Shearer David: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 31 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11493. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Remember the days when the National Government talked about aspiration? It talked about a brighter future. Well I have heard a lot of words describe this Budget but “aspiration” and “brighter future” never featured. I heard “bland”. I heard “boring”. I heard “broccoli”. I heard “bollocks” from some person and that is just the beginning of the alphabet to describe this Budget. It is underwhelming—certainly underwhelming.It is smart in one sense; I will give Mr English that. He has put aside money—your money; taxpayers’ money—for a big splurge in election year. Taxpayers’ money is squirrelled away so that National can spend up and try to win the election. He has done a second thing and that is that he has paid off some of the debt that he has racked up in the last 8 years. More than $60 billion the largest debt in New Zealand’s history has been racked up by this Government in the last 8 years.National inherited a surplus in 2008. In 2008 the Budget by Michael Cullen meant 9 years of Budget surpluses—year after year after year. We are finally back in surplus and now Bill English is paying off the debt. This might be good for National and it is crowing about it right now but it is certainly not very good for everybody who might be listening here and at home.Let us look at education for example. The operational budget of schools—and what I mean by that is the money that the schools spend on sports gear on computers and on all those things that kids need to get a good education—has stayed flat despite the fact that the population has increased. Eighty-six percent of principals out there are saying they are not getting enough money so we know what is going to happen now: parents will be asked to put their hands in their pockets again and fork out for schools. It is money that should be paid by this Government.National should be funding our schools at the right level but instead it is putting money into those charter schools—seven schools to be exact. These are schools that soak up three to four times more money per child than State schools. They have no accountability do not have to have trained teachers do not have to teach to the curriculum and are not accountable under the Official Information Act. They are the schools that this Government is preferring to put money into instead of our State schools.Let us look at health. The Government is talking the big talk about how much money has gone into health—$2.2 billion according to Dr Jonathan Coleman except that he mumbles under his breath “over 4 years” so it is only $500 million. Actually if you do the maths on this one which the Government of course has not done you will realise that it does not keep pace with population increase and inflation. In fact it is $200 million behind. What we are actually getting is less this year than we need to have. Our district health boards in everybody’s own region will have less to spend than they did last year. They will not be able to keep up with what is needed to be spentper person. That is health—that is the bad news in health which you will not hear from this Government. It is falling behind.I want to talk a little bit about something that is close to my heart and that is Auckland. I am an Aucklander and I like to live in that city. I grew up there. I grew up in South Auckland. I have lived all over the city. I was at Eden Park on Saturday watching the Blues. I still am a faithful loyal Blues supporter. [Bell rung]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry that was an accident. It was a bit premature on my part with that topic.DAVID SHEARER: That was a Highlanders fan who hit the wrong button there.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Hurricanes.DAVID SHEARER: Hurricanes? Sorry the Hurricanes. Whatever—it does not matter they are not the Blues. Anyway I hope I get a few extra minutes for that. There should be a penalty for the Assistant Speaker making a mistake like that.Auckland has received nothing in this Budget. It has utterly failed this city. Auckland has one-third of the population and it has got absolutely nothing. You might be perhaps one of those people listening to this debate who are trying to save for a house and you will know that in 2008 when this Government came into power houses were averaging out at about $435000—still high but $435000. What are they today? What are they today after 8 years of this Government? They are $928000 each on average—$928000.Who can afford that sort of money for a house in Auckland? What is the Government doing about it? Nothing. The mumblings and fumblings and bumblings of Nick Smith have not done one thing—one thing—to make those houses more affordable. Has the Government for example excluded foreign investors from buying our houses? Why is our housing market like the New York stock exchange? Why can you trade and buy houses in Auckland in the same way you can do pork bellies on the New York stock exchange? It is not right because those people are here and they want to live in those houses. Forty percent of houses that are being bought in Auckland are being bought by investors and that is wrong.You might be one of those people who are listening to this debate at the moment and are gridlocked in traffic in your car because a few years ago the road that used to take you to wherever you wanted to go in a few minutes now takes longer than an hour. Two billion dollars of value in Auckland is being lost by people in gridlock. It was only a few months ago that this Government decided it needed to fast forward the Auckland City Rail Link because it realised that actually putting more lanes in a motorway was not going to cut it. Up until that point I had heard all the reasons in the world from Steven Joyce about why we could not afford to put a rail link in and improve rail systems in Auckland—up until Aucklanders said “For God’s sake! I’m sick and tired of sitting in a traffic jam for hours and hours and hours when the Government could be doing something.” It has done nothing.You might be one of those people who are listening to this debate and living in a rental property and you might have just realised that your rent has gone up by 37 percent and is now averaging about $520 a week. How can you possibly afford $520 a week and be able to put a little bit aside for perhaps the kids’ holiday or whatever? You are living on the edge the whole time.I have people coming into my office day after day wanting help. There was a woman who came in in tears with her three children last week. She was desperate for a house. She was living in a garage. She was told she had to go over to a hostel on the other side of town. When she got there she found that she was living in a room with one double bed and one single bed with her family of four and sharing bathrooms with other male occupants of this hostel. She said: “No I’m not going to do this. I’m going to go back to the garage I was living in because at least my kids will be safe there.” And what happened to her? Well she got told that because she did not accept what was offered to her she went down to the bottom of the priority list. That is appalling.We have those sorts of people in our city in our country who need our support and this Government and John Key in particular have not given it. Helen Clark said once that she did more for the health of this country by being the housing Minister than she ever did by being the health Minister. We have a finance Minister from Southland we have a housing Minister from Nelson and we have a Prime Minister who lives in Parnell and has forgotten where he has come from—a State house. As a result of that we have got the appalling mess that we have today.We have on this side of the House a plan that will build more houses stop that speculation and enable people to be able to afford their own house and get ahead. That Government has run out of ideas. It has run out of aspiration inspiration and any of those other words that it used to use and now it is sadly and utterly losing for this country.