Peters Winston: Budget Statement —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Budget Statement —[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): This is a “Split Enz Budget”. Everywhere you look there are deficits and as the group Split Enz sang “I see red I see red I see red.” Mr Key got up and talked about his State house experience where a great society helped him out. And then he promptly forgot about it. Some of us remember our backgrounds and we do not intend to forget the background we came from. We know what poverty smells tastes and feels like and we do not pay it lip service of the type that those National backbenchers were saluting and clapping today. What did they do? Well there is some lip service to disadvantaged families but nothing to address why they have no income or real low income—nothing in the Budget at all.Here are the stand-outs. There is going to be a holiday tax: $6 if you leave the country $16 if you come back. The Kiwi KickStart: well the only people who got a kick in the guts today weremiddle-income New Zealanders. The Government is going to throw a further $50 million at a Whānau Ora programme seriously condemned by the Audit Office. No no National will just ignore that and forget about real Māori needs. It will go along with these Māori sociologists from Auckland University and dish up the money and never deal with real people.And then we are going to have an extra $320 million in the district health board budget. If you think about the growing population and the growing ageing population in this country and then you look at almost $200 million of unpaid debt from foreign hospital patients this is a decline. Can these people not add up? But back to my point: every year they promise to get on top of the debt and to reduce the country’s economic vulnerability. They have made that promise again for the seventh time today because six times they have never kept it. This Government is in deeper debt the surplus is always tomorrow and the balance of payments deficit is worsening. What does that mean? Well mum if you are spending far too much of the money that is coming into the household you and your family are going to go broke and so is New Zealand.Whatever the Budget claims it does nothing to solve any of the pressing problems facing New Zealand. And what a hysterical rant from a Prime Minister—he has had 7 years to become a speech-maker. That was just dreadful—the histrionics and the “sieg heil” - like behaviour of his caucus jumping up and saluting him. Those members from the provinces—the provinces have got nothing today whatsoever but just like the Black Shirts there they were saluting because they know no better.There is nothing in this Budget that will fix the Government’s finances.Hon Members: Give Ron Mark a go!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is no use ranting and raving at me; it is too late. Your day of reckoning is coming. You saw it in Northland. Prepare to see Northland over and over again around provincial New Zealand. The notion that the Minister of Finance is in any way competent and capable of managing New Zealand’s economy is just risible. It is laughable. This is the deficit you see: we start with the red in the public finance deficit. National has failed to get the country’s finances in order and all the boring tedious worn-out over-used platitudes and excuses will no longer wash.Net core debt has risen consistently under National heading to $70 billion. It was $10 billion when National came into office and it is $70 billion now. Part of that is from the Canterbury earthquakes but the rest is just incompetence. And there is worse on the horizon. And National’s doctrinaire partial privatisation of the power companies—did you hear Bill English yesterday? He said: “Despite the fact that we sold 49 percent we are getting greater dividends.” He did not say: “We’ve allowed them to boot the prices up so high that they’re price-gouging households all over the country.” and that to him was good economics. How smug and arrogant can you possibly be? The fact is that Bill English has never ever delivered a surplus. He has never ever delivered a surplus in stark contrast to the 14 years of surpluses under previous Governments one of which I was the Treasurer—[Interruption] Ha ha! We got hit by the Asian financial crisis but then of course we had experience. We are not doctrinaire. We understand economics. We are not just devoted to one theory of economics. I will make this prediction right now: Bill English will never ever deliver a surplus. He will never ever deliver an honest surplus. He is running out of words. His tenure of claiming competence in an ocean of failure will soon come to an end.We see red. We see red in the balance of payments deficit. All those farming and provincial members all those farming and provincial—[Interruption] Oh it is danger time. It is serious danger time. It is tinder-dry. You see all of those provincial members up there? The balance of payments deficit is about us failing to export enough to pay for our imports. And all of those gentlemen up there come from export electorates. And what are they doing for those people in the countryside in terms of exporting? Not a mutter not a murmur not a syllable not a sound. They will not raise a finger. It is “sieg heil” to the front bench—“whatever you say”.Here we go here we go. Balance of payments: last year December 2014 our balance of payments deficit was $7.8 billion.Chris Bishop: Tell us about “manual labour” again.