Wong Pansy: Budget Debate 
Wong Pansy: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16403] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 How sad it is for a Labour member to admit that he is not excited about the tax cuts that are the central plank of his own Government’s Budget. Charles Chauvel is now waiting anxiously for the National Party’s tax policies. Well he should hold his breath. That member has found nothing exciting or interesting about his own party’s Budget announcement. Actually he is not the only one. Nobody was talking about Labour’s Budget 24 hours after it was delivered. That member has delivered the most humorous Budget speech I have heard for a long time. He said the Labour Government has been cautious and careful with taxpayers’ money. Well actually since Labour came into Government total Government spending which has largely come from the tax take has increased from $34 billion to $62 billion. 
 Government expenditure has ballooned from $34 billion to $62 billion but have we seen a reduction in health waiting lists? No. Have we faced less traffic congestion? No. We can tell people that we have not seen any improvement in hospital waiting lists. We know that my hard-working diligent effective colleague Dr Jonathan Coleman has said that in North Shore Hospital they have trolleys in the corridors for patients and that is after Government expenditure has ballooned from $34 billion to $62 billion. Well National knows where the wastage is. 
Let me share with the public where that money has gone. I will talk about the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) following on from my effective colleague Phil Heatley. We have the same Minister for housing and accident compensation. In 2002 the number of people in ACC who were paid $100000-plus was 68. By 2006-07 the number had gone up to 130—more than double. We are not talking about entitlements for claimants; we are talking about the communications experts in ACC who do its spin. 
Let me share with the public the fact that under the Minister for ACC Maryan Street the chief executive of ACC defended the big jump in the number of staff earning more than $100000. Dr Jan White said it was nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently the fact that the number of people on $100000-plus increased by 100 percent was nothing new; it was just average. It is like the 92 people flying all that way to have a big talkfest at the taxpayers’ expense. Well it became even funnier because ACC paid $2 million in salaries for 34 full-time communications experts. 
Last year interestingly the corporation introduced for the elderly a programme designed to prevent falls which is a good initiative. It introduced a very long established and successful exercise programme widely practised in China and overseas called t’ai chi. The only difficulty was that the evaluation of the 6-month-long t’ai chi pilot programme cost half a million dollars. I would just love to see the millions and millions of people in China who all practise t’ai chi demanding billions and billions of dollars for its evaluation. 
The other huge increase in bureaucracy is in the Inland Revenue Department. In 2002 the number of people employed in the department earning over $100000 was 77. By 2006 the number had gone to 333. It is no wonder that nobody believes that the Inland Revenue Department is there to help. 
The next Government department that I want to share information about with the public is the Tertiary Education Commission. That organisation did not exist 5 years ago but it now employs 341 people and costs $72 million to run. This year it will receive an additional $22 million. I have taken quite a personal interest in the Tertiary Education Commission. In 2006 I pointed out to the commission that quite a few educational institutions were offering cash kickbacks to senior citizens to get them to study the English language by taking out student loans. 
In the year 2000 the number of senior citizens borrowing through the student loan scheme to study was only about 500. But by the year 2006 the amount of outstanding loans owed by senior citizens—people aged 65 and over—went up to $85 million. We knew there were some problems and we drew them to the attention of the Tertiary Education Commission which refused to do anything until a year later. Then it realised that yes scams were going on; institutions were targeting senior citizens for English language courses. 
It took the Tertiary Education Commission 1 year to take action and kick those problems to the Serious Fraud Office and then the commission said it had stopped the scams. It announced a policy whereby those courses would not be entitled to attract student loans. But that was not the case. We have now learnt from the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 last Sunday that a new institution is apparently doing the same thing so that senior students will enrol in courses and take out student loans. If the Tertiary Education Commission with its 341 staff had taken a bit more interest in its work since then it would have stopped the amount owed in student loans by senior citizens from ballooning from $85 million to $126 million. That amount of $126 million is sitting on the book. The Labour Government would describe that as an asset but I am sad to inform the public that a large part of that will become a bad debt. A large part of it will not be collected. 
So it was really a funny speech from the Labour member who claimed that for over 8 years the Labour Government has been careful cautious and conservative with taxpayers’ money. I would say too much wastage and too many scams have been happening under Labour’s watch. It is time for the Labour Government to go.