Moroney Sue: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in this Budget Policy Statement debate. Well was that the first 10-minute speech we have seen from the “New ACT Party”? Was that history in the making? Judith Collins and David Seymour together—what a team! But I think that David Seymour—just a bit of advice here—might have to fight to take the first part of the call so that he can establish his right to be the leader with Judith as his deputy. Or maybe it is the other way round; I am not so sure. But look I think that works quite well. You should explore it. You should explore that Mr Seymour because I think the National Party would be ever grateful and probably so would Judith Collins.But what I want to actually get back to is that Judith Collins at the moment is still speaking as a National MP and her theme was pretty clear: “New Zealanders be grateful.” she said. Your life might be rubbish. You might be having a hard time getting a job. You might be having a terrible time feeding the kids. Your housing costs are going through the roof and your wages are not keeping up let alone your incomes if you are on any other form of Government assistance but the message from the National Party is “be grateful”. That is what it expects the New Zealand public to be over its Budget Policy Statement.Well I can tell you—I can tell you Mr Assistant Speaker; yes you Mr Assistant Speaker and the rest of the House—who are not feeling very grateful and they are the businesses and the workers up and down this country in every nook and cranny of this country in every industry and every sector who know now that they have been overcharged to the tune of $350 million a year in ACC levies. And why? Well even the Prime Minister admitted it yesterday. It is because Cabinet the National Cabinet ignored the advice it had got from ACC from Treasury from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment from all of its own officials and it has hiked the levy rates up higher so that it can get to Budget surplus in 2014-15 like it promised the New Zealand public. So workers and companies and organisations and the Public Service—all of those organisations—are paying for the election promise of John Key and Bill English. They are paying through the nose to prop up the illusion of a Budget surplus.Here on the Labour benches we believe in Budget surpluses and we know how to deliver them because we did those for 9 years in a row. We delivered Budget surpluses but we did not do it through that sort of jiggery-pokery. What we did was we had economic growth.David Seymour: Ha ha!SUE MORONEY: I know. They laugh because they do not understand what economic growth is. Would it not be wonderful would it not be brilliant if that promise that Bill English and John Key gave to the electorate was brought about by economic growth rather than the slim Budget surplus that they are hoping to achieve this year—that they are struggling to achieve but are hoping to achieve? Would it not be better if that had come about by economic growth when in fact it has been brought about by an overcharge in ACC levies? That is the truth of the matter.The Government has failed to grow the economy except in one instance. The Christchurch earthquakes—terrible as they were—did this Government a favour because currently the rebuild that is going on in Canterbury is the only sign of economic growth. A natural disaster plus the overcharge in ACC levies are the things that might just get this Government scraping through—might just get this Government scraping through into Budget surplus. Even after Cabinet had made a deliberate decision—[Bell rung] Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a 10-minute call.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I was advised by the Opposition whip that this call was split between Mr Cosgrove and you. It has been changed—OK. You have another 6 minutes.SUE MORONEY: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It did feel like an awfully fast 10 minutes—although 10 minutes of the “New ACT Party” seemed to drag somewhat I have got to say so it is getting a little bit hard to judge.What we have learnt in the past few days is that yes the small businesses and the medium-sized businesses and even the large corporations and all the staff whom they employ up and down the country have in fact been overcharged. We have put it to the Government that they have been overcharged to the tune of $350 million every year because the Government has failed to reduce ACC levies to the level that ACC has recommended. The Government has not contested that figure. I just want to say that again. The Government has had plenty of opportunity over the last 2 days to contest that figure and it has not.So what does that mean for ordinary New Zealanders and what does it mean for our economy? Actually if that $350 million was circulating in our local economy rather than sitting in the Government’s coffers propping up the illusion of a Government surplus in the Government’s accounts—here is the irony. If it was back in the economy it would be helping to create that economic growth and it would be creating jobs. Infometrics an independent group of analysts has come up with a figure of 700 jobs. I think that is conservative but it is an independent group so I am not going to criticise its work. Infometrics said that if we charged the correct levy for ACC instead of the trumped-up levy that this Government has come up with because it is trying to create the illusion of a Budget surplus then there would be at least 700 more jobs created out of that. Businesses would have that money in their pockets and they would be able to invest in better technology and in their workforce and they would be able to employ more staff.The other economic stimulus is this—if that money was also back in the pockets of workers instead of sitting in the Government’s accounts it would be getting spent in the local economy. This is just you know—David Seymour: It’s supply-side economics.SUE MORONEY: This is Finance 101 Mr Seymour. If workers actually had that money sitting in their accounts instead of it being paid out in levies that money would be getting spent locally. That would stimulate the economy and it would also create more jobs. It is a pretty simple equation. Even Kim Campbell from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) gets this. When it was put to him as to whether the proposal coming from the Labour leader Andrew Little that the Government was in fact overcharging ACC levies was correct he said that Andrew Little was dead right. That was the Employers and Manufacturers Association talking about the Labour leader Andrew Little and his assertion—our assertion—that there is an overcharge happening that is quite wrong in respect of the ACC levies on all of those businesses.Kim Campbell said that Andrew Little was dead right. He knows as all businesses do throughout New Zealand that they are in fact being overcharged. They are being used as a cash cow to prop up the Government’s idea of trying to get to a surplus no matter how slim. But it is an illusion and New Zealanders now know it for what it is.If this Budget Policy Statement was to be of any use to New Zealanders it would recognise that fact. The Government would come clean—well it kind of has actually. It has said: “Yes we are using it to prop up the Budget surplus.” It is being honest about it. What that tells us is that the Government has failed. It has failed to bring that surplus about by actually managing this country properly under its fiscal management.I feel sorry for Nikki Kaye. She is the Minister for ACC. She must be so disappointed that instead of her finance Minister and her Government actually stimulating the economy and bringing about a surplus through economic growth they have had to give up say that they have failed and instead have put their hands into the pockets of the Accident Compensation Corporation. They have had to go through the corporation and dip their fingers into the pockets of workers and employers up and down this country simply to try to bring about a promise that they made in the election that they have not been able to bring about by growing the economy. They could not deliver on that election promise by fair means so they are now doing it by foul.