McCully Murray: Budget Debate 
McCully Murray: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9691] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 As members will have discerned we have just heard from easily the happiest front-bencher in the Labour Government. Indeed he is clearly the happiest member of the Labour caucus. In fact there is one person in this House who I suspect is even happier than John Key when we open up a new public opinion poll these days and that is Phil Goff. Phil Goff looks at each of those public opinion polls with a double-digit lead for John Key and the National Party and he looks at the list of names of his colleagues. He can see which colleagues will be biting the dust come the next election. Mr Goff knows very well that these are the people who were inserted against his wishes by Helen Clark and others—the people who intend to vote for Steve Maharey when the revolution comes. There is nobody happier in the Labour Party today than Mr Goff who is waiting for the next election. He can see the fallout that is going to occur and he is secretly very pleased indeed. 
The Budget that was read in this House a week or so ago is subject in my mind to one acid test—and I invite any member on the other side of the House to consider this and to respond. I looked at the statistics released by the Government Statistician for this year to March and they tell us that 700 New Zealanders on average left this country for Australia each and every week in the last year. About 36000 New Zealanders in the space of a year are going to Australia—that is more than the number of people in a city the size of Gisborne are being wiped off the face of the New Zealand map in the space of a year. 
I asked Mr Cunliffe about this and he should take note. I see his colleague Mr Duynhoven has been fitted up with a noose around his neck by the Prime Minister. We know what is next. Mr Cunliffe will be the next to receive that treatment from the Prime Minister if he carries on like this. I suggest to that Minister that he should ask himself this question: will the Budget read in this House last week see fewer than an average of 500 New Zealanders a week leaving for Australia in the coming year as was the case last year or not? He knows and every member opposite knows that that outward flow to Australia will increase rather than decrease as a consequence of the Budget. That is the acid test. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek the leave of members opposite for me to answer the question just posed to me by the speaker who has just resumed his seat. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has sought leave. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: The Minister can take his call. He can have the next 10 minutes and that will be plenty of time even for him to answer a question as complicated as that. 
I suggest that the effect of the Budget on the flow of people to Australia is the acid test. New Zealanders will vote with their feet as they voted with their feet last year and the year before in increasing numbers. That is the test and it is for one reason: each and every year we are seeing an increase in the gap between average income levels in New Zealand and Australia. 
I was privileged quite recently to go to the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum in Sydney to see a presentation by Dr David Skilling from the New Zealand Institute. That presentation broke down the states of Australia and looked at the per capita GDP figures for each of those states compared with the figure for New Zealand. That presentation contained some very chilling news. It showed that New Zealand in terms of per capita GDP is lagging behind even the worst-performing state in Australia—Tasmania—by some significant margin. As a consequence of the Budget read in this House last week we will see those numbers get even worse in the year ahead. 
I say to Mr Cunliffe to Mr Goff and to others that that is why the public have taken the phone off the hook. That is why the public are no longer interested in the claptrap we hear from those members at question time. The public are no longer interested in the empty words and the slogans we hear at Budget time. The New Zealand public know that unless there is a change of course this country is in serious difficulty indeed. 
I want to spend some time in this Budget debate looking at one of the items that was referred to in some detail in the Budget speech—foreign affairs. I preface my comments by saying that on this side of the House despite the fact that we are in Opposition we understand that foreign policy for any country is not owned by any individual political party by any Government or by any individual people. Foreign policy is in fact something that is owned by the people of a nation. That is why National members have taken some considerable care as an Opposition to speak where we can in one voice with the Government in matters relating to foreign affairs trade and defence. 
This is a small relatively isolated country. We are heavily dependent on the rest of the world for trade opportunities. It is important that New Zealand’s interests do not get shuffled around or ebb and flow as a consequence of movement in the electoral cycle. That is why our starting point in these matters is for us to be bipartisan wherever that is possible. It is important that that should be understood in the context of the remarks I now want to make. We have some differences with the Government in these matters. They are differences of degree and emphasis and I think it is important that they should be understood. 
Firstly it is not clear from the Budget line quite how much money is being voted in this respect but a figure of something like $35 million seems to be contained in the Budget to support the role of the United Nations and the bodies associated with that entity. I urge that in the year ahead New Zealand should take a more assertive role than has been the case in the past in the search for reform within the United Nations. I am one of those who believes that there have been some reasonably spectacular failures on the part of that entity in recent years. We could mention the oil for food programme and we could look at some of the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia. 
Indeed just recently in the last fortnight or so I see that the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development has seen rather stunningly the election to the chair of that body the country least equipped to deal with that responsibility—Zimbabwe. Just imagine: Zimbabwe with 4000 percent inflation; Zimbabwe which has managed to reduce the average life expectancy of its citizens back to something like 35 or 36 years. Zimbabwe is the country that is now being entrusted with the chairmanship of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. I say to members on the Government side of the House and to all members that that simply brings the United Nations into disrepute. 
There is a crying need for reform in the United Nations. The previous Secretary-General Kofi Annan made some relatively modest suggestions; even more modest changes were adopted by that organisation. I suggest that in the years ahead this country will need to take a more assertive role in that respect. 
I turn finally to the question of aid to the Pacific. I have no particular quarrel with the fact that we are seeing more aid go to that part of the world. I am one of those who supported the Waring report that suggested that New Zealand needed to spend more of its aid budget in its neighbourhood and that we should try to thin down the number of places we were sending aid to to below the 100 or so countries that receive aid at the moment. I am bound to say—[ 
Interruption 
]—Mr Cunliffe may like to explain to the House why it is that we will continue in the year ahead to fund gender equity programmes in the Greater Mekong region for example rather than spend that money in our own regions. Why are we continuing— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I seek leave for the member to yield so I can answer his question. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought for the member to answer the question. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: No. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: There is objection. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I again invite Mr Cunliffe to take a call. He has 10 minutes available to him and I look forward to hearing from him. I suggest to Mr Cunliffe that he and his colleagues should explain why it is that we will continue to fund poverty elimination programmes for rural indigenous people in Nicaragua for example when those moneys could demonstrably be used closer to home. 
This is a country with a very special relationship with the Pacific. Pacific nations now contribute significant numbers to our largest city—our largest city is in fact the largest Pasifika city in the world. It is a— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Auckland. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Indeed Mr Cunliffe has even managed to work out which city he represents in this House. 
I suggest to members that it is time that we looked more critically at where that aid budget is being spent. We should not be making just the soft decision to spend new money on new programmes in the Pacific but we should be looking at reprioritising some existing programmes so that some of the low-quality programmes which are yielding no particular results of any consequence in parts of the world that we have nothing in particular to do with can be trimmed down in favour of doing a more generous and more effective job in that part of the world where we truly have a significant responsibility—in the Pacific.