King Annette: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
King Annette: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:656;Page:5910] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call in this debate today on the third reading of the Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill and the second reading of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2009/10) Bill. It seems a long long time since Budget 2009 since Bill English walked through those double doors with his brand new shirt and tie on clutching his blue Budget in his hands. He was so excited and eager. It is a long long time since the Government primed up the National backbench to clap at every pause and every apostrophe in his speech. Every punctuation mark got a round of applause from the National backbenchers. They looked adoringly and longingly at the Minister of Finance. There has been a lot happening in the New Zealand community since Budget 2009. 
Since that time 2000 people a week have been thrown on to the unemployment scrap heap in this country. That does not matter much to the National Party but the public is certainly starting to take notice of it. They are feeling it in their families and in their pockets. They know that we have a big problem. The Minister for Social Development and Employment said that unemployment was just a blip but I have to tell her that that blip is becoming a blight on the landscape of New Zealand. Then we have the Prime Minister telling New Zealanders that the recession will be over by Christmas. Unfortunately his Minister of Finance does not agree with him and I note that last night when the Minister of Internal Affairs was shovelling out some cheques from the Lotteries Commission he said that organisations were going to need that money because it was not known when the recession would be over. The people of New Zealand have been looking at what this Government’s response is to the growing number of people who are being made unemployed. We were told that there was a rolling maul of initiatives but it seems to me that it is a rolling maul where they seldom find the ball. There is a lot of eye gouging going on. We have seen that in the last few days between the ACT Party and the National Party and the Maori Party and the ACT Party. It seems to me that whenever they get near the ball all the Prime Minister does is kick the ball for touch. 
The Government held a summit where it was going to solve the unemployment problem in New Zealand. It was billed as refreshing exciting and collaborative. It was idea-generating and visionary but it produced a 9-day fortnight in which 33 companies showed an interest. It produced a cycleway that was going to be from the North Cape to the Bluff and create 3700 jobs but unfortunately that big idea is now a number of little bike rides and there is no talk of jobs at all. This Government has been unable to produce a decent idea to help New Zealanders who have become unemployed. What does the business community think about that summit? The Research New Zealand business confidence report for July said that it was very very disappointed in this Government. Only one in every hundred businesses signalled that they had any faith in the Job Summit producing any gains for small business. Nearly 50 percent were convinced it would have zero impact on their business— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: How many? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: “Zero percent impact” said 50 percent of the businesses surveyed. They thought the summit was a joke; it was a joke. That was that Government’s response to the unemployment rates. 
In the meantime the numbers climb every day. People are going on to benefits every day in New Zealand. We now have 310296 on main benefits in New Zealand. That is up from 258000 and growing fast. What has this Government’s response been? It has been a whole lot of slogans. Let us name them. We have ReStart and today we heard about Fresh Start for young offenders. We have Job Ops we have Community Max and today we got boot camps. They are a whole lot of flash names and very little action. The number of people going on to these programmes in relation to the number of people who are becoming unemployed is minuscule. I ask members to look at the ReStart programme the flagship programme from Paula Bennett a few weeks ago. We know the number of people going onto the ReStart programme has gone down every week in the last month. The unemployment numbers are going up but the number of people who can access this flagship programme are going down. 
Then we had Job Ops. We know that one-third of those on the unemployment benefit are young people. It is a serious issue. Paula Bennett rolls out her latest slogan which is Job Ops. Employers will get $5000 for each new job they create for a young person. Only there is a problem—they are not new jobs that are being created. Employers around New Zealand are saying they are existing vacancies that would have been filled by a New Zealander; they are not new jobs. What have we got? We have exactly what Grey Power said to me would happen; we have the old unemployment merry-go-round under way. So $5000 is given to an employer to take on a young person and deny an opportunity for an older person who then goes on the unemployment benefit. It does not make a jot of difference to unemployment in New Zealand. It has a feel-good factor for the Government and that is all. As Grey Power said we have many people aged 50-plus who are now not getting jobs at all and not getting a look in. They are not getting a subsidy. If they have a partner who works they get no help at all. They have families they have mortgages and they are under considerable stress. 
This is the time when one would have thought that a Government would invest in skills and in education and would train people to be ready for the uplift in the economy that will happen. But what did it do? It cut many of the important programmes that would have helped New Zealanders into jobs. It cut community education cut scholarships and cut the training incentive allowance—the very assistance that got the Minister for Social Development and Employment into a job. At this time when we should have these tools to help people get jobs the Government cut them. It does not make sense. No one can make sense of it. 
So what is this Government doing? It has decided that it will rule by committees. It has set up 40 committees since the election one for every week that National has been in Government. 
Hon Members 
: How many? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Forty committees! The Government has set up review committees and regulatory review committees. It has set up advisory groups and technical advisory groups. It has set up ministerial panels boards of inquiry task forces expert panels policy forums and working groups. It is a Government run by committees and bureaucrats. Every one of those committees has to have a whole lot of people to run them. They have to have a travel budget and they have to have consultants to run their committees. This is a Government that cannot make a decision. It kicks the ball for touch. It sets up committees reviews task forces panels and forums but will it make a decision that will benefit New Zealanders? No it will not. 
We are very very concerned at the lack of action by this Government when it comes to people who are unemployed in New Zealand. Over 50000 people are now on the unemployment benefit. Over 138000 people are out of work and by next December we are looking at 180000-plus people out of work. In the meantime let us have another committee! Let us have another task force! Let us have another review! But for goodness’ sake do not put in place anything that will make a difference to the lives of New Zealanders. This Budget could have done so much for so many people; it did so little. It is a real disappointment.