Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : Budget 2008 contains some good elements and a few bad omissions, but, most important, New Zealand First is promising something better. The moving of tax thresholds in October of this year will provide relief for New Zealand workers, and New Zealand First will support these initiatives. But we make this point: much of the good in this Budget is found in the fine print, and a lot of it flows on from New Zealand First’s confidence and supply agreement with the Government. New Zealand First’s gains include assistance to superannuitants, such as free off-peak travel on public transport during the day—not at night, as Television New Zealand said—for SuperGold card holders; subsidies for hearing aids of $500 or more; advantageous tax effects for those who receive New Zealand superannuation; increased funding for Māori wardens; an ongoing funding boost for the elder-care sector; and—more could have happened here—a significant injection into the shipping industry, which has at last been rediscovered as being important for New Zealand. We have been saying it for years. Here comes climate change, and all of a sudden we have this. There is nothing so true as the saying “We told you so.”, but we damn well did, and for a long, long time.

Hon Annette King: Yes, well at least we listened.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, better late than never. Our gains also include a lift for premier racing stakes, and, if we add in the substantial Budget boost for foreign affairs that will ensure that this country for the first time for a long time has the resources to confront the great challenges for the 21st century of diplomacy and trade, we can see that New Zealand First has delivered again.

I want to give this warning: I was just told by a National Party member that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not expect to get it.

Hon Members: What?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not expect to get it. They can only be the only people who have talked to him and are foolish enough to think that National is going to win the next election, because the ministry is going to get it, and it is getting it now.

But there are other critical elements missing. For example, we are disappointed that the Budget does not include tax policies to promote export growth. Yes, subsidies, incentives, the kinds of which one will see in Ireland, in Singapore, in Japan, in Thailand, throughout the Nordic countries, and even in countries that used to be behind the Iron Curtain, do work. We do not have to reinvent the wheel here. We need to learn what an export-dependent economy needs by way of critical policy. We are an export-dependent economy and our policies should reflect that. Nor has the Government or its predecessor addressed the elephant in the room—the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, which is so loved by so many people in this Parliament. This is a failed economic experiment. It is inflation targeting. There is some belief in this Parliament that somehow we can deal to massive import inflation by damaging our domestic markets and our domestic consumers. Targeting import inflation using the blunt instrument of domestic interest rates can only create domestic pain, and it is. We heard nothing from Mr Key today about that. We have been saying this for 20 years, and only if we get back on track as an exporting nation can we grow our economy so that we can afford decent wages and social services.

We think there is a programme in respect of affordability and the rapidly rising prices of household basics, but it is still insufficient. Let us face it, times are tough, and a lot of people are finding it hard to make ends meet. But we have some questions for the National Party. Will it cut New Zealand superannuation?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And the $45 windfall for married couples from this October?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Give us an answer!

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Of course not.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I am not taking it from Nick Smith. Excuse me! Will it torpedo KiwiSaver?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Will it cut the 1,000 extra police that we are putting on the streets?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Will it slash extra funding for the elder-care sector?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Will it take hearing aids off the elderly?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Will it take away their free transport?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Will it make them pay more to go to the doctor?

Hon Members: Yes!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: We could go on, but, unlike National, New Zealand First has a solution. We are actually able to offer a real alternative, with real policies that have been tried and tested in nearly every other growing economy. We want to see a tax-free threshold of $5,200 introduced: a tax cut that everybody—everybody—benefits from. We also want GST reduced to 10 percent across the board.

What was most noticeable about the theatre of Parliament today was that there in Parliament were Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble alongside National, indicating their support. Remember them? They said that GST at 10 percent was written in stone—that it could not be changed. Then they changed it to 12.5 percent, and they have never explained why.

Those two steps I have outlined are not enough on their own. We want 68 percent of the net average wage for superannuitants—and we could afford it. So although we support this Budget, we are looking forward to the real alternative of tax relief and greater affordability in Budget 2009. And we mean to be here. And those who are following the polls will know we will be here—just in case some people have some silly ideas.

