Coleman Jonathan: Budget Debate 
Coleman Jonathan: Budget Debate 
[Volume:663;Page:11323] 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Listening to the contribution of the previous speaker Winnie Laban—and she is a very fine well-meaning member—emphasised for me the real gulf between Labour and the National-led Government on issues relating to the economy and the future direction of New Zealand. I do not know what sort of unpatriotic groupthink is pervading the Labour Party research unit but just because Labour keeps on telling New Zealanders that the Budget is unfair—and it keeps on repeating that over and over—does not make it so. 
In this Budget we saw the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance lay out a very clear vision and direction for New Zealand. It is about growing the economy addressing wasteful public expenditure and growing opportunities for the Pacific Island people of the Mana electorate. It is about growing employment and growing jobs. We have seen a clearly articulated pattern and a clear plan. We know how that plan will bring down levels of debt. It will grow and stimulate the economy over time because more New Zealanders will have more money in their pockets to put back into the economy to grow it. 
Quite frankly this Budget has gone down excellently out in the electorate. No matter how often Labour members say it is unfair or how much they bully elderly people into thinking they will be worse off— 
Grant Robertson 
: That’s ridiculous. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: —it does not make it so; we can see the raw nerve that that comment has struck. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: You degrade yourself when you do that. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: See? It has happened. As soon as we push the button we get that reaction. 
If we look at it we see that the vast majority of New Zealanders will be better off. To say that people on average incomes will not benefit is frankly not the case at all as 73 percent of New Zealanders will be paying no more than 17.5 percent as their marginal tax rate. Two-thirds of the cost of tax cuts will go to people earning $48000 or less. When we listen to the arguments of members opposite we see they were pretty well summed up in Vernon Small’s column on Monday I think when he said there is no logic to the Labour Party’s argument. Its argument is all predicated on next year’s 5.9 percent rise in inflation which drops off soon after. Labour is trying to tell New Zealand that the benefits of those tax cuts will be eroded but they will not be. Labour is using false premises to try to scare the people of New Zealand into turning away from this plan. 
The real problem is that absolutely no plan is coming from that side of the House. The member for Mana said that Phil Goff opposed the rise in GST but I do not know if that is the case because— 
Sue Moroney 
: It is. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: That member says that Phil Goff opposes it but will she support the repeal of the increase of GST? Quite honestly if we gave that member a truth serum drug she would tell us that she does not know. That is the essential problem that Labour has. The Labour Party has no plan for how it will progress the economy. 
Those members are burnt out. They had 9 years. They were completely out of ideas. Quite frankly I think that the dirty secret of the Labour members is that they actually quite like it over there in Opposition because they are out of ideas. They do not know how they will go forward. There are major questions over their leadership. Phil Goff has a real problem. He is out there trying to connect with the electorate. He is going around in the “Axe the Tax” bus trying to connect with ordinary working people. Well he has bigger problems than that because much much closer to home even within the beltway he has issues of recognition. The Leader of the Opposition was in Copperfields cafe yesterday. He took his sandwich up to the counter and asked the young man there who presumably is one of his core constituents to put it on his account. The young man asked which account that would be and Phil Goff said: “Goff—G-o-f-f.” The whole point is that if Phil Goff cannot increase his influence his levels of recognition in the hundred yards from here to Copperfields then I ask how on earth he will make any impact in Northcote or in Hawke’s Bay. How on earth will he connect with the people of Mana who Winnie Laban tells us are so unhappy? 
I do not know whether they are really so unhappy with the Budget; I think they think that John Key is doing a fantastic job as Prime Minister. The vast majority of working people in New Zealand are so grateful that Helen Clark has taken off to the United Nations and they do not have to see her on the television each night lecturing them on how to live their lives. 
One of the other great fallacies that Labour members have come up with is about health care. It is very interesting. Winnie Laban the member for Mana was saying that there had been cuts to home help. Well what happened when Pete Hodgson was the Minister of Health? He wrote to the people of Wanganui and said that he would not cut their home-care funding; he would be reprioritising it. When a National Government increases funding to health and makes some reprioritisations within that funding according to those guys in Labour it is a cut. When Labour members want to do exactly the same thing it is some sort of reprioritisation! The actual fact is that more money is now being spent in health than ever before—$512 million over 4 years. There is more elective— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Why is my electorate looking at five front-line services—five front-line services are going? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well with regard to that member’s electorate—the electorate of Palmerston North—I tell him that if is lucky he may be on the list for Labour next time because there is a real chance that he will not be back as the member for Palmerston North. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Not if National keeps cutting our health services. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: There have not been cuts in Palmerston North—there have not. You see this is another thing. Labour members have this mantra. They think that if they bully and scare elderly people by saying that their home help and their health services are to be cut it will miraculously come true. Well I can tell those members that we were left with one massive problem in health by the previous Labour Government on its way out. There were massive deficits across the district health boards. We have had to come in look at it sensibly put the focus on moving the services to the front line and get more for the money that is being spent. Last year we had a record increase in elective surgery. Of course when Labour was in charge of it it was culling decent hard-working New Zealanders from surgery lists. People can see that we have had to do a heck of a lot of work. 
Getting back to this GST argument which is that we do not know whether members opposite would reverse the GST increase— 
Grant Robertson 
: Oh you wouldn’t want to debate policy Jonathan! 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: I tell the member that this is policy. Grant Robertson will not be able get up and say that Labour will reverse the GST increase. I think that he will be standing up to speak soon and I challenge him to tell people what Labour will do should it ever get back into Government. He is the young up-and-coming high-flyer. I think that he could well be negotiating in the back room— 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: Who was that? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Grant Robertson. He is the pin-up boy of the left. I could see him with maybe Jacinda Ardern plotting a bit of a move. I do not know how electable they would truly be but I think we need to know what those members think. 
People know what the New Zealand Government thinks and what our plan is for the economy. John Key is quite clear about where he wants to take this country but that group over there does not have any concept at all about what it would do. I can tell members that the raise in tax on consumption is very very popular. The reason the raise in GST is popular is that everyone pays it and everyone is being compensated for that rise in GST. 
Moana Mackey 
: Go and talk to someone on less than the average wage. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Actually they are no worse off. People on less than the average wage are no worse off. 
Moana Mackey 
: Yes they are. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: No they are not actually. More important they are not voting for Labour. We cannot have this bunch of ex - civil servants and political career lackeys doing voodoo hotpot economics to try to make this look wrong because frankly it works very very well. 
Moana Mackey 
: Don’t say that about Treasury. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: No Treasury was fully supportive. But I think that the members opposite need to metaphorically take the truth serum stop the personal attacks get up and tell us what their plans for the New Zealand economy are. The truth is that Labour does not have a plan for the New Zealand economy. Its plan is to borrow more and more money. 
Bill English has done a great job of bringing down debt as a proportion of GDP. We are looking at being in surplus in 3 or 4 years. The forecasts are improving all the time. We will have a ratio of about 26 percent debt to GDP. If we take the advice of Labour members we will be there with the UK with a ratio of 80 percent debt to GDP. I tell those members that if they really let Grant Robertson run loose as the Minister of Finance then we may even be in the Greek situation—a ratio of 125 percent debt to GDP. We need to make the New Zealand public aware of what could happen if the public ever let Labour members back on to the Treasury benches. That would be very very bad for New Zealand. Thank you.