Williams Andrew: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4556. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 Quality not quantity as we always say in New Zealand First. I rise to take a call on the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2012/13) Bill which we have described in the past as being the bills that represent the “Fagin Budget” of this National Government. It is the “got to pick a pocket or two Budget” of 2012-13 which basically saw the poor paper boys and paper girls of New Zealand being ripped off for $14 million—a miserable $14 million from the paper girls and paper boys of this country—for this Government to try to help balance the books. 
This will be looked back on a bit like the Ruth Richardson Budget of the early 1990s as a most miserable and miserly Budget where we will see zero growth in many sectors where Government departments are basically on their knees where the likes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is trying to save $24 million from our front-line people around the world who are negotiating our access to foreign markets and our access and diplomatic ties with many important trade partners and international countries that we so dearly depend on and where the Government is spending $9 million in this Budget to basically save $24 million and where much of that saving will be lost anyway going out to consultants and being farmed out for a net nil result. 
This is a Budget where we will see the likes of the police and the armed forces getting zero increases in their budgets so as a result the morale in the likes of the police force and much of our armed forces is not great because they really are not being acknowledged and rewarded for their efforts in terms of our New Zealand law and order and our defence. 
This is also a Budget where there is an attack on our students our future and the brightest young people of this nation whom we keep referring to as being the ones who will come through and help grow this nation and our postgraduates who will basically struggle to be able to afford to stay with their courses with their postgraduate studies under this particular Budget of this Government. It is a message from this Budget that our brightest and our youngest should head off to Australia and further afield for the brighter future that our Prime Minister John Key keeps talking about. Unfortunately the brighter future at the moment for many of those younger people under this Budget is not here in New Zealand; it is on foreign soils. 
This is also the Budget that will be remembered as the “sale of State assets Budget”. It is where my family’s heritage your family’s heritage Mr Speaker and the heritage of many in this House whose families and loved ones have helped build up this country over many many decades and in fact centuries is being sold down the river—literally down the river—with the sale of firstly our power stations and State-owned enterprises and our power-generating companies. It is where the likes of Mighty River Power will be first on the block to help balance this Government’s future Budgets and where the likes of those important places such as those great dams in the South Island the wonderful thermal power stations in the Taupo area and so many of our wonderful resources are already on the chopping block under this Budget and future Budgets of this Government to help balance the books. As a result many of the reasonably well-off mates of the Government will do well out of the sale of those companies while good average everyday Kiwi families and good average everyday mums and dads in this country will simply lose their national right to those shares in those companies while they are privatised. 
Our veterans are also left wanting with only 10 out of 170 recommendations of a report from 2 years ago being enacted. At the same time the Government is saying that it is going to put money into education but basically the money that it takes will be going into fixing leaky schools leaky buildings leaky Government buildings—billions of dollars worth of them—when again this National Government back in the 1990s was the cause of so many of our leaky problems around this country. This is a Fagin-like miserable Budget. It is a Budget that will always be looked back on by the people of New Zealand as being a no-growth Budget with no vision and basically the people of New Zealand will be very disappointed in this.