Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Associate Minister of Finance), on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move,
That the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the
Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill
be now read a second time. I think we have witnessed something just now that is particularly interesting: an Opposition that a week or two ago was so keen to go to an election and now is not even prepared to support the Imprest Supply bill in order to clear the decks for that election. That is an interesting approach, and, I think, that an Opposition that a couple of weeks ago—
Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not like to interrupt the member mid-speech—in fact, at the very beginning of his speech—but I do so because it is quite plain that unless we seek leave for this debate to be wide-ranging, he will have nothing at all of any material value to offer the House. Accordingly, I seek leave for this to be a very wide-ranging debate, without limitation—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order. But the House is the master of its own destiny. The member is seeking leave. Is there any objection to that course? There is.
Gerry Brownlee: I have not finished. I have not put my whole leave yet.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is already a wide-ranging debate. What is the member going on about? He is being dopey.
Gerry Brownlee: No, I want it to be a very wide-ranging debate. Quite often, Mr Assistant Speaker, you will say that members can range across all matters that relate to the Government’s financial policies when it comes to a bill like this. But I think there are issues about trust, integrity, and experience that the Government will not want to face too much discussion on—issues that I would be very happy to have brought in here, particularly the one about the integrity of the Prime Minister, who, of course, has shopped five policemen in the South Island. That is what I am seeking leave for.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am on my feet. It is a wide-ranging debate.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We can see now why the National Party is in real trouble. Leaving aside the poll results for a second, I just say that when the leader of the Opposition was asked whether he thought his dithering on Iraq and other issues was responsible for National’s dive in the polls, what did he say? He said: “I can’t say.” Then what happened tonight? When asked whether Mr Goff was correct when he accused Lockwood Smith of asking American senators for support in order to push National Party pro-nuclear policy, what did Dr Brash say? He said: “I can neither confirm nor deny.” Well, well, well! I can see Simon Power smiling, because he is vindicated to a certain extent. What a sad Opposition, and what a difference a week makes in politics!
Ron Mark: Oh come on! You can’t leave New Zealand First out of that.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No, and to be fair to New Zealand First members, I do not regard them as being a major part of the Opposition. But I think it is fair to say that at the appropriate points in time, when it has been important, and when the principles have been right, New Zealand First has supported the Government, and I do want to give it credit for doing that. It is not blind in its opposition, in the way we have seen the party opposite to be. I ask members opposite whether Kirkcaldie and Stains has had a sale this week, and whether orange is the colour of the ties on sale. What is the story? Why is such a high proportion of National Party front-bench members wearing orange ties today? It is an interesting approach. They used to have blue ones, then they had green ones, and now they have orange ones. They are getting ready to stop.
I return to the debate. It is clear that our economy has been going through a period of sustained, solid growth that is well above OECD averages for the past 5 or 6 years. Between March 2000 and March 2005, 260,000 new jobs were created—[Interruption] The member says some of them are casual, and he is absolutely right. But for a lot of people in my electorate, getting 40, 45, or 50 hours of casual work and money in the pocket to buy a house, pay the rent, and pay the bills, actually makes a difference. That might not make a difference to some of the New Zealand First members who have a silver spoon in their mouth, but it makes a lot of difference to us.
Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it appropriate for a member to refer to working 50 hours a week as “casual” labour, when we know that working 50 hours a week should be a full-time job, and there is no such thing as a 50-hour-a-week casual job?
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am on my feet. That is not a point of order.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That just shows how out of touch members of New Zealand First are. A number of people have two and three jobs that build up to 50 hours a week. That is not an ideal situation—it is one that is certainly improving—but that member would deny those people those jobs, and that is very, very sad. And the member is now complaining because he does not get redundancy. Well, he will get 3 months’ pay if he is not careful, with that sort of approach. I am not sure where he is on Winston Peters’ list. Has New Zealand First put its list out yet?
Hon Member: No, no, no.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It has not put the list out. New Zealand First is a bit sneaky; it is waiting until the dissolution of Parliament so that Barbara Stewart and a number of others, including Ross Meurant, cannot complain.
Simon Power: Susan Baragwanath.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Who? Not seriously.
Simon Power: Read the newspapers.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Oh, that would be very sad. That actually cracks me up. I always thought she was a Tory.
