Ryall Tony: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Ryall Tony: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11077] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 I would like to acknowledge the comments of the previous speaker the Hon Peter Dunne with respect to the tax concession encouragement for charitable giving which of course the Labour Party announced having stolen the policy word for word from John Key. He announced it weeks and weeks before the Labour Party put it in its Budget. At the time that John Key announced that policy what did Dr Cullen say? He said that it was Tory charity. But when he got to announce it only a few weeks later apparently it was a great new policy—something great for the community and the way forward. I have to say that I think it is a good policy. It will turbocharge the voluntary sector of New Zealand as John Key says and I think that is absolutely vital. 
But what is also turbocharged in this economy are the 700 New Zealanders who are leaving this country every week to go and live in Australia. In fact I know of a young family in my electorate that is leaving New Zealand next week to go to Australia. This is a young man and his family who has worked for 20-something years in the New Zealand economy and has contributed well. He has a couple of young kids. He has decided that the lack of opportunity the stifling political correctness the high taxes and the lack of incentive and reward for effort are sufficient for him to want to take himself his wife and his two young children to Australia to start a new life. He will be going to Brisbane and joining his brother who is there as well with his partner and young child. They will be joining more and more New Zealanders who are leaving New Zealand to go to Australia. 
What was in this Budget to make that young man and his family from Papamoa stay in New Zealand? Absolutely nothing. Where was the incentive of lower personal taxes to help families work hard and get ahead? There was not one thing at all. Where was the commitment to improve the quality of our schools? Where was the effort to get trade training in our schools so that our young people can be equipped to get into the community as John Key has announced? Where was the commitment to improve the standard of care in our nation’s hospitals to unleash the malignant spread of bureaucracy that is so stifling our health professionals in their desperate desire to help New Zealanders? Where was that? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Where was it? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Well nowhere. It was absolutely nowhere. It was a Budget completely bereft of any idea or any motivation to say to that young family to stay in New Zealand. [ 
Interruption 
] Hold on. Mr Cosgrove says it was full of stuff to get people to stay in New Zealand. Apparently regulations and putting up the price of land for new families is some great new thing that this Government announced. But there was nothing in this Budget to say to that young family: “Stay in New Zealand.” Where was the sense of direction the sense of purpose to say to that young man: “Stay in New Zealand and continue building your life here. We’re going to give you every incentive to get ahead.”? Where was that? It was not there. 
Where was the opportunity to say to him: “We’ll give you even more opportunity to get a better house and get ahead and get an affordable home.”? Where was that? There was none of that at all. Where was the Government saying: “We’ve got a vision for a quality education system that is going to give young New Zealanders the skills they need to make sure they can compete with everyone else.”? Where was that? There was none whatsoever. In fact all families get from the education system is the food police controlling what the kids and the mums and dads can put in the lunch boxes to take to school. That is hardly improving the standard of education for New Zealanders at all. 
 What was there in health for this young man and his family? Nothing. Where was the Government’s sense of purpose to say that it wants a health system that makes New Zealanders live longer and thrive and a health system that will bring care closer to home to make sure that people get better services coordinated with social care? Where was any of that appropriate vision from the Government? There was none whatsoever. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: A broken arm in Greymouth! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Break a leg in Greymouth today and one has to go and get it set in Blenheim. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Blenheim! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That is what is happening in the health service in New Zealand today. It is absolutely shocking. 
Over 700 New Zealanders a week are leaving to go to Australia. There is no incentive in this Budget for them to stay. Sure there is $1 billion worth of tax cuts for business. But do members know what Labour has done? It has cancelled the personal tax cuts that Michael Cullen promised people in two successive Budgets. Michael Cullen cancelled the personal tax cuts— 
Nathan Guy 
: The bubble gum ones! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Yes they were bubble-gum size but he did cancel the personal tax cuts that he promised New Zealanders. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: When did you give a tax cut? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Several times when we were last in Government I say to Mr Woolerton. Several times when we were last in Government we gave personal tax cuts and we would continue to do so. But this Government has no idea and no vision for the future. If one asks New Zealanders what was the sense of direction given in the Budget what do they say? New Zealanders cannot name one thing in the Budget that is good for them and their families. They cannot imagine it at all. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Give us your policy. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Now we hear “give us your policy.” Well why would we announce our policies for the Labour Party to steal? I tell Labour members to announce their policies because they have not been announced. Let us actually look at Labour. Remember Pete Hodgson the Labour Party strategist? He gave advice on when Labour should announce its policy before the last election. The health policy was announced 3 weeks before the 2005 general election. What about the student loans policy? That was announced on 26 July about 6 or 7 weeks before the election. Remember the early childhood education policy the 20 free hours? That was announced less than 3½ weeks before the election. What about the Labour Party’s economic policy announced just over a week before the last general election? That told us a lot. I got that direct from the Labour Party website. That tells us where Labour is in terms of announcing its policy. When John Key announced his policy in relation to voluntary groups the Labour Party was downloading that from the Internet in the blink of an eye. It stole it and used it in the Budget and that is what it has been caught out doing. 
So I ask the Labour Party where the sense of purpose is that New Zealanders should be getting from the Government because they got none in this Budget whatsoever. This is a Budget where the Government is spending more money than ever before but more kids will be failing in our schools fewer people will be getting cared for within our hospitals and more people will be waiting longer and longer on trolleys under fluorescent lights in hospitals up and down this country as a result of this Budget because the Government thinks that a quality health service is measured by how much money one throws at it. That is what Labour says. It says it is so good for health and $5 billion must be better. Well tell that to the woman from North Shore who I spoke to on the telephone yesterday who stayed in hospital for 3 days with a grazed shin that got worse as she sat on the hospital trolley with no one taking any care of her and with her not getting admitted to a ward. That is appalling. That is a Third World health system happening in our country. Emergency departments are absolutely unable to deal with patients presenting to them. 
I visited the emergency department of one of the nation’s major hospitals last week. I met with doctors and heard about their frustration first hand at the inability of the system to provide the level of care that New Zealanders should expect for the $11 billion that this Budget is putting into health. One would think that if $11 billion was put in people who turned up at emergency departments would be seen at a reasonable time and that an 83-year-old woman would not be lying on a trolley under fluorescent lights for hours on end; and that a woman who presented with a badly grazed shin would not be having to hang around a hospital for 3 days and have to discharge herself because she could not get the level of care and support she needed. That is what we have under a Labour Party—and a charity hospital opening in Christchurch! What would Michael Joseph Savage have to say about that? A charity hospital is opening in Christchurch under a Labour Government. Is that Tory charity as well? 
Judith Collins 
: They have gone quiet. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: There is silence from the members opposite because this is a Government putting in huge amounts of money and getting none of the improvement and quality public services that New Zealanders should expect. Nothing in the policy announcements in this Budget from this Government will do a single thing to stop that young man from Papamoa and his wife and two kids from leaving New Zealand in the next 10 days. Nothing in this Budget keeps them here.