We know that with a package of tax incentives for exporters, a rewrite of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, and a more equitable tax policy we could put New Zealand’s economy and its people back on the front foot. We are not going to go on with a Governor of the Reserve Bank, unelected, doing what he likes to the major part of the economy while those of us who are elected can do nothing, because of our own legislative frustration. We offer an alternative; National does not. An old National Party would have, Holyoake would have, and people like Holland would have, but not this crowd. Growth can come only through productive and non-consumptive wealth. Never has this been more urgent.

There were no solutions from the National Party today. I was amazed that Mr Key got to his last 5 minutes and said: “Now to National’s plan.” I have just two questions: how much, and when? Come on, I say to Mr Smith, tell us now.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We’ll tell you in the election campaign.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, he will tell us in the election campaign!

Hon Member: He doesn’t know.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He does not know. You know, there was a time when New Zealanders could expect to hear something uplifting and memorable from the National Party. I know; I used to belong to it. Frequently I was the cause of it; its members could expect that. We used to hear speeches about leadership, vision, ideas, answers, and solutions. Instead, all we got today were the words “the National plan” and no detail whatsoever. And when we look across at the inglorious line of wannabes, never-have-beens, and political seat-warmers, we realise the old saying is right: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Look at that party’s line-up. Mr David Carter is here only because he has some preference on selection, even though it has been to court three times. Mr Williamson believes in four private companies to run New Zealand roads. The next man? Need I mention Mr Smith? I do not think so. He is the top-up man—Harpic. The next guy—very inexperienced. The next one, well, frankly, he was the deputy leader and he got demoted. He jumped before he was pushed. Then we come to Mr Key. You know, I can recall the National Party leadership of recent times. One came out of a kindergarten and wanted to be the Prime Minister. It lasted 5 minutes, and she delivered the worst result in National’s history. Then the next one turned up. He came out of Treasury. He delivered the worst result upon that. Then they got a guy who walked out of the Reserve Bank and thought “I am qualified by this background to run the whole of New Zealand.” And he lost the unloseable election. Then National got somebody from the stock markets of England—no memory of this country whatsoever. And National members are telling us, with all their puffery, that he can do the job.

Bob Clarkson: You’ve still got me.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, here comes “Bob the Quitter”. That really tells us a massive amount about the National Party. When his stadium, much-vaunted, was in trouble, he socialised his losses. He got the people of Tauranga to buy it, and they will be paying for it forever. Typical! And he even made himself sound magnanimous when he did it. But when anybody inquired into the due diligence, the council would not release the information—his council. We know that is true, do we not, I say to Bob? We will hear more about this. This guy was going to stand against me, and he was going to do this and he was going to do that. He was full of puffery and bovine scatology. He is all talk; he is the Blue Chip member. Tens of thousands of old people in Tauranga have lost all their money, and he is off—going, finished. He did not jump. He was pushed. I say to him “You were pushed, sunshine, weren’t you?”. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

By the way, the National Party was talking about the cost of bureaucracy. National is going to pay for all the tax cuts by having a review of everything—of every department. National has been talking about cutting the cost of bureaucracy. That is fair enough: National likes slash-and-burn policies. National did it in the 1990s when it slashed benefits and pensions. National cut police numbers and social services. National calls it market forces.

Most of the culprits are still there, on the front bench. Their DNA and fingerprints are all over everything that went wrong. They even sent the economy into a recession in 1991. I was here. I saw them do it. And now we are being told that the soft face of capitalism from a State house in Christchurch is the answer. Like some of us do not know about poverty? Like some of us do not know what it smells, tastes, and feels like? Is there something special about that? But what we are not being shown is the cost of National putting its best, bland face forward. We are not being told about the gravy train that National is creating in the process. Do members know that John Key himself, in his Wellington parliamentary office, employs 36 people?

Hon Members: How many?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He employs 36 people, just in his office, and that does not count the staff for MPs. Look at the pages. It is all here. There they are; they are all here—36 people, at great expense. Every year they cost the taxpayer over $7 million for their parliamentary operations. [Interruption] Yes, they do. That is what they do, and I am not even counting his secretary in the 36. There is someone called a web manager.

