Parker David: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour):There is a rumour going around Auckland that the seat that the National Party is going to throw to Colin Craig is North Shore—North Shore—Maggie Barry: Yeah right!Hon DAVID PARKER: Yeah right! Well we will see. That is the rumour. They do not want to protect you Maggie. Colin Craig is coming for your seat they say. Devonport has had enough of Maggie and it is going to go to Colin Craig. Well time will tell.That is another example of how the National Party manipulates things for the benefit of the few. It is manipulating MMP for its own benefit and also we see it manipulating the way the New Zealand economy is run for the 2 or 3 percent at the top of society. That is going to be an essential issue at this next election. Do voters want to continue with the National Party and see the rewards going disproportionately to the top 2 or 3 percent or do they want to have a Labour Party under which everyone will get their fair share? Everybody will be expected to do their share of the work but everyone will get their fair share of the rewards under a Labour Government.Under National and under the policies that it has pursued this is clearly not the case. The list is such a long one it proves the point and people know it. We had National doing the special deal for Skycity. We had the special deal for Rio Tinto down at the smelter where it was bailed out for 30 million bucks and the Government did not even get a jobs guarantee. Why did it do that? It did that in order to sell the State-owned enterprises the power companies that used to be owned by all New Zealanders to less than 2 percent of the population and in the process privatise the value of New Zealand’s rivers which drive all our cheap hydro that we pay ever-increasing amounts for because it privatised them to less than 2 percent of New Zealand and to some overseas shareholders.What else has National done? Well crony capitalism does not come any clearer than it has this week with what has been going down with the National Party and Judith Collins and Oravida. There is $56000 of donations to the National Party Judith Collins’ husband being appointed a director off to China promoting while you are a Minister—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have had an urgent debate on this matter. This is the Budget Policy Statement debate and we are not going to regress to a subject that we have dealt with. The member can—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not notice when you came to the Chair but I was listening to Maggie Barry—Maggie Barry: That makes a nice change.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well I do occasionally but I was listening to Maggie Barry who devoted a large proportion of her speech to the matter of trusts and where money came from. That was also a matter that was transgressed in the previous debate and for you to rule that money that we are currently allocating as part of a process for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to give Cabinet advice to the Prime Minister—whether that can be debated or not as part of this policy statement—cannot be debated would be a very radical decision.My view is that we are debating the process which includes the money for the Prime Minister’s advice and therefore we should be able to refer to the quality of that advice and what the Prime Minister does with it.Maggie Barry: Speaking to the point of order.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I do not need any assistance. Well I can just assure the member I have been paying attention to the entire proceedings this afternoon and of course any comparative situations can be raised if they are pertinent to the current debate. What I am saying is that we are not going to transgress or shift back into material generally around a subject that we have debated. It needs to be pertinent.Hon DAVID PARKER: As I was saying under this Government we have an economy run for the top 2 or 3 percent. We have crony capitalism that is rife and I have instanced a number of examples that overwhelmingly prove the case. If you want more proof what about housing? There are decreasing rates of homeownership because a few people own a lot of houses and fewer young people can afford to buy one. That is another example of how this Government is running the economy in the interests of a few at the expense of the many. Under Labour it will be different. We have got a housing plan that will substantially change that.Why will the National Government in the face of rampant house price inflation not tax capital gains excluding the owner-occupied home like just about everywhere else does in the world? It is because it is protecting the top 2 or 3 percent whom it so plainly acts for who own multiple houses. So while the top 2 or 3 percent do disproportionately well we have got flat-lining wages for most workers. The Government comes along and uses an average. What that average hides is the fact that most of the gains are going to the people at the top. Indeed if you look at the amount that is paid differently from year to year for 1 hour of work it did not go up any more than the rate of inflation—it went up 1.6 percent for that same hour’s work for 1 year compared with when we had inflation at 1.6 percent.Look at power prices. Having privatised these State-owned enterprises having transferred what was previously owned by all New Zealanders to that small section of New Zealanders we have got power price increases and we have got the rewards of cheap generation from our hydro rivers being captured by the 3 percent who have bought shares. We have got rents going up we have got widening gaps between the rich and the poor we have got increasing rates of child poverty and the Government has not got a plan to change that.Well in the Labour Party we have. It is a very significant plan that will bring about a fair economy that works for everyone. David Cunliffe has already spoken of it. It will improve the amount of capital that we have got to invest in our businesses by having a compulsory KiwiSaver scheme so that there is more money saved in the New Zealand economy and we are less reliant on imported capital. That does not suit the National Party members. Their end of town is quite suited to more imported capital coming in. They like the concentration of wealth that happens from year to year in New Zealand. We do not. We want to save more in New Zealand.It was us in the Labour Party who created KiwiSaver with the support of Winston Peters and others with the support of the Greens—I hope—and with the opposition of the National Party. So in addition to building more capital growing New Zealand savings through a universal KiwiSaver we are going to make sure it is spent in the right part—not in the speculative part of the economy where National’s cronies hang out not in the area where disproportionately the top 2 or 3 percent who own multiple houses hang out—[Interruption]—or own big farms like David Bennett who is interjecting on me but does not want to pay capital gains tax.No National will not bring about a capital gains tax because it does not suit its members or the interest groups that back it. Nevertheless we will because we know that that will direct capital into the higher incomes and jobs that we need as a country in order to lift productivity and lift the wages and salaries of those people who work there.This means that we need to invest more in the further processing of for example our forestry exports. Why is it that we are sending so many logs offshore unprocessed? The answer in large part is because of the poor Government policy. Who suffers in respect of that? It is the New Zealanders who do not have well-paid jobs working in the forest-processing industry. Who benefits from the current settings? It is the small proportion of wealthy New Zealanders particularly the overseas corporates that now own our forests that is sending our logs off overseas.Who also benefits from these settings are the likes of Oravida. You do not like me talking about this Mr Speaker but I am afraid I have got to because Oravida’s interests are being pursued by the National Government and on behalf of the National Government by Judith Collins as a Minister going overseas and promoting the interests of Oravida which will make Oravida a wealthier company because it will improve its sales. That is why Oravida wanted Judith Collins to endorse its products and that is why Oravida skited about the fact that a Minister in the New Zealand Government endorsed its products. That was for the benefit of the big end of town. There can never be a clearer example. It was for the benefit of Oravida it was for the benefit of the National Party which got a $56000 donation and it was for the benefit of Judith Collins’ own family—her husband being a director of the company. Under the current Government you get it acting for the big end of town while everyone else is flat-lining or going backwards. Under the Labour Government you will get an economy that works for everyone and everyone will get their fair share.