Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13574] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am proud to speak today on this Budget. It was a wonderful day for those of us who came to Parliament in the class of 1999. When we came into Government in that year we wanted to see the things that were announced in this Budget announced in that year. We have had to sit and wait as back-benchers. We have had to sit quietly and work away at the reform of the social assistance package and we have been slightly impatient. The member before me was quite right but she knows that we cannot get it all and we cannot get it all at once. Government members have learnt to be patient and I really believe that we have now delivered. We have delivered a socially redistributive Budget. It is good for families and anything that is good for families is good for the economy. Even the hard-headed members of the Opposition know that the economy will grow when we lift up the value of the families in the bottom sector of our society. 
Fair-minded New Zealanders have their heads around this targeted and strategic Budget and it has been well received. In heartland New Zealand where I come from those in my neighbourhood and on the street—and I get out and pound the street every day buying my bread at the dairy and going to the grocer and the butcher—like this Budget. They are the people who will speak in the next election. Rotorua is not a wealthy community; half our families live on an income of below $25000 per year. I want to tell members about what Paul Blair who is a friend of the Greens said in Rotorua: “This Budget is great. It gives more money to people with children and that has to be positive for families.” This Budget has been a long time coming and I know that Paul will be prepared to wait until we can bring all the provisions on stream by 2007. This is a redistributive Budget. It will work for families and will help with State house upgrades by Housing New Zealand Corporation. It provides for only 1000 additional houses but for improvements to 850 houses. That is good. In my neck of the woods a huge dollop of investment has been put into science and research. If the Government does not continue to help with research funding then how will we know what to spend our future funding on? 
The Budget will build strong public services. Our early childcare centres will be pleased to know today that there is funding also for the private childcare sector—that was very poorly understood when the Budget first came out—as well as for community-based childcare centres. There is funding for education and for the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. People in my neck of the woods are absolutely thrilled to hear that there will be a youth justice facility. We have been asking for it for 4 years and we will get it. We are also pleased because the communities of Kawerau Murupara and Rotorua do have a drug problem that they are beginning to face up to so the extra resources for the police to fight P are a good thing for us. 
 However I shall focus on health today. This Budget will be good for our health. Vote Health is a whacking dollop of Government spending of almost $10 billion. Twenty percent of total Government spending will go into health. That is $3 billion more than the previous National Government spent on health in its last year in Government and we must remember that. Health is now a healthy sector. There is never enough money to go into health and there never will be. But health is now resourced by a prudent Government that has listened to communities and is now able to meet their targeted health needs. It is only with a 3.4 percent growth in expenditure in the Budget that we can manage to do things in health that will achieve an outcome that will make people healthier. 
Dr Brash has no policy directions in health—none at all. It is very frightening to hear what is coming out as health policy from the Opposition. We hear from the Opposition it would get rid of primary health organisations and Pharmac—that they will be gone by lunchtime. That is very frightening. When I spoke to Grey Power last Thursday it was very afraid and it needs to be. We need to see more robust things than taxation cuts. Those taxation cuts would total over $15 billion. If one bears in mind that health costs $10 billion one would have to ask which sectors the Opposition would concentrate its spending on and who would suffer because of its flat-tax and taxation cuts approach. It would be the health and education sectors; they would be gone by lunchtime. That is an appalling approach. Government members are now telling the Rotary clubs and Grey Power that they should be afraid of the so-called presumed gains from taxation cuts. Just over $10 billion is the Government’s contribution to Vote Health. All that we have seen from the Opposition is a list of what it will not do and does not intend to do. 
The drivers of cost in the health services had to change. This Government was prepared to front-foot those changes. We now have 3.4 million New Zealanders enrolled in primary health organisations. From an initial $48 million investment to set up primary health organisations this year they will receive $264 million. The Opposition should try telling general practitioners that we would not have primary health organisations any more. It should try telling nurses health educators and health workers in the community that it would take away their primary health organisations. It would not be easy nor would it be a vote-catcher. This year as well the Government will put in $26 million for people who have very very complex health problems like diabetes and heart disease. A Maori primary health organisation in Rotorua has Maori turning up every Monday night to the Monday club to do line dancing. They are shedding weight and having diabetes tests. They have a wonderful joie de vivre about life. They are on their feet. We should not take that away from them because that initiative is funded through a primary health organisation. 
Who is getting cheaper doctors’ visits now? From last year 16 to 17-year-olds were and from July this year all over-65-year-olds who are enrolled in primary health organisations will. The people at Grey Power loved to know that they would get cheaper doctors’ visits and that it would cost only $3 for each prescription. Even Dr Tricia Briscoe from the New Zealand Medical Association said that the accident compensation subsidies indicated in the Budget were great. They are good for general practitioner visits and good for accident compensation - related surgery. Some of that targeted surgery is about people who have been long-term sickness beneficiaries and have gone back into work. No one could snipe at that and no one in the Opposition should snipe at that. Hospitals are getting $802 million for capital upgrades. They have caught up and now they are surging ahead. They are not deficit driven and they are finding the opportunities most exciting. 
The big announcement in the Budget was $30 million more for hip and knee operations—better joints for the elderly we in the Government say. How can Grey Power not welcome that increase? The Budget provides $30 million this next year and that will extend out to 2007 and 2008 when the amount of funding for orthopaedic surgery that hospitals are getting now will be doubled. Frankly as electorate MPs we got tired of looking at lists of people who were waiting for surgery. Rotorua will get funding for 50 more operations just in this year and that figure will increase to 123 above what it was doing by 2008-09. Those operations will probably not be needed as the focus is more on issues like weight loss nutrition programmes and plenty of exercise. 
This health Budget will deliver for people in Rotorua and New Zealand and they absolutely love it. When we add to that the Working for Families package we will start to get a healthy society. Cindy Kiro said that the Budget is absolutely fantastic that it was working for families and it would help low and middle income families to provide the basics for their children. In practical terms the funding will mean that families will be able to put more nutritious food on their tables heat their homes and pay for their children to take part in sport. That is what we want. We want people in New Zealand to build resilient families with optimism about tomorrow that will be engaged in making New Zealand a healthier and brighter place for us all to work and play in.