Coddington Deborah: Third Readings 
Coddington Deborah: Third Readings 
[Volume:622;Page:17956] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party is still voting against this legislation in the third reading. It is legislation that cannot be fixed by a few amendments here and there. It repeals the Fiscal Responsibility Act without any good argument being advanced as to why we should repeal it. The Fiscal Responsibility Act should remain a stand-alone Act. New Zealand has led the way in terms of showing the world how we can have legislation that restricts the power of politicians to spend money. Politicians whether from central government or local government love to spend other people’s money. It is very very easy to spend other people’s money. We should be passing legislation to further restrict that spending instead of passing legislation to make it much easier for politicians to spend money. The Hon Ruth Richardson’s intentions when the fiscal responsibility legislation was drafted have remained valid. They were that the Act would be a discipline on Government expenditure as well as providing information to Parliament and to the people represented by Parliament about where and how taxpayers’ money is being spent. We should build on the principles of the Fiscal Responsibility Act not weaken them. The legislation before us does weaken that important check on politicians’ temptation to spend public money recklessly. 
Fortunately the legislation as it is being passed now is somewhat better than the bill that went to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We still have the situation whereby taxpayers’ money can be spent only with the authority of Parliament. The changes made to the legislation by that bipartisan select committee were driven largely by Dave McGee QC who put in strong submissions to the committee. The executive is restricted but Parliament still has unfettered power to spend other people’s money. As I said we should be building on the principles of the Fiscal Responsibility Act rather than as the situation is at the moment passing legislation whereby Parliament votes to spend money on generalised and basically unprincipled spending such as that in the areas of education social entrepreneurship regional development or arts and culture. The discretion on how money should be spent in those areas is passed on to unelected public servants. 
What do we get as a result of that? Under the education spending we get degrees courses and certificates in nonsense topics like Twilight Golf and singalong Maori lessons on the radio. Under social entrepreneurship we get spending on hip-hop tours of the United States— 
Craig McNair 
: Hawaii. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Yes the United States. Under Maori development and Maori culture we get the spending of millions of dollars on kapahaka competitions that skip a year and do not happen because the budget has blown out. Under regional development we get Jim Anderton’s “jobs machine” where his officials spray money around like confetti so that he can try to get votes and photo opportunities. We get spending on places like the Warehouse and millions of dollars go to Hollywood moguls who come here to make movies as a reward. In retrospect the money is spent but where is the regional development in that? 
Under Vote Arts Culture and Heritage half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money is spent on so-called art—assemblages such as a port-a-loo that makes a noise like a donkey. In fact we still have not seen the artist who is to represent New Zealand at the international exhibition that the art will go to. We still do not know what we are sending there. The Minister herself does not know that. 
Jim Peters 
: Et al. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Et al. Under the broadcasting vote money is spent on  
NZ Idol 
 which is a copy of an overseas programme—one of the most commercially successful television programmes in terms of generating revenue both from audience participation and advertising. We spent taxpayers’ money on that under the heading of broadcasting. It is about picking winners. It does not work and it rewards rent-seeking behaviour. That is why I believe we should debate and pass legislation that places much greater scrutiny on the spending of taxpayers’ money. We should be looking at the value for money—what we get out of what we are spending. Why do we not look at that before we decide where we spend it instead of just passing it under generalised unprincipled headings and sending it off to the huge State service sector to spend? 
We should have an independent commission that would undertake systematic reviews of taxpayers’ money to see whether we had value for money. We can imagine how it would be if we had a taxpayers’ bill of rights that restricted Government spending even further so that it did not exceed the rate of inflation or population growth. I liked the United Future member’s suggestion about the state of Colorado where when it has a fiscal surplus—if it takes too much tax from the taxpayers—it has to give that back. It cannot just save that money and store it up for an election year and then spend it on constituencies where it wants to get the vote. This is not our money. People seem to forget that. There are too many members in this House especially on the Government side who have never run their own businesses or worked in the private sector and who do not know what it is like to generate wealth—to make and spend one’s own money. If they did they would think very carefully about where they spent taxpayers’ money. 
I will finish by briefly touching on what this legislation does to the academic freedom and autonomy of tertiary institutions. I commend the Vice-Chancellors Committee for the fight it has put up against the Government which has been totally dismissed. The Government will argue until it is blue in the face that the status quo has been preserved. It has not been preserved. The legislation increases the State’s control of Crown entities and does not exclude universities from those entities. The spirit of the Education Act of 1989 has been breached. The academic freedom protected in that Act has now gone. The State Services Commissioner can have a say in collective agreements negotiated by any Crown entity including the universities. In conclusion I believe that the repeal of the Fiscal Responsibility Act is a serious error.