Peck Mark: Budget Debate 
Peck Mark: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5805] 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 From the preceding speech I cannot tell whether that member supports the amendments of the Leader of the Opposition or the Green Party’s amendment to the amendment. Indeed I am not certain what that Opposition member believes. However I can say to him that Jim Sutton did sit on that side of the House and it is precisely because of the Budgets of the good doctor that he is now sitting on this side of the House and doing a marvellous job as Minister for Trade Negotiations. 
I wish to do two things in my speech today. Firstly I want to talk a little bit about trade and issues in the Budget around that. Secondly I want to talk a bit about the Budget itself. I want to give the answer to the myth that the National Party has no policy because it does. I want to go through what some of that policy is as we look at this Budget. First of all I want to comment on the issue of trade. We have been harangued by the Greens to essentially give up on trade and put all of our superannuation contributions into New Zealand. I remind Green members that if we were to do that sort of thing in New Zealand we would certainly set ourselves a recipe for going back considerable centuries in terms of our economic growth. In fact we would not have economic growth; we would have a huge economic decline as well over one-third of our economy comes from trade. Members of the extreme left who have taken part in this particular debate simply do not understand that unless borders are open and people are able to trade the lowest paid in the world are consigned to abject poverty. Over half the world’s population lives on less than US$2 a day and consigning those people to Trade Aid shops keeps them in poverty. For a country like New Zealand open borders are very important. 
It is time that Green members came into the real world. If they understood about gross domestic product (GDP) they would understand that one of the factors in GDP is net exports. The only economies in the world that do not run a net export account in their GDP are places like North Korea. If those members want New Zealand to be like North Korea then we must stop trading. The economic principle is that trade can make us all better off. I suggest the Greens have a seminar on that and start to learn about it. 
Secondly I want to look at the Budget. David Carter regaled us—frankly I cannot understand why he was put up as the first speaker following the Leader of the Opposition— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Where’s Don Brash? 
MARK PECK 
: Where is Don Brash? That will be a speech of some interest. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
MARK PECK 
: I withdraw and apologise. I meant to ask why Don Brash had not taken a speech at this point. 
We will hear two things from Opposition spokespersons: they want us to spend more and they want us to spend it now. But Don Brash will tell us that the recipe is considerably different. It will be fascinating to follow the debate. However I want to pick up on something David Carter said—that is why do we not speak about the Budget? It is a good Budget. One knows it is a good Budget when the Opposition is as flat as it is. The only speaker who gave any life to the debate at all was Winston Peters. At least he managed to handle the debate with a considerable amount of humour by awarding Oscars. He even had one or two on the other side of the House clapping him at the end of his presentation. Listening to Bill English one did get the impression that it was over. 
We have economic growth at 4.4 percent and Dr Cullen was quite clear in talking about the world economy and the issues that will lead to a downturn in economic growth this year. We cannot do much about Sars (severe acute respiratory system) or about conflict in the rest of the world but we are in a robust position to be able to come through that period of time. Just recently I was able to hand out an export incentive award to Henley Industries in Invercargill. That particular company is a design-build company developing conveyer belt technology for the food industry and new oxidation pond technology to improve water quality. 
 That is innovation. That company does something in Southland that nobody else does. It had a go at going from being a design-build company into production. It will have to employ new workers. John Key is inanely interjecting. He should look at the fact that this is a company that managed to pull itself up by its bootstraps. It was struggling and about ready to go down but it took a punt on design-build and through its own efforts managed to create new products in a niche that nobody else in Southland has filled. In the process it developed new jobs for Southlanders. That is something I thought John Key would have welcomed—a “pure market” approach. The Government did help with something that that company could not afford and that is patenting intellectual property so that particular advantage is held in New Zealanders’ hands for 20 years. That is a very good use. 
But I want to caution my side of the House against thinking that the National Party does not have a policy. It does; it is a policy that has been around for some time and it is the policy of its spokesperson Don Brash. I recently reread Don Brash’s speech to the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference on 2 August 2001 where he sets out a very clear prescription for a pure “more market” approach to the economy. Dr Brash’s view is a very simple view: there should be no Government unless it is about protecting the privilege of the wealthy and unless it is about property laws. It is as simple as that. 
Dr Brash does in fact believe that the Government has a role to invest in education because that saves the wealthy having to support their sons and daughters when they go on to higher education. Dr Brash believes in an army and a strong police force. Why does he believe in those things? He believes them because they are about protecting the property rights of the wealthy. He does not believe in income support for those a little down on their luck. Indeed he talks about drug tests for those on benefits. Now a drug test for a beneficiary costs $25 a test so for about 1000 people to be drug tested one is talking millions of dollars. He would appropriate money to drug test beneficiaries but he would put a cap on the amount of time they could be on the benefit. Don Brash would also say that there should not be a minimum wage in the economy because that causes unemployment. What Dr Brash forgets is that there is a huge debate about the Phillips Curve which is about the trade-off between unemployment and economic growth. Decent societies do not let people fall to the floor. 
I want to tell my colleague the Hon Dr Michael Cullen that he has done a superb Budget in that respect. It is about spending the surplus and spending it wisely because we are investing in the capital of this nation and in the people of this nation. What sold the Budget for me was watching the faces of the Opposition as Dr Cullen delivered the Budget. They know that they no longer have any place in the middle ground of economic debate. They know that the only way they will now get themselves a political niche is to move further to the right. That landscape has been taken by Rodney Hide and he holds it— 
Rodney Hide 
: All the time! 
MARK PECK 
: Yes on his own and he holds it well. This Budget sets out an agenda for further incremental improvement over time and as we get through the tough year coming up the Government has already signalled much more for those who need a hand-up and the ability to contribute to society. It is a good Budget; it is fiscally prudent. The numbers add up and it sets the agenda for an ongoing period of reform into the future. I know that the good doctor will write many more Budgets in the future.