Mahuta Nanaia: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 06 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10882. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I am pleased to be able to offer some thoughts on the Budget. If the rhetoric matched the reality then why is it that during the period of the National Government 2008-12 average real incomes for Pacific Islanders rose by only $2 while for the rest of New Zealand it was an average of $54. Why? Because the personal taxation threshold that was introduced by National benefits only the high-income earners. Most Pacific Islanders like many Māori are not in the high-income bracket. If the rhetoric matched the reality then there would be some very serious responses to Māori and Pacific householders who are saying: “What has this Budget really done for me?”. So how does the Government measure up against the household test of Māori and Pacific whānau?Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Very badly.Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I would tend to agree—very badly. One question that would be asked is: “Does it enable more money to come into my household?”. Well simply no. The personal taxation threshold that National set actually dropped the amount of tax for high-income earners while the burden was being borne by those who earn in the middle to lower income brackets. They did not see a real benefit from that. In my electorate 75 percent earn on average $40000 or less. They do not see any real benefit in their pockets when they come home week after week with their wage packet. So once power goes out once rent goes out once food goes out and once petrol goes out to get people to work there is very little left in the pockets of hard-working modest Māori and I would say Pacific families to be able to have a little bit left over. Although I acknowledge that good things are happening in Māori and Pacific communities that are fighting against the odds it is not widespread enough and it should be.In fact what Māori and Pacific communities show by and large in the tough times is that the spirit of community the spirit of cooperation becomes a critical factor to success and innovation and provides an opportunity to ensure that they are buffered against the ebbs and flows of what happens in the tough times. We have been through some very tough times under this particular Government. Many households certainly in my electorate in the Māori community comprise two adults with two incomes made up from four jobs—that is two adults and two incomes made up from four jobs but it is the equivalent really of a very modest household earning component. That cannot be right. People are breaking their backs working two and sometimes three jobs to bring in the most modest of incomes.This is not a Budget for the low-income and the modest-income workers for the hard-working Kiwis and it is certainly not for Māori and Pacific workers. This is a Budget that does deals for mates. Let us look at it again. The cost of living challenges for many whānau will not be alleviated by this Budget. As I said power prices are going up. Old people on fixed incomes dread wintertime. They choose which lights they turn on at night. They choose whether or not to have a heater on to heat the whole house or just to heat one little room. It is difficult. Although I acknowledge from the other side that money has been set aside for warm homes let me say this. Many Māori and Pacific families are renting private rentals. I have had the briefings in my own electorate from the people who actually do the insulation schemes and they cannot encourage enough private homeowners who are renting those homes out to take up this subsidy. Why? It is a measly $2300-odd of an amount that they pay on top of the subsidy they get. They want more money from their tenants and it is such a silly justification. But this is some of the reality that many of those renters are facing when they hear the rhetoric about more money being put aside for warm homes yet those landlords are not taking up the subsidies because they have to fork out a little bit more money to be able to insulate those homes so that kids can feel warm at night so that those kids do get the colds that so many of them do especially from living in damp older homes.I do not think the regional petrol tax is a benefit to a lot of people who are already forking out quite a bit to get to and from work. In fact if more money had been put into public transport that would have probably helped a far wider range of lower-income people to get around cities like Auckland. Instead no. We see the petrol tax going up.The other measure of a household about whether or not this Budget is really meeting the standard of proof test is this simple question: am I secure in my job? Well I can say this. Out in the provinces probably more jobs have been lost than ever before under the term of this Government and that is a sad reality. The sad reality is that in many provincial towns people lament the loss of 10 or 20 jobs. As small as that number mayseem to the House that is 10 or 20 incomes into that little town. In a town like mine Huntly where we survive on the back of the coalmines losing 67 jobs under the recent restructuring of Solid Energy was a huge blow to the community. We lamented that because we knew that the median age of the people who were losing their jobs was too old for them to travel to Australia and work in the mines over there. So they did have to reskill. They did have to try to look for other jobs in our own communities and sadly many of them could not be placed. But that is the reality of the provinces. The simple measure for a lot of households in terms of this Budget is knowing that there is job growth happening. Simply under this Government it is not happening fast enough.The provinces tell a very different story. They tell a story where they want some hope where they want some opportunity to be able to do things work differently have regional growth commitments and investment opportunities so that local people can be employed in their own communities. No that is not the case. They do have to travel to Australia. Under this Government we have seen more people going over to Australia than ever before. Why? Because it is easier to be a fly-in fly-out worker—go over there for 6 weeks then come back to your whānau for 2 weeks—than find a job that pays well over here. That is a sad indictment on where New Zealand’s priorities are under the National Government.But it would not be that case under a Labour-led Government because we recognise the importance of the regions and of the provinces. We recognise the importance of people being able to work in their own communities. We recognise the importance of ensuring that central government local government and business collaborations are absolutely vital to the future of our country. And we recognise that at the end of the day New Zealand is a great place to live and we have to have Kiwi jobs here for our own people so that they do not see Australia as the land of opportunity. We have to look back here.This Budget from the viewpoint of education cannot be a success. If we look at the huge challenge to improve Māori and Pacific education the stellar policy that is being held up is charter schools. Well it simply will not fix a lot of the issues out there yet it has been paraded as doing just that. What charter schools will do is siphon off public money into private companies for a profit with little or no public accountability for how they are delivering education to those students to those parents and to those communities. How can that be good?I do want to recognise that there are some small gains. Māori trade training has always always been an opportunity to invest in the space of skills and it has shown over time that it can be a very positive investment. But where the Government’s investment falls short—in all the areas that the industry training organisations will feed back to you—is that if you do not get the pastoral care right or if people are not work ready you can pump a whole lot of money into Māori trade training but they may not stick the distance because there is a lot more going on for young people. I am not putting this challenge on the Government alone but it is a challenge that should be recognised if you want Māori trade training to be successful and to ensure that more Māori are going to lift their skills to be able to take up opportunity.This Budget shows that the Government’s priorities are in the wrong place. How can we in a country like New Zealand accept that funding a convention centre for more pokie machines is a good signal to New Zealanders? How can that be the case? It just does not make sense. In fact in small towns in small communities they are fighting tooth and nail to have a sinking lid on pokie machines.