King Annette: Budget Debate 
King Annette: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9699] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services) 
: 
 There is more than a little irony in the comments made by the member John Carter who has just resumed his seat. He is the member for Northland a wonderful part of New Zealand which deserves decent representation. I look forward to there being a new member for Northland in the future because there is more than a little irony in Mr Carter talking about a man on his huge salary getting help from the taxpayer to save. I tell members in the House and people who are listening that Mr Carter is one of those who received and continues to receive huge benefit from the MPs’ superannuation scheme at higher levels than other New Zealanders could ever dream to have. He voted to get rid of it for every other MP in 1991 while keeping it for himself. So I do find it just a little ironic that he raised that with the tears dripping down his face as he was saying it. Yeah right! 
 I congratulate Dr Cullen on his eighth Budget. All eight Budgets have been Budgets for the benefit of New Zealand. Many members opposite will never get the opportunity in their entire parliamentary career to present eight Budgets to this country. Dr Cullen will be here next year presenting his ninth Budget and I look forward to his 10th 11th and 12th Budgets in the future. 
Budget 2007 is a Budget for the future. It is not about short-term expediency; it is not about hanging one’s policy after licking one’s finger putting it up in the wind and seeing which way it is blowing which is what we have had from the National Party. Budget 2007 puts some real stakes in the ground on behalf of New Zealanders and their future well-being. How often have we seen that from a Government? We have only ever seen it from a Labour Government. I remind members that the last time we had a compulsory superannuation scheme for this country it had been brought in by the third Labour Government but it was dumped because of the short-term expediency of a National Government led by Robert Muldoon who got rid of the scheme. 
Then we have this day in day out comparison between Australia and New Zealand. Australia brought in compulsory superannuation under a Keating Labor Government and what does it have today? It has over a trillion dollars in a superannuation scheme which enables it to invest its superannuation scheme money into all sorts of projects and investments in our country but we do not have the same ability to do so there. 
So when we look at building a future we have been reliant on a Labour Government to do just that and that is what this Budget does. It puts those stakes in the ground. I believe that it builds on many of our other Budgets that we have seen in this House. I would like to remind members of some of the things it builds on; some of them have been very dear to my heart. 
First of all we see in this Budget—it started on 1 April but is funded in this Budget—the end of the phase-in of tax credits for Working for Families. That has brought a huge amount of benefit to low-income families right through to those families that earn more but have more children. What is the aim of that? It is to benefit families who are bringing up their children and wanting to do the best for them. The Government is saying: “Here is a tax credit to help make that more possible.” Surely that is what a good Government would want to do. 
This Budget also builds on the implementation of the primary health care strategy. I was privileged to be the Minister of Health in New Zealand for 6 years. One of the things dear to our heart as a Government and made possible with the support of our supply and confidence partners over the years has been the implementation of affordable primary health care for New Zealanders. We had set out a 4-year agenda to bring back to the people of New Zealand subsidised primary health care. We always believed that it was very strange that people had to pay top dollar to get to their doctor when they were trying to keep themselves well but they got a free hospital service. So although we want people to have free hospital services why would we not invest in keeping people out of hospital? I say to Mr Ryall who shows a terrible lack of understanding of anything to do with health that one of the reasons we can end up having fewer people requiring operations or first specialist assessment is that we have early intervention in primary health care. He should ask the parents who can get their children into the doctor at a very affordable cost or at no cost and prevent things happening to their children that could mean they end up being hospitalised at a later date. Over 4 years we have brought in affordable primary health care to reduce the fees for going to our primary health providers—not just doctors but also nurses and others who work within the primary health organisation concept. 
We have also reduced the cost of prescriptions for all New Zealanders and this Budget was the final part of that implementation. The last people for whom that is to be implemented are our healthiest—our 24-year-olds to 45-year-olds. They are now covered. So from our newborns right through to our elderly we now have subsidised primary health care once again available to New Zealanders. I ask members opposite as they may well have forgotten who took away subsidised primary health care from the people of New Zealand. It was a National Government in the 1990s. We had always had subsidised primary health care but in 1991 Ruth Richardson’s Budget took it away and brought in the community services card. It has taken from 1991 until 2007 for us to bring back that affordable primary health care and I am particularly proud of that. 
In this Budget we have invested in our crucial infrastructure and I will talk a little more about that in a moment. 
I heard Bill English being interviewed on Television One’s  
Agenda 
 programme last Sunday. He was asked not once but twice what he would have done had he been the Minister of Finance presenting Budget 2007. I would like people to get the transcript and read it because he refused to tell the people of New Zealand a single thing that National would have done. He said: “Well we would have done things differently. We would have done things differently years before this.” He would not give any indication. How can an Opposition be credible when it changes what it says it will do from one day to the next and when there is deep division between its leader and its finance spokesperson about the real agenda for New Zealand? I can tell the National Party members that over the next 18 months we will be drilling into what they say they would do for New Zealanders. We have a pretty good idea that they will say one thing today and something different tomorrow. 
I am proud of this Budget when it comes to transport and I thank the Minister of Finance for his commitment to the transport infrastructure of this country. We have seen the biggest investment in transport in this country’s history with over $13 billion going into our transport system over the next 5 years. We are seeing the electrification of the rail network in Auckland—$1 billion of investment—we are seeing the upgrading of rail in Wellington and we are seeing investment into public transport. Let me just remind people that in 1999 the National Government was investing $18 million into public transport in Auckland. The second figure I want members to hear is $266 million. That sum is forecast to go into public transport in 2006-07 and it does not even include the money we are putting in in this Budget. Members should look at that in terms of investment not only in roads and rail but also in public transport. 
I think it is important that New Zealanders look at where the real commitment to building a strong and vibrant country is. It rests with a Government that is prepared to invest for our future to think about our kids and our grandkids to give away short-term expediency—which we see from the National Party and its history is littered with it—and to say that we want our kids and our grandkids to have a strong future. One does that only by investment in the sort of Budget we see here today.