Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Gosche Mark: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13656. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I apologise for almost missing my call but I had been put to sleep by the droning coming from the opposite side. It is a proud day for me to stand in this House to speak in this Budget debate. One of the local newspapers in the southern part of my electorate the  
Manukau Courier 
 had the headline: “Jobless finding work” and stated that the number of Manukau City people on unemployment benefits had dropped 33 percent since 2001. There has been a 33 percent drop in unemployment in one of the parts of Auckland that has been hardest hit by economic reform over the last 20 years! 
Manukau City is proud to announce that it has had economic growth of 5.7 percent in the year 2003. That has led to unemployment in Otara dropping by 40 percent and in Mangere it has dropped by 39 percent. It has seen “European unemployment” as the article describes it drop by 42 percent. Unemployment amongst Pacific peoples has dropped by 40 percent and amongst Maori by 22 percent. We still have work to do but this Budget delivers on the growth in the economy to those people who are out there working and working hard. 
This Budget is a Budget for families and I am looking forward to the election next year and to seeing and hearing all the politicians in this place running around talking about family values and about looking after families. Here is a Budget that does just that. How does it do it? It states that this Government recognises that the hardest time in people’s lives is when they are in families with young kids and all the costs that go with that. We know that that is a time when people find it hard to meet mortgage payments or to pay the rent as they save to buy a house. Every single member in this House has been a beneficiary of Government benefits in his or her growing-up period. Not a single member here is young enough not to have known something about that. We used to get a family benefit. The National Party and ACT would have us believe that because our parents received a family benefit at an age when their children were young and needed assistance we would all become beneficiaries and bludgers. That is absolute nonsense. Not one person in New Zealand will put his or her hand up and say that he or she is a beneficiary or a bludger and that they do not know how to work hard because of that very very important policy prevalent in New Zealand for many many years under all sorts of different Governments. 
The Budget we are debating here today is good for all New Zealanders. Whether or not they are getting a big lump of money in their pockets as a result of the family support packages all will benefit from it. We will benefit from it because we are part of a wider community. We will see the young families in our communities prosper instead of struggle. They will be able to pay their rent and meet their mortgage payments. Parents will be able to give their kids a decent feed and put clothes on them. Every member of our community can celebrate that. 
One of the other interesting comments made in the  
Manukau Courier 
 article is that job vacancies in Manukau are hard to fill because of a skills gap. What an indictment it is on the National Government of the 1990s that it forgot to train people for the workforce. National members say they are business friendly but they forgot all about that. They had mad Bill Birch saying: “We don’t need apprenticeships any more.” So we do not have enough people to build houses any more or to do the plumbing or the drainlaying. Apprenticeships did not happen because the market forces decided they would; they happened because there was a supportive Government and a system that supported them. Let us look at the Budget. It provides for an additional 500 places on the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. That is on top of the 6500 modern apprenticeships we achieved by 31 March this year. We would like to do more but the infrastructure out there is just not able to cope with more. So to a degree the Government is hamstrung by the ruination that the National Party wreaked upon industry training and apprenticeships in the 1990s. But we are getting there and we have other good and excellent programmes. 
I want to congratulate the Minister of Education the Hon Trevor Mallard who is sitting in the House today. His moves in education over the last 4½ years are magnificent. They are welcome in my electorate and they are welcome throughout the country. Why? Because every single family in New Zealand will benefit from that extra $206 million going into operational funding and the primary and secondary education system. That means that schools in my electorate can get on and do the job—and they do it regardless of how much the families of the kids in those classrooms earn. It is not dependent on wealth; it is about giving resources to schools and I am proud to be part of a Government that is spending money where it is needed. For a long time the early childhood sector has been worse than the Cinderella of the education system. For a long long time educational theory has said that children will not succeed if they do not get a decent start at early childhood level. 
Every single member of this House should celebrate the fact that the Minister got $365 million for the early childhood sector. It is shameful that those parties on the other side are voting against early childhood education getting $365 million more. They should explain to the parents of New Zealand families why they are so miserable that they will vote against early childhood education getting that money. It has to go into that area so that kids do not come out at the other end of the education system without a qualification. They are still doing that in far too great a number. We are still picking up the pieces of not having an investment in early childhood education. It is beyond belief that any political party would have the stupidity to actually vote against this measure alone in the Budget; it is such a good measure. That total funding in 2011-2012 will reach $750 million. It should have been there some time ago but it is happening it is necessary and it will pay enormous dividends amongst the people of my electorate where early childhood education has not been a factor for far too many children. I am absolutely pleased that the Minister of Education has been able to get that level of money into that area and long may it last. 
Tertiary education is a big issue. Have we heard speakers on the other side say why they are going to deny by their vote—well they will not but they would if they could get their way—the extra $110 million for student support for the low to middle income families who will actually be able to say that they can afford their young people getting a tertiary education because they will get access to the allowances. Why are National and ACT against that? Why are they voting against this measure for young people from low and middle income families? I would like to ask John Key who came from one of those families why he is voting to deny people in those same circumstances a tertiary education. He is the finance spokesperson for the National Party. Why is he voting against low to middle income families being able to give their children a chance to have a tertiary education by having access to a student allowance? We are looking forward to hearing from the National Party as to why it is against education spending for low and middle income families. Why do National members say they should not get it? 
As far as housing is concerned let us remember that when the Labour Party left power in 1990 there were 70000 State houses in this country. That lot over there sold 13000 of them and replaced only 2000 which meant a net loss of 11000. It is a bit rich that Opposition members say there is a housing shortage for low-income families. We are building more. We are fixing up the ones that did not get maintained. We are increasing the accommodation supplement to families who are not in State housing. This Government is investing well over a billion dollars a year in helping families to afford their housing and accommodation. 
Lastly I refer to transport. There has not been a peep out of that lot over there on transport. Let us look at what we are doing in Auckland alone: we have “Spaghetti Junction”; Grafton Gully has been built on; there is the Greenhithe Deviation—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Sowry should listen to this. If the member ever visits Auckland he will see how many bulldozers there are now in Puhinui and more are on the way. He should come up to Auckland and see a whole lot more of the projects that will be under way over the next 10 years. We are keeping Mayor Banks Mayor Curtis and company very happy with what we are doing and we are making sure there is a public transport system. Back in 1955 when I was born 100 million passenger trips were taken in Auckland. At the moment because of that lot over there the number is only 51 million.