Clark David: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2137. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): That member the Hon Bill English is clearly living in a parallel universe—the talk about surplus the endless talk about surplus a surplus we are yet to see. The Minister says that the economy is finally in the zone. I think he probably means the red zone where it has always been under his Government. This Government has run two election campaigns on surplus and yet we have not seen a single—single—surplus. We have not yet seen one from this Government.This is a Government that has campaigned on the issue and failed. It has failed. It is not being straight with New Zealanders. Yet Government members will ask ordinary New Zealanders to tighten their belts. We will hear it again with this Budget. We will hear that ordinary New Zealanders should tighten their belts. The Government will cut education spending. It will cut spending on domestic violence. It will cut spending left right and centre. Ordinary New Zealanders should expect to get fewer services. That is what this Government is saying—that you should expect as ordinary citizens to get fewer surpluses.Why is that? Because there are expensive tax cuts to be paid for. This is the Government that gave 40 percent of the big tax package—40 percent of the value—to the top 10 percent of earners and the bottom 20 percent got just 2 percent and that was swallowed up in a GST increase. If people remember back those tax cuts are tax cuts that ordinary New Zealanders are still paying for—in cuts to health services cuts to education and cuts to roading. This is the Government that continues to ask ordinary New Zealanders to cut their budgets while it shovels tax cuts at the wealthiest New Zealanders the wealthiest few.This is a consistent message from this Government because it is trying to get to that surplus. It is asking small businesses to pay more in ACC when it has had recommendations from Treasury from independent reports and from ACC itself saying that ACC is well overfunded. But no it is still asking businesses to pay $350 million more than they need to and that is assuming a very conservative buffer. That is costing jobs for ordinary New Zealanders.This Government is not supporting business—it is not supporting small business—and we have seen that in the red tape throughout its time as it has expected employers with the paper boy tax to collect additional data and as we have seen it expect employers to deal with child support payments that they did not have to deal with before. The Government keeps loading the regulatory red tape on small businesses. It loads the ACC charges on small businesses. It expects ordinary New Zealanders who are struggling to get ahead to keep paying over and over and over again so that it can try to get closer to that surplus whilst it is giving huge tax cuts to the very top 1 or 2 percent of New Zealanders. That is what we will hear again in this Budget. We will hear: “Tighten your belts again please middle New Zealand. We’ve got some expensive tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders to pay and we’re going to cut your services again.” That is what New Zealanders are hearing.We know at the same time that the money is going to those wealthiest few. We know the list of those corporate welfare deals that this Government has had. We have heard about the Cabinet club. We have heard about John Key going to dinner with Donghua Liu. We know that this is a Government that has a special access agreement for wealthy donors.We know that this is a Government that is not being straight with New Zealanders. We know that with the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the Prime Minister was not sure who the new agency head was. It turns out it was his mate’s brother. We heard that he was not sure whether he had been in touch with him. Then we heard that he had rung him up about the GCSB. So this is a Government that is not being straight. With the Iraq thing—being part of the club—the Government was for once caught out telling the truth.This Government is always looking out for its wealthy mates. We saw the endorsements around Oravida. We saw Judith Collins over there donkey-deep in it. We see housing where speculators in the Auckland market are being looked after while this Government does nothing to fix the problem for ordinary New Zealanders. Houses have been going up $1000 a week in Auckland. That is for big speculators—$1000 a week they are earning on every home they own. How much would every Aucklander like to earn $1000 more a week especially those who cannot afford houses right now? This is a Government that is looking after the wealthy and not looking after the interests of middle New Zealand. We know about corporate welfare for Rio Tinto we know about corporate welfare for Chorus and my my do we know about corporate welfare for Skycity.This Government is a Government that has had many MPs fall from grace and that list is getting longer. We had Pansy Wong Richard Worth Phil Heatley Mr Williamson Mr Collins Mr Gilmore Ms Hauiti Mr Sabin—the list goes on. There will be more before this term is out. This is an arrogant Government that is out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders and that is committed to helping the wealthiest few at the top.That is not even mentioning the teapot tapes and the other dishonesty that we have seen or the Primary Growth Partnerships where the money is being shovelled with no measures of success at National Party donors. These are the kinds of moves we have seen from a Government that is determined to look after its mates at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders who in this Budget will again be asked to tighten their belts: “Please tighten your belts ordinary New Zealanders.”This Government has got some corporate welfare on the way. It is trying to get to that surplus and hard-working New Zealanders and small businesses will be asked to pay too much again in ACC levies as the Government tries to get to its first surplus. Let us think about this ACC charge—the $350 million too much that is hurting our economy. It has been estimated in an independent report that that $350 million a year will cost 700 jobs in New Zealand. We have heard about it from ACC and we have heard about it from Treasury.The Skycity deal—I would like to say a little bit more about that. It is an example of this kind of corporate cronyism that we have seen right through from start to finish. John Key is up to his eyeballs in this deal. He kicked it off with a dinner with Skycity executives saying that the dinner—he himself said: “we discussed a possible national convention centre and they raised issues related to the Gambling Act”. And that is where we got those pokie machines. He told his officials to cancel their business case study and close off the Skycity option. His Ministers and officials repeatedly met with Skycity while holding off other tenderers. No one but Skycity was ever going to secure this deal.Then the Auditor-General of course in her hard-hitting report said that this process was flawed and neither transparent nor even-handed. This was a deal that was rotten from the start—and built into that deal right from the start to get it off the political agenda it was done quickly. It was a dirty deal done quickly with provisions that enabled the Government to later say: “We can hand over more cash to Skycity.” Well the Labour Party launched a petition and the National Party backed off on giving extra money to Skycity. But now the Government is still looking out for Skycity’s bottom line. It is now determined to cut the quality of the convention centre to preserve Skycity’s bottom line. Ordinary New Zealanders are being asked to tighten their belts in the meantime whilst the Government is delivering a convention centre that is below what was agreed in the initial deal.In the whole of the election year the National Party had the audacity to get up and say that this was going to be a free convention centre. The original report into the convention centre written by an independent reporter and still on the Ministry of Economic Development website says that it was going to create a net 18 jobs for the New Zealand economy—a net 18 jobs. That was when it was an iconic structure attracting international business. Why only 18 jobs for the New Zealand economy? Because the convention centre is stealing them off Hamilton Rotorua and Taupō. That is what the independent analysis found. That is why Mr Bennett is over there quaking in his seat. He knows that Hamilton jobs are going to go up to Auckland as part of having a new flash convention centre in Auckland. The business will be taken out of the regions to Auckland and it is sponsored by the taxpayer.So that is the Government approach. It is allowing Skycity to cut the quality of the convention centre to compete domestically with other players. That is not why the Government gets involved in these things. The Government is involved in these things or should be to create international business that brings new people to New Zealand—not just to take them off Mr Bennett in Hamilton off his constituents and make them poorer. But that is what we see here.The Government has put itself over a barrel here. We know that it is so committed to corporate welfare that it finds itself in these positions defending the bottom line for Skycity. That sums up this Government’s contribution. It has not achieved its goals and it is not achieving its goals. It is failing to reach surplus again for the seventh time in a row—seven Budgets seven failures to reach surplus. The Labour Government had nine Budgets and nine surpluses. Let us not forget that track record.This Government is determined to carry on with its corporate welfare with its gerrymandering its “john-mandering” and its “joyce-mandering”. It is still borrowing a million dollars every hour of every day to afford its corporate promises and it will ask you New Zealanders to tighten your belts again. I say be warned.