Collins Judith: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Collins Judith: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10190] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 This is definitely a tax-and-spend Government. One of the things we need to think about when I make that statement is the fact that New Zealanders now pay $20 billion a year more in taxes than they did when this Government came into office—that is $20 billion spelt with a “b” not an “m”. That says to me that a lot of money has been pulled away from New Zealanders who have earned that money and it has then been thrown out as a lolly scramble. We have seen it in health. We have seen $4 billion extra go into health and we have seen no better health care than people had before this Government started spending. We have seen it in education we have seen it in welfare and we have seen it all the way through. 
We have also seen an economy that has benefited from relatively low interest rates until recently we have seen high immigration and emigration and we have had very high commodity prices for our farm produce. That has been a recipe for having more people come into the country more people wanting to build houses and more people wanting to get into work. That has been very good and one cannot argue with that. 
There is nothing like having people wanting to spend except that New Zealanders now face a huge increase in their interest rates. A lot of 2-year mortgages are coming up for renewal and those times will really hit New Zealanders hard. These are the people who are working who are saving and who are incredibly productive. They have children they work and they want to get ahead. We are losing these people every single week now—750 a week are going to Australia under this Labour Government. 
People say that they are sick of slogans and no delivery. They are sick of hearing about 20 hours’ free early childhood education and finding out that free comes with a fee. People are sick of hearing about having a single core benefit that will be the major welfare plank of the Labour Government and then finding out there is to be no single core benefit. The Government will now ask people whether they would like to work and if they do whether they will work. Well that is a really big effort—not! Many New Zealanders will say that they have to get up in the morning to go to work because that is how they earn a living. 
We know there are jobs available. We know also that this Government has overseen a massive increase in sickness and invalids beneficiary numbers. We now have 125000 working-age New Zealanders who are too sick to work. That is despite the fact that $4 billion a year extra is now spent on the public health system. That tells us that it is not good value for money. 
We have seen a decrease in unemployment and it would be churlish not to acknowledge that. But we have also seen a huge transfer of people from the unemployment benefit to the sickness and invalids benefits. We have heard doctors say that they are intimidated at times by people and that they are infuriated that Work and Income sends along people whom it knows have nothing wrong with them other than let us say an attitude against work. Doctors are sick of being pulled hither and thither. They are constantly told that if they complain about it then they are party to a fraud. Those doctors are simply trying to do their job and we should have far better controls over that situation. 
We have heard about tax cuts from the Government. We have heard from Mr Mallard that we are to have personal tax cuts. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Is that the new Minister of Finance? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: That is the new Minister of Finance; yes he is coming in as the new Minister of Finance. He will see off Mr Goff in that role. Mr Goff will not now be in that role because Mr Mallard will have it. 
Mr Mallard said we would have personal tax cuts. He told that to Australian audiences which were probably full of the almost 1 million Kiwis who are now living overseas. He probably told them that to try to get them to come back home. But Dr Cullen has said: “No we cannot have tax cuts. That might encourage people to think that they earn their own money and that they should have the ability to spend it.” Instead we have this Government telling people what their kids can have in their tuck shops. I think that is a fine move when it comes from a Government where a whole stack of members think it is OK for 16-year-olds to be allowed to vote but do not want 16-year-olds to choose whether to have a pie at lunchtime. 
What have we heard from the Prime Minister Helen Clark? Well she is not too sure. She has been in the job only 8 years and she is not too sure whether Kiwis should be able to keep more of their money. After all this Government has been taking $20 billion extra out of New Zealanders’ pockets during the year. 
We do know that a lot of young people are unemployed. We know this because of the household labour force survey which the Government has constantly said is the only true measure of unemployment. We have seen the numbers of 15 to 19-year-olds on the unemployment statistics for the household labour force survey actually go up not down under this Government. More people have been listed as unemployed on that criteria since 2003 than were listed then. That tells me that the great schemes are not working. We also know that fewer people are on the unemployment benefit because they are on other little benefits and schemes and are in training to not be on the benefit. All sorts of other little fiddles are going on. 
But none of that gets past the fact that we have a serious issue with some 15 to 19-year-olds. This Government has been somewhat remiss in wanting to deal with this issue. Maybe it is because it does not really want to have to say that sometimes someone has to sit down and tell 15 and 16-year-olds that they just have to knuckle down at school. Instead the Government has threatened some of the solo parent schools which my colleague Katherine Rich has noted previously. In fact it is putting teen parenting schools under threat. 
One thing we need to acknowledge is that children need extra help and 15 to 17-year-olds are still children regardless of whether they have kids. They are still children. They are still learning and their brains are still growing. If we can put a focus on those 15 to 19-year-olds and save them from a lifetime of poverty of having no choices and of always being at somebody’s mercy then we would do the most wonderful thing for those kids. We know that some of those kids have good parents and good families who want to help them. We also know that unfortunately some 17 and 18-year-olds think that their parents know nothing and that their parents are the last people whom they will listen to. But those kids do need help. 
Instead what we seem to do in this country is to alienate parents who are prepared to be involved with their children. In this House National members try constantly to stop the tide of legislation coming from this Government from Labour and its cohorts who constantly want to knock down parents parenting values and parents’ rights. I do not understand why the Government wants to do that. At the end of the day the State is an appalling parent. 
All we have to do is listen to the story that my colleague Anne Tolley was able to talk about during question time in the House about Child Youth and Family and its parenting role. What did it do? It took kids out into the bush taught them how to use guns gave them horses and guess what? The kids took off on the horses with the guns and the next thing they were shooting at police cars. So now we have 14-year-olds shooting at police cars. 
Bob Clarkson 
: It’s like “Killer County” isn’t it? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Well it is absolutely appalling. One thing we need to remember is that those kids did not just turn up at 14 like that. They have in many cases been in Child Youth and Family’s care for year after year. 
I have been to visit some of those residential care units where Child Youth and Family keep kids and I think one of the problems is we do not accept that when we send children back into totally dysfunctional homes after their 3-month stay in those units in many cases we are sending them back as hardened criminals. Effectively they have gone to school to learn how to be tougher criminals. That is what we are breeding when the State takes over. The State is almost invariably the wrong one to be involved in the welfare of those most vulnerable children. We need to support people such as the Salvation Army we need to support families and we need to support those who really know what they are doing in this area.