Chauvel Charles: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Chauvel Charles: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
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CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate. I am glad that Mr Ardern is looking forward to my speech as well—but probably not quite as much as I am to giving it. I was interested in Dr Cullen’s opening remarks where he described the New Zealand economy as beginning to feel the effects of what is quite clearly a challenging global economic environment. He described the global increases in commodity prices—the cost of food and petrol is increasing significantly here at home and internationally—and obviously there are fears that those increases could impoverish tens of millions of people in developing countries. There is the continued fall-out from the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and the resulting global credit crunch. Those have led to higher mortgage rates and a weakening of the housing market domestically squeezing the budgets of existing homeowners and reducing household spending and investment growth. 
Two other factors are worth noting. One is the weakness of the US dollar which has been an important driver of a very strong New Zealand dollar until very recently and that has made life very difficult as we know for some exporters. Finally farmers have been battling drought in a number of regions and GDP growth will clearly have to slow as a result of that phenomenon in particular. 
Although those challenges are not of New Zealand’s making they are clearly affecting a wide range of New Zealanders today. The challenges we face are significant but the New Zealand economy faces them from a position of remarkable and one might even say unprecedented strength. Our recent Budget enhances the public investment in education health care the social agencies and other important services and I am very proud of it. Through that Budget it can be said quite fairly that we are addressing both the pressures of today which I have just described in part and the needs of future years. 
This Government has managed the public purse responsibly and it has not squandered resources in times of great optimism. [ 
Interruption 
] It is always a pleasure to have Dr Mapp agree with my sentiments. We have seen 345000 more jobs created. We should be very proud of that record I say to Dr Mapp; there are 345000 more jobs giving more families a stake in our economy. Unemployment has fallen by more than half and it has stayed at below 4 percent for over 4 years. One hundred and forty thousand fewer people are relying on a working-age benefit child poverty rates are falling dramatically and inequalities in health outcomes are finally starting to narrow after the 9 years of investment that this Government has made in that sector. 
All of that strong economic growth has now allowed us to fund increases in superannuation that have seen married pensioners more than $30 a week better off. That means that fewer of our seniors are living in poverty and that is a very good thing. We have also been able to reform the welfare provisions in order to promote employment and that combined with the strong economy that we have enjoyed over the last few years has seen us achieve the lowest unemployment ever recorded and a 25 percent increase in real household incomes. Those are achievements to be very proud of and they have allowed us as a Government to reduce the cost of seeing the doctor and getting a standard prescription to expand access to health services screening and immunisation to provide 20 hours’ free early childhood education to control the cost of tertiary education; and to build thousands of new State houses while restoring income-related rents for them. 
We have also begun a major assault on income inequality in retirement through using KiwiSaver which has seen huge numbers of young and low-income workers start to save for the future—never mind those predictions that there be middle-class capture of that programme; we are seeing Kiwis from all walks of life enrol which is something to be incredibly proud of. The total number of people in KiwiSaver has now passed 67000 after just 10 months of the scheme’s operation. 
Shane Ardern 
: Will they be able to afford to keep paying? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: “Will they be able to afford to keep paying?” asks Mr Ardern. Let us hope so because the more people we have saving for their retirement the better it will be for them and for the country. 
Hon David Parker 
: It’s less likely if National cancels the employer contribution. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: That is right. If we saw the employer contribution cancelled which we understand is the policy of members opposite what a devastating thing that would be to KiwiSaver. 
It is useful to contrast the record I have described with that of members opposite. I was really interested to read what Gordon Campbell had to say on the Scoop site yesterday. I want to read a little of what he had to say. John Key says National has its first 100 days in Government planned out should it win the election. What exactly does John Key have planned? Because he is not telling Kiwis. Campbell says: “Economic uncertainty is National’s latest rationale for why they are not releasing their main policy positions and costings until the election campaign has virtually begun. Off hand it is hard to think of a serious pretender to government in any other modern democracy that could get away with concealing the nature and cost of their policies for so long merely because it suits them tactically to do so.” 
Campbell goes on to observe: “A week ago … as No Right Turn pointed out the  
NZ Herald 
” had 
Mr Key “being voted the country’s sexiest politician and … Nelson MP Nick Smith getting engaged by writing his ‘Will you marry me?’ proposal in the sand with a stick. Spare us. Early this month National claimed to have already released some 14 count ’em 14 policies. Yet apart from its $1.5 billion promise to roll out broadband by 2012 none have any costings attached—a rather essential ingredient if voters are to judge how affordable the ‘policies’ are and the levels of debt that may be required to finance them. Counted on the list of 14 is the vague promise that by 2050 National will (somehow no details provided) reduce New Zealand’s carbon emissions to half their 1990 levels by 2050”—never mind the opposition to the emissions trading scheme—“and equally vague promises to adopt Labour’s nuclear free policy and to continue … [the] policy of targeting aid to the Pacific.” 
Campbell says: “Given the virtual information blackout National has imposed about its plans it would be surprising if fears about its hidden agendas  
didn’t 
 arise. Frankly it seems (a) scary and (b) infuriating to be this close to a possible change of government without National being willing to tell us how it proposes to care for the sick fund schools and universities manage the workplace protect the environment and run the economy. Just what has it got in its policy kitbag that it needs to hide?” 
In conclusion all I can say is that I hope Kiwis do not get too caught up in the media’s promotion of the “time for a change” agenda because with National and its policy vacuum all that would mean would be the taking of a great leap into the dark.