Brownlee Gerry: Budget Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:20911] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 If there is anything certain about the last Budget delivered by Michael Cullen it is that in its dying days the Labour Government gave up on aspiration for New Zealanders and pronounced that the mediocre approach to life was the best any New Zealander could hope for under a Government led by Labour. The message was that people should not think for themselves. The message was that people should not have aspirations for themselves; they should have just whatever Helen Clark Michael Cullen and the rest of the Labour cabal are prepared to allow. That is what Labour said in its Budget and that is what New Zealanders heard overwhelmingly. 
I can tell all those Labour back-benchers who are going to brush up their CVs soon after the election that I knew they were in deep trouble when just a couple of days after the Budget I was in a supermarket unloading a grocery trolley on to the conveyor belt and the very nice lady on the checkout said to me: “There won’t be much in that lot for 67c will there?”. I said: “You’re dead right.” I have to confess that she did not actually make a connection to which party I came from; she just knew I was from Parliament. She said: “I can’t see why you boys couldn’t have done better for us.” I was pretty keen to explain that I was not part of that Budget and that that was not my party. It was Labour that said that 67c in 3 years’ time is what that checkout operator could expect to receive in her pay packet—67c a week one year after that person has had to pay at least $4 a week in “Kyoto tax”. 
I can tell members that that woman was adamant she would not vote for Helen Clark again. That is the truth of it and that was very soon after the Budget. [ 
Interruption 
] I could take that member over there—what is his name again? He is the guy in the shiny suit the guy who has brown hair today. It was blond last week and next week it will be blue because he will be trying to associate himself with a winning party. I could take that member to the supermarket and introduce him to that checkout operator and he could find out for himself how deeply in trouble his party is in the electoral sense. 
The other nonsense that Government members talk about is what they are doing in housing and what they are going to do to help people get into houses. Well I ask that member this. In those few years when people can get their $1000 a year grants and are saving their money in a vehicle or account yet to be nominated—probably one of those 1.5 percent Kiwibank accounts—what will be the value in the meantime? Because the problem is the ability to repay. That goes right back to the issue of income again. National has said that we are going to lower taxes. We get this argument from Mr Gosche of all people the great union economist telling us that if we let people keep more of the money they earn it will push up interest rates. Well is he prepared to go down to the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union and tell them that if they get a 5 percent increase that will also push up interest rates? Oh no he would be silent on that because he knows that under the current tax regime if the average worker in that union gets a 5 percent pay rise it will equate to about $5 a week with about twice that much going out of his pocket in increased tax. Mr Gosche is silent on that because it is another great tax grab by the Government. 
We are simply saying that it is time to meet in the middle. Yes wages have to rise. Incomes in New Zealand self-evidently have to rise if we are going to stop the flow of 600 talented young people a week across the Tasman. But the way incomes can rise surely has to be a mix of paying less tax as well as earning more. The Government argues that it is best that it looks after people’s money spends people’s money and makes people’s choices for them because otherwise interest rates might rise. That is utter nonsense and it is an argument that certainly will not be sustained. 
I heard also Mr Gosche bringing up the old Labour trick of saying that National sold all the State houses. Well I am very proud of the fact that we sold 4000 of them. 
Hon Taito Phillip Field 
: 4000! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Yes and who bought them? I can tell this House that the people who bought them were the people who lived in them—the tenants who had paid for them over years and years. I have a question for Labour. If Labour builds one new State house tomorrow and puts a tenant in it and if that tenant pays the rent for 30 years is there any point at which Labour would be prepared to say that that rent has covered the capital cost and that the tenant probably on a low income should get some benefit from the asset? No they are all shaking their heads. The answer is no. Labour does not like the idea that New Zealand is a property-owning democracy. New Zealanders like to own houses and if Labour were prepared to admit that it would be able to admit that its pathetic home buyers’ scheme is in the Budget for that very reason. 
Labour members are a very confused group of people. I bet that after the caucus meeting last Tuesday—prior to the delivery of the Budget—they walked out of the caucus room feeling smug. They thought they had the winning Budget. They thought it would propel them into a third term of Government. But the Budget fell flat. It fell flat all over the show. The issues poll in the  
New Zealand Herald  
published earlier this week showed that higher taxes is the second-biggest issue. The biggest issue is health and that is where the current Government has failed most miserably. Is any Labour member silly enough to stand up and suggest that more elective surgery procedures are being performed this year than last year or the year before? [ 
Interruption 
] Well that just proves how silly they are. They are wrong. The numbers have fallen but the funding is way up. Where has the money gone? It has gone to pen-pushers not those who are actually delivering health services. 
When it comes to the issues that New Zealanders have outlined then every time they consider the 6 years of a Labour Government they will see the situation getting worse. Do members know what the great irony for me is in that  
New Zealand Herald  
poll? The great irony for me is around the issue of police and police services. I am very heartened to know that New Zealanders are still great people. New Zealanders do care enormously about their community and for the society the live in and they have great respect for the police. And despite the absolute debacle that George Hawkins has presided over and the terrible situation the police have been put into New Zealanders still have great confidence in them and I think that is a wonderful thing. But that may well be—no thanks to the Labour Government—the only thing that has been preserved and is unchanged during the term of the current Government. 
It is clear and obvious that the Budget is a disaster for the Labour Government. It has given up any prospect of giving New Zealanders a message that is inspirational. Labour has shown that it is returning to being the kind of Government that Labour has always been—that is inserting itself deeply in the daily lives of people and telling them exactly how things are to be and when they are to be. The Government’s remaining time in office is very short.