Darren Hughes: Get on to National’s tax policy.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well, I actually had a spot in my speech for the National tax policy, because John Key promised that 3 days after the date of the election was announced we would have the National Party tax policy. Have we got it yet? We do not have it, because it does not add up. I think that Bill English has a good point in his—
Ron Mark: He’s the future leader.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I do not know whether National’s leader will be Bill English, whether Bill English will be John Key’s deputy, whether John Key will be Simon Power’s deputy, or whether Simon Power will be Katherine Rich’s deputy—
Darren Hughes: What about Gerry Brownlee?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: For goodness sake! The idea of Gerry Brownlee being on the front bench in 3 months’ time does not bear contemplation. But I will say that this Imprest Supply Bill will ensure that we do have enough money to implement the decisions taken after the finalisation of these estimates to cover the demand-driven expenses and other risks and contingencies that will face the Government between now and later in the year. It seeks authority to incur expenses of $1,800 million and capital expenditure of $1,300 million. That is a similar amount to the amount sought last year, other than, of course, the treatment of GST, which has changed over that period of time.
There is a change, and I think it is important to note, that this bill seeks approval for the aggregate net asset holding of departments and Offices of Parliament to exceed the thresholds set in the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) bill. Approval for that is sought for an aggregate net asset holding of $16,000 million.
It is interesting that as we progress and improve our arrangements that things are made clearer. There is a lot of money in the estimates for education. I am particularly proud as the Minister of Education, as well as an Associate Minister of Finance, that the resourcing that is going in—
Ron Mark: How come kids leaving school still can’t read?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is fair to say that there is a decreasing proportion of kids whose literacy skills are not the best. But the member also knows—because I know that Brian Donnelly told him—that our kids’ literacy is third in the OECD.
Our 15-year-olds are right up at the top of the OECD.
Ron Mark: Except the ones who can’t read.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I refer to the ones who can read. Literacy is the ability to read. The member might recognise illiteracy as being a condition he is slightly more familiar with. The point I am making is that—
Ron Mark: What do you mean by that? I can read the writing on the wall for Labour.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well, I have actually looked at a poll trend over the last week or so for New Zealand First, and if that trend keeps going for another 2 weeks, that member will be in a particularly interesting position.
I say to John Key that some people are looking forward to his contribution. I think that a lot of people now—especially given the happenings earlier in the day—are looking forward to this speech staking out his position for the period after the election, which would involve his shifting about two or three places to his left within the Chamber. There are some very high expectations on that relatively new member now. I regret the fact that urgent public business will stop me from staying to enjoy his speech, but I am looking forward to reports that, once again, he will outshine Don Brash in the House today.
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville)
: That was the Hon Trevor Mallard—the Minister for muckraking. When the going gets tough around Labour, it does not roll out the intellectual giants. We do not see Helen Clark or Michael Cullen; we see the shin kicker, who is put in to try to roll out the mess. It is very interesting.
We are in the appropriation debate that started with Michael Cullen reading his sixth Budget in the House. That is the last time we saw Michael Cullen anywhere around that Budget, because it was so soundly rejected and trounced by the public of New Zealand that Labour cannot afford to roll out Michael Cullen any more. He is persona non grata. The Government has sent the Minister of Welfare for the tax debate and the shin kicker for the appropriations debate. We do not see Michael Cullen anywhere around anything economic. In fact, we are struggling to believe that we will see him in any of the debates on the hustings, because when the public see Michael Cullen and they leap back to economics, they will think only of Budget 2005. They will think of receiving 67c in 3 years’ time and will ask whether that is as good as it gets after 6 long years of Labour. They will have to wait 9 years to get anything, and that is not good enough.
Yesterday we saw something quite remarkable that relates to the appropriation debate. Trevor Mallard the muckraker could not help himself from continuing the previous roll he was on, and he launched into a press release attacking Westpac. He went after Westpac in one of the most vicious attacks that a Minister of the Crown has ever bothered to mete out to the financial markets. He did that not because Westpac’s data was wrong; or the numbers in Brendan O’Donovan’s report were wrong—that the student loan policy will not cost $300 million per year; it will actually cost $1 billion per year—or the amount of debt on the New Zealand balance sheet will not rise from the current situation, which is about $35 billion, to about $47 billion in the next 10 years; or the Government will not have to write off $1.7 billion from its net worth in about 18 months’ time. It was not for any of those reasons. He attacked Brendan O’Donovan and Westpac because he did not like somebody who was independent of the Government actually calling it the way it was.
Trevor Mallard’s press release was backed up by the Prime Minister of this country, which was nothing short of disgraceful. It was an attempt to intimidate those who seek to challenge economic analysis and data from an independent, non-political, non-partisan basis. The message from the Government to such analysts was to not go there or the Government would mess them up in a very untidy fashion. That has been noted by analysts around the country, who have said that they will not be intimidated by a bully boy like Trevor Mallard, because there is no place in New Zealand’s economic debate for that behaviour.
