Smith Nick: Budget Debate 
Smith Nick: Budget Debate 
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Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 That speech from that Labour member follows on from others and it sounded so much like the suicide note of a Government whose time has come. It is over the Budget is a fizzer and those members’ days on the Treasury benches are numbered. The reason the public have responded so cynically to this financial plan is that it is a cynical exercise in political vote-buying. 
Let us reflect on the last 5 years and what this Government has done. Those members came to Government in 1999 and set about taxing ordinary New Zealand families more than ever before despite their inheriting a strong economy from the previous National Government. They put up income tax and they put up excise tax on booze on smokes and on gas. If it moved this Government taxed it. An extra $4000 has been taken in taxes from the average New Zealand family and now those members think people are stupid enough to feel grateful that they will be given back a few bob. But there is a comeuppance. The Government will not give them the refund before the next election. Those members have delayed all these family support payments which they so proudly boast of until further on. It is a patronising attitude: “Eat your vegetables and you might get a dessert. Eat your vegetables be good kiddies and you might get a dessert.” Well the public are not fooled. They know they are being treated like mushrooms—fed muck and kept in the dark. 
What is more I really want to ask members opposite whether they truly believe in the rhetoric we have heard this afternoon. Somehow we are to believe that for the tax department to go out and collect $2.75 billion from working New Zealanders then for the welfare department suddenly to hand it back out again is sensible economics. It is voodoo economics. It is nuts. What members on this side of the House have quite consistently been saying is that rather than having all these families 60 percent of New Zealand families dependent on a benefit it would be far better to simply let them keep more of their hard-earned income. 
I particularly want to highlight the socialistic new regime we are going to have which will affect so many families. 
Darren Hughes 
: Another new word! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Hughes laughs. I want him to explain this to me: why under his Government does a family that increases its income from $38000 to $60000—that is a lot of hard work a lot of overtime a lot of hard graft—deserve only less than 10 percent of it? Why does he believe that that family deserves only $2000 for its hard work? Do the members opposite really believe that New Zealanders in that middle-income bracket will go out there and be as productive as possible contribute as much as possible to the wealth of this country when his Government will claw back so much? Is it not interesting how silent Mr Hughes has become? 
At least I have say he is better than Mr Maharey. Do members know what Mr Maharey said? When our finance spokesperson John Key pointed out that huge anomaly Mr Maharey the designer of this great system said that that was an extraordinary circumstance. What was the extraordinary circumstance? It was a family with two children living in Auckland on an income between $38000 and $60000. What planet are members of the Government on when they think it is extraordinary to have two kids and earn between $38000 and $60000! 
 I will give another example for the young member opposite: if a family with three children earns between $38000 and $70000 this Government will take 93 percent of their extra earnings off them; for every extra dollar they go out and earn this Government will claw back 93c. I say that is extraordinarily damaging to the New Zealand economy. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: The claw-back provision is there for them. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I tell Ms Tizard that it does not matter whether one earns $38000 or $68000 and it does not matter whether one earns $38000 or $70000 and has three children; they will all be paid the same. Does that not sound familiar? All those guys there studied old Karl Marx at university; they studied all that left-wing rhetoric about our all being equal. Well that is what the Government has done with this system. It will destroy innovation growth and wealth creation like no other Budget that I have seen in my 14 years of Budgets in this Parliament. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is National for the childcare package? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I tell that member that National is about giving families tax reductions. We say it is nonsense to collect money off families by putting their taxes up by $4000 and then to pay them out another $4000 in benefits. Further I ask Mr Hughes this: has Labour told the public of New Zealand in its $23 million propaganda campaign that over half of the payout is just catch-up for inflation? Let us go back to 1999. There have been 4 years of inflation and huge housing cost increases. Has Labour lifted the accommodation supplement? No. Has it increased the income thresholds on tax to match inflation? No. Has it increased the tax deductibility for any of its huge range of reductions? No it has not. If Labour were truly honest rather than spending $23 million on a hoodwinking exercise on the taxpayers of New Zealand it would give that money back to the public. 
Darren Hughes 
: It’s only $21 million. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Does that member really believe that spending $21 million on propaganda is better than spending it on special-needs kids better than spending it on hip operations and better than spending it on teachers and all those things that make a difference? No he is more interested in saving his own butt than in delivering any sorts of services for the people of Otaki. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: What about the people of Nelson? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Do members know what the headline in tonight’s Nelson newspaper states? “Get your candles ready for power cuts”. We have great talk of the growth economy we have the Government launching a new economic development agency and the new technology information age means for the people of Nelson cold showers and candles. What sort of state have we got ourselves in when that is the scenario? 
What has happened in terms of electricity in the top of the South Island is one of the issues that should have been dealt with in the Budget. This country faces an infrastructure crisis whether it be roading in places such as Auckland Tauranga Nelson and Christchurch or whether it is electricity issues—[ 
Interruption 
] That member Judith Tizard the “Minister Who Has Done Nothing for Auckland” pops her head up. What we needed in this Budget was some real action on issues such as providing electricity to power the New Zealand economy and there was nothing. What we needed was a genuine commitment to reform the Resource Management Act so that we can build some of the roads build some of the power stations fix some of the transmission problems and get small business growing. But again the Government is silent. 
Instead we have its nonsense laws of political correctness. Under its labour laws employers have to pay time and a half to people who call in sick on a State holiday—that is we think so but those members are not sure. I notice that Margaret Wilson the Minister responsible for that mess is in the House. 
So this Budget seriously lets down the people of Nelson. It gives a few dribbles of money out into the future if Labour comes back—and we know that that is not going to happen. We have no addressing of the real issues that are of concern to the people of Nelson such as electricity and dealing with our roading congestion and those sorts of issues. This Budget is a fizzer. It is a flop. The Government thought it would get it out of its political woes. It will not because it is a cynical vote-buying exercise when what this country needed was a Budget that would deliver independence not increased dependence; a Budget that would deliver real economic growth rather than more of the Jim Anderton style of corporate welfare. This Budget is a failure. Its policies will not last 18 months. May we soon have that election so that we can deal to the failed leadership of this Labour Government and can deliver policies that provide for independence and provide for a growing New Zealand economy.