King Annette: Budget Debate 
King Annette: Budget Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:4148] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Budget 2009 the Key-English Budget gets a D. In fact it gets three Ds: D for destructive D for deceptive and D for devious. That is what Key and English get: three Ds for Budget 2009. Mr English has dubbed his first Budget “The Road to Recovery” and that is parroted by every Minister who answers a question in this House. Well I have to quote old Rob Muldoon back to them today: if Mr English is the doctor of this recovery then he is one of those doctors who make people sick. The road to recovery that he talks about is littered with boulders and potholes. In fact there are great chunks of this road missing altogether. It is a road that thousands of New Zealanders will stumble and fall over in the next few years. They will be our kids and our grandkids who have had their superannuation support kicked out from under them. They will be people who are already unemployed who are about to be made unemployed who have lost overtime who have lost their part-time jobs or who have lost one family income when they have relied on two. 
Last night I saw the human face of unemployment when I was going home. I saw a woman sitting on her doorstep. She was crying. I said: “What is the matter?”. She said: “Today I lost my job. I don’t have any hope.” This Budget should have been about jobs for New Zealanders. That is what the Aussies are doing: providing jobs for their people. We are told that around 180000 people will be out of work next year and what do we get? We get a bicycle lane. That is what we get from this Budget the so-called Budget for jobs. It is not a Budget for jobs; it is a rocky road for business. Businesses looked in this Budget for something that would help them to innovate to create to invest and to employ. And what did they get? They got words they got platitudes and they got a failed Job Summit. 
It is going to be a long long road for students because their scholarships have been cut and their training allowances have been cut. Courses have been belittled by the Minister of Finance saying that they are hobby classes. Since when has literacy and numeracy been a hobby? They are vital tools for people to be able to learn and to get a job. Reading and writing are basic skills that people need. They are now called hobby courses by the Minister. Courses that are aimed at lessening violence are now called hobby courses. Since when was a course on family violence a hobby course that one would go on? That is what we heard from the Minister of Finance. 
This is not a road to recovery paved with prosperity; it is a road that is going nowhere at all. It is a Budget of destruction destroying KiwiSaver and systematically pulling it apart week by week. And what is it all about? It is about political jealousy. There is no other reason to destroy the only superannuation savings scheme we have in New Zealand for individuals. There has been no reason put forward for doing that. They have systematically pulled that scheme apart. They are pulling it apart for workers who had a chance—just a chance—to save for their retirement. They are destroying the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. They have suspended payments to it until 2020 or until we return to surpluses. 
I have a question for the silent members opposite. Will they suspend tax cuts until 2020 as well? If National members are still in Government will they suspend tax cuts until 2020 or until we get back into surplus as well? Does the same argument not apply? If they cannot save for our kids’ superannuation how can they afford to give tax cuts? Why would they borrow for tax cuts but not borrow to put money into a superannuation fund? That fund is now going to be called the “English fund”. It is no longer the Cullen fund—that has been destroyed. The “English fund” I tell the laughing member opposite Paul Quinn is fast becoming the English patient. That is what it is becoming. 
The editorial today in the  
Dominion Post 
 got it right when it said: “Last week’s suspension of contributions to the Cullen superannuation fund has made one unpalatable fact painfully clear. The age of eligibility for national superannuation is going to rise. That is not what the Government says. Both Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English say NZ Super will continue to be paid at a minimum of 66 per cent of the average wage from the age of 65. But that is a fiction … The reason the scheme will have to change is that there is a $31 billion hole in the government accounts. That is the hole that will be created over the next decade as a result of the Government’s decision to ‘temporarily’ halt contributions …”. 
This is a Budget of deception. The Government promised the people of New Zealand tax cuts in 2009. Tax cuts were a major plank. In fact they were the only plank of the National Party’s election promises. National took all Labour’s policies and said “We’ll implement those.” then said “But our major point of difference is the tax cuts that we can afford and we guarantee personally.” I have here the pledge card signed by John Key National Party leader. It pledges tax cuts. The issue is not really whether National gives the tax cuts or cancels them. That is not the issue. We have now got down to the blatant deceit of National’s telling New Zealanders that the tax cuts were affordable and giving the personal guarantee that they were affordable. National knew that those tax cuts were not affordable last year before the election. It knew the tax cuts were not affordable when it legislated for them in December last year. But National kept the deception going. Now the matter has got down to one of integrity sincerity and honesty. That is what it has got down to. That is the bottom line for New Zealanders. In the end people will say the Government should have cancelled the tax cuts for the rich. National did not do that; it gave the tax cuts to the rich. People will say the Government should not have continued with the tax cuts at this time but will ask why the Government promised them when it knew it could not afford them. 
National deceived the non-governmental organisations in New Zealand in respect of the Pathways to Partnership funding. Paula Bennett said the funding would be there for the non-governmental organisations. We now know where “there” is. “There” is not in National’s baselines or in the budgets of the non-governmental organisations; “there” is in Bill English’s contingency fund which is able to be spent on anything he decides to spend it on. The Budget has deceived the non-governmental organisations. Why get rid of a scheme like the Enterprising Communities scheme? Why get rid of a scheme that is there to help people help themselves? That is the very thing Paula Bennett said she wanted to do. She said that we are strong only if we look after the most vulnerable but that we need to encourage a level of self-responsibility and looking after ourselves. What about Te Whangai Trust? It was started by dairy farmers and aimed to give a hand up but not a handout. It employed 14 people. What happened to that trust in the Budget? It got the chop. 
This Budget is devious because the Prime Minister talked big about what he had done for tourism and what he was going to do for tourism. He got headlines up and down New Zealand a few weeks ago about his commitment to tourism. What did National do to tourism? The Tourism New Zealand budget has been cut from $75 million to $69 million. Its budget is the lowest it has been in 5 years. The tourism budget is the budget of the Prime Minister who gave a commitment to creating jobs in tourism. National has also cut home care to our elderly people. National has cut the funding for historic claims for people who were abused when they were in child welfare institutions. 
I want to add one more D to the Ds I have given the Budget. It is dumb. It is a dumb Budget. The Budget was an opportunity to create employment create training and ensure that there was a future in innovation and research and development. Even a vision was possible. What did we get? We got a 40-minute grovelling explanation to Standard and Poor’s to ensure that it did not give us a downgrade. That was the only emphasis of this Budget. What a disgrace. What a shame for New Zealanders.