Collins Judith: Budget Debate 
Collins Judith: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16493] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The Hon Mark Burton the former Minister who has just sat down has asked for an alternative. Well I have one for him—Louise Upston for Taupo. She is the alternative for the people of Taupo. We heard from that member a 10-minute speech railing against personal abuse. It was full of personal abuse against the members on this side of the House including John Key our leader. Of course Mark Burton is the same member of Parliament who it was reported to us turned up on Anzac Day in Taupo and when he was asked to contribute something he sat down with a guitar and sang a little ditty against John Key. That is the sort of contribution we get from that member who sits there saying: “Oh we should not be indulging in personal abuse.” Well actually we do not do it on Anzac Day. We do not muck around with Anzac Day. 
One of the things I would like to talk about today is what this Government and this Budget will do about doctors who are being bullied by Work and Income staff into signing off people for a sickness benefit when frankly they are not sick. I have raised this question time and time again in the House over the last 4 years and there has been nothing from the Labour Government. In fact last year the Hon Steve Maharey said: “Oh there is no correspondence at all—no notes no nothing—from doctors complaining about this practice.” Yet today in the  
Dominion Post 
 a senior staff member in the ministry has fronted up and said: “Yes we are getting these complaints all the time.” and we know that they are. 
I ask this question about what is being addressed in the Budget. I ask whether the Government is addressing this issue. Why is it under a Labour Government for the last 5 years the number of people who are getting a sickness or invalids benefit because of depression has increased from 4825 in the year 2002 to a staggering 11690 in 2007? What is it under this Labour Government that makes people so sick for so long? What happens under a Labour Government that makes people so stressed that the number of people on a sickness or invalids benefit because of stress has increased from 5014 in the year 2002 to 7500 now? What is it about a Labour Government? 
I will tell members what it is. It has a lot to do with child poverty it has a lot to do with the issues that this Government does not want to talk about it has a lot to do with intergenerational welfare dependency it has a lot to do with poor parenting and it has a lot to do with the fact that this Government spent 9 years in Opposition in the 1990s whingeing about the benefit cuts of 1991 and then turned around and has been in power for the last 9 years—during the best economic times we have seen for decades in terms of trade and everything else—and what has it done? Nothing except everyone got sick. That is about it. 
We know that there have been jobs. We know that there have been things that we could have been doing to get people into work but we also know that this Government has been satisfied to leave a large number of people 130000 working-age New Zealanders on sickness and invalids benefits. Many of those people could be brought back to wellness if they are given the right treatment if they are given the right work to do and if they are treated as human beings not as numbers. But this Government has been happy just to let them stay there let them rot there and let them live in a situation where it is very hard for them to come out of poverty; it has just left them there. 
Last election time the Government said that it would sort it out and that there will be a single core benefit. That was to sort it all out. Do members remember the single core benefit? The Government also announced it in 2002 and in 1999. The Government also announced it when Michael Cullen was the Minister of Social Welfare and that was in 1989. Whatever happened to the single core benefit? Every time I ask the question I am told that it is about to come it is about to be here. These people have been wasting taxpayers’ money since 1989 on looking at a single core benefit. What is it? 
Do members remember closing the gaps? Whatever happened to that? Whatever happened to the knowledge wave? It just went off into the ocean like a wave. It came up on the shore and then it disappeared. Whatever happened to sustainability? Whatever happened to the single core benefit again? But what really did happen to “We are going to be in the top half of the OECD.”? Whatever happened to that? Oh the Government forgot about that. In fact the Czech Republic is now higher up the OECD than we are along with Slovakia and pretty much almost every place that has ever been part of any Eastern European area. There are all sorts of issues there but those countries seem to be doing better than us at the moment. We must be doing better in New Zealand because we have a great country. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What about Portugal? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I think Portugal is on a par with us on the OECD at the moment. But I have to say that it is coming up the OECD too. There is nothing in this Budget that is going to help us with that. 
This Budget is all about the Government spending every cent the taxpayer has every single cent it can to try to leave the cupboard bare. That is what it is. In 1990 the previous Labour Government did the same. In 1990 the Labour Government with Helen Clark as Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen as Minister of Social Welfare and David Caygill as Minister of Finance said: “You will have a surplus of $89 million.” That is what it said. It was the first time in history that there was to be a marvellous surplus. What was really there was a $1.5 billion deficit. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I am very pleased to see the Minister for Social Development and Employment the Hon Ruth Dyson in the House because I am hoping she will take a call and tell us where the Budget starts to address issues of child poverty such as the poverty of the children of beneficiaries. That Minister and her like spent all of the 1990s talking about the terrible Budget cuts of 1991 and about how benefits had fallen behind wages which she said was a terrible thing. But during the last 9 years of good economic conditions—which we notice are slowly turning the other way—she has never done one thing to address child poverty. There is a word for that; we are not allowed to use it in this House but members might care to consider it. After all these years the Minister has had every chance and has never done anything about child poverty. 
I would like to hear from the Minister as to where the Budget addresses the issue of children who go to school hungry and stay hungry all day—children who do not have breakfast or lunch and who have something very insubstantial when they get home. Where does the Budget deal with that? When John Key gave a speech about the need for schools to feed children who were not being fed at home so that we could make sure that those children received some nutritious food he was accused of wanting to deliver something called “Tory charity”. I ask members opposite—and I would like to hear from the Minister—how we in a country like this can look away and let children go to school hungry and not be prepared to address the issue. Whether the money comes from Tory charity or somewhere else why can we not address the issue? 
Children do not get a chance at a second childhood; that is it. One year in their lives is a huge amount of time. They cannot wait for 5 years for things to turn around. They cannot wait for 10 years for their parents to get things together. They have to do things now. Children get one chance to learn to read write and do maths yet after 9 years of a Labour-led Government—during the best economic times we have had for decades—I ask why 20 percent of young New Zealanders leave school unable to read write or do maths to the standard they are expected to attain to be able to work in this society. Where does the Budget address that issue? 
One of my other portfolio areas is veterans’ affairs. I was very pleased today—as I am sure everyone in the House was—with the multiparty accord in relation to the apology to our Viet Nam veterans. I also note that there is extra money in the Budget for the Returned and Services Association which as an associate member of the Papakura RSA I have an interest in. That money is an acknowledgment of the fact that Veterans Affairs New Zealand has been failing—absolutely failing—its veterans for years. Many veterans complain to me that it takes so long to get anything through in terms of pensions or assistance needed. Sometimes people die before they get any acknowledgment of their issues and that is unacceptable. Welfare officers at the RSA have done a lot of the work that should have been done by Veterans Affairs. The payment of money to the RSA simply acknowledges the fact that this has been happening. So I am pleased for the RSA but that does not absolve the Government from the need to get Veterans Affairs actually working once and for all for veterans. 
There is not a lot in this Budget for the people of Papakura apart from a block of cheese in October. A year later they will probably get another block of cheese but that is about it. Frankly after 9 years and all these opportunities to give people something back— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Lost opportunities. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
:—lost opportunities—it is time this Government went home and retired.