Power Simon: Budget Debate 
Power Simon: Budget Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4287] 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
 I know that the member Ross Robertson had only 4½ minutes left from his contribution in the last session. I am disappointed I missed that because he has obviously spent the adjournment break thinking about how to conclude the last 4½ minutes—with a slightly new style I notice. The style was slightly more assertive than what we have come to expect from the honourable member and I wonder whether we are seeing a turning point here in his contribution to the debates of the House. There was a bit of fire in the belly over there from young Ross Robertson a man who is about only one-third of the way through his parliamentary career and who is I know someone deeply valued by his colleagues. 
Speaking of people who are deeply valued by the Labour Party I take this opportunity to congratulate David Shearer on his election over the weekend as the new Mt Albert MP and to congratulate all those candidates who took part in that election especially Melissa Lee from the National Party. It is good to have her back in the House. One question I have though is why all Labour MPs called David have to immediately start talking about the Labour leadership. What is it about Labour MPs called David that they are obsessed with the Labour Party leadership from the moment they get into this House? No doubt in the fullness of time we will know the answer to that particular question. 
During the adjournment week I spent 2 days in Auckland talking with local businesses in my role as Minister of Commerce and I was also in the Auckland and Manukau District Courts—watching actually—as Minister of Justice. I tell the House that those issues that Labour members have been raising over the last couple of weeks are not resonating at all with the New Zealand public. The people I spoke to over the course of that week were concerned with the economy; they were concerned with jobs. They were concerned with what was going on in the banking system—with interest rates and with what those rates meant for their mortgages—and they were concerned with how their children were getting on at school. When I met people in South Auckland I found that education health and safety were the things most on their minds. I suggest to members opposite that they start listening again to what the people of New Zealand are saying is important to them. The danger of Opposition is that it is easy for Opposition members to run down a good Budget but the key to getting back on the Government side of the House is for Opposition members to stop thinking that they know what is best and to listen to what people out there in the wider country are saying about what matters to them. What matters to them is keeping the economy going during global turmoil and of course Budget 2009 takes the necessary steps to ensure New Zealanders are cushioned from the worst effects of this global recession. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: No it does not. Rubbish! It’s an idea-free zone. 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: There goes the Labour member with the first name of David who we know is watching and waiting like a piranha circling around Phil Goff’s caravan. He is the one waiting now. We on this side of the House know that that member thinks he has the numbers he thinks he is popular and he thinks the party is backing him but we know what they are saying in the lobbies and corridors of Parliament. We know that that member is well ahead of where his colleagues think he is and is in fact a long way ahead of where they think he should be now if what I am hearing is anything to go by. 
I was delighted to play a small role in Budget 2009 and I am delighted that it locks in national superannuation at the current rate in relation to the average wage. I am delighted that the Budget improves public services. There is a $3 billion boost in health over 4 years which is focused on front-line services. There is $1.7 billion for education to raise student achievement. There will be 600 more police who my colleague Judith Collins will be ensuring will get on to the streets of New Zealand from 1 January next year. Of course this Budget takes a hard look at the regulation that businesses have become strangled by in recent years and we will work hard to untangle that problem. This Budget creates a more productive public sector and in particular I am delighted that there is $900 million over the next 4 years for justice initiatives aimed at improving public safety. There will be 246 more probation officers as my colleague announced today. There will be 29 more front-line managers and 26 more psychologists to improve the quality of parole which was effectively left to crumble under the efforts of the previous Government. There are improvements in the area of home detention and also extra prison beds. These are a sidebar for what taking law and order issues seriously means. 
I suggest that Opposition members should focus on what the public of New Zealand are talking about and are concerned about. I am sure those members are polling; I am sure they are doing work that will give them an indication of the issues at the forefront of the public’s mind. They will know that the main issue is the economy. They will know that despite the sideshows of the last 2 or 3 weeks the economy matters most to New Zealanders and also their ability to get ahead. That is why this Budget did such a good job in balancing a very difficult equation in these globally terrible times. 
We know that members opposite had no concern about whether a downgrade in the credit rating would make an impact on New Zealand but I am delighted with the results that the Budget was able to provide to the credit-rating agencies. Members opposite do not understand that credit ratings matter to the costs that end up affecting the households of ordinary New Zealanders. Although members opposite might be happy to sit there and dismiss those credit ratings as being irrelevant to the good solid working families out there I tell them that the way those ratings are received makes a power of difference to the way that banks deal with consumers and borrowers in New Zealand. That affects people’s mortgages amongst other things and it does make a difference. So yes some hard decisions had to be made in Budget 2009 but Minister of Finance Bill English the Prime Minister and the other Treasury Ministers involved in the preparation of this documentation knew that this Budget would test the Government’s capacity to keep expenditure on the right plane while taking account of the fact that revenues had been falling desperately when the previous Government had not done the homework and its promises had not been funded. That Government had not done what it was supposed to do and when it was in Government it had not even acknowledged the impact that the global recession would have on New Zealand. That is why it was so important for this Government to tell a story in the Budget that was realistic and that laid out the facts for New Zealanders to enable them to make their own decisions about whether Budget 2009 has delivered. I can tell members that they do believe it has. They understand exactly how difficult the balancing act is and that is exactly what people were saying to me during the House’s adjournment last week. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: That’s why the super cut stinks. They want their superannuation protected. 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: The member interjects but I was on the road over the adjournment not in front of a full-length mirror. I tell him that ordinary New Zealanders who are out there working hard are saying to us that this Budget is tough in many respects but these are tough times. This Budget has done what is needed to keep this economy going amid global turmoil. I tell members that this Budget takes those necessary steps to ensure that New Zealanders are cushioned from the sharpest edges of the worst global recession that we have seen in this country since the 1930s and I was proud to have a small role in that Budget. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The interjections have gone beyond the level of being rare and reasonable and I caution members to refrain from incessant dialogue.