Street Maryan: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3387. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 The speech of the member who has just resumed his seat David Bennett reminds me of a line in  
Othello 
: “But yet the pity of it Iago! O! Iago the pity of it”. If the member wants us to itemise what is wrong with the tax cuts can I just give two examples. When the wealthiest people in this country get a tax break of $1000 a week and ordinary workers get $10 a week the National Government needs to look at what it is doing and at the structure it is setting up in the taxation system and whom it serves. 
My greatest fear from this Budget is its timidity its lack of vision and its lack of boldness to do anything that is required to alter the structure of this economy and to assist anybody other than National’s mates. The previous speaker tried to make a point of saying that Labour and others on this side of the House are in this business of politics for ourselves. I think the member needs to look closely at the kinds of contracts that Murray McCully has let out to whom and by which process. National members need to look at how across the State sector contracts are let—not just by the office of Murray McCully but others—and see how many of their friends have taken up contracts in a way that verges on a word that I am not allowed to use in this House but starts with “c”. 
Just when New Zealand needs bold leadership in economic management we get timidity. We get the same old tired answers from a centre-right party that should be able with its new influx of members over the last couple of elections to engage with new thinking and new ideas. But we do not get that; we get the same old things. We get tax cuts and asset sales and apart from that nothing new. Everything else is tinkering. There is a danger in this because this Budget is not just about the next year. This Budget is a symptom of the poverty-stricken thinking in the National Party. It is a symbol of the fact that this National Government has no idea about how to manage the country into the future and has not the will to engage with the big issues. For example we do not see the Government tackling a lack of savings. We do not see it wanting to make KiwiSaver compulsory. We do not see it tackling an unbalanced taxation system. Why not? Because it serves National’s friends well to have an unbalanced taxation system. So no National would not introduce a capital gains tax because that might even things up too much. That might actually discourage people from investing in property and assist them to invest in business new ventures and growth. At the same time National can make sure that their mates’ housing prices stay high because it is doing nothing to address that investment and the fact that people like to invest in property. It is doing nothing about that area which could have an effect of pulling down the rate at which house prices increase at the very least. I want to come back to that theme in a moment. 
More than that we have a complete unwillingness in this Budget for the Government to address the big issue of superannuation affordability. All of those members over there including the Prime Minister know that the way superannuation is structured and the demographics coming upon us in short order mean that superannuation as it currently is is not sustainable. So the Labour Party decided to take that on and address it as a hard issue as the facts became clear in the last term of Parliament. We decided to front that issue but this Government cannot because its Prime Minister has single-handedly painted himself into a corner over this issue—single-handedly painted himself into a corner. And because of that the rest of them have to troop like lemmings in behind him. Very soon they will find the edge of that cliff and all tip over it. Come the end of 2014 the lemmings will follow their leader over the cliff because they are not prepared to speak up and take account of the big issues the structural issues that are confronting the economy in this country. 
I want to take one issue in particular that distresses me almost more than any other and it is the issue of housing. The Minister of Housing has done nothing in 3½ years to address the question of housing affordability. There are economic structural things that can be done such as balancing up the taxation system introducing a capital gains tax and encouraging people to invest their money in growth and development rather than in static assets like property. But no he will not take those big issues on even when he was given an idea and a platform by the previous Government—and I had the privilege of having the housing portfolio for the year before the 2008 election—of taking the Hobsonville project which put up the idea of building 3000 houses. The planning that was going into that had got to the stage where houses were ready to be built. Of the 3000 houses in Hobsonville 2000 of them would be market price houses 500 of them would be social housing and 500 would be affordable houses. So that is 500 State houses 500 affordable houses and 2000 for all of the rich people who are friends of the members opposite and who want to buy in that lovely part of Hobsonville in west Auckland. And what has the Minister done with that? He has built 17 houses—17 houses—and cancelled the rest of the programme. Why? Because it is in John Key’s electorate and John Key said in 2008 in the election that there will not be any of those nasty little State houses in his electorate and—not to worry—he was going to can that project. Housing is at a crisis point in this country and there is nothing in this Budget that has been provided to address it. 
The other issue that is a critical lack in this Budget is the lack of a skills strategy. We have got billions of dollars over the next 4 years going into roads—billions going into roads—and nothing going into apprenticeships. The apprenticeship system has been shut down by this Government. We do not see the investment in young people. Had there been investment in young people that simply continued from where we were at at the end of 2008 we would have seen a readiness to rebuild Christchurch that is not there. We should not need to import labour when we can train our own perfectly well but we have a gap now where a skills strategy used to be. There is no vision there is no foresight and there is no investment in people. The roads are there already. They might be able to be improved but as a matter of priority putting billions of dollars into roads and not into people is a travesty. That is an absolute travesty and this Budget will go down in history for only one thing—because it will not be remembered for much longer—and that is its timidity its lack of vision and its inability to think creatively and over the long term. That is what this Budget will be remembered for.