Parker David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4162. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The problem for New Zealand is that it is not working. Minister Collins of those 10 targets not one of them was an economic target by which you will be held to account. Five years ago your Government came to power— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It is not the Speaker’s Government. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Five years ago the National Government came to power pledging that it would stop waving goodbye to our loved ones. [ 
Interruption 
] Four years ago. Thank you Maggie. Since then what has happened? Record numbers of New Zealanders are moving to Australia—158000 more New Zealanders have left. In the last year the largest number ever in the history of New Zealand left—53000. The saddest bit of that is that 40 percent of them are between the ages of 18 and 30 years. We are losing 40 percent of a generation of young people who should be having hope and opportunity in New Zealand. Instead they are choosing to put their shoulder to the wheel of the Australian economy. What is it like in the regions? Twelve-hundred people have left from Whangarei and 460 people from Nelson. This is just from 1 year and just to Australia. 
Why is it happening? We heard Mr English say “Oh it’s Greece.” These people are not going to Australia because of Greece’s problems; they are going because of New Zealand’s problems. We have had record terms of trade we have had booming economies in Australia and China—our two largest trading partners—plus booming terms of trade and despite that record numbers of people are leaving because they have no opportunity in New Zealand. Why? Because this Government has no adequate vision for our economy—nothing that will improve job prospects and nothing that will address this housing crisis we have in Auckland of unaffordable housing for young people. 
We have had mining in national parks. Well that did not work. We have had cycleways. Then this year we have had asset sales. The biggest part of the Government’s agenda is asset sales. Changing who owns what already exists does nothing to improve the output of the New Zealand economy. What it does do is increase the Government deficit by $100 million per annum. What it does do is increase residential power prices and the current account deficit. 
Then we had the zero Budget—the zero Budget where the centrepiece was improving educational outcomes by increasing class sizes. Well that went down as it should have. It was another example of ineptitude—ineptitude that we have had in ACC. We have had Dr Nick Smith fall on his sword. We have had Mr John Judge tossed out unceremoniously. Whatever you might think of some of the things he did he was treated shabbily by this Government. We have lost the head of Work and Income who moved back giving 2 days’ notice before heading back from Australia. We have had Mr Key’s chair of the electorate Stephen McElrea in charge of New Zealand On Air influencing programming. 
We have had the tea-tape disgrace where the Prime Minister and John Banks called in the police to use them against the media during an election after their publicity stunt went wrong. Then we have got the same Mr Banks now not even being prosecuted despite the fact that he was the person who asked for the donation he was the person who picked up the envelope and he was the person who was responsible for the declaration that said that he did not know who donations were from. Is that believable? Well that is a jury question. We are never going to know because Mr Banks is not being prosecuted and because the Prime Minister stands behind him and leans on him in order to maintain his wafer-thin parliamentary majority. 
We have got record numbers of New Zealanders going to Australia. We have got the Government putting off the agenda the important economic steps: a neutral investment signal to the economy through a capital gains tax increases to the pool of capital available to improve labour productivity and to grow our exports that we need universal KiwiSaver and a research and development tax credit to direct investment into the innovative productive part of our economy. These are the changes the Government has said it will not move on and yet these are the very changes we need as a country. We need fiscal responsibility moving forward and yet the Government says it is going to ignore the looming superannuation problem despite the fact that within 4 years the Government will be spending more on superannuation than on the whole of the education system. No wonder record numbers of people are leaving to Australia without hope.