Adams Amy: Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill — First Reading 
Adams Amy: Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:21310] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 When reading through the general policy statement at the beginning of the Spending Cap (People’s Vote) Bill we see that the bill is designed as we heard in the first two speeches in this debate to put in place a cap whereby annual increases on core Crown expenditure are linked to the rate of inflation and the rate of population change and then to put in place a mechanism by which the public of New Zealand through a binding referendum can express a view on that spending cap and seek to increase it. As the Minister said in his opening words they could do that either for that year or for out-years. 
This is an interesting issue. I think we would all agree that certainly in the current economic climate across the country managing the Government’s books and keeping control of Government spending is critical. A key plank of this Government’s economic agenda is that we manage our expenses well—that we are careful how we spend our money and most important that we do our best to keep debt at prudent levels. On that point I note that under the Public Finance Act the very first principle of responsible fiscal management is that debt is reduced to and maintained at prudent levels so I think we are all very aware of the need to keep public debt as low as possible. 
I note that given the extraordinary events this Government has faced not the least of which occurred in the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes it is still an impressive achievement that having inherited Michael Cullen’s decade of deficits we are still able to project a return to surplus in less than 3 years. But that has not been without this Government having to make some very strong decisions and express the very clear view that if we are expecting New Zealand to constrain its spending and get beyond the ethos of living well above its means by spending more than $1.11 for every $1 earned the Government also has to model that behaviour. We have spent these 3 years being very clear with the Public Service that we expect all of Government to be very very careful with what it spends. 
We are very aware that Government money does not belong to us. The Government has nothing except for what it takes out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders. Frankly we owe it to those people to make sure that every dollar we spend is spent in the best way possible having a very careful analysis of the opportunity cost of where we spend that money and understanding that we can spend it only once. We do have to ensure that when the Government spends it does so in a very careful way. The Government should support economic growth but it should not be leading it; it certainly should not be dominating it as we saw with the last Labour Government. 
The issues around controlling and tightly constraining Government spending are very live ones and ones that we have to pay careful attention to. What we have in this bill introduced today by Minister Hide is certainly an interesting approach to addressing that and to looking at the measure of a spending cap to ensure that future profligate Governments are not able to borrow and spend and borrow and spend. In that vein it is no surprise to me that Labour members are dismissing the bill out of hand without even wanting to have a public debate about it. Labour is a borrow-and-spend party. The only way Labour knows how to govern is to borrow and spend borrow and spend. It is of no surprise to me that Labour members are not even willing to have a debate on the issue because frankly without a borrow-and-spend platform they know they would never be able to win another election. So it is no surprise that Labour wants to shut this down before there can be a debate. 
I think this is an interesting issue. I think it is worthy of debate. I think we should send the bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and consider the issue in depth and I look forward to that consideration at the select committee.