Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
Mackey Moana: Budget Debate 
[Volume:663;Page:11327] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a little bit difficult to sit here and be lectured on science and research and development funding by National members because National when it first came into Government cut the programmes that the previous Labour Government had put in place and sent us with one swift sign of the pen down to the bottom of the OECD when it came to investment and research and development. In one move New Zealand went straight to the bottom of the OECD. I note that with National’s much-lauded new grants for business Fisher and Paykel Healthcare has said that it will be getting a couple of million dollars out of those grants but that is only half as much as it would have got out of Labour’s research and development tax credits. 
The other important thing about Labour’s research and development tax credits was the fact that small businesses were eligible—small businesses. Under National’s programme small businesses miss out. In fact small businesses get only a paltry few crumbs from that research and development package despite the fact that they are some of our most innovative companies and despite the fact that they are the very ones who cannot afford to invest in research and development so need that extra assistance. But the National Government has said no; it has said that it will cut small businesses out of those grants entirely and they will not be eligible for any of those research and development benefits. 
National members have also gone on about their Primary Growth Partnership which is a ghost of a policy because no money has ever been allocated out of it. There was $700 million sitting in a bank account for Labour’s Fast Forward Fund to fund agricultural and horticultural science. It was sitting there ready to go but National transferred it back into the consolidated account and said sorry to the science community. National was going to put it in a place that so far—as far as we are aware—does not even exist. So I say to National members that they may want to be very careful. 
National has renamed a few of Labour’s policies as its own and “reprioritisation” is the new catchword after National was caught out calling a “cut” a “change”. It now calls a cut a “reprioritisation”. National has brought back some of the policies it cut out of last year’s Budget and it is now trying to claim them as great new brilliant ideas. But—and there is a theme of broken promises in this Budget; this is a Budget of broken promises—where is the money it promised to Crown research institutes? It promised them $350 million so where is it this year? Oh the National members have all gone quiet now. But that is another broken promise in this year’s Budget. 
I come to Jonathan Coleman and I say to that member that the only way Iain Lees-Galloway would lose his seat in Palmerston North would be if Jonathan Coleman became his campaign manager. That is the only way he would lose that seat. Jonathan Coleman spent 8 minutes personally attacking every single member on this side of the House but when one person interjected on something to do with policy he told us not to get personal. The Hon Jonathan Coleman said that Labour was bullying elderly people because we had been sticking up for them while the National Government had been cutting their home help. He said we were bullying them. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Yep—bullying and scaring. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh bullying and scaring them! So we have been bullying those people down in Southland who have had their home care cut by raising that in the House and holding the Minister of Health to account? It says a lot for the National Government that advocacy equals bullying in its view. I say to Jonathan Coleman that we will not stop raising issues about cuts in front-line services—another broken Budget promise. 
Melissa Lee 
: Twist the truth! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Well I challenge that member to go down to Southland and tell those elderly people who have had their home care cut that they are twisting the truth. 
Melissa Lee 
: Scaring the public! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I say to Miss Lee that we do not need to scare the public. We do not need to scare the public because they know that the cuts are there. They are feeling them when they get a phone call from a district health board which they do not realise is an assessment and then get told that their home help will be cut. Thirty dollars a week is not a lot to members on the opposite side of the House—it is not a lot to them—but it is to those elderly people when they get that home help for only 1½ or maybe 2 hours a week. Labour will defend those public services that the National Government seems so intent on cutting. 
I will talk about housing in this Budget. Members might ask why I would talk about housing in this Budget because there is no housing in this Budget and that is true. After this year’s Budget there will be even less housing in New Zealand particularly Housing New Zealand Corporation housing. I want to take members back to the time after the election and to the glorious spectacle that was the Minister of Housing Phil Heatley. He was quite a flamboyant Minister. He would get up he would wave his arm around and he would dance. His colleagues would all cheer and clap as he went on about how much more State housing National would build how much it cared about State house tenants how National members cared more about State house tenants than did Labour members how he was the man for State house tenants and how he was going to fix everything. Well Phil Heatley sat there like a broken man during the Budget statement slinking further and further down into his seat because he knew that this Budget was bad for housing. More than 80 percent of the housing budget from last year has been cut from this year’s Budget. 
