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This Parliament has got off to a very good start, with two outstanding contributions by Alfred Ngaro and Paul Goldsmith, new backbench members of the National Party caucus.

There was once a time in this Parliament—in fact, in the days when the Hon Dr Michael Cullen was here as a young man—when, in an Address in Reply debate like this, every Member of Parliament would sit through every contribution in the belief that every Member of Parliament would have something worthwhile to say.  Today the House is abandoned, presumably because there is a belief that not every Member of Parliament has something worthwhile to say. 

But if we can agree to agree on the things that we agree on, then maybe we can make some progress for this country, and that is the reason we are here.

It has been a long time between drinks; in fact, Mr Speaker, it has been 12 years.

More than a decade since I have left here, there have been some changes. For everything that changes, nothing changes much, but what has changed in the last decade and two years is this country.

In my valedictory speech, on 5 October 1999, I recorded the significant progress we made during the 1990s.  However, that progress has been reversed: the past decade has been lost. 

In the past 12 years a net 280,000 of our best and brightest citizens have fled this country.  We now have more of our people living overseas than any other developed country in the OECD, except Ireland.

This country is at the crossroads.

In my valedictory speech, when members all thought that I had gone for ever, I lamented that there was no hope for the young if we continued to throw welfare at them, yet non – worked-tested benefits have grown by 60,000 in the past decade. Last year we had over a quarter of a million New Zealanders on non – work-tested benefits.  It is my long belief that most people want to work, and there is no dignity in joblessness.

In the 1990s our multifactor productivity grew twice as fast as it had in the 1980s.  In the past decade, growth was even worse than in the 1980s. 

We have gone backwards. 

Every single year in the 1990s the value of our exports exceeded the value of our imports.  “New Zealand Inc.” was paying its way. 

In the past decade we paid our way, only 5 years out of the 10.

It has been a great struggle for New Zealand families; for the families that we come to this House to represent, for the families that we come to this House to give a leg up and a hand out when they need it, for the families that struggle to make ends meet, and for the families that face Christmas without much, and without much hope for the new year.

In the 1990s the cost of owning a home was equivalent to three times disposal income. Now the cost of owning a home is five times disposal income. Australians now earn 40 per cent more than we do for doing the same work.  How can we expect to compete with Australia when so many of our citizens have been left out and left behind by an education system that does not work for them?

I congratulate John Key and the National Party on forming this Government. The Speech from the Throne had much to say about coming to grips with some of this country’s challenges. It is time to come to grips with some of this country’s challenges.  I believe that education is the key to creating change.

Education that works is the answer for a generation that has not signed up to learning.  Education that works is the answer to get our poorest citizens into work, into jobs, and into higher wages. I want nothing more than every young person to be engaged in a world-class education opportunity. Although the State education system works for the majority of our students, it fails too many.

I do not criticise the teachers, in the classrooms, who are doing their best, but far too many of our students are wagging school—in fact, 30,000 every day of the week.  We know that 20 percent of our  school-leavers are unable to read or write well enough to get a job, and nearly one in three of our youth today is consigned to the dole—a welfare cheque and oblivion.

That is why I am glad to have secured National’s support for ACT’s innovative approach to education: education that works for the kids who cannot find work, because the education system has not worked for them.  Charter schools are about giving children choices that they would not otherwise have. 

A charter school is set up with an ambitious, well-defined mission to meet the educational needs of particular communities and with the freedom needed to do just that.  Their success is based on having freedom to innovate, combined with strict accountability to parents and the Government for academic and financial performance.   My hope is that all four corners of this Parliament can put the needs of our underachieving students ahead of the politics of the day.

 If we are to make this country a place of achievement, of success and pride, then we cannot continue to talk about the politics of the left and the politics of the right. 

There is no left or right in a dole queue—it is all wrong.  

There is no left or right in the 2,500 people who turned up for 150 jobs at a Countdown supermarket in South Auckland.

It is not about the politics of the left and the right, it is about the reality of confronting a country on a mouse wheel—a mouse wheel that sees New Zealanders put in the second-longest hours of work per capita in the OECD, but for only the 23rd highest incomes. We are working harder, earning less, saving much less, and struggling to make ends meet.

It is deeply worrying for me that people on the average income in rural, provincial Kaikohe—an area of provincial New Zealand I represented in this Parliament—are living on just $14,000 a year.

