Adams Amy: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Adams Amy: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3997] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 Today I am so proud to be a member of this National Government. I am so proud to be a member of this Government because today we have seen the Minister of Finance deliver a Budget that is solid that is sensible that is prudent that is responsible and that is what this country needs right now. This Budget is putting us on the road to recovery. It is the first Budget that will take New Zealand through these hard times and it will bring us out of them the stronger for it. 
This is the worst recession in more than 70 years. Business as usual is not an option. We cannot carry on as though the recession does not exist. Today the Hon Bill English had some very difficult choices to make. He could have followed along in the mode of the previous Labour Government; he could have followed Michael Cullen’s lead and carried on the massive explosion in Crown expenditure and not worried about burdening every single New Zealander with $45000 worth of debt. The Labour Party would have every man woman and child carry $45000 in debt not to mention another 1.5 percent being added on to the interest rate on every mortgage of every family in this country. We could have carried on in that way as Labour would have done but we were not prepared to see debt blow out to 70 percent of GDP. That is not acceptable to us. National was not going to sit back and cripple future generations so that it could buy its way back on to the Treasury benches. 
Bill English has not only stopped that path to destruction; he has done it while protecting the entitlements of all New Zealanders. He has protected superannuation he has protected Working for Families he has protected interest-free student loans and he has not cut any entitlements. He has protected New Zealanders. But in order to do that hard decisions had to be made. We cannot achieve the wonderful outcomes that our Minister of Finance has achieved without making some choices. 
Today the Labour Party has demonstrated why it is incapable of managing an economy in times like this. It does not understand the seriousness of the debt situation. Labour members clearly have no grasp of the impact of credit downgrades. They do not understand that without our protecting that position this country would be spending more on debt servicing than it does on health. A Labour Government would have spent more on debt servicing than it did on health. Labour members want us to know that they saw the recession coming. I find that hard to believe when they could not even see the billion-dollar hole in the accident compensation scheme books. Labour members are financially illiterate. They want us to borrow another $2 billion. They want us to rack up an extra $2 billion in debt every year to pay 5 percent interest on that money and to put it into the Superannuation Fund which has lost 4 percent a month over the last 10 months. In the time that the Superannuation Fund has been going it has achieved half of what one could have got from putting the money in Government bonds. But Labour says that we should not let that stop us that we should rack up another $2 million of debt on the credit card and chuck it into a poor-performing investment. That is great business! 
It is no wonder the people said that they do not want that crowd leading them through the recession and that they want John Key and Bill English.” Today they have delivered a Budget that I am proud of and that New Zealand needs. I congratulate them on it. 
Bill read a second time.