Moroney Sue: General Debate 
Moroney Sue: General Debate 
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SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Just 3 weeks out from the Budget there are clearly no plans or ideas from the Government benches. We are only 3 weeks out and all we are hearing is the Minister of Finance Bill English preparing this country for cuts. That is about as visionary as it gets from the opposite benches: preparing people for funding cuts in this Budget. That is what it is all about. New Zealanders are starting to ask themselves how that Government has got this country in such a big mess so quickly. Those members have hardly been on the Treasury benches and suddenly we are facing big Budget cuts. 
The other question people are asking—and Mr Quinn might want to listen to this—is why other countries are recovering much more quickly from the global crisis than New Zealand. That is the question that New Zealanders are asking as we lead into Budget 2010. The penny is starting to drop. New Zealanders are starting to work out that that Government has no plans and no ideas and that everything it has done to date has actually put us in a worse position than we started from. Members should not forget that this country had 9 years in which a Labour Government ran surpluses. Even when that party was baying for tax cuts to happen what did Labour say? It said no; they were going to save it for a rainy day. That rainy day arrived and when it did National was in Government. It has now put us in a very bad position even though Labour had us in a position where we had saved for that rainy day. 
New Zealand started ahead of the pack in the OECD when the global crisis hit yet we are coming out at the end of it in a much worse position than when we started. Bill English and John Key have to stand up and be accountable for that and in about 3 weeks’ time they will. What will their response be? It will be to cut funding. Which areas will funding be cut to? It seems in the last week we have learnt that it is early childhood education. Early childhood education was once a high priority for that Government. That is what John Key used to say. All of his speeches used to say that early childhood education is a high priority for the National Government. But suddenly that sentence has dropped out of all of his speeches and what has it been replaced with? It has been replaced with Bill English saying that actually it is too costly. He says we spend far too much on early childhood education in this country and something has to be cut. Well that is the slippery slope for early childhood education. 
There is no point in that Government going on about improving standards in education while cutting costs in the early childhood education sector. The Government keeps saying that it wants to improve participation in early childhood education so how come this week Bill English is suddenly saying that he wants to contain costs? How on earth can that Government grow the sector and contain costs? 
Paul Quinn 
: Hell on earth will freeze over! That is the full saying. 
SUE MORONEY 
: I think Paul Quinn ought to be asking these questions in his caucus meeting. People in his area will suffer. 
It cannot possibly be true that the Government will improve participation in early childhood education and contain costs without the costs shifting to parents and to families. That will be round two of this Budget. We already know—it is already well signalled by the Government—that families will face increasing costs with GST. GST is going up 20 percent. There will be a 20 percent increase in terms of the taxation on everything families pay for. Now parents are starting to learn that they will face increasing costs in early childhood education yet the Government will not come clean on it. 
I do not think it is acceptable 3 weeks out from the Budget for the Minister of Finance to say that there will be cuts but not to tell the country what those cuts will be. Families have to make decisions and I do not think the National Government understands this. Every week in this country families make decisions about what they will spend their money on. Will it be the food bill? We know that that is increasing. GST will be up; the taxation is going up by 20 percent on every single food item. Will they put more money into the mortgage? Will it be the rent? [ 
Interruption 
] I do not think they are even thinking about holidays under this Government. Every penny will count and now they do not know what increasing costs they will be facing in early childhood education.