Sowry Roger: Budget Debate 
Sowry Roger: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:6001] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
: 
 This is the final day of the Budget debate and in about 2 hours and 11 minutes there will be a confidence vote in this House on the Budget. I want to come particularly to the role that United Future will play in supporting the Government in that confidence vote. But before that I want to say that this Budget did nothing for growth. This Budget really backed up the Prime Minister’s abandonment of growth targets. The Prime Minister wrote a foreword and signed it off for a document that had growth targets in it yet now she cannot even remember writing that foreword. She now denies she signed it. We are told that probably she was not even conscious at the time that the foreword was sent. 
An interesting thing has happened today. Today the US trade ambassador came out with the statement that New Zealand has done some things recently that would make a free-trade agreement hard to carry in the US Congress. What are those things? What can they be? They can be the Prime Minister’s gratuitous remarks about the Iraqi war. They can be the Prime Minister’s remarks about snuggling up to a French-German reaching-into-the-Chinese sort of axis. Those comments and her comments about how different the United States would be if Al Gore were President have cost us New Zealanders the opportunity of a free-trade deal. 
It is interesting that on the day that that story broke the Prime Minister could not be found. The media of this country were trying to track down the Prime Minister who was obviously away from the House on urgent public business for the seventh or eighth day of the 9 days of this session and could not be found. I thought that Helen Clark was by her own spin the most available Prime Minister this country has ever had. She is the same Prime Minister who sprinkled her cellphone number like confetti around the press gallery. Those in the gallery who were chosen could ring her at any time of the day or night and the phone was answered. That is amazingly good access to the Prime Minister—except when she makes a mistake. 
When the issue is probably the most major issue that this nation will face in the next 20 or 30 years—that of not getting a free-trade deal at the same time as the Australians—the Prime Minister is suddenly not available. Then she is nowhere to be found the cellphone does not work her staff do not know where she is and the media cannot find her. That is an appalling situation. That says to the groups in the community to the innovators and to the people working hard at creating jobs and producing goods for this country that the Prime Minister has sold them out and she does not care about that—she is not available and she is probably not conscious. That is probably why the media could not reach her; she was probably not conscious at the time. It is a tragedy for this country that we have a Prime Minister who cares so little. 
It is also a tragedy for this country that in about 2 hours and now 5 minutes the United Future party will give its vote to Labour. Those members will to vote with Labour to keep Labour in Government. This is the same United Future party from which yesterday one MP—I think he is an MP—Mr Larry Baldock issued a statement that the Government is raiding the petrol excise taxes that that must stop and that he is here to stop it. Well I say to Mr Baldock that if he wants to stop that he should not vote with Labour in 2 hours’ time.Let me give this House a prediction. My prediction is that Mr Baldock and the other United Future members will vote with Labour in a couple of hours’ time and his statement will be worthless. That statement has no credibility at all and the public know that. 
Why would the public support the United Future party when they can have the real thing by voting for Labour? That is why the United Future party is in such trouble. I know that behind the scenes United Future members are running around trying to ditch the Christian element and to bring some non-Christian people on to the board. They are trying to juggle things around and to roll out a few members of Parliament. I think that Mr Baldock is one of them. I think the other United Party members have seen through Mr Baldock. They realise just how silly he really is in that he thought he could fool New Zealanders by going out there yesterday and saying it was outrageous what Labour was doing with Vote Transport—but he would still vote for it. 
I say to Larry Baldock that Vote Transport suffered a cut in the Budget. There was a reduction in expenditure for that vote and Mr Baldock obviously does not realise that. But if he had bothered to meet the mayors from the South Island who came up here to Parliament yesterday he would know that. Was it not interesting that all the mayors from the South Island the biggest delegation ever to come at one time to this Parliament to talk about roading issues went and saw the Minister? They were not very happy. I cannot talk about what they said at that meeting but they came and saw us as well. Did they go and see Mr Baldock? No.Were they interested in going and seeing him? No. They do not think that he will have any influence; he will not be here long enough to have any influence on roading policy. 
I say to Larry Baldock that he can redeem himself in a couple of hours if he chooses to vote for what he believes in. He either votes for what he believes in or he votes to keep Labour in power. That is the test. This will be the United Future party’s first Budget vote in favour of Labour. From tomorrow onwards it will be no good for Mr Baldock to go out there and tell the people of New Zealand that he is opposed to something because he will have just voted for the programme in total. He will have voted for the roading cuts including the cuts in subsidies to the Tauranga District Council for the maintenance of its roads. That subsidy has been cut. Does Mr Baldock support cutting that subsidy? He does not move a muscle; he sits silent. 
Well I tell Mr Baldock that I have been in Tauranga. I have met the mayor and the people in Tauranga who are very concerned at that cut in roading. Not one of them expected Mr Baldock to lift a finger about that. I told them that they were wrong. I said he would lift a finger—to support Labour. That is the only finger he will lift. He will not lift a finger for the people of Tauranga to replace the roading money that Tauranga District Council is losing. But he will put out a statement that that is terrible and something must be done about it. He has been putting statements like that out for months. I say to Larry Baldock and the rest of the United Future party that there is a time in this House when members are judged by how their party votes. That time is nigh for the members of United Future. We will see then whether they will vote for growth and new initiatives that can get this country going or whether they will vote with the Labour Government a Government that has just botched up the free-trade agreement. 
We have a Prime Minister who spends less time in this House than any Prime Minister has ever spent in this country’s history. She has been in the House twice in question time in the last 4 weeks. She got caned and kicked around in question time and has not come back. Today no one can find the Prime Minister. Where is she hiding? Why is she hiding from the press gallery today? Why does she not climb out of her hiding place today and answer her cellphone? Why have the cellphone numbers that were spread around like confetti now disappeared? The Prime Minister is hiding because she has botched things up. She has ruined this country’s prospects—[ 
Interruption 
] The Government member before she lays an egg should understand that the voters in Whanganui will not like a Prime Minister who has messed up that free-trade agreement.