Tremain Chris: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTremain Chris: General Debate[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): As we move into the Budget tomorrow I want to rise and congratulate the team at Radio New Zealand. You may ask why I would start my speech with congratulations to Radio New Zealand. Well the reason is that Radio New Zealand appeared before the Commerce Committee last week for its financial review. The chair and chief executive of that august institution reported a significant turn-round in the business. They reported that staff morale was high that the funding was secure for 18 months and that the opportunities for growth were unprecedented. This is after 6 years of no baseline increase.The response from the Opposition members to that improvement in Radio New Zealand was revealing. They were simply incredulous. How could one of their favourite organisations be in better shape after 6 years with no baseline increases? That philosophy that approach to businesses goes to the heart of why that side of the House should never ever take the Treasury benches. Their total philosophy is that the only way we can improve organisations is to spend more—to spend more. That is the only way to get out of a hole. But Radio New Zealand is in good shape. It has transformed from an inefficient bureaucracy to a modern lean business that has a very bright future. That is the same thing that has occurred across the State sector with the policies of this National Government. It is a fantastic way forward and it is a good entry to the Budget.I want to talk about the Budget and I guess the policies because that gives us the opportunity to contrast quite different policies as we get into the next few days. Most particularly I want to focus on Mr Cunliffe’s approach to getting the unemployment rate down. Right now after a recession and significant issues that this Government has faced the unemployment rate has reduced from 7.2 percent down to 6 percent. I predict that over the next few months it will be into the 5 percent range. Unemployment is coming down and it is coming down under the policies of this Government. So let us look. His goal is to bring unemployment down to 4 percent but it is actually an oxymoron—Labour policies and low unemployment. Here are just three policies where we differ quite significantly.The first is capital gains tax. The deputy leader of the Labour Party stood up just before and said that the aim is to take money from the speculative industries and put it into the productive sector of the economy. What Labour forgets to tell you is that it will also tax small-business owners. It does not tell you that in the policy. Actually if you are a small-business owner you have been in the business for 15 years and your business is worth under $200000 then you may be exempted. But guess what! Most businesses that employ lots of people are worth a lot more than $200000 which means they will be subject to a capital gains tax as well. That is totally counter-productive toreducing unemployment. It is a disincentive for businesses to go out and invest. That is a fact.Secondly the other side of the House wants to lift marginal tax rates. It wants to tax the higher-income earners in this country—the rainmakers the people who go out and employ people. It wants to tax them more. We do not. We want to bring taxes down over time. Again it is oxymoronic. Why would someone go out and work their guts out when that side of the House wants to tax them more? It wants to discourage them from going out and employing people.The last policy I want to reflect on as we lead into the Budget is around the differences of our unemployment law. We introduced a wonderful policy—the 90-day grievance-free period—which has promoted much employment in this country. That side of the House wants to axe it. It wants to get rid of it. What is that going to do? It is going to discourage good employers from having a crack at a new employee and encouraging them to come into their business.So just those three policies alone are totally counter-intuitive to Labour’s goal of bringing unemployment down to 4 percent. On this side of the House we back businesses. We are going to have a strong Budget that brings unemployment down. We are going to be back in surplus. It is going to be a fantastic Budget and I am going to be proud to be part of the party that presents it.