Adams Amy: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Adams Amy: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18897] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I am delighted to stand here on Budget day and take a call in the first reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill which is the bill that delivers the key revenue changes that make up this year’s Budget. In 2008 Michael Cullen stood in this House and told New Zealand that after the best global economic times in living memory the Labour Government had been so incompetent such a poor economic manager and so financially illiterate that he was deserting the ship leaving a decade of deficit as his legacy. 
Stuart Nash 
: Michael Cullen did not say that at all. 
AMY ADAMS 
: It was a decade of deficit. The numbers do not lie. Labour left New Zealand with 10 years of having to borrow from the world to pay the bills because under its stewardship the productive sector had been decimated businesses and taxpayers had been kicked time and time again and the only sectors that grew were the public sector and Labour’s good mates in the unions. When it comes to New Zealand Labour will always look after its union mates before the hard-working people of New Zealand. We have dealt with the mess that Labour left such as the unfunded commitments the gaping hole in ACC and the export sector in massive decline and we have dealt with the fall-out from the global financial crisis. Now of course we have the two earthquakes in Canterbury that are equivalent to 8 percent of our GDP. Yet today in this House Bill English delivered a balanced responsible and prudent Budget that is right for our times and will set New Zealand further along the path to recovery. This Budget is about reducing debt it is about supporting growth and it is about paying for the rebuilding of Canterbury. 
Let us have a look at those things—first reducing debt. At the moment we are borrowing a staggering $380 million a week. I defy anyone to stand here and tell us that that is sustainable. It is not. With what we have heard today that figure will drop to $100 million a week from next year. We still have work to do but that is a significant gain. That is money that our children and grandchildren will not have to repay in years to come. 
One of the statistics that jumped out at me was that compared with Labour and the forecast it left this Government will be borrowing $45 billion less than the top numbers the Labour forecast left—$45 billion less. And that is before we cost in any of the election promises that Labour members are already starting to throw around. This Budget alone just today’s Budget has meant that over the next 4 years we will be borrowing more than $10 billion less than we would otherwise have to borrow. That is what these changes mean. They mean $10 billion over 4 years that we do not have to go out and borrow from the Chinese or the rest of the world and that my children and everyone else’s children will not have to pay back in years to come. 
For Christchurch this Budget has put $5.5 billion into the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund on top of the $3.3 billion that we will be paying through the Earthquake Commission and ACC. That is $8.8 billion set aside funded and committed that the people of Canterbury know is there to help them through their time of need. 
It is really interesting to me that Labour members stand in this House and talk about exports. I cannot believe that David Cunliffe can stand in this House and have the barefaced cheek to talk about supporting exporters when it is clear to everyone that Labour’s intention is to get back on its old hobbyhorse of taxing and regulating exporters into extinction. We only have to listen to Stuart Nash’s comments yesterday to know exactly what Labour’s intentions are for the productive sector of New Zealand. 
Let us look at the Greens. I was staggered to hear Russel Norman say that the Government has to lift its revenue when the Greens have voted against every single proposal for productive economic growth that has come before this House. They have voted against those proposals yet the Greens stand here and talk about the need to lift revenue. 
Well I challenge both of those parties. If the 13 percent of New Zealanders who pay more than half of the tax in this country went away who would pay for the handouts? Who would pay for the grants? Who would pay for the bureaucrats that those two parties stand up and support? That is head-in-the-sand ostrich country and it is time that those members woke up and stopped threatening this country with the inevitable bankruptcy that their economic mismanagement would bring. They need to wake up and they need to start realising that we have to have a productive engine room in this country that we have to support growth and that we have to support skills. We have to get behind our export sector not bag and kick exporters through capital gains higher taxes and continued regulation. That is what this John Key-led Government is about. I for one am so proud to be part of this Government and supporting the Budget that Bill English delivered today. It is a Budget that will rebuild Canterbury and get this country back on a path to growth.