Street Maryan: Budget Debate 
Street Maryan: Budget Debate 
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MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to contribute to the Budget debate for 2006. I begin with something I have given before in this House—a tribute to Michael Cullen as Minister of Finance. Michael Cullen is one of the most principled able and compassionate men I know. This Budget is a Labour Budget and we are proud of it. Only a Labour-led Government could produce a Budget that invests so much in New Zealand’s future and assists where necessary. I am delighted as I have said before that we have a social historian by training who is applying himself to the country’s books. That way we get a clever head and real investment in the country through Government appropriations. We also get the right amount of heart. We get relief for families where it is needed most acknowledging that paid work is the best way out of poverty but giving some assistance where it is most required at times when it is most required. 
This Budget delivers. It delivers on promises that we made in the election. It delivers on interest-free student loans. It will keep at home our investment in our young people and will improve our skills base. It delivers on Working for Families. Another 85000 families will be eligible for tax relief as a result of this Budget which will bring the total number of eligible families to 350000 by the end of the roll-out. It delivers on promises we have made to our support parties and our increasing of police numbers is but one example of that. It delivers on promises to families by lowering the cost of doctors’ visits funding more teachers so there can be smaller classes giving more operational funding to schools and helping more people access job training. 
This Budget also invests—most famously in transport with $13.4 billion over the next 5 years. That is all of the revenue by way of petrol excise road-user charges and motor vehicle registration fees plus another $300 million. This means that in the area north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge which is an area that I have the privilege of working in the troublesome intersections at both ends of Warkworth on State Highway 1 will be addressed; both Hill Street and Woodcocks Road will be fixed. 
It also means improvements in another part of the country in which I have great interest—I refer to State Highway 3 at the Awakino Gorge. This will mean a great deal to the people of Taranaki - King Country. Business interests have repeatedly stressed to me as a Government MP with a watching brief for Taranaki - King Country the need to improve freight access to key export hubs such as Auckland and Tauranga. That will now happen through the investment by this Budget in transport not only in the northern Taranaki lower King Country area around the Awakino Gorge but also in terms of the huge investment going into roading and transportation in the Waikato. So those are particularly important items for me in seeing how the application of this 2006 Budget will roll out. 
I also want to talk about health. There will be $40.8 million over 4 years for strengthened child and adolescent oral health services. That includes the rebuilding and re-equipping of the school dental service through additional capital expenditure. Today in the House the Hon Tony Ryall asked a question about the provision of health services to Maori and he emphasised oral health services. The implication was that services were being provided on the basis of ethnicity not need and he cited oral health services as an example. He flourished a Government report stating that socio-economic status was a stronger indicator of health status than ethnicity. I cannot work out where that member’s missing synapse is that he cannot make the link between socio-economic status need and Maori. The facts are that the oral health needs of Maori are very pressing. The facts are that Maori 5-year-olds are twice as likely to have decayed missing or filled teeth as the New Zealand average. By 12 years of age the picture improves only slightly for Maori children with nearly two-thirds of them having decayed missing or filled teeth. Why is it so hard for the Hon Tony Ryall to join the dots? Why is it so hard for him to make the connections and see that socio-economic status and need decide who gets services? If that means we deliver services to Maori then we will stand up and say so. There should not be any imputation from the Opposition that that is a negative. 
In fact another Opposition member Dr Jonathan Coleman went on to ask a question about contracts—I think he actually said employment contracts—for radiologists laboratory technicians and technologists or laboratory workers in general. He asked why special processes were built into those contracts for dealing with Maori. I have a story from the past. My mother used to take blood as a phlebotomist or a laboratory worker in the laboratory in New Plymouth. In those days—it was a very long time ago—she learnt Maori phrases in order to ease the way with Maori patients. I still have the dictionary she used and I still have her sentences written in her handwriting at the back of it. She had to learn to say things like: “This will hurt a little.” “I need to take some blood.” and “Are you in pain?”. Even then—and this was in the 1950s—there was a recognition of a need for a specific approach even if it was about speaking the language. Now an understanding about how the taking and processing of bodily specimens is viewed by Maori is more widely understood. Having such provisions in contracts is simply about respect and respecting difference. The National Opposition would have us delete anything that represented respect and understanding in contractual arrangements. National members would shut their eyes to the reality of where needs are disproportionately found and bleat on as if dealing with Maori oral health needs were a crime. So I celebrate the fact that we have allocated specific moneys to children and young people’s oral health in this Budget. 
We are working to build and promote our national identity as New Zealanders in this Budget. It is not about resurrecting No. 8 wire and buzzy bees however important they have been and whatever nostalgia we have for those things. A new national identity is being built these days in New Zealand through young musicians writers artists sculptors and all the cultural strands that make up this country. Arts culture and heritage are central to building a national identity. The Government is helping to create a vibrant cultural sector and we are proud that New Zealanders are seeing more of themselves reflected in a modern way on websites in print and on the stage. We have increased baseline funding for Creative New Zealand in this Budget by $10 million ensuring that the level of support made possible by one-off funding last year can be maintained over the next 4 years. 
Part of national identity is also coming to terms with our past and righting wrongs. I celebrate also the additional funding in this Budget to assist in arriving at Treaty settlements that will see historical Treaty claims lodged by 2008 and settled by 2020. That will go a long way to forging a new national identity.