Huo Raymond: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
Huo Raymond: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21742] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Much has been said about the purpose of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). I thank the Minister responsible for this bill the Hon Simon Power and I wish him good luck. I look forward to his valedictory. 
As my colleague Charles Chauvel said earlier this bill is about scrutiny. What is worth noting is one particular piece of legislation an order made under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964 which came into force on 1 April 2011. This particular order is validated and confirmed. It amongst other things increased most benefits pensions and allowances. Under this National Government there are more people on the benefit. The number of people receiving an unemployment benefit has increased by 10.6 percent and the number of people receiving the student hardship grant was up by 234 percent from June 2011. Since June 2009 40481 more people are now recipients of New Zealand superannuation and this number will undoubtedly only go up in the coming years. 
Talking about superannuation I wish to bring to the attention of this House two important and meaningful articles by Brian Gaynor. The first one was published in the  
New Zealand Herald  
in 2007. It is entitled “How Muldoon threw away NZ’s wealth”. The second one “Key’s compulsory super talk music to ears” was published in August 2010 also in the  
New Zealand Herald 
. Both articles touched upon very important issues concerning our superannuation funds and schemes. Let us look at Australian and New Zealand figures on a per capita basis. Australians have A$56000 of superannuation funds whereas New Zealanders have just NZ$5500 of superannuation funds. Australians have A$29200 of net overseas debt while we have NZ$35900 worth of debt. The irony of this is that we once had a fantastic and better superannuation scheme which was terminated by a National Government in 1975. I quote from that article. This was the worst economic decision by any New Zealand Government in the past 50 years and turned the country from being “the potential Switzerland of the Southern Hemisphere into a low-ranking OECD economy [that is falling further and further behind its next-door neighbour].” 
If the New Zealand superannuation scheme was still in place I believe that New Zealand would be much better placed in this modern and ever-changing world. Since coming to office this National Government has borrowed NZ$37 billion in less than 3 years and has delivered nil growth to show for it. In fact it has repeatedly failed to meet its growth projections and GDP per capita has fallen. That failure has now resulted in the credit rating agencies downgrading our credit rating. I would like to quote what the Prime Minister said before the Budget. Prime Minister John Key confidently predicated that the political humiliation of a downgrade would be avoided. I quote: “It would add 1-2% of interest on the amount the government borrows which is around $600 million each year. … ‘That’s every homeowner every business everybody paying 2% more. That would be irresponsible in my view for the government not to act’ Key says.” 
This is the last sitting week of this forty-ninth Parliament. Reflecting on what the ever-popular National Government has achieved it is fair for me to list the following facts: the National Government has borrowed more debt it has created fewer jobs it has frozen the superannuation fund it has no real plan to grow our economy and the only answer it has is to resort to selling the family silver. Thank you.