Banks John: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8416. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I am pleased to be working with the Minister of Finance and I am very happy that Dr Norman and his printing press are not around the chairs of the purses of public expenditure. 
What we are looking at today of course and considering is an excess in spending and a structural deficit that the Government has had to deal with—a structural deficit that the Minister has had to grapple with. The report shows that spending growth must be held to 2 percent per annum to restore a fiscal surplus by 2014-15. Holding spending growth at 2 percent is tough; for the last decade spending growth has averaged 8 percent a year. Spending growth in this economy has averaged 8 percent a year over the last 10 years. It needs to be brought back to 2 percent a year. It does not make sense that every day every week every month and every year we borrow from savings from offshore to spend locally on programmes that we simply cannot sustain that we have never been able to afford and that are not as good for investment growth and jobs. 
We are still cleaning up for instance Labour’s KiwiRail mess with $6.6 billion in value of the network being written off to date—$6.6 billion in value of the network being written off to date. We are still dealing with that legacy. As someone who has been in business for 50 years all I can tell you is that you get Dr Cullen as a buyer only once in a lifetime Minister—once in a lifetime. 
So here is where the country needs to go. We need top-down control of expenditure like ACT’s spending cap measure. We need spending cap measures so that we do not have to borrow every day every week and every month from the savings of others to fund expenditure programmes we simply cannot afford. We need much more rigorous programme-by-programme scrutiny. This Parliament needs to do line-by-line and programme-by-programme scrutiny of every single piece of expenditure on its worth. 
We need to do much better at asking questions and asking whether programmes satisfy the OECD’s five basic questions. The five basic questions that the OECD puts to us and that the Minister is prescribing to are these. Does the programme still serve a clearly defined public purpose? Is it an appropriate role for the Government? Would we establish the programme today if it did not already exist? Is it desirable to maintain it at current levels? And can it be delivered more effectively or more efficiently right now? That is the slide rule that the OECD put across all expenditure programmes and we should be doing it today because it makes sense and they are timeless propositions. 
This is the wrap-up: the finance and expenditure report observes that we can look forward to only moderate growth of 2 to 3 percent and continuing high unemployment. Moderate growth and continuing high unemployment—and the other side of the Parliament wants to continue to borrow to tax and to spend. That is the proposition coming from the other side of the Chamber: borrow tax and spend. If we want to grow faster and get more investment and more employment we have to reduce the burden on the private sector so we should pass the slide rule over all regulation on the private sector coming through this House. Is it good for or is it bad for investment growth and jobs? If it is bad for them do not do it; if it is good for them we get on to it. 
Investment growth and jobs—this means less wasteful or unnecessary spending lower taxes and less red tape and regulation. Do you hear that from the other side of the Chamber? How often have you heard it from the other side of the Chamber? Never. We never hear it. So this means less wasteful and unnecessary spending lower taxes and less red tape and regulation. 
I am pleased to be in partnership with this Minister of Finance in this National-ACT - led Government which is committed to less government lower taxes more opportunity world-class education jobs for everyone and a growing economy that pays its way and where all regulation is tested in this House to see whether it is necessary. If it is not necessary we do not want to know about it because we are committed to a programme of getting this country back into surplus and paying its way so that we do not have to borrow from the savings of other citizens of other countries every day every week and every month to make ends meet. I finish as I began—