Hutchison Paul: Budget Debate 
Hutchison Paul: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9664] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Michael Cullen’s Budget should be looked at in the context of what the Labour Government tried to set out to do way back in 1999 and that was of course to reach the top half of the OECD. The Prime Minister said that this would occur Michael Cullen said that this was Labour’s aspiration and what has happened? New Zealand has moved down two slots from 20th to 22nd. Not only that—productivity has gone down 700 New Zealanders go across the ditch every week and even worse the number of New Zealand graduates overseas is something like 10 times the number of Australian graduates overseas. There are 10 times more New Zealand graduates overseas than Australian graduates. So what has this eighth Budget of Dr Cullen done? It has done absolutely nothing. Productivity is down. Will it close the gap with Australia? Absolutely not. 
I will talk just a little bit about a double whammy that has occurred in my electorate the excellent electorate of Port Waikato. The local editor of the  
Franklin Times 
—an excellent paper which prints 40000 copies once a week—is very glad that he has a business tax reduction from 33c to 30c. He is happy about that but what he is particularly concerned about are the compliance costs that he and his employees will be faced with when KiwiSaver comes on board as he will have to pay a certain amount in employer contributions. He is also very annoyed because he and his employees will be paying a 10c a litre petrol tax for electrification of the Auckland railways which do not come to Pukekohe or Tuakau—and this Government has made no provision for security of parking in Papakura let alone in Pukekohe or Tuakau. But the Government has the absolute gall to go on charging that 10c a litre petrol tax all the way down to Mercer far beyond the boundaries of Pukekohe and Tuakau. 
If only Dr Cullen could learn the basics and keep things simple. The rules are obvious: a simple low-tax system a flexible labour market and an efficient effective regulatory regime. But for a man like Dr Cullen that is impossible. He is a man who has lived all his life—as I heard Tau Henare say earlier on in the day—either in the university or here in Parliament. He has never had a job out there never run a business and never understood how difficult it can be to fill in forms in a business out there. He just does not understand those things so instead he has devised a very complex savings scheme. He has put on yet more taxes to add to the 44 that he has brought in over the last 7 to 8 years and I am sure that he will draw up a whole scheme of complicated regulations as soon as he can think about it. 
When this Labour Government came in back in 1999 the growth rate was 4.6 percent. It has never risen higher than that. So I ask Clayton Cosgrove whom we see pointing his finger over there whether the growth rate has ever gone above 4.6 percent. No it has not. The Labour Government has failed to sustain the growth rate that it inherited when it came into Government. That is because it decided to do some very silly things like making massive so-called reforms to the health system and massive so-called reforms to the tertiary education system. 
We now have 21 district health boards and we now have the most bureaucratic complex health system in the Western World. Back in 1998 one Annette King said it was criminal to have a waiting list of 89000 and now the hospital waiting list is over 150000. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You don’t even know your own history. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I do know my history very well. In this House Annette King said that a waiting list of 89000 was criminal and now under a Labour Government we have a waiting list greater than 159000. That is despite spending $4 billion extra every year. And we learn today that fewer people are having specialist first assessments than there were back in 1999. That is the sort of indictment that Dr Cullen should wear for setting up the wrong policy settings—as he has continued to do with his eighth Budget. 
One of the things I turn to for just a moment is the disability sector. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: How’s your right hook Smoko? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Although Clayton Cosgrove might not be interested in the disability sector those people are some of our most vulnerable. When Labour first came in it said it would restore social justice. It created a Minister for Disability Issues and it created an Office for Disability Issues which produced two papers:  
New Zealand 
Disability Strategy: Making a World of Difference: Whakanui Oranga 
 and  
To Have an Ordinary Life 
.  
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I bet the member hasn’t even read it. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: The member might not even know there is an inquiry going on right now. Yet in the Social Services Committee we hear every day of deaths of abuse and of intimidation of our most vulnerable people under this Labour Government 8 years after it said it would restore social justice. We hear stories of people in the disability sector who are too frightened to complain about their carers for fear of retribution. This is what is happening under the Labour Government. The sector is saying that the Labour Government has put in all of these high-sounding ideological papers but that it has failed to implement them in reality.  
I now turn for a second to the tertiary education sector under Dr Cullen. What we do know is that hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on soft educational courses under this Labour Government—twilight golf homeopathy for pets singalong basket weaving you name it. But we also know that only 4 weeks ago the Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Commission Janice Shiner said the Tertiary Education Commission was not fit for purpose and that there were bound to be more courses that would wind up in the ether. Yet in Dr Cullen’s eighth Budget a quarter of a billion dollars more is being put into tertiary education. He is saying that he is setting up a reform focusing on value for money quality and relevance. He is putting a quarter of billion dollars more into value for money quality and relevance while the chief executive officer of the Tertiary Education Commission is saying the organisation is not fit for purpose. This is the sort of absurdity that Dr Cullen is working under. This profligate spending that Dr Cullen is doing is the very type of spending that is causing interest rates in New Zealand to go up to the level that they are. 
There is no doubt that Dr Cullen’s eighth Budget has been an utter failure. It should have been about growth and it should have been about aspiration but it will be about Dr Cullen and the Labour Government walking out. We should not see them again because they have utterly failed.