Blue Jackie: Budget Debate 
Blue Jackie: Budget Debate 
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Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 My congratulations go to the Prime Minister John Key and the Minister of Finance Bill English on a balanced and measured Budget that will ensure New Zealand can make it through the recession. This recession has been the most serious that the world has experienced for more than 70 years. This Budget will keep the economy going amid the global and economic fall-out. There will be new core Crown spending of almost $3 billion which together with the recent tax cuts will support our economy through these difficult times. This Budget will put New Zealand back on the road to recovery. This Budget has been universally welcomed by many groups. Auckland chamber of commerce chief executive officer Michael Barnett said: “Like any business when the market gets tight we have to tighten our belts. We may not like it too much but that’s the reality.” The Employers and Manufacturers Association called Budget 2009 “straightforward and responsible”. The Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce labelled the Budget as “prudent and responsible in light of the extraordinary state of the world economy and the fiscal pressures facing the government”. 
Budget 2009 is all about supporting jobs. This is through a $323 million home insulation clean-heating campaign $50 million for a national cycleway and a multibillion-dollar infrastructure boost. Budget 2009 locks in national superannuation at 66 percent of the average wage. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It’s a con. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: It is no con. Listen on dear reader. Benefits student support and Working for Families are maintained at current levels. Budget 2009 improves public services with a $3 billion boost for health over 4 years focused on front-line services and $1.68 billion on education to raise student achievement. Public safety will be improved. There will be 600 more front-line police and 246 more probation officers. Budget 2009 builds on productive infrastructure with a $290 million plan for the first tranche of the Government’s broadband plan. There will be $523 million to build new schools and upgrade existing ones and an extra $1 billion over 3 years for the State highway network. 
This is a Budget for the difficult times ahead. This Budget controls Government spending and debt. The Government is ensuring debt does not skyrocket out of control. The Government has had to make the hard calls and it has done so. The Government has had to defer planned tax cuts it has suspended automatic contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and it will be slowing the pace of new Government spending. The Government has suspended automatic contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The fund was originally set up to take Government surpluses and invest them. But guess what? There are no surpluses. If we were to make contributions now we would have to fund them either by cutting back public services or by cutting back other income support entitlements. It is pretty much simple arithmetic. The only other option would be to borrow and that would be like a household that had a big mortgage an overdraft and the car and the fridge on hire purchase going to the bank and saying: “We want to borrow money and invest it in the sharemarket.” It does not make any sense. 
Superannuation is paid out from general taxation at present and the fund is a long-term investment vehicle set up to offset the cost of superannuation in 2030 when the bulge of the baby boomers will put more pressure on the general tax base. Even in these difficult times the Government will be paying $250 million into the fund during the worst economic conditions the world has seen. Contributions will be reassessed on a year-by-year basis. When the Superannuation Fund was set up there was legislation to allow for such a time when the Government of the day needed the option of having a holiday from making payments into the fund. This Government has taken that option. Borrowing to pay into the Superannuation Fund would be reckless and makes no sense whatsoever. If we had to borrow to pay into the fund New Zealand would have the expected downgrading in its credit rating. The impact of a downgrade would have the inevitable effect on taxpayers of an increase in interest rates. That would have had a detrimental effect and been a detrimental step to take. The Government moved decisively to avoid that. 
Importantly this Budget strengthens the economy for the future. It removes unnecessary regulation so that business can thrive. It will invest more to lift the literacy and numeracy of young people and it will create a more productive public sector. 
I am particularly pleased at the announcements made in health. Despite the recession Vote Health will continue to increase. Hospice funding will be boosted by $60 million over the next 4 years increasing the average hospice funding provided by taxpayers to 70 percent. Prior to this hospices had been provided with only 50 percent of the operational budget and many had to fund-raise for the remainder which was very difficult for the small hospices. New Zealand is the biggest exporter of doctors and nurses and we have the highest percentage of foreign-trained doctors in any OECD country. There will be an extra $160 million over 4 years for the front-line health workforce. This equates to 60 new medical student training places in 2010 and there will be an extra 50 general practitioner training places by 2010 as well. Health sector infrastructure will be upgraded by $245 million which includes a start to the construction of 20 new dedicated elective surgery theatres. There will be $70 million allocated to the 800 staff of these elective surgery super-centres. There will be $4 million allocated over 4 years to training health professionals in rural areas. These measures supplement our voluntary bonding policy for doctors nurses and midwives who will get a student loan write-off if they agree to work in hard-to-staff areas. 
Forty percent of new Government funding for Budget 2009 goes to health priorities. That is how much the Government cares about health. To meet the increased maternity service needs there is additional funding of $103.5 million over 4 years to support services. There will be longer stays for new mothers in birthing facilities; an optional meeting at each trimester for at-risk mothers attended by the pregnant woman the general practitioner and the lead maternity carer; obstetric training or refresher courses for general practitioners wishing to return to maternity care; the costs from the increase in the number of births each year will be met; and the PlunketLine 24-hour telephone advice service will be fully funded as previously announced. 
As part of Budget 2009 around $26 million of mental health money will be invested nationally over 4 years for the treatment of eating disorders. This investment will mean up to eight community residential beds in Auckland four new dedicated beds at Starship Children’s Health and expansions to Central Region Eating Disorder Services and the southern region’s community eating disorder service. Once the new services are fully staffed and operational more families will be able to get New Zealand - based residential services rather than going to Australia for treatment. Specialist eating disorder treatments need a highly skilled workforce and some of this funding will be used for training and increasing the specialist workforce in this area. The home insulation programme will have many crossover benefits in health as we know that respiratory disorders and cold damp housing lead to poor health. That was a great initiative. 
This is a Budget that despite the economic times we are in will get us through this recession and help New Zealanders. Thank you.