Peck Mark: Budget Debate 
Peck Mark: Budget Debate 
[Volume:625;Page:20785] 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 Madam Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
] I notice that Simon Power is interjecting before I even start. Let me take the interjection away from him—yes this member is gone. This is my last Budget speech. I will not be making another one—well not in the next little while anyway. 
I recall back in 1999 when we were heading into a general election and it was Budget time. If I am not mistaken it was the Rt Hon William Francis Birch presenting his last Budget and the Opposition benches just could not be kept quiet. There were so many members making comments about shock horror what a terrible Budget it was and what a lack of opportunity it was. But now the Opposition members in the House are as quiet as church mice. 
The test of a good Budget is how it is received on the day. I am sure that Dr Cullen will be delighted if the headlines in tomorrow morning’s papers are “Boring Budget”. I am sure that he will be delighted about that because it is an indication that once again the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Revenue has got it right. He has put together a Budget that will build on the incremental changes that we have had in this nation over the last 6 years. As anybody with a skerrick of economic understanding knows whatever is actually going on in the rebuilding of the economy has its own multiplier. We are starting to see that in terms of the effect on employment and household incomes and we are starting to see the effects of the Working for Families package in the area of the economy where people have been most disadvantaged—the low paid and those on low incomes. 
I was at a meeting this afternoon prior to the Budget and a young woman came up to me and said that she was really quite pleased with the Working for Families package and with how it had affected her life. She has a young child. She wants to spend more time with her young child but she had to work 30 hours per week to get enough income to be able to look after her child and meet her responsibilities. It meant that she was unable to spend the amount of time that she wanted to with her young child. But the Working for Families package means that she can have an additional 6 hours with her child. She works 24 hours per week now. She has reduced her hours. She is being paid more than she was being paid for 30 hours and it has not cost her employer a cent—not one cent. Now there is a return for that particular parent in that she is investing in her own child’s future by being there for her child. There is a return to the nation in that by doing this many of the social problems that we lament in this House from day to day will be assuaged by virtue of the fact that somebody cared enough to look after a little one. 
This is a good Budget. It is an extraordinarily good Budget; it is a Labour Budget. It maintains a strong and credible fiscal stance. The Minister has been very clear indeed about New Zealand’s financial and fiscal position. He has made it extraordinarily clear that there is no wriggle room left after this Budget and that what has been delivered through this Budget and through the surpluses is that those particular cash surpluses become cash deficits next year. So any Government that now wants to talk about maintaining the services that this Government has put into effect cannot do so by bringing in tax cuts. It is up to the National Party to now ask: “What is the National Party going to do in order to give the tax cuts to the rich?” because those members are not talking about doing anything for those on low to middle incomes or about fairness across the range of incomes. Those members are talking about tax relief at the top end. That is what they are talking about and they really do not understand what they are talking about. They like to fudge Australia into the debate and they conveniently forget to tell people that the top rate of marginal tax in Australia is 47c. They conveniently forget to tell people that Australian employers have a payroll tax. Do we have a payroll tax in New Zealand? 
Government Members 
: No. 
MARK PECK 
: No I did not think that we did. Those members conveniently forget to say those things because it does not suit their argument one bit. I want to know whether the Opposition spokesperson on education—and I see that he is here—will cut the 2700 extra teachers in schools. Will he do that? 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Silence. 
MARK PECK 
: There is silence. He knows that he cannot answer because nobody on his side of the House— 
Hon Bill English 
: No we’re going to win your seat. 
MARK PECK 
: I do not think so. What the member does not know is that some of his colleagues have been talking to me about the National Party polling in Invercargill. They should not have told me but I do know that Eric Roy is substantially down the list. I also know how many people turned up when Don Brash went to Invercargill to speak at a secondary school there. There were four. Four people turned up—three were from Southland Girls High School and one from Verdon College. Now no political leader worth his or her salt would have been dumb enough to do that—not one would have been dumb enough to do that. I tell that member that if he had announced even a couple of days before that he was going he would have got five people there. But I am afraid that his own leader could attract only four people. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Which phone box? 
MARK PECK 
: Well 400 chairs were set out in the auditorium so something is not so good in the State of Denmark in the Invercargill branch of the National Party if it can turn out only four people from a captive audience no less. The students were at the school and they did not bother going. Mind you who would bother going to hear Don Brash talk about his corned beef sandwiches? I mean really it is no wonder. I also want to know whether National members would cut the extra 3300 nurses that we have employed. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Silence. 
MARK PECK 
: There is silence again. Mind you there is no health spokesperson on that side of the Chamber. The Opposition spokesperson on health has been sidelined. She now sits behind Bill English waiting for her turn and for Don Brash to lose the election so that she can get back on to the front bench as part of the dream team of Simon Power and—who is that finance spokesperson? 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Rich or Key? 
MARK PECK 
: John Key. Katherine Rich will be there John Key will be there and Simon Power. There is no room for Bill English. Will they cut the 950 extra medical staff? 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Silence again. 
MARK PECK 
: There is silence again. What about the 1250 extra non-clinical support staff? Is National going to cut them? There is silence again. 
This is the point. In 1999 after the National Party Budget Labour members were on that side of the House and we were right into those National members. We were into them in hunks. There is not a peep out of them now. Are they going to cut the 820 extra prison officers? Are they going to cut the 1080 extra police we have employed? And there is more money in the Budget for police today. There is silence again. It is no wonder they are silent—they do not have an agenda. They cannot even sit comfortably with themselves much less put together a policy that this nation would take seriously. 
It all comes home. Craig McNair’s leader Winston Peters is going to be the Prime Minister in any alternative Government that would come from that side of the House. Don Brash is not up to it. In fact he actually wants to go to places that he thinks are better. He probably does want to go to the United States. He would love to go and we will help him. We will make sure that he loses the election and then his better half can take him there and the National Party can get on and restore its own problems. 
I want to say this much in concluding. I have been proud to be part—even so much as it has been from a humble back-bencher’s perspective—of a Government that has seen and can actually bring about the sort of social and economic change that this nation has needed and do it incrementally. Because if it is going to last it has to be sustainable in the out-years and that is the issue. Every programme costs money. It is easy enough to fund programmes in the initial stage but maintaining that funding over time is the challenge. As we see the rebuilding of this nation and the fact that people can now take part in their own communities again in the way that I talked about in relation to that young woman it is a credit to Dr Cullen and it is a credit to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I think it is a great Budget and I support it.