Peachey Allan: Budget Debate 
Peachey Allan: Budget Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3320] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 The 2006 Budget is Michael Cullen’s seventh and probably his last. We now know that all Michael Cullen will be is a footnote in history. When they write the chapter about how in the early years of the 21st century a socialist Government in New Zealand tried to create a complacent and uninspired society somewhere at the end of that chapter in an unread footnote there will be a asterisk that will say something like this: “The Minister of Finance was Michael Cullen. He spent 7 years squandering the opportunity that a strong economy gave a Government to make New Zealand better.” We know and future generations will know that that Minister of Finance and his Prime Minister spent 3 years in the Lange/Palmer/Moore Government where they undermined the beginnings of the work that carried on in the 1990s created the strength in the economy that for the last 6½ years they have chosen to squander. 
Members should listen to the Minister of Finance’s comments about the Budget and just reflect on what he thinks of New Zealanders. When challenged to explain why average New Zealanders are better off in Australia all he could say is that Australia digs itself up and sells itself to China. That is all he could say. He was not capable of seeing the good and the potential in New Zealanders. He was not capable of saying that New Zealand like a number of countries in the world cannot dig itself up but that it has in its people the capability the drive and the ambition to be competitive internationally and to build a strong economy. He could not bring himself to say that because his old socialist view of New Zealanders does not allow him to recognise that. He will leave the job of Minister of Finance always believing that he knows better than we New Zealanders in terms of what is better for us. 
Longer-serving members than myself have told me that there was a time when the Minister of Finance was a man of some wit. He strikes me today as being a man reduced to sarcasm. He needs to learn that sarcasm is no substitute for knowledge. It is no substitute for experience out in the economy—for employing people making a dollar and knowing that other people depend on one’s own efforts and entrepreneurship for their jobs. Sarcasm is no substitute for that. But then we all know that Mr John Key is smarter than Michael Cullen. We know that Dr Cullen cannot match Mr Key’s experience in and knowledge of the international money markets and the international economy. Never was that more apparent than in this House today. Dr Cullen must get the message. The New Zealand people will no longer accept sarcasm passing for wit as a substitute for explaining himself and his policies in this House. 
The 2006 Budget continues the trend of the last six Budgets. It means government getting bigger and bigger. The bigger government becomes the greater the obstacle it becomes to opportunity because bigger government means less freedom for individuals. It means negating the qualities of individual initiative of innovation of creativity and of self-reliance—qualities that are valued by the people of Tamaki whom I represent. Those are the qualities on which they have built their lives and which they see being undermined by this Government. The New Zealand economy cannot compete internationally as long as we devalue those qualities. This Budget means more intrusion in the lives of New Zealanders. It means more coercion upon them. It means more meddling in their lives and it means less effective government. That Government over there thinks that if we spend more that is all we have to do. The Government’s increased spending is waste. 
I turn now to education. According to the Education Review Office 20 percent of our children are not experiencing success at school. I have a message for the Minister of Education. He cannot spin his way out of that. That Minister will be held accountable for the failure of his Government and for its squandering of the millions and millions of hard-earned dollars it has taken from New Zealanders. I must mention the health system and the dumping of sick citizens from waiting lists. Those people who paid their taxes all their lives in the belief that the hospitals would be there for them when they needed them are being dumped off waiting lists daily. 
The people of Tamaki understand—and it does not matter whether they live in the prosperous suburbs of St Heliers Kohimarama or Mission Bay or Orakei or whether they are welfare dependent in Glen Innes—that the cause of their problems lies here in Wellington. I listened to the Government members boasting about the extra State houses they are going to build. They have a word for that in Glen Innes. The Tamaki electorate has the second-highest concentration of State housing of any electorate in New Zealand. Do members know what those people are saying to me down there? They are asking why their landlord is intensifying housing there when already they live in crime-infested streets and the Government seems powerless to do anything about it. [ 
Interruption 
] Those Government members opposite who choose to challenge that should be warned. Those people punished the Labour Party in Tamaki at the last election and they will punish it further next time. 
One thing we can take from the Budget is the fact that the nanny State is alive and well. It was very interesting this afternoon to hear the Associate Minister of Finance speak. He is the man who aims to be the next finance Minister. He brought a mean-spirited vindictiveness to his speech. How can anybody who aspires to be the Minister of Finance use 8 minutes of valuable speaking time in this House before even mentioning the 2006 Budget? The only good thing I can say is that his oppressor’s jackboot has been removed from the education sector. For that the education sector is most grateful. The Prime Minister has made many mistakes during her premiership. Surely she will not make the greatest mistake of all and appoint Trevor Mallard as the Minister of Finance. 
I congratulate the Hon Jim Sutton and Ms Yates two members who clearly gave their last Budget speeches today in this House. We know that they lost their electorates in the last election and we know that with four or five others they will be gone by Christmas. Who cares? No one—except when one looks at the Labour list and sees more of the same dismal narrow tired unimaginative politicians which this country does not need.