Curran Clare: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3398. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I want to talk about this Government’s incompetence and its deceit—its incompetence in running the economy and the incompetence of Ministers in their portfolios. Some Ministers do not even seem to understand what their portfolios mean let alone grasp what their responsibilities are. This legislation the Appropriation (2011/12 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2012/13) Bill sets out the Government’s spending and revenue raising plans for the year ahead and it gives Parliament authority for those activities to take place. But this Government is not going to address the big issues on the economy. The Budget does not do that. It is petty it is short-sighted and it is just plain dumb and nasty in parts. It certainly is not providing any new ideas to grow the economy. The only idea that this Government has is asset sales. That is proving to be a great idea is it not? 
Last year John Key promised 170000 new jobs. Instead we have got a Government with the worst growth record in 50 years with more than 50000 people leaving for Australia 52000 more in unemployment than under Labour and nearly 50000 more on benefits. Let me tell you what the Minister for Economic Development the great Mr Steven Joyce said to the Commerce Committee last week when he was put on the spot around those jobs. This is the great economic hard man of this Government; the guy who gets things done. He is the Machiavelli who pulls the strings in the back rooms. Well let me tell you what he said. The chair of the select committee who sits across the House there Jonathan Young was there and he heard what he had to say. He could not make a case. He floundered. He could not make a case to back up his Prime Minister’s ridiculous pledge to create 170000 jobs because there is no case. Instead Kiwis are going out the back door in droves; they are flying out and they would be leaving by the boatload if the seas were not so rough. 
This is what Steven Joyce said. When he was asked what his forecasts were in job growth in the different sectors to make up that 170000 and how he was tracking them relative to job growth targets he said: “Well actually we are making some very good progress. We are very comfortable with that 170000 job target and in terms of where they are coming from naturally they are coming from a range of areas right across the economy. We are seeing significant growth in the number of vacancies.” But when asked for estimates on what work the department has done and the ministry has done region by region sector by sector for that job growth: “Well no. We haven’t done that.” he said. They have had a year to do it—a whole year to do that—to give some kind of analysis on where those jobs are coming from. Where are they coming from? When asked how many have actually been created he could not tell us. He could not tell us and that is because he simply just does not know. That is because as with all the other targets that this Government has announced—particularly the targets it has announced this week—it just does not know. They are meaningless; they are meaningless targets that cannot be backed up and essentially they are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders and tell us a great big story. 
And then there is the pettiness and incompetence of other Ministers and their petty stupid misguided decisions which are going to have long-term implications for our country—implications that will have long-term effects for our nation. Apart from asset sales the other big issue that is happening this week is the decision by this Government to axe funding for TVNZ 7 which is our only public broadcast channel. The funding was removed from this year’s Budget a big blank line for this year’s Budget. Maybe the Minister of Broadcasting has not actually read the Budget? Because he does not seem to have read his Cabinet papers or a lot of other papers or even understand what his job is. TVNZ 7 funding was removed from this year’s Budget and it will have huge long-term effects on this country. 
And then you would think that Peter Dunne the great champion of public broadcasting would have made just a bit more of an effort when he negotiated a deal with this Government. Well you would have thought that he would make a bit more of an effort. In the briefing to the incoming Minister of Broadcasting in December it was mentioned that in “the confidence and supply agreement between National and United Future New Zealand the National-led Government has agreed to ‘maintain at least current Budget funding tracks to TVNZ … to ensure they continue to fulfil their existing broadcasting roles’.” Apart from the fact that that is a meaningless sentence given that he was such a supporter of public broadcasting—he rolls out on to the steps of Parliament to speak at the rallies; whenever there is a rally about public broadcasting out comes Peter Dunne championing the cause—if he was such a supporter as he claims to be why did he not make his support for asset sales legislation contingent on ongoing funding for TVNZ 7? Why could he not have insisted? Instead the country gets its energy companies sold off to overseas interests and we lose public broadcast television all in the same week. What a great legacy that is. It was a Labour Government that allocated $79 million for TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7. It was a Labour Government that had the intention of continuing public broadcasting in New Zealand and it is a future Labour Government that remains committed to public broadcasting in New Zealand and will reinstitute it. 
As was revealed it is just plain deceit to say as the Minister—well he calls himself the “Minister of Broadcasting”—said yesterday that somehow it was never the intention to do it. This was revealed in today’s  
Dominion Post 
 where it was shown through an Official Information Act request document that there was a plan on the table; that there was a plan to keep TVNZ 7 going and that it was this Government that axed it. It was this Government that made the deliberate decision to axe it. The Minister of Broadcasting shakes his head but as he revealed yesterday he does not even read the Cabinet papers. He does not actually know what happened last year when he was not the Minister because maybe he thinks that his job started only as of December and he did not need to know what actually happened before that. It is plain incompetence—plain incompetence. They put Craig Foss in as the Minister of Broadcasting the “Minister of Fumbling and Bumbling” who does not understand his brief who does not read his Cabinet papers and who allowed Stephen McElrea the Prime Minister’s electorate chair to continue on the board of New Zealand On Air making decisions about public money for commercial purposes and for programmes that are purely advertising-related and that suit the Government’s agenda. That is what this Minister of Broadcasting does. He does not even realise that he has got the power to approve spectrum allocation for public purposes. He is the Minister of Broadcasting and he does actually have the power to approve spectrum allocation for public purposes but he did not seem to realise that yesterday either. 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Have another read of your question. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Maybe he could actually answer a few more questions on this because he obviously has not read the framework where his policy actually states that he is required to promote local broadcasting services and to promote innovation and digital broadcasting. Perhaps he could answer the questions as to whether the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the Ministry of Economic Development have reserved any spectrum for the purposes of non-commercial television broadcasters that seek to fill that void that has been left by TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 which have been axed in the latest Budget—axed forever by this Government. Perhaps he should be asking himself and asking for some advice from his ministry about whether there has been any effort to determine whether other broadcasters are prepared to broadcast the non-commercial programme services and if they are what he is going to do. What is he going to do? And how are those new non-commercial broadcasters going to fill the void— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! Your time has expired.