Lees-Galloway Iain: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11740. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): This Budget is so devoid of vision and so devoid of substance that the previous contribution from the young fellow over there Todd Barclay had to fill only 5 minutes and he gave us 4 minutes about the Labour-Greens alliance—which has obviously got the National Government shaking in its boots—and then he talked about toilets. That is the National Government vision for New Zealand. That is how much substance there was in this Budget. That is what we have heard throughout the Budget speeches from the National Government members: very little about the Budget itself and a lot of obsession with the fact that Labour and the Greens are working together to change the Government. But they cannot bring themselves to talk about the Budget that Bill English delivered just the week before last.The measure by which I look at any Budget and I think the measure by which most New Zealanders look at a Budget is what it does to build the platform on which people can succeed. Success means a lot of things to different people. Success can be making a lot of money. It can be being very good at your job. It can be contributing to your community. It can be raising good kids and having a good home. It can be whatever you want it to be actually. We all decide how it is that we want to be successful in life but the common themes in success are taking your opportunities applying yourself making the most of your opportunities and working hard to get ahead.Most people—all but the very tiniest number a few people—do not look to us in Parliament or to the Government to make them successful. What they look to us to do is to create the conditions in which they can be successful—in which their hard work actually does mean that they get ahead and that they achieve success in life whatever that may mean to them—so I have looked at this Budget through that lens. What does it do to build the platform on which people can be successful on which people can get ahead?In talking with people about what the opportunities are that they need it comes back to the basics: health housing education and jobs. That is what people want our Government to focus on. And almost every conversation comes back to housing because without a safe secure warm dry home to live in it is impossible to build the rest of your life. Without knowing that you have got the security to live in your neighbourhood so that your kids can go to the same school year after year and have that continuity and to put roots down in your community so that you can build those foundations people find it very very difficult to get ahead.So what is the situation? What is the challenge to that at the moment? The challenge to that at the moment is that we have the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s and yet there was not one thing in this Budget to help people get into their first home to help people get on to the ladder and secure themselves for their life and for their retirement by being able to own their own home—not one thing.When the biggest challenge that New Zealand is facing the biggest thing that is undermining that platform of opportunity that the Government should be building is homeownership—not one thing.But it is not just about people who own homes; it is about people who rent homes as well. Where is the effort to make sure that rental homes are warm and dry so that kids do not get sick and end up in hospital so that kids do not end up missing days at school and so that adults do not end up having to take sick leave from work? Where are those initiatives? Missing. Nothing—not a sausage.Where are the efforts to make sure that there is substantial social housing and State housing? Paula Bennett says that she wants to pay people $5000 to get out of Auckland and go and live in a State house somewhere else. Well come to my city Paula Bennett where you are tearing down State houses and selling off the land. Five thousand dollars is not going to help if someone comes to my city and there are no State houses because you have torn them all down. And you make it nearly impossible for people to get on the waiting list so that you can pretend that we do not actually need any more State houses. Where is the effort from this Government on housing regardless of whether you are a renter regardless of whether you need social housing and regardless of whether you are trying to own your own home? Where is the effort from this Government to lay that foundation so that people can be successful?In health people need to know that they can go to the GP and they are not going to be charged huge amounts of money just be able to go and see the doctor. We do not want people to be avoiding going and seeing the doctor because it is too expensive. We also want people to know that when they need a procedure in hospital they are going to be able to get on the waiting list in the first place. National can crow about its numbers but we know they are all fudged. It is just like State housing—it is actually impossible to get on the waiting list in the first place. So people get sick or people suffer from things that could be treated if this Government was actually prepared to fund our health system just enough to help it tread water so that year on year the health system provided what it provided the year before instead of district health boards having to find every imaginative way possible to cut back services. Again people cannot get ahead.They cannot succeed if the health system is not there to lay that foundation for success.As for education this Government has frozen the operations grant for schools. At a time when parents are paying more for their children’s education than ever before it has frozen the operations grant. Parents are going to have to pay more and more for what should be free State education. And what happens when the cost of education goes up? The children of wealthy parents do well; the children of parents who are struggling to make ends meet do poorly because their schools cannot rely on parents stumping up the cash to actually provide that education for their children. So this Government is growing the gap.Education is supposed to be the leveller. It is supposed to be the thing that closes gaps that gives people opportunity no matter what their background. No matter what situation they are born into we have agreed to provide them with State-funded education so that every child has the opportunity to get ahead. What does this Government do? It says it is going to make it easier for children born into privileged circumstances to get ahead than it is for children born into underprivileged circumstances to get ahead. It is growing the gap between the rich and the rest and undermining that platform on which we build success in New Zealand.What about jobs? The Government likes to talk about all the jobs it has created although it then says that Governments do not create jobs.Jami-Lee Ross: 170000.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I cannot quite tell what the National Party’s message is on jobs actually. National members never tell us about the jobs that have disappeared under the time that they have been in Government. They never tell us about the fact there are more people unemployed after 8 years of a National Government than there were before it came in—and it came in during a global financial crisis. It came in under the global financial crisis and there are more people unemployed. Jami-Lee Ross there are more people unemployed today than when you came into Government and the unemployment rate is going up again. So whether you want to talk about the raw figure or you want to talk about it in percentage terms it is going up. Unemployment is going up. You cannot argue against that—it is the fact and it is a failure on the part of this Government to ensure that that platform of success is built.Yes jobs come and go; industries rise and fall. But a thriving economy is one in which people can feel secure that if they do lose their job there will be another job available for them—that if they get the qualifications that they need if they work hard and if they go to work every day and they show up on time and they do their job well then they are going to be able to get ahead. But I know so many people who have lost their jobs over the last few years and they have struggled to get back into the workforce because every time they apply for a job there are hundreds of other people applying for jobs. There are 25000 more young people not in education or training or work than there were when this National Government came into power.So I ask National MPs instead of going on obsessively about what the Opposition is doing tell us in your Budget what you are doing to build the platform for success. What are you doing to help New Zealanders get ahead? What are you doing to make sure that people who do work hard have the opportunity to be successful whatever success means to them? I have not heard that from one member opposite. It is time to actually focus on the challenges and it is time to actually start working for the people who vote for you. It is time that we had a Budget with vision that builds the opportunities for success.