealand which is our ability to produce food and protein up and down the country is a golden goose that should be taxed to death. Labour wants to put up the emissions trading scheme and bring it forward sooner. Those members also want to put in place a situation whereby we have a capital gains tax on farms. They want to take the only enterprises that have a long-term ability for us to create massive wealth by feeding the people of the world the protein they want and need and basically tax it to death. They believe that is the best thing to do. We say to them that they should keep putting those policies forward because our supporters love the alternative that National has. 
I want to finish with a couple of comments in relation to the comments we heard from some members opposite about aspects of the nature of business creation we have seen from this side of the House. The people on this side of the House have had plenty of experience in running and operating businesses on their own. They understand the issues and risks when one takes money from one side and puts it somewhere else and there is an economic return on it which creates wealth from those productive enterprises. Unlike when one talks to those members opposite these people create wealth whether it is selling sweets door to door as Mr Bridges pointed out the real business in terms of real estate that Mr Tremain has done or working as a shearer as Mr King has done. It is that real honest hard work that creates the wealth that pays the taxes that creates the situation that makes New Zealand rich and that pays our way in the world and that is what New Zealanders will vote for on 26 November.