Key John: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — First Reading 
Key John: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13441] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 What an incoherent rant from the Minister of Health. How out of touch she is telling the Hon Richard Prebble that people will not have a few more babies for a few extra bucks. Did she not notice the Australian Budget where it had a baby bonus payment of $1000? Has she not noticed the Italian Budget which pays people $1000? Mark my words it will be a Labour Government one day that will come in here and tell the people of New Zealand that they have to have more kids and that they have to have one for the country. A Labour Government will be paying people $1000 and the Minister of Health will be blushing even more than she is now. 
Did anyone see Michael Cullen on the  
Holmes 
 show tonight? What a disgrace! All that nasty envy was oozing from the Minister of Finance. He tried to convince the people of New Zealand that this was not just an envious sort of hopeless Budget. The House does not have to take my word for it that this is not a good Budget. Members do not have to listen to me even though I know it is a terrible Budget. We will talk about that and the Future Directions package in a moment. 
Let us listen to the people of New Zealand who were asked: “Does the Budget do it for you?” 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What did they say? 
JOHN KEY 
: If the Budget does it for them in the same way as they will vote when the polls are out there will be a difference in this Parliament in 2005. The Labour Party will look like United Future. That is how many seats the Labour Party will get. A total of 1802 people said that it did it for them. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How many? 
JOHN KEY 
: Eighteen hundred and two—that is about 20 percent of all people who bothered to ring up said that the Budget did it for them. A total of 8349 people said that it did not do a thing. Excuse me for being a bit of a mathematician but one in five is exactly the same number of people who will get something out of this Budget. Michael Cullen has degrees from every university across the country. One would think he would be able to add the figures up and work out that when one in five New Zealanders are given something—when he takes $1.5 billion worth of extra taxation from people every year because of all the tax he puts on them and then gives them $220 million back—no one is surprised that one in five think this is a good Budget. 
It is a disgrace. It had so much hype it was embarrassing. Yesterday the  
New Zealand Herald 
 was ashamed of itself. It wrote a story saying that people earning $80000 a year would get something in the Budget. The  
New Zealand Herald 
 was not lying. Those people will get something—but in 2008. If they have four kids they will get $25. Thanks very much! In the interim they will have paid thousands of dollars more. If that is the secret to success in our country I will be glad when the Labour Party looks like United Future because there will be nine members too many. That is the answer. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Gives us those numbers again. 
JOHN KEY 
: The result of the  
Holmes 
 show poll was that 80 percent of the country said that they had had enough of this Government. 
If the Future Directions and Working for Families packages make such a good Budget and will fix welfare in this country can somebody in this House just answer me one question? I only have one question for Mr Maharey. If this Budget is doing so much for families who are on benefits is moving them on from being beneficiaries and is the saviour of our country can he just tell me why Treasury is telling us that beneficiary numbers will rise in New Zealand after this package and that it will cost $4 billion more. That is what Treasury has told us after looking at it. Not only has Treasury slammed the growth rate but it has said that 3.6 percent for the last decade— 
Hon Steve Maharey 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member invited us to answer a question so I thought we should answer that question. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order and the member is not yielding. 
JOHN KEY 
: I see the embarrassment of members on that side of the House. Government members are very quiet over there. The Minister of Health—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to members that behaviour in this House is beginning to slide downwards. It is time for us to look at the standards of conduct we expect in this House. I suggest members look up Speaker’s ruling 56/1 which states that interjections are to be rare reasonable and relevant. Chaos may be the parent of creation but not in here. 
JOHN KEY 
: This is a bizarre Budget if I do say so myself. It is a bizarre package. Over the last 5 years the Hon Dr Michael Cullen has taken money out of the pockets of working New Zealanders so fast one would think he were an octopus. He has had eight hands in there taking money from everywhere. Now under the hype the octopus has said he will give a little bit back to people and that they should be grateful and thank him for it. Quite frankly those one in five people who will get something probably are grateful but it is the other four out of five people who will get nothing. 
Let us just look at the Working for Families package for a moment. The Government is going to encourage New Zealanders to get off benefits by giving them an in-work payment. 
Jill Pettis 
: Has the member sold those ornaments on the mantelpiece yet? 
JOHN KEY 
: No and I do not intend to. Let us look at the in-work payment for just a moment because it is a very interesting point. If it is such a great strategy for getting people into work—and we support in-work payments to encourage people to be active in the workforce—why is it to be applied only to people who have children? What happens to beneficiaries who are on their own—beneficiaries who do not have kids? Why is it not good enough for them? Why do people have to have 3 4 or 5 children? Why is it not good enough for hard-working people? 
Tonight so many New Zealanders have had their hopes dashed by this Government. The hype machine has been working. The Government has been trying to learn from Don Brash and Government members have their backs to the wall. They have 12 months before “situations vacant” becomes a very relevant part of the newspaper. They have 12 months to go. They are on the slippery slide if I do say so myself. 
They are looking at themselves but they cannot work out why it is all not working. It is because four out of five New Zealanders will get nothing out of this Budget and they are genuine New Zealanders. They are young people who have come out of university saying: “I’m going to wait before I have a family because I want to pay off my student loan.” Other New Zealanders are saying: “I want to wait before I have a family so that I can put a deposit on my first house.” They are older New Zealanders who know that New Zealand superannuation is not enough and they are trying to save a little money to pay for their houses. But there is nothing for them in this Budget. There is nothing in this Budget at all. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I remind members on my right that running commentaries are out of order. There will be a few yellow cards going out very shortly. 
JOHN KEY 
: The Government has had months to work on this package but what do we find? One of the five examples from the taskforce is wrong. We looked at it in the lock-up and we said that the numbers were wrong. And if they are wrong in one of the five examples they could be wrong in all of them. [ 
Interruption 
] Perhaps I could tell the member how they were wrong. There was an example of a 16-year-old who for 3 years would stay 16. It is absolutely hilarious. The Government has had months and months to get it right. It has hyped it up and now it has dashed the hopes of New Zealanders. It really is a very very sad day for the Government. 
We on the Opposition side see a Government that has been snatching taxes off people. We see a Government that we thought was going to have the biggest lolly scramble in history and sure enough it did but it could not even get the numbers right. It could not even work out that all New Zealanders deserve a return for their hard work—all those New Zealanders out there who contribute and work hard. 
They listened to Jim Anderton and he has sold them the biggest pup in history. He said: “Give them corporate welfare. We’re giving them welfare in other places so give them corporate welfare.” That is what he told Helen Clark. “They will absolutely love it.” Lo and behold Federated Farmers were the first people off the block and they came out and said they did not want corporate welfare. Exporters up and down the country do not want corporate welfare. They have said they do not want those handouts; they want tax cuts. They want to have a grade equivalent to Australia and genuine legislation that will help them do their business. They do not want Jim Anderton his scissors and his camera and all the rest of it. They do not want that. This Budget is a complete failure.