Peters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16593. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):There is no better demonstration of how desperate and hopeless the National Party is than in the address of the last speaker David Bennett. First of all David Bennett from Hamilton East of course purchased farm after farm on tax avoidance. That is why he does not like—David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I request that he withdraw and apologise for those comments. I take offence at that.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: On tax avoidance?David Bennett: Yes.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Speaking to the point of order first of all—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you speaking to the point of order?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I want to explain why—David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You cannot speak to the point of order when it is one of those comments.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will determine that.David Bennett: You know it is against the Standing Orders for him to raise a point of order in his speech.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If the member is speaking to the point of order—Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes I am.David Bennett: But it’s against—he can’t.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well the Speaker says I can. The reality is that tax evasion is illegal—David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No tax evasion is illegal—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please sit.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —but taking steps to avoid taxation is not.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am asking you to sit. A point of order has been raised. The manner in which the member used the term is implying that the member is not an honourable member.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I didn’t say that.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I am ruling so the member will—Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No you are not. No you were not. I have no—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. Do not respond to me when I am on my feet. The member will desist from using terms that imply that the member is not an honourable member.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am remembered for taking on the wine-box conspirators. The issue there was not avoidance; it was evasion. I know the difference and far more clearly than you do. I am not going to be ramrodded in this House on the basis of your lack of understanding.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! If the member casts an aspersion on the Speaker like that his speech will be terminated. I have made a ruling. The member is not to imply issues that count against the honourableness of any member of this House. He may continue.David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have taken offence. To the member I say that it does not matter whether it is evasion or avoidance. He needs to withdraw and apologise. That is the nature of the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has taken offence so the member Winston Peters will withdraw and apologise.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No the member will withdraw—Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you now writing the tax laws for this country and saying that tax avoidance is illegal? That is what I am telling you and that is what the wine-box inquiry was all about. Having spent 7 years on it I am entitled to make that assertion.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have got to a situation where the apology has been accepted. The member may continue.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: One of the reasons why Mr Bennett likes the Waikato Expressway is that of course it goes past one of his farms.The Budget Policy Statement is a whitewash. It is a snow job. It fails utterly as a realistic description of New Zealand’s true economic and fiscal position. It has to be asked whether the Budget Policy Statement is designed to inform the public in an objective and disinterested way on economic policy or whether it is just outright Government propaganda. The Budget Policy Statement is very sanguine—indeed complacent—about the economic and fiscal outlook for our country.This is all part and parcel of National’s orchestrated campaign to create a false sense of confidence and well-being about the economy prior to this year’s election. Well New Zealand First is sorry to spoil the make-believe but we prefer facts and they tell another story. First of all after 5 years of a National Government New Zealand’s economic fundamentals are still woeful. The structural weaknesses remain. Despite having the advantage of the best terms of trade in 40 years as mentioned by members of the Opposition ordinary New Zealanders are struggling to find decent jobs. There are almost 150000 unemployed and then there are tens and tens of thousands who simply have not got enough work. Our current account deficit is one of the worst in the OECD with New Zealand’s net international debt a staggering $150 billion.I want every National Party person over on that side of the House to explain to me how they can get up and say things are right when the net debt is a staggering $150 billion. In the Budget Policy Statement itself the current account deficit is predicted to get worse. That statement has the current account deficit getting worse. It is going to grow to—listen to this—6.3 percent of GDP by 2016.Tracey Martin: How much?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: To 6.3 percent of GDP by 2016. All of that is debt building up in this country. Nearly half of all Kiwi workers got no pay increase last year. Ordinary New Zealanders are being hit by rising costs and stagnant incomes. The result is that 70 percent of workers do not even get the average wage—70 percent of the workforce do not even get the average wage. They are being told: “Just trust National. We know what we’re doing.” The result is that homeownership is no longer a prospect for thousands of young Kiwis. In the Budget Policy Statement real wage growth is forecast to average—listen to this—1 percent a year. What is the inflationary growth? Well it is closer to 3 percent than 2 percent. So wage growth is forecast at 1 percent a year and forecast inflation is closer to 3 percent than 2 percent. That is why the Governor of the Reserve Bank is going to slap on an interest rate hike tomorrow morning. That is what he is going to do.We have a Government that is lax on immigration policy. That is having a huge effect on the inflation of house prices in Auckland and the Government will not do a thing about it. There is someone from offshore buying 77 homes