Gosche Mark: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Gosche Mark: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:16870] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That was like listening to an unmuffled chainsaw and about as interesting too. I ask that member: what do those 37 people paid for by the taxpayer in John Key’s office do? What does the webmaster do? Are they doing policy in that office or is it just spin? We would like to know and the taxpayers who fund it would like to know. 
I think I did hear a policy at the weekend from Simon Power of all people. He has been disallowed from saying anything since he made those stupid comments about the Americans. He said that the National Party is going to build a prison. That is a policy. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Where? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: He did not say where but that is a good question. I remember that when I was the Minister of Corrections I went to three different parts of the country. I remember the National Party MPs raging against the building of prisons anywhere near those places. Maybe those 37 people are thinking up policies that their mates will oppose. 
They try to be tough on law and order but we all remember the 540 jobs they were going to get rid of because of a certain failed computer system. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Were they bureaucrats? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: No no they were front-line police. Of course cardboard cut-outs would have been just as good and a computer that did not work would catch the crooks! 
So when we think about National members saying they are hard on law and order we remember them opposing the prisons in the South Island and the North Island—everywhere there was a prison to be built. We were building prisons at the beginning of our term of Government and the National Party members were opposing that and leading campaigns against them in their local communities. But no Simon Power let loose on the media at the weekend announced that National’s big answer to the law and order problems in New Zealand would be to build a prison somewhere. But he will not tell anybody where because people would oppose it and his mates in caucus would oppose it. 
I heard earlier in this debate some quite serious comments about the law and order issues. They were aimed in particular at the South Auckland community the place I was born in. It is a place I represent and am very proud of. I just want to point out that in this Government’s Budget we have been looking at communities like that and we have been doing some very serious things in our Budget. The $10.6 billion in personal tax cuts will help those communities. We are not like the National Party who would give the money to the rich. We are spreading it through the poorer paid New Zealanders the middle-income people and the families. That is why there is $10.6 billion in personal tax cuts. That is why there is $1.1 billion worth of increases to the Working for Families package. And we do not forget the elderly. We have a superannuation increase coming in October and in April and that will see a lot of superannuitants who rely on that Government superannuation for their everyday living better off by $45 a fortnight. 
We do not stop there. I heard a previous speaker going on about education. Well what is this Budget and this debate about? It is about our future. It is about what we spend in educating our young people. So whilst there was a bit of a complaint coming from some schools about the increase in the operations grant which is 5 percent what did we hear from the National Party spokesperson Anne Tolley? I ask that previous speaker over there to listen to this. Anne Tolley has said that there will be no extra funding for education on top of the cost of living. Is that 5 percent? Is that the 5 percent that we have not just promised but delivered on in this Budget? No it is not 5 percent. We know that it will be less than 4 percent. 
National members speak about the need to spend on education for the coming generations but we know—if they are to be relied upon and we cannot always do that because they change their minds so rapidly when they announce policies—that schools would have their funding cut under a National Government. We have given a 5 percent operations grant in this Budget on top of the significant funding increases that have gone in over the last few years. But the National Party is promising to do less. However it will give more to the private schools. It will be at the cost of our public sector schools. National will take money off them and give it to the private sector. 
Well I am waiting for the North Shore principals to say something about that. I am waiting for them to come out and roundly abuse the National Party for promising a cut in the operations grant because it would only be fair for them to do that. The schools have said that there is not enough money. I have been a board of trustees chair and I know there is never enough money. One is always wanting to do more for one’s school—for more computers new buildings new this and new that. That is why one gets elected to boards of trustees. That is why teachers and principals are in that profession. They want to do better. Let us be fair. If it is a case of 5 percent versus less than 4 percent I think that most people out there with any basic education would say that the better deal is coming from Labour. 
It does not stop there. We have a growing economy. We are up against some trends in the world that are very difficult. The whole world is suffering from the cost of oil the food shortage etc. But what is this Government looking at? Well we have a skills package of $168 million to lift literacy language and numeracy skills amongst the existing workforce as well as things such as apprenticeships and investment in tertiary education. We are saying that we want to invest in people who may have missed out along the way but who are badly needed in our workplaces. That is excellent spending I believe in terms of investing in the people from my community. 
So when I look at the issues in South Auckland and the crime that is in the headlines from time to time—which quite rightly upsets people—I think about what the Government is doing for those community organisations that are doing the work at the grassroots level. What is the Government doing for them? Well $446 million has been promised and some of that money is already on the way. We are making sure that those community organisations who deal with our young people our elderly people and those people in the community in need particularly in communities such as South Auckland will get fully funded for the first time in their history. 
That is what this Government is about. It is about growing the economy investing in the future through education and looking after those in need. Those communities that need more will get more from this Government. There is an extra $3 billion for health spending and $30 million is going into Healthy Homes. There is $180 million more for police and I can say that in communities like mine when someone picks up the telephone and says: “Look there are young people drinking in a park there’s a liquor ban there can you get out there and attend to it?” it happens. I can say that in my community that happens. In the community I represent the police are now resourced sufficiently to be able to get out there and do the work. They are out there lowering the crime figures in my community. They are dealing with some pretty tough streets and some pretty tough people but they are giving confidence back to a community that was low in confidence after the 1990s. 
We have more people in work and fewer people on benefits but we still have to mop up generational problems that have come through from the 1980s and 1990s because of economic reform and under-investment in the basic things such as education health and policing. One does not fix up those problems overnight. This Government believes in getting alongside the community using the police force to work with the community and helping the schools that struggle with low-income children who come to school without the best resources and without the best family background. We are succeeding and our communities in South Auckland are proud of what we are achieving. We do have our problems but they know they can count on this Government to give them the policing they deserve the housing they deserve the health services they pay for an education system that moves them upward and an economy that can withstand the buffering that is going on at the moment. 
I am proud to be part of this Government. I am not proud of the Opposition members who sit over there making up stories about the number of bureaucrats and attacking the Public Service as if it is evil. I know why we did not get anything built in the 1990s. It is because those members ran the Public Service down to the point that when I became the Minister of Transport I was told I would have to wait 3 4 or 5 years for the policy to be written let alone implemented. That is what one does when one runs down the Public Service—the infrastructure suddenly collapses and the education system falls apart. We saw that in the 1990s. We will never repeat that mistake.