Fenton Darien: Budget Debate 
Fenton Darien: Budget Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:4201] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the National-ACT Government’s first Budget. I am particularly pleased to follow the member Sandra Goudie who has just resumed her seat the next Minister outside Cabinet in the National Government. The Government is getting quite desperate when its members have to quote Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable. There really is some desperation there. 
This is a low-road Budget. It is a Budget that takes a low road to the future because it fails to invest in people and in jobs. It takes the low road because it fails to develop the innovation skills and training that will give us a stronger economy in the future. It takes the low road because it undermines the future well-being of New Zealanders by creating a $37 billion hole in the future funding of our superannuation. It takes the low road because the National Government has already broken a key election promise to cut taxes even though National made that promise when it knew that the economic storm was worsening. 
This Government did have a choice. There is another way to meet the challenges of the global economic crisis and the challenges that are facing New Zealand and that is to take the high road. What does that mean? Well on the high road Governments invest in jobs by providing education training and opportunities for advancement in skills. Governments provide those opportunities to everyone and ensure that no one is left behind. The hundreds of thousands of working people in New Zealand who are reeling from the economic crisis need immediate action with an economic recovery package that invests in preserving essential services in infrastructure and in human services to create jobs. 
We were looking for an economic recovery package that reaches those people most in need and makes our economy work for everyone not just those at the top. A decent quality economic recovery plan would save and create jobs by building the critical public services that we all count on to keep our communities safe and healthy especially in health care social services education and public transport. New Zealand needed the Budget to cushion the pain that was felt by the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost or are in danger of losing their jobs and by the working families in New Zealand who are struggling to get by. New Zealand needed a Budget that would strengthen our economic competitiveness and put us on an environmentally sustainable path with investments that would reshape our energy and science sectors. 
This is a Budget that no one can have confidence in. It fails every New Zealander and puts New Zealand back on the race to the bottom. I believe that Budgets should be about people not money. Unfortunately listening to the National Government one would not think that was so. There have been significant cuts in this Budget and those Budget cuts will hit those who can least afford it. My question is who will pay for this Budget. I suggest that the 97 percent of New Zealanders who received no tax relief in the April tax cuts will pay as will the 1250 workers who are joining the dole queues each week the 179000 workers who will be unemployed in the next 2 years and the workers who are already having their hours cut and their overtime pay slashed and are seeing “take it or leave it” bargaining back on the table. 
The future superannuitants who are relying on support from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund at age 65 will also pay along with older people whose lives will be put at risk because of cuts to home care. I have absolutely no confidence that the extra money put in aged residential care will be targeted at the low-paid workers who actually provide the care. Others who will pay for this Budget include women who are expected to put aside their campaign for justice and pay equity; the public sector workers and their families; and the 1500 people who have already lost their jobs with many more to come. 
Health and education workers who will receive no pay increases for the next 3 years will also pay along with school support workers who have just been offered a zero percent pay increase for the next 3 years even though their pay rates start at just $12.94 per hour. These people will pay along with the workers who will be sacked or made redundant without notice or compensation and without adequate support to see them through the tough times. People who rely on public transport to get around will also pay along with the workers the disabled and those who believe that alternatives to roads are better options than ever-increasing tarmac. 
Another group that will pay are those people who rely on community programmes such as the Enterprising Communities scheme which was axed from the Budget with no reason given. Many many people relied on that good programme which had good results. Also paying will be the communities that rely on public and community social services that are now at risk from the deep cuts ahead and of course even more cuts are likely in Rodney Hide’s new Auckland. The young people and workers who seek to upskill and who will find training almost impossible to access under this Budget will pay. The 757792 State school pupils will pay so that the parents of the 31000 children who attend private schools can pay lower fees. People will have to pay more for their doctors as noted in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 today. These are the people who will pay for this Budget. They are the real people whom National never listens to or talks to. 
I heard the Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson shrieking her way through her contribution this afternoon. My question to that Minister is where are her initiatives in this Budget to fulfil the Government’s supposed goals of lifting productivity and closing the income gap between New Zealand and Australia. The National Government keeps talking about these things but it has no idea about how it intends to achieve them. One has only to look at some of the comments of the Government’s senior Ministers to understand what they think. The Hon Dr Nick Smith a National Government Minister was lauding the productivity levels of his Government in the 1990s in the House the other day when he and his party were raging against the proposition that would have increased the minimum wage for the lowest-paid contractors. If that is any indication of how this Government thinks productivity levels can be improved I am really worried. It is easy to increase productivity with higher unemployment and lower wages. The previous National Government proved that in the 1990s yet when we look at this Budget we see that the Government’s projections over the longer term indicate no improvements to productivity. It flattens out to 1.5 percent in 2014 which is the same level that National members have been whinging about recently and were whinging about before the election. As for closing the income gap with Australia well that is a laugh. 
The Minister of Labour has failed to advocate for workers in business. Other Governments have devised a range of aggressive programmes to counter the worst of the crisis but ours has come up with a thin collection of bits and pieces. The only idea we have heard from that Minister is to cut the rights of workers first under the 90-day probationary period legislation and now she is on to the Holidays Act. Then she will be further eroding workers’ rights in the Employment Relations Act. She has dumped pay equity funding. What a successful Budget round that Minister has had in her first term! 
I particularly want to deplore the scrapping of the previous Labour Government’s investment in the New Zealand Skills Strategy which was work that was carefully crafted by the Council of Trade Unions Business New Zealand and the Industry Training Federation in partnership with the Government. Significant increases in labour productivity will depend on improving literacy language and numeracy skills on raising the value and quality of work and on the development of management and leadership capability. The New Zealand Skills Strategy was about addressing the issue of workers who are already in the workforce and who will still be there in 2020. Quite frankly I do not think the National Government gets it so it dumps the only programme that might have delivered real skills in the future. In fact I note that the word “skills” did not appear once in the Budget speech which is amazing. 
National has also cut programmes to help its friends in business through the current crisis. Why was it necessary to cut $101 million over 4 years from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s market development fund? 
This Budget is dishonest. It will fail to revive our failing economy and make it stronger and fairer for the future. We have nothing to look forward to in the next 2 years of this Government and I say with great disappointment and great foreboding that life will get very very hard for New Zealanders.