Swain Paul: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Swain Paul: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14840] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I put a simple question to that member Lockwood Smith or to any member from the National Party: will National keep Working for Families or will it scrap it? 
Hon Member 
: We’re not telling. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Oh National members are not telling us. You see this is the problem. National has said it will not tell us. Do members know what that is called? It is called being slippery. The leader of the National Opposition is saying he will not tell us what he thinks because he knows that people do not want to hear the things he thinks. 
The Budget Policy Statement sets out the guidelines for the Government’s Budget decisions and the priorities going forward. Although the Government is coming up with ideas on taking the country forward—for example the fabulous New Zealand Fast Forward programme launched yesterday which I will talk about in a minute—some very very slippery things are going on in the National Party. The problem is that the party is stuck. It has had to agree with things it does not support it supports things it does not agree with and it is being slippery about things it wants to support but knows the public does not support. 
This is precisely the problem the National Party has and it was summed up beautifully in a cartoon in a recent  
New Zealand Herald 
 entitled “Flight of the bumble-key”. In this cartoon we see the Leader of the Opposition as a lovely bumblebee buzzing round and round in circles and not able to make up his mind whether to fly off to the left sign “Expediency” or to the right sign “Principle”. He buzzes round and round in circles and cannot decide what to do. 
Let us look at all the things the National Party does not like but has had to agree with. Mr Key said New Zealand was missing in action in Iraq but then went on to say National would not have sent troops there. He said climate change was a complete hoax and a little later on he said he firmly believed in climate change and always had. His comments about student loans were a beauty. He said interest-free student loans were unaffordable and an irresponsible cost to the country. Then in January this year he said National would keep interest-free student loans for tertiary students. He said being nuclear-free was bad news for economic growth but then said National would stick with anti-nuclear legislation. When commenting on State housing he said the public housing planned for Hobsonville was economic vandalism and that National was committed to cancelling it but in February this year he said: “I’m in favour of the affordable housing they might be building there.” When KiwiSaver was set up he said it was fundamentally flawed and a glorified Christmas club but last August he said it was probably going to be successful and not too bad. In terms of Auckland airport and strategic asset sales he said National would not have changed the rules as the Government did but 1 day later he said: “We’d put a new one in that says that there must be majority ownership held in New Zealand.” On Treaty settlements he said National had no firm date for a deadline but would like to see them cleared up by a certain time. Then just 12 hours later he said: “I gave the impression that National did not have a date. That was wrong.” 
The National Party is being found out and that is why the answer to the question I asked earlier about whether National would keep Working for Families was so good. The member down the back said: “We aren’t going to tell you.” That is part of the problem. We know what that statement actually means. It means that National members know they cannot tell us the answer because the public do not want to hear it. 
There is a whole litany of things that the Leader of the Opposition has said about Auckland International Airport but regrettably I do not have time to talk about that. Another classic example is Mr Key’s comment yesterday about the New Zealand Fast Forward programme. The programme is an investment of $700 million which with interest will probably go up to a billion dollars. With dollar for dollar from the private sector it will probably go up to $2 billion investment in research and development in pastoral and food industries. What did the National leader call the programme? He called it a “gimmick”. He was the only one who opposed it. Everyone else said it was a good idea. Then a little bit later he said: “National will be rolling out a comprehensive research and development policy closer to the election. We will make long-term funding commitments that provide certainty to the sector because we see it as a way of lifting productivity and helping to make New Zealand a smarter nation.” Pray tell me what is New Zealand Fast Forward all about? That is precisely what it is about. So Mr Key opposes a good idea that was announced yesterday and then waffles on and tells people that National is serious about research and development funding. That is simply not believable and that is a problem for the National Party. 
What about the fiasco over Treaty settlements and Maori seats? The problem here is that Mr Key is trying to placate two groups at once. He is trying to placate the Maori Party by saying that the Maori seats could go at some stage but not just yet. This is because he wants to go into coalition with the Maori Party. But then again he wants to placate the rednecks in the National Party who want to get rid of the Maori seats. The problem is that he cannot say both things at the same time because someone will catch him out. That is the rule of politics. It is much better to be principled much better to say what one believes and then take the consequences. The public will honour and respect a person for that but they will not respect people who slip and slide and say things they think the public want to hear. It is exactly the same with Treaty settlements. Mr Key did not say there was a date—I think he had forgotten. He said he could not remember he did have a date. Once again he did not want to offend the Maori Party by saying National would sort this out and get it over with quickly but also he wanted to placate the rednecks in the party who do not think there should be Treaty settlements full stop. The problem is that one cannot say different things to different audiences when everybody is listening. 
Of course we know what will happen if the National Party should ever get into Government—not in my lifetime mercifully. If it ever did we know what it would do. National would scrap the 20 free hours’ early childhood education. We know this because it argued against it. We know that National wants to privatise the health system. Members opposite got in a mess when they were asked about this because they really did not want to say they want to privatise health so they tried to say something else and got caught out saying both things. KiwiSaver would be gone but National members cannot bring themselves to say that. As someone down the back said: “We’re not going to say; we’re not going to tell you.” I think this comment that National is not going to tell us what it would do about Working for Families is a code for saying that would be gone too. We remember that a previous National Government cut national superannuation so we can say that New Zealand superannuation will be cut again if the National Party ever gets near the Treasury benches. Lord knows what National ultimately thinks about transport. 
The  
Listener 
 has a beautiful cartoon showing John Key saying: “Would we sell airports? … We would love to see wages drop. Want a $200m meat subsidy? State housing will lower property values. I want to lead the Labour Party.”; and two people in the corner saying: “It’s the pressure of saying only what people want to hear.” I say: “When the cartoons are having a go at you when the cartoons are pillorying you you know that your time is up.” National members thought they would sleepwalk to victory but we now have a decent fight on our hands. Suddenly people are working out that those members are trying to say two things to two different groups and those members have been caught out. Thank goodness that slippery slipping National Party has no show of getting into Government at the end of the year.