te Heuheu Georgina: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
te Heuheu Georgina: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13700. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 The view that that minority Labour Government has of its fellow New Zealanders is absolutely disgusting. This 2004 Budget will go down in history as one of the most cynical election bribes ever and that is without a doubt. The funny thing though is that it is not working. It is very very weird is it not? Members on the other side of the House are prepared to stand up and boast about how they are making life better for low to middle income workers in this country and how they are helping 300 families which is only a fraction of New Zealand families. They are prepared to stand up there and think they are doing a great thing for the world but nobody out there in good old New Zealandland is convinced about it. 
This Government deserves to be shown for what it is. Its members are the kinds of people who have over the last 4 years happily taken the taxes of hard-working New Zealanders hoarded them away and pretended that they are responsible for the surplus when they are not. A lot of the basis of that surplus was laid in the 1990s. A lot of the money that Michael Cullen has been able to hoard away has come out of the pockets of those same low to middle income New Zealand families. In giving that money back to those hard-working families the Government now has the gall to pretend that it is Santa Claus and should get the credit for it. It will not and it knows that. This Government is on the back foot. It can see that. The Maori members who were here a minute ago know they are on the back foot as well. They will lose their seats and there is nothing surer than that. That is what they deserve because they are party to the biggest election bribe ever. They are treating their fellow New Zealanders as being without wit or will to decide their own futures. 
National has a far different view of our fellow New Zealanders. We see them as having the determination and desire to fend for themselves to work hard for themselves and to certainly expect the right supports from the Government of the day but never to be dependent on it. When we are in Government which is next year we will make sure that we recognise those marvellous traits in New Zealanders because New Zealanders ought to be celebrated and they are not being celebrated at all in this Budget. This Budget treats them as if they have no aspirations as if they are only fit to be dependent and as if they are calling for handouts. Well they are not. 
When this Government goes out of power next year that is exactly what they deserve. To treat fellow New Zealanders the way it is treating them is absolutely disgusting and cynical. I am happy to be on this side of the House voting with the National Party against this Budget. We are voting against it because of the way it treats New Zealanders and because of the way it takes their money and then gives it back to them. This Government expects that it should get the rewards when it should actually be the other way around. 
In the House earlier I listened to Mita Ririnui who I think was boasting of the phenomena we have right now of a segment of the Maori community that is making an increasingly visible positive contribution to the New Zealand economy. Maori entrepreneurship and Maori enterprise have taken a big leap forward in the last decade. Again the platform for that was laid in the 1990s under the National Government not under this Government. For Mita Ririnui to boast about those achievements as if they belonged to this Government is again very cynical and dishonest. The only thing this Government has done for Maori is increase their dependency. 
 It can talk about bringing the unemployment rate down but that is on the back of a buoyant economy which is largely due to the 1990s and not to this Government at all. The Government can talk about that but in reality there are still far too many Maori families on benefits of one sort or another. Mita Ririnui will pay for his part in that in next year’s election as well. Those Maori members are worried. Someone is passing them the minutes of every Maori Party meeting that is occurring and they are looking at those with concern. They know they are on the skids. 
I want to make some brief comments about the broadcasting portfolio. I see that Television New Zealand had a mixed year. I do not think that any of us are convinced about the way it is structured in terms of delivering to New Zealanders programmes that tell us about ourselves. It has been loaded with a charter that is so broad as to be meaningless. Television New Zealand is kidding us that day in and day out it is delivering on it. It has received an increase in funding to deliver that charter—$15 million annually rising to $16 million next year and to $17 million the year after. It does not deserve that increase. It has not proved at all that its efforts to present New Zealand to New Zealanders are in any way better or have more value than those of any of the other broadcasters in New Zealand. 
Neither has Television New Zealand shown any responsibility about the way it has spent money. It has this underpinning of Government funding and to my mind daily shows a level of arrogance that I do not think New Zealanders deserve. Although I see that increase I do not think it is justified. There is an increase in funding to New Zealand On Air and that probably is justified. 
National certainly supports the notion of independent and contestable funding for all broadcasters but if this trend is to continue—whereby TVNZ can cry wolf to the Government and the Minister of the day and as a result somehow find itself in receipt of more taxpayer funding—then I do not think that is good enough for New Zealanders. 
I want to make one other point in relation to arts and culture. Although we can all be pleased about the jobs and export dollars that our big-screen production is now bringing to New Zealand I want to flag with the Prime Minister who is also the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage that this Budget contains no surety as to whether small-screen producers are to be properly nurtured. After all big-screen production normally grows from small-screen production. We have a wealth of storytellers here in New Zealand who need to be nurtured and supported because good New Zealand drama comes from our storytellers. I flag my concern that although it is proper to support large-screen production it is also very important that we do not lose sight of where large-screen production—the big budget films—grows from. The Prime Minister needs to make proper provision for that.