O'Connor Damien: Budget Debate 
O'Connor Damien: Budget Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:4193] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I am honoured to be back in the House again to make my “maiden speech” on this pathetic Budget. This is a dishonest Budget. It is the Standard and Poor’s Budget. It is the poor and standard Tory Budget; that is what it is. We found out that the election promises made on the hustings were not worth the paper they were written on. The cast-iron guarantees were the cast-off guarantees. Instead of personally guaranteeing policies John Key was determined to cast them off as though New Zealanders will forget about them. Well they will not because we will keep reminding them. 
It was a poor and a standard Tory Budget. In the 1970s Mr Muldoon came in and promised to give back the money from superannuation and to lower the age of entitlement. He promised that from age 60 onwards for the rest of time superannuation could be affordable. That was a lie. Then Jim Bolger came in in the 1990s and said that his Government would remove the surcharge on superannuation. Do members know what happened? In 1991 he increased it. That was lie. Now John Key has come in and said that National would keep superannuation; that was a lie. He said that National would deliver tax cuts; that was a lie. He said that National would cap the Public Service; that was a lie too as we are now starting to see. 
There is a credibility issue creeping into the National Government at the moment. People do not believe the Government any more. As we see on this list of key commitments John Key states: “I personally guarantee that we will:” but people do not believe it any more. Nothing that John Key or the National Government says— 
Hon Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is my understanding that it is unparliamentary to accuse members of lying. That member has constantly referred to a member lying. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The point of order raised by the member is actually the case. But the member who is on his feet has been referring more to inanimate objects than to individuals. Although there may be an oblique connection I think that he has moved about as far down that line as he should go and I ask him to get on with his speech. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I would not accuse a member of lying but I say that this document is a lie because it has not been delivered on. 
Just as we saw dishonesty on the campaign trail in the promises of tax cuts that could not be delivered we saw dishonesty in this House when the National Government pushed through tax cuts that it said it could afford which it has now rescinded. We now have in the Budget a promise that in spite of deferring for 10 years the contributions to superannuation of $2 million per year that superannuation at 66 percent of the average working wage will be affordable into the future for people over 65. Well it will not be affordable as many many commentators have said because the National Government has cut the funding to allow that to happen. 
It was a Standard and Poor’s Budget because we saw manipulation in the 2 weeks leading up to the election threatening this country with a reduction in the rating if we did not do the right thing in the Budget. It was a very good bit of public relations I must say. Then quite cynically and literally 2 hours after the Budget had been delivered the people from Standard and Poor’s came out saying that we have had an increase a lift in the rating. Well is that not wonderful? As a Fitch Ratings agency commentator said this morning they must have been very fast readers or indeed they had early access to the Budget document. Did John Key go to Standard and Poor’s to negotiate an upgraded rating? I ask what he put on the table to give us an upgraded rating. If we are to believe that this is one of the worst international situations since the 1930s then it would have been very brave of any ratings agencies to give us an increase in rating. Well Standard and Poor’s did. 
I put it to members that John Key put on the table asset sales and increased access to the privatisation of services in this country and I bet he also put on the table the capital restructure of Fonterra which will lead to the trading of Fonterra shares. Fonterra is the only international company this country owns. I bet John Key put it to them that there would be shares tradable on the NZX where Henry van der Heyden just happens to be a director and he is the chairman of Fonterra. I bet John Key put that offer on the table to give us an increased rating. 
This has been a dishonest Budget for a number of reasons. It is a poor and standard Tory Budget. Why is it poor? Because it destroyed the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. It reduced research and development funding at the very time when we need to move this economy forward through innovation and through research and development. We need to move ahead of the commodity trading that we have done quite successfully. We will continue to do that but we need other components to our economy to insulate us against the ebbs and flows of commodity trading. 
The Government cut funding for biosecurity. I ask what Mr Ardern says about that. The National Government the so-called representative of the rural heartland cut funding for biosecurity in the areas of surveillance and incursion response. Not only did the Government cut the ability for us to watch the borders but also if something comes through it has reduced the ability of the public servants in this country to respond. That is an outrage. It puts the very biological economy of this country at risk and Mr Ardern knows that. 
The Government cut funding to the Customs Service. It has done the same thing to those involved in surveillance search and containment which are the things that protect our borders. The people who protect our borders have been undermined by this poor Budget. But one of the greatest embarrassments surely for any Prime Minister is what happened when he came in on his white horse as the new champion of the tourism industry. As my learned colleague Kelvin Davis said one in 10 New Zealanders are employed in tourism. It is the single biggest exporter in this country. The industry asked that the Prime Minister be the Minister of Tourism because the industry thought that it would deliver it nirvana. Well it asked for more than a $30 million increase in market spend. What did it get? Zilch! Not only did Tourism New Zealand not get an increase but also it got a reduction from $75 million down to $69 million. 
That is an insult to the Prime Minister because he had had his $50 million cycleway. It was negotiated—and hard-fought for I would suggest—with the Minister of Finance Bill English who openly stated early on that he did not support that project. Well I think it is a worthy concept. It deserves proper consideration but I ask whether it deserves $50 million that would have been better spent in marketing New Zealand to the rest of the world. The industry does not lack for product. The industry does not lack product; what it lacks is an increasing number of people coming to this country to utilise the product that we already have and the Prime Minister could not even get an additional dime for marketing New Zealand into the international market place. 
Shane Ardern 
: How much subsidy do you reckon? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is an embarrassment and the tourism industry has been so embarrassed that it has hardly commented on it I say to Mr Ardern. The member knows that too. 
The cycleway project was a classic Tory concept because the National Government thought that the 180000 people who are likely to be unemployed in this country within a few years would be out there with picks and shovels. We can just see it: Tory thinking picks and shovels making a cycleway from the top of the country. Well it does not work like that I tell Mr Key. It does not work like that I tell Mr Ardern. 
What we needed to see in this Budget was some vision. We needed support for research and development not the slashed Fast Forward Fund that we had in reality and Mr Ardern knows that. It was a standard Tory Budget because it was dishonest. It promised tax cuts and it never delivered. It killed KiwiSaver stone dead and it effectively killed protection for superannuitants for New Zealanders moving forward because the $2 billion contribution per year has been cut for 10 years and now many New Zealanders will be asking whether they will be secure in their retirement. Well they will not be. 
There was nothing or very little for rural communities—again the heartland of Tory support in the past—in the Budget. Not only was the Fast Forward Fund slashed but also research and development credits as those members announced were slashed. All the people out there in rural New Zealand and in the primary sector with good ideas who were wanting to get out and export to the world had those credits taken from under them. They were outraged at the time. Nothing in this Budget put them back in place. The funding for adult education the very thing that can help skills and support communities around this country was slashed. The rural communities are up in arms. They will be knocking on Mr Ardern’s door and on the Prime Minister’s door. This poor and standard Tory Budget was an outrage. I know that in 3 years’ time people will remember this Budget and they will put Labour back into power.