Foss Craig: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Foss Craig: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2418] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 Where do we stand on the Appropriation (2004/05 Financial Review) Bill? We oppose it of course. Why? Are we against investment in the economy? No. Are we against quality spending? No. But given the track record of this current Labour Government of course we oppose the bill. We have to oppose it. 
There has been a massive growth of taxpayer funds. We have referred to its misappropriation—to turn a phrase—which the Finance and Expenditure Committee discussed at some length throughout its deliberations. Even in spite of what we have just heard from the previous speaker we have recently had Treasury’s forecast that the economy is stalled and has shrunk. That is not an ideological burp. They are hard economic numbers and the chickens are starting to come home to roost. How can that be? How can we be going into recession as warned by Treasury and numerous other forecasters after we have had a nominal GDP growth of 43.1 percent over the last 6 years according to forecasts for 1999-2000 to 2005-06? The economy has grown 43 percent. Congratulations to the dairy farmers and lamb producers on helping us grow but here is perhaps a clue. Core Government revenue grew 55.7 percent over the same period. That core Government revenue was taken from the productive part of the economy. 
But why on earth are we going into recession given the policies and the accolades that the previous speaker was talking about? This Government is spending and taxing us into recession. Again it is not National Party doomsayers who have made those accusations. This is not spin from some public relations unit. These are hard economic statistics and fact backed up by Treasury and numerous other producers. Growth in the last quarter December 2005 was negative 0.1 percent. Combine that with September 2005 which was plus 0.1 percent and members will see that we are already in a flat economy of 0 percent. 
There has been a lot of talk lately in various speeches around the place from various Ministers about economic transformation. What a massive admission of defeat! After 6 years of 43-odd percent growth we have to somehow transform the economy? I tell Mr Cullen that that is a massive admission of defeat. I say to Mr Mallard that he is about to get a hospital pass because he is about to inherit a bit of a lame duck I feel. There is nothing to show for the 43.1 percent nominal growth we have had over recent years which again was no thanks to and in spite of the current policies of the Government. We have nothing to show for it. Is this as good as it gets after such growth? In the 1999-2000 year $41.6 billion in revenue was taken by the Government. The 2005-06 forecast is $69 billion—money that the Government has decided it needs to take out of the economy to run affairs as it thinks it should. Yet hospital waiting lists are as bad as they have ever been. There have been no new roads and no real roading infrastructure has been invested in. Again this bill is not an appropriation bill; it is a misappropriation into the welfare for families package. It should be called the “Kiwislaver Bill”. 
With regard to electoral spending there has been a large growth in misappropriation of public funds for election spending which is under review by the Auditor-General. Where has that money gone? Is the 10.3 percent growth in Government administration in the December 2005 year not a mass misappropriation of funds? What on earth are all those people doing? Even given the growth and the statistics with $69 billion - odd about to be taken from our economy by this Government to be redistributed our OECD standings are exactly the same as they were about 5 or 6 years ago. In spite of about $18 billion more being taken by the Government out of the economy and in spite of the 43 percent growth in GDP our OECD standings have not moved. 
Other nations are rocketing up behind us. Previous socialist economies are rocketing up behind us and are totally rejecting the idea that someone earning $480 a week should have some of his or her taxes redistributed to some family earning over $100000 per annum. People will reject that model; they know that it does not work and for the life of me I cannot understand why this current administration keeps looking back to the past to find some solution to the future. That administration is wrong. If we keep looking to the past we will stay in the past. With growth at that rate there will be nothing left to redistribute. Is this the utopia that the current administration has taken us towards?