Jones Shane: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10415. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): To the members of the crochet club in Hawke’s Bay that was the member for Tukituki. The meaning of such a word—tukituki—is to beat. If there is a Minister full of promise but very empty on delivery it is the beaten member for Tukituki. His name is Mr Foss. His name is Mr Foss which rhymes with dross. What we have just received was a lamentable and forgettable and very disappointing speech from a person of the Hawke’s Bay whose region suffers 8.9 percent regional unemployment. Only my own area of Northland has a worse unemployment rate reflective of the fact that we have to rely on Mr Sabin and Hone Harawira to actually advocate for it in a constituency seat.Mr Foss is a person who actually represents what is wrong with this Budget. This is not a Budget for the low-waged citizens of New Zealand. This is a Budget for the over-hyped consumers of the sharemarket the purchasers of services from the merchant bankers and those who are wiping their consciences clear as housing prices spiral out ofcontrol. There is not a glimmer of hope from that side of the House that that will be arrested. Let me just recap before we talk about the Budget: dross Foss Tukituki low-wage economy 8.9 percent unemployment Hawke’s Bay. That is the gift of this Budget to that part of New Zealand.Let us talk a little bit more about unemployment. Unemployment is without a doubt the area where this Government will eventually fall and move to this side of the House. There are no jobs being created that meet the aspirations of our young people. We are into serious double-figure youth unemployment. I accept that the senior members on that side of the House cannot admit to this but the majority of our regions that are dealing with significantly double-figure unemployment are busily encouraging their young people to leave those regions and go to Australia. They know that it happens in their regions and it is an indictment on the Government that the best it can deliver is a passage to Australia.But it is worsened by one other thing and the thing that eclipses that level of folly is the attitude shown by the current Minister of Māori Affairs. I cannot let “Huggie Bear” escape today. You cannot use small amounts of dough which may actually contribute to the development of a bilingual nation—I have no idea and he does not even know himself—to mask the fact that Māori unemployment is approaching in a number of our areas 40 percent amongst the ages of 15 to 19 and 19 to 24. A thousand million grants to grow gardens at the back of the marae—and if they are not well-tended let me tell you they will have electric puha in them—cannot mask the fact that there has been abject failure by the current Minister of Māori Affairs on unemployment.He can at least offer the defence that he does not understand it because that is a brilliant defence; it is the truth. But members on this side do understand it. They understand that Government members have narrowed their attention and their resources to enrich a narrow caste of the New Zealand community. How have they done this? They are selling a pup to you and me as New Zealanders that the only way to resuscitate the capital markets in New Zealand is to take property developed by countless generations of Kiwi taxpayers and then gift it to a narrow range of Kiwis who may be possessed of either connection or a little bit of capital to purchase those shares.That in itself is an indictment on the people who are speaking very very grandiloquently about the power of the sharemarket. If it was that good why do we need to come back and raid the larder of the Crown to resuscitate that particular part of the economy? It might be said that it is going to provide a broader range of opportunities for Kiwis to save. In Hawke’s Bay with the low-wage economy there are no savings available. Secondly the narrow number of New Zealanders who have managed to buy into these shares shows that the broad number of Kiwis lack surplus money but more important they are struggling to pay on a week-by-week basis for the key necessities. That is why our power strategy our power policy is an absolute winner.We will fight month by month until the next election and I can guarantee that the polls that are already showing considerable support for that power strategy will increase in growth. A number might say as Mr Nick Smith I recall and a host of others have said it was dirty pool. This House this group of parliamentarians is entirely entitled to say that the regulatory framework governing this sector of the economy is going to change. Why is it that we get criticised for being up front about that when Government members change the regulatory framework for the casinos and give them a tax holiday for 7 years and then say that if you want to re-regulate in order to meet societal demands about the ills associated with gambling into the future you are not allowed to do it until you compensate? Well if that is what we are lumbered with that is what willhave to happen. But know this: the cost of that regulatory change is a John Key bill. That is not a Labour bill; it is a John Key bill.Let us just go back here. Yes we will re-regulate and improve and indeed refine the regulatory framework for the power industry. All that has been established as more people become accustomed to that is a new norm. That happens in all industries. Indeed the fishing industry at the moment is going through a significant regulatory refinement process that is going to increase the costs associated with vessel ownership with vessel purchases. So rather than just confine it to that part of the economy—because it is an essential service; the effect of power prices is systemic—it will drive the improvement on manufacturing and drive the improvement on industry as they gain access to moderated prices and it will substantially decrease the cost of power to the average householder. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and we will politick we will campaign and we will sell that policy to the citizens of New Zealand.When you vote when you exercise the privilege of being in a democratic country first you are a citizen and second you are a consumer. Therein lies the key difference in terms of what that party is saying about how it wants to run the economy. National wants to run it for a narrow range of power-obsessed highly wealthy individuals who want to treat the rest of society the rest of the community in the context of power as consumers to be fleeced. We will be changing that without a doubt.The final point I would like to make is that I actually do applaud the current Minister of Housing for moving into the territory and trying to colonise what we have won over the housing debate. The only reason that the Minister of Housing has moved into Auckland and sought to provide the chimera of a housing policy is that he knows that the policy originally announced by Annette King is a winner—100000 houses. That improves supply; they increase the supply equation. But his policy is just going to generate more demand without an improvement in supply. That will have only one impact—a further driving-up of prices.Indeed I understand that people who live in Herne Bay are now enjoying a new blessing. When I was at St Stephen’s School half of Ngāpuhi seemed to live in Herne Bay but a Māori living in Herne Bay is very rare now. I understand that $2 million if you are blessed enough to live in Herne Bay—and I know one or three who live in Herne Bay—is the average cost of a whare there. There is no way that that type of policy is going to generate a solution to the housing woes. It will happen only by increasing supply and that is the essence of the Labour remedy. Kia ora tātou.