Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13598] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am extremely proud to stand up in this House tonight to support Budget 2004 which will deliver for families. The only bad thing about having to stand up in this House to deliver a Budget speech is to have to sit through another National Party speech. I think that National Party members believe that if they keep repeating their same spin lines over and over again the spin might miraculously become true but it will not. The reality is that out in the community feedback for the Budget has been great. [ 
Interruption 
] Maurice Williamson can squawk away over there like a chronically depressed budgie but it does not change the fact that this is a Budget that delivers to families. 
This is a Budget that also continues the strong fiscal management of this Labour-led Government. It is probably fair to say it is a Budget we would have liked to deliver in our first term but we knew we could not. We knew we had to keep a firm hand on the rudder and make sure the money was there because we would not help any low and middle income families if we were to try to deliver something that was not sustainable. 
It is also very amusing to hear National members call this Budget a bribe. That is because they are probably not used to having popular policies that the community embraces. There is also a double standard. Somehow their tax cuts for their wealthy mates are not a bribe but our delivery to low and middle income families is a bribe. That is a double standard and I thought that National members were spurning double standards—but obviously only when it suits them. 
This is a true Labour Budget and a Budget that most of us have probably waited about 14 years to see delivered in this House. It is a Budget that will go some way to undoing a lot of the damage that was done in the 1990s. What does the National Party offer? Simon Power over there can laugh but the National Party has not offered any alternatives to this Budget that will deliver for low and middle income families. The previous speaker said he would outline his vision but he did not. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he just forgot to deliver his vision to us but we have not heard a single piece of policy on what the National Party would do about this Budget and how it would deliver for those families. 
What does the National Party want? It wants tax cuts. It is overwhelmingly obvious to the majority of people that tax cuts deliver money to the people who need it the least. That comes from a party that says it wants only needs-based policies. How are tax cuts a needs-based policy? To the family who was featured in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 a tax cut would deliver $35 a week. How would that help those family members in their situation when this package under this Government will deliver them five times as much? Of course those of us sitting in this House would all do very well with tax cuts but we do not need them. As someone who benefited from the public health system the public school system and the university system I am quite happy to give back some of the money that I have earned. 
When we go out to campaign we will remind people that if the National Party becomes the Government its promises are the same failed policies of the 1990s—the same policies that delivered to the rich and delivered nothing to middle and low income New Zealanders. The “mother of all Budgets” absolutely savaged those families who were on benefits at a time of high unemployment and that is what people can look forward to again under the National Party. Its members very unashamedly sit here and tell us they would deliver the same policies again. They have not changed. In the election campaign National Party members may try to convince New Zealand voters that they are different. They may try to soften down some of their policies in order to get re-elected but the fact is that the leopard does not change its spots and Tories do not change their policies. A National Party Government would deliver exactly those same policies that saw it booted out of office in 1999. 
I would like to focus on how this Budget delivers for young New Zealanders. One of the things that I am most proud of—and this is the vision of Steve Maharey—is working towards the goal of having all 15 to 19-year-olds in training or employment. Currently we know that anywhere from 10 to 17 percent of those young New Zealanders—which could be up to 45000 of them—are not enrolled in study or in any form of employment when they leave school. Budget 2004 has delivered for young New Zealanders in this instance. In Budget 2004 there will be $57 million over 4 years for the new Youth Transitions Service. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Ha ha! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Mr Williamson laughs because he does not really care about policies that he will not benefit from but for young New Zealanders this service will make a big difference. The Youth Transitions Service for young people when they leave school will provide customised support and career planning and work with local employers and training and education providers. Anyone who has come through school recently has had to go to university under a system that costs an awful lot of money. It probably was not such a big deal when people could go to a university that was almost completely paid for by the State—when they got a universal student allowance and when they could afford to make mistakes and change courses part-way through their studies to study something else if that was the case. Students do not have that luxury nowadays. University education is expensive and when students go to university they deserve to be armed with the knowledge of where their strengths are what their options are and the best options open to them for tertiary training if that is the way they decide they will go. Alongside that transition service is a 2-year “designing careers” pilot which will see all year 10 students preparing an individual learning and career plan with assistance from their teachers. 
We will also see the expansion of the Gateway programme which is a programme that is working extremely well and which will be extended to all decile 6 schools by 2008. The Gateway programme is very important. It really stands alongside the extremely successful Modern Apprenticeships programme which is not only plugging severe skill shortages that threaten to choke our economy but is also providing many young people with a career and career path they would not otherwise have had without that scheme. The Modern Apprenticeships scheme has been under huge demand and by 2006 there will be 8000 places on it. The Gateway programme has also been extremely successful. It is a programme where students can actually get on-the-job training while studying at high school and while studying subjects that are relevant to those students’ future careers. I have been to see how that Gateway programme works at schools and I have seen kids who probably would have dropped out if the programme had not been there. Not everyone will go on to university and not everyone will be a lawyer or a doctor or do a BA or a BSc. [ 
Interruption 
] “Thank God!” says my colleague. 
There are many students whose skills lie elsewhere. Up until very recently—up until the election of this Labour-led Government—those kids were being allowed to drop through the gaps or were being left to fend for themselves. With the Gateway programme I have seen kids at high schools studying mechanics hairdressing and a range of different programmes that then lead on to full employment. They are kids who would probably have been perceived as being high-risk and the school I visited was in an area that would be perceived as being high-risk. But those kids now have jobs they now have a career plan and they now have a future thanks to the Gateway programme. I fully endorse the expansion of that programme. When young people are students and faced with a multitude of choices it is sometimes hard to be able to make sense of it all and the Youth Transitions Service package is a common-sense way of dealing with that. 
I briefly want also to outline student support. To colleagues in United Future I say that I welcome their commitment to reducing costs to students but I do not see how they can advocate tax cuts at the same time. The two simply do not go together. With regard to married students I can say that when I was at school I knew that many of my friends who were flatmates got married so that they could get the allowance. I think if members are worried about the demeaning of marriage then probably this issue is more important that some other topical issues of late. But in the area of student support 36000 more students will benefit from the expansion of the student allowances scheme than previously. Probably most important is the fact that parental thresholds will be indexed to inflation so students will not miss out as their parents’ incomes increase over time. That is something that was seriously lacking in the 1990s. 
In terms of student debt I think it is very important to note again that the changes the Hon Steve Maharey has made in the student loans repayment system mean that for the first time student loans are coming down. I can vouch for that personally. Unlike members opposite I actually have a student loan and my student loan is decreasing thanks to this Labour-led Government. Long may it reign.