Goff Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Goff Phil: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition will oppose the motion. David Farrar who is the National Party’s pollster on his blog this afternoon gave the speech that John Key just read out a B grade and he was being generous. We heard a lot of rhetoric; we heard very little substance. I would say that Alan Bollard who rained on the Prime Minister’s parade on Sunday would classify that speech as Alan Bollard 1 John Key 0. That speech proved Alan Bollard right: there is no plan. There is the talk of a step change but there is no plan at all that any Government member could look at and say will close the gap with Australia. That speech was not a step change it was a step back. There was no bold plan—no plan at all. The Prime Minister’s spin doctors hyped that speech to be the most important speech that he would read out this year. It was “Big Tuesday” they said. It was more like “Tip-toe Tuesday”. 
Let us look at the one thing where there was a sense of where the Government wants to go: GST. Let me read out what the Prime Minister said. He signals a rise in GST and I oppose GST because there is no way that the Government will implement it to be fair to all New Zealanders. There is no way that it will make it fair to all New Zealanders. Forget about the rhetoric of fairness; this is about mates’ rates. This tax change— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the honourable Leader of the Opposition. Some interjection is reasonable when a point is raised that is perhaps controversial but to go on and on is unacceptable. I said that the Leader of the Opposition would be heard and that courtesy would be extended to him. I apologise for interrupting him. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I oppose the increase in GST because there is no way that this Government will ensure that the tax changes that it is bringing in will be fair to all New Zealanders. 
When the Prime Minister talks about GST he does it with a trembling voice. Let us listen to what he said in that speech. The Government is only “considering” it—only “considering” it. “No decisions have yet been made and the Government has asked for more work to be done on this.” Government members know that New Zealanders do not believe that a National Government will produce a tax package that is fair across the board to all New Zealanders. Forget the rhetoric; look at the record. Look at the record of the Prime Minister’s last tax changes in December 2008. Thirty percent of the tax benefits went to the top 3 percent of New Zealand income earners. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: They pay 75 percent of the tax. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Nick Smith says that is OK—30 percent to the top 3 percent. I wonder whether he says it was OK that no New Zealand family with dependent children that earned less than $40000 got any tax cut at all. No New Zealand family with dependent children that earned less than $40000 got any tax cut at all but it was OK to give 30 percent of the benefits to 3 percent of the top income earners. Shame—absolutely shame! 
What was interesting in the Prime Minister’s comments was what he did not say. He did not say what he was going to do with the top tax rates. Well he did not say that in this package but we know because he has been promising those mates who funded the National Party at the last election that it will happen. Let us have a look at what will happen when the top tax rates are cut. The Prime Minister will do pretty well out of it. On his prime ministerial salary it will be worth $509 a week to him. Take Paul Reynolds who heads up Telecom—and I will not include his bonuses which run into millions; I will look just at his base salary. On his base salary he would get $2600 a week—$2600 a week. What about the person on the minimum wage? The person on the minimum wage of course got 25c an hour from the Prime Minister—very generous I tell the Prime Minister. You know over a week that 25c an hour almost enables that low-income but hard-working family to buy one packet of Weetbix. But out of the tax cuts at the top people on the minimum wage will get nothing—nothing. Well they probably did not expect anything out of a National Government. But take the people on the average wage of $48600; what will they get from a tax cut that will take the maximum tax rate from 38c in the dollar down to 30c in the dollar? They will get 35c—not 35c an hour but 35c a week I tell the Prime Minister. Is that what he is going to do? His silence in this speech indicates that that is in National’s plans. The person on $70000—you know a middle-income earner doing reasonably well but still finding things a bit tough—would get $12.69. Compare that with the Prime Minister’s $509! 
