Gosche Mark: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Gosche Mark: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
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Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I want to do something unusual in this debate and actually talk about the Budget Policy Statement and the report from the select committee of which I am a member. I would like people who bothered to read it to look at page 7 headed “Corporate Taxation”. The committee sought some information which I will table at the end of this speech about the level of subsidy that Government makes to business by way of wage subsidy—and I use that term loosely because in many respects it is a subsidy to low and medium-income earners. Seven hundred and sixty three million dollars of subsidy has been identified by Treasury as the amount of money that Government spent in the year 2002-03. 
Jill Pettis 
: How many million? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Seven hundred and sixty three million dollars. That is a large amount of money and it is important that businesses in New Zealand know it is of enormous direct benefit to them. Seven hundred and sixty three million dollars is spent on programmes such as family support which cost $330 million in that financial year; a child tax credit of $143 million; paid parental leave costs which at that point were $56.5 million; a family tax credit of $15.6 million and parental-tax credits of $11.7 million. 
That is a total of $557 million administered by the Inland Revenue Department for low-income earners who work for New Zealand businesses. New Zealand businesses therefore are not met with the challenge of paying a wage that meets the costs of living for a substantial number of New Zealand workers. So when we get submissions from employer peak bodies—religiously each time and identical—they do not go back and consult their members as they demand when employment relations law is beforeParliament. They trot them off the word processor and say: “We must have tax cuts and we must have less Government spending.” 
But in that debate do we ever hear from those employer peak organisations—and I am deliberately talking about them and not the average hard-working New Zealand business person—about what the Government spends in subsidising the wages of New Zealand workers? No we never hear that from those business commentators—people who do not employ anybody but work for employer organisations. It is time we did. It is time those people were challenged when they just turn up to a select committee and chant the mantra: “Tax cuts and lower Government spending.” 
Another $205 million is administered by Work and Income by way of direct wage subsidies and that is a good thing. I have been meeting small-business people in my electorate who tell me they are very pleased with the people they have employed in the past using those wage subsidies—people who have gone on to perform magnificently in their businesses and are key and crucial members of their staff. Those people might never have got those jobs if it were not for the initial wage subsidy. 
An accommodation supplement is also paid to wage earners who cannot afford to pay the rent or the mortgage out of their wage packet. That tells us there is an enormous level of subsidy and I am not complaining about it. It is very necessary and it is of major assistance to New Zealand business so I celebrate it. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to have a little discussion in the select committee about that very important issue. 
I repeat again—$763 million in the financial year 2002-03. In the Budget Policy Statement the Minister of Finance and this Government have signalled that we can expect that figure to be even larger once this Budget is put through later this year. I challenge some of those business leaders to get up and say whether that is the Government spending they want cut and will they meet the real cost for those workers to live in New Zealand pay the rent and bring up their children? I think not. I do not think we will see the Business Roundtable Business New Zealand and that strange organisation in Auckland called the Employers and Manufacturers Association demanding that we cut those wage subsidies that taxpayers pay. 
But we need to hear the view of ordinary business. I know from my discussions that ordinary business greatly appreciates the fact that it can get assistance with childcare for their employees for people with a disability who require some assistance to get into a job. Ordinary business people greatly appreciate that an employer can turn to the Government for that sort of assistance. They know there is an awful lot more money being spent by Government than the $763 million I have just isolated here. If we look into the area of industry development promotion of New Zealand business overseas tourism training and the Modern Apprenticeships scheme we will see that all of those things are of major and direct benefit to New Zealand business. It is time we started to look at that and say: “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”. 
I have not heard a single Opposition speaker talk about those issues. They are all into the scurrilous nonsense we heard from the likes of Judith Collins. If Don Brash is the anaesthetist then she is in training to be the mortician but she has none of the warmth and kindliness of the morticians I have met. 
However I digress. I want to get back to this very business-friendly Government and its Budget Policy Statement and the things that are of direct benefit to business. I will say it again—the $763 million is of direct benefit to business and we are talking a couple of years ago compared to what it will be later this year. 
We have to face up to some of the submitters and as a country be able to say that it is not right that it is not good enough for New Zealand workers to be paid a wage that would keep them in poverty; that it is not good enough that we have businesses that actually rely on the taxpayer to prop up the wages they pay. Somewhere down the track we will have to face up to that reality because the taxpayer is paying three-quarters of a billion dollars in direct wage subsidy. I guess that if one did the figures—and we hear a lot about getting the corporate tax rate down from 33c to 30c—that is probably $763 million more than businesses would get from that reduction in tax. 
Let us have that debate with the Opposition parties and see which way they go. But no Opposition members have had their chance in the last 2 hours to debate economic policy and what they believe in. We heard from the very renowned assistant spokesperson on finance Mr Key whom I have a lot of respect for because he is somebody who knows about business. But we heard nothing about National Party policy. Has it got any? No not on that stuff not on business and not on the economy. A bit of slagging-off goes on but did we hear one piece of policy from the National Party? I did not hear any. 
John Key 
: It’s your Budget. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That is absolutely correct but when a party is in Opposition it is paid by the taxpayer to come up with alternatives. That lot over there have no alternatives. They would have trouble criticising some of this policy—like the child tax credit. Did not the National Party have something to do with the introduction of that? Will it continue with it? 
Pansy Wong spoke about the terrible thing of allowing workers 4 weeks’ holiday. Would the National Party take that off workers? Mr Key says yes—National will take away the fourth week of annual holiday when it gets into power. It will do it in the first week probably. When it last had a chance back in 1990 it took away pay equity in the first week. National will not be giving people 11 weeks to submit on an industrial relations amendment bill. It did not do that with the Employment Contracts Act. It slammed that legislation through so fast that people were barely able to blink let alone make a decent submission on it. National has a very short memory when it comes to those sorts of things. 
I remind members in this debate that there is a very good report from the committee dealing with some important issues. Those submitters who want tax cuts and lower Government spending had better tell New Zealanders what that means in reality. It is like the National Party saying it is terrible that the Government is putting money aside for superannuation but will it tell elderly New Zealanders that it will put the age up to 70 and cut the level of superannuation? It will not so how will Dr Brash fund it when he cuts tax? Will he raise the age of eligibility or will he cut the level? We do not hear any of that from the National Party because it wants to pretend that that is not its policy but we know it is. 
As Mr Mark pointed out National will privatise anything and everything that has not already been privatised. The National Party is devoid of policy on the economy and does not want to debate. It sloganises and carries on but the reality is that this Government puts an awful lot of cash into the hands of business. It does that in many many ways and I congratulate it on doing so. It is a good way to relieve pressure on business but it also makes sure that New Zealanders can have a decent standard of living. 
I seek leave to table a letter from Dr Michael Cullen Minister of Finance dated 27 February to the Finance and Expenditure Committee outlining the figures I spoke about in my speech during the debate. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Motion agreed to.