Worse than that the Minister went on radio this week and said that if the Housing New Zealand Corporation wants to build more State houses—and I remind members that nearly 11000 families are waiting on Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting lists around the country—it will have to fund that out of existing baseline funding. It will have to make savings elsewhere within its organisation. So basically the word to Housing New Zealand Corporation staff is “Bring a pen from home because the stationery budget is cut and we need to build a few more houses.” What makes it so offensive is that this Minister sat idly by while the Housing New Zealand Corporation paid consultants $600 an hour to develop a business case—just a business case—that cost $11 million. 
What was that business case for? It was for a computer upgrade when a consultancy report that the Housing New Zealand Corporation itself had commissioned had told the corporation that it did not need an upgrade. The corporation’s own report told it that the existing system was fit for purpose. The system was developed so that it could be continually upgraded as things changed; upgrades can be made to the existing Rentel system. The Finance One system was upgraded a couple of years ago so I do not know why the corporation is doing that again. The fact is that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is about to spend $50 million and that is if we believe that that is all it will cost because it first said that the business case would cost $6 million. Then we discovered it would cost $11 million and now some inside information has told us that it will actually cost more than $20 million. 
How does that sit alongside a Budget that has cut money for housing when that Minister of Housing has refused to do anything about that? He has refused to step in to say that the upgrade is a waste of public money; he has refused even to ask any questions about it. Do members know what he has said? He has said that it is a matter for the Housing New Zealand Corporation board. Why do we even have a Minister of Housing if the Housing New Zealand Corporation board is able to throw away money like that—money that should be spent on our most vulnerable families? That money should be spent on building on upgrading and on maintaining State houses. 
Labour did a good job in its 9 years in Government. We had a deficit of 14000 State houses that the previous National Government had sold. We had to build more houses during one of the biggest housing booms we have ever had in this country. It was not easy but we stuck to our promise and we did what we could in that respect. But now we see that there are huge cuts in housing. 
We asked the Minister whether he had had any advice on the impact of the increases in GST inflation and rents coming out of this Budget on the demand for State housing and whether he had even bothered to ask whether the demand for State housing would get worse. No he had not even bothered to ask that. He is not concerned about what that means to the most vulnerable families. 
Infometrics has said that rents will go up by up to 8 percent the Property Investors Federation predicts that rents will go up by up to 6.5 percent—and that is the landlords’ group. We know that 30 percent of New Zealand households pay rent and of that 30 percent a full 50 percent have combined household incomes of under $50000—that is household incomes of under $50000. But these are the people who are getting nothing out of this year’s Budget. What paltry gains they will make in tax cuts they will lose in GST increases in inflation increases and in rent increases—doubly over. Those are the people who will be the most impacted upon. 
I will talk briefly about affordable housing. We have been promised the National Government’s grand Gateway Housing scheme for two Budgets now—two Budgets. Where is it? There is nothing again for affordable housing. There is nothing to address the housing pressures particularly in Auckland. In Manurewa the electorate my colleague George Hawkins comes from one house is being built for every 14 households that are moving to that area. There was nothing in the Budget for them. In fact throwing more GST on to the costs of building a house will not help to alleviate housing pressures in Auckland. This Minister of Housing has no plan for affordable housing. He has no plan for dealing with homelessness around the country and in Auckland. There is absolutely nothing about that. 
We can see that more families will move into that very sad situation as a result of this Budget but the Minister has had nothing to say about that. His press release basically just lauded the fact that he did not lose the Housing Innovation Fund—that he did not lose that particular fund. Then he went on to talk about three policies two of which were Labour Party policies that he adopted when he became a Minister—and we say congratulations; we are happy that he did that—and one that was about letting State house tenants buy their own homes. But in 1 year only 17 people have been able to do that which is why we have said that it is a cruel hoax. Fewer people will be able to do that now with the increases in GST in inflation and in rent; this Budget is incredibly bad for housing.