Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16397] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is no wonder Rodney Hide does not have to turn up to work and can run around school pantomimes when that is his opposition. I would like to get back to debating the Budget which is what this actual debate is about. One would never have known that if one had to suffer through listening to the last 10 minutes. I just want to quote a little bit from a prime ministerial speech. It starts off with an explanation of what these Budget tax cuts will mean to real people. A Kiwi family on the average household income of $72000—say split two-thirds to one-third between two parents—with two children at primary school is almost $43 a week better off from 1 October this year. That is equivalent to a 3.6 percent increase in take-home pay. 
As many will know I was a trade union official before coming here and negotiating a 3.6 percent increase in take-home pay was a pretty good feat particularly in times of low inflation which we have seen under this Government in the last 8½ years. There is a 3.6 percent wage increase coming on 1 October into the pockets of the average family with a couple of kids. It is a great Budget. 
Then we look at married superannuitants who will see their fortnightly payments rise by $45.88. That is a 5.2 percent increase for those people; and of course it does not stop there. There is more. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: That’s a fantastic rise. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: As Mr Woolerton knows with next April’s annual adjustment expected to be $29.44 on their fortnightly payment their fortnightly rise in payment by then will be $75.32 or an 8.6 percent increase. That is real money for real people. That is why when Bill English stood up and spoke and when Dr Worth stood up and spoke we did not hear anything about the Budget. Bill English wannabe Minister of Finance had three of his members staring at the floor during his speech in this debate and the whip who had to be here and was sitting behind him with the camera on him managed to get his head up for a little of the speech. We did not hear a thing from Bill English about this Budget and when we think about those two things we can understand why they do not want to debate it. 
They do not want to face up to the fact that real New Zealanders are getting real money in their pockets come 1 October and on into the future as we know from the $10.6 billion package of tax cuts that we are debating here. It is no wonder they do not want to talk about it because they have no answers they are too slippery and they cannot actually front up and say what they would do instead. So we had the rambling nonsense we have just had for the last 10 minutes from that National Party member. 
We also have to remember that the world economy is not going too well at the moment. Anybody who turns on the TV news knows that. Parts of the world are suffering a food shortage. If we go back to 1998 when we last had a National Government and similar economic circumstances in the world what did we see then? What did National do to New Zealand superannuation? Did it raise superannuation by 8.6 percent in the next few months? No it cut it. It also decided that it had to sell a few things. Not only did it sell Contact Energy but it sold 13000 State houses and had the rest on the block. 
So when I became the Minister Labour inherited a whole raft of State houses that were ready to be sold and that had not been maintained for years because National was not going to spend any money on them. We have had to find the money to fix up those houses and there is more money coming in the Budget. We have managed to get about 7500 houses back into Housing New Zealand stock as well so that we can deal with the waiting list of people we inherited from that lot over there. National said: “When the going gets tough overseas we hit the hardest the people here who have no resources.”—that is the elderly and the families who do not have enough income to pay a market rent. That is what the National Party is known for and that is what its members over there right now are thinking of doing if they ever get a chance to sit on this side of the House. 
Let us have a look at what a one-earner family with two children under 13 years of age earning say 45 grand—a pretty normal wage for a lot of people—will get from 1 October. They will get 30 bucks—$30.83. Come 1 April 2011 that figure goes up to $62.82. That is pretty good money. It is pretty good money when they go to the supermarket to buy the food they have to to fill up the petrol tank and to pay the power bills. We know that it is real money for real people; that is why this is a good Budget. 
But not only do we have tax cuts because people on the streets are saying it is good to have tax cuts but we are not having them at the expense of health education housing social welfare and all those sorts of things. We have seen all the vox pops on the TV and in the newspapers saying: “Yes but we don’t want education to suffer.” So let us look at what else is in the Budget. There is $171.6 million over 4 years going into operational grants for schools. That is a 5 percent increase in operational grants for all our schools including $65 million for that much-needed information and communications technology. We know that our schools want to have the best technology for their children and this Government is putting serious money into making sure that that happens. 
We have tax cuts we have superannuation increases and we have more money for education—real money. Then we come to the other aspect that people are concerned about. They say: “If National says they can give bigger tax cuts how are they are going to afford the health care that this Government has provided for in this Budget?”. The Government has provided another $2 billion over the next 4 years to future-proof our health services against population growth and the cost increases that come from paying workers in the system a decent wage. We cannot do that if we are cutting the budgets for health or holding them still. Who will be able to pay for the doctors and the nurses to get a wage increase if National says we can give people a $50-plus tax cut and still give more money to health? It does not stack up. Are the doctors and nurses going to get a pay increase if the money is frozen? National pretends all these doctors and nurses are bureaucrats rather than health professionals. That does not happen so there is $750 million per annum in the Budget for health care. We also have provided an additional $80 million in there over the 4 years to keep the primary health care strategy going. That has led to lower doctors’ fees and prescription charges that people can afford. 
We also have community organisations out there that have been doing it tough looking after families in stress and all sorts of situations that the State used to provide for but now it is done by the community sector. We all know that there is $446.5 million for those community organisations to deal with the issues in our communities. As for elderly people we have to congratulate New Zealand First along with the rest of the people in the Labour Party and those who support this Government on that gold card. What is the gold card coming up with in this Budget? It is pretty important stuff: there is $72 million for subsidised public transport so that our elderly people can get on the bus or the train and ride free in off-peak times. That is when they can do their shopping visit the doctor and that sort of thing. They do not need to get on the train at 7 o’clock in the morning; they can wait until 9 or 10 or whatever and go at a leisurely time for free—this Government has allowed for that. 
If they are like me and have listened to too much loud music when they were young they are going to need that hearing aid sooner or later. We now see the subsidy for that hearing aid increasing from $198 to $500 from 1 October this year. There is no waiting with this Government—they will get the subsidy straight away. 
I also want to talk about the Pacific communities. We have worked hard with our Pacific communities. As a former Minister of Pacific Island Affairs I can say that we set up in our first term a provider development fund to build the capacity of the Pacific community and to provide health care for the Pacific community. We saw the benefits of that when Pacific children were immunised against meningococcal disease at the highest rates. Why? Because we used Pacific providers. This Budget provides $10.4 million over the next 4 years to keep that capacity to create the workforce so that we can have “for Pacific by Pacific”—because it works. It actually works to have that arrangement and everybody knows that. 
We also know that a lot of our young people need to get into Modern Apprenticeships. There is money in the Budget for the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs to encourage even more young Pacific people into Modern Apprenticeships. 
I finish by saying that this Government has put tax cuts in this Budget and provided for superannuation increases health education the elderly Pacific communities Maori communities and so on. Did we have to sell anything? Did we have to cut pensions? No and in fact there is over $665 million to buy back a rail system that that lot over there hocked off to their mates and then let it run to rack and ruin. 
Chris Tremain 
: Who sold Telecom? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Those fools over there from Hawke’s Bay better get up to their electorates and tell people why they are against having a rail service in Hawke’s Bay. They will soon find themselves out of a job if they tell people there that they will not get rail in Hawke’s Bay because National is opposed to that. I say good luck to them. We are buying back the rail system; that lot would sell it off again to their mates like they did last time and they would also whack over the pensioners like they did last time.