Brown Peter: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brown Peter: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13640. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 This debate was broken off into urgency so that the Government could push through the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill. New Zealand First supported that bill principally because we believe there are a number of families in this country that are suffering and need some financial help. However we did not agree with the process. We believe that the bill should have been sent to a select committee where it could have been examined in detail and in all probability it could have been implemented a good deal earlier. But nevertheless we supported the bill although we have reservations about whether the Government has done its homework correctly. 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh Peter! 
PETER BROWN 
: The Government has been known not to do its homework and I think the Holidays Bill was a good example—although it did go to a select committee. 
However some of the concerns we have about this Budget are significant. A principal one revolves around the elderly in this country—the people who fought for this country in the war. Very recently the Prime Minister and a number of other people went across to Monte Cassino to commemorate the battles over there. Subsequently the Prime Minister went to Normandy to commemorate the D-Day battles during the Second World War. Many of the elderly many of those folk who actually fought in the war are now suffering some financial hardship. Many of them are in rest homes and the rest home organisation was recently before the select committee to explain how hard up its members are and how financially pressured the industry is right now. One has to infer that it will have to cut costs. Rest homes have not been reimbursed for the holidays legislation. They have not been reimbursed for the cost of giving employees the extra holidays that the Holidays Act demands—something between 2 percent and 3 percent. The Government has passed the legislation and withholds the funding for the rest home people. 
The elderly in this country will face some significant financial demands on them very shortly. The price of electricity is likely to go up by quite some degree. Motoring a small pleasure is likely to cost a good deal more and that will affect transport costs. On top of that this Government is about to implement legislation that will stop those elderly from being able to have a smoke at an RSA club. That is absolutely disgraceful. 
Another concern we have about this Budget is that it has not identified at all—and I know that my colleague has spoken on this—the need this country has for more police officers. We have approximately 180 police officers per 100000 of population and that is a very low ratio. Ireland I think has a figure in excess of 300 officers per 100000 of population and the difference is that our violent crime is going up— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: It is not. 
PETER BROWN 
: The Minister over there shakes her head. It has gone up 13 or 14 percent since this Government came into office whilst in Ireland it is going down. We are very concerned about policing in this country. Almost daily the police are given an extra task. We heard the Minister of Immigration in answering a question this very afternoon say that the police would take care of the issue. It weighs heavily with New Zealand First that we are not looking after our police force which we demand should look after us. 
We are concerned that there was nothing in this Budget to address and assist the shipping industry. The shipping industry in this country is in dire straits—and that is not a piece of water! The shipping industry in this country is suffering. We have the ridiculous situation that section 198 I think it is of the Maritime Transport Act allows a foreign vessel which can come from anywhere to go to any port in this country to pick up coastal cargo but a New Zealand - operated vessel that is chartered has to get a permit. If a New Zealand company charters a vessel manned by New Zealanders and wants it to go off the beaten track a little bit to pick up cargo it has to get a permit. Sometimes that takes weeks if not months. Yet a foreign operator can come down here and cruise into any port whatsoever. But has the Government done anything about it? Not a brass razoo—nothing. The Government implemented a shipping industry review I think 4 years ago which said that New Zealand shipping needs some assistance. In 4 years it has done nothing. I think it is shameful that the Government has not addressed the problems of the shipping industry. It has not done one thing at all. 
I hope the Government recognises that New Zealand First is a non-aligned political party. Because we are critical of the Government does not mean we will not or will be in coalition with Labour after the next election. I tell the members over there that we will let the voters speak before we make up our minds. 
I heard the other day on the Linda Clark show  
Nine To Noon 
 the new leader of ACT Rodney Hide espousing his view. On the same programme was Dr Brash. Dr Brash and Mr Hide—it has a certain Robert Louis Stevenson ring about it; both profess to be economic whizz-kids so I am expecting them to come up with  
Treasure Island 
! But what do I hear from Mr Hide? That he is no longer the perk-buster! I want him to go out on a high. I want him to address one more perk and I will tell him what it is. I want him to tell this House and the country what it cost those ACT people to fly around the country stay in their accommodation and use their taxi chits; I want him to tell us the cost of that one perk. Then he can go out on a high. I urge Mr Hide to do just that—to tell the country what it cost for the ACT party to appoint its new leader. 
I want to tell the National Party members who say they could not go into coalition with us because of Mr Peters or something else— 
Katherine Rich 
: Who said that? 
PETER BROWN 
: Don Brash made some such comment. I tell him that we will not go into coalition with anybody who wants our troops fighting in Iraq without the appropriate UN resolution. So National members will have to rethink their position. 
However having said that I am quite encouraged by what Don Brash said and I have here the transcript of what he said. He was talking about road funding which is close to my heart: “What we are saying is at this stage we should be funding a part of our capital expenditure on hospitals and schools and prisons and roads.” That is what he said. He must be aware that road funding comes from road-user charges petrol taxes and registration; None of it comes from the tax take that is taken from the general public. That was said in a debate he was having with Linda Clark on the tax rate in this country. So it encourages me despite what Mr Williamson said to think that a National Party Government would refund back to the motorists the excise tax that it robs them of.