Nash Stuart: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9543. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): First of all I want to start on a serious note. I understand that there have been two police officers shot in the Bay of Plenty. I understand that they have not been shot dead but news is still coming in. I hope like hell that they are fine and we send them all our best wishes—there is no doubt about that.One thing I must say is that I love it when Mr Scott paraphrases Marie Antoinette—he said to the poor “Let them eat pie.” Mr Scott that comment cost Marie Antoinette her head—be careful. And I must admit David Seymour is always great for a laugh is he not? He comes in here and he is even dressed in character. He has got that woollen knit tie on and the pink shirt. He says “Sell the superannuation. Sell this. Do that. Do this.” and he wonders why there is only one MP from ACT and it is not even polling above 1 percent. Well just look at the Hansard and you will find out why.I am here to speak about the Budget Policy Statement. What this does is set out the Government’s broad plans and goals and fiscal strategy. First of all I would like to say let us see how this is going to play out between 2015 and 2017 according to the Government’s numbers. First of all real GDP drops by around a quarter—this is between 2015 and 2017. Second Consumers Price Index inflation increases from 0.3 percent to 2.1 percent. Third employment growth is down by about 50 percent. Fourth the unemployment rate increases to 6.1 percent. Fifth wage growth drops to 1.8 percent. Sixth the current account percent of GDP goes from 0.35 percent to negative 6 percent.Are those the figures of a Government with a plan with an aspiration and with a vision? Absolutely not at all and these are the Government’s figures. You know I actually do not know what this Government stands for any more. I just have no idea what it stands for because it seems that what it is doing is leading this country down the garden path when there is such a much more attractive viable 21st century option. There is an alternative. I have heard from every single National speaker that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the way forward. Those members are putting all the eggs in the TPP basket. That is their only plan for the future—the TPP. I wonder who they would be voting for—Trump or Clinton?When we read that the Government’s focus is on improving public sector productivity—which is one of the pillars that Mr Scott did not talk about—this is its philosophy of “Let’s do more for less”. Well what are the outcomes? Let us have a look at one of my portfolios the portfolio of police. Where are we at the moment? We have these really hard-working police officers on the front line of whom 86 percent—86 percent—believe that the front-line cops are under-resourced. We have burglaries at record highs. We have resolution rates below 10 percent. Is that more for less? Not at all. That is no way to run a law and order system.We also have police budget underspend. In Auckland alone in the three districts that make up the Greater Auckland region where burglary resolution rates are below 7 percent we find in fact that the police have underspent their budget by $14 million. There is a difference between fiscal prudence and mismanagement and at this point in time when we are saying that 93 percent of burglaries in this country go unsolved I would have thought that more money and more resources would be put into resolution because this is what our public wants to see. Doing more with less is not working in the police force. Do you know what? The Commissioner of Police says he has enough money to fight crime and solve crime. Well 86 percent of his staff disagree with him. I think that what he perhaps needs to do is sit down and look at those results and figure out what is going on.Let us have a look at another one of my portfolios: forestry. The main difference between Labour and National is that National believes that you just stand back and you let the market take control because the market knows best and the market will deliver optimal outcomes whereas Labour believes that where we see behaviour that is not in the best interests of New Zealand society and our communities the Government has a role to play there. Forestry is a classic case.I have four examples of cases where New Zealand sawmills cannot get the logs they want and we are talking about sawmills that employ a whole lot of people in areas that are usually deprived. We are talking about Northland here and we are talking about the East Coast and these foreign log buyers are coming in and they are not providing our sawmillers with logs at export equivalent log prices. Our sawmillers are not asking for anything else. They are not asking for any sort of deal. All they are asking for is a fair go. They will pay the export equivalent log price but they cannot get it. That is not right.Let us have a look at something else—Government debt. You know when that Government took over the books—when Mr English became the Minister of Finance—it had a gross debt of $31 billion in 2008. It is now $86 billion.Peeni Henare: How much?STUART NASH: It is $86 billion. The net debt was down to $10 billion. It sounds a lot—but in the scheme of things $10 billion is what net debt was down to. It is now $62 billion. That is a substantial amount of money. What tends to get forgotten about in this is that that $62 billion has to be serviced. That is a significant amount of taxpayer money that is going to overseas institutions to service that substantial debt—and it is expected to get a lot worse.Let us have a look at another measure. We hear Government members say they are aspirational for New Zealand. They are going to grow—what was it Mr Scott? They are going to grow the pie. Well let us have a look at a measure that I think determines how well we are doing—exports as a percentage of GDP. In 2008 it was 32 percent. Now it is 28.4 percent—28.4 as a percentage of GDP. As we a trading nation the Government should be incredibly concerned about that. As a person who was involved in trade for a number of years I look at these figures and think “Goodness me!”. We have a whole lot of New Zealand companies here that should be doing a whole lot better but the Government has not put in a regulatory or a legislative environment that has allowed that to happen.There are three members sitting over there at the moment who were on the Finance and Expenditure Committee when we talked about research and development help for our companies. They all know—because they are businessmen; they are shrewd guys—that it was not the package needed by our small to medium sized businesses in order to really drive growth to scale up and go international which is what we need in this country. There is no doubt about that.Labour believes in governing for those who work hard. We believe in giving all Kiwis a fair go. We believe in First World early childhood education. This Government gutted what was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading early childhood education systems. We believe in providing education all the way through. This Government cut night classes and it gave the most pathetic excuses but every single reason that people undertook a night class was the right reason. We will reinstall them because we understand that community is at the heart of every single country. If you had wandered around my electorate you would have seen that Napier Boys’ High Tamatea High School Taradale High School and Napier Girls High were hives of activity after dark. Now the lights are out.Chris Bishop: Back subsidised crochet classes.STUART NASH: It does not matter Mr Bishop. If someone wanted to go to a night class and learn crochet then they could gather with 12 15 20 other people and learn crochet because you know what it was not necessarily about the crochet; it was about people interacting with those in their community. It is about community. It was about these people who do not have many other interests gathering for 1 or 2 hours a week—that is all—with those of a like mind. It is about building communities. What that Government did was to destroy the communities.There is no vision with this Government there is no plan and it has lacked aspiration. It seems yet again that in 2017 it will take a Labour Government to restore the settings and restore and build communities as it did in 1935 1957 1972 1984 and 1999. Anyone who knows their political history will know that after a National Government it takes a Labour Government to come in and restore the settings and rebuild the Kiwi Dream.