Robertson Grant: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4551. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 That is it from the Associate Minister of Finance. That is it in terms of a plan to grow the New Zealand economy—this coming from a Minister whose great achievement has been merging a department that had been merged only 18 months earlier into a big mega-ministry for which he came up with the idea of giving away $1000 of something called “thinking putty”. That is what this Minister did. That is what he did. The Ministry of Science and Innovation found its way into the new Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and to help out the staff there Minister Steven Joyce came up with the idea that they should all get some “thinking putty”. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is that like play dough? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: It is. On this side of the House what we would ask the Government to find is some “doing putty” to actually get on with doing the job of trying to improve our economy. 
If this National Government’s election was a novel it would be called  
Great Expectations 
. In 2008 John Key toured the country telling New Zealanders that they would get a brighter future and assuring New Zealanders that they would no longer have to wave goodbye to their loved ones at the airport. Well if the novel was being rewritten today it would be called  
A Tale of Two Cities 
. One of those cities is the city of New Plymouth because that is the number of people who have left to go overseas to Australia in the last 12 months—53873 New Zealanders have left New Zealand and headed to another city perhaps Sydney or somewhere else in Australia. That is the legacy of this Government. John Key proudly stood in Westpac Stadium brandished his arms around and said that we could fill this stadium with the people who have gone to Australia in the last year. Well today he could not fit them in. Today he would have to go to Eden Park because that is the only ground in New Zealand that could fit the number of people who have left New Zealand in the last 12 months under this Government’s watch. What is worse is that 40 percent of those people are aged between 18 and 30. That is our future heading overseas while this Government sits back and thinks that it can rely on a mythical market solution—not pulling the levers that are available to it but simply sitting there trying to put its spin out. 
This Government has let New Zealanders down. The expectations that this Government built up coming into office in 2008 it has consistently failed to meet. The legacy of this Budget and the legacy of this Government so far is twofold: the sale of our future and the growing inequality in our country. That is the legacy that this Government is leaving New Zealand. It is selling our future and it is selling our future on a basis of no economic sense whatsoever. Treasury has told this Government that at least $100 million of value will be lost to the New Zealand economy from the sale of State assets. That is $100 million net loss. There is no economic gain let alone the transfer of wealth that comes from the sale of assets that are owned by all New Zealanders and are now being given away to those who can afford to buy them and to boot the $120 million that is going into the pockets of consultants lawyers and accountants to manage that sale process. 
But the sale process is falling apart. It has been marked by mismanagement by insults by poor calculations and by the shifting sands of what this money is for. To call it a dog’s breakfast is an insult to a bowl of TUX. These people have got no idea what they are doing when it comes to selling these assets or to the damage they do to the economy today the damage they do to the future the dishonour they do to the New Zealanders who have built up these assets over generations and the dishonour they do to future generations—[ 
Interruption 
]—who could be benefiting from these assets Mr Goldsmith. The future is being sold off by this Government. That is it. There is nothing more to the Government’s economic plan. 
A group of New Zealand business people the Pure Advantage group was motivated to come to the Government. Those business people said there is an opportunity for New Zealand to grow an innovative economy that is built off our natural environment that does not see the economy and environment in some kind of battle to the death like this Government does but that actually sees the two together as being the future of sustainable economic growth and a fair society. They were dismissed—arrogantly dismissed—by Steven Joyce who says he is not interested in that kind of approach. He dismisses them as being self-interested. These business people are trying to put up a better way for this economy and on this side of the House the Labour Party says we want to work with those business people because they see the future the same way we do with an economy and an environment working together to build better living standards in New Zealand that also supports the beautiful natural environment that we live in and where we can create—as Sir Paul Callaghan who has so sadly left us said—a place where talent wants to live. This Government is driving talent away from New Zealand every single day and it is a shameful record for the Government. 
So in the end the Government has reduced all the big ideas—New Zealand being a financial services hub the cycleway and the Job Summit where there were more people there than jobs created by it—and in the end it comes back and circles its wagons around the asset sales and digging holes in the ground. It is not a strategy for future sustainable economic growth. 
The other legacy of this Government is the growing inequality in this society—the growing gap between the rich and the poor. What did this Budget do to try to reduce inequality? Absolutely nothing. In fact it increased it. Just look at some of the measures which range from the bizarre to the plain mean. The paper boy tax—what was that about? The big plan in taxation from this Government is to try to take away the minimal tax credit that young people working delivering papers and delivering pamphlets actually get. The Budget is removing—actually abolishing—allowances for postgraduate study. How backward-looking is that from this Government? We want more people undertaking postgraduate study we want more New Zealanders improving their skills and qualifications and the rug is pulled out from under them by this Government taking away their allowances. 
Let us not forget something that has not been talked about enough: prescription charges going up. It may be only a small amount of money to members on the other side of the House but a visit to any pharmacy in New Zealand will show you the number of prescriptions not picked up particularly in low socio-economic areas. And the pharmacists will tell you that that charge makes a difference. That is what this Government did: it put prescription charges up. 
There is nothing around child poverty—no measures. The Minister for Social Development wants to deny child poverty. She wants to say that people come in and out of poverty every day. She does not want to measure it because she does not want to have to face up to the damage that her Government is doing to New Zealand. 
And the unfairness in New Zealand will grow. Yesterday we heard that chief executive officer wages in New Zealand rose by 9.9 percent in the last year—9.9 percent. New Zealanders understand that we are in tough economic times. They have accepted a lot from this Government in terms of belt tightening but when it comes to the chief executive officers they got nearly a 10 percent wage increase compared with 1.6 percent for the average worker. This Government needs to face up to the fact that inequality is getting worse and its legacy as a Government will be the selling off of our future and the loss of New Zealanders’ ideal of an egalitarian society. 
 The Labour Party has a different vision. It is a vision where we grow a sustainable economy and create a fairer society where we actually allow people to achieve their potential no matter where they are from and where we harness that potential and that opportunity and give New Zealanders a reason to stay in this country and grandparents the opportunity to see their grandchildren grow up. That is the vision that the Labour Party has. We want to focus on creating jobs on having the Government play a role in pulling the levers—big and small—that help an economy grow on making sure that we support New Zealand firms but also on addressing the big issues that this Government keeps running away from: getting better monetary policy that supports exporters making sure that we have proper savings to help businesses grow making sure that we address the sustainability of a universal superannuation system and making sure that we have a fair tax system that ensures we have the opportunity in New Zealand to grow. 
The Labour Party has a plan to bring a fairer society. It is built around the creation of a world-class education system bringing the economy and the environment together and ensuring that all children in New Zealand have the best start in life. We can invest in our potential for the future. If we invest in our potential if we create equality that creates the obligations we have to one another in our society a social contract where people know the Government is on their side. That is what the Labour Party will bring to Government. That is what is missing from this Government. This Government is now a tawdry Government with no plan for the future and the Labour Party will hold it to account every single day in this House. But moreover we will bring to the country a plan for a fairer society built off a strong sustainable economy.