Maharey Steve: Budget Debate 
Maharey Steve: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21062] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 It is good to follow on from the valedictory speech of Mr Franks and to pay compliments to Mr Russell Fairbrother who as usual I thought gave a very thoughtful erudite even speech on the issues of crime and punishment. Of course he was not giving a valedictory speech; he will be here to do something about it post the next election. Budget 2005 was the sixth Budget delivered by Dr Michael Cullen. I doubt whether anybody—as long as he or she is not churlish or paid to be the Opposition as the Opposition are—would say anything other than that this has been a staggering run by Michael Cullen. I cannot think of a Finance Minister anywhere in the world who would not have liked to rise as Michael Cullen has year after year and deliver the kind of Budget that allows him or her to talk about growth to talk about jobs to talk about a surplus to talk about declining debt to talk about employment to talk about unemployment going down to talk about the number of people on benefits going down and to talk about investment. Everything that Michael Cullen is investing in matters to New Zealanders. That is what he has been able to talk about for 6 short years. 
Again this year in 2005 Michael Cullen rose in the House and gave us a Budget that featured not only all the good things that have gone on for the last five Budgets but he added to it by saying that to continue his theme of saving he will now create KiwiSaver a new work-based savings scheme that will also allow people to get their first home. About 5000 struggling Kiwi families will get their first home. He also reduced taxes for businesses across the country and moved taxes in the form of putting more taxes on carbon and less on business which is the way of the future. He put additional spending into core areas such as education and health. Michael Cullen enhanced the security of New Zealanders by investing in the police in defence in Working for Families and in the elderly. He also went on to support the now longstanding pathway to growth that this Government has overseen. 
People in the House may have forgotten this—people forget about the 1990s a bit—but from 1972 to 1998 the incomes of New Zealanders dropped. They dropped year after year. Then something happened in 1999: it was called the Labour-led Government. That was the change. The Government did not do it on its own; it had some good conditions. But this Government changed the settings of policy—Michael Cullen did that; he was the one who led it—and we have now had 6 years of growth. I am delighted that in this Budget we will do more for early intervention for families and for people who are on illness and sickness benefits to go back to work. We will help people in regions across the country to get into work. We will help young people to get started again. We will invest more in research science and technology—the single biggest increase in research science and technology was in this Budget. We will help more people to get a house. We are going to build more houses. We are going to make up for the deficit of 13000 State houses that were sold by the previous National Government which was on its way to selling the entire 70000. If National had got back into Government the entire 70000 State houses would have gone on the block. In broadcasting the nation-building process of making television programmes of supporting the independent screen industry of having independent radio all the nation-building activity that is represented in the arts and culture of this country which give it the soul that we are all so proud of now got more investment. And young people also got more investment and they will have more of a say in what goes on in this country. 
What does the National Party say? The National Party has said that if one has ingrown toenails if one wants to grow one’s business if one wants to buy a house if one wants a school or if one wants to do anything at all in this country one has to have a tax cut. I suppose what someone does with that tax cut is to buy his or her own hospital school or road because by Christmas National would have not just tax cuts but big ones. National promised us by Christmas by Santa Claus by the time we eat our Christmas dinner and by the end of December of this year monstrous tax cuts—billions of dollars worth of tax cuts. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is National still going to do that? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: My hopeful colleague from Otaki Mr Hughes asks whether National is still going to do that. He does not want the tax cuts; he wants investment in health education roads and all those things. But he wonders how the National Party could be as stupid as that. 
When a journalist rang to ask me what I thought about the tax cut policy of the National Party I said that now and again in politics I say to myself: “Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus that the Opposition can as stupid as this.” because that policy is what keeps National on the Opposition benches. I said that on the occasion of hearing Mr John Key and Mr Don Brash argue about major billions of dollars worth of tax cuts. 
We have the scene set now for a big election campaign. The story of success over 6 years after 30 years of falling fortunes in this country is that there have been 6 short years of gain for New Zealanders finally. That is our record against the rerun of failed 1990s policies—because that is all they can be. It will be a question of going forward or backwards come this election campaign—nothing more than that. We can go forward with things that are working or have another larrup at the things of the 1990s that drove us into the major deficit that this Government has been trying to address in the last little while. Six years ago when we came into office—and New Zealanders will be reminded of this time and time again come this election campaign—no one even trusted the Government to make a difference never mind thought the Government made a difference. People did not even think that it was possible for the Government to make a difference after we had had Richardson Shipley and other people who had wrecked the country. They did not even trust the Government to make a difference. We spent 3 years saying what we would do and doing it and when we went to the election 3 years ago people had rebuilt their trust in the Government. They thought it did make a difference in their lives. They thought that the Government did make promises and keep them and did make a difference—that government can be positive. So 3 years ago we said let us move from doing that to building the platform again and we did that as well. 
We have a success story. We are proud of the achievements that National says it will not continue. National says that it wants to change the formula radically. That is an important point. National is not saying that it will just do better on the basis of that fantastic formula—not that it will do better on housing or jobs or growth or whatever else—but that it will scrap that formula forced by billions of dollars of tax cuts. So we will go back to boom and bust rather than steady growth. We will go back to unemployed people being told that they are the natural consequence of trying to get the economy right and that they should be grateful to be unemployed because they are helping the nation. We will have every single region shrinking again as the regions did in the 1990s. We will have cuts to education and health. We will have a food bank industry back. We will see the investment in transport shrink. We will have no defence spending and no arts and culture spending—we will have just tax cuts. And it will be a first-term MP who asks us to believe that he can deliver on those tax cuts making a difference for New Zealanders. Don Brash is desperate to get there of course which is why he is promising that. He is 60 and he knows that if he doesn’t get there this time— 
Darren Hughes 
: 64! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: He is 64. If he does not get there this time he knows all the Young Turks are just waiting to take him out so he will promise anything that it takes including tax cuts and more spending on everything so that he can bribe people back into thinking that he can become the Prime Minister. 
Well I do not think Don Brash will become the Prime Minister. This is what I think will happen if the National Party ever gets there. Don Brash would not become the Prime Minister because he is not popular enough. The man who would become Prime Minister is the man who craves greatness in the shape of the man he is named after—that is Mr Winston Peters. Mr Winston Peters is also 60. Two old men in a hurry is what we are watching here. They now have to make it—or they lose it. So Winston Peters will say: “I am the most popular person. I am in the coalition. I want to be the Prime Minister!”. All through the campaign we will remind New Zealanders that on the shoulder of “Mogadon Don” is “Winston Call me Churchill Peters”. The man who wants to be king finally in his twilight years as he waits for the Zimmer frame will be saying: “Don move aside for me because the only thing I have to my record is bringing down the National Government. That’s all I have but I want to be famous. I crave success and greatness and this is my hour.” So come the election if the National Party were to win the Prime Minister would not be Don Brash; it would be Winston Peters. Is there any more fearful image than that? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The next five members will make 5-minute contributions with a bell at 4 minutes.