Dunne Peter: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
Dunne Peter: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
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Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 This Budget was prepared against a backdrop of a most extraordinary set of circumstances. At the time of last year’s Budget the then Minister of Finance warned that existing increases in expenditure— 
Hon Tariana Turia 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would like Ruth Dyson to withdraw and apologise for calling us sell-outs. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Well I have to say to the member that this is a robust place for robust comments. It would be difficult to convince the Chair that calling someone a sell-out crossed the line and was offensive. But if the member feels that she wants a withdrawal and apology she may ask for it. 
Hon Tariana Turia 
: Thank you. I would like her to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you where in any of the Speakers’ precedents about unparliamentary language the word “sell-out” is put forward. You will know that in the last Parliament when Labour was in Government all sorts of extremely unparliamentary language was used regarding the Electoral Finance Bill by the now Leader of the House and others over on that side. Many of those terms were not ruled out by presiding officers; they were allowed. If we are to rule out “sell-out” what is left? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I think the point is that it is not the choice of words but the tone and the intention— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Is this a point of order or not? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I tell members that points of order will be heard in silence. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I have listened to numerous comments from across the House to me about me etc. and I accept that they are just throwaway remarks but in this case a particularly offensive remark was made. Because people exercise their political judgment in a particular way does not mean that they have sold out. “Sold out” in the context that it was said across the House is an exceptionally derogatory term and I do not think that it would hurt for the remark to be withdrawn. I understand what the expression was meant to say—that this was not what the Maori Party had intended to do or something else—but to use a term that was so derisory in the circumstance in which it was delivered is I think offensive. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I would argue that in the history of this Parliament the terms “sold out” or “sell-out” have sometimes been thrown around by members about others within their own political party because their colleagues have chosen to vote in a different way or because they said things before an election then did things differently afterwards. If we are now as the Leader of the House contends going to rule out words based on the tone that somebody has used—and he is a baritone perhaps—then I would argue that that is completely absurd. We had interjections throughout the Budget speeches today where people used similar language with a similar implication. I put it to you Mr Assistant Speaker what is next if “sell-out” or the tone used is ruled out? I cannot find a Standing Order that deals with the tone of one’s voice. I think that would be absurd. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Thank you members. I have heard good contributions on this. I come back to the point that one of the things that this House is about is free speech. People have to be able to say what they will. There are some constraints on it—of course there are. But there has to be a high threshold. This is a robust debating chamber. It is a debating chamber and it is about robust debate. In my opinion the term “sell-out” although it might cause offence to a person does not go beyond the line. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to consider not just the wording in this case. If a member takes offence at a particular term whatever that term might be and asks for the member who said it to stand and apologise is that not the benchmark that is used to assess whether the term is in order? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Well if we were to take it that if a member took offence there would be an automatic requirement that the comment be withdrawn and apologised for then the members of this House would set the tone not the Speaker. It would be entirely up to members; if they said “I take offence at that.” there would be a withdrawal and an apology and gradually piece by piece the standard would be eroded and this House would not be a House of robust debate. This House is a House of robust debate. People do have reputations and they do have feelings and I acknowledge that but this is a debating chamber and I put my point again: it is a robust debating chamber and it is about free speech. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: As I was saying this Budget has been prepared against an extraordinary combination of circumstances: a declining New Zealand economy during 2008 warnings from the then Minister of Finance that the current levels of expenditure increases were unlikely to be sustained in the future and added to that a rapidly declining international situation during 2008. Members will recall the extraordinary week in October last year when on the Sunday—New Zealand time—the Irish Government much to the consternation and surprise of the rest of the world announced that it was going to guarantee bank deposits. By the end of that very week every country of that type was doing likewise. That was how quickly things were moving. We have seen a rapidly increasing debt track in New Zealand and we have seen a rapidly declining revenue profile as the consequences of the international slow-down have started to bite. 
So when it came to putting together this Budget the Government had a number of options. It could have reverted to slash-and-burn policies of the type we saw in the early 1990s. We still live with the social consequences of those cutbacks so that was not an option. It could have adopted the agenda that was being promoted by the ACT members to my right a little earlier on this afternoon but that was clearly not an option. What the Government has taken is essentially I think a prudent middle way. There has been a significant increase in spending—and the Minister of Finance made it clear this afternoon that that spending track will slow over the years ahead—there has been a commitment to reducing long-term debt and the Government has taken the view that some of the things it might like to do today need to be set aside for tomorrow in order to enable it to maintain some of its core commitments. 
I regret as much as anyone else the fact that tax cuts are being deferred but when we do not have the money to pay for those cuts it is irresponsible to continue with them at this time. What that does is to give fresh urgency to the work that is under way to align our corporate tax and trust top rates and to see how the broad based - low rate policy that has been a consistent thread of our tax policy in this country for at least the last 20 years can be enhanced and we can bring it to fruition. That will be one of the big challenges over the next little while. 
