Woodhouse Michael: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woodhouse Michael: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4588. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 We are coming soon to the end of a long journey that began on 24 May and this debate when wound up is going to be something of a vote of confidence in the Budget and in the Government’s agenda. So it is opportune I think to reflect on what we have heard in this House and what the public of New Zealand have been listening to over the last few months and also on the alternatives that have been put by the Opposition parties. I just want to do a bit of a summary of this contest of ideas if you like. The Government has laid out four main pillars to its Budget this year. They are responsibly managing the Government’s finances building a more productive economy better public services and rebuilding Christchurch. I just want to go through them one at a time. 
It is true that when we inherited the Treasury benches the one thing that the Labour Government did leave us was low net debt. That was a good legacy. The other legacies of course were 10 years of deficits an unemployment rate forecast to reach nearly 9 percent and a debt to GDP ratio forecast to get up to nearly 70 percent. There is no one big lever to pull. This is about many many policy initiatives: fiscal policy welfare reform Resource Management Act reform and building infrastructure—roads rail and information and communications technology. So how many of these little levers have Labour supported? None. Labour has said no to absolutely every single growth agenda this Government has had. It would be nice if there was just one—just one—that we could point to and we could at least say: “Well at least it has got the right idea.” But it has said no to further intensification of the agricultural sector no to more mining or oil and gas exploration no to making welfare work for our most vulnerable no to public sector reform—the list goes on. 
So what is Labour good at? Tax and spend—tax and spend. It would put back a punitive top tax rate. It would put a capital gains tax on business. It would double KiwiSaver costs on business. It would put in place irrigation taxes and minimum wage increases cancel the 90-day trial period go back to the 1970s industrial relations framework put in place extra transport charges and wind back the ACC reforms that have just put half a billion dollars back in the pockets of hard-working levy payers in this country. It would cancel the mixed-ownership model. So there is another $5 billion to $7 billion that it would need to find to fund just our promises not its promises which include universal student allowances and investing billions more in public services for no output—none whatsoever. It would go back to the high interest rates that that debt would lead to with no output whatsoever. 
Do you know what? For all of that Labour is still not as bad as the Greens. It is absolutely not as bad as the Greens and at least it is up front about what it would do. But the Greens want to de-intensify farming in this country by 20 percent by smacking all businesses with punitive emissions trading scheme charges and they oppose every single free-trade agreement. Where was Metiria Turei this week? She was in Canada supporting Canadian farmers who are given 300 percent subsidies and opposing our farmers competing on a level playing field with the Canadians. Well I find that just outrageous but it is absolutely consistent with the Greens’ agenda which is anti-business anti - foreign investment and xenophobic. 
I want to go on to that more productive economy and I will start with the Greens. It is really hard in straitened times to find that extra investment to boost the economy through innovation through the Performance-based Research Fund through the new Advanced Training Institute and through the many other initiatives we have to improve science and innovation in this country but we have done it. What did that icon of science in this country—that is the late Sir Paul Callaghan—say about the Greens’ policies? He did not beat around the bush. He thought that the Greens’ policies were quite crazy: “There is absolutely no reason why we can expect to be best in the world at Clean Technology. … It is absurd in particular because we have proven particularly dreadful at developing advanced knowledge-based industries or leading technologies in any of those areas …” What he thought our brilliance was in was the weird stuff the good stuff—the little niche markets that those big economies will not invest in. We are good at agricultural science. We are very good at agricultural science which is why the Government is investing in those things. 
Even Labour in terms of innovation—just today when we issued our progress report on innovation Labour’s David Shearer said: “Where are the bold innovative ideas we desperately need?”. He said there was not one single new idea. Well guess what? The report was not about new ideas. The report was a progress report on the plethora of good ideas that are being focused on now. I would accept that if there was one just one idea from Labour—one new idea that was not a rehashing of that tired old innovation strategy the research and development tax credit. My tax accounting mates would just love that to come back because all it would do is give them incentives to manage accounting—not to manage innovation but to manage accounting. So I am looking for just one idea from Labour. 
I want to move on now to better public services. It is true that it is really tough in straitened times to build more productivity in public services but I am absolutely amazed and grateful for the effort that is being put in by our hospitals our schools our police our prisons and our defence forces—bless them in the tough time that they are having this week—and the productivity gains that are being made. With virtually no new money there are 27000 more elective surgeries a year. Nobody is flying across the Tasman for cancer treatment now and nobody is waiting in the middle of the night on gurneys in emergency department waiting rooms. We have set some challenging targets have we not? We have actually said that we are going to set goals for those public services and we are going to stand or fall by them and I think that is very very bold. There has not been not a Government in this country that has done that much. 
Lastly there is rebuilding Canterbury. I think everybody across this House will accept that that is one of the single largest challenges the Government and this country face and will do over many decades. It is encouraging to know that all parties support those efforts although I would note that the Greens want to tax some more. After Earthquake Commission levies have gone up and the probably $15 billion that by the end of this will have been funded by the Government through the taxpayer what do the Greens want to do? Hit the taxpayer again. So I wish those people in Canterbury all the best for that rebuild. 
In summary this is a contest of ideas. It is a contest of ideas in this Budget put up by a Government with prudent fiscal policy and spending restraint led by an outstanding leadership team—not just the Prime Minister—and a disciplined caucus and as senior whip I can speak from experience on that. Contrast that with a Labour Opposition pseudo-led by three Davids and a Goliath that is racked by infighting with no policies and no ideas—an angry angry Opposition—and the Green Party which is the worst anti-business anti - foreign investment party in this Parliament bar none. Well I know who the public have confidence in because they put them on the Treasury benches in 2008 and returned them there in 2011.