Clark David: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11708. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): The 2016 Budget will go down in history as a Budget that ignored the big issues facing middle New Zealand. It is a Budget that seeks only to manage decline. The aspiration the previous speaker Nathan Guy spoke of is nowhere to be found in the actual pages of the Budget. The Budget has in fact all the hallmarks of a Government that is increasingly arrogant and out of touch with most New Zealanders and the issues that they are facing day by day. It is a Budget that does nothing to challenge an economy that is increasingly stacked in favour of the ultra-wealthy and those at the very top at the expense of middle New Zealand. And that is at a time when middle New Zealand is finding it harder and harder to get ahead.When I was reflecting on this managed decline that is there to see in the Budget in the area of housing where there are no initiatives—there is one. There is one initiative in housing to buy 25 more hectares of land when the Minister for Building and Housing has promised 500 hectares and has only managed to deliver I believe 13 in the last year if that. We have an education system and a Budget that has put a cap on operational funding to make sure that in future parents will pay more for their kids’ schooling. We have a health contribution in the Budget that does not keep up with the prices in health inflation and demographic change. We see a Budget that is not there for middle New Zealand. It is a Budget that is failing to deliver for most New Zealanders.The reasons that I oppose this Budget are the same reasons—when I was reflecting on why I was so opposed to it—that I stood to become a Labour member of Parliament. This Budget does nothing—absolutely nothing—to address the growing inequalities in New Zealand. It does nothing to provide the building blocks of opportunity that would make the Kiwi Dream possible once again. In 2010 before I was in this Parliament I wrote a blog called Killing the New Zealand Dream and the things that I found in that when I went back to look at it anew were the same reasons that I find in this Budget about why the Government does not stack up.It is not about quality health-care that is available for all New Zealanders. It is not about rewarding and supporting dedicated teachers and an education system that delivers quality results. We have seen education results slip under this Government as it has failed to invest in the future of this country. We have seen the values that underpin New Zealand’s sense of identity that sense of fairness being undermined by the kinds of changes this Government has made. It has given tax cuts in the past where 40 percent of the value goes to the very top earners and those in the middle and bottom are left to pick up the scraps. Our pride and our identity as New Zealanders I would say to this House are tied up with our sense of fairness. That is the Kiwi Dream and it is under threat in this very Budget once more.The reasons that I oppose this Budget are the reasons that I wanted to become a Labour MP: because I want to see us do something about those growing inequalities. I want to see the Kiwi Dream become real once more. I am unhappy—extremely unhappy—that right now we have the lowest homeownership rate in New Zealand since 1951. In this Budget as I have said there is nothing—nothing—that is going to change that. I think it is both socially and economically bad for New Zealand when we have that growing wedge between the richest New Zealanders and the rest of us. When we have kids going to school hungry they do not learn. They are much more likely to end up in the justice system. They are much more likely to be living in cold damp homes where they get preventable diseases that we all pay for through the health system and our taxes. They are much more likely to go on to train to become not neurosurgeons but hedge fund traders because they are worried about money rather than their best contribution to society when they may have otherwise gone on to do a public-good profession.We also know that when we have those growing gaps between the very wealthy and the rest of us we have a lack of investment in infrastructure because the ultra-wealthy—whom this Government is trying to appeal to—are not interested so much in public infrastructure. They do not care if the public hospitals are not getting funded right. They do not care if there has been a $1.7 billion cut in real health spending under this Government. They do not care because they have the private health care they need where most New Zealanders are reliant on that public health system and do care about the cuts in this Budget.Most New Zealanders would like to see more investment in schools not the freeze in operational grants funding that we see from this Government in this Budget. Most New Zealanders want to see more investment in roads not the cuts to roading funding that have taken place across regional New Zealand. Of course when everyone feels like they are having a fair go they work together. They do not feel like that under this Government and I would contest that that is part of the reason that this Government has failed to grow the economy like the previous Government did. This Government I am afraid has a paltry record in that regard and the Kiwi Dream is the ultimate victim of this circumstance. Instead of seeing New Zealanders into their own homes having well-educated kids and having a health system that we can all rely on we have increasingly patchy health-care and public services under this Government and that is not the Kiwi Dream. The Kiwi Dream is about values that we all share and about quality public services because we do care about our fellow citizens even if we are doing well ourselves. This Government seems to be against middle New Zealand.It has become apparent in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) payroll disaster that the Government agency responsible for the oversight of payroll has itself been in breach of the law for years—for years. We do not yet know how much it owes in back-pay to its own working people in MBIE but we do know that there are estimates now available that say this Government’s neglect of the oversight of payroll services means that up to $2 billion in its own estimate is owed in back-pay to middle New Zealand. But it is doing nothing about it. It is doing nothing about it. It confesses in the MBIE papers that are now on public display that up to 800000 working New Zealanders may be out of pocket for the last 6 years. Up to 800000 New Zealanders may be out of pocket and probably from somewhere between $250 and $500 a year. They can claim back 6 years. This Government—if it had a sense of fairness; if it was concerned about middle New Zealand—would be putting forward a solution to that issue where ordinary New Zealanders could claim the pay that they are legally entitled to. But this Government is so embarrassed by its failure which it has tried to sweep under the carpet and it is so embarrassed that it has let employers down because it has failed to give the correct guidance and now sees employers with a liability that it will not even face the issue. That is another example of the way in which this Government is not on the side of middle New Zealand.When there have been small incremental gains in the economic situation of this country the proportion that is going to working people has dropped. The last Labour Government grew the economy 25 percent in real terms once you strip inflation out. Over 50 percent of the gains under that Government went to working people. Well we know this Government has borrowed more than Muldoon—borrowed more than Muldoon—and a paltry 37 percent of any gains that have been made in the economy have gone to working people. That shows you more starkly than anything else where this Government’s priorities lie. They do not lie with those in middle New Zealand; they lie with the ultra-wealthy the people tied up in the Panama Papers. The Government is not concerned about middle New Zealand working hard to get into a house and working hard—Hon Member: You’re already giving a Green speech.Dr DAVID CLARK: —for their own future. It is not there to support them and that is the shame of this Government. New Zealanders are falling out of love with this Government. They identify it as increasingly out of touch. They identify it as increasingly arrogant. Those backbenchers over there who are yelling out are doing so because they are feeling increasingly under threat—those list MPs who may not be here in the next Parliament.We on this side of the House want to see the Kiwi Dream restored. We want to see every kid go to school with some kai in their tummy. We want to see them in quality housing—warm dry homes not damp cold homes. We want to see them get the health care they need when they need it and we want to see New Zealand rise up in the international education standings once more. That is a New Zealand we can all be proud of. That is the Kiwi Dream and that is what Labour stands for. It is on its way.