Dalziel Lianne: Budget Debate 
Dalziel Lianne: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19096] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 That speaker Allan Peachey provides the evidence if we needed any that this Government has completely lost its way. It has completely lost touch with the reality of ordinary lives. I am absolutely surprised that the member opposite dedicated his entire speech to the Labour Opposition and actually highlighted why we will be the next Government. At the very last breath he gets to the word “aspiration”—aspiration! It is unbelievable that that man would devote his entire Budget speech to talking about the Labour Opposition rather than defending his Government’s Budget which he cannot do because it is indefensible. Budget 2011 should have been the Budget that delivered what was promised by John Key back in the 2008 election. I do not know whether anyone remembers what John Key said back then. Does anyone remember? I think he said he was ambitious for New Zealand. Do members remember that? He said he was ambitious for New Zealand. I am afraid I cannot see anything in this Budget that measures up to somebody who was ambitious for New Zealand. 
As a Christchurch MP I have to say and put on the record of this House that I am deeply concerned that we in Christchurch will be used as an excuse to do the sorts of things that this Government is signalling—and indeed delivering—in this Budget. The unpalatable aspects of the Budget I think are perfectly plain: the attack on KiwiSaver the sale of our country’s assets cuts to Working for Families cuts to student loans and borrowing as if there were no tomorrow. The Government pretends it has to borrow because of the work that has to be done in Christchurch. That is not the case. We know that it has to borrow because of the unsustainability of the tax cuts it gave to the highest earners in this country. We are not talking about tax cuts that were evenly spread—a tax switch. It certainly was not a tax switch for a lot of the people I have been talking to over recent days who tell me that the increase in GST as well as the increase in the cost of living has had a major impact on how much they have at the end of the week. Many people are in fact struggling to make ends meet and that is why I think the Prime Minister has proved just how out of touch he is with the everyday reality that so many constituents now face. 
I have been looking at something called disaster recovery since the beginning of the year for obvious reasons. In Christchurch we have serious issues to confront. But unlike members of the Government’s Cabinet committee on Canterbury earthquake recovery I have actually read our local civil defence and emergency management recovery plan. People in this House would be gobsmacked to know that actually we have one. In fact every part of this country has a civil defence and emergency management plan. They are required to have it under very good legislation that is in place and we have an excellent process in place to ensure we are prepared. The problem is that there is no translation between what is written on paper and an understanding of the preparedness for recovery. Our response effort is brilliant—absolutely brilliant—when it comes to the defence of people’s lives. Obviously what happened in the central business district on the days following 22 February was nothing less than extraordinary. But I have to say that what happened in the eastern suburbs did not meet the mark as far as response goes. And as far as recovery efforts go this Government has failed lesson No. 1. Rule No. 1 of all recovery planning processes is not to re-entrench pre-existing vulnerabilities when one is involved in the recovery. 
What was our economy’s pre-existing vulnerability leading up to this Budget? What do members think the biggest issue was? I think I have read somewhere that it was our savings record as a country. Yes savings have a major impact in terms of where our country is able to go. So what would a Government do if it was faced with a national crisis in savings? Would it do something about enhancing our KiwiSaver or do members think it would knock it back a little bit? Would a Government have a crack at it? Would a Government actually have an idea about what it might do? I have to say that this Budget represents the second time that National has tinkered with this scheme. Cutting KiwiSaver was one of its first acts in office in 2008. The problem I have is that this continual tinkering with the scheme moves the goalposts on New Zealanders creates uncertainty and reduces confidence in the country’s pivotal savings vehicle. Why would we do this if we are serious about addressing the recession we have been confronted with as a nation? Why on earth would we use this Budget to attack one of the fundamental ways we can address our savings problem? KiwiSaver has proven to be incredibly successful in meeting the objective of ensuring that people have the mechanism for saving. Government incentives for KiwiSavers are now relegated to the “nice-to-have” category which is simply not good enough. 
I am actually disappointed that National has decided to turn its back on the sort of cross-party buy-in we see across the Tasman. If anyone wants to look at how a country can actually address these matters then they should just look at the Australians and what they have had with their Australian workplace savings scheme. Yet we in New Zealand are confronted with a Government that is so short-sighted it is attacking one of the absolute fundamentals for getting our economy right. Without a savings culture in New Zealand Government debt levels may have been low when Labour left office—we left a very good record for this Government to pick up on—but household debt was already through the roof. That is something we need to address. 
I am deeply concerned about where National is going with all of this because I think this Budget signals to the people of New Zealand that this election is a referendum on asset sales. That is what this country is up for. I can go back to the previous time when National was faced with a situation similar to this: the financial meltdown post the stock market crash in the 1980s. I was here on the day when Ruth Richardson read the Budget out to the House and what was the particular approach that that Government the National Government took? It said we should sell assets. We should deregulate the labour market we should reduce welfare and we should introduce market rents for State housing. We should sell assets. We should corporatise the public health and education systems and outsource major components to the private sector as well as to the voluntary and community sector. We should sell assets. We should cut Government spending we should pare back the Public Service devolving more to the community and then—the triumph of theory over practice—we should introduce policy operations and funder-provider splits in the name of Government efficiency and get the community sector into a competitive market for commercial contracts. 
What is the Government doing now? It is doing exactly the same thing. As someone once said famously it is déjà vu all over again. That is exactly what it is. This Government is falling back reverting to type and doing exactly what it has done before. My point is that all of these measures are short-term opportunistic interventions that fail both tests. They are not sustainable and they do not build resilience. But we have to build resilience as a result of what has happened to our country; we have to make sure we are able to withstand the shocks that will continue to come. Let us not condemn ourselves to repeat the histories that recent history has warned us about. We need actually to learn another disaster-recovery lesson which is that if we are to get our economy back on track we need a Government that is prepared to co-opt all of us into the same pathway and to co-opt all of the resources available to us. That means we need more than a Government-controlled agenda at a talkfest called a Job Summit that produced a few predetermined results like a national cycleway. We need a Prime Minister who can do better than that. He promised to turbocharge the economy but he has done nothing more than kick the tyres.