Hipkins Chris: Budget Debate 
Hipkins Chris: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19177] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I say to the member who has just resumed her seat that I would put Labour’s economic track record after 9 years in Government against the 2½ years of this National Government any day of the week at any time that she chooses. Labour in Government delivered surpluses year after year and we paid back the debt. By the time the National Government came into office Government net debt was nothing. The Government did not have any debt when Bill English became the Minister of Finance because Michael Cullen cleaned up the mess that Bill English made last time he was Minister of Finance. When Bill English was previously the Minister of Finance we had a huge mountain of debt. When he was turfed out in 1999 Michael Cullen picked up that mess and he paid back the debt and kept the books in surplus. 
What did the then National Opposition say? It said the Labour Government should have been giving away tax cuts year after year after year. Those were the words of Bill English. He said that a National Government would have given tax cuts year on year on year. All that would have done is put us in the cart we are in now years and years earlier. The Labour Government did not do that. We left the Government’s accounts in a very very good state. 
When Bill English first became the Minister of Finance in this Government he said: “This is the rainy day the Government has been saving for.”—not a National Government but a Labour Government. It was the Labour Government that saved for the rainy day but within 2½ years the National Government has flushed all those savings down the toilet. Now we are looking at massive deficits every year with no end in sight. This Government is clocking up massive deficits and there is no end in sight. Debt will continue to grow under Bill English’s economic mismanagement simply because this Government does not have a plan for the future of this country. 
New Zealanders are struggling out there. They are willing to do a hard day’s work. They are willing to do the hard graft that it will take to get ahead but they want some hope from this Government—[ 
Interruption 
] What was that? 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: They won’t be voting that member’s party back any time soon. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh look! Georgina te Heuheu has looked into her crystal ball and she has already determined the result of the coming election. Well I say to her that I am quite happy for her to come to Rimutaka any time. She can come to my electorate any time and she can tell the parents in Rimutaka in my electorate any day of the week why they are paying more for their early childhood education. She can come and tell them why her Government wants to hock off State assets—the ones that are left. She can come to my electorate and tell the people why her Government wants to privatise ACC and rip into KiwiSaver yet again. Yet again a National Government is putting the boot into a very good retirement savings scheme which was introduced by a Labour Government. 
Georgina te Heuheu can come to my electorate and tell the people why the Government is going to close Industrial Research Ltd which is in the Hutt Valley. That enterprise is one of the most successful in the Hutt Valley and this Government is going to take it away. She can come to my electorate and explain why the Government is going to close Avalon Studios in my electorate. Suddenly we are hearing nothing from the Government benches. Perhaps the member would also like to come and say why there are no night classes left in the Hutt Valley— 
Grant Robertson 
: None at all. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: —none whatsoever; none at all. Under this Government there is not a single night class left in the Hutt Valley. Roading in the Rimutaka electorate has been shoved way down the list under this Government. In the Hutt Valley we face the real prospect of no further major roading upgrades for decades to come so that Steven Joyce can fund his “Holiday Highway” up north so he can get to his bach a little quicker. 
New Zealanders want some hope for the future. The people of the Hutt Valley where I live want some hope for the future. They are willing to go out and do the hard work. They are asking this Government where these jobs are the jobs it wants to push them into doing. Some of the people in my electorate are already working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Other people are coming into electorate offices and into Work and Income saying: “I’ve lost my job. I want another job. I don’t want to go on a benefit but there are no jobs out there for me to get.” They want to work but there are no jobs there for them to take because the Government has no plan. 
For 2 days in a row I have sat in question time and listened to the Prime Minister being questioned. He has been asked by Jacinda Ardern 2 days in a row to say what initiatives the Government had put in place in this year’s Budget to create jobs. He cannot name them. He cannot name them because there are not any. The Government does not have any idea about what it can do to start creating jobs. It is missing opportunities because it does not have a vision or a plan. Christchurch was faced with a great tragedy and still is faced with the monumental task of rebuilding but that creates a huge opportunity for us as well. Out of that tragedy there comes opportunity. One of the opportunities that comes out of that tragedy is to upskill our workforce and train new apprentices so that we can deal with the skill shortages in this country. 
Does the Government have a plan for that? No it has no plan. Instead John Key is talking about importing skilled labour from overseas; getting people to come in from Australia to do the task of rebuilding Christchurch. I say that we have people in New Zealand crying out for work and crying out for training opportunities so why not get them to do the rebuilding in Christchurch? Why not incorporate training and apprenticeships into the rebuilding of Christchurch? That would be a huge opportunity for New Zealand. But this Government has no plan to capitalise on that opportunity. 
What was John Key’s original plan for jobs after the last election? We saw the Job Summit because John Key wanted to have his photograph taken. He wanted to be seen to be doing something about jobs. What was the one big idea that came out of John Key’s Job Summit? It was a cycleway. I am a cyclist and I like cycling quite a bit. I like the idea of having better cycling in New Zealand but it is not a massive job creator. Yet so far that seems to be the only job creation scheme or job creation idea that has come out of this National Government. That is the only one. How many jobs have resulted from John Key’s cycleway? 
This is a Government that said it would focus on the things that matter. I will tell the Government what matters. What matters are jobs what matters is the rising cost of living and people not being able to pay their power bills what matters is giving people hope and on all three of those fronts this Government is failing dismally. 
I turn now to ACC. Nick Smith has been frantically trying for the 2 years that he has been Minister for ACC to talk up a crisis to pretend somehow that ACC is fundamentally broke and broken. It is not; it is not fundamentally broke and broken. It never has been. What this Government has been all out to do is soften up ACC so that the Government can privatise it. That is what we have seen in the last few weeks with the Government talking up privatising the work account. When I asked Nick Smith in question time today whether this would lower the costs to employers he said yes. I then asked him why. He said he did not know. That was effectively what Nick Smith said. He did not know because actually there is no scheme anywhere in the developed world that offers the same cover that ACC does for cheaper. 
Accident compensation is already the cheapest scheme of its type in the world and the Government wants to privatise it because it thinks that in addition to providing accident cover it can squeeze a profit margin out of it. The only way the private insurance industry will squeeze a profit margin out of it is by declining more claims reducing entitlements or increasing the costs to employers. The industry cannot offer the same level of cover without reducing entitlement or increasing costs. It has even said that. Those are not my words. The private insurance industry has come out and said it cannot do it. So what is the industry’s answer? Well insurers do not want ACC to compete with them because they know they cannot do it as cheaply as ACC can. They do not want to compete with ACC; they want the Government to block ACC out of the market so the industry can increase the costs to employers and not be undercut by ACC because ACC is cheap and because it is good. The accident compensation system is fundamentally sound and has been all along despite the fact that the Government has been trying to talk up a crisis in it. 
The New Zealand public is looking for hope it is looking for a plan and it is looking for evidence that this Government has some idea about how it will get New Zealand out of the economic mire it is in at the moment and it is not seeing it. The New Zealand public is seeing a Government interested in itself and interested in promoting its own interests and those of its mates—a Government with no plan.