Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5505] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I am reminded of some words said by John McCain the senator who ran against Mr Obama in the presidential election. He said many years ago—I think it was during Ronald Reagan’s election campaign—that elections have consequences. The summary of his words was that the winner gets to pick and he is right. Elections do indeed have consequences and the winning side gets to pick. But it is very interesting to look at what is going on around the world in respect of the global recession and at Mr Obama Mr Rudd in Australia and Mr Brown in the UK. They have a thing called a plan and a strategy. It is very interesting that each of those leaders especially Mr Obama is using the recession as a tool to motivate their populace to make some structural change and some positive reforms within their economies and those reforms are needed. Whether they are in the banking industry or the environmental field they are needed. This recession which is the worst in our lifetime serves—because it is here with us—as a tool that they can use to promote positive reforms in their economies. 
Then we come to the economic outliers one of which is this country. I have to say that the National Government is consistent in using the recession but not as a tool to motivate. National uses it as an alibi to put forward and boot around the most vulnerable. Let us look at National’s great set of achievements which the member David Bennett who is from Hamilton I think waxed eloquently about. He talked about the uplifting of our rating by Standard and Poor’s but 24 or 48 hours later he had forgotten about the word Fitch. Fitch dropped our rating but the member had selective memory about that. He forgot that the employment platform his Government inherited from Labour was around the 3.4 percent to 3.6 percent mark. It will be very interesting tomorrow to see whether the unemployment figures move past 5.3 percent 5.5 percent or 5.7 percent. We wait and we hope that they will be more positive than others suggest. 
This Government uses the recession as an alibi to make deep cuts for the most vulnerable. I talked this afternoon about special needs funding and Government members rolled their eyes. Mr Quinn said “Rubbish!” when I talked about a 12-year-old constituent in my area who has cerebral palsy and who will be on the scrap heap because of a $2.5 million cut in the Budget. Mr Quinn rolled his eyes and said “Rubbish!”. I invite him to lose his arrogance and to go and see Brittany Graham. I invite him to look that 12-year-old and Julie Baker her mum in the eye and tell them that they are rubbish. Oh no there is a bit of silence over there. There is a bit of reflection perhaps. Oh no I do not think I will see that. I will be dead before I see that member retract what he said about that family. 
Then the Government is making other cuts using the recession as an alibi. If there ever was a need for training in this country second-chance opportunities for older folk and for those on scrap heap and down the road it was a thing called adult and community education. But oh no Anne Tolley gets up and wears it as a badge of honour that in her Budget she has slashed 80 percent of the funding. She almost says it with pride with a robustness. She is proud of the fact and she belittles people like those in Oxford in my electorate—for example a man who was made redundant some years ago who did what she would term a “hobby course”. It was a DIY course. That gentleman today has a home handyman business and is surviving. He is not on the scrap heap. And by the way the taxpayer is not paying him a benefit. 
Another example is a woman in Kaiapoi who did another Tolley special “hobby course”. She did cake decorating. She is now employed in one of the biggest bakeries in New Zealand which is involved in producing bakery products that are sent all around this country and the bakery is looking to export to Australia. She has got a job out of that course.  
Another example is a woman in Rangiora who did another Anne Tolley special “hobby course” quilt making. The member over there Mr Gilmore has done more in his short lifetime than three or four people have. He has conquered Mount Everest and invented rugby. He has done everything that boy. The woman from Rangiora did a quilting course—a hobby the National members would say—and is now working full time making quilts and selling them in her own business.  
National is using the recession for an alibi to make cuts. We have the example of 2800 apprentices. When the Labour Government left office 14000 young people were in trade training. Back in 1995 the previous National Government abolished the Apprenticeship Act. Thanks to National 2800 young people are on the scrap heap midstream in their apprenticeship.  
Then we get to the jobs package. I am in favour of any resource being put in place especially for young people to try to keep them in jobs or to get them in jobs. But here is the rub: with the money that was put up 9000 young people may be lucky to get a job for 6 months out of that jobs package. If we look at the statistics information and data we see that that leaves another 49000 people between the ages of 16 and 24 who will be in exactly the same position as they are in today: down the road.  
I say to the Government that there is goodwill on this side to join with National with appropriate policies to assist the young the aged those out of work and those who need support. But I say to that side that they should not con the public. A jobs package of $152 million that will eventually help 9000 young people to get a job for 6 months—maybe if they are lucky—is trumpeted as being a huge great event and a silver bullet but nothing changes for those other 49000 people aged 16 to 24. I am after a policy I am after a solution and I am after an answer from National.  
Then we get to the great lie and the great con. Again the recession is being used as an alibi to rip the guts out of the Cullen fund. I have said in a speech before with regard to that crew over there that over the last 40 years the biggest con was Muldoon when he pulled out the rug and bribed people with their own money in the 1970s. Then we had the Bolger Government which said it would not raise the age of eligibility from 60 to 65—“no ifs no buts no maybes”—and then what did it do? It did it. Then we had Mrs Shipley in the late 1990s aided and abetted by Bill English her Treasurer who cut the pension three times did not inflation-proof it and ripped the guts out of support for pensioners. National members sit there today congratulating themselves that National has not altered the age or entitlement for superannuation—yet—but what it did was to nip round to the back door and suspend payments into the Cullen fund for 11 years.  
We had Dr Bollard saying last Tuesday that we need to encourage a culture of saving in this country in order to offset our reliance on foreign funds. Of course we will always need foreign capital but he said that we need to try to provide some balance. What is the Government’s response to that statement? National does not need superannuation. National will never need superannuation and its core constituency will never be reliant on national superannuation in the years to come will it? But the core constituency the vast majority of Kiwis themselves—a quarter of a million of them—had 10 years of certainty and knew the rules. Those people were generous and stepped up through KiwiSaver and were prepared to put up their dough and make their contribution. But now after a decade of certainty of people knowing what their retirement plan would be and what the Government would come to the party with we are having debates in National about age and with commentators. Now we have people in their late 40s and early 50s saying “Hey! What about me? What do I do?”. The Government has changed the rules. Will there be a superannuation scheme for people when they retire?  
I say to that crew over there that there is no reason to do what National has done. It has used the recession as an alibi to put the boot into future generations. In fact some could say that this is privatisation of superannuation by stealth because we know what the debate will be. The debate will be whether we tax future generations. National members will ask: “Do you want us to tax you to reinforce the fund and repay the money we did not put in? Or shall we just forget about it?”. We know what the populace will say in those circumstances.  
The Government should not be so smug after 9 months in office. People are listening to the Government and they are not particularly happy with some of the things they are now learning about it. I have seen polls going up and down; they are all over the show. But I tell the Government that it is not about Standard and Poor’s and it is not about the polls. It is about the people aged 50-plus who are worried about superannuation. It is about Brittany Graham a 12-year-old whose mother Julie Baker is worried about how the hell she will look after her daughter when the special needs funding gets ripped out from under them. It is about people actually. It is not about crowing about numbers and Standard and Poor’s; it is about people.