Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
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Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
 I am pleased to take a call especially after that grey and gloomy address by a now senior Minister of Transport in the Government. That speech was quite depressing. I want to refer to the day we all came down to the House to hear the Budget. We were excited actually. Even the Opposition tries to anticipate what is going to be in the Budget for the good and well-being of all New Zealanders. Well it was a grey and gloomy Budget just like the previous speech. We sat here and it felt almost surreal. The Budget was certainly unbelievably depressing. We thought we would hear promises about infrastructure spends that would create jobs jobs and more jobs. Yes there is a political difference between us and the Government and that is exactly why Labour speakers are giving some intellectual honesty and rigour to the Budget debate today. 
The Government does not seem to realise that the jobs picture becomes gloomier and gloomier every day. We are seeing the loss of 8000 jobs every month heading towards 180000 unemployed by next year. That is a real concern. It is a real concern for the Opposition especially for members who represent people out in the regions. One in 10 of those 180000 people will be Maori and what was in that Budget for Maori other than a redistribution of funding from Te Puni Kokiri and other Labour-led Government initiatives? Where was the one new big idea the one exciting idea that would brand the first John Key - Bill English Budget as something different something aspirational something entrepreneurial? We did not see it. 
We heard as we came to the House that the Government was suspending contributions to the Superannuation Fund. I am not surprised about that; John Key and Bill English always hated the Superannuation Fund. We are glad now to call it the “Big English Patient Fund” because National has gutted the Superannuation Fund for real New Zealanders who are facing the prospect in the next 3 years—as Government members sit there and laugh—of job losses. 
We hear the rhetoric from the Minister for Social Development and Employment such as: “We are all stepping up to soften the sharp edges of the recession.” But I ask with what? What did we see in the Budget that helps those who have lost their jobs? We saw nothing about helping new families and young New Zealand families into their first homes. We saw nothing about new housing spends—in fact new funding for State housing builds will give us one new State house in every electorate. Big deal! That will not give a lot of people jobs. What has happened to the Skills Strategy? That was an answer a blueprint answer for investing in education and for investing in skills-based training. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: It was no answer; it was full of fancy words. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: We have the Minister of Education over there who in our region has just cut $126000 from construction trade training. Will that be the answer when the recession is over and we want to start infrastructure spending? They were young Maori on that construction trade training course which is facing a $126000 funding loss. So what has this Government done to protect jobs? 
What about environmental protection? I was the previous Minister of Conservation and I remember Nick Smith in the House day after day asking questions about an $8 million cut to Vote Conservation and his saying how outrageous it was. But the line-by-line analysis from the new advisers to Ministers has cut with the stroke of a pen $54 million from Vote Conservation. Community groups who love to get out there and match Department of Conservation jobs and expertise in the environment are absolutely gutted by that cut. But what did we get that matched that $54 million cut in Vote Conservation? We got a $50 million cycleway. Fantastic! That is fantastic environmental protection. 
I come from Rotorua and the member for Rotorua who during the election campaign said: “We’re just like Labour plus tax cuts.” gave us the biggest con we got right through the election. At every public meeting he would say: “Mrs Chadwick has done a great job for Rotorua. I am going to do even better and give you tax cuts.” But it was the biggest con in this election. Those National members read their lines. They all stood up and read their lines and everybody thought “This is refreshing. We can have all those programmes that Labour has given plus tax cuts.” Well I know that in Rotorua when Jim Anderton started regional economic development we were working on cycleways and we were working on links because we are a tourism town. But that is all we will get out of the $50 million cycleway and there will be nothing for environmental protection. Tourists will be able to come and cycle down the road but they will not see the benefits to the land we love because of a huge slashing in conservation funding. 
In the Budget we saw no innovation we saw no bright ideas and we certainly saw no protection for jobs—and so many jobs in Rotorua could have been green jobs. In fact I went to the regional economic development summit and talked about pest eradication all around the central North Island. What a great opportunity for jobs! But we do not have that. We have had cuts to conservation but we have a cycleway and that is meant to make us happy out in the regions. 
I say that home insulation is part of the good the bad and the ugly in this debate. Home insulation is a great one. Labour shamed the Government with the campaign we started during the election about the emissions trading scheme that was canned into taking action on warm dry homes for New Zealanders. At the Job Summit we held in Rotorua I heard nothing from the member for Rotorua about home insulation. I heard nothing at all about green jobs and pest eradication and control. At meetings in our region with the mayors of the region I did not hear the member mention that once. But the biggest con in our region was the con that people would get everything as well as tax cuts. 
There are some good things in the Budget. I say “Well done!” to Tony Ryall for his little bit of funding for maternity services. I was the Associate Minister of Health who did 9 months’ work on a maternity action plan that the Minister has picked up but only partly funded. We funded up to 80 more midwife places. We did that last year and we asked for more funding to go into the training of midwives as professionals. But what do we see? There is more funding for doctors. So how long will it be before we see those very doctors we are going to train up start to ask for co-payments? So access to affordable health care will go and we will hear of midwives being told that they have to be employed by general practitioners. We wanted more home support for new mothers on discharge increased access to well child providers and more access to parenting classes. 
I am going to go on to what is bad and I think that one of the bad things is the creative accounting the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage has put into the arts budget. Do members remember that in 1999 $400 million went into the arts recovery package? The Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson has announced there is $10.1 million of new funding for the arts. But where is that funding from? Let me tell members in the House today that he has cut $20 million from the Regional Museums Fund. So wonderful museums and galleries like the gallery we have in Rotorua or like Puke Ariki will no longer be able to be developed around the regions because $20 million has gone from the Regional Museums Fund. Sorry Nelson; sorry Hawke’s Bay—they might have thought that their funding applications were in the stacker but I tell them that the Budget line is a dash. 
Another cut to the budget in the arts that is really sad is the funding for the development of the Buckle Street war memorial. That memorial is something that all New Zealanders really love. So what will we see? We will see a Minister going around now and opening monuments but there will be no Buckle Street war museum. The money has gone for that. We will see monuments to arts culture and heritage from this Minister but the arts will go from the recovery of 1999 to a total relapse. Communities and regions that had started to grow a real and genuine appreciation and valuing of arts and culture through the Regional Museums Fund will no longer be able to come to the Government to ask for matched funding for their new galleries or museums. I say shame on that Minister for announcing there was $10.1 million of new funding.