Parker David: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12916. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Minister of Education was quoted in the House today by Mr Mallard as having said that it is disgraceful that one-fifth of all students are in the bottom 20 percent of student performance. Unfortunately that grasp of statistical logic is matched in her Cabinet only by Mr Brownlee because in respect of students it will always be the case that one-fifth of students will be in the bottom 20 percent of performance. It can never be anything else. Sadly this lack of grasp of the fundamentals of portfolio extends beyond Mrs Tolley into the economic development portfolio which Mr Brownlee is responsible for. New Zealanders—not just politicians but also journalists and the wider public—are starting to pay attention to this issue because it has become increasingly obvious that the National Government does not have any plan to meet its promise of catching up with the fortunes of Australia and closing the wage gap with Australia by 2025. 
Why has that become obvious? Well of course the central plank of the Minister for Economic Development’s part of all that was the step change that he was going to bring about in the New Zealand economy by mining national parks. That was such a silly idea in the first place that it was eventually unpicked. After 40000 people marched down Queen Street in Auckland and after similarly large protests in other parts of the country from Invercargill to the north the National Government did what it always does and caved in to public pressure. That was the right decision on this occasion because it was always a nonsense to mine in national parks and other schedule 4 areas like the Coromandel but it laid bare the cupboard. The cupboard is bare when it comes to realistic ways in which the Government will bridge the income gap with Australia. 
The Minister for Economic Development came down to this House and tried to pretend that he was on top of his portfolio. He told the House that the wage gap was narrowing. The media were of course all over that immediately because it was obvious no matter what way we measure it that the gap has been growing and has not been narrowing. 
This is an important debate to have at this time because this debate is about the estimates. This is when Parliament votes taxes to be gathered and spent by the Government. Unless this Parliament has confidence in what the Government is doing to achieve its aims this motion that the House is voting upon should go down. This is the second Budget of three that will be delivered by Bill English and we have to ask whether the Government is measuring up. Of course Mr Brownlee has shown that the Government is not. He has shown that he has not even got a basic grasp on whether the gap is getting bigger or smaller. He said that the gap is getting smaller. 
What did the third-party commentators say about that? The  
Dominion Post 
 said: “Stats prove Brownlee wrong”. That was pretty clear and pretty definitive. On that same day John Key came down to the House after that headline had been in the paper trying to say that black was white—trying to say that the gap was narrowing. He came to this House and thought that we were all so dim that we would accept the statistics that he tried to palm off to the House. Then he was forced to table the document from which he was quoting. That document showed that even in the best massaged figures that the Government could produce the gap was getting bigger. That was the same day that the  
Sydney Morning Herald 
 had as one of its main headings: “NZ wage gap with Australia widens”. The article read: “Australian workers are being paid even more than their Kiwi cousins since National became the Government.” 
Another interesting paragraph further down noted that Australia’s top tax is higher than New Zealand’s and the reason that New Zealanders were going to live in Australia was wages not taxes. Mr English should take a lesson from that. Tax policy is not economic policy; it is but a subset of it. The Government does not have anything other than tax policy when it comes to economic policy—that plus a bit of reform of the Resource Management Act that the Government pretends will somehow cause the gap to narrow with Australia. What did the television stations say in respect of John Key after he came to the House and tried to blather his way through and deny the reality that the gap has been growing rather than shrinking? Under the headline: “Key too selective and slippery”. TV3’s Duncan Garner said: “John Key should stop the slippery act—immediately. … Yesterday’s performance in Parliament was too selective and too slippery for him to get away with.” So it is not just the Minister for Economic Development who has not been on top of things; the Prime Minister has not been either. 
What did the  
New Zealand Herald 
 say in the weekend? Its editorial on this issue stated: “Trudging along the same old road is not going to produce the desired outcome.” It noted that the stats showed that the gap has been growing with Australia rather than shrinking. Then it said that “This provided its own commentary on the Government’s attempt to close the gap which so far has encompassed little more than tinkering with the Resource Management Act and suchlike.” Again the editorial in New Zealand’s largest newspaper has said that really the Government is only tinkering. It has no significant plan to bridge the income gap with Australia. The editorial went on: “In reality the Government fears the political damage that would result from …” anything more significant. “This accent on short-term popularity has also engendered a cautious approach in other areas that might deliver long-term benefit including most recently the mining of conservation land.” The final sentence of the editorial really sums it up: “But when relatively little is done relatively little happens. Things can even go backwards.” That encapsulates the story of this Government. Relatively little is being done and relatively little is happening to bridge the income gap with Australia. As a consequence— 
Paul Quinn 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My understanding of the Standing Orders is that only the speaker at any point in time is allowed to use assistance—placards and such. In fact we had the whip flashing around paper. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I did not see it. I hear what the member is saying. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is interesting that members opposite are breaking up my speech on this. The editorial in New Zealand’s largest newspaper the  
New Zealand Herald 
 concludes with this statement: “But when relatively little is done relatively little happens. Things can even go backwards.” That says it all about National’s economic policy. The cupboard is bare. The Deputy Prime Minister was caught on tape at the National Party conference a year or two ago saying of the present Prime Minister that he flits from cloud to cloud. We have seen one idea after another put up on a cloud. The first was a cycleway which was not a bad idea but it was never going to create many jobs. Then we had the Job Summit and nothing else of substance came from that and the 9-day fortnight which virtually no one took up. Then we had the idea that New Zealand would mine our national parks and that that would be the step change in the New Zealand economy. Those words about the step change in the New Zealand economy came from Mr Brownlee. In his Prime Minister’s statement at the start of this year Mr Key placed much credence upon that idea about the part that the increase in mining would have on New Zealand’s economic recovery. In his view that was a major part of how we would catch up with Australia. Of course the Government has abandoned that ambition. 
Since then the next idea floated on a cloud was the idea that we would be a financial services hub for the world. Well New Zealand which has such a poor savings record and thin capital markets just does not have a hope in hell of doing that compared with Australia. Just across the ditch Australia has better savings and deeper investment markets and it has some hope of being a financial services sector in a way that is not at all realistic for New Zealand. Instead the Government has gone backwards on savings. It continues to attack the wages and conditions of New Zealand workers by making terms and conditions worse in New Zealand than in Australia which again will be encouraging the flow of people to Australia rather than the other way around. 
When we look through the Estimates and see what the Ministry of Economic Development is doing that is new this year compared with last year one thing stands out for me: $1.6 million is being voted through the economic development portfolio for Rugby World Cup free-to-air broadcasting rights. How will that grow the New Zealand economy? That is shameful. We know that the extra $1.6 million extra that is being voted through the economic development portfolio has come about because there was a scrap between Te PuniKokiri and Television One about funding.