Tirikatene Rino: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 30 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2690. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Talofa lava. Kia ora tatou katoa. It is my great pleasure to stand and join in this debate on Budget 2012 with my Labour colleagues in opposition to this atrocious awful Budget—the zero Budget the “nothing Budget” the “kore Budget”. It delivers nothing and we oppose it. It is a failed Budget from this failing Government and it has delivered zero for New Zealand. We have got zero hope zero ideas and zero opportunities flowing from it.  
There is a new word that has come out of our Maori whanau around the motu. They have heard about the zero Budget and the austerity Budget and the cuts. You say “austerity” but Maori whanau are now saying “Oz territory”—Oz territory. What we are seeing is our whanau in their droves boarding the planes and heading over to  
The GC 
 across the Tasman. They are going to Oz territory because of the austerity that this appalling National Government has been imposing in this dreadful Budget.  
We have got a lot of poroporoaki going on up and down the country from Auckland Wellington International Airport and right the way through the country. Every day our whanau are going to the departure lounges having a tangitangi poroporoaki and saying goodbye to their loved ones. All of our whanau are affected. Everyone is affected: friends families aunties and uncles—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: Friends aunties and uncles—they are all being tearfully farewelled as they cross the Tasman to a better life. It is appalling that they are forced to make that very very sad decision to leave our great country because of the no-hope and failed Budgets of this Government and the fact that there are no jobs being created out in the regions.  
If we look at the actual record of this National Government we see the worst growth record in 50 years—the worst growth record in 50 years. It is a party that talks about economic growth and free enterprise and business but we have had the worst growth in 50 years. We have 50000 of our whanau members up and down the length and breadth of this country—over 50000—leaving for Australia every year. We have had a 52 percent increase in unemployment and nearly 50000 more of our people are on benefits. So this Government has overhyped the talk but it has failed to deliver.  
We do face serious issues as a country—in fact globally. We acknowledge that. We know that the EU is on the brink. Greece is in serious trouble. Spain is in trouble. The term “bank runs” is a highly searched Google term these days. So there are going to be some serious things happening up in Europe over the next few weeks depending on the outcome of elections that may be taking place. We know that things are really tough in terms of what effects that could have on the banking system and the ripple effect that that will have right throughout the whole world. We are not immune to that obviously. We are well aware of that.  
But what is this National Government doing in response with this Budget 2012? What is the big idea that it has come up with? Well it is squeezing an extra $14 million from our tamariki—from our paper boys and paper girls. That is the National Government’s big idea to turn our country round to protect us to get us on to a sustained growth path so we can actually deal with all the headwinds that we will be facing in terms of what is going on overseas. The Government wants to squeeze. That is the big idea. It wants to squeeze some coins from those paper delivery boys and girls. So we have got the penny-pinching which is the great idea this Government has come up with.  
We have got the attacks on our schools. Now it is attacking our teachers and it wants to cram more kids into the classroom put more pressure on our schools and cut out the teacher numbers. What else is the Government going to do? What else are its big ideas? It wants to asset-test out the elderly now and penny-pinch from our elderly from our kaumatua from our kuia.  
Oh and we cannot forget the great plan that it has. We are facing a very tough global economic crisis situation potentially and what does the Government want to do in this environment? It wants to sell off four of our major State-owned enterprise assets in such a depressed international market and it says that mum and dad investors want to buy them. I know what it is like when those State-owned enterprises are up for sale. I know who are rubbing their hands right now in terms of all of the money that they want to make from the floats of those initial public offerings on those asset sales. It is the corporate lawyers who will be charging in the millions for doing all their transactional work and providing all their advice. It is the corporate advisers it is the investment banks and it is the people who will be leading the public offerings who will be making a mighty lot of money from the public offer. It will not be the mums and dads. It will be the advertising agencies that will wheel out probably an ex - All Black captain or some other celebrity to front the TV campaigns that they will be beaming across our television screens telling us how great these investment opportunities are. The mums and dads who will be watching that TV screen already own those assets. They do not have the money in this depressed environment to even get in the queue to try to secure some shares.  
That is the Government’s great plan. It wants to sell off Air New Zealand Solid Energy and our electricity generation companies in the worst of times to try to raise a bit of cash when what it did in its first 4 years now was totally irresponsible such as implementing tax cuts that benefited only the rich. That was irresponsible and it sucked out desperately needed revenue for our country and put it into the pockets of the wealthiest. The Government increased GST to 15 percent which disproportionately impacted on everyone all of the whanau particularly who struggled to pay for their shopping to pay the grocery bill and to pay the bills every week. They are going to the grocery store and struggling to pay the bills. Those are the big ideas.  
I could go on about how child poverty has increased in our country. Only today Unicef has come out with its report on measuring child poverty internationally and New Zealand is ranked in the bottom half of the countries in terms of measuring child poverty. That is a disgrace. That is a national disgrace. But what is this Government doing about it? It wants to just sell off assets and pick the pockets of our paper boys and paper girls.  
I want to just touch briefly on what is in this Budget for Maori. I know that the Maori Party members stand up and talk about the fact that we have a bit of money for this and a bit of money for that. But basically this is a zero Budget. The money is just getting shuffled around. Some will go up some will go down but at the end of the day everything equals out and there is no extra money that is actually going to be going into helping our people. In fact based on the total policy initiatives that this National Government is persisting with even though it can see that there are big big challenges on the horizon this Budget will actually have no positive benefit for Maori. So this is a non-Budget for Maori.  
It is going to be interesting when it comes time for us to vote on this particular bill and when we do the party vote count as it goes around the House. Of course the Maori Party is never here. Those seats are always empty when it comes down to this business. 
Louise Upston 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a well-known tradition that you do not talk about members’ absence from the House. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The member is right as far as the convention about individual members. But there is no convention that says that one cannot refer to the absence of an entire party on a regular basis.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Although I understand where the member is coming from one can extrapolate and we all know that every person at one stage or another is absent from the House for whatever reason. I would ask the member to desist. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no the member has not finished yet. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: Oh sorry. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member sat down. I sought the call. I sought the call— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! I have to say the member is perfectly correct but the member did not understand. He thought his time had expired. He has about 8 seconds left so I am asking the member to complete his speech. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: This is a failed Budget from a failing Government. More of our people are going to go to Oz territory as a result. We need a change and Labour can deliver that. Kia ora tatou.