Goff Phil: Budget Debate 
Goff Phil: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13735] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 This is a Budget we can really be proud of. It is fiscally responsible socially responsive and most important it delivers to families to working people and to superannuitants. It invests in the areas that I think are most important to this country. It invests in education. It invests in health. It invests in the core services such as justice and police and most important it is good for families. This Budget is so good because it gives assistance to working families at the time they most need it—when the costs are greatest as their kids are growing up when their incomes are limited. 
Who in this House would say that that is not the group that most deserves to get a lift from this Budget? That is a rhetorical question because the National Party and the ACT party would have given it to their mates. They would have given a flat tax rate which would have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to those who need it least and a pittance to those working families that are struggling to give their kids a chance in life. This Budget helps more than 300000 families most of which are supported by wages. It gives them a significant lift in their income. It acknowledges the needs of those on the lowest incomes in our society but importantly it creates a real incentive for those people who are able to work to join the workforce because they are much better off by doing so. 
For families in the $25000 to $45000 income bracket this Budget will also deliver a benefit averaging about $100 a week over the first 3 years in direct family assistance. On top of that it gives help where it is needed in terms of accommodation supplements. In my area of Auckland housing costs are high. Aucklanders will do well out of this Budget because they need that help with the high accommodation expenses they face. It will help those people struggling to be in the workforce and provide quality childcare assistance. 
Someone in my electorate of Mt Roskill with three kids earning maybe a little bit over the medium wage of $52000 will be better off by $100 a week by next April. The April after that he or she will be better off by $140 a week and by April 2007 better off by $170 a week and getting 4 weeks’ minimum holiday a year. Unless of course “Uncle Scrooge”—Dr Brash—comes along and takes those things away just as the National Government in 1990 took away the penal rates the overtime rates and the things that working people had worked so long for in New Zealand. 
Beyond that I think the Budget makes real advances in education. The rate of subsidy in childcare in particular will rise significantly. For around 28000 families the average gain will be about $23 a week. Tertiary students are already benefiting from the fact that they are not paying interest rates on their student loans while they are still studying. They are benefiting from the fact that student fees have been frozen and then capped. This Budget puts another $110 million into the student area by helping students from lower-income families become eligible for a student allowance and I welcome that. 
In health there will be a great many people in my electorate particularly the elderly people who will benefit from this Budget. I particularly want to thank the Minister of Health for acknowledging the needs of older people in my electorate who require hip and knee replacements. The promise that this Budget makes and will deliver on is that we will double the number of knee and hip joint replacements. As a result of this Budget some 9300 older New Zealanders a year will regain their physical independence. 
On 1 July this year just 2 weeks away all those over the age of 65 enrolled in primary health organisations will become entitled to cheaper health-care and to $3 pharmaceutical prescriptions. The older people in this country who have worked so hard to build the nation we participate in and enjoy today will be getting just rewards from this Labour-led Government. 
I want to look briefly at the justice area because I have a personal responsibility for it and it will benefit greatly from the Budget. Budget 2004 commits funding of just over $1 billion to the justice system over the next 4 years and some of that—for the braying member Mr Franks—will go into building new prisons. Mr Franks who has accused this Government of being soft on crime has to acknowledge that the tougher sentencing laws in this Budget for serious and recidivist offenders mean that more people are being locked up for longer. I regret that that is necessary but for the protection of the community there are categories of people for whom sentences must be much tougher and are. 
Because of a record police budget and record police staffing the rate of solving crime in this country over the last 4 years has consistently improved. More criminals are being apprehended and more are being convicted as a result. In particular this Budget focuses on the scourge of methamphetamine and the organised crime that is associated with it. An additional $39 million is being invested in this area with additional police clan-lab teams being formed more staffing resources for the analysis done by Environmental Science and Research and better interception and surveillance work. 
A small but important area to me is the $9 million we are investing in the Budget to increase juror fees and assist jurors with the costs they face in parking and childcare. That is a critical investment in ensuring that ordinary New Zealanders can play their role and fulfil their civic duties in the justice system of this country. 
Last but not least I want to come to my other portfolio responsibility which is in the area of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This year we will open a new embassy in Warsaw at the heart of a growing area—the new States that are acceding to the European Union. In 2 years’ time we will have a post for the first time in Cairo in Egypt. The investment we are making will ensure that we can better promote our trade and therefore the prosperity of this country. But it will also enable us as a small but fiercely independent country to play our role in the world promoting international peace and stability and countering the threat of terrorism. 
Of course if the National Party wants to make a saving it will probably make it in this area because why would one need a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in this country when the National Party is prepared to hand any decision-making over foreign policy to the capitals of other countries? My God what did we see today! We saw Don Brash saying that he would move towards changing our nuclear-free status “if that was acceptable to the Americans.” One does not make one’s own policy in this country under a National Government. A person goes to another capital in another country and that country will do it for them. 
Then there was Simon Power. He said that National would do when and wheresoever whatever the political and military leaders of other countries asked of us. That is totally reneging on using our own judgment and our own values. Mr Power Mr Brownlee and Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith all committed themselves to participating in the invasion of Iraq notwithstanding the fact that it was opposed by 80 percent of New Zealanders. 
Last but not least we have little Dr Nick Smith. He said we would opt out of the Kyoto agreement unless the Americans and the Australians said it was OK. That would mean reneging on the leadership that our country has shown in the Pacific to our smaller neighbours who look to New Zealand for solidarity and support in their fight to stop global warming. 
This is a Budget I am proud of. This is a Budget committed to sound management to decency and fairness and to giving ordinary New Zealanders a fair go. I commend the Minister of Finance for the work he has done and I commend this Budget to the country.