Jones Shane: Budget Debate 
Jones Shane: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19113] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. First I support a tiny part of what the previous speaker David Carter said—that is the part about Mr John Carter the long-suffering representative of Tai Tokerau or I should say Northland. He has demonstrated in my case that the person to beat him from my side of the House is yet to be born. I say that with a fair level of affection because John Carter has been a very diligent local MP since the 1980s after he replaced Mr Austin in rather controversial circumstances at the time. But things all move on. Unfortunately that is where I part company with the previous speaker. I am disappointed that the Minister of Agriculture could stand and deliver such a pigheaded and arrogant speech. I know he believes that he is the best Minister of Agriculture. He constantly derides Mr Anderton. But Mr Anderton could call a meeting anywhere in this country and more people would show respect to Mr Anderton than to that Minister. 
David Carter demonstrated why he and his colleagues on the basis of this Budget do not deserve to continue to govern after the election. They believe as is evident through his superciliousness they have a born-to-rule manor-derived perpetual right to enjoy power. I accept that some of the metropolitan members of Auckland who have recently declared war on Mayor Brown over his railway proposal—I will come to that in a moment—have a more balanced view than Mr David Parker. This is a man who is about to deliver like Mr Joyce— 
Hon David Carter 
: I agree. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
:—Mr Carter—another subsidy in terms of water reform to a group. It should be made to pay. If the State is to allocate funds to develop water storage and water harvesting the primary beneficiaries of that should be made to pay. In the context of the fisheries industry when changes are made the holders of those property rights pay. Why should the favoured caste of friends of the Minister of Agriculture Mr Carter in the South Island expect to enjoy an open cheque book? 
I accept that Telecom as a consequence of not only this Budget but also Mr Joyce’s meandering will get an open cheque because of an ill-conceived broadband proposal. But if one is to open up water for wholesale exploitation then those whose land values will rise remarkably those whose production will grow significantly ought to be made to pay their fair share. It is not acceptable that those who have the ability to pay and who will enjoy a tax-free capital gain on their land all of a sudden should gain access to a significant amount of the Crown’s largesse in order to create water capacity. 
There was a brilliant opportunity for the Government to put into practice what it preaches about the virtues of private enterprise. There was no commitment to facilitate the use of private enterprise capital which is what should really underline the proposal. There was absolutely no desire to deal with the property rights issue which I can assure members will arise once the Government starts to treat water as a tradable property right with a perpetual character to it. I can see now that iwi will be the first to flee from the very timid and quite hopeless in all honesty water forum which delivered something that was very quickly diluted by the Minister for the Environment anyhow. 
The Minister of Agriculture points to the Budget as being one that provides a platform from which to propel the development of agriculture. On that point it represents—unless he has misled himself or we have misconstrued what he said—a new subsidy for a group of New Zealanders who always will have us believe that they do not like subsidies. I say that if we are to extend water infrastructure into the productive base of New Zealand’s agricultural economy we should make the water users pay for their fair share. I guarantee members that the moment that the Government moves to give a private character to water we will be looking at the next rout of seabed and foreshore politics. It will be a rout for any Maori group that supports that Minister to further privatise water. That is very disappointing yet again at a time when we should be talking about the issues that afflict the daily lives of Kiwis—that is the absence of their savings the cost of living the absence of jobs and no clear distillation of where the new jobs will come from for young Kiwis. They will certainly not come out of this Budget. 
I turn my attention to the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce. A certain acronym is applied to his style of politics but for fear of joining the rather rude company of John Carter I will not elaborate on the acronym. Steven Joyce is a man who has sent hate mail to Auckland. This is a man who has said to those Aucklanders who enjoy between eight and nine million rides on the train each year that he knows better than them. I accept that a degree of confidence and a degree of robustness in politics is what we look for but I think that this Minister has completely overreached. He has sent a very disappointing highly ideological and deeply personal response to Aucklanders. Admittedly it was directed to Mayor Brown. The reason that Steven Joyce does not like Mayor Brown is that although the Government backed the super-city it dislikes the leader of the super-city. The leader of the super-city wishes to follow through on his vision and develop based on a vision for the future an Auckland that can cope with the anticipated geometric rise not only in people but in economic activity and the inevitable arrival of vehicles involving all the challenges of transport. 
Let us just see what the Minister of Transport did. In this Budget the Minister of Transport after providing a gift—and good on them in Wellington—has stuck the ratepayers of Auckland with a $500 million bill. The exact opposite has been done by David Carter. He is seeking to distil a similar amount of money and hand it over as a gift to his friends in the South Island. That will not go unimpeded by members on this side of the House. So Mr Joyce has delivered a $500 million bill. Then he claimed all the credit for the electric trains which were Labour policy. What did he do and say after international experts had been secured by Mayor Brown in the super-city? He said the plan could progress in terms of statutory designations if the people of Auckland paid for it but the plan was one that he found distasteful the plan was not one that fitted his vision of Auckland and the plan would never be funded in the foreseeable future by his Government. 
That is why National’s polling is telling it that Steven Joyce and a number of his other colleagues are burning electoral support in Auckland. They are not burning electoral support because those voters in “Strugglers’ Gully” have given up on them; they gave up on them a long time ago. They are now eating into the core support of those Aucklanders who No. 1 want to have a modern city and a modern transport system that includes rail. They know that the price of gas is going up. They know that more Aucklanders need to use public transport so that they can witness an improvement in the way that goods and services are moved around the city. They want to see a city whose full potential will be realised in the next 30 40 or 50 years. It is a tragedy that this Budget is silent on that matter; and it is conspicuous in that it stings Aucklanders with the new $500 million bill whilst at the same time delivering an unfathomable subsidy to Telecom—the corporate friend of the Government—and to a certain narrow caste of farmers known to Mr David Carter. 
For that reason the Budget in the key area of transport infrastructure which is a lifeline and an economic connector fails. The sooner that more Aucklanders and more New Zealanders realise that this man this transport Minister has a tunnel vision of what he sees as the future the better it will be. But woe betide any politician or any member of the Auckland community who might try to challenge Steven Joyce. That is why his pigheadedness rudeness and superciliousness are a sign of the past and the sooner that he joins it the better it will be.