Stewart Barbara: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Stewart Barbara: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 31 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2776. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the 2012 Budget. This Budget does not give much assistance at all to ordinary New Zealanders. It does not provide a brighter future for the ordinary New Zealander. In fact this Budget gives New Zealanders no hope and no vision and lastly there is no plan for economic growth. Instead what we have is a Budget that continues to create hardship and misery for many: hundreds of people will continue to lose their jobs and of course State assets will continue to be sold. The senior citizens were ambushed. There was no funding for aged care one of the fastest-growing areas in New Zealand. One would have thought that this Government would do that. Second the Budget links the aged-care asset-testing to the rate of inflation it increases prescription charges and there is no assistance for seniors and their increased power charges that they face.  
In New Zealand First we had actually expected some vision some tax policies that encouraged higher savings some policies that encouraged research and development some investment into plant assets that create high margin jobs and high margin exports—and of course jobs for a start. We often hear about the jobs that are being created but I can assure you that these are not career jobs that are being created; they are jobs for a very short period of time like helping pick in the kiwifruit industry. It is not good enough for our Kiwi kids to consider that they will have a career in that particular industry. We know that New Zealand will never ever recover if we are not going to be focused on our export industry our IT industry and production and manufacturing to mention just a few. We need these types of industries if New Zealand is going to grow and flourish. There is nothing in this Budget to actually grow the economy. It is a zero Budget that gives our New Zealanders no hope and—worse—no career jobs for our young people.  
Just a few weeks ago we saw the rest home workers on strike. This group of workers was totally ignored in the Budget. Yet the Prime Minister has acknowledged that there were problems but he did not go on to say that working in this industry was like a form of modern-day slavery like the recent report actually suggests. District health boards can do nothing to raise the pay of our aged-care workers because the Government has got other priorities than the health sector—robbing Peter to pay Paul. Aged-care staff are called upon to carry out a whole range of tasks. Some of them are heavy most of them are seriously unpleasant and woefully the staff are underpaid. This must be one of the hardest areas to work in— 
Hon Member 
: Read the report. 
BARBARA STEWART 
: —even if Minister Goodhew does not agree. What action is going to be taken? Nothing. Ignoring the problem Minister is not going to make it go away. Do not pretend that it does not exist. John Key acknowledged that there were problems with rest home workers paying for their own travel so what is going to be done about it? We will be watching that space. We were interested to see that the Government also ignored in the Budget health initiatives that will save money in the years to come. “Do more with less” has been the catchcry. There comes a time when more just cannot be done. Shifting money from one area to another has meant that some initiatives continue to be overlooked.  
This is a Budget that lacks vision and contains all the elements of failure for our people—an opportunity missed for New Zealand and New Zealanders. We cannot afford to have too many Budgets like this. This Budget did not work in 1991 and it is not going to work 20 years later.