Williams Andrew: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10739. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First I would like to welcome the wandering minstrel of a trade Minister Tim Groser back to this countryfor a rare visit to this Parliament. Unfortunately he needs to get—he is leaving the Chamber now—Mr SPEAKER: Order!ANDREW WILLIAMS: —his facts right. Mr Groser the previous speaker made the comment in the Budget debate that he was just recently in Sweden—on one of his junkets to try to get a job with the World Trade Organization spending $250000 of taxpayers’ money trying to get a job for himself. He said that in Sweden he was told that its youth unemployment rate was 25.1 percent and that Sweden was appalled by that and so envious of New Zealand.Well I have got news for Mr Groser and I have got news that is hard facts. He needs to spend a little bit more time in this country and a little bit less time on junket trips around the world. The unemployment rate for 15 to 19-year-olds in this country according to the New Zealand household labour force survey of March 2013 is—guess what. Guess what the percentage of unemployed for the 15 to 19 age group is. Do any of the National Party members know what that is? Would you take a guess? Would it be close to the 25.1 percent of Sweden? Would any of you know? Well actually the figure in New Zealand is 25.6 percent—26 percent of 15 to 19-year-olds in New Zealand are unemployed.So here we have Mr Groser going on about how terrible youth unemployment is in Sweden—it has a rate of 25.1 percent—and saying how wonderful New Zealand is when in actual fact New Zealand’s youth unemployment rate is higher. So Mr Groser I suggest that you spend a little bit more time in this country and a little bit less time wandering around the world and learn about the facts of your own country. In terms of unemployment in the next age group 22 to 24-year-olds it is 10.9 percent and for 25 to 29-year-olds it is 7.1 percent. This is appalling. This means that you are talking about one in every four or five of our young people in this country being out of work. That is appalling.If you look at the regions around this country—Northland with an average of 10 percent unemployment; the Bay of Plenty with 8 percent unemployment; Gisborne - Hawke’s Bay with 8.4 percent unemployment; and the Manawatū-Wanganui area with 7.7 percent unemployment—you see that these are not good figures at all. We constantly hear the National Government saying that it is trying to get unemployment down when in actual fact out in the provinces things are pretty grim. It is even worse if you are a Māori or a Pasifika person or if you are from Middle Eastern Latin American or African areas. Māori are currently 13.9 percent of our unemployed people in this country. Pasifika people are even worse off at 15.2 percent. Those of Middle Eastern Latin American or African origin are 10.9 percent.It was interesting that a survey of National Party voters in the paper on the weekend said that they were not that affected by unemployment. Not many people in their families were affected by unemployment. They did not know too many people suffering from unemployment. It was interesting that the favoured few—the rich cats who were referred to before by Mr Groser—seem to be exempt from this. It does seem that the anointed ones—those who support the National Party—certainly seem to be doing well out of this Government while the middle-class everyday good hard-working average Kiwi is not.There is nothing to promote growth in this Budget. There is nothing for jobs or to lift incomes for good hard-working Kiwis. This Budget does nothing for provincial New Zealand. In fact it attacks provincial New Zealand. We heard last week that provincial New Zealand will be paying an extra 3c a litre from 1 July which will rise by another 3c for the next 2 years to 9c a litre. So people in the likes of those areas with high unemployment—in the likes of Northland in the likes of Gisborne - Hawke’s Bay inthe likes of Manawatū-Wanganui and the Bay of Plenty—are not going to be seeing anything for their extra 3c to 9c a litre on their fuel tax. They are simply just going to be paying more money to put petrol in their family car and in their work vehicle each week to get to and from work or to take their family out and about. They are not going to see anything more from it because all the “roads of National Party significance”—all the “roads of National Party significance”—happen to be north of Hamilton in the main.Hon Anne Tolley: That’s not true.ANDREW WILLIAMS: They are. They are apart from a little bit in Wellington and a little bit in Christchurch. In all those provincial areas hundreds of kilometres away they will see next to nothing.What have we had from this Government apart from 5 years of tinkering around the edges? We have had a lot of broken promises. For example in July 2007 the then Leader of the Opposition John Key said: “That would be a fundamental purpose of our Government to narrow the wage gap between ourselves and Australia and to grow local wages in New Zealand.” That is what he promised as the Leader of the Opposition in July 2007. The reality today is that the wage gap with Australia has increased by $58.18 a week. So 5 years later he has not followed through on his promises as the Leader of the Opposition. In fact we are worse off compared with Australia.On 27 November 2007 John Key still the Leader of the Opposition said: “We’re here today at Westpac Stadium.”—and many of you will recall him standing in the middle of Westpac Stadium—“It holds nearly 35000 people. And believe it or not the equivalent of this entire stadium—and more—leaves every year to permanently live in Australia.” And then Mr Key went on to say: “I’m convinced we can give them a reason and a purpose to stay in New Zealand. And that’s why I want to be New Zealand’s next Prime Minister.” That is what he said. Well what happened?This was also the promise: “We’ve got an agenda which is about the economy it’s about building opportunities it’s about stopping 80000 people leaving a year to other parts of the world.” That is what he said on 27 August 2008 leading up to the election. The reality 5 years later is that 126669 New Zealanders have left for Australia under John Key. So his promises as the Leader of the Opposition and coming into Government have not been fulfilled.As to asset sales much of this Budget was built on the sale of assets trying to balance the books and trying to come into surplus in a few years’ time. On 12 October 2008 Mr Key releasedMy key commitments to you. These were his commitments to you. He said: “I’m not interested in selling assets—I’m all about building assets.” So is it not interesting that in 2008 he talked about building assets but in actual fact the whole agenda was to sell assets?He then went on to say on his personal commitment card: “I personally guarantee that we will maintain and build New Zealand’s asset base by … not selling Kiwibank or any other state-owned company.” The reality however was that National has sold off Mighty River Power selling nearly half of something that all New Zealanders including every person in this room already owned and it has moved it over to the wealthy people who could afford to buy the shares and 2.5 percent of New Zealanders are now better off as a result.Mr Key said on 30 January 2007: “I have no intention of being a Prime Minister who tackles only the easy and convenient issues … But I can tell you that dealing with the problems of our growing underclass is a priority for National both in opposition and in government.” He said that as the Leader of the Opposition. The reality today under this Budget is that the underclass has grown with 32873 more children living in benefit-dependent households during the time of this Government than when National comeinto office. This Budget has not delivered for the underclass and it has not delivered for low and middle income New Zealanders. This is a very disappointing Budget.