Curran Clare: Budget Debate 
Curran Clare: Budget Debate 
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CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Thanks for the opportunity to speak on the Budget. Before I start I will join with my colleagues across the House in paying tribute to the Hon John Carter. I think it is important to acknowledge his contribution. During my 2½ years in Parliament I have enjoyed the contact I have had with the Hon John Carter. I have found him at all times to be a gentleman— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Struth! 
CLARE CURRAN 
: —a gentleman and honourable to boot. So I would like to put that on the record. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Unlike some others whom we could name. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: That is correct. 
I disagree that this is a Budget for our time as at least one of the members across the House has said tonight. It is one of the worst Budgets that I have known in my history not only in this Parliament but in this country. I heard one of my colleagues Moana Mackey talk about that earlier on tonight and I say this Budget represents gloss. It is all about gloss— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Lip gloss. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Well I do not know about lip gloss; it could be lip gloss. But it is gloss papering over the cracks—pretence; whatever we want to call it. I like to call it making stuff up because I think that is what this Government does. I have heard comments about austerity with regard to spending and all I can think is that that is a crock. 
At the heart of this Budget lies a disconnect and the disconnect is between telling us that we all have to tighten our belts and that we have to make the most vulnerable people in our society particularly the ones on benefits go out and look for jobs—and the jobs do not exist. At the same time the Government blames everybody else for the situation that we are in. It is the fault of the previous Government of the global financial crisis or of the earthquakes—anything other than the Government’s own policies and its own way of doing things. So we have people who cannot find jobs and who have found themselves in circumstances where they do not have jobs being forced to go and look for jobs. But the jobs do not exist because this Government is not investing in them. I do not get that. There is not a plan there. Where is the logic in that? I think logic is important. There is more to life than logic but that plan does not have any logic. These people are vulnerable. Many many thousands of people in our country are looking for jobs and instead we have a Budget put before this country that is about more borrowing selling our important assets cutting more services and economic stagnation. 
There is no credible plan and that is the real problem behind the Budget. It is about making promises that cannot be delivered on making claims that are not true and making stuff up. It is also about the Government being out of touch with ordinary Kiwis who are struggling to make ends meet. 
I will tell members about one of those people because one of them came into my office the other day and this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is happening around this country. This man is in his forties. He has worked hard all his life. He has done a lot of work. He is not what we would call a skilled worker in the sense of being a tradesperson but he does skilled work. He does not have a qualification but he has worked hard all his life. He is what we would call a labourer and there are lots of labourers out there. He has a house and a mortgage and his partner works in the kitchen of a mental health facility which was reshuffled last year so her hours were cut down to 16 per week. Because of that he and his partner moved in together so that they could manage the mortgage. This man also has two children from a previous relationship for whom he is paying child support. He is doing the right thing but he is seriously struggling. He cannot pay his mortgage. He is getting more and more seriously behind. 
So what does this man do? He goes to Work and Income day after day looking for jobs and saying he wants to work. He asks how he can find work and says he will do whatever it takes to find work. He says he would like to get a qualification. He has applied for more than 50 jobs by the way and has not had any luck because there is so much competition in my city as there is in every community around this country. This man is interested in training; he wants to do anything. He wanted to get a fork-lift licence but he cannot get the fork-lift licence because he cannot afford it and Work and Income will not pay for it unless he has a job offer. That is a catch-22 situation—this guy is in a catch-22 and he cannot get out of it. He came to my office because he does not know what to do. He is desperate. He is a hard-working person with responsibilities and a mortgage. He faces losing his house and his dignity and that is not good enough. What does this Budget do for him? 
People like this man are the vulnerable people. They are not thieves. They are not rorting the system as some do at the other end of the spectrum. This man is a good honest decent hard-working bloke who is trying to make his life better and basically just trying to get by. What does this Government do? It makes him feel guilty it makes him feel bad and it makes his life harder—and there are thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of people who are in his situation at the moment. 
Turning to the other part of “making stuff up” I will talk briefly about the elaborate charade that this country has been put through during the last 2 ½ years by the Minister for Communications and Information Technology—or the “Minister of Miscommunications”—Steven Joyce. He has been trying to put in place a programme to provide this country with the infrastructure that will underpin the technology that we will need as we go into the future: ultra-fast broadband. A whole series of incidents involving making stuff up obfuscating secrecy and not being upfront with the public has occurred. The first one was the pledge that was made in 2008 that 75 percent of New Zealand households would be connected to ultra-fast broadband within 10 years. The pledge was that 75 percent of New Zealanders in their homes would be connected to ultra-fast broadband at a cost of $1.5 billion. The most interesting thing about that and it involves the current Minister— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who? 
CLARE CURRAN 
: The Minister of—what is he—“Miscommunications” Steven Joyce. 
Debate interrupted.