Ardern Jacinda: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 02 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4177. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):Budgets are not just about the year’s plan and what is going to happen in the next 12 months; they are about vision. They are meant to set out where the Government wants to take the country over the course of a term or if it is indeed being visionary beyond the next political cycle. That is what Budgets are the opportunity to do. I have sat through what feels like more than my fair share of National Party Budgets and I am yet to see any evidence of that visionary kind of statement—the kind of thing that we actually need as a country. We do need it because we are facing challenges that are not challenges on a yearly cycle—they are not even challenges on a term of 3 years; they go well beyond that. This time around I wanted to see a Budget that acknowledged the hard decisions and that acknowledged that doing what is right is not always about doing what is popular. In fact if any Government worth its salt is going to address the issues that are right but that are not necessarily popular it should be doing so in the first Budget after an election year. It should but that is not what we have seen in this Budget.Labour always tried to look ahead. Of course we will always be criticised by members on the opposing side because that is what they do. But we did endeavour ultimately to look ahead. Our policies demonstrated that. Working for Families was essentially about trying to address what we recognised in Government as the inequality that was emerging and that was emerging most for our families and our low-income families. It was a very tightly crafted attempt at redistribution. Working for Families has endured as a mechanism because it has been to date the most successful attempt that a Government has made to achieve that redistribution. That is why National has not got rid of it. We brought interest-free student loans into play because we saw the emerging inequality and growing debt for the next generation and we saw the impact that that was having on them and their ability to own a home to become debt-free and to become contributing citizens. That is what interest-free student loans were all about.We established the New Zealand Superannuation Fund because we could see that we had baby boomers who were moving into retirement that there was growing debt and that we were going to have a spend in the superannuation space that would soon outstrip education—and we were simply not prepared for it. That is what the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—then known as the Cullen fund—was all about. We stopped calling it the Cullen fund when the National Government stopped contributing to it but that is why it was established. And of course that is why KiwiSaver existed. We knew that the universal superannuation scheme that we had was a bare minimum and that if anyone retired without owning a home they might potentially experience poverty in their retirement. That is why we brought in KiwiSaver. And the nine surpluses? Well those were because we could see down in front of us that there was the potential for a global financial crisis and that we would hit on hard times. Dr Cullen prepared New Zealand for that and that is why we ran nine Budget surpluses. I remember all the criticism from the other side of the House for the fact that we did that and for not entering into a lolly scramble with tax breaks at that time.In contrast what have we seen from the National Government? Not one surplus yet. For all its criticism of Labour in Government we are still yet to see one surplus. During our entire time in Government despite the planning that we put in place and all of the thinking ahead about the big challenges that New Zealand was facing the one label that the National Party could come up with was “nanny State”. That was the argument we kept getting—that somehow all the planning we were doing made us a nanny State. If that made us a nanny State then National is in contrast the babysitter who is now absent—the absent babysitter. And not just the absent babysitter; it is the babysitter who nicked the petty cash and left the kids home alone. That is the kind of government we have seen from the National Party. Our nation’s debt is beyond $86 billion and it is debt that we will all carry. Unfortunately as this Budget highlights some will carry that debt more than others. In fact it seems that the very people on whom Labour focused its Budgets because of the inequality that we saw are the very people who will now carry more of that debt under National’s Budgets.Let us start with the next generation. Student debt continues to be an issue but it is not just about dealing with student loans. We now have a National Government that will not even allow students who are for instance in a course of study that requires them to be in university for more than 7 years to be able to access student loans. Medical students cannot afford to complete their degree programmes under a National Government. That is just wrong and we will be paying for that in the future when we do not have enough people in the field who are ready and trained. The next generation is going to be paying for the fact that the kick-start payment for KiwiSaver has been wiped out. In fact under National Budgets we have had eight changes to KiwiSaver since National has been in Government. If there is one thing that I have heard particularly from the business sector and even the banking sector it is that the constant changes to KiwiSaver are undermining the scheme and are becoming genuinely problematic. So I beg the National Government: no more changes to KiwiSaver. We need consistency particularly for the next generation.What else have we done to the next generation? Well if they live in Auckland there is no way that they will be purchasing a house any time soon. We have put multiple ideas to the Government because we simply cannot wait for the next election in order to implement the changes that we need. We have put forward ideas for what we need the Government to do and unfortunately they have still not been adopted and houses continue to earn more than people. The next generation needed this Budget to focus on jobs also. There is almost no mention of any kind of mechanism focused on job creation. Small businesses—the ones that produced 41 percent of our jobs last year—what did they get in this Budget? If I am being generous I might point out that there is some funding that has been put aside for the New Zealand Business Number but that is about it actually. That is it actually. So as much as Craig Foss comes down to this House and trumpets how much his Government cares about small business that is mere rhetoric until the Government does anything meaningful and there was certainly nothing meaningful in this Budget.It is not just about the next generation; it is also about the next generation of children who are living in low-income families currently. We know that children who grow up in poverty bear the effects of that poverty in their adult life even if they get beyond that poverty themselves. Its effects manifest themselves unfortunately in terms of their health outcomes. Yes we on this side of the House welcome absolutely the $25 increase to those families who are living in benefit households but I do want to point out that it was not the first increase in 40 years—far from it. Like the National Government Labour targeted families living on benefits with Working for Families. The family tax credit went to families on benefits. That was the last big increase for beneficiary families with children. You were not in the House Jono Naylor so perhaps you do not realise that.Tim Macindoe: Order—JACINDA ARDERN: He was not elected—not absent Mr Macindoe—so that is why he perhaps was not aware of that fact. So we will be generous to that side. Perhaps the Government might have been able to make that claim if it had made a generic increase to benefits but the National Government has not. The increase is targeted to beneficiary families with children which is what the family tax credit did.If the Government is genuinely focused on raising children out of poverty why are there no numbers on how many families are being lifted out of poverty by this measure? Why are there absolutely no numbers that have been prepared by the Ministry of Social Development or Treasury? I imagine that Jonathan Boston’s quote illustrates perhaps why we have seen no numbers or calculations. He said: “With the exception of beneficiary families who secure income from paid employment for part of any specified period the changes to benefit rates announced in the Budget will not reduce rates of child poverty measured on the basis of family income.” They will not reduce the rates—and why? It is because the gap for those families has become so large that $25 will not do it. The reason I know that is because when we formulated Best Start I did the calculations myself. You need at least something like the Best Start payment which was $60 per child not per family if you genuinely want to make a difference. So I lay down this challenge to the National Party members: if they are serious about changing child poverty amend the bill to make the $25 payment per child. Tell us how many families will be lifted out of poverty and try to do something that is genuine not token. Then I may genuinely believe that you are doing something visionary.