Pettis Jill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Pettis Jill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21994] 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 There is huge competition on this side of the House to speak on this particular vote this afternoon because Labour MPs represent the key provincial areas in New Zealand and we know that so much has happened in our areas that we are excited and delighted at the growth we have seen in our patch. We know what it was like in provincial New Zealand under those Tories in the 1990s. It was grim. It was terrible. I am very proud to represent the seat of Whanganui and I remember what it was like in my patch in the 1990s. It was awful. Everything closed. It was shocking and there was a shocking waste of our most valuable resource in this country: our people. But this Government was elected in 1999 and we reinvested in our most valuable resource—that is our people. 
Sadly I have only 5 minutes but I know my colleague Mr Duynhoven is busting to speak. 
One of the very tangible ways that this Labour-Progressive Government—this progressive Government in every sense of the word—has poured money into provincial New Zealand and where my area in particular has benefited is through major regional initiatives. There will be a formal announcement and the Hon Jim Anderton is coming to our region next week as part of that announcement. Ruapehu Rangitikei and Wanganui all worked together to get $2 million worth of funding to help further regional and economic development and tourism development in particular. We have some wonderful tourism sites and potential areas for the sympathetic and wise development of our tourism sector. 
That initiative has worked because this Government has also worked with the tourism sector instead of alienating it like those Tories opposite did when Murray McCully was the Minister of Tourism—the years of the golden handshakes. But no under this Labour-led Government this Labour-Progressive—in every sense of the word—Government money is being put into the provinces. We are benefiting. 
We have some of the highest rates of employment we have seen since most of us were kids and all that money in those wages and salaries is being reinvested in the community. We have houses going up businesses expanding and new businesses being established. I have to say that it is wonderful when one is moving around one’s electorate now compared with what it was like not too many years ago. Some of us remember but sadly some people have forgotten. 
I have to say that anybody who thinks they can work out their economics to continue to spend money and invest at the rate this Government has invested in New Zealand yet still have tax cuts is just talking voodoo economics. It is just like being at home. We cannot buy a new house a new car and new carpet and have the landscaping done all in one year. It is just not possible. When we run our own budgets we all have to live within our means. Why is it that some people out there in society believe that they can throw money around like a man with no arms and there will be no consequences? Of course there would be consequences. 
One of the most serious consequences of tax cuts that will impact on people in my electorate in particular is what will happen with mortgage interest rates. A large number of people in our Labour-held electorates have significant mortgages. The first thing they will feel the pinch about will be the increase in their mortgage interest rates. They might get 7 bucks a week extra in a tax cut from those Tories over there—and it is pushing the boat out a bit to say $7 a week—but I will probably get $70. I do not need $70 extra a week but some of the people in my electorate who are on low to middle incomes most certainly do. But under the Tories’ plan it will not work out like that. They work on the principle of “To those who have more shall be given”. 
We on this side of the Chamber believe that we should give people a hand up and one of the ways we can do that is by investing in the whole community by investing in health by lowering the price of going to a doctor and of picking up prescriptions and by introducing income-related rents. People in my electorate are now hundreds of dollars—and I do not throw that figure around lightly—better off a year since income-related rents were introduced. Families in my electorate are hundreds of dollars better off because of the Working for Families package.