Parker David: General Debate 
Parker David: General Debate 
[Volume:672;Page:18345] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 We heard Bill English decrying the fact that New Zealand has debt. I will read to members what Bill English said on 18 December 2008 shortly after he took over. The quote is from the  
New Zealand Herald 
. Bill English said: “I want to stress that New Zealand starts from a reasonable position in dealing with the uncertainty of our economic outlook. In New Zealand we have room to respond. This is the rainy day the Government has been saving up for.” 
That was the reality of what the incoming National Government inherited. It inherited eight consecutive Budget surpluses each of which was opposed by members opposite when in Opposition. Bill English and John Key—and Don Brash at the time—all at different times opposed every surplus that Labour ran. Had we not run those surpluses New Zealand’s situation would be even more dire than it is. The fact that it is dire now is not because of the actions of the previous Labour Government; it is because of the mismanagement of the economy by National and its allies ACT and the Maori Party since then. 
While we are talking about that little sideshow I ask why there is so much interest in what is happening with ACT at the moment. National likes to pretend that we are under first past the post and that because it is ahead in the polls it will win an MMP election. Of course National’s actions belie the fact that it knows that is not the truth. That is why we have seen a National takeover of ACT through Don Brash and John Banks both former members of National in this House. 
They have taken over the ACT Party because they know that HorizonPoll in the  
Sunday Star-Times  
a week and a half ago showed that the gap between the left and the right was only 6 percent. A 3 percent swing against National to Labour would see Labour’s MMP side of this House being bigger than National’s side. That is why there has been a coup in the ACT Party; National members knew they needed to do something. The sad reality for National members is that they are being predatory on their own vote because everyone knows that Don Brash stands for asset sales 100 percent of the way. That is not the fiction that National is taking to the election at the moment—that it will sell only 25 percent. 
The National Government inherited low debt. We also heard from Bill English that average wages after tax have increased. But that is only the case if one includes the top 10 percent of wage earners who got all the benefit of the tax cuts. The wages for more than half of people in New Zealand who earn a living have gone down in real terms. It is only if the figures are manipulated to include the top 10 percent of wage earners for whom this Government so plainly governs that those other people appear to be getting ahead. The 10 percent of people are the same 10 percent who will benefit from the sale of the State-owned enterprises that the Government is trying to push through. 
Those people do not care whether electricity prices go up much—and they will go up if the Government sells the electricity State-owned enterprises. We all know that electricity prices would go up further. But why do those people—that small 10 percent of the population—not care? They do not care because they get so much under this Government and would from any future National Government. Forty percent will stay about the same overall but the bottom 50 percent will go backwards. 
In this coming election electors will have a choice. Do they want a country that tries to fill the gap left by unaffordable tax cuts by selling State-owned enterprises? As Phil Goff said today the sale of State-owned enterprises would not fund even 1 year of the Government’s deficit. That is the terrible situation that this Government has got us into. The Government has given up on its promise to close the wage gap with Australia to lead New Zealand to a brighter future and to have a step change in the economy. Do members remember those three promises at the last election? They have disappeared from National’s language because it is failing. It has no adequate plan to grow this economy. 
Increasing numbers of New Zealanders are going to Australia to earn a living—so much so that when Julia Gillard was recently here she said she views New Zealand as a source of well-trained good people who add to the growth of the Australian economy. They are a loss to our economy but a gain for the Australian economy. That is another broken promise of the National Government.