Hon Member: A what?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: A web manager. Maybe it is a duck—or Charlotte the spider. There is an IT manager, and there is a graphic designer. What would a graphic designer do? Maybe he or she would try to dress up Nick Smith—I do not know. Members will like this one. There is a programme and stakeholder relations manager. What would that person do? And, of course, there are teams of public relations people, spin doctors, and policy advisers. And what for? There is no policy. They are all feverishly out there creating the image of leadership, saying “You’ve got to walk this way. You’ve got to have your whole crowd around you.” Look, John Key cannot get his advisers into one bus; he has to have an articulated bus to take his entourage with him! The John Key image that members see over there and on TV is one shaped by many hands and spun by many spin doctors. That is only the lot within Parliament. What about the blogsters, the webmasters, the David FarrahRumplestiltskinites, the consultants, the ad agencies, and the even more public relations people outside of Parliament? Do members remember the so-called freedom fighting organisation called the Free Speech Coalition? It was going to give us all of the changes that we need to have for our electoral system, but in that time—since 1993—it has not given us one idea, at all. It just so happens, though, that its front man also works out of the National Party’s headquarters. Are members beginning to smell a rat? I am.

The biggest increase in taxpayer spending in New Zealand today is going to the National Party. Why is the National Party not a separate item in the Budget? What about the people who are financed by big business on the outside? How can John Key go around the country and tell everyone that he is fiscally prudent, when he needs a fleet of buses to carry his entourage? You know, National has a bureaucracy that would boggle the minds of commissars in the old Kremlin. Even Joseph Stalin did not have 36 people in his own office. Even Joseph Stalin could not do that.

I actually worked out that National is bigger than some Pacific Island economies. It is actually bigger than some Government departments and ministries. But that may be what it is all about—the creation of a new, big-spending, freeloading, free-lunching, perk-gathering “Ministry of National Affairs”.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: If this is your best, it’s time you retired.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, really? That member should have never come here. He got in here only because I actually campaigned for him one night, and it brought us an audience wall to wall. Philip Burdon asked me to, and like a fool I went down and did it. Now, despite the efforts of all these people, assisted by a sympathetic, overseas-owned media, we still do not know what National stands for. So far all we have had is a succession of “Me too!”. The National Party has a duty to tell the public what it is that it intends to do.

I remember it was Keith Holyoake, a real National Party leader—one whom I was proud to work under—who said: “Tell the people. Trust the people.” That is National’s problem: its members do not trust the people, so they will not tell them what National intends to do. There are all sorts of parties in this Parliament. We do not always agree with a lot of the things that they say, but at least they tell the public what they intend to do, and we respect that. But there is something about National that is not quite right. It seems to be a party with secrets kept under wraps, like a boil covered over by a sticking plaster.

What has National tried to do since the election in 2005? What initiatives and policies has it launched since that election? Where does it stand on all of the big, burning issues of the day? What policies has it sought to support? National has spent 2½ years waiting for a snap election that was never going to happen. I say “bad luck!”. But that is no excuse for doing nothing.

There is only one real alternative to this year’s Budget, and it is being put forward by a party that is not afraid to tell the public its policies on the economy, socialism, social welfare, or capitalism in this country. New Zealand First is the party that has answers to questions that have been around for a long time. The answers are not something experimental or chosen by the paper-shufflers of Queen Street or of Main Street, Wellington; they are something to do with this country’s long-running economic structure. There is still hope that we can get to the promised land, but we have to change our direction and head down the right path. That means creating a tax-free threshold, reducing GST to 10 percent, creating a tax regime for exporters, rewriting the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act to relieve interest rates, and creating a better deal for senior citizens.

We were once God’s own country, controlling our own destiny, built by generations of hard-working and innovative people. We have seen what this country and its people can achieve. We in New Zealand First still believe in them, and we believe that we have the policies, the priorities, and the persistence to rebuild this country along lines that will work; not along lines of economic experimentation of the type that sadly we have seen over the last 23 years. In short, my message to New Zealanders in the next 4 months, if they have any idea that they want change, is that they should vote for change that they can believe in. In that respect, my message to them is to hang on because, as before, help is on its way.