Hughes Darren: Budget Debate 
Hughes Darren: Budget Debate 
[Volume:663;Page:11611] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 In 50 years of New Zealand television Paul Hutchison was the warm-up guy for every live studio audience at Avalon studio! Members saw the way he invigorated the House with that contribution and  
Igniting the Future  
was the name of the report he was referring to! He talked about the 39c rate of income tax. With the exception of the Hon Maurice Williamson whom I see is in the Chamber hanging around in the  
Jurassic Park  
- sort of way that he does every National member here came into Parliament after the 39c tax rate came into being. If taking on a job where one has to pay tax at the highest rate is a massive disincentive to hard work—although that is always an oxymoron with National—then I ask why any of those members came to Parliament if it was such a terrible thing for their labours in that particular respect. 
If this Budget was to be judged on spin slogans and politics then of course the Budget gets a pass mark. But if this Budget was meant to be about the economy and about trying to fix the wage problem in New Zealand so that people get to take home more money each week based on the work they do rather than on the taxes they pay then this Budget was an absolute failure. It was big on spin and big on slogans but there was nothing in it for the real economic challenges that the country faces. 
The Minister of Finance said today that having a job was an important thing. He should know; he has lost several of them. But one of things about the Budget documents is they show that in 5 years’ time the unemployment rate will be twice as high as it was when this National Government took office. In 5 years the unemployment rate will be twice as high as it was when National inherited the Treasury benches and there is nothing at all in the Budget to address that matter. 
Of course when National first became the Government it decided it would have the Job Summit. It was to be a “do-fest” not a talkfest. It ended up being a doofus “do-fest” because one could say that doofuses were about the only things that came from it. We found out this week that only 150 metres a week has been added to the cycleway in a country that is—how many thousands of kilometres long is this country? It must be 4000 kilometres or 5000 kilometres long or something; I do not know. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Not that long. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: It is not quite as long as that but the 150 metres a week we are adding to the cycleway will not be the way to get people back into jobs if we are relying on it to do that. But that was typical of the Prime Minister. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It will be finished in the 23rd century. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: By that time this National Government will certainly be a footnote in history. No one on the other side of the House will still be here or still in Government at that point. 
This Budget under-delivered on all of the key things that the National Government said it was interested in. Sure there were tax cuts and the size of the tax cuts made some people happy. But what does that matter when the Government is borrowing all the money for those tax cuts? It might as well have been $2000 $3000 or $4000 a week of tax cuts if all we are doing is borrowing for them and there is no plan to pay back any of that debt. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That’s irresponsible. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: As Tau Henare says it is irresponsible. He is the one who crashed the XT network on his BlackBerry cellphone so quick was he to get to the website to find out what he would get from the tax cuts. That was his contribution—he could not wait to find out what he would get. 
There have been no ideas in any of the speeches made by members opposite on how to get the people in this country back into jobs or on how to make sure that the people who are in work are paid more in wages so that they can take home more money each week. You know if wages went up by just 50c an hour people would earn more from that than they will from the tax cuts that National gave in the Budget—50c an hour. Most members opposite would walk past 50c in the corridor if they saw it. They would think it was such a piddly amount that they would not even bother to collect it. But in actual fact a wage rise of 50c an hour would deliver to working people far more money to take home and spend on raising their families. 
What happened after the Budget? There was great excitement among all the commentators. I watched the Budget coverage and all the commentators were pretty happy about it. Do members know why that was? Those people were pleased because they were getting a tax cut. For the third year in a row people in New Zealand who earn over $100000 have had a tax cut. For the third year in a row people on over 100 grand have got a tax cut. That is a huge amount of money sloshing around for those in the commentator classes and for the members of Parliament over there. No wonder they were so happy about it because it was all about them. If there is one thing we know about the Prime Minister it is that he likes the show being all about him. 
People were pretty pleased with the Budget but when they had more of a chance to look through it the opinion polls came back and showed that 37 percent of people thought they would be better off personally—37 percent. That means that 63 percent of people in the country do not think that they will be better off as a result of the Budget because it did not actually affect them in the way that it had been sold to them. 
Paul Quinn 
: They said the country would be better off. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Paul Quinn says that if people think their neighbours might be better off when they are not that makes it OK. He had really better come and sit on the Labour side of the House if that is how in tune he is with the philosophy of his Government. When it came to individual choice when it came to personal responsibility about the Budget only 37 percent of people thought that they would be better off. 
