Woodhouse Michael: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 26 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3973. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): I am very much looking forward to an overview of the Budget and in particular of the votes in my responsibility but I cannot let the final comments by Ms Genter go unchallenged in respect of public commitment to public transport and in particular rail. I would say two things about that. Firstly wild commitments that are unfunded are not commitments. They are just promises of the future. It was this Government that found the funding to meet the need for the electrification of Auckland. I will also say this. This Government has committed—I am not sure of the exact number but I am sure this is pretty close—$3.4 billion investment into KiwiRail and another $0.25 billion in this Budget just to help KiwiRail stay afloat. So let there be no question about this Government’s commitment financially to rail but it needs to be smarter than that. Big grand plans for rail and rail links and things like that neglect the way in which the vast majority of people do go about their business—that is on roads—and let us just remember most public transport goes on roads. The significant investment of I think about $100 million that Minister Bridges has announced for cycleways means that this Government can hold its head high in respect of its commitment to both public transport and cycleways.Budgets are hard and the longer Governments are in office the harder it can be to put together packages that in straitened times continue to fund the programmes that are existing while looking and finding the funding for those new programmes that are invested in. So I was extremely proud to be part of a Cabinet that came up with the package for families in hardship. I must say it was a surprise to most but not to this side of the House. I think the description from my colleague and friend from Taranaki - King CountryBarbara Kuriger—I do not know whether this has been publicly said Ms Kuriger—that I heard recently of the reaction from the Labour Opposition when that part of the Budget was being read was that it was like seeing a child reach out for a balloon that burst in front of its eyes before the child could grab it. That I think was the best metaphor for the reaction and the surprise that Labour—having banged on about how heartless this Government is—had to this Government being the first Government since 1972 to increase support for families in hardship over and above the cost of inflation.Hon David Cunliffe: You’ve taken it away from KiwiSaver.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well the member is quite right. My offer to the member—and my chequebook is still in my pocket—is I will pay that $1000 back when just one member says that they did not take the tax cut. That is all I am asking. It is not a big ask but not one member has knocked on my door yet.I think that package reflects this Government’s compassion towards those in most need while at the same time acknowledging—and I heard Mrs Tolley in question time say—that the best pathway out of poverty is work. Well I would suggest actually that the only pathway out of poverty and the constant battle and the resilience that one needs to be able to pay the first bill then the next bill then the next and not live fortnight to fortnight is to find work and work that can be sustained. I know as the Minister of Immigration that that work is there. It is a fact that we do have a skill mismatch and a geographic mismatch and the challenges for many of our young in particular in terms of their ability to be able to get and sustained work are ones that this Government will overcome. But let there be no doubt that with the support comes an expectation that working-age beneficiaries will seek work. I think that is what the taxpayer who invests in their support would expect.We have had a focus on exports and growing exports through these straitened times. One thing we have failed to do—one export that seemed to be going gangbusters under the previous Labour Government and that this Government has singularly failed to do—is export its people. We could have filled Westpac Stadium with the people who were leaving these shores every year. The Prime Minister when Leader of the Opposition made a commitment to turn that round. We turned it into a bus then a phone box and now they are coming back. They are coming back not only in positive numbers for the first time but Australians are now looking to this country for the job opportunities that a strong growing economy will have.I was at the Brisbane job fair one of four job fairs that the Government initiated in Perth Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne and the level of interest in and applications for the jobs that were available with the employers that went over to those fairs was very very high. There is a nervousness across the Ditch about their economy. I think last year’s Budget by the Australian Government was an example of where slashing and burning and not sticking to a plan can have political ramifications. This Government has not done that and there would have been a temptation I suspect to cut just to get to surplus. I would much rather suffer the slings and arrows of that Opposition about the Government’s failure—albeit by a wafer-thin margin—to achieve surplus than to cut important programmes just to get there. Not only did this Government not do that but it invested very heavily in its most vulnerable.With that flow of people and a significant increase in the number of people wanting to visit New Zealand our tourism industry—our single largest service export earner—has gone very very strongly over the last couple of years from emerging markets. Immigration officers in Beijing Shanghai and Guangzhou are very very busy with a significant increase—40 or 50 percent year-on-year interest—in that growing middle class in China wanting to come and visit New Zealand. It is not just China; it is India it is the rest of Asia and it is the United States. New Zealand is a desirable destination but with that comes risk. The important challenge for immigration is to ensure that we let the right people in and we keep the wrong people out and so I was very pleased to be able to announce a $33 million increase in Budget 2014 over the next 4 years to ensure that those growing passenger arrival numbers do have a commensurate increase in the risk management—in the advanced passenger processing—that we have for them.Indeed as Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety I announced another $32 million because many of those people coming to work or study here have work rights attached to them. It is very important to me as Minister that they are well looked after and that the people who are helping us to rebuild Christchurch following the earthquakes can do so on the back of supportive employers and not exploitative employers. I think that the incidence and prevalence of that is quite low but it is very important that we keep it that way and so the extra investment in the labour inspectorate—which has now increased that team by 40 percent since we came to office—is a significant reflection of this Government’s priority to make sure that our migrants who are working are made welcome and are well looked after. The task is prevention and then prosecution for those who fall below. I must say it is very disappointing that Labour and the Greens did not support my Immigration Amendment Bill which significantly increased the punishments for employers who knowingly exploit legal workers in this country.I just want to touch on Vote Police. An extra $164 million is going into the baseline to consolidate the police’s funding to continue the excellent work that they have done in reducing reported crime in this country to its lowest level in 30 years—a more than 20 percent reduction. That has been done in a number of very very smart ways using technologies that this Government has enabled the police to get to get police out from behind their desks and their cars and to be out on the beat visible and supporting their communities. IPads and iPhone technology is just one example of the hardware that police have been given to support their communities but it is also an example of very clever tools that are being developed by their software providers to ensure that the process of infringements and prosecutions is a much more efficient one. The Policing Excellence: The Future programme I think will continue to deliver excellent results in enabling the police to have and maintain the very high levels of trust and confidence—probably world leading for a law enforcement organisation—that the public have had in them despite the fact that they work in extremely difficult parts of our community. I want to commend them for the work that they do and I certainly will continue to support them in their efforts.