Adams Amy: Budget Debate 
Adams Amy: Budget Debate 
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AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
 What an honour it is to have the chance to rise to speak in support of the first Budget of what I am sure will be many Budgets of this National-led Government. I start by acknowledging the fine speeches of all of my colleagues from this side of the House in this debate. It has been very interesting to listen to them all and I particularly commend the member for Waitaki Jacqui Dean who gave a brilliant speech to the House. But the greatest accolades have to go to the Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English. Our Minister of Finance has done a remarkable job in very difficult times and the message I am hearing loud and clear from my community and the people of New Zealand is that this Budget is a remarkable piece of work in the times that we are in. It is sensible; it is prudent. It is a Budget that maintains entitlements controls debt controls Government expenditure and does all of that while positioning our economy to grow strongly as conditions improve. I want to take a moment to look at each of those elements of the Budget. 
The first thing I mentioned is that this Budget maintains entitlements at a time of severe uncertainty for the people of New Zealand. I will touch on some of the things this Government has already done in the lead-up to the Budget to provide support reassurance and security for the people of New Zealand. We have had the ReStart package for people who are made redundant during the recession and a voluntary 90-day trial employment period for new workers in order to create the conditions where employers are willing to take the chance to create new jobs. There is a Job Support Scheme to help employers and workers who agree to a 9-day working fortnight and a tax assistance package to make it easier for small businesses to manage their cash flows. And of course our first tranche of tax cuts on 1 April delivered 50 percent of the package that we wanted to deliver. Those are some of the things we have already done in the lead-up to this Budget to provide support and security to the people of New Zealand. 
In this Budget despite all the scaremongering from Labour members and despite all their desperate attempts to scare the people of New Zealand about superannuation we have reassured all New Zealanders that the superannuation entitlement is locked in at the age of 65 and is maintained at 66 percent of the average wage. The members opposite have got very excited and tried to get the media worked up by suggesting that the fact that contributions to the Superannuation Fund are being deferred puts the fund at risk in the future. I tell those members that we are already looking at a deficit of nearly $8 billion this year yet they want us to borrow another $2 billion to invest in the stock market and play the market. The Superannuation Fund has been losing money in the last little while—over the entire period since its inception it has managed returns of only a little over 3 percent which is less than the risk-free rate of return—and the Labour members think it is a fund for which we should be borrowing $2 billion more than we are doing in order to invest in the stock market. For what? This fund would provide 11 per cent of superannuation entitlements after 2030—only 11 percent. 
The best thing that this Government can do to protect superannuation for New Zealanders is to build a strong stable economy. That is what we are doing that is what protects superannuation for New Zealanders and that is why New Zealanders can have faith that this Government is maintaining their superannuation entitlements. 
The Budget also does an amazing job of controlling the spiralling debt projections. The debt projections without these Budget initiatives were absolutely horrifying. The Minister of Finance had to get on top of debt if we were to have any hope of future economic prosperity for this country. That was I think in some sense the No. 1 imperative of this Budget. Labour members demonstrate a clear lack of financial understanding when they suggest that ensuring we were not downgraded was unimportant. If our credit rating had been downgraded we would have put another 1.5 percent to 2 percent on the mortgage rates of every New Zealand family. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: They don’t care. 
AMY ADAMS 
: They do not care about the families; they do not care that families’ mortgage bills would have shot up. If we had not got on top of debt this country would have been spending more on debt servicing than it would on health. That is what the economy under a Labour Government would have done. 
Under the previous Labour Government the projections for debt were looking to exceed 60 percent of GDP. The Labour members on the other side of the House did not care about loading up our future generations with debt up to their eyeballs; they did not care that they would have put the equivalent of a second mortgage on every family in New Zealand. Labour wanted every family of four to carry a debt of $180000 so that it could spend up large. Its attitude was one of never mind the future chuck it on the bill load up future generations with debt and let that debt blow out. But instead our Minister of Finance has now brought the debt projections of over 60 percent of GDP down to a number that will peak at 34 percent of GDP. He has managed to ensure that New Zealand is taken off negative watch and secured our position in the international funding markets which is to anyone who understands the basic principles of economics fundamentally important at this time. 
Another one of the goals that this Budget met was to control the effects of 9 years of ill-disciplined growth in core Crown expenditure. It has often been said that if Labour knows anything it knows how to spend money. We have certainly seen that happen. The previous Labour Government let its spending grow at twice the rate of its income. Which budget adviser would tell people to double their spending at twice the rate of their income? What sort of political party would do that? 
Jacqui Dean 
: Michael Cullen would. 
AMY ADAMS 
: Certainly Michael Cullen would and that is what the previous Labour Government did over 9 years. It let its spending grow at twice the rate of its income. That had to stop. This Budget is the first step along the road towards getting that unsustainable ill-disciplined core Government spending under control. 
The Budget also takes important steps towards positioning our economy for growth. It does that in a number of ways. It creates a lot of jobs. Members opposite do not want the public to hear that but I say this Budget creates a lot of jobs. It creates jobs through the home insulation package. It creates jobs through roading projects. It creates jobs through new capital development in schools. It provides 900 new jobs in the justice sector alone: 600 police 246 probation workers 26 psychologists and 24 front-line managers. Those are real jobs and that does not even touch on the downstream jobs that will be created—jobs like those that we have seen being created in Central Otago through the cycleway. The Budget takes steps towards positioning this economy for growth by insisting on the raising of educational standards and by putting $290 million aside as the first tranche of our $1.5 billion broadband roll-out. We have put an extra $1 billion into the State highway fund over 4 years which means spending of up to a billion dollars a year in the State highway fund. That is significantly more than we would have ever seen under a Labour Government. 
I take a moment to look at some other specific areas that have real meaning to me. The first is youth justice. Certainly when I saw the work done in my electorate in the Burnham Military Camp through the Limited Service Volunteers programme and the Youth Life Skills Cell I became a complete convert to the benefit of military-style training. This Budget will deliver $81.6 million for our Fresh Start initiatives which will make a real difference for young offenders. I salute that spending. 
The primary sector is the last point I want to mention. The primary sector is at the heart of our economy. It is the sector that will pull New Zealand out of the recession. This Budget delivers in real measurable ways to the primary sector through a strong economy through low interest rates through strong infrastructure and through the Primary Growth Partnership putting $190 million into agricultural research and development over 4 years. That is real money and it will make a real difference. We are cutting bureaucracy and raising productivity and by doing that we are enabling the primary sector to take the lead role in taking New Zealand out of this recession and putting us on the road to recovery. With a National Government in place I have every faith that this economy and this country are well on the way to the position that they should be in. Thank you.