Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
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Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That was a Budget speech by a National Party MP who is on the way out. Did New Zealand get any wiser as to National’s policy? Did National pronounce on what its Budget would look like? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: No. That is because it still does not have a policy on anything. I thought National was going to have tax cuts by Christmas—but maybe not Christmas this year as Rodney Hide said; it will be sometime in the future and maybe only a little bit at a time and maybe not at all because the Leader of the Opposition might not feel comfortable with it! 
So let us hear about what is in this Budget we are debating. It is nothing but good news. There is $4.09 billion for vote Health. What is in there? There is half a billion dollars for nurses’ pay. This Government actually puts its money where its mouth is. We support nurses. We do not throw them out in the cold as the National Party does. We are not going to scrap 3300 of them to pay for some miserable tax cut. We are not going to sack 2700 teachers to pay for some nebulous tax cut that might come some Christmas in the future from National. 
Will that member get up and tell us how many teachers will lose their jobs and how many nurses will lose their jobs? Will nurses expect a half a billion - dollar pay increase when Sandra Goudie has to get a tax cut and when John Key cannot afford to live in New Zealand without a tax cut? Don Brash who put up New Zealanders’ interest rates year after year needs a tax cut but the workers who look after sick people have to go to pay for the tax cuts! That is National Party voodoo economics as it has been labelled. It is not even that. 
They want to go and tell the prison officers and the police staff how many of them are going to lose their jobs. We have provided an extra 1080 police staff 2700 extra teachers and 3300 extra nurses. They do not work for nothing; they have to be paid. 
I turn to the care of the elderly. Members opposite who do not like members to read their speeches talked about asset testing of the elderly. Did the National Government do anything? Did New Zealand First do anything? No they did not do a thing. This Budget gives $93 million to implement that policy in the first year. 
What about people in rest homes? They had a legitimate gripe with the National Government year after year but it gave them nothing. But this Budget provides $71 million next year for residential care. What about people who want to stay in their homes—the elderly or younger people who are ill? The Budget provides $18 million next year to address that very big need to improve the quality of care and the wages of those who look after such people in the community. 
Sandra Goudie is supposed to be the Opposition spokesperson on disabilities. What did she say about the $59 million extra for disability support services? Would she do away with that when she takes the tax cut for herself? Yes she would. She will say to them: “I am only a poor MP. I need some more money. I need a tax cut. Blow those workers! They can go to hell.” What about the extra teachers provided by this Budget? What about the fact that this Government since 1999 has increased for every child in every school the operations grant by 348 bucks? That is 15 percent in real terms over and above inflation. But that provision would have to go in order to pay for tax cuts for members opposite. 
What about the madness of the National policy on roading whereby it says it would borrow to build roads? Now this Government happens to have found $18.9 billion—a miserable $18.9 billion!—for roading and transport over the next 10 years. But National says that that is not enough; that it would borrow money and make people pay tolls as well. Where is the ghost of Muldoon when we need him to come and remind members opposite about the effects of such stupid economics! That suggestion was made by a fellow who was once the Governor of the Reserve Bank. We know what Mr Muldoon thought of that sort of economics. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Baloney! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: He would have used much stronger words. I was shaking in my boots when I saw that speech! I was frightened! 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Baloney! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: No no! I think Mr Speaker should rule that word out as unparliamentary—because it was in 1901. But seriously in my community the important things are more money for education health and industry training; more apprenticeships for our kids more teachers in our schools more money to run the schools. I could go on and on. I love driving around Auckland at the moment and seeing the work that this Government has undertaken. It is all about building a new hospital building new roads getting the railways going getting more buses more roads. What does Wayne Mapp want to do? He wants to take holidays away from workers—before Christmas. That is his policy—to take away those holidays. What an unimaginative dead-brained bunch of Opposition members! What a pathetic Opposition! No wonder the media are having to do the job for the Opposition! No wonder the media are saying: “There is no real Opposition to this Government. We had better do the job for them because nobody on the Opposition side has a brain.”! Not one of them can come up with a policy not one of them can stick to a story for more than 5 minutes. There will be a tax cut by some Christmas in the future but not much. Because John Key and Don Brash cannot agree on that policy we are none the wiser. But we on this side know that we cannot have spending for schools education and health if we have a tax cut. 
Debate interrupted.