Shirley Ken: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Shirley Ken: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22233] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 What an incredible lot of crowing we have just heard from the Labour Government! Government members do not realise they have been picking the low fruit of the hard yards of the reform that was done through the troubled times of the 1980s and that was carried on by Ruth Richardson in the early 1990s. They inherited those benefits and are plucking the low fruit while they waste and squander the period of prosperity we have had. 
Who really believes that Jim Anderton and the Labour Government turned round the Southland economy? Time and time again we hear the Labour Government claiming credit for it. It had nothing to do with its policies whatsoever. The international dairy price and investment in dairying turned the Southland economy round and Government members forget that point time and time again. 
But let us come to taxation. This has to be the meanest Government this country has ever seen. We actually have a rich Government but poor people because this Government is taking the money from them. Government members think it is their money. If we talk to these folk we find they actually believe that it is their money. They do not recognise that Governments do not have any money other than the money they take from hard-working people under the pretence that they can spend it better than those people. The hard reality is that they cannot. I do not know of any bunch of bureaucrats or politicians who can make better decisions on how money should be spent than those who worked for it and can get a better outcome. 
But this Government believes that doing that is its right. If we look at Australia across the Tasman we see that Australians have just been given a comprehensive tax reduction across the board. 
Darren Hughes 
: $6 a week. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The Australian Government could afford it I say to Mr Hughes. That Government could afford it having a surplus. It could afford a comprehensive tax reduction on the basis of having a surplus of 1 percent of GDP. The Labour Government in New Zealand is sitting on a surplus of 4 percent of GDP—a $7 billion surplus—and it says it cannot afford it. The Government just wants to take more and more money. 
What does it spend it on? Let us look at some of the things the Government has spent it on—for example Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Last year alone $239 million of hard-working Kiwis’ money was gouged out of them and just thrown out and this Government was totally culpable for that. Its tertiary education policy was a sham and a farce—an absolute sham and a farce. Anyone could enrol in any course. There was no measure of quality no check on the numbers and no integrity. People just turned up and were bums on seats. The Government threw taxpayers’ money at the wananga; it threw it out of the window. That is the trademark of this Labour Government: it just shovels taxpayers’ money out of the window with gay abandon. 
Well I have news for the Labour Government. Global economies go in cycles and we have had the good times. The Government has chewed the fat wasted it and not carried on with the reforms that were desperately needed in this country. When the cycle turns who will we be blaming? Successive generations of New Zealanders will look back on this Labour Government; sure it got two terms—that is quite a record for a Labour Government in itself; it does not happen very often—but it is the culprit. Its members were the ones who squandered the opportunities through the good times on bad spending and a lack of courage or vision actually to carry on the reform processes that were urgently required. 
If we look around the world at all successful economies we see that not one of them has become successful by increasing taxation. Essentially only one OECD country has increased taxation in the last 6 years and which one is it? Let us have a guess. It is New Zealand. New Zealand is the only OECD country that has increased taxation. If we look at the miracle economies of the former Soviet bloc that are experiencing growth and progress—Estonia Latvia Lithuania Moldova and the Czech Republic—we see their tax is down at 12 percent. They are former Soviet bloc countries. They learnt the lesson of the big State—that central command policies do not work. They have gone to 13 percent tax. Investment is flowing in. They are getting significant growth and their people have rising prosperity. 
Here we have a very wealthy flush Government but very poor people. New Zealanders are not any better off than they were 6 years’ ago in spite of the so-called good times because this irresponsible Government has squandered it—absolutely squandered those hard-earned reforms and the benefits that flowed from them. 
Let us look at the energy sector in this country. What an absolute mess! There has been no significant investment in new generation. There has been no investment in the national grid for 10 years. It is right at the end of its limits and this Government—this outgoing Labour Government—has made a succession of policy decisions that are fundamentally against the better interests of New Zealand such is its eagerness to rush in and sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. Finally the chickens are starting to come home to roost. What a stupid thing to have done! We are the only Southern Hemisphere country with a Kyoto obligation. We are the only ASEAN country with an obligation. Only two other APEC nations Japan and Canada have the obligation that we have imposed on ourselves. 
I put it to members that if we look at the New Zealand economy we see that we have three advantages compared with other nations. One is actually climate. Our moist or relatively moist temperate climate is actually what underpins our biological economy and our production. The second key factor has been a relatively well-educated population and I think we are sliding there. The third factor has actually been an abundant supply of competitively priced energy. The policy of this Government is actually to drive up the price of energy so that its chosen renewables be it wind or whatever become competitive. That is a recipe to destroy the New Zealand economy—an absolute recipe for destruction. Yet this Government is proud of the fact. It wants to drive up the price of energy. New Zealand’s energy supply is one of our key comparative advantages as a trading nation; fewer economies are as dependent on trade as we are yet the Government is hell-bent on destroying and throwing away that comparative advantage. 
The ACT party does favour low taxation. We always have right from day one. When we came to this Parliament in 1996 we were advocating lower taxation. We were the only party doing that then. We could not get the then National Government to move. It did not see the wisdom of lower taxation. Fortunately National has now come to its senses and has recognised the meaningful nature of lowering taxation to get investment and growth in the New Zealand economy. 
But I think the outgoing Labour Government will be most condemned for the way that on the social side of policies it failed to carry on the reforms that were required. It had the opportunity it had the money and it had the good fortune to inherit the structure that gave us a time of prosperity and it squandered it wasted it and flushed it away.