Robertson Grant: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18061. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Here we are at the end of the Government’s turbocharge of the economy—through the removal of cheque duty. I want to make sure that we get this right. The Cheque Duty Repeal Bill will go down in the annals of Parliament as one of the Government’s finest measures. Not only will it transform the economy but it will also give New Zealanders the social dividend from the 5 years of austerity in the Budgets—the social dividend of 35c a year. It is 35c a year which Moana Mackey tells me will not buy you even a K-Bar at the dairy any more. It will not even do that. This is a pathetic bill. It is a pathetic piece of legislation to have us here in urgency on a Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock.The legislation is emblematic of a Budget that contains some good things. And let us be honest that everybody in this House would agree that reducing the cost of going to the doctor is a good thing building on the Labour Government’s achievements over 9 years in reducing the costs of seeing a general practitioner. We had an extensive debate on the importance of paid parental leave and I acknowledge the shift in the National Government’s policy to support paid parental leave and now to see it increase. It is a timid increase. It could go much further. It is not responsive to the evidence that says that 26 weeks is the minimum that would be appropriate for paid parental leave but it is a step in the right direction so we acknowledge the Government for that. But these small steps in the right direction pale alongside a Budget that has no vision or ambition for the New Zealand economy. There is almost nothing in this Budget about economic development about job creation and about actually creating the economy that will deliver better jobs with higher wages. We cannot go on with politics as usual delivering policies as usual and outcomes as usual. We cannot go on pretending that commodities will get us there pretending that unprocessed dairy and logs are all we need. We have to be adding value to the economy and we have to be training and educating people to do those jobs to lift those wages and this Government and this Budget simply fail to do that. It is a step in the right direction but to where. It is totally absent.These bills before us show that the Government does not know where it is going. It has prioritised putting Parliament and all the costs associated with Parliament through the Cheque Duty Repeal Bill. It has put up the Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill. If this is the response we are in trouble as a country. Climate change is a serious issue and the response to it requires all New Zealanders to be involved. It requires a partnership between Government business and the community. Instead this climate change response bill here targets one sector the forestry sector and leaves alone the big polluters with which the National Government is friends—the members of the Cabinet club. So it is not a climate change response bill that as New Zealanders we should be proud about.Then we have the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) which is the response of the National Government to the housing crisis. Let us set the problem here. The problem in the last month in Auckland is that the cost of a home went up by $6000. We see in the Budget that in the future if you are going to be servicing a standard mortgage and you live in Auckland you will need 83 percent of your wages to do that—83 percent. At the moment it is 49 percent and that is tough enough for someone who wants to get into the housing market. In Auckland by 2018 it will be 83 percent. This is a crisis. It is a major problem and the Government’s response is to make varnish nails plasterboard and things like that a little bit cheaper. The Government does not know how much cheaper. The Minister of Commerce was totally unable to respond to questions asked of him about where the $3500 figure came from. It was plucked out of the air and in reality it might pay for a little bit of the conveyancing fee. That is what it might do. But it certainly is not going to address the housing crisis. This Budget is woefully inadequate in terms of housing with absolutely no hope for first-home buyers from this Budget. They are the three bits of legislation that the Government has decided it wants to show off and showcase as being what this Budget is about. Well it is probably right. This is a Budget that is about a fragmented ill-conceived inadequate response to the needs of New Zealanders.What Labour has been saying from day one is that it believes that what New Zealanders wanted in this Budget was something that gave them confidence that there would be jobs for them and their children in the future that there would be a quality of life that means the Kiwi dream of homeownership is still there for New Zealanders that there would be some hope for the future and that there would be opportunities for New Zealanders and their families. That opportunity has been completely missed and completely lost by this Government. This Budget is a massive missed opportunity for New Zealanders to build for future generations a sustainable economy. These three bills sad and pathetic as they are are the best the National Government has to offer.