We saw something quite remarkable today. On the back of the document from Brendan O’Donovan of Westpac, the most ridiculous and most intimidating press release that we have seen from a Minister of the Crown for quite some time—Trevor Mallard—and some very inappropriate statements from a Prime Minister of this country, a second bank came out and said that it would not be intimidated by Labour. That was the message. That bank came out and backed another bank that is its competitor. The message was that it would not be subject to stand-over tactics by Trevor Mallard, and that the Government’s numbers were wrong.
This Government is trying to feed the people of New Zealand nothing short of a mistruth, which is quite wrong. The banks stood up, stood their ground, and were backed by the financial markets. I say: “Good on them!” for having the guts to stand up to Trevor Mallard, who is trying to intimidate independent commentary in this country. This is nothing short of a police State when Ministers of the Crown start acting in that way. My prediction is that Trevor Mallard will live to rue the day he did that, because when those numbers come back to haunt the Government—if it ever gets a chance to roll that policy out—it will know what weak ground it is on. I am very surprised indeed that Trevor Mallard, who is known to have stooped to some pretty low territory and who is down in the sewer at the best of times, has managed to get under the sewer pipes. That is how bad it has become for Labour.
Today we saw Phil Goff come down to the Chamber and launch his leadership bid. That is what he was doing in the House this afternoon. There was not one skerrick of truth in what Phil Goff was saying. He does not have the guts to—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member cannot refer to a member’s lack of courage. The member will apologise.
JOHN KEY: I apologise. He did not have the fortitude to come down to the Chamber today with the full transcript, because the Labour Party wanted to deal in little excerpts, and that was the way it would work. Phil Goff will regret doing that because the public of New Zealand have no place for that sort of muckraking.
That is why National has a Budget out there. We will see what happens on Budget day, because when the election rolls around in 46 days’ time, one party will be out there. [Interruption] That is right—bring it on! For the record, and for Trevor Mallard’s benefit, I say that we want an election and that it cannot come soon enough. That is the view of the people of New Zealand as well, because when we go to the polls in 46 days’ time, we will be standing up and telling honest, hard-working New Zealanders that we are behind them. The Labour Party may have forgotten about them. All those blue collar workers out there who toil from dawn to dusk, and who used to look to the Labour Party for a bit of support, will now look to the National Party.
Here are the options. Option A is called Labour, in which one gets the option to fund a bigger booze allowance for more students and universities around the country. That is option A. The message from Labour to young New Zealanders is that they can feed themselves on a diet of debt, and that they should not bother working, striving to get ahead, or backing up the foundations this great country is built on. Instead, they should go out there, borrow more money, and, while they are at it, they should get their mates to borrow money, as well.
On ShareChat today I saw that a system was being organised to get that money and put it into interest-earning accounts. That is the message under Labour. My prediction is that 60 percent of New Zealanders who are at university or have studied currently have a loan. Only 60 percent have borrowed. Members should mark my words: the other 40 percent will be borrowing to the hilt—as will the rest—because they do not have enough brains to work out that this is not free money; it is even better than free money. They do not have enough brains to be at university, so they will borrow to the max.
Option A is the Labour Party, which is out there telling working New Zealanders that it does not care about them, that it does not care about people on building sites slogging their guts out first thing in the morning, and that it would much rather support a bigger booze allowance for students. Option B is the National Party, which will roll out a tax plan that says to working New Zealanders that it cares about them. They might have been forgotten for 6 years—
Hon Marian Hobbs: Show us the money—$50? How much?
JOHN KEY: Marian Hobbs is asking me to show the money. I make this prediction. It is a good thing that votes are anonymous, because in 46 days’ time, when we go to the polling booths and when New Zealanders get a chance to vote, my prediction is that some on the Labour side will vote National with their party vote. It will not even be Labour Party members; we can forget about them. Labour Members of this Parliament will actually vote for National, because they will look at themselves in the mirror when they get up to go down to the polling booths and ask what sort of country they want. They will ask whether they want a country where there is only debt and where working New Zealanders have to pay for a bigger booze allowance for students, or whether they want the really strong message that when they get up and go to work in the morning there is something in it for them—a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Some Labour members will vote for National with their party vote because they know a good thing when they see it. They will come over to the Opposition benches in the House—there will not be many of them left in 46 days’ time—look across, and secretly in their heart of hearts they will know that they did the right thing for New Zealand. That will make them proud, even though they will be in Opposition, because they will know that National will not deliver a Budget that is so thick the messengers cannot even carry it into the Chamber. National will deliver a Budget that really makes sense for New Zealand, and I cannot wait for Budget day.
I cannot wait for election day—bring it on! I predict that many of those Labour members will vote National.