The Budget is all smoke and mirrors. Every dollar given away in tax cuts is borrowed which means that someone else has to pay it back. We know what National thinks about savings in terms of KiwiSaver and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund because it has cut its way into those just as it did in the 1970s and 1980s in New Zealand when it cut the savings for the future. National members never govern for the future; they govern for tomorrow morning’s  
Dominion Post 
 headline. That is what they govern for. They govern for that because they think that it is $1.50 well spent because there are photos of them smiling away in the  
Dominion Post 
 the following day. 
I ask where is the Government’s plan for 5 10 or 20 years down the path. There is nothing in the Budget for that not a single thing. Let me give members opposite an example. I laughed when I heard Paul Hutchison say that members opposite were a progressive National Government. There is nothing progressive about those people. They are reactionary on everything. You know they put up the tax on cigarettes the other day. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Same old words. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Henare should listen to this. The tax on cigarettes went up the other day. It was a National Government initiative to charge more for tobacco. Do members know how long it took National to decide that was a good idea? It took 10 years to decide whether that would be its policy and now it has socked the policy to people as one of the other increases in the cost of living that this Budget has put in place. 
GST has gone up. National promised that that would not happen yet we will see GST go up. Power prices will go up with the cost of the emissions trading scheme. People will pay more for fees in early childhood education. Where was that in National’s manifesto? It is broken promise after broken promise after broken promise. Finally sooner or later the smile-and-wave routine of the Prime Minister will not be able to cover for all the broken promises. 
National members who clapped and cheered during the Prime Minister’s speech on the Budget gave us the most undignified spectacle we have ever seen. The Prime Minister was giving a rallying speech to his caucus not realising that he was on television trying to explain National’s single biggest policy of the year to the country. It was all a competition amongst the backbenchers as to who could whoop and cheer the loudest. Members should save that stuff for the caucus room. 
When one is the Prime Minister of New Zealand one should be able to give a dignified speech about one’s economic record. Instead there was a bunch of corny one-liners and the tragedy for National members is that they have to laugh and clap because they think corny jokes are funny. If they are trying to grease people up then that is fair enough—one or two members over there are I think pretty good greasers; they would know what to do. But the rest of them actually think that those corny one-liners are funny. Meanwhile the interests of the country are left to one side. 
I turn now to the issue of asset sales. They were not promised during the election campaign. In fact we were told there would never ever be a sale of Kiwibank—never ever. It reminded me of “no ifs no buts no maybes”. Members on that side of the House are genetic promise-breakers and they were even able to do it on Kiwibank. 
Let us look at Kiwibank which every single mum and dad in the country owns. Bill English commented that mums and dads could have the chance to own it. I ask members to name a mum or a dad in this country who does not currently have an interest as a citizen in Kiwibank. Who are they? Who are the mums and dads who do not currently own Kiwibank? Oh there is silence on that side of the House now because those members know absolutely that these assets belong to the country. 
National members opposed the creation of Kiwibank at the time because they are not progressive people and they always oppose new ideas. How did Kiwibank work? The previous Labour Government put in $80 million 8 years ago. Today the bank has 800000 customers and it is worth $800 million. 
Kiwibank has worked. It is a success. It has proven its value and every single New Zealander owns that success. The previous Labour Government was a Government that was ambitious for New Zealand. We started Kiwibank so that New Zealanders could own it. Then fees came down which meant that mortgage rates for working families stayed lower. It meant that in rural areas and in towns and communities around the country bank branches were not closing; they were staying open because Kiwibank was in town. It is an example of a public asset that works hands down. We saw $80 million turned into $800000 million in just 8 years. 
Although the National Party campaigned on protecting public assets now that it is in Government it has a secret agenda to sell those assets to what it calls “mum and dads”. Well mums and dads already own Kiwibank and that is why the Budget has gone down so unpopularly with the public. 
People know that when it comes to the Budget affecting them personally they have been ripped off because whatever tax cut they have been given on a lower wage the money for it is all being borrowed from overseas anyway and they will have to pay it back as taxpayers down the generation. They know that the assets we all own together are being taken from us. They know that the cost of living—the thing that actually matters when they are in the supermarket queue—will go up. Those things will be hitting families all over the place. 
People will pay higher GST there will be higher costs for working families and the Government does not care about that because unemployment will still be twice as high in 5 years as it was when National took over. I support the motion of Phil Goff that there be no confidence in this Government.