Robertson Grant: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9522. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I congratulate the member David Bennett who has just resumed his seat on his ability to retain some numbers in his head—Hon Damien O’Connor: No he read it.GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh he did read; that is true. He had a number of numbers in his speech. Let us start by talking about that and perhaps raising some of the other numbers that the Budget Policy Statement draws out for us. For instance in the last year per capita GDP: nothing. No growth zero flat—absolutely flat. How about debt—because we know that the Government in the past has been very proud of its record around debt.David Shearer: Surely that has come down?GRANT ROBERTSON: Well no you would think so would you not? Net debt in 2008 was $10 billion. In 2015 it was $62 billion—an additional $52 billion. There is another number for David Bennett—$52 billion. In the spirit of my colleague Dr David Clark the Government has borrowed more than Muldoon; that is what it has done. But it is all right because we had a promise from the Government. We had a promise from the Government that exports as a percentage of GDP would be up at 40 percent—that was the promise. I will admit that this is not going to happen in a day; it is the kind of thing you need to take step by step to improve exports. So they were 32 percent of GDP when the Government came into office—it will take steps forward and they will reach 40 percent by 2020.David Shearer: What is it?GRANT ROBERTSON: So you would think now they would probably be in the mid-thirties somewhere?David Shearer: On the way.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yeah on the way—28.4 percent—going backwards. Exports as a percentage of GDP are going backwards. But what about the stuff that really matters—the numbers that really matter to working New Zealanders like whether or not they got a pay rise? That is an important thing covered here in the Budget Policy Statement—New Zealanders working hard adding to the productivity of their companies hoping for a pay rise. What number would David Bennett want us to have there? In 2015 46 percent of New Zealanders did not get a pay rise—46 percent of New Zealanders. So there is a number for the Government.Chris Bishop: You are getting the wrong stats Grant.GRANT ROBERTSON: What we also know is that the labour force participation rate—something that the Government has wanted to crow about and say that is why we have to be careful about the unemployment numbers—is actually coming down. It is actually coming down. People are giving up on the labour market Mr Bishop. They are giving up because the jobs are not there for them.Chris Bishop: It is the third-highest in the developed world.GRANT ROBERTSON: I would have thought Chris Bishop would get it—the trend matters Chris. It is the trend that matters. It is going the wrong way. They are the numbers that perhaps David Bennett might have wanted to focus on when he was looking at the Budget Policy Statement.But what I think is really missing from the Budget Policy Statement is the vision of the Government to create the economy of our future. What this Budget Policy Statement is really about is a Government that is stuck. It is a Government that does not really have any new ideas about what a new economy might look like about how we can—as David Bennett said—support and invest in diversification of the economy. The Government was very keen Mr Bennett to crow about dairy prices when they were high to take the credit to have the Prime Minister charging his glass with Theo Spierings to say “It’s all on.” to make the best of his trip to China to start a new export line in there—so credit was being taken. But now on the downturn—we have farmers who are facing potentially what they themselves are calling a catastrophic situation. This is not the Opposition saying this; this is the farmers themselves.There was the performance by the Prime Minister today who decided that it was more important to throw political insults than to actually recognise what farmers are calling a catastrophic situation—the possibility that there would be a drop in land value of more than 40 percent—the fact that potentially we could have 40 percent of farmers in a position where they are not meeting the terms of their loans. This is tough stuff. Those communities are having a tough time. It is not right for the Government to suddenly say it does not matter anymore because we have got tourism now. It is not actually a diversification strategy to let one industry collapse in the hope that that means another one looks better. The only reason tourism is now larger is that dairy has gone down. That is not diversification. That is not a Government in the 21st century being a partner in the economy—being a partner in the economy—and that is what regional New Zealand is calling out for.I absolutely accept that farmers are not looking to be bailed out by the Government; they do not want that. What they are looking for is a Government that will be a partner that will get into those communities and work with local Government work with businesses and help to establish the kinds of industries the kind of economy that can ride out the waves in the commodity cycle. Because in the end that is what this Government is leaving us with—an economy and economic growth that has been built on an over-inflated dairy price the Christchurch rebuild and the Auckland housing bubble. You could not get a less secure basis going forward from here for the New Zealand economy.This Budget Policy Statement misses the trick of planning an economy for the future. When we discussed this in the Finance and Expenditure Committee it was quite clear when the Minister of Finance came in that his vision for the spending allowance for the future which is here in the Budget Policy Statement was to look at tax cuts. That was the only plan—not to invest not to create opportunity for future generations but to squirrel that money away for 2017 and the election and for tax cuts. We know from what happened in 2010 where the National Party’s focus for tax cuts will go. It goes to the top earners—the top 10 percent getting 40 percent of the value of tax cuts. That is the focus for National and that is what it wants to do with the money that is here in new spending allowances.Well I can tell you is that on this side of the House we are proud to say that what we want to do with Budgets of the future is use them to create opportunity for New Zealanders. That is why Labour has proposed as a direct alternative to National’s tax cuts our Working Futures Plan which says “Let’s use that money to earn”—Chris Bishop: Ha ha!GRANT ROBERTSON: Chris Bishop laughs. He does not care. He does not care whether or not when people leave secondary school they have got the ability to go on and get the qualifications that—Chris Bishop: I do.GRANT ROBERTSON: —that they need to add to the skill base that they need. “I do”—I hear a high-pitched squeal from across the aisle. What we need is a policy like the Working Futures Plan that actually means that every single New Zealander will go on and get more qualifications will be the skilled workforce that employers tell us time and time again they need but there is no sign of that in this Budget Policy Statement. The Government thinks it can get away with 20th century approaches in the 21st century. That is not how we are going to grow the economy.What we want to see in the future is the Budget Policy Statement being used to define the kinds of measures that would make for a good society. By all means we keep measuring GDP. Of course it is a very good way of measuring activity in the economy. But let us start measuring some other things in the Budget Policy Statement. Let us start measuring how we are doing in creating jobs in lowering unemployment. Let us set as a goal that wherever you live in this country you should be able to get a decent job. That should be a goal of any Budget. Let us make it a goal to have targets in the Budget to reduce child poverty. Let us hear about them. The Government is so scared of that that it will not even set a target for child poverty let alone use the Budget to actually measure it. Let us use the Budget to actually be honest about expenditure in health because we heard David Bennett tell us that health expenditure as a percentage of GDP has gone up. It has not; it has gone down—it has gone down.We need to have a Budget that says we will set up the building blocks of society strongly: education health decent work and getting kids out of poverty. That is what the Budget Policy Statement should be saying today—a vision for how we will create opportunity and how we will create an economy that is based on diversification and on giving people an opportunity for decent work in the future. We are facing huge change in the workplace—technological disruption globalisation—and we have got a flat-footed Government looking in the rear-view mirror. What is needed is a Budget Policy Statement that says today: “We will work with business with local government and with the community to create the jobs of the future to give every New Zealander the dignity of a decent job backed up by a decent home good education and good health—not allowing one child to grow up in poverty.” That should be in the Budget Policy Statement. That would be in a Budget Policy Statement from a Labour Government. It is sadly missing today.