Bennett David: Budget Debate 
Bennett David: Budget Debate 
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DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
 The previous speech was from a member whom I hold in high regard and have a great deal of respect for. She has proven herself to be an effective member of Parliament. However today she has delved to the depths of Labour Party tactics and has tried to bring fear to ordinary New Zealanders. All that speech was about was trying to make fear part of the New Zealand psyche. New Zealanders do not need to have fear; they need to believe in a future. 
This Budget gives New Zealanders a strong future. This Budget is seen by the international community as being successful and it will deliver results in this time of recession. The National Government is not going out there and creating fear amongst our communities. Those communities already know about the reality of the recession whether they have been affected through the private sector the Government sector or the voluntary sector. People know what a recession means and they know that nobody will be immune from the effects of a recession. They know that everybody will have to make sacrifices as this country goes forward and tries to pull itself out of the recession. The Labour Party does not acknowledge that. Those members come into this House and try to tell the people of New Zealand that everything is fine and we should be spending more and more. 
The reality is New Zealand cannot do that at this time; it has to be considerate of the economic situation and make prudent choices that will deliver a stronger economy going forward. I think Jonathan Young was right when he said that we got a hospital pass. We got an economy that was going into recession a country that had huge debt levels going forward and a country that had had 9 years of poor economic management. Only now are we are turning that round and in the 9 months that we have been in control our credit rating has increased. New Zealand is now seen by the international community as improving at the worst possible time in terms of the economic conditions and that is because we have prudent economic management decision making that is in the best interests of this country and no fear tactics. We are not going out there and trying to create a sense of uncertainty in these very uncertain times. We are going out there and delivering a future not creating uncertainty for people who are in a dangerous position. 
The Labour members talk about superannuation and that is the classic example of how they are creating fear amongst out community. The Labour Party preys on some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Labour takes advantage of the uncertainty of people on fixed incomes about their future and it tries to create a sense of doubt and loss in them when they do not have any reason for such feelings. The Prime Minister has made a watertight commitment that he will look after superannuitants and will not change their entitlements and we are maintaining them in this Budget. This is being done at a time when it is very difficult to maintain things. In Australia the Government could not maintain people’s entitlements but the National Government has maintained entitlements for those who are on fixed incomes. The most vulnerable members of our community have been looked after by the National Government in the most difficult of times. Voters will remember that. They will treasure that and when they vote at the next election they will remember that National looked after them in the most difficult of times. They will remember that we did not create fear in their minds but delivered for them so that they had some security going forward. I am very disappointed in the previous speaker for creating that fear because she knows better than that. She is an experienced member of her community and of this House and she knows that creating fear in her community is not in the best interest of this Parliament at this time. 
We have to ask what the Labour members would have done in their Budget if they had remained in Government. They would have done all the spending. There would have been no areas where they looked at expenditure; they would have increased expenditure. They wanted to build a tunnel under one of the suburbs of Auckland and that was another couple of billion dollars that they were going to spend. They were going to have universal student allowances that great promise they had during the election campaign. Would they have honoured that promise in this year’s Budget if they had remained in Government? Maybe not. Maybe David Cunliffe would have had to sit there and tell his members that he could not do the things they wanted to do. 
But the Labour Party members come here now and try to tell us they would have done those things. There is no chance that they could have done them because they would have realised that doing them would increase the debt cost to New Zealanders by at least 1.5 percent. That would mean that New Zealand families businesses and our corporate community would be paying more for their borrowings. In these times when our assets are lower than they were that would mean we would be losing money. We could have seen a situation where because of Labour’s increasing spending New Zealand businesses went under even further than they have gone. That would have meant there would be fewer jobs around than there are. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Tell us about Maungatautari and the $54 million cut to conservation. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: We have heard the members from Labour talking about adult community education. I have a little story for them. 
We had a meeting in Hamilton which one Labour member attended. A school mentioned that it was not very happy that its adult community education courses were under review under this Government’s policy. The school said it had a really popular course that it is doing at the moment and that it thought that course should be able to continue. I asked what the course was. The course was on teaching people how to buy property. Labour members expect the Government of this country during the biggest recession we have had in living memory to go out there and provide a free course to people who have enough money to buy their own home. That is the mentality of the Labour Party. That course does not add to the value of people who are trying to get a decent job or go on to further education. That is what those courses should be about. 
If we are to have adult community education it should be provided so that people can go on to further training or get a job. That means people need to concentrate on the fundamentals of reading and writing. Those are the basic things that need to be focused on in education. Adult community education courses offer another chance to a lot of people. That chance should not be a false hope; it should be a real hope that what people are getting from a course will add value to them as people so that they can go out and get a job or go on to further education. The National Government will not create false hope. We will not go out there and create fear in our communities. We will deliver a situation where we provide real and constructive actions in order to help people. I am sure we will see the community education providers develop and do well out of this Government’s policy because it will give them the opportunity to focus on what is needed for people going forward and not on the Labour Party’s mantra and fear tactics. 
If we look at the basic core expenditure of the Government we see it has been maintained in our core areas. In education and health there are moderate increases that are consistent with the needs in actual construction for example in education to provide jobs so that people can be working within their communities and also to provide a stimulus for the economy. That is something we can be very proud of in the Budget that was delivered a few weeks ago. Not only was the Budget prudent but it delivered some increases in expenditure in those core areas. The New Zealand public will be thankful for that expenditure. Within a few hours of the Budget our credit rating went up. Our credit rating went up the week before England’s credit rating went down. Our credit rating went up. That is a measure of the success of the Budget. Not only did the New Zealand public accept this Budget but they accepted that the superannuation entitlements were maintained. 
Given the talk about superannuation the Cullen fund and what Labour wanted to do I want Labour members to do something. I want Labour members to go to their bank managers tomorrow and say they want to borrow the value of their house in order to invest that money on the US stock exchange. I want to see those Labour members go out there to their bank managers tomorrow and ask to borrow the value of their house in order to put the money on the US stock exchange. Let us see how far they get with their banks. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: There is no US stock exchange. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: OK on the New York Stock Exchange—whatever members want to call it. I want Labour members to go out there and try to do that tomorrow. Let us see how long they last. Nobody would do that; it is stupid. The banks would not support that yet Labour expects the New Zealand Government to borrow money in order to do that.