Shanks Katrina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Shanks Katrina: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon. I stand here in the capacity of a National list member of Parliament for the electorate of Ohariu—great electorate that it is. I stand here in the capacity of a wife a mother a sister and a daughter. In fact Labour would most probably call me an ordinary New Zealander. But I do not want to be an ordinary New Zealander; I want to be an exceptional New Zealander doing exceptional things. I think that we should all be aspirational and exceptional. I do not think we need to be ordinary. 
The Prime Minister’s statement highlighted a full programme of reform for the 2010 year. It is the programme that the National Party was elected on and that a million people in New Zealand supported on election day. It is a programme of lifting the country’s economic performance and achieving a brighter future. 
We hear endlessly that our country is rich with natural resources and that we are one of the best food producers in the world. We hear that our country is clean and green and we hear that New Zealanders are working hard and smart. Now is the time to start capitalising on the amazing assets New Zealand has. 
There is no silver bullet to ensure that New Zealand has globally competitive salaries or that every child who leaves school is able to read and write. There is no silver bullet to ensure that businesses want to stay in New Zealand because it is economically viable for them or that we are able to turn round a child or even a family who has gone off the rails. There is no silver bullet; there is no one answer. What New Zealand needs is a comprehensive programme of step changes and that is what the Prime Minister John Key delivered for all New Zealanders in his speech this afternoon. 
The economy is an important driver to New Zealand’s becoming a prosperous safe country with well-paying jobs and a high standard of living. The Prime Minister today outlined six key drivers which obviously the Labour Party slept through because those members have not been able to tell us what was delivered in that speech today. They cannot tell us what the drivers were what the platform is or what the change will be—and there was much in the Prime Minister’s speech that highlighted that today. 
A growth-enhancing tax system is a good beginning. Currently we have a tax system that taxes labour and investment income at a relatively high rate and taxes consumption at a relatively low rate. If we are serious about turning New Zealanders from spenders into savers then the tax system is a powerful lever in making that change. New Zealanders will see tax reform from a National Government that creates incentives for people to work hard improve their skills and be rewarded for achieving. The changes in the tax system will see much more fairness in the way that taxes are paid instead of seeing those who know how to best structure their legal entities gain the best advantage. 
National is considering changes in a range of tax areas—personal tax GST property—but at the end of the day we need a tax system that will have integrity moving forward over a period of time. Making small changes here and there actually makes it more complex harder to manage and much more unfair and when we do that we create loopholes which is what we see currently with property. That will change. 
Currently there are over 9000 families who use legal entities own investment properties and are able to access Working for Families which is aimed at low-income families. That was not what Working for Families was set up for. It was not set up for those people who can afford to get ahead themselves. It was set up for families who were genuinely in need so that they could live day to day and raise their standard of living so that they could live well and so that their children could have a certain standard of living. The tax system should be about fairness and the current system does not deliver that for New Zealanders. 
The Government wants better public services. The people of New Zealand work hard to earn a living and when they are taxed they expect the money to be spent wisely. In our own homes we work out what our budget will be. We have to consider the needs and priorities in our households and we spend money accordingly. The Government expects no less from its ministries and departments. It is not much to ask for. The Government is committed to ensuring that its departments will spend wisely the money that people have earned and will not waste it. 
Labour signed off on a formal policy in 2005 to increase the salaries of chief executive officers by 5 percent a year for 5 years. National cancelled this policy in 2009. By 2007 there had been a 375 percent increase in the number of public servants earning $100000 or more since Labour first came into power in 1999. A report in 2008 stated that in just 2 years there had been a 43 percent increase in the number of Public Service staff earning six-figure incomes not including the chief executives. 
Between 2000 and 2008 we gained 28 percent more front-line doctors and nurses but 51 percent more people were working in the Ministry of Health. Over the same period the number of front-line public servants in the Ministry of Social Development increased by 23 percent but the number of policy analysts research units and corporate units has ballooned by 109 percent. Is that where we want to spend our taxpayers’ hard-earned money—in the back office? We need the back office but it needs to be controlled. We need front-line services and that is where our funding should be going. 
Let us imagine a Government that has a vision for high-performing science systems supports economic growth and a wider innovation system and encourages firms to increase investment in securing their future development. Well that is what the National Government will do. We will make an investment in the Primary Growth Partnership of $40 million increasing to $70 million this year and we will make an investment in our agricultural greenhouse gas emissions to ensure that our agricultural sector can have access to the very best research in this area globally. This is just the beginning of the list. 
This National Government is committed to science innovation and trade because that will be the future for our country if we are to grow our cake. It is about growing the cake; it is not about how many ways we can slice the cake. We can keep on re-slicing the cake but if New Zealand really wants to get ahead we have to grow that cake and that is what this Government is focused on. 
Ten separate streams of work covering economic growth are under way. They are areas like infrastructure urban design and critical work improving New Zealand’s freshwater management. The Government will be releasing a raft of discussion documents for public consultation on the many potential changes we are looking at but one of them will be a change to the Crown Minerals Act. The mining of minerals is an untapped resource in New Zealand and it is one that New Zealand can benefit from economically. This has to be done in a considered manner to ensure that the environment is not harmed but we should be looking at it as a viable option for New Zealand because it can make us a much wealthier country. 
One thing I would like to touch on is our education in schools. I am the mother of three children aged 8 10 and 12 who are all at primary school. I can tell members now that as a mother what I want to see from my children’s reports is an understanding of how they are going where they are going and how they will get there. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That’s what my children got. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: That may be what the member’s children got but right here right now that is not what all the schools are delivering. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Do you get that for your children? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: No I do not actually. I can tell members what I do get for my children. 
Kelvin Davis 
: Go and talk to the school. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: I have talked to my school. I have been to see the principal and I asked her to work through the report because what I got this year for one of my children was a report that stated which level he was on and what he did. It was pasted out of the curriculum. As a parent I had to ask what that level meant to me. I had nothing to compare it with. It was just a level. Is my child above the level below the level or on the level and has he progressed at all? I just did not know. I could not tell. 
Is it too much to ask a school to report to the parents on exactly where a child is at and whether a child has improved from one year to the next or even from one 6-month period to the next? That is all we want. Many schools do that very very well but there are many schools that do not deliver that. As a parent of three primary school children I tell members that all I am looking for is a bit of transparency and some honest reporting. The school should tell me how I can help my children and whether they are progressing.