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Our net international investment debt: what is being invested offshore into our country versus our country investing back into those countries offshore? It is a staggering $154 billion Mr Bishop. That is what I am going to tell you about. And no amount of your nervous knee-knocking is going to change it. Let me tell you: you are a list member. There will not be a list by the time this gets out. You are a goner. Get all of the experience you can because you are going on furlough. That net international investment debt is the equivalent of 65 percent of our country’s GDP. This is PIIGS territory. This is PIIGS territory.I want to tell you this: we also see red in the provincial deficit. All over provincial New Zealand today in the hamlets and on country roads and in the villages all over the countryside in the provinces there will be despair about this Budget. There is nothing in this Budget for provincial New Zealand unless of course you live in the province of Auckland. No response for regional problems and no regional development strategy mean that the regions are stuck in the economic and social doldrums.Unemployment in Northland: 9.9 percent.David Bennett: What are you doing about it? You’re the member.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: What I am doing about it is getting rid of you and as soon as I can. My promise to the people of Northland is very sound: salvation is on its way. But the Bennetts of this world we are going to wipe from the political framework because they see you as obstacles to their future. Bay of Plenty: 7.8 percent unemployment. Hawke’s Bay: 7.3 percent unemployment. In Manawatū and Wanganui—or Whanganui if you want to be politically correct—it is 7.4 percent. It goes on and on and on. Farming prices: all are falling; fishing prices: falling; and forestry prices: falling. Gentlemen when are you going to stand up for the provinces? Come on—can I hear you now? No all we have got is a deafening silence—a deafening silence. Boy they are going to regret it very shortly when their careers are over. They are going to say: “I wish I had listened to New Zealand First. I wish I took the warning. I might have saved my province and myself.” But seeing as they are only about themselves well they should save themselves now.Do not forget that we over here understand what work looks like. We understand the toil the sweat and the agony of exporting offshore in order to keep a family going. These people bring money home to the family New Zealand and we should salute them not jeer and laugh at them not ignore them. Does the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act reflect that? No. Paul Glass of Devon Funds Management pointed out recently: “… New Zealand has some of the”—listen to this—“highest real interest rates in the developed world …” He went on to say this—what New Zealand First has been saying for years—“Our interest rates have artificially pushed up our exchange rate which is damaging the productive part of the economy.” New Zealand First says: “Amen.” to that. But what are these people doing about it? When farmers are going to the wall when they go to the bank and four out of 10 will be in trouble what will these provincial members from Hamilton do then—the Bennetts Mr Mitchell and dare I say it the man from the disclosed zombie town Whangarei? What is he going to do? What are all those Māori members who know that their people lie at the bottom of the economic heap going to do? You cannot go around hobnobbing with those people over there for their fellowship. You are going to have to make a stand for your people and as soon as possible.The productive part of the economy is the provinces and National wantonly goes on abusing their loyalty. Will National change the monetary settings to help those provincial seats that it represents? No National will not raise a finger. The Salvation Army came out the other day about overcrowding low incomes and unemployment in regional New Zealand and some of the commentariat were surprised.The Prime Minister is full of promises. Recently he skulked back up to Northland to the Bay of Islands and he said that he was “going to actively work to regain your trust and confidence.”Hon Member: What did you say Winnie?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I said: “I expect that to mean that it will be in the Budget.” So there I was today going through all of the Budget and looking for the 10two-lane bridges the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway the ultra-fast broadband roll-out taxpayer-paid cellphone coverage doing up the Auckland to Whangarei railway line and investment in the most obvious port in this whole country Whangarei. And was there anything in the Budget? Doughnuts—nothing. The Prime Minister was going to actively work to regain your trust and confidence. Up north we are not stupid. Forgiving we have been for so long but stupid we are not.We see red in the public services deficit. Look at this: the reality is that many New Zealanders are faced with having to go on the unofficial waiting list in public hospitals before they get on the official one. Everywhere public services are being cut. Police numbers are capped at 2009 levels and they claim to be getting on top of crime—except that if you get caught now you get a warning. You do not get charged; you only get a warning. Spending on police numbers has been capped since 2009. Write to the police and ask: how many policemen or women front-line were on duty in any given town on any night in this country and they will not answer you. They say that they do not keep information in that form. Oh really? Well what form do you keep it in—because we would like to know? For example take the local police station in Kohukohu in north Hokianga. It has been closed meaning that there will be no police presence in the whole of north Hokianga. Just like that.