Clark David: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 26 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3961. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I would be delighted to provide some of the clarification that that member the Hon Craig Foss asked for. He asked about the New Zealand Business Number. We have supported that legislation to the select committee but we do have some reservations. We know that his own Government departments have been squabbling over whether it is really possible and whether it is not just another overhead on small business. His Government has been responsible for so many overheads on small business that it is not funny. Even his own Government departments which he likes to beat up on want fewer overheads on small business. They are suspicious that this Government is introducing another overhead and one that it cannot even deliver on properly with the New Zealand Business Number. Time will tell. We will see what small businesses think about it. We will ask the Inland Revenue Department why it does not think businesses can use their Inland Revenue Department number which would be a much simpler and more cost-effective way of solving the same problem. But I am sure that member will have a reason.He always has a reason. He has a reason for his overcharging on ACC levies. He has a reason for why the Rural Broadband Initiative has reached only 8500 households despite costing over $60 million—that is $7000 per connection. He will have a reason for the Government not reaching surplus for the seventh year in a row. He will have a reason for why exchange rates are much higher and say that the Government can do nothing about it. He will have a reason for the flag being the top priority for New Zealand. He will have a reason and an excuse—members on that side of the House always do. They always have excuses. We heard plenty of them in the Budget. We heard plenty of excuses. That member has gone surprisingly silent. I will listen for any further interjections from him. There are none from that member over there. In fact it is difficult to even pick him out. He seems to have crawled under his desk.This is a Government of broken promises. This is a Budget of broken promises. I guess at least it is in theme. Let us have a look at some of the ones that the Government has delivered recently. National told us that its central campaign promise going into this recent election was reaching Budget surplus. Has it delivered on that? It has not—it has not. It has failed again for the seventh Budget in a row. National said it would not put up GST. John Key himself said he would never put up GST. Where is it now? It is at 15 percent—a broken promise. He said that the Government would increase wages by $7000 by the end of next year. Now it is saying it will be 2019. The Government said it would increase the number of jobs. Now it is saying that is being pushed out to 2019 as well. This is a Government of broken promises.In this Budget we have seen the Government give with one hand and take with another. We have seen some sensible steps towards making sure that beneficiaries have a little more money in their pockets—making sure some beneficiaries will. We have got to remember that income-related rents will be offset against it. I would not be surprised if the next trick is to try to look at them so that there is a zero-sum game in the next Budget. We will see. We will see where it goes with that.These things that the Government has introduced have come at the expense of New Zealanders just a couple of rungs further up the ladder. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It has told us that 500000 New Zealanders will miss out on the $1000 KiwiSaver kick-start payment. That is what it told us in this Budget. That is how it is trying to get to surplus and it is failing by the way. That is how it is trying to get closer to make it look not as bad as it otherwise would look—by robbing the future savings of young New Zealanders.This is a Government that is looking at the here and now and not at New Zealand’s savings future. We on this side of the House know that it is so important to have money for investment—for investment in new ideas for investment in small business and for savings so that we can grow our economy over time. The Australian scheme which it started after the Kirk Government’s superannuation savings scheme now has A$1.3 trillion in it. The Muldoon Government canned ours. Now we see the exact same behaviour from John Key’s Government. It has made seven cuts to KiwiSaver in its time—seven cuts. It is going down the same track as Muldoon’s Government.In fact when it comes to borrowing it is doing worse. We learnt from the Budget that we are $88 billion in debt under this Government. New Zealanders now pay through their taxes about $10 million a day just in interest payments.Hon Nanaia Mahuta: How much?Dr DAVID CLARK: It is $10 million a day in interest payments. That is where this Government has taken us with debt. It is a Government with no vision for the future which is borrowing for today. The Financial Services Council said of the KiwiSaver cuts that this is like robbing the kid’s piggy bank to head down to the pub for a beer. That is the kind of vision we have from this Government. It is out of ideas it is tired and not just that it is starting to hurt New Zealanders. That is starting to hurt kids in the future.Not one of the Government members was prepared to get up in the debate on KiwiSaver and say that they had not taken the $1000 for themselves and that they had not arranged for the savings to be gathered by their children or their families. I hear the member David Bennett grunting over there. I read somewhere and he may like to verify it himself that he did not take the payment. I read this actually on Twitter. Somebody was saying that that might be true. Maybe the member David Bennett is principled—he is either principled or stupid I think was the allegation in the Twitter sphere.David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I request that the member apologise for that last comment. I take offence at it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No I think the member is a robust member and there was nothing in the suggestions that were being made that offended the Standing Orders. I think that quotations from Twitter—and even if the comment was made by the member—do not come close. I think that saying a member is stupid is not a breach of the Standing Orders.Dr DAVID CLARK: So this is a Government that is breaking promises—promise after promise after promise. Government members might worry that somebody has reported somewhere else that they are stupid. They should be more worried about broken promises. That is what they should really be worried about.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! There are quite a number of rulings that I think date back to the 19th century that indicate that the members do not go back to points of order once they have been ruled on. The member just did that.Dr DAVID CLARK: This Government across from us has broken promises. National as a Government needs to face the voters of New Zealand and answer the question why it is that it has broken its central campaign promise—its central campaign promise—to bring this Government into surplus. It has promised it before in a campaign. It is the seventh deficit in a row. If we contrast that with the last Labour Government which delivered nine surpluses in a row—nine surpluses in a row not like National’s seven deficits—we can see who might be the better manager of the economy.Of course in terms of economic development the Government promised to diversify the economy—well it has not promised to do that. It has said that it will grow the exports as a percentage of our overall economy. The Government said it would get that figure to 40 percent. Well it is now below 30 percent and it is going backwards—it is around 27 percent. It is due to drop again next year according to the Government’s own forecast. The Government has failed to diversify the economy. This is a Government of broken promises.It is also interesting to note in this Budget Steven Joyce’s waning influence. We have seen him over recent years play a significant role in negotiating many of the economic development initiatives of this Government. In the 2013 Budget he had six press releases and $470 million worth of new spending. In last year’s Budget it went down to four press releases and just $363 million worth of new spending—a cut of over $100 million on the previous Budget. And in this one there is another $100 million cut. He has only three press releases and $259 million in new spending. He is a Minister on the wane.The Government has seen the way in which he has handled the Skycity deal. We have learnt again today that there is a 10 percent cut in the overall capacity of the centre. We have seen a downsized Skycity convention centre. That is not what was promised. It is another broken promise from this Government a Government that said it would deliver on a convention centre that was world class and iconic. Its own independent report which it commissioned said the convention centre would create a net 18 full-time equivalent jobs in New Zealand once it was built—18. That was with an international world-class iconic one. The members for Hamilton should have answered to their own constituents as to why it is sucking hundreds of jobs out of Hamilton out of Rotorua and out of Taupō. This is a convention centre deal that will hurt the regions and is not the world-class iconic deal that was promised. The Government has put itself over a barrel of its own making and Steven Joyce was right there in the midst of it.This is a Government that is failing to deliver on its promises on almost every promise that it makes. It is a Government that is out of ideas that is tired and that is so arrogant it does not think it needs to answer to the public any more on its decisions and it is a Government whose day of reckoning will come when New Zealanders stand up in the next election and say: “We do not want to hear your broken promises any more.”