Soper Lesley: Budget Debate 
Soper Lesley: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16504] 
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
: 
 We have just heard another “blond moment” speaker from the National Party. Once again there were no ideas no substance and no policies; National members have been reeling out the same old stuff and relying on reading other people’s press releases. By contrast I am rising very proudly to take a call on this Budget debate. I am proud because this is exactly the sort of Budget that invests in a strong sustainable future and delivers so much to my people in Invercargill and Southland many of whom have already sent messages of congratulations to Dr Cullen through me. The people I deal with see this Budget as fair affordable and responsible with a meaningful reduction in tax for all taxpayers including superannuitants—$10.6 billion seems a pretty good number to them. 
People see strong public investment in the future. In education there is $215 million to reduce class sizes and more to go into operations grants. The Budget grants student allowances to 12000 extra students and there are more bonded scholarships. In social services $446 million has been provided for non-governmental organisations for essential services like anti-violence programmes parenting programmes youth programmes and delivery to families. In health there is $3 billion extra over 4 years with $160 million more going into elective surgery and $52 million to fight obesity. In transport and infrastructure public transport spending has now increased more than 1000 percent since this Government was elected. In justice there will be funding for 1000 extra police. What is wrong with any of this? In housing and in the provision of skills for workers $168 million is budgeted for over the next 4 years. In broadband there is an answer that is far better than National’s idiotic proposal of subsidising Telecom. There is more for science and research—in particular $700 million for agricultural research which Mr Key managed to reject as a gimmick to the astonishment of Federated Farmers among others. 
This Budget is about a strong future for New Zealand and it is no accident at all that Budget 2008 delivers personal tax cuts amounting to $10.6 billion over the next 3½ years on top of the $4.6 billion already delivered through Working for Families KiwiSaver and business tax cuts. It is no accident at all because it is delivered by a Government that can deliver relief for workers who are coping with rising living costs without driving the public accounts into debt or slashing public services. It is no accident because it is the next step in the Government’s planned—a word the National Party does not seem to recognise—programme to deliver fairly to all New Zealanders. Those personal tax cuts will be delivered while meeting the crucial four tests the Government set itself. They will not lead to greater social inequality they will not increase inflation they do not require borrowing to fund them and they do not require cuts to public services. This Budget delivers more to New Zealanders who already know that 377000 more jobs have been created since Labour became Government—that is about 1000 jobs per week—who already know that unemployment has been under 4 percent for 4 years who already know that 140000 fewer people are relying on a benefit who already know that they are paying less for doctors’ visits and benefiting from 20 hours’ free early childhood education and who already know that 130000 children have been lifted out of poverty. 
In contrast what can those hopeless National members on the other side of the House offer in their wittering speeches? It appears that they have nothing to offer—no ideas no policies not a single speech that has been anything but a series of blond moments. They are even now avoiding debating this Budget. There were no oral questions about it to the Minister of Finance this week. There was no Mr Key fronting on  
Checkpoint 
 or  
Morning Report 
 today; there was just the “slippery as a snake in wet grass” interview of 22 May and in the following few days more “ums” and “ahs” from Mr Key on whether National really has a tax policy—or any policy—what that tax policy is if it has one and how it is going to pay for it. There has been just a frantic backtracking from the statement of Mr Key that National’s tax cuts would be “north of $50” per week for everyone. 
Sue Moroney 
: Everyone? 
LESLEY SOPER 
: Everyone they said; everyone Mr Key said in several quotes I could make but I will not waste the House’s time. Mr Key and Mr English are at sixes and sevens over exactly what they think they can say about Labour’s tax cut package. And while they are at sixes and sevens in a policy vacuum that has been illustrated in every speech from the other side what comes to fill that vacuum? What indeed—the real National Party agenda! Did anyone notice that Kate Wilkinson reportedly National’s employment spokesperson came out today with the revelation that National would not keep compulsory employment contributions to KiwiSaver? Was that not strangely reminiscent of Tony Ryall’s revelation of the true National Party health policy a short while ago—that it would remove the cap on doctors’ fees? Did members notice that the same frantic slipperiness and flip-flops happened on the latest Kate Wilkinson gaff? First there was an attempt to bully Barry Soper not to report what Kate Wilkinson said. Then Mr Key confirmed that she did indeed say it but that she was wrong. 
Then Mr Key flip-flopped on KiwiSaver again. Once the scheme appeared Mr Key said that it was a glorified Christmas club and fundamentally flawed and he said: “No no—we wouldn’t keep it.” Now that it is there there will be a compulsory employer contribution but members will notice that he is fudging the details. Mr Duncan Garner said that he thought Mr Key was not being entirely upfront—being a bit exposed on the detail was Mr Key. Was it 1 percent or 4 percent—another flip-flop? Well who knows? John Key does not the National Party does not and Kate Wilkinson does not. None of the National speakers yesterday or today seem to know where they are on anything. 
But we know that that National Party front bench is still the front bench of the 1990s: Mr Ryall Mr English Mr Brownlee Mr Smith Mr Williamson and Mr Carter. They slashed benefits and superannuation. They put night charges for beds on to hospitals. They sold 13500 State houses. They sold State assets. They brought in the Employment Contracts Act. They intend to have the 90-day employment probation period back in a flash; the bill is already written. They had double figure unemployment with 161000 people unemployed. They are slipping and sliding all over the place ranting and jumping from cloud to cloud. They do not have a plan they do not have an idea they do not have a policy and they are frankly trying to disguise that with wittering speeches that go on and on repetitively while members read one another’s notes. 
In John Key they have a leader who says as he backtracks on his own tax cut plans that it is not just about the dollars or about an issue of money even though he formerly said—and here is another flip-flop—that high-end taxpayers save a lot of what they get as a tax cut. So apparently that means it is OK to give tax cuts to one’s rich mates because Mr Key says that high taxpayers do not put cuts into the inflation pool. That apparently justifies tax cuts to the rich mates and that is one of the policies we know that National has up its sleeve now just as it has always had. 
In this debate that lot on the other side—that National Party that Tory crowd—have had the chance to put their money where their mouths were and to give us some policy some idea some plan and some vision. They have utterly and completely failed. In conclusion I tell the House that the choice is fairly stark: dither with Key deliver with Clark. There is no choice really.