Henare Tau: Budget Debate 
Henare Tau: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9649] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I thank my colleague from the Maori Party. I have one little point. We ain’t got time for truth and reconciliation. The working class people of this country need a tax break and they need it now. Give them the $20 a week in their hand. Who says that they are not bright enough to save the $20 or to spend it? It is their money. It is not the Government’s money. This is academic snobbery at its best from a third-rate history lecturer. I will tell members something about the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Neither of them have had a job outside of university or politics. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell that member Darien Fenton that I have had plenty of jobs and I enjoyed every one of them until I got the boot. 
It is absolutely academic snobbery. The Labour Party for years and years—7 or 8 years—has had a surplus in its hands and has waved it around every Budget day. Last year the Government gave a tax cut. But lo and behold this year even before that tax break came into force the Government took it back. The Government took it off the workers again. Shame on the so-called unionists who are members of that Labour Government—from the Service and Food Workers Union right through to the hotel workers’ union. We have two old members from the hotel workers’ union Mark Gosche and Rick Barker. Both of them were regional secretaries. In the new intake there are three or four throw-outs from the union movement. The lady who spoke just not so long ago Maryan Street wanted us to hear about the Labour Party. 
David Bennett 
: What party? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: She wanted us to hear about the Labour Party’s history. She talked about people in the Labour Party. Was Arnold Nordmeyer a Labour MP? 
Christopher Finlayson 
: He would be an ACT MP. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh he used to be an ACT MP but he was a Labour MP. Roger Douglas was a Labour MP. The only people worth their salt basically— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Prebble was a Labour MP. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Richard Prebble was a Labour MP too. But here is the rub. In this Government all we have is the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what they believed for a long time and that is what they will continue to believe—the whole thought that they know best how to spend other people’s money. I say that it is time for those people to get out and leave people to spend their money the way they want to. If they want to spend it on a superannuation scheme so be it. 
But here is the other thing. Not only do they give with one hand the so-called corporate tax rate drop from 33c to 30c but on the other hand they make them pay out $20 for each worker per week for the rest of that worker’s life basically—thousands upon thousands. What the unionists do not understand is that workers in this country this year next year and the year after will not be getting a wage increase. Do members know why? It is because those grubby people over there will not allow the employer to make a bob and give it to the workers in a wage increase. They have taken it away before they even get their hands on it. They want to strip the poor of the meagre wealth that the working class gets. We always hear from the Labour Party about the working class and the meagre resources they have. What will the Labour Government do? It will take $20 out of a working-class person’s family. It will take $20 off the table. 
Darien Fenton 
: It’s not compulsory. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh it is not compulsory! Darien Fenton says that it is not compulsory. Well let me tell that member that it might as well be compulsory because blimey what we have here is that not only is the Government going to take it off the workers but it is taking it off the employers too. It is compulsory. This is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. 
I want to digress just a little bit and quote something that I think this House needs to know: “This is a Budget to buy votes not a Budget to build a better future for this country. It is a pork barrel Budget aimed at one thing—just keeping oh so definitely political power. It is a cynical statement signed by a cynical group of people. If a public company in this country had published such a document it would be tagged by the auditors.” That was from none other than the Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters. He said that about the Budget in 2004. He said about this party the same party that he got the baubles of power off: “Labour today lost the plot.” That was Winston Peters in 2004. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Time has moved on since then. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I really like that. Time has moved on since then. Absolutely it has. Winston is now driving around in a limo instead of in a Status taxi. But that does not matter. That is OK. Darien Fenton will not see the inside of a limo very soon. In fact she will never see the inside of a limo. 
This year’s budget for Maori Affairs increased supposedly from $12 million to $169 million. The spin that the Labour Party gives is that if we have a look at Te Puni Kokiri’s budget it actually drops by $18 million. Have a read of the books. Books do not lie apparently. Well it is in the Budget books and it is in the estimates—$18 million. 
But I want to congratulate the Government on one thing about this Budget and that is the $2.5 million that was given to the Maori wardens. They are being trained by the police and I am just a bit wary that this $2.5 million for the Maori wardens will go to prop up New Zealand First’s police numbers. Is that the reason why they are being trained by the police? We never know. 
Parekura Horomia says that most of the benefit for Maori from this week’s Budget will come from mainstream areas and that tax cuts would take money from areas where Maori need support. Again the Government has taken a tax cut—what it was supposed to give—off Maori workers taken it off workers in general and said: “Well actually we think you would be better off if we took that $20 a week and spent it on something that we think you might like.” 
 It is like someone going into the hardware store and getting the proprietor to sell something that the proprietor thinks that that person needs not what that person thinks he or she needs. That is exactly how this Government has worked will work and always will be; it believes in the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat—the proletariat. The working class can kiss the proverbial because some of them got the boss’s job at last. That is what this is all about. 
David Bennett 
: Academics! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is. It is academic snobbery. They cannot allow themselves to leave working-class people to make a few decisions. All I can say in closing is a little line from Malcolm X when he was arrested for thieving—and it was not him. He said: “Take your hands out of my pocket.” “Take your hands out of my pocket.”; that is the catchcry that working-class people in this country should have when they go to the polling booth in less than 18 months’ time to get rid of this Government once and for all. People should say: “Take your hand out of my pocket because it is not your money. You did not work for it; I worked for it. I as the worker worked for it and I want to spend it the way I want to.”