2. LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this
to the Minister of Finance
What will be the main objectives of Budget 2011 tomorrow?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) Link to this
The Budget will set out the next steps in the Government’s plan to build faster growth and more jobs for New Zealanders and to turn round forecasts of significant debt on the Government’s books. In particular, the Budget will focus on building faster growth and national savings, setting a credible path back to surplus, and rebuilding Christchurch, at the same time as protecting the most vulnerable New Zealanders and improving front-line services.
The Budget will take a number of steps to ensure that more of the growth in future savings is not based on the Government borrowing money for incentives and subsidies. The Budget forecast will also show stronger economic growth forecasts, with increases in the number of new jobs and in real wages. It is essential that this growth is driven by the private sector. Since the mid-2000s too much of that growth has been driven by excessive Government spending and housing speculation.
The Budget will take a number of responsible and balanced measures to better target large Government programmes to those most in need and also to ensure that public services deliver better value for taxpayers. In fact, we will take a lot of the steps that New Zealand households and businesses have already taken over the last 2 or 3 years.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
Will he keep his promise to New Zealanders in tomorrow’s Budget not to cut KiwiSaver; if so, how does he square that with the effective $10-a-week KiwiSaver tax increase he has already announced?
The Government has kept its promise to New Zealanders and in July, I think, we will pay out hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits into KiwiSaver accounts. Any changes we make will not affect people until after the election. They will have the opportunity to express their views on that in an election. I am sure they will take into account the overall picture: that where the Government needs to get on top of a very large overdraft, a very large deficit, it is making balanced and responsible decisions to get it under control.
Hon David Cunliffe Link to this
If it was the Minister’s intention to seek an electoral mandate for those KiwiSaver cuts, why did he not campaign on them in 2008 or perhaps defer them to Budget 2012 if he thinks he will still be the Minister, rather than legislate now and pretend he has not broken yet another promise?
I do not quite understand the logic of that. The National Government made one very significant change after the 2008 election: it cancelled two tranches of its tax cuts because of the depth of the global recession. We think it is a pretty straight-up deal. We will put the propositions up in detail before an election, before it affects people, and they will have the chance to have an opinion on it.
This morning I saw an online poll asking New Zealanders how the Budget had affected their families. I was a bit surprised to see this question, because the Budget has not been delivered yet and it might be difficult for those families to be able to tell. However, the results were impressive: 88 percent of families who responded to this poll were feeling better off as a result of the Budget decisions. I thank the Opposition’s finance spokesperson for running this poll on his own website, which has now been mysteriously removed because of the outstanding results.
I seek leave to table poll results from David Cunliffe’s website, which are no longer on line and have been mysteriously taken down.
Mr SPEAKER
Hon Simon PowerI raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The point that the member makes is a fair one. If it was still available online your point would make sense, but, as the Minister of Finance said, it is no longer available online.
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
It is very rare that I agree with the Leader of the House and Louise Upston at the same time. I think having the precedent of having websites that have been taken down tabled in the House is a very good one.