Davis Kelvin: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4046. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The member for Wairarapa Alastair Scott spoke earlier and said that the Labour Opposition is criticising the Government’s Budget trajectory. We are not criticising the trajectory; we are criticising the deficit. Over the last 3 or 4 years all we have heard is that this Budget is going to deliver a surplus and it has failed to do that. All we have heard are broken promises and squandered opportunities. This Budget has done nothing nothing whatsoever to address the real issues that are going on in New Zealand.We also criticise the fact that the Government has borrowed $84 billion over the last 7 years. The last Labour Government left the new National Government in a great position and with great opportunity. We had zero Government debt and now we have got $84 billion worth of debt. Government members do not say a lot about that. They keep talking themselves up but all we can see is $84 billion worth of debt. I do not criticise $790 million going towards the families that need it the most but $790 million or $25 per family per week is not enough even to keep up with the cost of living. They seem to forget that in 2006 Working for Families delivered a $60 tax credit for families on the benefit as well. We hear a lot of talk from Government members. They are talking themselves up but the reality is they are not delivering. This Government has lost its way. It is failing to meet the needs of New Zealand families and it has no long-term plan to address the challenges ahead. The Government is robbing from our children’s future just to scrape by today. This is a Government of broken promises.We have a beautiful creature in Māoridom. It is called the kēwai. A kēwai is a freshwater crayfish. A freshwater crayfish moves by flapping its legs and moving backwards and this is what I would say is a “kēwai Budget” where the Government members are backtracking and back-pedalling as fast as they can flap themselves. They promised a surplus and all we have got is another deficit. There were nine surpluses from this side of the House and seven deficits from over there.What would a responsible Government do? It would grow incomes. This Government has failed on that. It promised that incomes would grow by $7000 and it has failed to meet that by some $3000. It has not fixed the housing crisis. Phil Twyford was very eloquent in describing the issues around the housing crisis in Auckland. The Government has not hit the speculators and when it started to hit the speculators it was just a Clayton’s attack. We are not going to see much difference in what has happened. I think of my nephew. He is very lucky that he bought a house some 5 years ago in Auckland for $400000. He sold it at the end of last year for $790000. He is one of the lucky ones. But people coming into the housing market now are the ones who are going to miss out. A real Government would invest in a productive and diverse economy. All this Government is doing is relying on dairy and disaster. If it was not for the Christchurch earthquake the growth in our economy would be about 25 percent less than what it is now.This Government needs to prepare New Zealand for the next generation of wealth creation. It is not doing that. It has not transformed tertiary education to match skills with future jobs. By the way something that we need to keep harping on about is the previous Labour Government’s record when it comes to unemployment. We got it down to 3.4 percent—3.4 percent—and what has this Government done? Well it has doubled that now. Not only that in Whangarei in 2007 there were 58 people on the unemployment benefit. You could just about name them if you sat down and tried to memorise their names. You could basically do that. I do not know how many hundreds if not thousands are on the unemployment benefit now in Whangarei.Let us have a listen to some of these broken promises. Well there is the surplus. We have already covered that. We have had seven deficits. We are promised now that next year there will be a surplus. Actually let us remember the Minister of Finance’s analogy. He said: “Oh well if you’re trying to lose 10 kilogrammes to fit a suit for your brother’s wedding and you lose only 9.8 kilogrammes well what does it matter?”. I prefer this analogy. When the All Blacks go to the Rugby World Cup this year in order to bring home that William Webb Ellis Cup they need a surplus of points—more points—than the other team. If they end up with a deficit of points they are losers; they have lost. That is why the people of New Zealand are losing because of this Budget.What else? Jobs and wages—this is in John Key’s open letter to New Zealanders after the election. He promised that “Over the next 2 years we expect to see about 150000 jobs created.” National will fall short on that promise by 60000. Then there is the KiwiSaver kick-start contribution of $1000. The Government is robbing our children’s future to scrape by today. That is unacceptable. Then we have new taxes. Of course we were told there would be no new taxes. That was an election promise—no new taxes. Well we have got a new capital gains tax that is not really a capital gains tax. We have got an airport tax that we are told is not really a tax; it is a levy. We have got a broadband tax. What is the next one? National promised to increase exports to 40 percent of GDP. Well that is heading south as well. Then there are the regions. Well the regions spoke—Northland spoke. It has been forgotten. The Minister of Transport Simon Bridges said: “We’ll promise 10 bridges.” Thank God his name is not “Simon Tunnels” or else we would have 10 tunnels going through Northland. This is a reckless Budget.I just want to touch on the police estimates because the poor police are doing a great job out there but they are just getting no Budget increases. In fact they have had $15 million in cuts this year. I know that the Minister is going to get up here and say: “Oh no that is not true. We’re implementing $160 million in new initiatives.” Well really what the Minister has done is taken a pack of cards shuffled it allowed a few cards to fall out on to the floor and then re-dealt them and said that it is all new money. Well I can tell everyone that it is not new money; it is $15 million less. Let us just have a look and let us just use the estimates that came out last week. If we look at the columns in Budget 2014-15 the final budgeted amount was $1.624 billion and in the estimated actual it was $1.624 billion. What is the budget for 2015-16? It is $1.609 billion. That is a Budget cut and no Minister can walk in here and say that they have increased the funding for police. It is here in black and white that the Government has cut the police Budget and that is unacceptable.But when you look through the police Budget what do you see? You see that the Government’s targets are more on revenue collecting. For example it has got greater targets in chasing up people using cellphones while driving. I think it is trying to double the number of people who are using cellphones whom it wants to catch. There is funding for incorrect lane changing and warrants of fitness and yet there are people like our colleague the Hon Phil Goff who had his motorbike pinched. He ain’t going to see that again because the high-volume crimes—those really irritating crimes such as theft burglary assault shoplifting—are not having as much money put into them.In fact many of the cuts are coming from catching drivers speeding. The Government wants to catch more people but it is actually giving the police less money in order to catch speeders. Heavy vehicle fleet—I take it that that is catching trucks that are overloaded. Fatigue and distraction—the Government is taking away $133000 from that. Traffic management—it is taking away $408000 from that. Alcohol and impaired drivers—now you would think that that would be a massive priority but it is taking away $2.815 million from there. High-risk drivers—it is removing $5.128 million from there. So the Government is asking the police to do more to catch more people but it is giving them less money and these are all high revenue collecting crimes—rather than going out and catching those criminals who are breaking into homes and like I say stealing the Hon Phil Goff’s motorcycle. This Budget does not deliver.I would really like to carry on about the Department of Corrections. There is a big mess there and it all comes around the prison privately run by Serco which is a direct transfer of jobs from the public sector through to the private sector. Unfortunately my time has expired. Kia ora.