Clark David: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17963. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to my feet to speak in a split call as you rightly point out to support the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill which is an important but tepid step in the right direction from an out-of-touch Government. I think that it is important to recognise that it is following Labour’s lead and it is trying to take some small steps in the right direction. It should at least be congratulated on that effort. The bill sits within a Budget that is a lost opportunity. It is a lost opportunity to present a coherent vision for the future of New Zealand and for New Zealanders. It is scattered backward-looking and incoherent overall. It lacks aspiration.The paid parental leave aspect of the Budget that we are debating right now is a 2-week extension in a year’s time followed by another 2-week extension a year after that. We know that these small steps forward take place on April Fool’s Day and I would like to personally shake the hand of the official who put forward 1 April as the day for the paid parental leave extension. They had their own private laugh. They know that this step forward is a tiny one. They know that this Government is making a fool of itself by not adopting the bill forwarded by Sue Moroney which would actually make sure that New Zealanders got a decent chunk of paid parental leave so that good parental bonding could happen and so that we could begin to look after our young people our early childhood sector. We know that they receive less funding and that they are less well supported than most in the OECD and the Labour measures in our Best Start package which this dimly imitates really take a step in that direction. These are tepid steps—these are tepid steps.I guess the bill lacks aspiration in line with a Government that has more unemployed people than it had when it took office at the height of the global financial crisis. This is a Government that has lowered real median wages. It is a Government that has overseen the highest gap between rich and poor that we have ever had since records were first kept in New Zealand. This is a Government that has produced a wafer-thin surplus. We know it has got there through artificially high ACC levies. We know it has got therethrough dressing up transport spending as a loan in order to fudge that surplus. Well the public can see through that. They can see right through it.Mike Sabin: He’s obviously forgotten about the multiple billions’ worth of deficit—Dr DAVID CLARK: I can assure Mr Sabin and others that there will be more fudges that come to light in coming days. I have spoken about some of them with tax accountants this evening and I could hear on the other end of the line that these fudges in the accounts were enough to make tax accountants blush. The ones that this Government is putting through in order to maintain that façade of surplus make tax accountants even the most hardened tax accountants blush. This is one of those wafer-thin surpluses. No one wants one of those Mr Creosote moments from Monty Python. No one wants that wafer-thin surplus to be blown out of the water but it will be in coming days as we see more and more of these fudges coming to light.This wafer-thin surplus and these tepid steps forward contrast with the future Labour Government which has a vision for a more inclusive prosperous New Zealand one that will produce better jobs—Mike Sabin: Tell us what it looks like.Dr DAVID CLARK: —higher wages and affordable housing Mr Sabin; good question. That is what it looks like. This is the future Labour Government which produced the Best Start policies that are being dimly mimicked here in this legislation. I use the word “dimly” advisedly. National’s moves here exclude from support 14000 of the most vulnerable children whom the Best Start package put forward by Labour would look after. We want a New Zealand where no one is left out and where no one is left behind. Labour has the policies to do it. We will bring out a universal KiwiSaver pro-growth tax reform and monetary policy to lower interest rates and to send savings to New Zealanders and not to overseas banks. We have a Best Start package that includes a child allowance more paid parental leave more early childhood education and better antenatal care. This contrasts with the dim copy that we have from the Government opposite with its shallow rhetoric and with the words of Judith Collins describing earlier the extension of paid parental leave as another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes. That is the cynicism from opposite. On this side of the House we want to build together with New Zealanders a better New Zealand.