Roy Heather: General Debate 
Roy Heather: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15284] 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 We have heard all about 1 April in this House today when a raft of Government initiatives came into effect but what we have not heard is that most of those initiatives have been about the Government making decisions for people on their behalf. They have not been about empowering people to make the decisions that will really make a difference to their lives. What this country needs—and there is a mood for this out in the electorate—is change. We need a change in this country but not just a change of Government; we need a change in direction a change of course. If the same old policies are wheeled out now and after the election then things will stay the same. Helen Clark has given up talking about moving New Zealand into the top half of the OECD firstly because she has not been able to do it and secondly because she has no idea how to go about it. We do not need the old failed policies we have been seeing we need bold policies that will lift this country’s economic performance and have everybody better off not just the chosen few that this Government wants to help out because they will vote for it come the election. 
I asked a question today about taxation. Michael Cullen made it very clear today that this Government has absolutely no intention of removing the “envy tax”—the 39 percent tax that was not necessary in the first place. The tax has not stuck at the top 5 percent of taxpayers; it now applies to somewhere near 15 percent of taxpayers. Michael Cullen said that he would raise an extra $400 million a year for his new spending initiatives. We learnt today that in the 2006-07 year that amount has almost doubled to nearly $800 million and for what? 
Is education any better? No. We keep hearing the figures. Forty percent of school leavers leave with such poor literacy and numeracy skills that they cannot read a bus timetable. This country needs some bold policies to lift every child’s educational ability. ACT would give all students a scholarship so that they can attend the school that best suits their needs so they can achieve to the best of their ability. Our country does not want mediocrity which is what the Labour Government wants for everybody—everybody doing well and nobody failing. We want excellence. Every child has the right to that and every child should get a scholarship to make that happen. 
An extra $6 billion has been poured into health over the last 8 years. Where has that got us? It has not got us anywhere. There is no better access for any patient. In fact we now have such a two-tiered system that the people we cater for are the very unwell—those people who have heart attacks and car accidents and need immediate attention—and the wealthy who can afford to pay for health services themselves. What about everybody in the middle? What about the people sitting at home and paying year after year who want to get back to work to be of much more use to the community and to be able to look after their families? Well it is OK with this Government that those people just sit and wait. We need to make patients the focus of our health system not the bureaucrats not the 1400 people who work at the Ministry of Health. Under this Government the number of people who work at the Ministry of Health has increased from 400 to 1400. What has that achieved? It has not achieved anything. Doctors and nurses must be put back in the driving seat. 
I come back to the subject that I started with—taxation rates. We need a much lower and flatter rate of taxation in order to benefit all Kiwis. That will lift New Zealand’s economic performance and put people in charge of their own lives. It will leave them to make the decisions that best affect their families. The 39c tax rate should be abolished immediately. If Michael Cullen sat down and looked at his figures he would see that he is now taxing 15 percent of people at that top tax rate and that he has now got in twice as much revenue as he said he needed. He would see that his wildest dreams have been completely exceeded. Michael Cullen sits there and reaps in all this money so that come Budget time he can spread it around like at a lolly scramble. He might think that he can hoodwink New Zealanders by doing that. He might think that that will make them vote for his party come election time but New Zealanders are smarter than that. They know that the key to success for themselves their families and this country is to let people have more of what they earn to let people make their own decisions about their lives and to lift this country’s economic performance so that New Zealand competes on a level playing field with the other countries we like to compare ourselves with.