No member of the National Government therefore should come into this House saying that it is planning a fair tax package. Those members have floated the idea that they will put GST up. We know why GST is regressive. It is because the people who earn the lowest amount—the people who earn the lowest amount—have to spend all of their income and disproportionately end up paying more tax. I ask the Prime Minister which New Zealanders he has met out in the street have told him that they want the price of their bread to go up or the price of their milk their power their kids’ shoes and their back-to-school needs. Who has asked for an increase in GST? The truth is that no one has except for those people on the top incomes in New Zealand who expect an increase in GST to pay for cuts in the very high incomes they are earning. Labour members have no confidence that this Government will look after the needs of the people who will be affected by that. If anything there will be a token measure to partially compensate them for the increase in GST. I ask who the winners out of the National Government’s tax package will be. That is a fair question: who are the winners and who are the losers? The winners will be the Prime Minister’s best mates on their high incomes and the losers will be average New Zealanders. Mark my words that is what the figures show. 
But his speech was not just about taxation; it was about how we are going to move New Zealand forward. We needed a speech and we needed a plan that would show that the Government had some idea of how to move New Zealand forward but the speech lacked substance it lacked conviction and it lacked anything new. It was a little bit like watching those late-night TV programmes where we see the repeats; everything that has already been said was repeated in that speech. Take the Kopu Bridge. Do members remember the Kopu Bridge? It has been announced for the 11th time that the Kopu Bridge will be built. But I ask the House when the funding for the Kopu Bridge came into the Budget and who initiated it. It was under Labour. This policy announced 11 times by National brings the programme forward by 6 months—6 months only. 
Then I heard the Prime Minister talk about research and development. You know the Government has just discovered that science and research and development are important things. It is a pity that the Prime Minister did not discover that fact when he and his Government cut $2 billion out of the Fast Forward fund—$2 billion. Then he cut research and development tax credits. That was to deliver in about 5 years’ time I think about $300 million a year to innovative companies that could take New Zealand forward. He cut those tax credits and now he has the temerity to come into this House and say he wants to do something about science and research and development. I tell the Prime Minister that while he was cutting hundreds of millions out of research and development when he came into Government in this country a smart Government across the Tasman was increasing its expenditure on research and development by 25 percent. The Prime Minister says he wants to close the gap between New Zealand and Australia. I tell the Prime Minister that the gap has become wider not narrower. It is wider on research and development because of the steps that the Government in power has taken. It is wider on employment. 
The Prime Minister wants to close the gap but what has happened in employment since the election? Our unemployment rates have risen 30 percent higher than those of Australia. Australia is getting its unemployment down because it has a Government that believes in bringing unemployment down a Government that is active a Government that does not simply sit on the sidelines and do nothing. We have a Government that does nothing. No that is not right; it held a Job Summit last year. Does the Prime Minister remember? He told us that the Job Summit would not be a talkfest but that is all we got of it. We got just a handful of jobs and today 168000 New Zealanders have no livelihood. The Prime Minister told us in December last year that he was pretty happy about the rate of unemployment and that it was peaking at 7 percent. As he was telling us that unemployment in New Zealand rose by 18000—18000. Of those people who are now unemployed more than a quarter have been out of work for 6 months or longer. These are people who are losing hope who have lost their livelihood and for whom this Government is doing nothing. 
Then I heard in the Prime Minister’s speech about the job guarantee. Do members remember the job guarantee which was to give young New Zealanders a guarantee that they would be in work in training or in education? I tell the Prime Minister that the highest level of unemployment in this country is amongst our young people. One in five of our young people is not in work not in training and not in education. And I say shame on the Maori Party because more than one in four of young Maori is out of work. I also say to the Maori Party that raising a flag over the Auckland Harbour Bridge will not deal with the fundamentals of people who want jobs and want decent incomes. This Government has failed on unemployment and nothing in the Prime Minister’s statement gives us any hope that there is a plan. In fact the Prime Minister has told the country that his Government is doing everything possible for those who are out of work. That is simply not true. It is not true. This Government has sat on the sidelines; the Government across the Tasman has got on to the field has been active has brought in skills and training has brought in research and development and has a properly targeted stimulus package. Its unemployment is going down; ours is going up. 
