Fenton Darien: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10443. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): Talofa lava. I want to thank the previous speaker David Bennett for the comedy routine that we have just had just before the dinner break. I think it will send us all off in good humour. It does seem to be my problem that I end up following that member quite often although it does provide one with quite a lot of good material including the phrase “going forward” which I counted six times during that speech. I would like to ask the member whether he truly believes he is going forward because I think that is probably not the case.David Bennett: Mr Speaker—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a point of order?David Bennett: No. I have been asked a question; I would like to respond to it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no.DARIEN FENTON: This Budget is definitely not going forward; it is definitely a going-backwards and looking-backwards Budget. I want to say in the 1 minute or the few seconds I have left before the dinner break how disappointing it is after 5 years—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DARIEN FENTON: As I was saying before the break when I had 1 minute to speak this Budget is extremely disappointing. It is disappointing. After 5 years of a National Government—5 years—and the fifth Budget of this Government the only word you can use to describe it is “disappointing”.The Government is propping up its mates at Skycity and in the big end of town. It has not lifted a finger in this Budget to help grow real sustainable well-paid decent jobs. There is nothing in this Budget for those affected by the entrenched two-speed economy we have been debating today. There is nothing in this Budget for the tens of thousands of out-of-work New Zealanders. There is nothing in this Budget to give hope or support to hollowed-out regions and unaffordable cities. Our young people are out of work in large numbers and have been consigned to youth wages and they are expected under this Government to be grateful to be paid a pittance.After five Budgets of this Government incomes and wealth are ever more concentrated in the hands of a few. Chief executive officers these days are paid sickeningly huge salaries that are on average 35 times the size of a median Kiwi wage. There is something wrong with that. Today the top 20 percent of the population earns five times as much as the bottom 20 percent and yet two in five seriously deprived children have working parents on inadequate incomes. So this is not just about people out of work; it is about people who are working who are not earning a decent living.Even this Government has finally admitted that child poverty is a problem. It has started to talk about it today and about dealing with some of the symptoms. But what was interesting was when John Key admitted that the food in schools programme would be here to stay meaning that he expects that the high levels of child poverty that we have today are going to become a permanent feature of New Zealand society at least under the National Government.Inequality in New Zealand has worsened. That started with National’s tax cuts for the rich in its very first Budget. It had the cheek after holding a Job Summit—remember the Job Summit; it went nowhere—in its first Budget to give 40 percent of its income tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners. The ongoing refusal of National to address the gaping hole in our tax structures—the lack of a capital gains tax—is just making it worse.Hard-working New Zealanders who are struggling who are doing their best to find work to upskill will be disappointed in this fifth Budget of the National Government. There is nothing in this Budget for families who have to work two jobs and still cannot make ends meet. There is nothing in this Budget for out-of-work New Zealanders who are desperate to get a job. And it breaks promises—again. At the last election John Key promised New Zealanders that his Building a Brighter Future plan would create 170000 new jobs over 4 years. That sounded great. That sounded great but National promises and promises and in fact it makes the same promise over and over again.The first time we heard it was in Budget 2010—3 years ago. What John Key promised then was more than 170000 jobs from 2010 to 2014. Promise No. 2 in Budget 2011 was that 170000 new jobs would be created from 2010 to 2015—extending it to 5 years. Promise No. 3 in 2011 was the National Party election manifesto or election material. The National Party went out and did it again—170000 new jobs over the next 4 years. That has been promised three times but the truth is that all National can promise in this Budget is that unemployment will reduce by a pretty pitiful 15000 jobs over 4 years to 131000 people out of work. I am sure that makes them feel a lot better those people who have not got jobs but it simply is not good enough. It is cold comfort to those 146000 people around the country who are unemployed. That is 41000 more people out of work since National came to power. I call that a disgrace.Sue Moroney: It is a disgrace.DARIEN FENTON: It is a disgrace. It seems that job growth is always just around the corner. But every Budget that we see Treasury has to downgrade its forecasts. It is now predicting that National will fall 61000 jobs short of its promise.Meanwhile the jobs market is not getting any better. In May Fonterra announced 300 job losses. A leaked Air New Zealand document shows that it may cut 150 jobs and it is actually looking to contract out all of its flight attendants at the moment so it can cut wages. The Department of Conservation confirmed the job losses at 72. There are 70 jobs to go at Tait Communications and 50 at Tower Insurance. Solid Energy has 105 added to the ones that it had—another 400 last year—as a result of National’s mismanagement.In Auckland where I come from unemployment actually rose to 7.3 percent in the March quarter. In Northland it is 10 percent. In Wellington it is 6.8 percent. The only thing that is holding up the unemployment figures is the Christchurch rebuild. But it is not creating jobs. The economy under Bill English and John Key is not creating jobs other than those in the Christchurch rebuild. They have no idea about how to get the economy back on track. They are sitting by and watching as people opt out of the labour market. They are giving up—it is just too hard to find a job—or they are going off overseas.Under John Key’s brighter future it is easy to see where the money is going: special deals for Skycity and employment laws for sale to movie moguls. I want to talk about that in particular. That deal was supposed to be for the good of New Zealanders but yesterday we heard that Weta Digital is seeking to bring in 526 foreign workers. That is on top of the 369 workers it was able to employ from offshore last year. That is nearly a thousand jobs. Where is the responsibility—where is the requirement from this Government—on Weta Digital with the taxpayer-funded benefits that that industry is getting to train New Zealanders to do the work? There is not one. Weta Digital will be back next year asking for another 500 workers from overseas. There are some highly skilled jobs but there are many that New Zealanders could do without much training such as crew services accounts and publicity.The Government’s response to all of this is a dreadful Budget. It is to sell the assets and take them out of the hands and ownership of New Zealanders and to help its mates again.The last thing I would like to say is that on the North Shore where I work as a list member I have been asking questions about the number of people who have been approaching Work and Income for support to pay their power and gas bills. The House would be surprised at these numbers. In Maggie Barry’s and Jonathan Coleman’s areas there are something like 487. In the Rodney District where Mark Mitchell works there are 968. That is 1455 people who have applied for help to pay their power bills yet this Government can talk only about selling assets. It has no ideas about how to make life better for New Zealanders. It has no idea about how to get people into work to make life better for them. It is looking after its mates. This is a disgraceful Budget.