English Bill: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13680. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I am pleased that member referred to my colleague Pita Paraone because he makes Pita Paraone look like a statesman and an orator by comparison with what we just heard. It is no wonder that everyone thinks he or she can start a Maori party and beat Labour at the next election. It is no wonder at all. In fact even Georgina te Heuheu had a think about it. 
John Carter 
: Maurice did too. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Did he? Well Maurice could possibly do better than all of them. Maybe that will be where the real election is. 
The attitude of the member who has just resumed his seat signifies the attitude of the whole Labour Government. He spent his whole speech telling us essentially that if members give money to people then they will support them. He talked about promoting and facilitating and liaising which means getting on planes and going to conferences and seminars—because now about half the civil service does nothing but that—and he has wrongly concluded that that is what will get support for the Government. 
This was Dr Cullen’s Budget for what is fast becoming Dr Cullen’s Government. He is by far the most prominent figure in the Government. He is now the man who does all the work takes all the heat comes up with all the ideas and makes all the risky decisions while his leader flies around the country avoiding anything serious if she possibly can. 
 I am sure that Dr Cullen when he trots out of this building at night has this question in the back of his mind: why is it that he has to do all the work? Why is it that it is now his job to win the next election and Helen Clark is still on the ninth floor of the Beehive? I ask Government members: “Where is Helen Clark’s hand in this Budget?”. It is nowhere. There is no sign of the Prime Minister giving direction. There is no sign of her unique personal vision in this Budget. This Budget is what Dr Cullen said he was going to do 3 or 4 years ago and now he has done it. That actually makes Helen Clark superfluous except for ceremonial military occasions. If I were a brave man I would make the assertion that she is the most qualified person New Zealand has ever had to take on the job of Governor-General. 
Opposition Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: She is. There has never been a more assiduous ceremonial public figure than Helen Clark when she is in the country. If she does not get that job well she will get some United Nations job. [ 
Interruption 
] The serious point for that new Minister is that if the Government does not have direction he will not be in Cabinet for long. He will get to the election and lose the status he loves so much. 
This Budget misjudged the people of New Zealand. I will give Dr Cullen credit. He made the call but it turned out that he got it wrong and he got it wrong for the very simple reason that people resent the fact that they are taxed so highly so that he can give it back to them. When we were talking about tax cuts in the late 1990s there was serious political debate that if we cut taxes it means we have to cut spending and people made a choice about that. They did not want spending cut so they did not support tax cuts. But now they do not have to face that choice. They have now realised after 5 or 6 years of very large surpluses that Dr Cullen and Labour have been building up those surpluses for political reasons—so that they can now give them back. That is why they did it. People who earned that tax-paid money resent the fact that that is what it is used for. They do not mind it being used for health or for education but they do not like it being used for Labour’s political purposes. 
What has now happened is that the Government has one single motto—spend. That is it. We have had a lot of discussion in this debate about the quality of the Working for Families package. I will remark on that briefly. We now have major distortions in our tax system where the low tax rates are by any measure quite low—20c in the dollar up to $38000. That is low by any standard. We now have large tax credits offsetting those relatively low tax rates. That part of the tax system is working fine—well not too badly; there are marginal tax rate problems but the rate is at about the level it ought to be. The real problem now is that our middle tax rates cut in too low. So when we compare a family on $40000 with a family on $60000 the answer of course is not to take down the family on $40000 who are getting large tax credits the answer is to lift the net income of those people who are earning higher incomes. This is in order to rebalance the progressive tax system because it is now out of balance. 
But I just want to look at the spending side of the Budget because I do not think nearly enough attention is being paid to the way this Government is spending money outside of the family tax credits. I refer just to my own portfolio. I recently had a leaf through the estimates early one morning and I want to tell members about one or two items I found in the education estimates. The Government is going to spend $15 million to introduce quality assurance arrangements in adult community education. 
John Carter 
: What? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is $15 million to bring in quality assurance arrangements in adult community education. Here is another one. The Government wants to enhance the capability of polytechs to engage with business and industry. Well that seems like a pretty harmless objective. That warms one’s heart. Do members know how much money the Government wants to spend on enhancing the capability of polytechs to engage with business and industry? It means going to meetings with them. 
John Carter 
: How much? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is $21 million to enhance the ability of polytech staff to go to meetings. I wish I was joking but I am not. 
Here is another one. The Government will increase the operational funding of the Tertiary Education Commission by $9 million. It will now cost $45 million per year to run that commission. It is the biggest waste of time in town and that is saying something when Labour is running. The Tertiary Education Commission is the worst bureaucracy in this city—a city of rotten bureaucracies. It will now cost $45 million per year to run. Do members know what the increase in operational funding per year for schools is? It is half that amount. The whole school sector the parents and the teachers gets $23 million a year and the Tertiary Education Commission which does nothing but go to meetings liaise and enhance gets $45 million a year. I can tot up $100 million in my portfolio that we could get rid of tomorrow. [ 
Interruption 
] Imagine how far it would go in that member’s electorate towards lifting the achievement of children who need the best opportunity that an education system can give them. 
This House has heard a lot in the last few months about community funding where the Government blew out $80 million and did not even know it had happened. The Government’s response to that has been absolutely pathetic. I have submitted parliamentary questions the answers to which contradicted each other. One answer said the Government will cap enrolments in community funding because last year there were 250000 enrolments and the other answer said the Government will not cap it. There is actually no one in charge of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our expenditure who knows what he or she is doing. I hope that the House will debate this Government’s spending very thoroughly over the next 6 months.