Henare Tau: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18154. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TAU HENARE (National): As we move around the tracks people are saying “We’re voting National.” Why? Because what we heard last week from the Minister of Finance was a Budget for the times.Dr David Clark: Is that at the Cabinet club traps?Hon TAU HENARE: And that guy over there from down south who keeps mouthing off about 50 years of this and 50 years of that—well listen up. That is the worst Opposition in 50 years. It is not like when Helen Clark was in Opposition. She had all the troops lined up. That is the worst Opposition in 50 years. How do we know that? Mr Cunliffe got up on his feet last week and first of all railed against Bill English’s Budget. He railed against National’s Budget and then said without a blink of an eye that the ideas came from David Parker. How do you work that one out? It was the worst Budget in 50 years but the ideas came from David Parker. I do not know how the Opposition works that out.Free health care and free prescriptions for under-13-year-olds—if there was nothing else in the Budget that in itself says to me and to the rest of the country that we are putting families first. Opposition members bleat on about the amount of money that we borrow. Well somebody had to have some money during the—Dr David Clark: More than Muldoon.Hon TAU HENARE: Oh here we go. Oh come on! The fact of the matter is that this country was nailed to the cross—nailed to the cross—when we took over because of the global economy. Nobody argues about that. Here is the rub: if we had done what the Opposition wanted which was to get rid of Working for Families—how much isthat worth? How much is Working for Families worth? My goodness me! There would have been an uproar and my cousin Darien Fenton knows it. So what did we do? Well we kept the benefit. We did not slash and burn. We did not get rid of Working for Families—Hon Damien O’Connor: You cut taxes for your mates.Hon TAU HENARE:—we paid for it. Oh our mates on Working for Families! Our mates on the benefit! Oh my goodness me! It is no wonder that the Labour Party is on 29 percent.While I am at it let me take a pot-shot at the Labour organisers inTāmaki-makau-rau. First of all they wanted ShaneTaurima and then they thought “Oh well we better leave that boy alone.” So they said no to him and let the nominations ride. They wanted Julian Wilcox who is a very very good operator but he came to his senses and said no. The only other nominee forTāmaki-makau-rau was poor old Will Flavell from Rutherford College. Do you think they gave it to him? No. What they are thinking of doing is extending the nomination time for—Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that the member may have run out of good things to say about his own Budget but this is in fact the Budget debate and I think the speaker should—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No look—[Interruption] Order! This is quite wide-ranging—[Interruption] Order! I am listening very carefully to what the member is saying and I will rule accordingly if it comes to that.Hon TAU HENARE: So Labour put up Will Flavell onMaraeor onNative Affairs the other night and what happened? Poor old Will talked about housing and transport. Yeah that is going to be really good for Māori!I will tell you what this Government has done for Māori. It has put in place some real standards in education. It said to Māoriwhānau out there that what we need to do is educate our people. More Māori are now getting a better education than they ever did under Labour.Sue Moroney: That’s not true.Hon TAU HENARE: It is absolutely true.Sue Moroney: No it’s not true.Hon TAU HENARE: It is absolutely true. The Public Service Association (PSA) the other day organised a protest—if you can call it a protest. Fifty people—50 people—turned up.Darien Fenton: Where?Hon TAU HENARE: Out here—fifty people for goodness’ sake when there are thirty thousand - odd people in the public service. In my day there would have been 100000 people out there. There would have been protests in the streets. The Labour Party tried to organise a little gathering shall we say of fifty signed-up paid-up members of the PSA. That is all the Labour Party could get. That is diabolical. In the good old days when Darien was working the streets and organising the workers in Auckland you could get thousands upon thousands of people at a protest especially in Budget week. But what did we get? Fifty people from the Ministry for the Environment who were not doing anything that day.This is a good Budget. This is a Budget that steadies the ship. I tell you what we are moving into surplus—we are moving into surplus. In fact tonight I saw something really really interesting. I would have thought that with only 4 months to the election all hands would be to the pump in the Labour Party as they are with National and as they are with most parties.Dr David Clark: They’re all jumping ship.Hon TAU HENARE: Well let us talk about jumping ship shall we? Because what I observed with my good colleague John Hayes not more than 10 minutes ago was the leader of the Labour Party going home. He was going home. It was half past 9 for goodness’ sake! You would have thought that the leader of the Labour Party who wanted to be Prime Minister would be here burning the midnight oil while his—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member cannot mention someone who is absent from the House.Hon TAU HENARE: My apologies Mr Assistant Speaker. You would have thought that the go would have been to be working hard for his Prime Ministership. He wants the job. Anybody who wants the job should be working all hours of the night not just going for a stroll home.This is a good Budget. This is a good Budget because it got people like AC/DC’s song back in black. I am sure some of the members over there know the words to that song. Darien knows the words to that song “Back in Black”. That is what this Budget and this Government promised so many years ago. We said years ago—Sue Moroney: Nine years in a row under Labour.Hon TAU HENARE: Yeah if you want to say 9 years madam whip from the Labour Party that is not a problem. We will accept that because I will tell you what—it will not be only 9 years. Add another 3 years on to that. Add another 3 years on to that. And when members are getting up in 3 or 4 years’ time when Bill English delivers his ninth and tenth Budgets none of these fellows will be here. None of them will be here.Hon Hekia Parata: None of them are here now.Hon TAU HENARE: Yes. Well I was going to say that none of them are here now but I am not allowed to say that.This is a Budget that gets at the heart of Kiwis. It is about food on the table it is about shelter over the head and it is about making sure that decent honest hard-working battling New Zealanders can send their under-13-year-old kids to the doctor for free. That is what it is about. It is pretty simple. That is what Kiwis want: the ability to be able to bring their kids up and be able to send them to the doctor when a crisis arises in thatwhānau. I am overjoyed. In fact I am immensely happy—immensely happy—about this Government’s way and where it is going. It is a Budget for all New Zealanders. It is a Budget for working class people. It is a Budget for those who earn a bit more than the minimum wage. It is a Budget to make sure that we—Darien Fenton: What about those who earn the minimum wage though?Hon TAU HENARE: Oh look. The fact of the matter is that people are coming home to work. People are coming home from Australia from England from South Africa and from all over the world to be able to partake in a country that is going ahead. They know it and we know it.