Rich Katherine: Budget Debate 
Rich Katherine: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21077] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 Michael Cullen’s disappointment at how the general public and the media received his Budget was palpable. He was quite surprised I think that New Zealanders turned up their noses at the tax cuts he presented and were not that fussed on his KiwiSaver programme and that businesses were not more appreciative of changes made to fringe benefit taxes. Of course businesses did not see the Budget as a great handout. They saw the changes to fringe benefit taxes as being something that corrected past anomalies. 
We can tell that the Government is snippy about the way the public has received its Budget because having listened to most of the speeches in this debate we know that most of the Government speeches have not been about the Budget at all. They have been about the National Party and what the Government imagines that the National Party will or will not do. That is quite a telling point. The speeches have not been about what is great in the Budget. They have not been singing the praises of the Budget. They have referred to what National will do. That demonstrates some sensitivity on that side of the House because those members too are disappointed. This Budget was presented as being the saviour of Labour but Michael Cullen broke one of the golden rules of politics—undersell and over-deliver. 
That was made more difficult by no one less than the Labour Party President Mike Williams who when interviewed about the Budget said there was a “deep dark secret” in it that had to do with tax. The Government dismissed those claims and said that media reporters had interviewed their own typewriters but lo and behold it was gobsmacked when the tapes were replayed and showed that Mike Williams had actually made those comments. The people who oversold the Budget were members of the Labour Party. They went around and said that there would be a deep dark secret so it is no wonder that the New Zealand public were very disappointed when the deep dark secret turned out to be 67c per week in 3 years’ time. 
Most New Zealanders in this country will get 67c. That is not enough to buy a hamburger or even to buy a packet of chewing gum although that has been used as the example. That is not enough to buy anything—not even a bottle of milk. The Budget will give 67c and that side of the House wonders why New Zealanders looked at that tax cut and said: “Yeah right! You must be playing a joke on us.” Sixty-seven cents is nothing to write home about. The disappointment that this Budget was not a king hit—and in fact was a big flop—has been palpable. Labour has itself to blame for the way it sold the Budget; the media were disappointed and showed that in their reports of the Budget. 
Once again we see a Budget that does not really have a lot in it. We notice a change in tack; Labour is now talking about the Working for Families package. But of course that was the story Labour told in last year’s Budget. As if Labour is desperately trying to make some headway in promoting this Budget that package has been dragged out of the archives and is being used to argue why this Budget is so good. But it comes back to one point: 67c per week in 3 years’ time does not make a Budget to write home about. 
I will make a couple of comments about accident compensation. I am pretty disappointed by the Budget with regard to accident compensation. Nothing in the Budget will make any major changes to some of the problems that I think are being faced by the clients of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) who have cause to ring it for various issues. It will come as a surprise to members that if a person had cause to ring the ACC in March of this year 44 percent of the time it was likely that he or she would have hung up in absolute frustration. Forty-four percent of all calls to an inquiry centre at the ACC ended up not with someone answering the phone not with someone dealing with the concern but with a client totally frustrated and hanging up the phone in disgust. That was because of a change in technology at a call centre that was not well implemented. We have seen a lot of puff and rhetoric about this Budget but very little in terms of substance. 
I will also make a few comments about some of the other areas of social policy that still remain of interest to me. One of the untold stories in this Budget is really the deterioration of the welfare system when in fact we have had 5 or 6 years of the best economic conditions—certainly the best in my lifetime. This Budget does not answer some of the key questions of why after such good economic conditions it is now projected that 76000 New Zealanders will be on the invalids benefit this year. That is an increase of 43 percent. This Government has added 22000 people to the invalids benefit. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Fairbrother thinks that is a great thing. He is saying that it is marvellous. I say it is an absolutely shocking statistic. I can see that Labour members are upset by those statistics and so is the rest of New Zealand. 
The figures in respect of the sickness benefit are exactly the same. This Government has added 14000 New Zealanders to the number of people on that benefit since 1999—that is an increase of 43 percent—and Labour dares to crow about unemployment rates. We all know that many of those people have just shifted from one benefit to another—they have just been trapped on one benefit and moved to another. 
Let us look at the amount that has been spent after the best economic conditions in a generation. I have questions to ask of those members across the floor. Why has the amount that we spend on welfare gone up not down? Why has the amount that we spend on the invalids benefit gone up not down? Why has the number of people on the invalids benefit gone up by nearly 23000 people not down? It is the same for the sickness benefit as well. Why has the number of people on the sickness benefit increased so dramatically? Those are the untold stories in the Budget. We will not find a good explanation of why that is the case because that is a story that Labour does not want told. 
That is the case even when we look at areas like the special benefit. In 1999-2000 $35 million was spent on the special benefit. Members would be shocked to hear that spending on that benefit is projected to be $150 million in this Budget. So when Labour says that it has made changes to the welfare system that have brought improvements I say that that is absolute rubbish! We have seen more people go into that welfare system never to return and that is one of the stories that Labour refuses to tell. While it crows about employment figures it forgets the increases to those major benefit areas. 
Government members really should concentrate their speeches on the Budget and they should be less interested in National. I think the continued discussion of what Labour thinks National will do demonstrates that Labour knows we will be the next Government and that it is frustrated because the New Zealand public has not bought in to its Budget. The general public have looked at Labour’s Budget turned up their noses and said of 67c in 3 years’ time: “Well we are not going to get excited about that.” The Government is disguising its total disappointment that the New Zealand public have seen through its Budget and have not got excited. The public have not been excited by things like the KiwiSaver programme when what they want is more in the pocket.