Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19092] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 It is a truism about this Budget that members on both sides will take a different view as to its effectiveness and strategic positioning and its effect on our communities. If we look at this Budget we see that—and it is worth noting as I have noted in other speeches in respect of this Budget—despite the recasting of history the political record Government to Government that this Government inherited was 9 long years of surpluses. 
Government members do not like it when this is pointed out because it is a fact. Every Budget for 9 long years under a Labour administration was in surplus. Those surpluses ranged—I do not have the figures in front of me but I have used them previously in the House; they are in  
Hansard 
 and they go back to 2000—from $500 million - plus in I think 1999 to a peak in the mid to late years of our term of $7 billion. In the final year if my memory is correct there was a surplus of about $5.5 billion. So every year there was a Budget surplus. 
As I said in other contributions to this debate I recall getting attacked by the then Opposition spokesperson on finance Bill English for being a mean-spirited Labour Government that refused to fritter away throw out and dish out the surpluses. It was a good thing that we did not because the rainy day of the global economic meltdown came along. Mr English is again in print and in  
Hansard 
 thanks to his comments of 19 December from memory which have been quoted in this House. He said in essence that the economy he inherited on taking office was in pretty good shape to weather the storm. 
I think it is important as we go through and dissect this Budget—as we are wont to do for the general public—that we set the historical context. There were 9 long years of Budget surpluses as opposed to three hundred-and-something million dollars a week of borrowing and debt. There was today or yesterday an admission by this Government that it is borrowing a hundred million bucks a week more than it needs to. Mum and dad Kiwi do their housekeeping every day. They do their own budget every week as the pay packet shrinking though it is is brought home and as the pile of bills grows and the cost of living increases. They sit around the table and do their own budget and they are scratching their heads and trying to work out why this Government is borrowing a hundred million dollars a week more than it needs. 
The answer is pretty simple. The Government delivered a tax cut that gave my constituent in Kaiapoi—and this was reported in the local paper; she wishes to remain anonymous—$7 a week and gave the millionaires a thousand bucks a week. The journalists were not making it up. The journalists reported this in the  
Northern Outlook  
last week. A couple one working one struggling to look for work on about $40000 a year which is the same as 72 percent of my electorate got a $7 a week tax cut the lady told us. The husband got $7 a week from this glorious benevolent tax cut. The Prime Minister and those millionaires got a thousand bucks a week. 
So Mum and dad Kiwi now in possession of that information understand why this Government by its own admission is borrowing a hundred million bucks a week more than it has to. It is financing a tax cut for those who do not need it to put it bluntly. They love to get it but they do not need it. If one is at the top end one receives a thousand bucks and more a week as opposed to my constituent who got $7 a week. This constituent is not well served by this Budget. I had never seen I have to say a $36-a-month power bill. I thought it was impossible to have one. How could one get a power bill down to $36 a month? This woman and her husband had done it. How did they do it when they have a mortgage they are desperately trying to keep their home and pay that mortgage and they end up with a discretionary income of about $300 a fortnight to live on? 
How did they get the $36 power bill? Well they turn on the hot water cylinder for a couple of hours a day. The lady said that they buy candles they turn off all the lights they go to bed early and they do not turn on the heater. I met this woman with Annette King 2 weeks ago in Kaiapoi which is in my electorate. I asked her: “When was the last time you and your husband had a night out on the town just to get away from it all?” because they are in the belly of the beast that is Kaiapoi the earthquake zone. She said that they did so a couple of months ago. I asked them what a night out for them was. She said it was a jug of beer between her and her husband—that is one jug luxury though it is—once a month down at the workingmen’s club. That is the luxury they impose upon themselves. 
They have a telephone bill that is as low as it can be. I asked her how many times they ate meat a week. She said it was twice if they were lucky as long as sausages were on special. The husband has a decent feed of cereal every morning for breakfast does not have lunch and comes home and carbs it up on the rice or whatever is in the cupboards and has a decent feed at night. So as those Government speakers get up and laud this Budget and say it is wonderful and it sets a course for people all over the country I say to them that I know of a couple with no kids where mum is desperately looking for work and will do anything to add to the money coming into the house. Dad is earning about 40 grand and does all the overtime he can if it exists. They have no kids admittedly so there is no added expenditure there—I accept that—and they end up with about 300 bucks a fortnight to pay for the lot. 
Maybe this woman should be the Minister of Finance because amazingly she manages. God knows how. When Annette King and I looked through her books her power bill her phone bill and her expenses she said to us: “I buy bras from the Salvation Army shop at 50c a pop second-hand and it was a bit rough because they went up to $2 and $3.”—and that is a fact. When one sits with that woman who is a hero she ain’t saying this Budget has done a lot for her. She is scratching her head back home thinking: “Why is it that those earning the most get the most?”. 
The Government feels so benevolent and puffs itself up saying: “Well she got a $7 a week tax cut.” which immediately got eaten up by the GST rise that the Government imposed—the increase that John Key said he never would impose—and all the other charges like petrol etc etc. I can say that the woman is a decent person. I do not actually know what her politics are to be honest. I did not ask and was not told—and one should not ask. But I say this: she and her husband know that they get absolutely squat out of this Budget. They are going backwards and they are a productive couple with a mortgage who are trying to make it. They are an average Kiwi couple—72 percent of people in my electorate earn $40000 or less—and they get $7 a week tax cut. 
Jo Goodhew 
: We have the lowest mortgage interest rates in 40 years thanks to this Government. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh the lowest mortgage interest rates in 40 years! I will return to that constituent in Kaiapoi and say: “You should feel lucky because you’re getting seven bucks a week in a tax cut! You’re 50 or 60 bucks worse off and you can’t afford to have more than two meals a day but you should feel grateful to that member for the lowest mortgage interest rates in 40 years.” That shows how out of touch that member is. I invite that member if she is so staunch about this Budget to answer this question. Will she come with me and explain how benevolent the Government is? If the constituent will agree I will take that member to Kaiapoi and she can sit across the kitchen table as Annette King and I did and she can tell that woman how grateful she should be to the member and her Government. Will she accept? [ 
Interruption 
] Oh no she will not accept. She will sit there of course and interject but she will not front up. 
I will do it for her. I will revisit that woman and her husband and say they should be grateful. I will tell that couple they should be grateful to the member opposite because they have low interest rates and they should be grateful because they get a miserly $7 a week whereas the Prime Minister gets a thousand. They should be grateful to the member. I invite her if she really wants to put her money where her mouth is to join me get out of this Chamber whip down to Kaiapoi and front up. But no she will not. 
I say to those members opposite that they should look at the real world. They should go out and talk to some constituents and talk to this couple who are a battling Kiwi family and ask them whether they should feel grateful to this Government for its benevolence. I say they will not feel grateful and that woman and her husband are heroes. That is one very practical reason why we oppose this Budget.