Jones Shane: Imprest Supply Debate 
Jones Shane: Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:628;Page:454] 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise and follow the others who have congratulated you Madam Assistant Speaker on this elevation and I rise to support this bill. This bill reflects a great deal of enthusiasm unlike the feeling among the Opposition members who have campaigned on divisiveness tax cuts and stigmatising Maori identity. It is an utter mystery to me as to how within the first week after the election they were only too happy to abandon all those great ideas and cuddle up to the whanaunga in the Maori Party. 
Colin King 
: Why not? They are very nice people. 
SHANE JONES 
: I will pass comment on that. 
One of the great things about this bill is that it enables us to talk about moving forward together. Throughout the recent election campaign my good friend John Carter—and I say to him God speed and get well soon—and I encountered huge numbers of people who want to move together and who do not want a toxic recipe of the races fighting each other or of people being driven together over fear about the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process. 
Nothing more clearly demonstrated that than the response to the cynicism and the opportunism shown by the Leader of the Opposition in his visit to Whangarei where he tried to drive a wedge in heartland New Zealand. Fortunately he was challenged very vigorously by the current member for Te Tai Tokerau and what that showed is that the recipe used by the Opposition failed. A huge number of New Zealanders turned their backs and said that they did not want a country that is possibly going to have a hikoi every month 2 months or 3 months. They said the blend they were looking for was shown by the policies Labour put out and those policies will indeed be hugely supported through the resources being transferred through this bill. 
In addition to that despite the huge rumour-mongering etc. Labour fought a campaign that supports families. We are not into punishing families. We are not into stigmatising or demonising those families who from time to time fall on hard times. The assistance package which will very shortly be extended and come back into this House where with a great deal of enthusiasm we will pass it into law showed that our rhetoric has reality. We are spending real money by extending the family assistance package to those who absolutely need it. 
The Opposition in comparison sought to introduce a policy of tax cuts which would have lead to the destruction of services and the erosion of infrastructure. It came as something of a surprise to hear when I listened to some of the maiden speeches that despite the Leader of the Opposition trotting around and saying how vigorously he was going to cut taxes the new member from Masterton Mr Hayes called for public expenditure to fix a sewerage system. Why on earth he would choose a sewerage treatment system as the item in his speech with which to launch his career one can only ponder. 
There is a deep and an unsolved riddle here. A party cannot promote tax cuts and a recipe that would benefit a tiny minority and at the same time constantly call in urban and rural New Zealand for infrastructure renewal and development. One cannot get rid of dough through tax cuts whilst that money is secretly needed to fund local projects—unless of course one wants to raise more debt. Raising more debt would be a massive leap backwards and perhaps it is a demonstration of how National is going back to claim its pedigree under Muldoon of huge inordinate debt. Members cannot go ahead and preach tax cuts whilst at the same time want to maintain expenditure on a whole variety of pet projects—not the least of which is a sewerage system—unless they access the capital. No doubt that would happen through debt quite apart from the impact it would have on inflation. 
Fortunately the good voters of Aotearoa decided that they did not want that. Firstly the policy would have been fiscally profligate; secondly it would have definitely caused inflation to spiral; and thirdly it was based on an ethos about people that was opportunistic and was driven to demonise the Maori personality. I am fortunate to be able to say that that strategy failed and that it will fail for a long long time. 
In relation to the safety net we are very very proud to continue on with the family assistance package. It builds another strand to the net so that those who want to help themselves have the necessary resources and the necessary revenue on a weekly basis to care for their kids—through attending sport attending school trips and doing the simple things that are often overlooked when we become focused on tax cuts especially for those who are exceedingly well off. 
It might be said that by allocating tax cuts to those who are exceedingly well off others would enjoy the trickle-down effect. Well that concept has a curious expression in the Maori language—it is known as the mimi effect. It is not unlike those who sit at the bottom and receive that which is not very nice and trickles down. That is not what we want. We want a situation where opportunity—not rampant monetarism devoid of any social conscience—is provided and rewarded but where those who are unable at a certain point in time to help themselves can help themselves. Those people are families. There is nothing more important or long-lasting than investing in families because families are producing tomorrow’s workers and tomorrow’s taxpayers. Without a necessary level of fiscal assistance tax cuts would only worsen their situation. 
How else would tax cuts worsen families’ situations? Demographically we are changing. We are going toward a situation where a huge number of the new entrants to the workforce are of either Pacific Island extraction or Maori extraction and unfortunately many of them are not doing particularly well in education. That is why additional resources through the well-honed and highly popular Maori development strategy deeply embraced by the vast majority of Maori Party voters will spur us forward. There is no way that those groups of the very vulnerable and disproportionately unskilled can be assisted when we lay the cupboard bare by handing out the dough racking up debt and overlooking the assistance needed for those who are most in need. 
How important will that need be over the next 15 to 20 years? Let us look at the facts. The facts are being acted out and added to and are becoming a reality not through courtrooms but through bedrooms. We have a situation where the percentage of the population that comprises Maori and Pacific Islanders needs huge investment so that its human capital skills and capacities get to a stage that it can enrich overall society. We cannot do that by slashing. We cannot do that either by racking up unsustainable levels of debt with all the hallmarks of Muldoonism. 
Perhaps I might finish by saying that when our party the Government pursues its ideas and strategies we are deepening people’s knowledge and awareness as to their duties and obligations. That is why we are building on families. Families are premised on obligation and duty and they are an investment for the future. They will not flourish under a situation where essential services are cut. They will not flourish under a situation where resources are cut and where they are cut adrift and left to the dangers of monetarism without conscience.