Turei Metiria: Budget Debate 
Turei Metiria: Budget Debate 
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METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 On 30 May this year John Key confirmed for the country what National’s election campaign strategy will be all about. He announced National’s election campaign which is a war on children. National is about to embark on a war on children. On that day during John Key’s post-Cabinet press conference he confirmed that his Government will do everything it can to undermine the rights of families to secure livelihoods through the decision to proceed with the vicious anti-women sexist recommendations of the Welfare Working Group. He confirmed the misogynist recommendations of the Welfare Working Group. John Key confirmed that his Government will confine our country’s poorest children to even greater poverty. 
What was his justification? He compared today’s unemployment rates in 2011 with those of 40 years ago. He said that in the 1970s the unemployment rate was 2 percent and now it is much higher and therefore it is all terrible and everything is broken. I tell John Key that 40 years ago this country had an employment policy of full employment. The then Government showed genuine leadership and supported business to make sure jobs were created so that every person who was able to and wanted to work could do so. Where are those jobs now? They are nowhere because this Government has shown no leadership at all. This Government has done nothing to create employment nothing to show Government leadership and nothing to provide genuine business incentives to New Zealand - owned businesses to provide more jobs for our people. 
In fact this Government John Key and his Minister of Finance Bill English take great pride in the fact that we have a low-employment economy in this country. We should not forget that John Key is proud we have such low wages. He considers it to be a market opportunity for New Zealand that we have low wages here that might attract new businesses from outside; international corporates might come here and want to employ our people on miserable low wages because that is a market opportunity for New Zealand. He is selling off our families and our children to those international corporates so that they can make money off the backs of the families in New Zealand who work. He is providing no Government leadership and no support to New Zealand businesses that want to provide for and support New Zealand workers here. 
Not only is John Key using irrelevant statistics to justify himself but he is in complete denial about the growing gap between rich and poor. When asked last week about this growing gap between rich and poor John Key said “Are we deeply unequal? I’m not sure that’s right. I haven’t had a really good look”. How disgraceful it is that the Prime Minister of this country has not bothered to understand the extent of the severe poverty faced by children in this country. It is not as if he does not have the people around him to help him find out and maybe to help him have a look at what is really going on for New Zealand families. John Whitehead the outgoing head of Treasury knows how serious the growing gap between rich and poor is. Treasury understands it. In John Whitehead’s report he showed graphs of how bad it is. 
I will show members the graphs. This graph here comes from John Whitehead’s report. It is a graph of income inequality comparing New Zealand with other countries. Right here we see that New Zealand is the sixth worst in the OECD. New Zealand is the sixth worst country for the growing gap between rich and poor. That is shameful. It is shameful that John Key does not bother to understand this because it means thousands and thousands of New Zealand children living in severe poverty. 
In John Whitehead’s report is another graph that shows the growth in income inequality. Down at the bottom it shows that New Zealand has the worst record for growing the gap. New Zealand has the worst record for growing the gap—growing it the fastest and growing it the most. That is a disgrace. We have abundant wealth in this country and it is not getting to the people who need it the most; it is going to those who have the most. We have seen how John Key and his Government have continued that appalling trend through National’s tax cuts for the wealthy through the increase in GST for the poor and through the failure to increase the minimum wage or to support beneficiaries so they have a liveable income. 
Maybe John Key would like some other evidence. Peter Gluckman the Chief Science Advisor whom John Key employed for the very purpose of providing him with evidence—evidence that he is quite happy to ignore—has also identified in his report from last week how serious the issues are with the growing gap between rich and poor and with inequality and its impacts on our children. 
In case John Key has not bothered to go and have a look at how bad it is I will tell him that the first victims of an unequal society and an unfair economy are always our children. Around 240000 children live in severe poverty in this country. That means for those kids that they live in cold damp homes where they get colds and flus that keep them home from school. It means for many a persistent sore throat and for some disgraceful levels of rheumatic fever that steal decades from the lives of these children. Rheumatic fever kills those children early. John Key said he had not really looked into it. It means 240000 children go without the basics every day—raincoats shoes a bike school trips and glasses so they can see the school board. It means many of those children are in poverty and living in families who are dependent on a benefit because benefits have been kept so low—first by a Labour Government and now by National. 
Many of those children also have parents who are in full-time work paid under the minimum wage or in casual or uncertain jobs earning a minimum wage that keeps them poor. Again Labour before and now National have kept the minimum wage so low that those families simply cannot survive without Government support. National has made vulnerable families the enemy in its campaign. It has made vulnerable families the enemy and has launched its attacks—whether it is cuts in services or cuts to income—increasing the gap between those who have the most and those in our country our own families who need the most. The Green Party will not be part of this vicious attack on families and children. We will fight against this war on children that was launched by John Key. 
The Green Party has the solutions to bring out of poverty 100000 children within just a few years. One of the ways we will do that is through extending the in-work tax credit to those families who are in the most need. Labour’s unfair policy of the past meant that beneficiary families were the ones most likely to be kept out of accessing that funding. The Green Party would remove the discrimination that those families have faced for too many years and it would make sure that they get access to the $60 a week that can make a real difference to those families which other families who are in work do access. We would also increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I am very pleased that both the Labour Party and the Maori Party are committed to that policy as well. That means there is genuine political consensus that people who work full time should get a living wage I tell John Key. 
We would also make sure that the training incentive allowance is extended to beneficiaries both on the domestic purposes benefit and on the sickness benefit. If there is one thing we can do with those who are dependent for whatever reason on a benefit it is that we can make sure they get access to the best possible education so that when they are able to move into work and into a good job they are more likely to get a very well-paid job to sustain themselves and their families into the future. That is how we care for people when they are in need. That is how we care for children both for their immediate needs and well into the future. 
You know it reminds me of John Key and his statement on the minimum wage when he said he would not tolerate putting it up because that would cost jobs. Well I tell John Key that it is frankly duplicitous to oppose a rise in the minimum wage on the basis that some people might lose their jobs when John Key’s Government announced in the Budget $1 billion - worth of cuts in spending in public services. That means cuts to jobs. It does not mean cuts to BMWs and it does not mean cuts to more flights in helicopters; $1 billion-worth of cuts to spending in public services means cuts to jobs. That means that families will suffer. The Green Party believes in a smart green compassionate economy and that is what we will be working for. Thank you.