Ngaro Alfred: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18239. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): Kia orana Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a Budget that is back in black. If we were to say that the Budget is red we would know that that is a Budget in debt. We know that the country knows that if it has a Government that is red and green it will have a Budget in debt. I see my colleague Mr Kris Faafoi over there. As I listened to his speech about the Budget I noticed that he used interesting words. He used theatrical words. I do realise that he did train in journalism but I think what he did not tell the House the audience out there and the nation is that he actually got an A+ for creative writing. That is right. He got that for creative writing. So theseare the words that he used. He used the word “disgraceful”. He said these words: “It was disgraceful. It was disgusting. What sort of Budget was this?”.He went even further. He decided to give an example of a chemist from his electorate Mana. He took his beloved leader David Cunliffe—and he needed to do this because it is well known that the community does not know him. That is right. It was on the news. People asked: “Who is David Cunliffe?”. So he is doing his job. He is winning brownie points. He is taking his leader out so that the community will know him. He went out. Then he gave this theatrical story about this chemist and how he saw the prescriptions on the shelf waiting to be picked up. He said: “How disgraceful that that has happened.” With his theatrical skills and his creative writing he told a wonderful story. But when you looked in the eyes of that member you knew that he was not sincere. Why was he not sincere? I will tell you why. If he had read the Budget like everyone reads the Budget he would know that this is what we are doing for health. Free drop-ins for sore throat clinics will expand the target for dealing with rheumatic fever to 90000 children. There is $90 million in the Budget allocated to funding doctors visits for under-13s making them free.That is our voice but how about we take it from the people out there in the community? This has got to hurt because this is a little bit of evidence. There was an interview that was done on 16 May by Martin Johnston that says this: “A child health expert has hailed the policy to extend free GP visits [as] restoring justice for children”—restoring justice for children. That expert was Diana Lennon the Auckland University professor of population health of children and youth. She expects the Government’s $30 million a year policy a surprise announcement in the Budget will lead to better management of skin infections by removing the medical clinic cost barrier faced by many families. That is even the families down in Mana and it is even the families who will pick up a prescription at the chemist that Mr Faafoi talked about.But let us go a bit further. Why? Because those members like to bang the drum about poverty. They like to talk about South Auckland. I am not sure whether Mr Hughes has actually been there. They like to talk about people sleeping in cars. But this is what is also coming. It is from Dr Nikki Turner of the Child Poverty Action Group. This is what she says: “It’s really important for families. It takes the pressure off them about the cost of visiting their GP. It’s important for the people who have to sit at home and wonder whether they should take their sick kids to the doctor or not. It’s got to be part of a bigger picture…”. We know that this Budget is delivering for families and for those in need.I want to say this. There is all this talk about poverty. There is all this talk about the fact of children in need. But I want to say to those members to stop using the people and their circumstances to make them feel good because that is what we are hearing out there. The communities inMāngere—that is South Auckland Mr Hughes OK? In the South Auckland communities that I work with the people who come and knock on my door are faced with two things. It is either choice or circumstance. This Budget and the way that we are working as a Government does this—it is truth and love. In other words here is the truth and here is the reality that we want to face but it is not with callousness or carelessness but instead it is with love. We applaud this Budget. Thank you.