Harawira Hone: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Harawira Hone: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2417. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare. We have heard what National’s Budget will be for the next 12 months. But before we look forward I suggest we take a good look at where we are right now. We have got 160000 unemployed and another 107000 who cannot get enough work. We have got 500000 people earning less than $16 an hour. We have got 200000 kids and their families living in poverty right here in Aotearoa. Because of all that we have also got 52000 Kiwis leaving for Australia every year because the wages are higher there are heaps more jobs and the first $18000 is tax-free. Maori are leaving in their droves because they are getting a chance to show what they can do away from a deeply racist society. I say to them all “Go with our blessings. Flourish and succeed and then come back one day and turn this place on its head”. So that is where we are right now.  
Where is it that this Government is taking us over the next 12 months? What is the nature of the Budget it proposes to help rebuild our nation? Well Bill English calls it a zero Budget and for once I suspect a lot of people agree with him because it is certainly a Budget that offers zero opportunity zero growth zero solutions and zero hope for the thousands of Kiwis who are asking why they bother to stay here. Yes there is a global financial crisis but that does not mean we have to follow the failed austerity policies from the other side of the world. The fact is that we have been conned into thinking that a zero Budget is what we need to get back into the global game to become a player again in the global economy.  
But just what is this zero Budget and what does it mean for ordinary New Zealanders? Well what it means is that if you want money for health you are going to get zero; if you want money for education you will get zero; if you want money for housing you will get zero; if you want money for decent wages you will get zero; and if you want money for old people you will get zero. Of course the Maori Party insists on being an equal coalition partner so it got zero as well. There are zero dollars for kohanga reo zero dollars for kura kaupapa zero dollars for wananga zero dollars for hauora Maori and now the Maori Party can boast that it has also got zero dollars for marae development Maori employment initiatives Maori economic development Matauranga Maori for implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for cultural and intellectual property rights for the right to te reo Maori for Maori broadcasting and for Maori land resource development. All the Maori Party got was a squeak for its flagship programme Whanau Ora. As for Te Puni Kokiri the future is even worse because not only will it lose money but also it will lose many of its programmes and whole bunch of its staff as well.  
You see what this whole zero Budget beat-up is about is making poor people think that they have to give up something just like everyone else when in fact they are the only ones giving something up. The rich are giving up bugger all. In fact with the assistance of this National Government rich people will still be able to play the financial markets and pay no tax; finance companies can still fail knowing that National will bail them out; and company directors can steal hundreds of millions of dollars and keep their knighthoods while poor people steal from a dairy and go to jail. Wealthy private contractors already control much of our health sector. Now they are lining up to take over our education system run our prisons and take over accident compensation as well. Rich people here pay a lower tax rate than in France Australia Germany Ireland Japan the Netherlands the UK and even the USA. The Government is proposing to let big business walk away from wage negotiations while fining workers for daring to strike. Rich people will be the only ones who can afford to buy our State assets. And as we have seen just over the past few days filthy rich people with filthy little minds will still be able to give the unbackable ACT Party unbelievable amounts of money to do unspeakable things to Maori while the Race Relations Commissioner huffs and puffs and does nothing about it. Somehow this whole zero Budget thing seems to zero in on only the poor and the dispossessed.  
So what does Mana think we should be doing? Simple. Ignore the demands to cripple the poor to keep the rich afloat—that was the solution they tried in Europe and the people over there are finally waking up to the fact that it ain’t working. Then redistribute the wealth to ensure that all New Zealanders can become positive contributors to the nation’s economy. Yesterday Bill English called on Mana to support offshore oil drilling if we really support job creation. Mana’s response is that we will not be supporting offshore oil drilling because it is not about job creation; it is about wealth creation for overseas businesses that this Government licenses to rape our seas leave the mess and sail away with 94 percent of the profits. Mana’s response is to say we should tax the rich and free the poor reverse National’s $2 billion of tax cuts to wealthy New Zealanders lift the tax rate for the super-rich from 33 percent to 45 percent establish a proper capital gains tax under which all income regardless of where it comes from is taxed at the personal tax rate replace GST with a financial transaction tax which will put money straight into the hands of the poor reduce speculation on the Kiwi dollar increase our export earnings commit at least 20 percent of tobacco taxes to smoking cessation programmes make the first $27000 a person earns tax-free so that everyone gets a decent start in life and here is a biggie: spend whatever it takes to eliminate acute rheumatic fever.  
At the moment 98 percent of those who get this disease of the super-poor are Maori and Pacific Island children. If it were Pakeha kids suffering I guarantee it would be on the front pages of the nation’s papers today the first item on the news tonight a national scandal tomorrow and by next week legislation would be passed to eliminate the problem. A measly $3 million for throat swabs just because the kids are brown is a bloody disgrace and is an indictment on the racism that underpins the way in which health funds are spent in this country.  
We should help new mums get a start in life by offering them assistance with newborns instead of contraception and helping them with money for their kids to go to school. It is not hard; it is what they do in Australia. We should drop the lie about bigger classes being good for a child’s education. The research does not support it teachers do not buy it parents do not agree with it and I bet no Government Minister is going to let their kids get put into bigger classes. If you are not going to have it for your kids do not impose it on anyone else’s. We should make it easier for kids to go to university by increasing access to student allowances and extend student allowances to cover postgraduate study. We should lift the minimum wage from $13.50 an hour to $20 an hour. We should launch a programme to build 20000 State houses over the next 2 years. This would instantly reduce unemployment and create apprenticeships in building plumbing and electrical work and in painting and cabinetmaking. It would be a huge social and economic investment in the future of our nation. It would create jobs begin to lower our startling levels of homelessness and reduce our problems with the poor and it can all be paid for by people renting their houses.  
We should cancel prescription charge increases because they hurt poor people and old people. Here is an email I got from a constituent just yesterday. It reads like this: “Kia ora ra. My mum is 80 this year worked two jobs most of her working life to feed us when we were kids and still feeds her mokopuna from her garden. She turned her hot-water cylinder off 3 years ago when her partner died to keep the power bill down. My mokopuna went to stay with her one night and said ‘Aw I had to have a cold bucket-bath at Nan’s.’ My mum and her peers are really stressed about the $2 hike in prescriptions. Like most elderly she takes up to 10 pills a day.”  
These are common-sense proposals which a generation ago would have been mainstream policies to help build a decent New Zealand. We cannot go back to the past but we can bring forward the values of previous generations to turn our future round. Tax the rich and free the poor. It might sound like a radical suggestion in this House but it is one that is gathering strength on the streets of this country. Kia ora tatou katoa.