Hayes John: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes John: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18140. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): I was in Iain Lees-Galloway’s electorate about 3 weeks ago at a women’s expo and I was astonished that there were no members of the Labour Party there. Hundreds of people came up to the National Party stall at that fair and they made it very clear to me that that member will not be in the next Parliament becauseJono Naylor the Mayor of Palmerston North is going to wipe the floor with him.Iain Lees-Galloway: Hardly.JOHN HAYES: If you are thinking that I am not telling the truth have a look atIPredict because you are at less than 50 percent.I have listened to speech after speech after speech from that side of the House—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought you were going to intervene on your own behalf. To suggest that you might be thinking that the member is not telling the truth is certainly not parliamentary.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is correct but he is not the first contributor to this debate who has made that error. I have been even-handed in admonishing people—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. Do not interject. It is timely to just remind people again about pronouns and not bringing the Speaker into it.JOHN HAYES: Mr Deputy Speaker I was not bringing you into this debate at all. Speaker after speaker after speaker tonight has raised the issue of house prices. I will bestraightforward. The record is very clear. In 9 years of a Labour Government house prices went up 96 percent—96 percent. In 6 years of a National Government they have gone up only 28 percent.Then we had Mr Faafoi who could not get past Walt Disney referring to amickey mouse Budget because he does not understand the whole Budget process. And we have just listened to a man talking more about his electorate but that will be the last Budget speech he ever gives because he will not be in the next Parliament as the electorate member for Palmerston North.Budgeting is very little different from running a household bank account. It is very simple. Money comes in from everybody’s pocket which is called taxes; money goes out which is expenditure. If there is a gap there is only one thing to do: constrain the expenditure increase the income or borrow. At least if you borrow you can transfer costs over to future generations. This Budget I am very pleased to say—and for the first time in the 9 years I have been in this Parliament—is predicting a surplus of about $370 million. That means that more money will come into the Government’s coffers than goes out. It means that for the first time in 9 years and with future larger surpluses the Government is going to get an opportunity to repay debt or to engage in some extra spending but not as much as the Labour Party or the Green members would. We do not want to push interest rates up because of the impact that that would have on people’s home mortgages. We are conscious of that.Last week’s Budget demonstrates that New Zealand is heading in the right direction. The economy is growing and creating new jobs. Average wages are rising faster than inflation. Budget forecasts predict New Zealand growth of 4 percent next year the creation of around 170000 new jobs and a $7600 increase in the real average wage over the next 4 years. This Budget provides for $1 billion of new spending. That is based on a judgment call on the amount the Government thinks it can spend without putting pressure on interest rates. Half of this money will be used as a comprehensive $500 million package to help families and for the first time spending on health exceeds $15 billion a year. Spending on early childhood and primary and secondary education will reach $10 billion with an additional $3 billion on tertiary education. Each of these commitments will help New Zealanders in practical ways in times of need and in support of a growing economy.We are in an enviable position compared with many other countries. Just look at the Australian Budget in contrast which was announced the day before our one. New Zealanders have shown considerable resilience since the domestic recession that Labour left us with which was followed by the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes. Responsible management will see Government debt reduce to 20 percent of GDP by 2019-20 when full contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund can resume.All of us have faced some tough years but moving about my electorate in the Wairarapa I keep meeting optimistic people. They are in a buoyant mood now that things are looking up. That is not to say that some people in the electorate do not have other views. For example a couple of ideas have been advanced locally by the Child Poverty Action Group. One was that a child’s first birth certificate should be provided free of charge. Currently it is $26 per birth certificate for the 60000-plus children—and Mr Mallard I know that it has sought your advice on this issue—born each year in our country. But what people do not sort out is that OK if we give people free birth certificates when they are born there is a cost and the cost is about $1.8 million a year. To recover that money what is going to be cut to allow that to happen?On a larger scale I was interested in the comments of Wren Green Chair of the Council for International Development who on the one hand while on the radio lastweek praised the Government for increasing our aid programme by $200 million over the next 3 years to $600 million a year or north of that but then said: “Oh but the programme needs to be increased to $1 billion a year. We must get to 0.7 percent of gross national income.” This is a typical example of people demanding particular outcomes but never saying what expenditure should be cut just like the Opposition. Which taxes should be increased? The Opposition is quite straightforward about that. It wants to bring in a capital gains tax.Money could also be raised by borrowing to meet the cost of an alternative policy. But the Government has to make these decisions and it has to operate in the real world for the collective benefit of the whole community. That is what the election in September is about. It is about choosing representatives who are engaged with the community and who understand the balance of where community advantage is. In our case we are pushing health education security and public welfare very hard because it is really important that the community is driven by those things. We know as a Government engaged with the community that those are the areas that the community wants the Government to be providing services in. I would say to voters in the next election that that means that they must find candidates who are engaged with the community not like the list members of Parliament across the Chamber and those members of Parliament on that side of the House who will not even go on the list. We need to find people in our electorates who are engaged with the community to come into this Parliament to reflect the community view.Tracey Martin: Like Hekia Parata Steven Joyce Alfred Ngaro Melissa Lee Bakshi—those list members?JOHN HAYES: While I am on that subject—and there is a lot of twittering from the tweeter in New Zealand First—it is the party vote that determines who governs this country. That is the most important vote—it is the party vote. Do not waste it on xenophobic parties like New Zealand First which would shut every immigrant out of this country. I am not prepared to stand by and watch this xenophobia from those people and I am very glad I am not a Labour Green or New Zealand First candidate in the next election. Thank you.