It is deeply worrying for me to see the deep trenches of social deprivation that I witnessed first-hand while campaigning in the 23 electorates across greater Auckland.  It is deeply depressing for me to sit in District Courts in parts of this country where it is an outing as opposed to a punishment, where there is no care and no hope, where there is no job and no work, and where there is no dignity and no pride except going back to jail with the mates.

We must stop talking about the left and stop talking about the right and start talking about the education that works for the most disadvantaged of our citizens: education that represents innovation, apprenticeships, jobs, and prosperity. The country is at a crossroads and there needs to be a sense of urgency.

After 14 elections my days are getting longer and the years are getting shorter. I am here to make a difference. I have come back to this 50th Parliament to make a difference.

ACT’s agenda for the 50th Parliament is a commitment to the values that underpin the time-honoured values of the ACT Party.  These values are timeless: freedom, choice, and personal responsibility.  These are the pillars of a modern, successful democracy that pays its way and earns its keep, a society where young have hope, where families are strong, and the vulnerable are cared for.

Under our negotiated agreement in confidence and supply with this Government, substantially negotiated by my friend the Hon John Boscawen and Catherine Isaac, we are going to provide updates on how we are closing the gap in income with Australia.  We need to close that gap with Australia if we are going to keep our best and our brightest from fleeing this nation. 

We also negotiated in the confidence and supply agreement a spending limit to be introduced to check the excesses of the Government.  Welfare will be remodelled.  The ACC work account will be open to competition, and the Resource Management Act will be streamlined.

Let me at this stage pay tribute to the work of Rodney Hide, the member for Epsom and the member of this House.  He did a good job and made a great contribution to New Zealand, and I thank him for that.

Let me also say today a big thank you to the voters of Whangarei who gave me the opportunity to enter the 40th Parliament.  Today I would like to thank the people of Epsom for the opportunity to represent their aspirations in the 50th Parliament.  In fact, medical technology is on my side and I am looking forward to being here in the 60th Parliament. 

I have high hopes and great expectations for New Zealand. I have high hopes and greater expectations for our young people, and I have greater hopes and greater expectations for this 50th Parliament.

ACT New Zealand Party President Chris Simmons and ACT MP Hon John Banks today announced the details of ACT’s Confidence and Supply Agreement, highlighting a number of very significant policy ‘wins’ for ACT.

Mr Simmons said the new agreement builds on the two parties’ strong, constructive partnership of the past three years and advances ACT’s core economic and social policy goals. 

“In particular ACT wanted to see controls put in place to prevent excessive Government spending and poor quality regulation, improved choice in education, especially in disadvantaged communities, and reform of other key policy areas that are currently holding New Zealand’s economy back,” Mr Simmons said. 

Hon John Banks said that the policy programme outlined in the agreement was an excellent platform for ACT in Parliament and a strong base from which to continue building the relationship between the two parties.

“It shows that National is willing to make changes in these key economic and social policy areas to ensure our joint aspirations for a more prosperous New Zealand are met,” Mr Banks said.

Key features of the agreement are:

• Continuation of ACT’s focus during the last term on publicly monitoring progress on improving the country’s economy wide performance using international benchmarks, and building on the work of the 2025 Taskforce, with a requirement for Treasury to report annually on the progress being made to improve the quality of institutions and policies, raise productivity, and reduce the income gap with Australia. 

• Continuation of ACT’s work during the last term to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and individuals through taking the Regulatory Standards Bill through to the new Parliament, with an agreement to pass a mutually agreed Bill based on Treasury’s preferred option (option 5) within 12 months.

• Continuation of ACT’s work during the last term on the Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill with an agreement to incorporate a legislated spending cap through a mutually agreed amendment to the Public Finance Act. 
 
• Reform of the Resource Management Act, including simplifying legislation to ensure there is only one plan (a “unitary” plan) for each district.

• The provision to set up a trial charter school system - under sections 155 (Kura Kaupapa Maori) and 156 (designated character schools) of the Education Act – for disadvantaged communities, specifically in areas such as South Auckland and parts of Christchurch where educational underachievement is most entrenched.  A private sector-chaired implementation group will be established to develop the proposal for implementation in this parliamentary term.

• The establishment of a taskforce to produce a comprehensive report on governance issues relating to state policy towards state, integrated and independent schools. 

• The implementation in this parliamentary term of the Welfare Working Group recommendations 27: Parenting obligations, 28: Support for at-risk families, 30: Income management and budgeting support, and 34: Employment services.

