Mallard Trevor: Budget Debate 
Mallard Trevor: Budget Debate 
[Volume:664;Page:11665] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I think one can tell when members opposite have drafted their own speeches rather than using the research unit notes—we could tell on that particular occasion. I congratulate the member Louise Upston on doing some original work. I agree with her on the question of the “hip pocket Budget”. But it is a question of whose hand is being put into whose pocket and in my opinion this is a case of John Key and Bill English going around to average Kiwis and people who have below average incomes putting their grubby hands into their pockets stripping the cash out and putting it on a direct credit to their mates. 
The Prime Minister will get a tax cut of over $1000 a week as a result of this Budget. But the people in my electorate on the average income with a couple of kids or someone who used to get one of the tertiary incentive allowances that Paula Bennett got will be paying $50 $75 or maybe even $100 a week extra for their early childhood education in order to finance John Key’s tax cuts. How can it possibly be fair that lower income New Zealanders have to pay extra GST and have to pay extra for their early childhood education so John Key gets a tax cut of over $1000 a week? 
The other obvious point that should be made is that the Minister of Finance has no credibility in this area whatsoever. He talks about being a fiscal conservative but how he can possibly do that when he has taken over half a million dollars from the taxpayer by saying that he lives in Dipton when he does not? How can a Minister of Finance have any credibility anywhere around New Zealand or in the international capitals of the world when time and time again he made a declaration that he lives in Dipton when we all know that he lives in Wellington? He is an embarrassment to members who have been Treasury Ministers because he should know better than that. 
The other thing that I think has embarrassed— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: Get out of the gutter. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well I will say it again. I have been invited to repeat my comments by the former whip Nathan Guy. How can a Minister of Finance have any credibility at all when he has taken half a million dollars put it into his own pocket and used it for his own purposes by declaring that he lives in Dipton when we know that he lives in Wellington? Where is the credibility? I ask where the fiscal rectitude is in that from Bill English. The problem is that the whole Budget—the whole Budget—is tainted because it was delivered by someone whom the New Zealand populace does not believe. People do not believe him because he made a series of declarations that were just not true. And he did not pay back the money. He did not pay back over half a million dollars. We ask ourselves what sort of a Minister of Finance we have. 
He has also absolutely refused to acknowledge the sound balance sheet he got when he became the Minister of Finance. There was nil net debt. How many Governments in the OECD are in that position? Not one. Members opposite cannot name one Government that received a nil net debt position. We had the unemployment rate under 4 percent at the point when those members took office. It was well under that of Australia and look at it now. Look at those Kiwis. I think that all members in the House know that an enormous exodus across the Tasman is happening in a way that has not happened for quite a long time. People are going back across the Tasman because we know and they know that there are jobs in Australia and there are not jobs in New Zealand. The reason is that in Australia the recovery was not choked off in the way that it was choked off in New Zealand by Bill English and John Key. 
I acknowledge that the member for Taupo mentioned the cycleway but what she did not say was that not a single kilometre has been built that would not have been built before then. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Yes there has. Do your homework. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I ask that member to name the kilometre that was not already planned. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Name it? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: She should name the kilometre. Quickly away she should go! [ 
Interruption 
] No name it by interjection. Come on. 
Jacqui Dean 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has asked me to name a section of cycle track that has been constructed that had not already been thought of and that section of cycle track is in Oamaru. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is not a point of order. A point of order is about the order of the House. If the member wishes to respond by way of interjection then the member is perfectly entitled to do that. If the member wants to raise a point like that she waits until her speech. That is not a point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: While we are doing the procedural thing for the benefit of the member’s education I say that she could have asked me to yield. I would have yielded because she has told us something that we did not know. There is a kilometre. One kilometre has been built in Oamaru that was not already planned. And that was the grand plan of the Government for jobs! What about broadband? Members opposite should tell me about fibre core. They should tell me about the Crown fibre corporation and about one inch of fibre that has been laid as a result of the decisions made 15 months ago. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Oamaru! Mid-Canterbury! 
Hon Member 
: Oamaru again? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No we have got this absolutely right. I got it in a briefing yesterday from them. Not a single dollar has been spent and not a single inch of broadband has been laid as a result of the Government’s intervention—not one not an inch not a cent. An arrangement has been made and as a result of that the bright shining star of Steven Joyce is beginning to slip. He was the one who was going do it. In fact I thought at one stage that he would be the Minister of Finance. I thought that John Key would do the right thing and push him in. But I tell members what given the progress that Steven Joyce has made I reckon that Simon Power is the one. When those members finally work out that Bill English is not up to the job Simon Power will be the one who will get the job. 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: Talk about your reshuffle today. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I notice that Nathan Guy wants to tell us about Richard Worth and the reason that Nathan Guy got into Cabinet. I ask whether that member wants to tell us more about Richard Worth and the reason why he got into Cabinet. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh he is not in Cabinet. Sorry I thought that National had a talent-based ministry but then I looked at Pansy Wong. 
I say to Aaron Gilmore that I agree with him. I agreed with him when he told that group in the workingmen’s club in Christchurch that he could do a better job than Anne Tolley. That is true. I agree with him. I absolutely agree with him but I think that Allan Peachey could— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not make such a statement and I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. I take offence at his saying that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Excuse me but that is not a point of order. That is a debatable point. If the member has taken offence then I have to say to the member that much worse things have been said in this House about a member that fall well below the level of offence. If the member wishes to rebut it he can do so at a later time. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member should try a bit of cement—harden up. I wanted to say that that might well be true. He might well be a better Minister of Education than Anne Tolley is. That is not a high test. But we know that Allan Peachey knows about education. I do not always agree with him. I think that he has been wrong on a number of occasions. I certainly would not lease a corporate box in the way that that member did when he was the principal of a school but the thing one cannot argue about is that he knows something about education in a way that the Minister of Education does not. That is the reason why she has made so many foolish mistakes in the time that she has been the Minister. I think that my colleague will talk about early childhood education and about the Minister’s attack on standards and her cutting of the number of teachers. But in the end this Budget will be known as the “hip pocket Budget” because Bill English put his hand into people’s pockets.