Where we stand at the moment in terms of New Zealand is simply this. The international economy may well start to recover later this year or early next year—there are already some incipient signs of a recovery under way—but the New Zealand economy will be on a longer recovery track. The message that needs to be got through to New Zealanders is that this is not just about an international recovery; there will be some benefit to us from that but a long hard road lies ahead in terms of restoring our economy. The challenge that the Government faces is how to balance the need for restoration with the need to retain critical social services. I think this Budget has been a prudent balance of those often competing objectives. 
There are some things in this Budget on which I think the Government could have gone further. For example I welcome the increase in public health expenditure but I think the day is not far off when that level of increase cannot be sustained and we will need to look to much greater private-public partnerships for the delivery of services particularly elective surgery services. One of the things we will need to start to think about in terms of how we encourage that shift is moving in the first instance to a tax rebate for those over the age of 65 who contribute to health insurance programmes so that we encourage them to retain their health insurance programmes and therefore to stay outside the ambit of the public system thus reducing a critical amount of the pressure on it. But that of itself can be only a first step. We need to take the example of our accident compensation scheme and our KiwiSaver scheme much further and to develop a comprehensive national health insurance scheme whereby the premia paid by taxpayers are offset against their marginal tax rate so that the net effect is self-balancing but the competitive power of the insurance fund can be used to drive down prices in both the public and the private sectors deliver greater capacity and ensure that New Zealanders have access to the quality health-care—particularly for surgery—that they require. That is the way that most countries of our type around the world have been forced to go in recent years and I do not think New Zealand at this end of the world will be immune from that challenge in any shape or form. So we need to start now to think about the steps we have to take to get to that point. 
I welcome the commitment contained in the Budget to continue a level of community engagement and I appreciate the work of my colleague sitting to my left Tariana Turia in that regard. The community and voluntary sector in this country is in many senses the lifeblood of social service provision. Often those agencies do a far better job than Government agencies because they bring a much greater level of dedication commitment and expertise to that role and a much closer identification with the communities that they service. The whole purpose of the charitable donations policy that we have been implementing over the last 2 or 3 years has been both to create a greater culture of giving in New Zealand and to recognise a greater role for philanthropy in the provision of those types of services so that we can utilise those skills far more effectively to benefit New Zealanders as a whole and thus free up critical areas of Government spending for the more vulnerable people and situations that often escape the net at the moment in terms of the service that they require. That is the challenge that this Budget seeks to address. I think it is a step along the way but it is a starting step none the less. 
The question that has excited a lot of attention is that of the home insulation fund and I go back to the advice that the Prime Minister referred to in his speech—to the prudent preventive advice that if people’s homes have good heating and good insulation the chances of their health status being improved are very high. The modest per capita investment that this scheme requires is a prudent step in the right direction but I make this point: it is all very well to set up a scheme of that type but its delivery and its implementation will be critical. I am not confident based on constituency cases that I have dealt with that the infrastructure that is there at the moment through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and other agencies is sufficient to ensure that people can actually have insulation fitted as quickly as they require it. I know of people who made bookings in the summertime and are still to have their insulation put in place in time for the winter that is now upon us. That is clearly absurd and if that sort of approach is maintained it will detract from the credibility of this policy. 
A lot has been said over this Budget and previous Budgets about infrastructure investment and this Budget specifies a couple of important strands in that regard building on the work announced recently by the Minister of Transport in terms of the seven roads of national significance. It is important to put some of those things into perspective. Although I do not want to get involved in the Waterview project debate because I am from Wellington not Auckland the reality is that the Waterview project as originally proposed was so expensive that a number of projects close to my heart like the Transmission Gully road for instance could have been funded three times over for the cost of it. The rebalancing that is occurring will serve the needs of the people of Mount Albert effectively but also will free up resources for other areas of New Zealand to get their roading priorities funded by the Crown—because that is an important part of the policy announcement that was made a little while ago—and that is a welcome step and in the interests of all New Zealanders. 
This Budget will excite the usual round of criticism the usual round of people feeling they have not got what they expected from it but in the circumstances of the times—unprecedented according to some commentators since 1930 and far more extensive in their scope since the entire cost of World War II—this Budget is an appropriate response for New Zealand. This Budget helps to set this country forward with confidence. It creates the circumstances for growth but it also sends out some challenges. I say to the Minister of Finance that the next two Budgets will be the critical ones as the consequences of this Budget start to come through the consequences of the international recovery—hopefully it will be under way—start to come through and the big challenges out there in terms of where this economy heads are also on the table. So balancing expectations in 2010 and 2011 will be as critical as managing the process of bringing about the transition that this Budget heralds. It is a useful step forward and it is a good start but as with all of these things much more needs to be done yet.