Ardern Shane: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Shane: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10417. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): What a pleasure it is to rise in support of the Budget particularly after listening to the previous speaker Shane Jones. I think what you were listening to there was a leadership speech but the problem with that was that the only ones listening were the members on this side of the House because those on the other side of the House could not understand a single word that the Hon Shane Jones was saying except when he reverted to the Labour type which of course he struggles to agree with himself. What we are looking at as other members have said is a very very stark contrast. It is a contrast between growth forward movement and a party that is focused on what makes the economy grow what creates jobs and what will create a better future for New Zealand and a group a mismatch of people from the left. What did the Prime Minister say? It is a 51 percent - 49 percent shareholding between the Labour-Green parties and no one really knows which one has the 51 percent share.The issue confronting the country at the moment is how we grow an economy in what has been described—not by me but by political commentators and economists around the world—as an economic crisis an economic downturn on a scale equal to the 1930s Depression. How do you grow an economy in that circumstance? We listened tothe Opposition spokesman on finance the Hon David Parker talk earlier on about Labour’s track record in the management of the economy. Well let us have a look at that for a moment. Let us test some of what Mr Parker said. Let us go back as he did to the 1980s when you had the David Lange - Roger Douglas administration. Just remember at that time we had a Prime Minister who said that the agriculture sector was a sunset industry. When you think about that in the context of today when 70-odd percent of our export receipts come from that sector it is a bizarre comment. It is a ridiculous comment. But what is so bizarre about it even today is that was the case then when those comments were made. And what happened at the end of Labour’s tenure through the 1980s? Apart from the fact that it had three Prime Ministers in quick succession towards the end of it we had the 1987 sharemarket collapse we had the bailout of the BNZ we had interest rates that peaked at 22 percent and we had inflation rates that ran at 18 percent. This is the track record that Mr Parker was talking about. Let us have a look at some of those figures.Then we had a change to the new incoming Bolger National Government which inherited the fiscal shambles. At the end of that Government’s period the country was on a growth strategy again with growth rates of 4 percent we had interest rates back down to the lowest level they had been since the early part of the 1960s and we were on track for an economy that was growing. What happened then? Well the Government changed in the late 1990s. And what did we end up with then? We ended up with the Clark-Cullen Government the next Labour Government—once again checking this track record that Mr Parker spoke of. What happened at the end of that period? Well we had interest rates back up to 10 percent. We had inflation growing at a rate that was unsustainable. We had export receipts in decline again—once again in decline. We had the best economic circumstances that the New Zealand economy had seen in about five generations and what did we end up with? We ended up with the circumstances that this Government the incoming Key Government inherited which was once again a fiscal outlook that had the Government heading towards 60 percent debt by 2020—a forecast 60 percent debt against GDP by 2020—and no prospect of Government surplus ever again. Well if that is the track record Mr Parker wants to promote then I invite him to promote that as strongly as he can over the next few months because I think it is the best thing since sliced bread for the National Government.So what have we got today? We have got the lowest interest rates in 40 years—the lowest interest rates in 40 years. What is it about our opponents that they cannot understand that? For mum and dad “Joe Hard-worker” out there trying to own their first home it is in the order of $300 to $400 a week compared with what it was when Labour was in power. We have got the lowest inflation we have had for a very long time with the cost of living going up by less than 1 percent—under 1 percent. Food prices for a very very long time have become more and more affordable for mum and dad “Joe Hard-worker” out there. What is it about that that Labour cannot understand?Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?SHANE ARDERN: The member over there bays “Where are the jobs?”. Well the end result of all of this fiscal growth is more investment. I heard the Hon Shane Jones talking about unemployment rates. Look at Taranaki—the area that this member here would condemn and his colleague often does. Where are the jobs? The highest employment rate in New Zealand is in Taranaki. Why is that? Because of a strong growing energy sector and a strong growing agricultural sector. Those are both sectors that our Labour-Green opponents would attack and let us just talk about what they have said they will do. They will introduce a capital gains tax they will introduce an emissions trading tax they will increase company tax they will increase personal tax—Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?SHANE ARDERN: —and they will do away with the 90-day trial period in employment as the member keeps baying “Where are the jobs?”. They will do away with the 90-day trial period they will increase ACC charges and they will increase interest rates through higher Government spending and more Government borrowing. Those are the end results of a Labour administration over a period of time.So what has this Government announced in its Budget in regard to jobs as the member wants to know? A $130 million boost for Kiwi research and development start-ups. Budget 2013 is investing $130 million in Callaghan Innovation encouraging business to invest more in research and development and to support new start-ups. What the member obviously cannot comprehend and Labour never can is this country is made up of small businesses that employ low numbers of people. So where would you invest money if you wanted to get more jobs? Is it in great Government expenditure or great Government employment schemes? I mean this is Labour which over the term of the Clark Government invested so much in the public sector that it doubled the office space for bureaucrats in Wellington. And what did that do for employment? What growth came out of that? What were the opportunities there?What would Opposition members do in terms of opportunities and in terms of development like what I have just said in the energy sector? Well they would reverse the Resource Management Act reforms that this Government is proposing and has already carried out. They have said they would do that. How would you develop an energy-efficient economy under those circumstances? In fact what did happen under the Labour Government? We saw a massive increase in the use of fossil fuels for the generation of energy because the development of sustainable energy production could not take place because of Resource Management Act or environmental constraints that were placed on those developments. Labour talks about growth in jobs and improving the economy but what it would do towards the economy would be devastating.In the Budget there is $80 million for irrigation. Is there any lower hanging fruit than what this would produce—producing more of what we are good at and where we have international markets to sell to? Right up the eastern belt of the whole of the South and North Islands—including in the Hawke’s Bay which Hon Shane Jones the previous speaker spoke of—is where we could invest in irrigation. Of course the cry from the Greens on this is “More dairy cows.” Well when we put water into the Marlborough area it was not dairy cows that were developed there; it was actually vineyards. If you were to go into Marlborough now and suggest—and Labour and the Greens are potentially mad enough to say that we should never have done it and there should not be vineyards in Marlborough. Where there used to be one sheep per 10 hectares in some of that very arid land there are now intensive world-renowned viticulture developments that have exports of $1.2 billion to the world and still have potential to grow.What we have in this Budget the Bill English Budget the John Key - led Government Budget is a strategy for strong growth going forward a formula for success and a formula for jobs. I strongly support the Budget.