Speeches
Speeches made in Parliament 2010
Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill, First Reading – 4 August 2010 “I move, That the Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The purpose of this bill is to give boards of trustees much greater freedom in the way they manage school affairs…This bill would implement a system similar to the one National introduced in the 1990s, the fully funded option, alternatively known as bulk funding. I will talk briefly about that experience.”
Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill Third Reading, Imprest Supply Debate – 3 August 2010 “The Budget is now more than 2 months old, and it is becoming more obvious why the Government did not tackle some of New Zealand’s main economic problems, including a lack of economic growth, in that Budget…the big problem we have is that the Government always asks the wrong question.”
Estimates Debate – In Committee, 27 July 2010 “If we think about the period when Labour was in Government, we remember that during that time Dr Cullen and his Labour colleagues increased tax in real terms—and I emphasise “real terms”—by $5,500 per person a year, or $21,000 a year for a family of four.”
Education Amendment Bill No.2 – First Reading, 30 June 2010 “ACT will support the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Having said that, I agree a hundred percent with Kelvin Davis when he said that this bill does little and certainly does not deal with the significant problems we have in the education system.”
Budget Debate 25 May 2010 “Government expenditure under this Budget increased by around $5.8 billion, or around 9 percent. That 9 percent figure is around four times the current rate of inflation.”
Taxation Budget Measures Bill In Committee 20 May 2010 “I am not sure that this provision will change the approach of New Zealanders to rental property, and I wonder whether the Minister received any analysis of it from Treasury or anyone else.”
Education Amendment Bill Third Reading 6 May 2010 “I for one simply cannot understand the attitude that the Ministry of Education takes and why the Minister does not simply tell the ministry to pull its head in.”
Tariff Act 1988 Repeal Bill First Reading 5 May 2010 “Way back in 1998, when National actually seemed to believe in something, it passed an Act that would have abolished all tariffs by 2006.”
Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill – First Reading, Second Reading, Third Reading 28 April 2010 “Essentially the legislation is not really good public policy. It is very much a tax on the poor. Cigarette taxes are highly regressive, and they disproportionately hurt poor people—poor smokers, that is, who continue to smoke.”
Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill – First Reading 21 April 2010 “This bill is about two very simple things. The first thing is jobs. The second is helping young people find their footing in the labour market and giving them a start.”
Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill First Reading 30 March 2010 “When welfare was created, the goal was to provide temporary support for people who were able-bodied but were without an income.”
Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill First Reading 17 March 2010 “I support the right of the patient—or, in this case, the right of the close relative—to know, except in the most exceptional circumstances.”
Debate on Budget Policy Statement 17 March 2010 “Unfortunately, I believe that the Budget Policy Statement once again demonstrates the Government’s major deficit, and that is the deficit of imagination.”
Speeches made in Parliament 2009
Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill – In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 24 November 2009 “When we listen to Labour members these days, whether the issue is prisons, education, health, or accident compensation, it does not really matter, because what they are about is means. They are about public delivery, irrespective of whether the outcome is any good.”
Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill Third Reading – 16 December 2009 “The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill is, or at least it should be, all about students. It should be about which governance structure is most likely to deliver a quality product for the student: the subject and the skills that they require.”
Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading – 10 December 2009 “The truth is that any board of 14 to 20 members will not function particularly well, and we found that basically that was why the sector was in such a mess.”
Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading – 8 December 2009 “What we as a Parliament are doing is essentially borrowing the equivalent of a hospital every week, and we intend to go on for 4 years borrowing $250 million a week, or a hospital a week. Frankly, that is unsustainable.”
Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill – First Reading 27 October 2009 “This bill keeps the scheme largely in its current form…it stops those who harm themselves on purpose from getting payouts. It stops criminals who injure themselves breaking into someone’s house from getting payouts.”
New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill, War Pensions Amendment – Bill Third Readings 20 October 2009 “This legislation sets up three regimes for people who wish to retire overseas; how much one gets depends on which country one happens to retire in…one might get anywhere from zero to 100 percent, depending on one’s other income.”
Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill – First Reading 24 September 2009 “My first point is that ACT will not be voting for the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill…the dealmaking that went on around it, is of the worst kind.”
Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill – First Reading 23 September 2009 “I take the freedom of the individual as one of the ultimate yardsticks in assessing Government action.”
Student Loan Scheme (Repayment Bonus) Amendment Bill – Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 15 September 2009 “As a member of the Education and Science Committee I too would like to join others who have congratulated and thanked Allan Peachey for the way he chaired the committee.”
Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill – In Committee 15 September 2009 “I thought I would take a call because I want to touch on the whole issue of community boards. As I listen to this debate on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill, the real worry I have is that the debate is all about structure, and not about function.”
