Stewart Barbara: Budget Debate 
Stewart Barbara: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5973] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First believes that this is a bogus Budget for just about every New Zealander. It tries to portray New Zealand as a nation basking in the glow of economic prosperity with another record Budget surplus. Nothing could be less accurate. New Zealand’s poverty crisis was not addressed at all. It is not a good-news Budget for low-income and middle-income families. 
New Zealand First believes that this Budget is heartless hare-brained and hazardous. It is heartless because thousands of children who are not fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family will continue to be disadvantaged from birth and their hard-working parents will continue to battle on to provide the basic necessities for their children. This heartless Budget continues to tolerate the fact that three out of every 10 children are living in poverty despite the Government’s own Ministry of Social Development warning that there has been an increase in child poverty and that 150000 children under 5 live in poor families. This Budget is out of step with the needs of poor New Zealand families. It is heartless too for the women of New Zealand who have suffered because of Dr Bottrill and his misreading of smear tests. That compensation process is still being dragged out. 
The second “h” that describes this Budget is “hare-brained”. It chooses to keep money in the bank that could be used as a preventive measure in the areas of health pre-school training education and dentistry for our young people. We all know that large amounts of extra dollars will be required in those areas before the full costs of the ageing population are felt in the economy. The Ministry of Social Development has warned the Government that there is an urgent need to increase spending on young people before 2010 when the full cost of the ageing population kicks in. Has that been budgeted for? No. 
The Budget is hare-brained because families on low incomes—which New Zealand First reminds the Government make up a huge proportion of society today—are left with a miserly rise in the income thresholds for family assistance that has not kept up with inflation. There is no excuse for the Government delaying income support for families for another year. There is no excuse either for reducing the number of families that will have access to parenting programmes as pointed out by the Hon Brian Donnelly. It is an unfortunate fact that the subsidised childcare provided for in this Budget is unlikely to reach many people because they do not fit the Government’s poverty criteria. 
The Budget is hare-brained because there is nothing in this Budget for the elderly. For two elections this Government has promised to remove asset testing but the elderly have been told that that is still coming. They have been told that 2005 is the latest date. 
The final “h” is “hazardous”. This Budget is hazardous for New Zealanders. It does not acknowledge the serious repercussions of what financial stress can do to a family. The Government has ignored the fact that many couples now have to deal with an enormous student loan debt as well as their own health and general living costs. The bottom line is that that group has little disposable income in their pockets to cater for the financial cost and stress of raising a family. There will be that $28 million for the Families Commission but another Government department will not help those people in any way whatsoever. All it means is that extra money is being put into a bureaucracy. This may be a good Budget for some people but for families trying to educate clothe feed and care for their children this is a nothing Budget. It will extract a huge social price. The time for action is now not next year in time to give out these cherries for the next election. 
 Nor did we ever expect to see this Government encourage foreign students to leave health debts for the taxpayer because as visitors to this country they apparently bring in more money than the debts they leave. It is absolutely disgraceful at a time when many children in New Zealand cannot access some of the services that foreign students can access and then leave debts behind for us to pick up.