• To introduce competition to ACC’s Work Account.

• To support National’s Post-Election Action Plan.

• The appointment of Hon John Banks to the positions of Minister for Small Business, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Associate Minister of Education and Associate Minister of Commerce. 

Mr Banks said New Zealand is facing very challenging times. 

“This agreement is a significant achievement for ACT, addressing not just economic issues but key social issues as well, in particular those that are currently contributing to our very high rates of unemployed, undereducated and socially marginalised young people. 

“I intend over the next three years to advocate for further advances in these areas as well as in the areas of government spending and regulation, labour market reform, and other policies to reduce the burden on businesses and boost productivity and economic growth.

“I would like to thank former ACT MP and Parliamentary Leader John Boscawen for the lead work he has done over the past week to finalise the terms of the agreement.  His advice and ACT Party experience has been invaluable and stands us in good stead to reinvigorate and strengthen the Party over the next three years.

“ACT looks forward to working with National, and Prime Minister John Key, to put in place policies to strengthen our country and put us on a path to prosperity,” Mr Banks concludes. 

ENDS

 
All New Zealand voters need to think smart before they vote after a damming report from SWISS banking giant UBS which shows the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme has cost $287 billion for ‘almost zero impact’ on cutting carbon emissions , ACT New Zealand Primary Industry Spokesman Don Nicolson said today.  
 
“New Zealand has an even more all-encompassing and costly ETS acting as a brake on our economy.  It’s costing every household, every small business, and every farmer, huge amounts for what? A big fat zero,” Mr Nicolson said. 
 
“As a country we cannot afford to be yet another Western democracy that has not faced up to reality. 
 
“We therefore cannot afford to have poor policies like the ETS – which UBS labelled in the EU as having ‘limited benefits and embarrassing consequences’ – dragging our economy down.   Yet National, Labour and the Greens continue to push for this foolish scheme.   
 
“It is no good thinking what may have been after the election – this Saturday is crunch time. 
 
“ACT is the only Party that is opposed to the ETS and is the only Party that will continue to push for the scheme to be scrapped until our major trading partners come on board.
 
“If New Zealanders want to rid themselves of the ETS handbrake on our economy, and if they honestly care about our future, then they need to make sure they give their party vote to ACT,” Mr Nicolson said.

Speech by ACT Leader Don Brash
ACT Wellington Campaign Close
Thursday, November 24 2011

Good afternoon. 

Lewis Carroll once said,

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there'.

The question of where we need to go as a country is very much one of what you believe the most urgent problems are. 

Some will say that our most urgent problems are dirty rivers, child poverty, and the possibility of some power companies being sold.

The first two of those are certainly important.  But I’ve argued, and will continue to argue, that our economic decline is equally important, and much more urgent.

The reason is, looking after the environment and our most vulnerable citizens takes money.  The wealthier we are, the better we can do so. 

Our most urgent priority should be to retain and attract people and investment.  If we fail at that challenge, then a lack of money will ensure that we cannot solve the problems other parties identify either.

As I will argue in a moment, the most important question that we need to answer is whether or not what we’re doing to close the gap between our incomes and those in Australia is working.

But if we don’t know how we’re doing, any approach will seem to work.

Anyone who doubts the urgency of lifting our economic performance should consider how our competition with Australia for people, investment, and jobs is playing out.

As reported by the 2025 Taskforce two years ago, Australians were earning 35 per cent more on average than we were in 2008.  That was the best calculation possible taking into account differences in currency and the cost of living. 

The New Zealand Herald recently reported that the gap between workers in Auckland and Sydney was 38 per cent.  Based on Australia’s faster economic growth in the past three years, we can guess that the gap is now approaching 40 per cent.

For decades, there has been a strong relationship between the exodus of New Zealanders across the Tasman and the gap between New Zealand and Australian incomes. 

When the gap grows, New Zealanders leave faster.

Statistics New Zealand reports that the net loss of New Zealanders across the ditch was nearly 300,000 in the past decade.  On our current path, we can expect to lose a further 400,000 New Zealanders - equivalent to the entire population of the greater Wellington region - by 2025.

The exodus is pernicious because it creates a cumulative effect. 

Every time a New Zealander leaves, they take with them hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of healthcare and education that taxpayers have invested in them.  They also take with them their future potential as wealth creators and taxpayers.

The incentive for still more people to leave increases, and we find ourselves in a downward spiral.

