Parker David: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15625. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour): I follow the member from Christchurch Gerry Brownlee who has been giving the one-finger salute so often in Christchurch that he has had an occupational overuse injury and has had to seek medical advice.Having a lecture from Gerry Brownlee on fiscal surpluses is just the same joke that it is when we get it from Bill English or from John Key. They are fiscal virgins. Five years into a Government and they have never run a surplus—they do not know what it feels like. We did that every year. The first year of our Government the second year of our Government the third year of our Government the eighth year of our Government the ninth year of our Government—every year we ran a surplus. We know how to balance the books; we know how to run a surplus so we do not take lectures from the National-led Government implying or saying otherwise.This is a disreputable Government increasingly desperate to hang on to the baubles of office. We have got it propped up on the one hand by John Banks—in the dock for electoral fraud and the National Party is hanging on his vote. He got here only because of the tea party stunt which was orchestrated by the Prime Minister and which he should be ashamed of.On the other side we have got Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne whom the Prime Minister did not believe and whom he stripped of his ministerial office merely months ago is this year being brought back into the ministry because of the desperation of the National Party. So much for those high standards from the Prime Minister. Not only that but those members are giving him a soft deal once again inŌhariu in order to try to take advantage of the MMP rules which this disreputable Government has twisted again for its own benefit. The MMP review recommended that the one-seat lifeboat be removed but National ignored it and we see why. Now there are soft deals available all throughout the country as this desperate National Government tries to cling on to power. The polls are agin it it knows that this election looks like it is going to go to the Opposition parties and so it is trying to twist MMP to its advantage.The cronyism does not end just in Parliament; we have got crony capitalism rife in this country. Last year it was all over the news and this National-led Government will try to make New Zealanders forget about that this year but we are going to remind them: tens of millions of dollars for RioTinto; a shady deal with the casino operators in Auckland which was criticised by the Auditor-General; and the sale of our State-owned enterprises from the 100 percent to the 1 percent—hundreds of millions spent on National Party cronies in order to flog off assets. Those are but a number of examples.We have got reduced opportunity in New Zealand because National refuses to deal with the causes of inequality. There are tax cuts that go to the most wealthy asset sales that go to the 1 percent and a refusal to rein in excessive profiteering on our hydro power using public water resources to name but three examples. No wonder we have got reduced homeownership rates in New Zealand because we have got rising inequality. The only time that income inequality has gone down in the last three decadeswas under a Labour Government under Working for Families which gave tax cuts to families with children. It was opposed by National which voted against it and called it communism by stealth.We have got rising asset inequality which grows every year when you have got inequality in incomes as high as we have in New Zealand. The OECD pointed out that we have got higher rates of income inequality than is average not just in the world but in the Western World and it is shameful that National’s policies make that worse not better. Even if that income inequality did not get worse in a year it gets worse over time as it causes the concentration in assets.Homeownership rates are now the lowest that they have been in New Zealand in 60 years. When do homeownership rates decrease in New Zealand? Under National Governments. It happened under the Bolger Government and it is happening again under the Key Government. We have got rising inequality. We have got New Zealanders who are being denied choices. They cannot buy a house. They cannot get decent wages. Who benefits from having some people not being able to buy one house but other people buying lots of houses? The National Party cronies—the National Party cronies. Those people can afford to own lots more houses and we get this concentration of wealth.Not only that; we have got people in insecure work and we have got wages at the bottom end not keeping pace in the way that they do at the top. I heard the Minister of Finance saying that the Government is doing well on wages. Well for the past 5 years real wage growth has been less than 1 percent per annum if you are an average wage earner. What has happened to chief executive officer pay? In 2010 it was 21.9 times the average pay. Now it is up to 26 times the average pay just 2 years later and that was 2012 figures. So over 2 years under National chief executive officer pay goes up hugely while ordinary New Zealanders’ wages stay static.We have got rising rates of inequality. We know that the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty to the Children’s Commissioner an arm of the Government said that one in four children live in poverty. The Government is willing to spend another $3.5 billion on superannuation over 5 years every year from now on but it says that it cannot afford more money for the Best Start programme for children. That shows where its priorities lie. There are tax cuts for the wealthy and universalism for superannuation but an objection to universalism of support for children. Those members cannot have it both ways. They cannot tell us that the economy is doing well but then tell us that we cannot afford money for children in need.The policies that have been put forward by Jacinda Ardern Annette King Sue Moroney and Chris Hipkins—all announced by David Cunliffe on Monday—really are a holistic solution to intergenerational welfare dependency for income support for those who need it for early interventions through Plunket and for better education. It is a very sophisticated package which the Labour Party is proud of.Those members send the chief spinner for the National Party Steven Joyce out to criticise the numbers and once again he is wrong. We have dumped our earlier policies on taking GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and on the first $5000 of income being tax-free. Our fiscals are clear that we collect more money from a capital gains tax and a higher rate on the highest earners in New Zealand. Having collected that additional revenue and having abandoned some of those other expensive policies we have got more than enough headroom to run surpluses and fund this package.Hon Annette King: And even they’ve got a billion.Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes that is right. National members say that they are going to introduce a pale version of paid parental leave and some other changes. You know when we do things it is called bribery but when they give tax cuts to the wealthiest insociety disproportionately benefiting them and when they refuse to close the tax loopholes that the OECD criticises which both increase inequality and make the economy go slower no that is not seen to be some sort of preference for a sector of society. No they say that that is fair. Well we do not think it is fair that the wealthiest people in New Zealand get capital gains free of any tax.Neither do we think it is fair that some of the multinationals that plunder the New Zealand economy—like Google like Apple and like Facebook—take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the New Zealand economy compete with New Zealand - based companies and pay virtually no tax. We in the Labour Party are willing to move on that but the Government is not because once again it is preferring the interests of the wealthy. It is not willing to take on the multinationals despite the fact that there is a glaring unfairness there. They should pay their fair share of tax too which they do not and there are mechanisms that could be used.Returning to the Best Start package I would be proud to be part of a Government that says that the fair allocation of resource should not see it all going to the wealthy and that it should not all go to older citizens worthy though they are. We do believe in universal superannuation made sustainable just as we believe in proportionate universalism when it comes to the support of children. It is a disgrace that in New Zealand we have one child in four living in poverty. It is one of the reasons and it is only one of the reasons—I do not pretend it is the only reason—that we have got declining educational standards in our compulsory school sector. It is a major reason if not the only reason and we in the Labour Party are absolutely up for fixing that problem.