Bridges Simon: Budget Debate 
Bridges Simon: Budget Debate 
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SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 Since John Key’s campaign before he became Prime Minister in 2008 and since then he has been relentlessly focused on the things that matter. We have been focused on bringing down debt bringing down taxes and really delivering a brighter future for the people of New Zealand. We can contrast that with the Labour Party. We can contrast that with Trevor Mallard for example. We are told that Trevor Mallard is campaign manager for the New Zealand Labour Party. One would think that in that role he would have a lot to do. But we have a party over there that is more focused on sports events than on the campaign. I understand that Trevor Mallard is in serious training for a cycle race. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I haven’t ridden a bike for 3 months. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well on his blog he has challenged a former sickness beneficiary turned blogger to a cycle race. My question to Trevor Mallard is whether that makes him the Sonny Bill Williams of New Zealand politics. Does that make him the Sonny Bill Williams— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have to leave the Chamber so I cannot take the next call. The answer is that unfortunately I do not quite have the body. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: That is not a point of order. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I agree with the member; he does not have the body. He is not the only one in the Labour Party who it seems is focused more on sporting events than on campaigning on the issues that matter in this country. Take Trevor Mallard’s close colleague Clare Curran. Earlier this week she auditioned to be a franchise rugby team cheerleader. Then we have my old teacher Chris Carter who is not standing for the future Parliament. He is also very much involved in sports. He is training for the New York City Marathon—in New York sadly! 
National is a party that is very much looking at the policies and focusing on the issues that matter. In this current term we have brought down taxes bureaucracy and borrowing. We have continued to do that. Current projections are for 170000 jobs in the next 3 or 4 years and for real wage growth of 4 percent. We can contrast that with a party on the other side—not many of whom are in the Chamber—that wants to put up taxes spend more and borrow money. 
Todd McClay 
: Spend other people’s money. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Labour members want to spend other people’s money not their own because of ideologies they learnt about at university which for some of them was a very very long time ago. 
Todd McClay 
: Or when they first came to Parliament. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Or when they first came to Parliament which again was a very very long time ago. But we on this side of the House are in the real world. We have delivered a Budget for the times. It is a realistic Budget a Budget we can be proud of and a Budget that builds for the future of this country. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Even Tau’s going to sleep now. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I say to the senior whip on the other side that Labour can be ashamed of its record over the 9 years before we were in Government. Debt as a country was up from about $100 billion— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Debt was down. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: The facts do not lie. Debt was up from $100 billion to $170 billion. We know that Dr Cullen by taxing more— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Who’s borrowing an additional $100 million a week that they don’t need? Who’s borrowing more than they need? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Every Budget with a surplus. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Labour members do not like it. They do not like the facts. By taxing more Dr Cullen managed to balance his books. But we know he grew the State from 2005 on by about $2.5 billion more each year. That is not a record to be proud of. In fact that is a record to be ashamed of. All the while the real economy in this country—certainly from the end of 2004 onwards—was going backwards. If we take out of the equation the huge ballooning of Government spending and the spending on plasma TVs by the likes of the Opposition spokesman on finance David Cunliffe so he could watch himself on Parliament TV we see that frankly this economy was going backwards. Exports were going backwards. That is a record of shame. Labour left us with a decade of deficits with rising debt year on year for 10 years. 
In this Budget and in the earlier two Budgets we have consolidated our position and have taken off the sharp edges so we have done the opposite. We are moving the country over the next 3 to 4 years—2014 to 2015—back into surplus which will be by the end of a second National term. So we are bringing debt down— 
Hon Maryan Street 
: You’re borrowing more than you need and you’ve given unaffordable tax cuts. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Maryan Street says we are borrowing more than we need. Here is the deal: her Government if we were unlucky enough to have one in this country would want to borrow more. 
Hon Members 
: No. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well let us go through it. The Labour Party says “Oh yeah let’s have a research and development tax credit.” When Phil Goff is asked what that will cost he says it is about $800 million which he will take off the farmers. We will get to that. What will it really cost? It will cost about $1.2 billion more than that. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: No Simon you don’t know what our Budget looks like. You don’t know what our policies are yet so stop talking out of a hole in your head. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well the facts do not lie in respect of Labour’s uncosted research and development policy. How will Labour pay for its research and development tax policy? I will tell members: it will do so out of its farmer-hating policies. That is we have on the other side: farmer haters. Labour members want envy taxes. They will take it out of an emissions trading scheme from 2013 I think. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Make them pay their fair share you mean? Make farmers carry their own weight like the rest of us have to? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Actually farmers are people who work very very hard day in and day out. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: They could be a lot more productive if they tried harder. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: There we go. Maryan Street says that farmers could be a lot more productive if they tried harder. What a slap in the face to hard-working farmers. I hope Federated Farmers pick up on that comment. Maryan Street said that the farmers of this country should try harder and be more productive. They actually are productive. They are a brightline in this economy. 
Members on the other side of the House through their envy politics and taxes want to tax farmers more and take down the good that is in this economy. We do not subscribe to the sorts of policies that would tax farmers more. We do not cost our policies on that. We do not want to put the top tax rates up. Let me tell the House what putting up the top tax rates does. It sends the so-called rich—and let me say that there are not many of them in this country—overseas. They are the doctors the builders and the hard-working people that Ms Street does not seem to like. That would send them overseas. All the while Labour members with their wedge politics want to put minimum wages up. Labour members want to put the people they say they represent out of jobs. 
I say that unlike Labour we want to give this country a fair go but we want to do it through equality of opportunity. We want to do it through getting our debt down paying our own way getting Government finances in order delivering more jobs and investing in public services and infrastructure. Yes we will trim back where we need to because we cannot have the lolly scramble that Carmel Sepuloni wants; we cannot have that any more. Unlike the other side which seems more interested in sporting events—and in Trevor Mallard being the Sonny Bill Williams of New Zealand politics—I think we are a party that is interested in the things that matter in this country. I am proud to be part of this Government.