Brownlee Gerry: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brownlee Gerry: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 29 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2580. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 I rise to speak in favour of the Budget delivered by the Hon Bill English last Thursday and as a consequence to speak against the amendment to that motion moved by Grant Robertson from the Labour Party. We have budgeted $360 million for teacher professional development and Labour says no—$360 million to help teachers raise their professional standards so they can do a better job in the classroom and Labour says no. The story that we have heard from the Opposition since last week whether it is the Green Party the New Zealand First Party or the Labour Party has consistently been “no” to the growth Budget that National put in front of the country last week. It is extraordinary and quite unique in New Zealand’s history that a Government can put up a Budget that frees up $4.4 billion of funding for new initiatives that will support front-line services throughout New Zealand and that comes from savings through various activities of the Government in areas that were to say the least questionable in the first place. I think the fact that there has been very little comment about where that money came from indicates how bad it had become over a long period of years: successive Budgets loading up different sorts of initiatives with no particular result for the taxpayer or for individual New Zealanders.  
So in a year where the Government has delivered effectively a zero Budget it still has $4.4 billion worth of new spending initiatives in it. The record so far from that approach previously has been 27000 more elective operations being performed in New Zealand year on year and growing because of our new approach of getting better value from Government services. We have 2000 more nurses 800 more doctors and 1000 fewer back-office positions in the health ministry. Those are good numbers and they do represent progress in society. We have 600 more police on the beat. No wonder the incidence of offending is starting to fall and we are seeing some of the benefits from an intensive programme the police have had in crime reduction. National standards in reading writing and mathematics to raise achievements in schools will see great dividends for this country in the future. The support of those policies underlines the need that the Minister Hekia Parata has identified so well: to get quality into teaching and therefore the need to support teachers in their work. So as I say again $360 million in this Budget for professional development and our opponents say no.  
There are 3500 more early childhood places as a result of this Budget and 48000 rundown State houses will be upgraded as a result of this Budget. We get from the other side constantly all sorts of stories about the conditions that people have to live in in various parts of the country and all sorts of stories about living in squalor living in poverty etc. etc. We are going to fix 48000 State houses this year which is just a continuation of what has been going on year after year under this Government and Labour says: “No that’s not a good idea.”  
We have 12000 more tertiary education places. That is equivalent to a whole new university full of students developed over the last 3 years and funded into the next 4 years by the current Government. That is a commitment to raising the educational profile of the entire New Zealand population.  
Then we come to the Labour Party’s complete denial of the huge difficulty that the Christchurch earthquake places in front of not only people in that city but throughout this country because of the type of nation we are where we all like to support one another. It is a big commitment to take $5.5 billion put it aside and say we will be spending that over the next X number of years plus all sorts of other expenditures that are likely to grow over that time and to make that absolute commitment that we are there right to the end. And what did Labour do? Well Labour came out firstly with a question last week suggesting that we had not actually spent that. Utter rubbish! Those people who have received their red zone settlements and those people who can see the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team—or SCIRT—working know that that money is being spent. And throughout the city in the Greater Christchurch area there is massive evidence of the activity that will lead to recovery. 
 What does Labour say? We have the wrong structure in place—we should have had a State-owned enterprise running it according to their spokesman. Well a State-owned enterprise generally has the capacity to earn its own revenue. There is no capacity for the Government to earn revenue out of this particular exercise. Then there is the suggestion that it should be a Crown entity of some sort. Well that would require a committee of the great and good appointed by the Labour Party to somehow superintend activities between the people who need the attention and the Minister who is responsible for the money. That would lead to a degree of tension and controversy that people in Christchurch at the moment simply do not need.  
The Government stands alongside people in Christchurch and on 27 July another milestone will be achieved when the Government is able to finally approve the redevelopment programme for the central business district. That will be a day when we will see a lot of people make big commitments or begin to make big commitments to that rebuild of Christchurch.  
The other thing that is surprising in this Budget is the apparent lack of worry from the other side of the House about New Zealand’s financial situation and absolutely no recognition that there is throughout the world a crisis going on. New Zealand’s economy is 1 percent of the world’s economy. We are like a little leaf on a large tumultuous ocean that is being battered by a hurricane. We are keeping our head up as a nation—no question about that—in quite a remarkable way. But for there to be a denial that the turmoil in the rest of the world’s economic activity is somehow not going to affect New Zealand is I think an abdication of any chance of ever leading this country to any sort of economic better position.  
We on the other hand have recognised that there was a necessity to nurse New Zealand through those worst years. From the end of 2007 right through 2008 we were in recession. No question about that. The previous Government did not recognise that in the 2008 Budget. We have kept the worst effects of what could have been a very disastrous economic downturn for New Zealand at bay by responsibly engaging in Government activity that has maintained our economic activity. But there is a time when simply there is a necessity to recognise how costly that is to get a track back to some sort of surplus position and to start reducing debt. And that is what Mr English has done in this Budget and he should be congratulated on that. To suggest as Mr Robertson did when he moved the amendment to the motion that— 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Shearer. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Sorry? 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: It was Shearer I think. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I was sure it was Mr Robertson but I could be wrong on that. It really does not matter. What the Labour Party members have said is that they do not support that concept. They do not support the idea of having a balanced Budget. They do not support the idea of making sure that you do create an opportunity for new initiatives to occur in your economy by shifting around the money the Government currently spends to ensure it is in places where it matters and they have no concept of the need to reduce debt as a nation. Those things indicate that this is an Opposition that has no intention of being a Government and is quite contented to sit around criticising everything that everyone else does. It has a single answer in response to any initiative that a Government puts up. That single answer that single response is always no. I predict that that will be the answer that voters give this crowd next time they get the opportunity—no.