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Rubbish!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh I know what that Minister’s specialty is. The Minister’s specialty is rubbish because he has got a rubbish house and he will not fix it up and the family cannot stay any longer. It is so bad that you would not put a dog in it. Yes it is rubbish Minister but get off your backside and do something for the first time. Do not sit there on your highly overpaid income on your highly over-enhanced life charisma-free as you are and claim that you are doing something. “Rubbish” is the right word. It is rubbish. Will you fix it Minister rather than taking that essentially arrogant view so smugly portrayed by the National Party today?Hon Gerry Brownlee: What’s he talking about?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There is no use in the man from the woodwork lathe getting excited either. We know that his tutelage in respect of Christchurch has been disastrous. He is now the Minister of Defence. He knows nothing about defence of course which probably qualifies him for the job.We see red in the standard of living deficit. You see here is the point. Under National one thing is incontrovertible and inarguable: the poor have got poorer and the middle-income people are getting poorer as well and many old and retired people are now stressed out about how if they keep on living they are going to be able to afford to live. That is the real social condition in this country—one of the greatest countries on earth which used to be called Godzone. It has now under National under this economic theory descended to this. The National Party members should be ashamed of themselves. Just because they get about $200000 a year and most of them have got four homes somewhere around the country—some have got 10—they do not want to change anything because they are on the pig’s back and everybody else is getting what is under the pig’s tail.The standard of living deficit is dramatically bad. Then we have got this really significant thing which is not in the Budget today. The Minister of Finance talked about GDP growth but he never matched it with population growth. It is axiomatic that if GDP was to rise to a certain level and the population rose to the same level at the same percentage there is no progress at all. That is exactly what is not here. What is the GDP growth per person? What is the income per capita—the measurement that every other country understands. Oh no—no mention of that whatsoever. Why? Because the moment that people knew that they would know what a miserable failure at running this country this mass immigration party is.Hon Gerry Brownlee: And that from the refugees’ friend!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well you see again he does not understand the difference between refugees onhumanitarian grounds and mass immigration. We are a cultured party. We are people who understand international obligations. We are not as smugly arrogant—sitting there in the boat saying “I’m in the boat Jack; forget about you.”—but we do understand about focused planned immigration which every Asian nation understands but not these sell-outs to big business.There is the resilience deficit. You know things are so bad that if we have one hiccup internationally with our commodities we are in trouble. This is what the Reserve Bank Governor said the other day on 30 April—and I love this phrase; it is what is wrong with modern New Zealand politics and our institutions and it is about the character of our nation—“House price inflation is elevated in Auckland.” Really that statement is about as bleeding obvious as “The Pope is a Catholic.” That is what he said. That is New Zealand’s present problem. We have people cosseted away with high incomes and salaries many on the taxpayer’s back failing to tell the country honestly what is going on.I want to make it very clear that we are going to fix up the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act at the first chance we get. New Zealand First is going to make sure that we have research and development and regional policy taxation and that immigration is for the first time a sound policy. We are going to govern for New Zealanders and for all those who are here legally. We are going to ensure that the exporters in the provinces and those people who make this country go and who build on production not consumption get a fair go.It is a time for a reality check. Where is National’s strategy plan and vision? It has not got one. The blunt truth is that there is absolutely no room for complacency about the New Zealand economy because National has failed to look ahead and plan and invest for the future. Nothing in this Budget warrants any confidence in the National Government’s management of the New Zealand economy. This is a Budget with deficits everywhere. Examine them carefully and like Split Enz and Tim Finn you will come to the same conclusion: “I see red I see red I see red.”