Macindoe Tim: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Macindoe Tim: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19550] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I begin by paying a compliment to my good friend and colleague Michael Woodhouse the next member for Dunedin North for his scholarly but well-grounded discourse. I also compliment my great friend the member for Whanganui Chester Borrows for his intelligent compassionate analysis of this Government’s practical and effective measures to help young New Zealanders and especially young New Zealanders who are at risk of going well and truly off the rails and having a life of no hope and no worthwhile future. Mr Borrows gave us a very clear indication of what this Government is doing and of this Prime Minister’s determination to assist those young people ably supported by the Minister for Social Development and Employment and all members on this side of the House. It is a very comprehensive effective programme. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: What? 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Ms Chadwick asked me: “What?”. I am delighted she has done that. I am happy to tell her again. Members on the other side of the House are incredibly slow learners. They think that if they keep saying often enough that the Government has no plan a few people will start to believe it yet I have lost count of the number of times they have been told what the plan is. In fact those members were told what the plan was in the election campaign in 2008 because we campaigned on it. There are no surprises. We said what we needed to do and what we would do. Since 2008 we have been getting on and doing it and we continue to do it. We are rolling out new initiatives and it is a very effective working plan— 
Clare Curran 
: No it’s not. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: It is very effective. Ms Curran’s party left this nation in dire straits and in 2½ years—despite the most challenging conditions and some of the most appalling natural disasters which were well out of our control—we have turned things round. The future is now looking better for this country than it has for a long time. Labour members really do not like acknowledging it but they squandered the best decade in my lifetime—in my lifetime—of economic conditions and opportunities. They bequeathed to us a decade of deficits—a decade of deficits—at the end of the best economic conditions we have had.  
We have heard this afternoon some very good speeches on this side of the House. How do the Opposition members reply? They chant: “Where’s the plan? Where are the jobs?” even though they have been told many many times. The previous speaker Phil Twyford was the best they have been able to put up so far. At least at the outset he acknowledged what a fine speech Mr Borrows had delivered and he acknowledged the fact that Mr Borrows had focused on some really important things that matter to New Zealand. But sadly Mr Twyford then took us on his “Twyford’s Tour of Te Tai Tokerau via Te Atatu” where clearly he was royally entertained by the incomparable Tau Henare. I am glad he enjoyed that because the rest of the tour obviously was not up to much. The best he could do was deliver a few leaflets and realise that the future is not very great for him in Te Atatu. But he demonstrated as did the speakers before him the complete lack of detail in the Labour members’ contributions and the fact that they rely solely on their catalogue of claptrap and clichés. That is all it has been.  
I tell Ms Curran Ms Chadwick and Mr Twyford that I thought this year’s Budget was an outstanding achievement by an excellent Minister of Finance in a focused and very effective Government. Not only was this an outstanding Budget and an entirely appropriate one for our times but also I am very proud to support it. I am very proud to defend it and explain it in my electorate and up in Hamilton along with my good friend Mr Bennett we are proud to campaign on it. On both sides of the river in the mighty city of Hamilton we are getting a fantastic reaction to a wonderful Budget. People up there say over and over again: “Thank goodness it is you lot in there running the country at the moment! What an absolute pickle we would be in if we had the other lot back.” 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That’s not what we got at the Ag Fieldays. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: That is exactly what they say I say to Ms Chadwick. When she enjoys her early retirement in Rotorua after the election she will find that people will say to her that Labour should have listened to them. People tried to tell those members; they would not get the message and people had to tell them the hard way.  
As I have said Labour members hope that if they keep saying often enough that there is no plan the public will believe it. But I tell the House that members of the public do not believe it at all because they can see what we are doing. I remind members opposite about the Job Ops programme the Community Max programme that we introduced the industry partnership places that we have promoted the Youth Guarantee and the service academies. I wonder whether the members opposite who have interjected constantly and asked where the jobs are and where the plan is would like to stop chirping and chanting for just a moment because I am giving them exactly what they have asked for. I am just a short way into a good list.  
There is the Limited Service Volunteers scheme and the places that Mr Borrows talked about. It is hugely important to people in my electorate and right around the country for those young people who really need some intensive and compassionate intervention and a little bit of real belief in them. The Labour Opposition never believes in those people. It has this appalling mentality that about 20 to 25 percent of the New Zealand public particularly young people will never amount to much. Those members just put them in the too-hard basket they patronise them and they demean them with a lifetime on welfare and say that that will do. They do not worry about the fact that these people cannot ever seem to get ahead. They do not worry about the fact that there is actually great potential in each and every one of those people. They have for all their time in this House believed in this mentality that welfare is good education is not so good and job opportunities are not so good. They just condemn a growing number of New Zealanders to that pitiful future.  
I will never do that. It is such an appalling way of thinking and I am absolutely determined to do everything I can in the time I have as a member of this House to defeat that mentality and to promote the best interests of those who most need the active intervention of a caring Government.  
Those are some of the things we are doing on the jobs front. In this year’s Budget there was the new Skills for Growth scheme with 4000 places. It gives employers a $5000 subsidy to employ and train young people in high-demand industries. That is a significant initiative. Suddenly the Labour members have gone quiet; I wonder why. It is important.  
As I have said this Budget is widely supported throughout the country but just for a moment I will focus on the reaction of my own region. The  
Waikato Times 
 is a paper that is certainly not in the bed of the National Party; it takes quite an independent stance. But in an editorial following the Budget we were told the following: “Labour Party leader Phil Goff is on the wrong track … when he says he hopes to create up to $22 billion a year in new business by restoring tax credits to reward R&D. The snag is his intention to pay for this assistance by requiring farmers to pick up the formidable costs of their greenhouse gas emissions over five years.” 
I was up at the Fieldays just outside my electorate last week and I can tell members that the reaction to the Government was outstanding. The mood was fantastic and the one thing that came through time and time again was farmers saying: “Imagine if we had that Labour Government back and they brought us into the emissions trading scheme before the rest of our international trading partners—those we have to compete with on the international economy.” They said that they would keep that party out of Government for as long as they possibly can because it just does not understand.  
I will come back to the  
Waikato Times 
 which further stated: “Mr Goff’s plan would lift farm production costs and risk blunting the world competitiveness of our dairy and meat industries in an uncertain bid to sharpen the innovative edge of businesses generally. That amounts to an unacceptable economic gamble.” We are living in times where the last thing we should do is to indulge in unacceptable economic gambles.  
Budget 2011 sets out our next steps to build faster growth to increase our national savings and to create sustainable jobs built on savings exports and productive investments. That is a summary of what this Budget is all about and over 3 years we have achieved a huge amount to turn things round. Labour members do not like to admit the position they left us in but it was dire. At the end of the best decade of economic conditions they left us in the worst of conditions. I am proud to be part of a Government that is turning the situation round and I will be proud to be part of a Government that continues to take us forward in the years ahead.