Pettis Jill: Budget Debate 
Pettis Jill: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21112] 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am always pleased to follow Sandra Goudie and Judith Collins because all those years of elocution lessons I had show that they were worth every cent my mother paid. 
We have most certainly had some very good debate tonight on this side of the House. We have pointed out the very positive things in this year’s Budget—in fact the very positive things in every Budget that a Labour Government has delivered. 
I want to remind some people of things that happened not so very long ago. Some people might have very short memories but there are others on this side of the House who have very long memories. This will be a bit like radio with pictures because I am going to take members down a short trail of political cartoon history in New Zealand. Many of them are the fabulous cartoons drawn by Garrick Tremain. 
The first one is of people lining up at the food bank. There is not a single item of food on the shelves and the volunteer at the food bank is saying: “Honestly luv we are skint. That there on that shelf is my lunch.” We have forgotten that every small town hamlet and city in this country was full of food banks under the wonderful financial management of the last National Government. 
The next cartoon is a picture of the welfare State. It is a beautiful old building typical of New Zealand architecture but behind it is a bulldozer smashing it down which is precisely what happened under the previous National Government. The welfare State was smashed day by day. 
The other interesting cartoon is like a mirage in the desert with these poor thirsty people crawling towards: “Tax cuts”. The caption underneath is: “I’ve seen that one before mate. When you actually get up to the jolly thing it turns into a polling booth.” That is indicative of what the National Party over there is all about at the moment. 
Hon Member 
: Vacuous. 
JILL PETTIS 
: Vacuous—they look very vacuous tonight. They will say anything to get elected but they will most certainly never deliver what they are saying today. 
The other cartoon that strikes a particular chord with members on this side of the House is the poor old man sitting in front of his doctor’s desk and the doctor is saying: “I’m afraid it’s $50 a night in all hospitals except prison hospitals Mr Blinkhorn. Do you still feel well enough to rob a bank?”. We on this side of the House have not forgotten that Bill Birch was going to bring in hospital charges of $50 a night. 
Then of course there was the poor old sad John Luxton. I actually got on quite well with John Luxton on a collegial basis but he made Genghis Khan look like a raging socialist. John Luxton was Minister of Housing and he could not understand that the law of supply and demand does not work in public housing. National brought in market rents which forced the poorest people in New Zealand from their homes and tragically led to an increase in a whole lot of negative social statistics. So the law of supply and demand did not work under the Tories before and it will not work under the Tories again. 
I want to remind members on the other side of the House of the voodoo economics and the magic tricks that Bill Birch tried to conjure up and use to fool the people of New Zealand. I am talking about lifting the cups on the magician’s table. One says: “Tax cuts sometime.” and one says: “Tax cuts never.” Which one will it be? Already there is division in the National Party ranks at the moment between Mr Key and Mr— 
Hon Members 
: Brash. 
JILL PETTIS 
: —Brash. I actually genuinely forgot his name! I was going to call him Birch. [ 
Interruption 
] Well it is one and the same. There is huge disagreement in the National Party over when these mythical mirage-like tax cuts may ever appear. Mr Brash got all carried away and promised them by Christmas but John Key is a bit realistic. He said: “Nine long years.”