If we keep allowing this to happen, we will be facing a total collapse of New Zealand as we currently conceive it.

But our economic performance isn’t like bad weather.  We do have the power to change it if we make the right policy choices.

Over the past three years, no party has had a better record than ACT in pushing the economic growth agenda.  This is what we achieved:  

First, we helped to change the government and make John Key Prime Minster.

Had ACT not contested the last election, some of ACT’s voters would likely have voted National.  But given the electorates’ allergy to single party government under MMP, it seems unlikely that National would have governed alone.

Would the Maori Party have made John Key Prime Minister anyway?  The simple answer is no.

Without ACT, Helen Clark would still be Prime Minister today. 

Without ACT this time, it’s quite possible that Phil Goff will be Prime Minister by Sunday, supported by a coalition of borrowers, spenders and no-hopers who will accelerate our economic decline.

ACT not only helped make John Key Prime Minister in 2008, but were responsible for achieving many of the important policies to improve our economic performance passed by the Government since then.  

ACT pushed for long over-due reform of the Local Government Act, improving the transparency and efficiency of councils for ratepayers.

ACT convinced the Government to extend the 90-day trial period for new employees from firms employing fewer than 20 people only, to all firms, increasing employment opportunities for people who might not otherwise have been hired.

ACT convinced the Government to start work on opening up the ACC to competition, giving employers more flexibility, choice, and reward for safer practices.

ACT supported the Government to reform the Resource Management Act, leading to improvements in compliance costs for developing and using New Zealand’s greatest resource, its land.

ACT had the Productivity Commission established so that, like Australia, New Zealand will have a government agency that actually advocates for the wealth creators in the country rather than the government sector and its direct beneficiaries.

ACT also pushed for the establishment of a new Ministerial position, Minister for Regulatory Reform, and in that role Rodney Hide was responsible for taking the secateurs to red tape for the benefit of New Zealand business.

In addition to these positive initiatives, ACT has also been the leading opponent of bad policies, such as the Emissions Trading Scheme and the refusal of the Government to reinstate a youth minimum wage.

There is no doubt that a vote for ACT in 2008 was a vote for steering the Government towards better policies for economic growth.

Unfortunately, this has not been enough to address our economic malaise.

This week, Statistics New Zealand reported a near-record net exodus of 35,000 New Zealanders across the Tasman.  Over the past three years, the net exodus has averaged 25,000 per year, up on the average of 21,000 during Helen Clark’s time in office.

Similarly, the wage gap that was supposed to be closing has been reported as widening.  Over the past three years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports Australian wage growth of 12.6 per cent compared to New Zealand wage growth of 11 per cent.

John Key meanwhile claims that New Zealand wages have grown faster because tax cuts leave Kiwi workers with more take-home pay, even as the government borrows $300 million per week to prop up its spending.

New Zealand clearly needs to do more if we’re serious about closing the income gap with Australia.

There’s no doubt in my mind that ACT is by far the most serious and credible party on the question of closing the income gap with Australia.

In my speech at ACT’s campaign launch, I announced a series of priorities that ACT would pursue in any future coalition government. 

ACT would continue to pursue the passage of the Spending Cap Bill.  This bill would constrain government spending to rise no faster than the rate of inflation plus population growth, aside from national emergencies.  It would remove the incentive for the kind of election bribe spending practised by the Clark Government in its last three years, and reduce taxation on wealth creators.

ACT would push the Government to reduce government spending relative to the size of the economy to enable radical tax reduction, and a lower exchange rate.   ACT would push for a radically lower company tax rate of 12.5 per cent, with the top personal rate as low as revenue will allow, perhaps 25 per cent.

ACT would push to sharply reduce bureaucracy, opening up more opportunity for wealth creation by cutting back the kind of bureaucracy that sees councils employing people to enforce such inane regulations as those which stipulate what colour people must paint their homes.

ACT would also push for better quality regulation through our Regulatory Standards Bill.  This Bill sets out principles for responsible regulation that all proposed regulations must be measured against.  Ministers or MPs wishing to pass regulations not up to standard must explain to the public why the regulation should still be passed.  This public accountability would see a reduction in poor-quality regulation that currently costs our country so much. 

ACT would push to axe to the Emissions Trading Scheme, saving $100 per month for the average family of four and sparing a very considerable cost for the most important export sector of all, the farming industry. 

We would seek to stop the carbon price being doubled as is currently scheduled for 2013, have biological emissions written out of the legislation, and ultimately put the scheme on ice until our major trading partners catch up and implement their own equivalent schemes.

