Jones Shane: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Jones Shane: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18922] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora no tatou—greetings Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Today we saw a Budget that really has to be called the “Tui Budget”—yeah right! It is so far to the right that there is no way that members on this side of the House will shrink from fighting an election on firstly the wholesale privatisation and sell-off of our assets. Those assets are not starved of capital. Those assets are well run but we are to lose their valuable revenue and valuable dividends. Worse still the Maori Party will be there as an active and consistent helper to watch the dilution and liquidation of those historical assets of the Crown estate. 
The Prime Minister got up and delivered one of his trademark  
Eurotrash 
 contributions. He is a man who has learnt his oratory and his life skills as he has wandered around amongst the super-rich of the world. He has no compassion no empathy and no understanding. If I were to go to the senior whip on the Government side of the House and use his figures then I would tell members that 75000 Kiwi workers earn less than $45000 a year. But there has not been a single bit or sliver of empathy from the Prime Minister towards them. He has also had the cheek to tell New Zealanders as he puts their assets on the block that they will be the beneficiaries of that. How many of those people will be actually in a position to purchase shares in those assets? We will watch the inexorable slide towards further foreign ownership of key monopoly assets etc. 
Not only is the Prime Minister presiding over the sell-off of those assets but he has based everything on a heroic assumption that he can trust Treasury’s figures. Well we trust what the Inland Revenue Department had to say as the  
Dominion Post  
showed us yesterday on page one. Those figures will not let us down. Just as they did not let us down yesterday neither will they let us down in the future. But Treasury’s heroic assumptions were concocted unfortunately when aggressive politics met sterile analysis. Those heroic assumptions are all that the Prime Minister’s vision for the future is written on. 
Let us just think about what the Prime Minister is telling Kiwis through his “Tui Brewery Budget”. The first thing is that everything is for sale. The second thing is that he wants people to save but he will not actually incentivise or help them to do so because encouraging savings is a Labour legacy. Muldoon destroyed the first savings initiative Jenny Shipley destroyed the second savings initiative and John Key and Bill English as a consequence of their narrow partisanship against the legacy of Dr Cullen and the Labour Government are continuing to tinker with and unravel the savings legacy that we put into place. The man has said to Kiwis that National wants to see savings increased and that it wants to reduce the country’s reliance on overseas sources of capital but National has used this Budget to further undermine and gut KiwiSaver. 
These are great issues upon which to fight the next election. At least we did not hear simpering from the Prime Minister—but we have heard it from the Maori Party—when he told Phil Goff that National would meet us in the halls and on the hustings and would fight the election on these issues. Labour cannot wait for that. 
OK so we have heard a little from the Maori Party which is a brief improvement on the simpering contributions that we have endured over the last couple of days. I have news for those members: the love-in is over. The love-in is over as the low tide has revealed how unpopular and irrelevant the Maori members on the Government side of the House have become. They have been able to secure nothing else but what we might call kongakonga crumbs. That is a simple reprioritisation where Peter pays Paul or as we might say it is a nick-and-tuck contribution for the Maori Party—a nick-and-tuck contribution. Its legacy is to be the nick and tuck. The assets of hard-working Kiwis politically speaking are about to be nicked and the Maori Party is tucked up. Those members do not care that ordinary hard-working Kiwis—or should I say garden-variety Kiwis—will be worse off as a consequence of this asset sell-off. No. The Maori Party members are focused on constitutional reform yet they will definitely lose Tamaki-makau-rau and Te Tai Tokerau. They have already lost them anyway as a consequence of poor management with regard to Hone Harawira without a doubt. 
Given the importance of jobs a decent income and the provision of housing why have our colleagues on the Government side of the House whether they are the Maori in discredited National or in the ebbing Maori Party forgotten about those core issues? Why are they running around talking about flags and now a constitutional review which as a consequence of their mean-spiritedness they did not invite this side of the House to contribute to? How can they with any sliver—with any measure—of sincerity say they want to change the constitution of New Zealand then wander off and with Wiremu Pakeha Bill English as their handmaiden think they are going to do it on behalf of all iwi? Their views about constitutional review will be revealed on 26 November and they will be in the form of a UB40—that is an application for an unemployment benefit. That benefit is likely to disappear as a consequence of the very parsimonious approach that we have seen evidence of today in Bill English’s speech. 
I really need to come back to the Budget in order for the members on the Government side of the House to fully understand the sort of electoral debate that we are about to have. Where are all the contributions about cutting red tape? There is not one single initiative—not one single initiative. Rodney Hide—off he goes and Don Brash comes in ceding to those villains the opportunity to cut red tape. Where is the supposed business-friendly party delivering opportunities for both small and medium sized businesses? Those opportunities are somewhere near zero. Although the ACT Party vaunts itself and promotes itself as being a great friend of the world of business it is not. There is destruction of savings and a sell-out at knock-off prices of State-owned enterprises. There is absolutely no plan in terms of the long-term growth of the key pastoral sector. What have we seen? We have seen ongoing further corporate welfare—ongoing corporate welfare. 
We realise that the Maori Party has not learnt all the acronyms—along with Steven Joyce—nor has it actually understood what the man is doing in terms of the damage to the taxpayers as a consequence of his broadband scheme. No there is no plan. In fact although the man boasts about infrastructure the only infrastructure we are going to see there is a new subsidy that the taxpayer will write out as the much-vaunted infrastructure plan sinks out of sight. The man will not back down. It shows how ill-conceived the plan was that Steven Joyce was outsmarted by Rahui Katene. If there is any evidence that this is not a plan to take this country forward there it lies. 
I am sorry Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson but please let me explain to Maori that there are 2 more minutes of this wisdom—of this very judicious contribution. Let me also talk now about Mr Steven Joyce and his contributions via the discredited script that is otherwise known as the Budget. Why is he stinging Aucklanders with a $500 million bill for a transportation system that the super-city mayor has a mandate for? Not only has the Government alienated savers disappointed the business community and shown an absolute barrenness of empathy and of compassion through the  
Eurotrash 
 contribution of the Prime Minister today in what ought to be a prime ministerial speech but it is now sticking it to Aucklanders. Aucklanders do not want Steven Joyce to continue in that supercilious manner. They do not want that. They are waiting for the opportunity to show him the exit. But it will be a crowded exit because as he moves to that door Te Ururoa Flavell Tariana Turia Rahui Katene and indeed Dr Pita Sharples will be singing “Now is the Hour”. Kia ora tatou.