Peck Mark: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Peck Mark: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13817] 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 The kindest thing one can say about that speech is—nothing actually. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: It’s over! 
MARK PECK 
: Yes it is over and the member highlighted the reason why: for the National Party it is over. One of the things that amazes me when we listen to Opposition members debating any economic matter in this House is that they try to convince us that what we need is a whole bunch of tax cuts. Despite Lockwood Smith who seems to have a particular bent at the moment for what might be called a base income flat tax idea where people with a low salary would have no tax and everybody else would be taxed—and he is the only one talking that way—the rest of his colleagues are talking about cutting the top personal tax rate and the corporate rate and—to get a coalition—they might even buy Rodney Hide’s idea of the flat tax of 20c. They might just have to do that. It might be the deal they have to make to get a coalition. 
I have only one question for them. They go on about having this tax cut and that tax cut having to do things for low-income families fixing education and health doing something about superannuation getting all the F16s back again having more frigates and doing this that and the next thing—but how will they pay for it? 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: They’re not. 
MARK PECK 
: Of course they are not. So what they will have to do if they go down the Rodney Hide flat tax regime route is close hospitals sell off schools sell off the roads— 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: And ACC. 
MARK PECK 
: —and they will have to get rid of accident compensation. 
I am also aware of one other thing. I have never forgotten Madam—Mr Speaker. I do apologise to the Speaker in the Chair Ross Robertson who is a good member of the Commerce Committee and who reminds me often that he is entitled to supplementary questions. I am reminded of one other thing. The entire time that we go through the drama and destruction that those members opposite say is a result of this very good income-redistribution package that the Government has put together I will never forget that they brought in the “mother of all Budgets”. Their Government slashed benefits and made sure that the very poor simply could not live—that was the effect of it—and at the same time they brought in the Employment Contracts Act from which the wages of workers up and down the country never recovered from the position they were in. I see my mate across the Chamber Peter Brown who was an employer in the shipping industry one of the toughest industries in New Zealand. Yet he understands exactly what it was that that Act did to those on casual and part-time rates. 
It is no accident that that was part of the National Party’s prescription because that prescription was about a low-skill low-wage economy in which we could turn out commodities cheaper than elsewhere. It was not a vision for New Zealand having a future of high-skilled high-quality workers and a growth economy but of having us compete with the lowest-waged economies to get our commodities to market a little cheaper than might have been possible during the 1980s. There was no strategy in that. It was simply about playing to the lowest common denominator. 
It is no wonder the National Party no longer talks about growth. Its members occasionally like to raise the issue of when we are going to get to the top half of the OECD. I heard a report on  
Morning Report 
 only this week that showed that our quarterly growth rate was at 1.7 percent which actually at the present point in time does put us in the top echelon of the OECD. The financial commentators are cautioning along the lines that it will not be as good in the next quarter. In fact I think they are predicting 0.7 percent for the next quarter and that is fair enough. But when we look at the economic growth rates and when we think about how this particular package of economic growth has been able to be put together in the first place we look at it for 2004. In John Carter’s area Northland there was substantial growth of 4.5 percent. In Auckland the Speaker’s own area of the country there was 3.5. percent. In Tony Ryall’s area—God bless his cotton socks—there was 4.5 percent. In Janet Mackey’s and Moana Mackey’s area Gisborne there was 2.4 percent. In Rick Barker’s area Hawke’s Bay there was 4.5 percent. Marian Hobbs’ area Wellington achieved 3.7 percent. Not bad for a bunch of pen-pushers I say to Marian Hobbs. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Excuse me we’ve got creative pen-pushers. 
MARK PECK 
: Absolutely. They are creative pen-pushers. In Nelson-Marlborough Mahara Okeroa’s area there was 4.6 percent. Where are my Canterbury colleagues? They are all around listening to this—Lianne Dalziel Tim Barnett Ruth Dyson et al. Canterbury achieved 4.1 percent. 
Shane Ardern 
: Tell us about Wanganui. 
MARK PECK 
: I am coming to Wanganui. Wanganui is doing very well actually. The member will be quite surprised. In Otago—the area of David Benson-Pope Pete Hodgson and David Parker—the rate was 5.3 percent. When I look at those numbers I see that that is the top figure. That is pretty good for the year’s growth rate to March 2004. 
In Southland my own neck of the woods the growth rate was 3.6 percent. And the Sting won the National Bank cup in netball for the sixth time. There was no North Island team in the final so we had to play Canterbury and beat them for the 13th time. I apologise to my Canterbury colleagues for that. For the West Coast with good old Damien O’Connor the rate was 4.6 percent and for Manawatu-Wanganui I congratulate Jill Pettis because she beat Southland—but not in the netball—with 3.9 percent. Regarding Taranaki I tell Shane Ardern that he has not done a good job because its rate was 2.3 percent. Waikato’s rate was 4.4 percent. 
The picture that that shows and the important thing about it is that from 2000 to 2003 there has been a 15.3 percent increase in our economic activity across our gross domestic product (GDP). In dollar terms the best part of an additional $15 billion has gone into the nation’s income if one likes. That is huge. I say to the National Party that when its members start going on about that huge Budget surplus they should not try to mislead people who run household budgets. 
I know that my mother and father were very good at running the household budget. They had a certain amount of money to use and part of that money went to paying the mortgage. The house was worth a whole bunch of money. If it was shown on a balance sheet it would probably have been worth in those days—I am talking about the late 1960s early 1970s—about $30000 which in today’s money is $300000 to $400000. But there is no way my parents would have gone on a spending spree on the basis of the worth of the house even when they did take the mortgage off and have whatever the capital gain might have been. They would not have gone spending that because they could not have bought the groceries. 
People understand that if the Government is to bring in assistance packages like the one it has brought in for working families then it must be brought in on a basis that is sustainable. That means we pay the bills. It means that we count our assets as part of our net worth but we do not go around kidding ourselves that we can realise all that cash in 5 minutes if it were needed in a hurry. That is where the National Party’s argument falls down and when John Key—who is rapidly crawling over the backs of everybody else to reach the front bench of the National Party—goes on about how he can borrow and hope that raises in me the spectre of one politician who used to dominate this Chamber through the 1970s and 1980s. 
Government Member  
: Heh heh heh! 
MARK PECK 
: My colleague is doing a pretty good job of imitating the chuckle. Rob Muldoon believed in borrow and hope and he also believed that nobody would recognise a deficit if they fell over it. Well not only did we recognise it but we fell over it and we had to deal with it. Now we have debt at historically low levels and dropping at a time when we are able to bring about the most significant redistribution of income back to low and middle income families in 20 years. There have been two redistributions of income to those who are better off and now we are redressing the balance. The National Party does not like that message; its members would much rather talk about marginal tax rates. But let them never forget that the very people they attacked in the “mother of all Budgets” are now starting to get a little bit back. That is good and the bills before the House today ensure that it can be delivered in a timely manner.