in Auckland and the Government does not want to know. That person is an offshore landlord now. The people in New Zealand are now paying this money into a foreign economy.What is significant in this Budget Policy Statement is what it does not say. There is very little attention paid to taking action on tax challenges arising from the rapidly growing digital economy and the threat posed to the tax base. The Government is happy to get all Draconian against Kiwi offenders and overdue student loan scheme repayments but seems content to let the hikes and the likes of Google and Facebook take millions in profit from New Zealand and pay almost no tax at all.On foreign ownership and its consequences there is a deafening silence. It does not want to know. The Government will not go around the Waikato Southland and the West Coast and tell the people that it is selling out the country left right and centre because the Government does not want to know. Only a National Government could be so wilfully blind to the fact that the housing bubble in Auckland is being fed by foreign speculators. Just recently Waste Management has been sold to a wholly owned subsidiary of the Beijing Capital Group for $950 million subject of course to the usual rubber-stamp approval of the Overseas Investment Office.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Is that like Huka Lodge?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: So now Chinese interests will own almost all of New Zealand’s waste collection and landfill businesses—and for the benefit of the member from the North Shore no that is like quisling. That is like treachery in an economic sense. That is what it is like and that is what the people are going to think when they front up at the election in 2014. And I might say what a bumbling stumbling start the National Party has had to this campaign. First of all John Key makes the announcement that the election is going to be on 20 September. In the next breath he demands that New Zealand First says what it is going to do. I thought it was about what National was going to do.Nicky Wagner: Otherwise people don’t know who you’re going for.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh I know you would love to know that but you want to know this. What the member from Christchurch should be listening to apart from ignoring all the people there about the terribly slow rebuild is what New Zealand First is saying about policy. I know those National members are mere cannon fodder. [Interruption] Those members can shout hysterically but they are not going to be here for long. For goodness’ sake by the time I finish my career I will have been here 10 times longer than both of them. That is how short their careers are going to be. Listen and learn. You might learn something.This will be the biggest Chinese acquisition of a local business in New Zealand since Haier electronics took full control of Fisher and Paykel Appliances in 2012—under which Government? Why it was the National Government. Ownership matters. These things are not just interesting little details on the business pages. Along with all the prime agricultural land that continues to be sold to overseas interests it means that New Zealanders are increasingly working to enrich other people in other countries. But the National Government just looks the other way—head stuck firmly in the sand. It will not even keep any accurate data on what is being sold to whom and for how much. Ignorance in National’s world is total bliss.There is very little acknowledgment in the Budget Policy Statement of growing regional disparities and the need to overcome market failure—this is a bit long so I am trying to speed it up and I think I have slowed down. The result is that regional economies are being neglected. The Government would not even find $4 million for the Napier-Gisborne line—not a lousy $4 million—although mind you it is heading towards $45 million for the bungle on Novopay. No doubt about that—$44 million for a bungle. The poor people cannot even get $4 million for the Napier-Gisborne line.On the West Coast—Solid Energy and Bathurst Resources—there is no real Government support whatsoever. The fact is that the Government’s attempts to rebalance the economy have failed miserably.Jacqui Dean: Who wrote this rubbish?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Unlike that member I am able to write my own speeches.Jacqui Dean: Oh really?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Unlike that member I do not have to go to the research unit to be told what to do. Unlike that member I do not just parrot what the financial markets paid into the National Party’s coffers. No. New Zealand First is a party with members who know what they are talking about because they are experienced and they have been through it all before. National in over 5 years has done nothing to address the structural weakness of the economy.But here is the point. Here comes the sale of Genesis Energy. I want to ask those National members over there: does the Government intend to make any structural changes to the State-owned enterprise companies that the Government has in the mixed-ownership programme this year? Does it for example intend to retain the chairperson of Genesis Energy whose only experience as a chair of a listed company was with Mainzeal Property and Construction which went bust? Are those members over there aware of the growing resistance from the market to having Jenny Shipley as chairperson of Genesis Energy? Do they believe that having Jenny Shipley as chairperson will affect the price of Genesis Energy?I picked up an article in the weekend from a guy called Tim Hunter and he said that downtown the market is not too keen on this product. Even more important he said that if she is there it will take some real sweeteners indeed to sell Genesis Energy. How much will this cost the country because of the Government’s cronyism and the appointment of its own when they are not competent to do the job? And Mainzeal is all the evidence I know of that. How much did Mainzeal owe when it went down? Well it owed a staggering figure of $130 million and there is a stack of subcontractors who have lost everything. They have been sent bankrupt by Mainzeal’s collapse. And the person who headed Mainzeal of course was Jenny Shipley. What on earth is she doing heading Genesis when we are trying to sell it?Grant Robertson: She’s busy at the Oravida opening.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well I know of Oravida and she also was a director of China’s second-biggest bank. I mean this is astonishing stuff. If Holyoake and Muldoon and Holland and people like that were alive they would be turning in their nightcaps at what these people are doing. They would be turning in their nightcaps at what this new bunch of novices is doing. For the sake of that member over there who is pointing to her head and I know why—