What in the Prime Minister’s statement gives any hope to hard-working New Zealand families who are trying to get ahead? You know if the Government would listen it might learn something. It is a real problem that this Government is not listening. John Key was not listening to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. He is not listening to John Hattie. John Hattie is the man on whom National’s programme of educational standards was supposedly based. Everybody respects John Hattie. He is a renowned expert in standards. What is John Hattie telling the country? He has said the Government’s programme is fundamentally flawed—fundamentally flawed—and will achieve the opposite of what the Government is claiming. I tell the Prime Minister it is time to listen to John Hattie. It is also time to listen to Pita Sharples who told the Prime Minister that he had not been consulted and that he did not agree with the programme. What did he get? He got told off he got told to shut up and then he got bought off because national standards will apply in the general schools but they will not now apply in the kura kaupapa schools. That is double standards. If it is good for our mainstream schools why is it not good for our Maori schools? The Prime Minister never answered that. 
Families are struggling to make ends meet; not just those at the bottom of the heap although they are finding it harder but people right up to the middle-income level. The labour cost index that was released a week ago stated that 56 percent of New Zealanders got no wage or salary increase last year—56 percent of New Zealanders. Yet they have faced rising costs and now the Prime Minister is promising them with the lifting of GST that he will push those costs still higher. But where is there anything in the Prime Minister’s statement that says that those families will get a lift? 
I finish on the question of the vulnerable. The Prime Minister has told us time and again that he is going to look after the disadvantaged. You know he came into my electorate to a street called McGehan Close and insulted the people by saying it was a dead-end street. He said that the rungs of opportunity had been stripped out from under them and that he would make things better. He talked persuasively to a lady called Joan Nathan and he took her young daughter Aroha and led her hand-in-hand across the bridge at Waitangi. What did Joan Nathan say about John Key today? She said that she has been let down by the Prime Minister and that her daughter who was used as a photo opportunity exploited as a photo opportunity wants nothing to do with the Prime Minister. She said she was employed by Jackie Blue. Before the election things looked really good; the day after the election she was sacked. Jackie Blue said that was because she was merging her office with Sam Lotu-Iiga’s. Well I happen to know that Jackie Blue’s office is in Dominion Road and that Sam Lotu-Iiga’s office is in Onehunga Mall so that cannot possibly be true. It cannot possibly be true. Joan Nathan said—and I want the National members to listen for a moment to what this woman lauded by the Prime Minister said—that she had been impressed by John Key but “He’s just made everything worse for us”—he has just made everything worse for us—“and made it easier for ones that are higher up. I’m struggling every week.” That is what Joan Nathan said. She not only was sacked by the National Party when she was no longer politically useful to it; she had a training allowance she says to do a course but it has been stripped away from her. It has been stripped away from her. I wonder what the Prime Minister really meant when he said he was there to make sure the rungs of opportunity were available for those people. 
That is double standards. Nothing that we have heard from the Government today gives us any indication of how it intends to take this country forward let alone catch up with Australia as was promised with all the political hyperbole that the Prime Minister could manage at the time of the election campaign. There is nothing in this package that indicates that the benefits of economic recovery happening internationally—4 percent growth internationally this year—will be shared amongst all New Zealanders. There is nothing in this package that says that the Government has any idea at all about how it can promote growth how it can support innovation or how it will go about helping build skills. 
We had a New Zealand Skills Strategy. It was endorsed on a tripartite basis by the then Labour Government the trade union movement and by the employers. I listened to Phil O’Reilly this week. He normally is a strong supporter of the Government. Maybe the Prime Minister should listen to Phil O’Reilly on this because he said that one thing he was really disappointed about was that there was no skills strategy for New Zealanders. There are 72000 young New Zealanders out of work without hope and without the chance to make the most of their lives. The Prime Minister and the National Party can talk till the cows come home about guaranteed jobs skill guarantees or youth guarantees; the truth is they talk about it but that is all they do. They do not do anything to help people on the ground who genuinely want to help themselves who want to get ahead and who want to make their families get ahead. This Government has nothing to help them. This statement by the Prime Minister fails on every count.