Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
Chadwick Steve: Budget Debate 
[Volume:663;Page:11348] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 We allowed Chester Borrows the member opposite who has just resumed his seat to walk along the sunny side of the street for a wee while. But we have been out there walking the streets. We are in Opposition we are out there walking the streets and we are hearing some very interesting things coming out of the shadows on the street. People are now coming up to us saying: “We thought that it was a bit of a jammy Budget. It was pretty good. It was spread around tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts.” which is all that National knows to do as a way forward to an aspirational future. But now not even 1 week later people are saying: “Hang on a minute. I have got out the calculator and it does not quite work out. It will all be wiped out by inflation increases. My little bit of jam will have a bit of bread splattered on it and it will be wiped out on the bench before us.” 
Also on the dark side of the street which we remember on this side of the House people are already starting to see that there could be asset sales. Only 1 day after the Budget after the Government had had its day in the sunshine Bill English came out and said that the Government was now getting geared up for asset sales with Kiwibank being the first off the rank. Then the Prime Minister told Government members not to do that. He told them not to get too keen or carried away and not to bask in the sun for too long and get too puffed up. That is especially good advice when we hear Chester Borrows say that he thinks this National Government will be in for 20 years; I think that 20 years is more than the world could bear of a conservative Government that has no plan and no economic strategy other than tax cuts tax cuts and tax cuts. 
I am very pleased that the Minister for Senior Citizens is in the House today. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Who? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Mr John Carter who is sitting next to the whip. We have been at a Grey Power meeting in Rotorua today. It was a big Grey Power meeting and we were very very positively received. The senior citizens passed a resolution unanimously—not one vote against it—that they are adamantly opposed to asset sales. The Government needs to hear that message after its members have walked along the sunny side of the street because the storm clouds are brewing. 
The senior citizens also realised that this sale is a direct attack on Kiwi wealth. It is a direct attack on the Kiwi dream that we all as Kiwis want to be proud of. They were most unhappy today. This Budget is a bit of a case of “test it and see”. It is wait and see. By this time next year—which interestingly enough is when the Rugby World Cup is coming up—everybody who goes to the supermarket will start to realise what the impact of these tax cuts on their back pocket will be. They will see that the price of bread goes up the price of milk goes up and the price of cheese goes up. In fact a lot of people got only the price of a litre of milk in their tax cuts and they will realise that that has been wiped out by inflation. 
So it is a bit of a wait-and-see Budget. You know people will wait and see. But I believe that by this time next year those who have done their reckoning will also realise that any gain will be wiped out. But worst of all this is a Budget of broken promises. I think New Zealanders are starting to see that with this smile-and-wave Prime Minister. His front-bench Ministers are doing the damage as he goes around the country smiling and waving. He has broken promise after promise. 
He said he would not borrow for tax cuts. He said: “I would never borrow for tax cuts.” Well what is $1 billion? What is $240 million this year to pay for the tax cuts that were given on the one hand? He also said that GST would not rise. Well it has risen. The senior citizens at the Grey Power meeting today got that message about broken promises. He also said there would be caps on public services and he has already broken that promise with several cuts to public services. They are front-line cuts; they are not just managers. I will get on to that matter in a minute. 
Also I say to Mr John Carter at the Grey Power meeting today senior citizens heard that rates rebates have been cut by $58 million and they were most unhappy about that. This is an interesting one: they also learnt that senior citizens’ ability to borrow a student loan has gone. Many of them really enjoyed keeping intellectually engaged and now they cannot afford to do that any longer. We also learnt that there is no contract in Rotorua for elder abuse and Age Concern is very very worried about that. I ask what the Minister for Senior Citizens has done about that. Elder abuse contracts need to be given around the country. These seniors are very very worried about what this Government is doing. 
I will talk about the impact from the cradle to the grave. I feel that what the Government has done with young families is very very sad. We believe in education and we believe in skills development and a skills strategy which was missing from this Budget. But it is the impact of the cuts of $250 million on our early childhood education with the 20 free hours policy for parents that is most cruel for families. An average family with two young children—and the member opposite talked about them having aspiration and hoping that they get into their own home—will benefit from this only initially and then will be $55 a week worse off— 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: How much? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Families will be $55 a week worse off if their children are in early childhood education. It is quality early childhood education; it is the building blocks for kids going to school ready to learn rather than this aspirational drive that the Government had on numeracy and literacy. Why was the first rung of the ladder taken away from young parents who were trying to get on in society by cutting $250 million out of quality teacher-led 20 free hours’ early childhood education? I think that is an indictment on how the Government values children and families. It is a disgrace and parents are out there now working it out on their little reckoner on this Budget and saying they will be $55 a week worse off. Early childhood education is the beginning building block for children to learn and get on in this society. 
So where will the money come from? This huge cut to early childhood education funding means that parents will have to pay for it. They will have to meet the shortfall themselves from their own back pocket as well as meet the shortfall on the food they need to put on the table to grow healthy children and keep them well and engaged in learning. So I feel that that is absolutely appalling. 
I remember when we brought in the measure that teachers before children in early childcare had to be qualified and we were not popular for that. But I congratulate Trevor Mallard on saying that children are our most vulnerable and therefore deserve the best in front of them. Every teacher in front of them in early childhood education knows that parents will pay for it—$55 a week—and when members go out there and meet young parents in their constituency they will realise that this was an appalling cut. 
I will say a bit about arts. I am the arts culture and heritage spokesperson and I hear Government members asking what we did for 9 long years. Well Helen Clark led a cultural recovery in the arts and Chris Finlayson is really now at the stage of palliative care for the arts. There is nothing new no new ideas. He has taken a little bit of money from NZ on Air and the Film Commission and put that over to save the Film Archive. Great! But that is not new money. That is money taken off the creative industry to prop up the Film Archive. It should have been new money because those are New Zealand stories that we must keep in safekeeping for our children and our grandchildren. 
The other thing that he has done for the arts—and there has been no crowing about the arts—is to bring in $5 million. Where has it come from? It has not come from an increase in baseline funding but from lotteries. So he has $5 million from lotteries which is a bit of a creative switch across to disburse to the creative community and that is the only funding that the arts culture and heritage budget got. I do thank the Minister which is not common for the $100000 for the protection of Pukaki a taonga that is of special heritage value to us in Te Arawa. 
It is a difficult Budget it is one that will tell its story next year and I think then the chickens will come home to roost.