Ardern Shane: Budget Debate 
Ardern Shane: Budget Debate 
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SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 When I spoke in the debate on one of the taxation bills immediately after the Budget I challenged my Labour colleagues to justify the position they took when they made the comment that dairy farmers in New Zealand were not paying their share of tax. I gave a reasonably hard-hitting speech towards them. I do not intend to do that tonight; I will spare Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson and the Labour Opposition that. I intend tonight to draw the comparison between Labour’s vision for New Zealand and that of the Key Government’s Budget which we have been debating tonight. 
First of all let us look at where we can grow the economy. The real irony of the comments made when we last debated this issue about dairy farmers not paying enough tax is that the only way we can grow this economy is to grow our export sector. That is the only way. There is no other way. There is no magic bullet. We cannot pay for the educational aspirations that the Green member spoke of we cannot pay for the extra police that the Minister of Police spoke of and we cannot pay for any of the things that I am sure the whole House would be united on unless we have a strong growing and dynamic export sector. The only way we can get a growing dynamic export sector is to have tax rates that are competitive with those of our international competitors which we must trade against. That is why this Government has announced that it will cut company tax to 28 percent and implement across-the-board personal tax cuts as and when they are affordable. 
We have heard from members on the other side of the House that this Government is interested only in supporting its rich mates. We hear that all the time. But we do not hear from those members where they would invest in order to bring about some of the changes they say are necessary. Let us look at what this Government has done. It has supported the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. A lot is said about greenhouse gas emissions and Labour has just announced that it will bring forward the entry of agriculture into the emissions trading scheme. But let us look at what the Key Government has done. It has contributed $45 million to the global research alliance to increase food production and tackle greenhouse gas emissions. 
This will come as a surprise to members on the other side but we are a food producer with one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world. Our farming systems are such that we produce food with a lower carbon footprint than most other food producers even when that food is exported to markets on the other side of the world. We are one of the best in the world; we are already ahead of the game. But what is Labour’s response to that? It would be to slap a tax on the farming sector. That would increase the cost of food and make us less competitive and that would create more production in systems across the other side of the world that are less carbon-friendly in their production systems than we are. 
What else has the National Government done? It has put $50 million in funding over 10 years into the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre. 
These are true investments; they grow on the back of the growth of the export sector. They are real tangible investments that will bring about actual results as opposed to the envy-type tax that we hear about from members opposite. Those members identify a small sector of the population which represents about 27 percent of the country’s export earnings and suggest to the community that those people are not pulling their weight. But I say that they are a group of people who as individuals more than pull their weight and more than pay their fair share of tax and they are the first to contribute whenever there is a major crisis such as the Christchurch earthquake. We saw that with the Fonterra tankers and the Farmy Army in Christchurch. Someone must defend them and that will be me. 
National will amend the emissions trading scheme to make it fairer to farmers and families. We did that straight after we took office and there is reference to it in the most recent Budget as well. We did that straight after becoming the Government. 
National will implement a more balanced approach to the policy of tenure review in the high country. People should have heard Labour’s opposition to that—they should have heard it. It was pure vitriol; I have never heard the like. I sit here and struggle with the reason why people would be I guess so bent and twisted towards the agricultural sector as Labour members can be at times. I guess we had that question answered the other night when we watched “Comrade Keith” on a dairy farm in the Waikato. The only downside of that of course is the fact that Keith is leaving Parliament. We may have one member in the Green— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: When the member is referring to a member in the House he must use the member’s full name. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The member Keith Locke spent a couple of days on a dairy farm on  
Make the Politician Work 
. It was apparently a couple of days but there was only one milking in those 2 days that I saw and most farmers have four milkings in 2 days. But I guess that is just part of the ignorance of the debate. Anyway the fact that we now have a member of the Green caucus who has spent a few hours on a dairy farm is great but it is of course unfortunate that he is leaving. So the only one who has any knowledge about how that sector works and operates will not be here to share with the House the knowledge he has picked up. 
What else has the National Government done in its Budget? It has invested $35 million over 5 years to get irrigation projects under way. Why is that necessary? I heard in reference to it that it would be better to put that money into education. Well anybody could argue that and I guess we could justify it but what would pay for that education if we did not invest in the very sector that produces the exports that will pay for those increased expenditures? So there is $35 million to unlock what is a huge opportunity for New Zealand in agriculture a huge opportunity for the economy and a huge opportunity to fund some of those extra social spending needs that many members have exposed or have suggested they are exposing in this debate. 
There is $300 million going into rural broadband initiatives to bring ultra-fast broadband to rural schools and communities. The only way we will be able to create a modern dynamic growing export sector is to have it up to speed in regard to technology so that it can compete against those countries that can produce products around the world as cheaply as we can. We are a small isolated rural economy. I know that Labour members hate that. I know that it just grates on them but it is still a fact. We are a small isolated rural economy that earns its way in the world by exporting high-quality protein foods to markets that are generally a very long way from where we produce the products. We do that as I said with one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world so investing $300 million in rural broadband initiatives to bring ultra-fast broadband to schools and communities is an essential investment in infrastructure if we are to be competitive in the world. 
There is about $450 million for rural infrastructure in a range of other services with roading being one of the major ones. Under the Labour Government we had 9 years of lost opportunity. There was a range of areas where investment would have driven the export sector and where we could have seen much greater prosperity for our rural communities. But what did we see? This is the legacy of the Labour Government. If members were to travel around electorates like my own Taranaki - King Country they would find rural schools that were once centres of excellence in education but that are now closed and abandoned. That is the legacy of the Labour Government. 
It is also the vision of Labour if we look at what it would do if given a chance going forward. Labour members’ answer to the problems that we face—the $380 million of borrowing per week as stated in their comments in question time the other day—is to tax the farming sector more so that we would be able to borrow less. We could spend more we could grow the bureaucracy we could push up interest rates and we could drive down exports. We could get an economy that was unbalanced and that would somehow rebalance what those members see as an inequity. But I say that the only way this economy can grow is to increase the exports of high-quality products to make New Zealand a more dynamic more prosperous economy and a place to which young people want to come back. 
I will finish with this story. My son who has an information technology degree and who is in London said to me that he wanted to come back to farming. How should I have answered that—“You are fine as long as it is not a Labour Government son.”?