Student Loan Scheme (Repayment Bonus) Amendment Bill – Second Reading 10 September 2009 “Students generally come from wealthy families. In New Zealand, 80 percent of students come from families in the top 20 percent in terms of income and assets.”
Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 26 August 2009 “In 1979 I wrote a paper advocating broadening the tax base and lowering tax. That paper got me sacked from the front bench. Today the Tax Working Group is undertaking the same project.”
Estimates Debate – In Committee 5 August 2009 “This year, 54c in every dollar of personal tax goes towards health care. The growth is scary. Two years ago, only 41c in every dollar of personal tax was required to pay for health care. In other words, in 2 years the figure has increased by 13c in the dollar of what we pay in personal tax.”
Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — First Reading – 24 June 2009 “It has been over 35 years since I was Minister of Broadcasting and I was very pleased to give it a bit of a shake up at that time. I only regret that the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill does not do the same. I suspect I take a slightly, or maybe a substantially, different stance on this bill from anyone else in the House.”
Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate – 23 June 2009 “New Zealand has two classes of citizens. In New Zealand we all pay taxes, yet some people get a bad deal for the money they pay. The people who get the rawest deal are those who are the least well off and the least able to provide for themselves when the Government fails to deliver. We have two classes in New Zealand not because the Government is not doing enough for the poor but because what the Government does for the poor denies them choices, destroys the incentive they have to get ahead, and subjects them to political abuse. The past 80 years of political control has achieved a larger welfare budget, more people on welfare, and barriers for those at the bottom to get ahead. Personal taxation in New Zealand takes $25 billion; 54 percent of that amount goes to health, a third goes to superannuation, and 13 percent goes to welfare.”
Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill – Second Readings 22 June 2010 “The Budget is now a month old. Frankly, the more one looks at its detail, the more inadequate it becomes.”
Social Assistance (Payment of New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans Pension Overseas) Amendment Bill – First Reading 31 March 2009 “Why should it be that if one goes to Thailand or a Pacific Island, one gets 100 percent of one’s pension, yet if one goes to Australia—or, potentially, to other countries with which we have social security agreements—under the arrangements we have made with Australia one receives no superannuation, at all?”
Debate on Budget Policy Statement 25 March 2009 “The 2009 Budget Policy Statement was prepared against the background of economic contraction since the March 2008 quarter. Stripped of any jargon, this means that we are poorer today than we were 15 months ago.”
Trade Safeguard Measures Bill — First Reading 11 March 2009 “Without doubt, free trade is one of the seven factors in economic progress for any nation…New Zealand can only gain by selling goods that it can produce at relatively low cost and using the proceeds to buy things that others produce cheaper than we do, or that we produce at high cost.”
Urgent Debates – Accident Compensation Corporation – Removal of Chair of Board 10 March 2009 “The fact is that the accident compensation scheme is a total failure. It is a walking disaster. Over the last 9 years the Labour Government expanded the coverage of accident compensation far beyond what was originally intended, and, at the same time, told us that it would not cost more.”
Speeches made in Parliament 2008
Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill – in Committee Third Reading 9 December 2008 “Well, I was not going to say anything, but, you know, how could one resist after listening to the Labour Opposition…the Opposition has claimed throughout this debate that the decision to hold the 12.5c rate to the $14,000 tax bracket rather than raise it to $20,000 was designed to hurt low-income people. Not so.”
Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill – First Reading, Second Reading 9 December 2008 “This bill is in marked contrast to what we saw from the Labour Government over the last 9 years—a Labour Government that refused to adjust the tax brackets or to index them. As a result of that we saw a marked increase in the average amount of tax paid by average wage earners, so much so that low-income workers did not receive a real increase in wages during those 9 years after taking tax into account.”
Older speeches:
Speeches – Up Until 1990
Politics of Successful Structural Reform
National Policy-Makers’ Experience (1990 International Privatisation Congress
Perspective on State Owned Enterprises
Tax Reform Strategy – Delivered in Ireland, 1989
World Bank Seminar – Delivered in Washington, 1990
Towards 1990 Celebration Dinner
Speeches – After 1990
Stout Seminar – The First Term Of The Fourth Labour Government, May 2004
Address to the Hayek-Tage-Conference 2002
India States’ Reform Forum 2000
Deregulation, delivered at the DRC Ruakura Dairy Farmers’ Conference, 1999
Liberální Institut – Annual lecture 1998 – delivered in Prague, October 1998
Lobbying, delivered to Society of Accountants, 1991
Overcoming the Crisis of Electric Power In Latin America and Caribbean Countries, 1991
Speeches as an ACT MP