ACT would promote a multi-party consensus on superannuation, because almost everybody who thinks seriously about the subject knows that the age of entitlement must rise. 

As I announced yesterday, we would push for a referendum on the age of eligibility as part of any future Confidence and Supply Agreement with the National Party.

But there’s one more elephant in the room that I’ve not mentioned so far.

I started out quoting Lewis Carroll, but I might just as well have quoted the Management 101 mantra,‘what isn’t measured isn’t managed’.

If we wish to be serious as a country about retaining and attracting people and investment by closing the income gap with Australia, then a good starting point is to have agreement about what that gap is.

Keen observers will notice that I’ve quoted several sets of figures regarding the gap. 

I’ve given the 2025 Taskforce’s figure of 35 per cent in 2008.  I’ve given the result of a recent New Zealand Herald study which found it to be 38 per cent.  I’ve given my personal assessment that the gap is probably close to 40 per cent by now. 

The reality is no one knows for sure exactly what the actual figure is. 

Listening to Phil Goff and John Key making claim after counterclaim in the House about the size of the gap is tedious, or at least that’s the most polite way to put it.

The truth is that calculating the gap is not a trivial exercise. 

It requires understanding living costs, tax systems, currency differences, and employment laws, among other things.  Getting a proper reading on the gap is not a matter of simply looking on the websites of Statistics New Zealand and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In fact, performing just such an exercise was part of the Confidence and Supply Agreement between ACT and National in 2008. 

The 2025 Taskforce, which I had the privilege of chairing, was designed to measure the income gap with Australia, suggest ways to close it, and report annually on progress in closing it.

John Key’s decision to axe the 2025 Taskforce earlier this year was supposedly because I had decided to seek re-election to Parliament.  But while I was the chair, I was obviously not indispensible.  There was no reason it couldn’t have continued, albeit with someone else at the helm – perhaps David Caygill, already a member of the Taskforce, somebody who is clearly not aligned to either the National or the ACT parties, and somebody eminently well qualified to undertake the task.

It might be that the Prime Minister thought the Taskforce’s recommendations were too extreme.  He’s entitled to that opinion of course, just as he was able to ignore or accept its advice.

But I don’t think that’s what disbanding the Taskforce was about.

Whatever the reason, the most important result is that this election year, the income gap between New Zealand and Australia has not been measured by the Taskforce. 

Without repeating the measure made in 2008, it’s possible for politicians of all stripes to use a variety of figures to muddy the waters on where we’re really headed.

‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there’

For this reason, I’m announcing today that one of ACT’s top priorities in any Confidence and Supply Agreement with the National Party will be the reestablishment of an arms’ length taskforce with the mandate of measuring the gap between Australia and New Zealand and reporting on it on a regular basis.

Whether or not government statisticians know there’s a gap, New Zealanders do.

Grandparents who must visit their grandchildren overseas know it.

 Young tertiary graduates who are considering joining the 24 per cent of their friends who currently live overseas know it.

Working people who see dramatically higher wages know it.

Aroha Ireland, the girl whom John Key took to Waitangi in 2008 when he was campaigning on closing the gap and who has just moved to Melbourne, she knows it too.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the 27 per cent of Year Nine students who said they wanted to permanently leave New Zealand know it too.

Why can’t our politicians get the message?

In 2008, 2025 seemed like a time frame by which we could close the gap.  It gave us 17 years to do so.

Given that we have fallen further behind in the past three years, and the Prime Minister does not want to move as fast as the Taskforce proposed previously, it seems we will need more time. 

And so it is with great sadness that I call for a 2030 Taskforce, to measure the gap between New Zealand and Australia, and give suggestions for closing it by 2030.

This Taskforce should publish an independent review of living standards in New Zealand compared to Australia every year.  Only by doing this can the nation keep politicians honestly focused on the urgent challenge of closing the income gap.

Only by achieving that can we hope to deal with the problems that other parties identify, by having the resources to better look after our environment and our most vulnerable citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ACT Party is committed to closing the income gap with Australia.  We believe that doing so is essential to stemming the flow of people across the Tasman and is therefore essential to securing New Zealand’s long term future.

If you believe that good economic management requires good economic measurement, and that important challenges don’t go away just because they’re ignored, please give your party vote to ACT this Saturday.

A Party Vote for ACT is a vote for closing the gap with Australia like we mean it.