English Bill: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
English Bill: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:651;Page:1017] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the House do at its rising adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 10 February 2009 and that the sitting programme for 2009 recommended by the Business Committee be adopted. 
 It is unusual for Parliament to have two adjournment debates so close together. If members can recall the last one was held before the general election. That does not mean we should not thank people who were thanked then but have had to work hard since so on behalf of the Prime Minister the Hon John Key I thank all those staff in this complex who executed a smooth change of Government. As I understand it over 1000 people were shifted. Some were not shifted very far: staff in Dr Cullen’s office packed up their boxes one day and a few days later unpacked them at exactly the same desk as part of my office. From what I could see there was generally patience and persistence all around which ensured that the shift went as smoothly as it possibly could. 
An awful lot has happened since the last adjournment debate. As a result of the general election a tired muddled and scandal-ridden Labour administration was pushed aside with a decisive margin by New Zealand voters and a pragmatic and fresh National Party was brought into power. Within a week National created a Government that had the support of Parliament through arrangements with three support parties: the ACT Party the Maori Party and United Future. On behalf of Mr Key I stress to Parliament and to the country how committed National is to ensuring that those governing arrangements work. On his behalf I thank the leader of the ACT Party Rodney Hide and his board and MPs; the leader of United Future Peter Dunne; and Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples the leaders of the Maori Party. 
I thank Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples in particular for their willingness to grasp a historic opportunity and for the gracious but direct way in which they negotiated the arrangements with a party that neither they not their supporters have traditionally had a strong relationship with. When the Government changes the MPs tend to be locked up in the Beehive for a while and I must say that after forming a Government and doing what we needed to do to get the Government up and running I was very pleasantly surprised to get out of Wellington and out among the people who voted in the election. Among those who voted for us and against us there has been uniform support if not pleasure at the arrangement that has been made between the National Government and the Maori Party. 
The one group that is not happy about it is the Labour Party and that is for a very simple reason: it has to understand the hard cold truth that many Maori voters have more aspirations than Labour was able to tolerate. They have more will to do better more will to self-determination and more will to escape the trap of dependence that they had politically on the Labour Party and on the Government and Government assistance which they have had far too much of. I expect that the Labour Party will continue with its particularly nasty vendetta against the Maori Party. We do not always agree with the Maori Party and I am sure that over the next 12 months as this Parliament gets busy there will be differences between National and the Maori Party. But in the spirit of the historic arrangements made in the week after the election there will be a relationship of mutual respect that New Zealand will benefit from. 
Parliament has also been busy passing legislation that is critical to helping New Zealanders through this recession and to raising our long-term growth prospects. We passed the tax cuts legislation which is part of a very substantial stimulus to the New Zealand economy that started with the 2008 Budget presented by the previous Government and the 1 October tax cuts and now includes the tax cuts legislated for 1 April. As was presented in the Budget Policy Statement this morning that adds up to a $9 billion stimulus to the economy which is as large as any stimulus package internationally. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Three-quarters of it from Labour. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it has happened in less dramatic circumstances because we have not had a banking collapse. We had a general election at a time when any incumbent Government would have been making these decisions. But it gives the opportunity to cushion people from the worst effects of recession. 
However there is a price to pay for that stimulus and again the picture presented in the Budget Policy Statement today is of forecasts of ever-increasing debt and substantial fiscal deficits. Those forecasts are unacceptable to the National-led Government and we will be moving to take a longer-term view to ensure that future workers and taxpayers in New Zealand will not be overburdened by ever-rising debt. 
Parliament will face some challenges next year and I hope it will be able to rise to those challenges. The year 2009 will be a very tough year—a very tough year. Unemployment is set to rise to at least 6.5 percent. The Government’s books will be in the red for the foreseeable future. Families and businesses will have a growing sense of insecurity because of the loss of jobs and because of their vulnerability to international and domestic economic downturn. Parliament will be led by this Government to implement the plan to turn that round; it will start early in the new year with the Government’s introducing legislation to amend the Resource Management Act. 
Parliament can expect to see from this Government a sense of urgency in dealing with long-term issues that have sapped the confidence and the dynamism of the New Zealand economy. It was OK when the world was going fine and New Zealanders were spending up large but the economic outlook now demands a sense of urgency focus and leadership. That is what the National Party will bring to Parliament next year. We will be looking to build broad coalitions of support in order to take every single step we can to improve our economic prospects and to build the confidence of those who will invest in the New Zealand economy. 
There will be a number of driving factors but a simple one that I think even Opposition members can understand is that every New Zealander who loses a job will not get it back until someone invests in this economy. We will do every single thing we can to protect people from job losses in the short term and to lift the chances that they will get a new job from a dynamic and growing economy. If the Opposition with its petty politicking wants to stand in the way of a recovering New Zealand economy it can. It will not matter because the National-led Government has a sound majority in this House and we will use that majority in order to improve the well-being of New Zealanders. 
I want to make one particularly important point which was debated during the election campaign. During the election campaign National was committed to supporting the existing entitlements of beneficiaries national superannuitants and those on Working for Families. The Labour Party will find that its scare campaign was wrong. Despite the outlook we are sticking to those entitlements and to National’s promises. Next year we will execute that because that is what New Zealand needs.