Third Reading 11:20 AM Friday 29 May 2009 Unedited Copy

  

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Mr Speaker. On the 5^th day of the 5^th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on yesterday, Budget day, Chinese people worldwide celebrate the Duanwu Festival or Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival has also been celebrated in Japan, Viet Nam, Korea and other East Asian nations. Here in Wellington, the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated as a great sports event [Interruption]. 

  

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: We have brought up other colleagues for straying well off the track. I ask the member to bring his comments back to the content of this very narrow bill.

  

RAYMOND HUO: The reason why I cited the Dragon Boat Festival is that it is very relevant to the Taxation (Budget Tax Measure) Bill. According to legend, in 278BC the Chinese statesman and great poet Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Mi Lo River to protest the corrupt regime of the Chu Dynasty whose King was found to have constantly broken his promises. To save the legendary statesman who threw himself to the river – [Interjections by National members]

 

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have asked the member to come back to the bill. We are on a current bill. History is quite fine, and I also learn a lot from it, but I ask the member to come back to the bill.

  

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the point that the member had just come to was that this was an ancient and very important case of breach of promise, as this bill is.

 

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member for the history lesson. We have had a minute and a half so far of his speech, and as I said, we are on a very narrow content of the bill so I would ask the member to continue in that vein.

  

RAYMOND HUO: I will come back to the bill. I had two interviews yesterday afternoon with the Auckland-based World TV network and Chinese Voice Broadcasting before heading to the Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting – [Interjections by National members] –

  

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As a new member I am starting to enjoy the interjections, but if Mr Paul Quinn –

  

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. Interjections are allowed. I ask the member to continue. That is not a point of order. Could he please carry on.

  

RAYMOND HUO: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a new point of order.

 

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hope the member is not trifling with the Chair.

 

RAYMOND HUO: If Mr Paul Quinn wants to exercise his opera-singing skills, he should return to his own seat.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. I ask the member to continue with his speech. That is not a point of order.

  

Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a new point of order. You might have missed what my colleague was saying. He was saying that if the member opposite is going to interject on him in the way he has, he should resume his own seat in order to do so. That was the point Mr Huo just made. 

 

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not need any help here. The slate is clean. We will start again. The member has 8 minutes left.

RAYMOND HUO: Before heading to the Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting to discuss the allocation of the 2009-10 estimates, I had two interviews with the Auckland-based World TV network and Chinese Voice Broadcasting. Inevitably, we were talking about the Dragon Boat Festival, its origins, and of course, yesterday’s Budget. We were talking about the Dragon Boat Festival because, according to legend, to save the legendary statesman the local fishermen raced out in their boats, but it was too late. To prevent his body from being eaten by fish, they beat their paddles furiously on the water and threw zong-zi, which are large rice wraps, as a sacrifice to his spirit. One viewer called me during dinner break last night and said he felt he was eating his “humble rice wraps” – he meant to say “eating his humble pie” because he said he had voted for National for tax cuts and now felt let down and regretted doing that.

  

In terms of the tax cuts for which Mr John Key signed his personal guarantee, we the members remember that in December this honourable House was rushed into urgency in order to have these tax cuts put into law. [Interruption from National members] – I thank members for that. Now, nearly 6 months later, this honourable House has been rushed into urgency again for the introduction and passing of this bill to the effect that these tax cuts are cancelled. The tax cuts were a key election promise – a $4 billion, three-year programme of personal tax cuts.

 

The Dominion Post correctly predicted before Budget day “Budget to break election promise” and today’s Dominion Post has again correctly described the Budget as giving “cuts everywhere but not on taxes”.

 

Gone are the tax cuts that National promised to deliver in 2010 and 2011. Gone, too, are all the automatic contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund specially established by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. I feel sorry for the baby-boomers. I feel sorry for ordinary New Zealanders. Ongoing contributions to the superannuation fund are essential to guarantee future superannuation payments to New Zealanders. New Zealand’s baby-boomer generation should be very afraid of what retirement holds for them, after the future of superannuation was thrown into doubt by Mr English’s 10-year freeze on Government superannuation fund contributions.

 

Brian Rudman said in the New Zealand Herald:”in the commercial world, such an obvious breach of promise would be actionable in the courts. Unsurprisingly, the legislators that drew up the laws to protect us from the business wide-boys carefully exempt themselves from similar sanctions.” 

 

Actionable in the courts? Probably not. Sanctions? Yes. We will see in two and half years’ time. 

 

The biggest challenge facing New Zealand’s economy is worsening unemployment. Last week more than 1,250 Kiwis joined the dole queues. National’s Budget will not stem the dramatic increase in job losses happening right now in New Zealand’s cities and towns. This Budget does not set out a coherent plan to keep Kiwis in work. It fails to take action for vulnerable New Zealanders on the brink of losing their jobs. It fails to adequately invest in skills training and investment to create new jobs, and fails to set out a clear path that will lift New Zealand out of the current economic downturn.

 

Labour finance spokesperson the Hon David Cunliffe wrote in yesterday morning’s Dominion Post that unemployment is a scourge that destroys people’s livelihoods, homes and families. The real human cost of another 60,000 Kiwis on the dole is appalling. The fiscal cost is also huge. The unemployment benefit for 7% of the workforce costs $800 million per year; for 9% it is over $1billion per year. 24,000 jobs have been lost in the last quarter. But this Budget will not stem the dramatic increase in job losses happening right now in New Zealand. This isn’t a Budget for Kiwi battlers. It simply makes their struggle harder.

 

Mr Speaker, on this occasion, when the Dragon Boat Festival is being celebrated, another broken promise of the National-led Government is remembered.

 

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.